Amriika (34 page)

The
sala
, the pain, was quashed it seemed after a few visits. Grandma’s treatments were always free of charge, but after Darcy’s cure, he left the boy a present, a genuine Parker fountain pen.

Though Darcy remained a subject of rumour and news, there was now also a certain tangibility to him. He greeted Grandma in mosque during his rare visits, and he occasionally even dropped by to see her at home, during the day, when Ramji was in school. One time he brought a slide rule for the boy — a teenager by now — and what a valued, exotic, beautiful gift that was!

And then just before Ramji was to leave for America, Robert Kennedy was shot dead, the Kennedy who’d come to Dar and won their hearts, and Ramji suddenly said, I’m not going there, shocking everyone — his teachers, his friend Sona, and Grandma. But Grandma prevailed. She told him, Go and speak with Mr. Darcy. And so, one afternoon, he rather timidly stepped into Darcy’s office, which was behind a common storefront, on a dirty street across from Hindu Lodge, the vegetarian restaurant. It was dusty, and the boy had to walk a path between stacks of old newspapers and magazines to an old wooden desk at which Darcy sat. The man looked up over his reading glasses, screwed his pen shut. Yes, young man, what can I do for you? And Ramji, first introducing himself, in case Mr. Darcy did not know him by face, explained his dilemma. He was afraid to go to America, he said, where a great man could get killed so easily. They had amazing things there, but what values did they have? He realized as he went on that he didn’t have just one reason but a mass of fears. There were many temptations in America … he didn’t want to lose himself there. He didn’t want to leave Grandma alone. He would be homesick. And the man said with an understanding smile, For you, my boy, there’s nothing more important than your education. Go and get it wherever you find it. See the world and learn from it — and come back to us. That is your duty to your country, to your people. I myself
have a son in America. And don’t worry — we will look after your grandmother, she’ll be safe and sound when you get back!

And now, two decades and a half later: the same man, old and shrunken, the clothes identical to those he always wore. What had he actually thought then? Had he smiled to himself at the boy’s naive view of the world, of the Kennedys?

There were four other people in the room: two young men, Sajjad and John, who did the printing and setup; a slightly older impish-looking man in a safari suit standing between them, called Mohan, a travel agent from next door; and a woman in a pink and blue sweatsuit who said, “Hi! I’m Naseem. I made all the food here, I run a catering agency,” and later, when he’d accepted a plate from her, “I was among the first to come to L.A. — when I came, there were fewer than twenty-five of our people here.”

“And now?”

“At least five thousand,” she said proudly.

There was no sign of Rumina. They had agreed that she would meet him here at reception.

Ramji was given a quick tour of the premises, after which he found himself behind closed doors with Darcy, Zayd, and Basu in the conference room and library. They had all brought their drinks inside with them. He was now one of them and they wanted to make him feel at ease. When they quizzed him about recent political events though, somewhat startled, Ramji found himself sounding equivocal and without strong opinions, obviously not up-to-date, perhaps disappointing to the other three men. They seemed to have a somewhat exaggerated idea of his “radical
days” — that he had been some kind of firebrand organizer. Where had they got
that
idea from? — from mention he himself might have made to Darcy, about his student days? Zayd even referred to the free-and-easy ways at Woodstock. Had he but been there to participate, Ramji thought! He had questions, yes, and ideas; but those could wait.

The Company was in the process of establishing the capability of publishing and printing bilingual multicultural texts, Darcy said.

“The idea is to make inroads into mainstream culture,” Basu explained, “subvert the homogenizing melting-pot, even as it goes out and chews up world culture in its maw.”

“In the ass,” Zayd said with a grin and Basu smiled.

Darcy looked at Ramji with a pained expression. “Don’t mind these extremists — I am here to tame them.”

There seemed a striking complementarity to Zayd and Basu, sitting across from each other at the long table: one light-skinned and ebullient in his manners, the other dark and reserved. From what Ramji had learned, they went back a long way together, were in fact the original founders of the Company.

