“I know. I’m sorry. It must be a shock. I’ve been thinking about this for years and you haven’t had the chance to think at all. You would not believe how many times I’ve imagined this phone call. Now I have you, I want to say everything. We may never get this connection again. Listen, Marcella, Zanzibar’s changing. There are tourists and you can do business here now. It’s going to be very big. Think, Hong Kong of Africa. I have contacts here. What they want to do is declare independence from mainland Tanzania. There’s political support. A coup, maybe. We’ll turn Zanzibar into a tax haven and attract all the businesses that want to invest in Africa. It already has the best harbour in East Africa. The Arabs are putting money into the airport. It’s what Africa’s been lacking, a financial centre. Zanzibar will just pick up its old role as the hub of African trade. I’m helping them establish the financial services. They need people like us. It’s the perfect place now. You have to come. I know you. You’re not a professor, Marcella. You’re made for this. And we’ll be together. You’ll come, won’t you? I need your help. I’ve had a long time to think about it.”
As Benji’s enthusiasm soared, I experienced a curious, sad wilting of my spirit, a failure to soar with him. This was all from before, and before had ended badly. And Benji did not seem to understand how bad it had been.
“Benji, I was in prison for eight years. Eight years on my own for something I did not do. It was not nothing. I’m not ready to live dangerously again.”
“I know. I know. I wanted to help. Just thinking about it drove me crazy. But there was nothing I could do. I was in hiding myself. That deal turned out to be more complicated than I thought. They cut me out and I thought they were going to kill me. I would only have made things worse for you. But it wasn’t the deal, was it, that put you in prison?”
“Not exactly. No, it wasn’t. But I’m different now, Benji. This is too much, too quickly. Oh, I’m so glad you’re all right. That we’re both all right.”
“You’re crying.”
“I am crying, Benji. I thought they had killed you. I’ve been alone.”
“I’m not so easy to kill. I think I may have outlasted them. The BCCI is gone now. The governments in South Africa and Pakistan have changed. It’s safe now. I’ve missed you, Marcella. I can’t tell you how much. Thinking of you in prison, not being able to help you ... It was like my heart was ripped open. Don’t cry now.”
“Benji, I need to go. I have to think. But I don’t want to put down the phone. How can I be sure you will still be alive if I put down the phone?”
“So don’t put it down.”
“I have to. I can’t say any more now. Can I write?” “Zanzibar. PO Box 122.”
“Benji, did you get any money from the deal? I was in prison. I couldn’t help you. And now the BCCI doesn’t exist.”
“Not a penny. I just got away with my life. I was the connection between everyone. After the handover in Mozambique, they didn’t need me anymore. I think they thought that if they didn’t pay me there would be less connection to be discovered. If I was dead there would be even less connection. It was time to vanish and I took a dhow up the coast to Zanzibar. I arrived here the old way, the way your ancestors arrived.”
“Well, the money doesn’t matter. It’s enough you’re alive. I’ll write.”
“Think about what I said. It’s perfect for us. You have to come. I’ll try to phone again, but—well, you know Zanzibar.”
“Bye, Benji.”
“Bye, Zanzibar girl.”
“Singapore man,” I responded on cue, hearing a false completion in it as I put down the phone.
MY TRIAL MOVED LIKE CLOCKWORK. I FELT THAT EVENmy own barrister, a bright young woman Geoffrey found for me, did not believe in my innocence. I found it difficult to believe in it myself. I was surprised to discover that in spite of the sparse population of Bayswater Tube, no fewer than twelve policemen had been on hand to witness my unprovoked assault on the police and my drug dealer behaviour. Some had just been coincidentally passing by, having a night out in their civilian clothes. They lined up for the witness box to repeat each others’ phrases. I looked at the judge, trying to see a twinkle of scepticism or irony in his eye. But he was intent only on lending his gravity to this bad joke.
My days in court were spent on an uncushioned wooden bench with iron railings for a backrest. No one but a guilty person would be found on such a seat. I was on a hard bench set below everyone. The judge loomed highest, then the recorder and the witnesses, then the barristers, then me, already in the pit, already being punished. I was so tiny I might have slipped through the railings and away.
I gave my evidence and for the most part told the truth. But even to me my truth did not seem believable. A truth with so little force behind it—just a small, suspect, illegal immigrant woman—was so much less valid, with so much less reality, than the other version backed by a dozen beefy men in blue and a judge who showed that he chose to believe them. At the end of his questioning, the prosecuting barrister reached a theatrical pitch. “Is not the truth of the matter, that you were engaged that night in your business of distributing illicit drugs and when you realised that Mr Kamara, one of your dealers, was being arrested, you intervened in order to remove from him the drug evidence that would have incriminated you, and in addition you cynically
