I brushed the snow off her anorak, lost for words, enchanted and embarrassed by the innocence. Eventually I said, “I’ve never seen one before.”
“Make one.”
“Me? No. I’m not wearing a coat. I only have a long coat anyway.”
“Snow brushes off.”
I looked at the smooth, unmarked snow next to Julia’s angel and imagined how it would be to let go and fall back into its softness. My body wavered, but the moment passed. I was holding too much to me that I could not drop; the abandon would be false, not innocent. I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Julia. I’m too old to be a snow angel. Maybe next winter.”
“When you’ll be younger?” She gave me a shrewd look, which I ducked by smiling and moving to close the door.
THE ENCOUNTER WITH GEOFFREY IN JAMITURI GARDENS
might not have changed everything for me forever if ex- President Karume had been a better educated and less arrogant man. But Karume was both ill-educated and a dictator so he saw no reason why he shouldn’t personally design Zanzibar’s only modern hotel and locate it sceni- cally on a coastal swamp. When pieces of the Bwawani’s long, low buildings began to move off in different directions and the carpets turned moldy and the Yugoslav manager ran away, Zanzibar no longer had an international hotel for foreign visitors. Therefore, there was nowhere for Geoffrey to stay but the decrepit Africa House, right under my bedroom window.
I watched his coming out and his going in. When he left Africa House, he stopped for a moment in its doorway, as if there might be traffic to consider. Usually his hand moved briefly to the zip of his fly, just checking. Then he flicked down the dark lenses over his glasses and walked the few steps to his Suzuki jeep with its UN logo on the side. There was only room for one vehicle in the triangle left between the buildings but he never had any competition for parking. He threw an old leather briefcase on to the passenger seat and walked around to the driver’s side, then drove off. I noted that there was a patch of thin hair in the middle of his scalp. He never looked up to my fourth-floor window.
Our house was a tall thin building that was not quite finished when my father died and had remained unfinished for twenty years. It was supported on two sides by bigger, older buildings and over time its unfinished concrete had blended into the crumbling stone of our neighbours. We lived on the top floor and the flats below gave my mother enough income for her needs, which were almost none. Africa House, across the road, a lower, older building, was once the British Club, but now barely functioned as a government hotel for visiting middle- level officials.
I did not only watch Geoffrey, I listened to stories about him. According to Mrs F, “The English Boy” had offended Lars, the head of the Danish UN team. She adored Lars, who went to church and who had validated her Europeanness by giving his ten-year-old son to her for piano lessons. Apparently, Geoffrey asked too many questions. He upset people. Gossip had it that he had insulted the Minister of Finance, the Permanent Secretary of Natural Resources and most of the Party leadership. He seemed to have no idea of the disturbance he was causing. In the villages, he told the party cadres that he did not believe their official records and provocatively tried to ask questions of the villagers themselves. I watched him return to Africa House in the evenings, always alone. He was sweaty and dusty and dragged his case out of the car as if it were a body.
Of course I was intrigued by this friendless man; he had started off so brilliantly by rendering Mrs F speechless. Then, while I was paying my weekly respects to Assistant Passport Officer Omar Khatib, and calculating how large a gift, or how much of me, would be considered an adequate tribute, Geoffrey was blithely demanding of government ministers what they had done with the foreign aid money. This was roughly equivalent to a drunk lurching through a mosque with a glass in his hand. Cheering, in its way. Finally I managed to arrive at our front steps at the right moment.
“Evening, Geoffrey.”
He looked at me, trying, and failing, to place me. “Evening.”
I went to walk on, embarrassed, but then on second thoughts was bold: “We’ve met. By the fort. Weeks ago.”
“Oh ... yes. How are you?” He rested the weight of his briefcase on the bonnet of the Suzuki.
“Very well.”
“I’m sorry... your name?”
“Marcella. I live here. How are you finding Zanzibar?”
“Oh, you know, the usual difficulties.”
“We specialise in difficulties here.”
“You know... it’s not easy to talk to people.”
“It must be lonely for you. You should try the Elephant Bar. My aunt owns it. You met her too.” I started to move off; the conversation had already gone on long enough to qualify for tomorrow’s gossip.
“The Elephant Bar? OK. Oh ... Marcella. I don’t know ... would it be inappropriate if I were to ask you to join me for dinner at Africa House? I’m sorry—you know—I don’t even know... perhaps you’re married or something. Just to talk, of course. A friendly face, you know. Sorry. Maybe people don’t do that here—you know, strangers, different customs ... It’s only ...”He was turning red again. Well, why had I been so keen to run into him anyway? In for a penny, in for a pound. And he was suffering. “Seven-thirty?”
“Yes. "Yes, seven-thirty. Good.”
“But you must be in the dining room when I arrive. You understand? I can’t go to your room or wait on my own. Our customs.”
“Yes, I’ll be there.”
“And no shorts, Dr Sutton.” While I was giving cultural instructions I thought I’d slip in a personal preference.
“No shorts? Oh, OK.”
I was excited, but not that excited, when I