The main inspiration behind everything here, Darcy said, the driving force, was the monthly journal
Inqalab
, “the Global Newspaper of Radical Analysis.”

“Of course, the journal is political, polemical, its position is deliberately antagonistic. It’s the devil’s advocate — although I shouldn’t use that term, it puts us on the side of the devil! — and that is precisely because we work with certain presumptions about power politics in the world — and how information is controlled —”

There was a voice, a distinctly familiar and thrilling voice, in the passageway outside. It drew all his attention; he listened to it, watched the closed door facing him, from behind which it emanated. It seemed to him that the other three people in the room had paused to do the same.

“It’s Rumina,” Darcy said.

At the same time there was a knock on the door, which then opened, as Rumina first showed her face and then stepped inside.

“Hullo,” she said. “Sorry, am I intruding?”

“Not at all, not at all,” Darcy waved away the apology. “Come in, we were just getting to know our man better.”

“And we still have a long way to go, by the way,” threw in Zayd with a chuckle.

Ramji had got up from the table. “Hi,” he said; in diffidence, partly, yes, but also shock. He moved two slow steps towards her. It took him a few moments to connect, regain his sense of reality, and respond appropriately. He managed a smile, as they stood facing each other. She doesn’t look different, it’s the same Rumina. Then why did that first sight of her send a jolt through me, as if I’d forgotten what she looked like? … Am I disappointed? How can that be, there she is — that same round face, curly hair gathered at the sides in two delightfully abbreviated braids; and the twinkling, laughing eyes. A little plumper and darker than I remembered, but lovely, life itself.

She laughed. “Do I look so different?”

“No … no,” he stammered.

“You must be tired — you’ve only just arrived and they’ve put you to work?”

“Well, I spent the night at a motel before coming into town; not tired at all. Besides, they had a reception all ready for me, samosas and all that.…It’s nice to see you again.”

Naseem had followed Rumina into the room.

“Ramji,” Naseem asked, “what are your plans? Do you know where you are staying?”

He hadn’t given that any consideration, had thought he would somehow go along with whatever possibilities turned up. And now here was Rumina before him, and he badly wanted just to get away to be with her in private.

“We should go out to dinner first,” Darcy said. “And as for living arrangements, you can stay with Naseem as a paying guest — until you find something suitable of your own.”

“That is,” Naseem put in, talking to Ramji, “if you like my humble abode. There is a separate entrance and you will be left undisturbed. I live with my son.”

There was an awkward silence, and then Naseem added, “… unless you have made plans, of course.”

“I have prepared a guest room for him,” Rumina began slowly, then hurried out with, “and there’s an apartment going near where I live, that he can look at tomorrow morning …”

Her voice trailed off, and Ramji hesitated. Around him they were all waiting for his response: Jump, Ramji, jump: jump left, jump right, which way will you fall? There was Zayd, watchful as a hawk; and Basu, bemused; Darcy, indulgent as a parent; and Naseem, holding her breath as though watching an intimate scene unfold on
TV
. They must all have known something was going on between them, and they had probably all wondered, exactly what manner of relationship?

Ramji said, “Yes, I think that’s what I’ll do, thanks. Besides, we have some catching up to do.”

“Yes, you go along,” Darcy said. “You need a rest too.” And to Rumina: “He’s all yours!”

All right then, the rest of them said, cancel the dinner plans for tonight, some other night perhaps, and then they said their goodbyes. Ramji looked at Naseem and said he would let her know tomorrow — regarding where he had finally decided to stay — and she said, Anytime, you’re welcome.

As he left with Rumina she pointed out the yellow warehouse building outside in the complex. “That’s the Shamsi mosque,” she said with a smile, “in case you need to go and pray.”

He hesitated, then said, “I stopped praying a long time ago. I thought you knew that.”

