flirtatious drunk. Margaret always used to say I should drink more often.
Afterwards, did I feel guilty? I imagined an argument with Inès in which I defended myself from her jealous indictment of my infidelity with
You left me, you went away and left me! What did you expect?
Then I thought of something worse. That her feelings had changed to such an extent that she might not care now at all.
I walk on. It gets lonelier with every step. The pulsing throb of the frogs and cicadas is my only reassurance and whenever it stops I stand still, cautioned and vigilant like some nervous forest animal. I cannot see to put one foot in front of the other. I stumble and fall on the track. An insect I cannot see crawls over my hand and I brush it quickly away.
A car approaches, sweeping me with the headlight beam. I get to my feet and wave it down. I suppose I must look quite frantic and I am surprised when it slows to a halt. The driver reaches across and opens the passenger door. I climb in, muttering a thank-you in French.
“It’s dangerous to be on foot,” the driver says with a mixture of sternness and solicitude.
“Yes, I know,” I reply contritely. “I got lost.”
“Tonight the blacks are going crazy.”
c h a p t e r s e v e n
I find a bar still open on Avenue Vangele, the Colibri. I am already aware that white Léopoldville is a small town. The settlers go to each other’s houses and parties, they frequent the same restaurants and clubs. So I am not particularly surprised when among the half dozen or so inside I find Stipe. He is standing alone at the bar, throwing down the last of a drink. He spots me the moment I enter. When I first saw him in Houthhoofd’s garden I thought he had the look of a man permanently on call for stern and enigmatic duties, but tonight his expression is compassionate, sheltering.
Though he had seemed to be on his way out when I arrived, he leads me to a table by the window. The interior is small and painted a deep red. The wood of the furniture is dark, there is a brass footrail at the bar, behind which, in a shallow, frosted-mirror alcove, liquor bottles stand on glass shelves. A tape recorder is playing the music of Charles Trenet.
“You look like someone who needs to talk,” he says.
Here is someone who understands. I already know that when I walk out of here we will be friends. He orders cognacs from the elderly Walloon proprietress, whom he calls Anna. His manner with her is flirtatious and jaunty. He tastes his drink.
“Wherever I’m posted I try to find a bar like this,” he says, “somewhere I can call home, where the people know me and do little things for me, little courtesies, like start mixing my favorite cocktail as soon as I walk in the door, or if there’s a crowd serve me first. That way, if you’ve had a bad day, you always know you have a friendly place to go. It’s not much, I know, but life can be lonely and by my age you’ve learned to appreciate the small favors people do for you.”
He pauses and looks at me. His brown eyes are set quite close together, and there is the slightest suggestion of a squint. When he leans forward like this—arms on the table, ankles crossed under his chair, drenching you in his attention—it gives his expression a special and irresistible candor.
“So,” he says with a sympathetic grin, “how has your day been?”
This is not like me. My closest friends do not know any of this. Maybe it’s because he’s a stranger and the embarrassment is less and there is no version of my own history and my history with Inès that I have to keep to for consistency’s sake, for pride’s sake; maybe it’s just a kind of exhaustion on my part, as though I no longer have the strength to keep my true words dammed up. I tell him everything. I tell him especially one thing, that after six months of trying Inès had not conceived.
I have as little to do with doctors as I can manage and I would have been happy to leave it for
Afterwards, did I feel guilty? I imagined an argument with Inès in which I defended myself from her jealous indictment of my infidelity with
You left me, you went away and left me! What did you expect?
Then I thought of something worse. That her feelings had changed to such an extent that she might not care now at all.
I walk on. It gets lonelier with every step. The pulsing throb of the frogs and cicadas is my only reassurance and whenever it stops I stand still, cautioned and vigilant like some nervous forest animal. I cannot see to put one foot in front of the other. I stumble and fall on the track. An insect I cannot see crawls over my hand and I brush it quickly away.
A car approaches, sweeping me with the headlight beam. I get to my feet and wave it down. I suppose I must look quite frantic and I am surprised when it slows to a halt. The driver reaches across and opens the passenger door. I climb in, muttering a thank-you in French.
“It’s dangerous to be on foot,” the driver says with a mixture of sternness and solicitude.
“Yes, I know,” I reply contritely. “I got lost.”
“Tonight the blacks are going crazy.”
c h a p t e r s e v e n
I find a bar still open on Avenue Vangele, the Colibri. I am already aware that white Léopoldville is a small town. The settlers go to each other’s houses and parties, they frequent the same restaurants and clubs. So I am not particularly surprised when among the half dozen or so inside I find Stipe. He is standing alone at the bar, throwing down the last of a drink. He spots me the moment I enter. When I first saw him in Houthhoofd’s garden I thought he had the look of a man permanently on call for stern and enigmatic duties, but tonight his expression is compassionate, sheltering.
Though he had seemed to be on his way out when I arrived, he leads me to a table by the window. The interior is small and painted a deep red. The wood of the furniture is dark, there is a brass footrail at the bar, behind which, in a shallow, frosted-mirror alcove, liquor bottles stand on glass shelves. A tape recorder is playing the music of Charles Trenet.
“You look like someone who needs to talk,” he says.
Here is someone who understands. I already know that when I walk out of here we will be friends. He orders cognacs from the elderly Walloon proprietress, whom he calls Anna. His manner with her is flirtatious and jaunty. He tastes his drink.
“Wherever I’m posted I try to find a bar like this,” he says, “somewhere I can call home, where the people know me and do little things for me, little courtesies, like start mixing my favorite cocktail as soon as I walk in the door, or if there’s a crowd serve me first. That way, if you’ve had a bad day, you always know you have a friendly place to go. It’s not much, I know, but life can be lonely and by my age you’ve learned to appreciate the small favors people do for you.”
He pauses and looks at me. His brown eyes are set quite close together, and there is the slightest suggestion of a squint. When he leans forward like this—arms on the table, ankles crossed under his chair, drenching you in his attention—it gives his expression a special and irresistible candor.
“So,” he says with a sympathetic grin, “how has your day been?”
This is not like me. My closest friends do not know any of this. Maybe it’s because he’s a stranger and the embarrassment is less and there is no version of my own history and my history with Inès that I have to keep to for consistency’s sake, for pride’s sake; maybe it’s just a kind of exhaustion on my part, as though I no longer have the strength to keep my true words dammed up. I tell him everything. I tell him especially one thing, that after six months of trying Inès had not conceived.
I have as little to do with doctors as I can manage and I would have been happy to leave it for
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