“Maybe it’s different if you live here. I’ve got the UN behind me. And the government knows I’m sympathetic to socialism. I think that helps.”
“You think so?” Maybe he was right; the idea was so strange I had nowhere to put it. It was a different way of thinking. Maybe he was exempt. Either he was brilliant and fearless or stupid and fearless. Both possibilities made me wish the table narrower so I might be closer. I was fascinated by the fearlessness, like a moth drawn to the only remaining flame on Zanzibar. I said, seeking to demonstrate an independent intelligence, “There was an article in the Daily News the other day about how research was just a modern name for spying.”
“How did they reason that?”
“Something about foreigners asking lots of questions, then going away and writing reports we never see.”
“Well, I think I’m the only foreign researcher here now. And I want to help.”
“You’re not a spy, then? Not James Bond with fast cars and lots of beautiful women?”
“Sorry. Except tonight, of course.” He looked back down at his plate and I enjoyed keeping my eyes on him, while his blush spread. He was hopeless at compliments. Finally, he added, “Who would want to spy on Zanzibar anyway?”
“Geoffrey, you mustn’t say that. The people here would be so insulted.”
The custard came. Custard and nothing. No mention of the beer. The night was cooling now and the slamming door had ceased its racket. Between the rooftops I could see the full moon reflected on the sea. The tall narrow tooth of my father’s house across the street looked substantial, if plain. I looked up at my dark bedroom window just to make sure I wasn’t there. No, I was here.
Geoffrey said, “This is the first real conversation I’ve had in four weeks. "You seem very cosmopolitan. Have you travelled much?” He did look grateful.
“On a clear day you can see how far I’ve travelled. To Dar and back.”
“I’m surprised.”
“Well, I have a lot of European friends. I had a French boyfriend.”
He nodded.
“Gone back to France now.” Was I encouraging him? “And we Goans like to think of ourselves as Europeans.” “I know. A tradition of working with colonial powers.”
I was not sure I wanted agreement on those terms, but I ignored it. “But I want to travel.” And I blurted out the whole story of Didier and Omar and the problem of my passport, my disappointed dream of Europe, my frustration at being trapped back in a place I had already left, my hatred of being under everyone’s eyes. I gushed like a fool. I showed myself.
“Europe may not be what you imagine.”
“You live in London?”
“Just outside.”
“Isn’t London nice? Compared to Zanzibar?”
“It’s big. There’s a lot of cultural life.”
“Lots of shops? Red buses. Underground trains. I haven’t even been on an overground train.”
“"Yes, all that I suppose. You might not like the weather.”
“Cold?”
“And wet.”
“I wouldn’t mind. I’m tired of hot.”
“London isn’t what it was. There’s high unemployment. More violent crime. More beggars.”
“No!”
“'Yes. Hundreds of people living in cardboard boxes because they don’t have homes.”
“'You’re making fun of me.”
“No, really. We have Mrs Thatcher. The poor are getting poorer, the rich richer.”
The world was on its head again. In Zanzibar we were doing well and London was full of beggars. “What about people like me? Are there many people there like me?” “Asians? East African Asians? lies, quite a few.”
“In cardboard boxes?”
“Actually, I’ve never noticed Asians in cardboard boxes. The East African Asians I’ve met were all doing quite well.”
“Business?”
“Yes, usually.”
“You see!” I did not wait for his reply; I wasn’t going to have my dream argued away. “And you have a home, don’t you?”
“"Yes. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a job at a university.”
“I’d be one of the lucky ones too. All my European friends were lucky.”
“That’s because the unlucky ones don’t travel.”
The old waiter’s arrival at our table caught us by surprise. He carried two bottles and was cheerful, showing the two or three drunken teeth left in his smile. “Beer!” he announced, and filled our glasses with ceremony. Somehow the warmth of our conversation had warmed him too. Perhaps it had proved to him that the naughty Goan girl from across the street had not after all fallen into prostitution with foreigners. Or perhaps he was just flushed with his success in finding beer, or had drunk some himself.
He gave Geoffrey a hand-written bill on a torn scrap of paper. “I am going, sir. You can stay.” The permission was superfluous; the hotel was open, airy and empty of both staff and customers. The world could fly through it without obstacle.
“Cheers.” Geoffrey clinked his glass against mine.
“Here’s to getting your passport.” We drank, then he asked, “Are you staying with your family?”
“With my mother. My sister is married and lives in Dar.”
“Your father?”
“We lost him a long time ago.”
“He died?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“I’m sure, but they never found his body. It was at the time of the revolution.”
“I thought it was the Arabs who were killed.”
“Well, he was killed too. I don’t know. I was five at the time. We don’t talk about it.”
“Sorry.”
“You Europeans always want to know about the past. Analyzing everything. We don’t want the past. We don’t want to think about it. My head is in the future. I just want to draw a line”—I drew one on the tablecloth— “and say, my life starts here.”
“Sorry, Marcella. I can be insensitive.”
“No, it’s me. I don’t usually talk like this.”
I had surprised myself with my passion. But it was true we did not talk about my father. My father’s death had made my mother sad and the sadness had evolved into an all-embracing vagueness that never left. At least, I thought I remembered a livelier, happier mother from before. If I ever pressed her on the past, her vagueness