A thin drizzle fell as they drove to her place, taking her car, leaving his Company parking area. The evening traffic was thick and the going slow through the kaleidoscope of reflected city lights. They were on Sepulveda Boulevard, she went on chattily; along this stretch it coincided with the Pacific Coast Highway, which went all the way to San Diego. She lived in Hermosa Beach, in the South Bay area. Of course Santa Monica was more fashionable, but she liked where she was. It was full of young people, very informal, good for cycling and volleyball. The beach was close. The library was excellent. There was a Borders, and another bookshop she really liked, called Maktaba’s, which had books on Africa.

He was unresponsive and broody, and soon she stopped talking. Then after a while she said, “I’m sorry for hijacking you, I suppose you would have liked to have dinner and relax and chat with the rest.”

He looked up, surprised. “Not at all,” he told her. Quite the contrary, he might have said, I wanted nothing more than to get away with you.…But am I sure this is right for me, even as I desire
her so terribly, too much perhaps? Is she my inevitable end, my conclusion?

“About this apartment — what’s it like? How far from you?”

“We can think of an apartment tomorrow … if you like.”

Eyes agleam — but I’m only imagining that. There was always a great deal of mischief in her. She could be a djinni, a temptress, he mused. Zanzibar had always been full of them.

Neither of them spoke after that. Left to his thoughts, he recalled their time together in Glenmore, then Washington. She probably had the same thoughts flitting through her mind. Same? Wouldn’t it be interesting if two people could share the same memories, experience exactly the same images? That would need a hard-wiring of the brains, wouldn’t it …

She turned right, off the main road, into one of parallel streets sloping to the beach, then took another left into a residential street called Salal Avenue. Her apartment was the upper level of a blue duplex with white window trimmings. It was reached by an external staircase at the side of the building, leading up from the front to the back door.

He followed her in, and let the door click gently shut behind him.

She turned to face him, her cheeks flushed. And as she had done once before, months ago in D.C. — but now her eyes were aglow, hands clasped in front of her at the chest, a questioning look on her face — she said, in Swahili: Welcome. And he replied, exactly as he had done that time,
Ahsante
, thank you. They stared at each other for a moment. Then, overcome by a rush of emotion, they fell into a desperately tight, silent embrace.

Later, in the bedroom, amidst tender caresses, bodies gratified but hearts still craving, there were answers, assurances, excuses.

“The last time you said you were sure — doubly sure …”

He said softly: “Yes.”

She lay on her back, arms behind her head, he facing her, raised on one elbow beside her, drawing patterns with his finger on her midriff.

“And after that? Cold, stony silence. Mister Heartless. Did it matter so much to you that I was Sheikh Abdala’s daughter?”

“It did, then. But I can handle it, I think.”

“I don’t think you were really angry that I didn’t tell you. You just got cold feet, admit it.”

“That too,” he said, after a pause.

She turned on her side, asked: “How are the twins — they must hate being called that — Sara and Rahim?”

“They’re doing fine.”

Two faces loom in his mind, a girl with a ponytail, a boy with tousled hair … what would they be up to now … returned from school and snacking, and perhaps bickering as they eat …

“Yes. I tell myself they’d have distanced themselves in a couple of years, and would have left after three more years.” And Zuli — would they have moved closer as he’d hoped so often, if Rumina had not happened?

They had a late dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant down the street, which even at this hour, 10:30 p.m., was moderately full, then strolled along the beach. A three-quarter moon was out, a free spirit slicing through clouds, and the tide was high and the waves lashed gently at the shore. A few other people were out for a
walk, and in front of a house there was a gathering of young people chatting in low voices. As if in celebration of openness and the elements, most of the houses they passed had full-length windows and glass doors, through which they could see tidy living rooms and kitchens, in darkness or flickering with the shadow-play of a television still on.

“When was the last time you walked by the sea?” she said.

“Twenty-five years ago,” he said. “I thought I had got it out of me, the sea.…Reminds me of home, a bit, but home’s on the other side of the ocean, straight ahead of us.”

“Only it’s not home any longer.”

“And we’re not who we were.”

They walked on in silence, she clutching his arm, he saying silently to himself, It will be all right. It will be all right.