The Other Language (17 page)

“Isn’t Farida eating with us?” I ask.

“No. She eats later.”

“Why?”

“It’s just the way it is.”

“Women eat later?”

“Yes.”

“That’s absurd.”

“Relax, Stella. It’s okay.”

He throws an amused glance at me.

“And trust me, she much prefers it that way when there are guests.”

“Why? Am I that scary?”

He smiles. “It’s very likely she thinks you are.”

There is tenderness in his voice when he speaks of her. I see now how protective he is of her and that he won’t let me intimidate her more than is necessary. I am the stranger here.

“So,” I say, suddenly eager, as if it’s time to get down to business, “where is your office?”

“Which office?”

“The NGO you work for.”

“This is the office. Right here.”

I look around. There is no trace of a desk, file cabinets, papers. Only an antiquated telephone sitting on the bookshelf.

“We’ve lost a few big donors because of the recession, like everyone else, and we had to get rid of staff. I’m alone right now. In fact, there’s not much activity at the moment.”

He explains how for the past five years he’s been working for this NGO that offers microloans to women. He was hired, he says, because of his expertise with the local culture. He says all this with an ironic tinge. I tell him I’ve heard a lot about microcredit and how very successful it’s proved in developing countries. He says that yes, it is a good template, but it needs to be adapted from place to place. Here on the island, he says, the idea is to give the women two goats each to start with, so they can slowly build a herd and sell the milk. They can also get chickens, for eggs. Theoretically within a few months they should be able to repay the loan and start saving some capital.

“Why theoretically?” I ask.

“Stuff happens all the time. Either it’s the animals that die of mysterious diseases, or they’re stolen by neighbors. Or the husbands take the money and use it for whatever they need. So actually most of the women have failed to repay the loans.”

“That’s disappointing.”

He nods and keeps eating in silence. Somehow I had expected him to feel more passionate about this project. That he’d find it a rather noble task to devote one’s life to lifting women from poverty.

“So, what happens now?” I asked. “Are you out of a job?”

“No. They have kept me on a salary while they try to figure out how to change the modus operandi.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“A bunch of Norwegians,” he says. Now I do hear a bit of passion—just shy of a sneer.

He shrugs and looks into his plate.

“As if they’d have any idea of how to operate it. They show up twice a year and they don’t even speak the language.”

I resist asking more. Though I have so many questions, clearly he doesn’t particularly like to talk about any of this; he must know that this bare room looks nothing like an efficient NGO. Maybe
there will be another opportunity, later. Maybe we both need a little time.

He fills my glass with water. I wonder if it’s filtered but I don’t dare ask. I could do with a drink, actually. It would really help me to soften up the edges and get through this more smoothly.

When I retire to my room in the evening I discover that Farida has scattered pink frangipani petals on my bed. The scent is sweet and heady. I would like to take a photo of it, but the power goes off just as I start fumbling inside my bag for the camera. A couple of minutes later, Farida knocks lightly at the door and brings in a kerosene lamp that fills the room with a warmer glow. Now that we are alone, she covers her mouth, repressing a laugh, and reaches for my hair. She holds a strand between her fingers for a moment, testing its texture.

Later, once the sounds of closing doors, splashing water and coughing have ceased next door, I lay awake on the hard mattress, lending an ear to the other side of the wall. I am not ready to handle any intimate sounds that might seep through their bedroom walls.

Time here moves as slowly as inside a dentist’s waiting room.

I am trying to figure out what Andrea’s routine is, to get a sense of his existence, but his life keeps eluding me. There has been a procession of visitors throughout the whole morning, all of them men who sit out on the porch with him and talk very loudly in Swahili. I watch Andrea as he slaps his thigh and raises his voice, joining the chorus. He’s a different person in this new incarnation—that cool aloofness, that lightness of touch he had when I knew him, seems gone. Swahili sounds like a language that needs a strong vocal emission, wide gesticulation and theatrical
facial expressions. The men wear shirts over colorful
kikoys
wrapped around their waists, bantering and laughing on the stone bench that I’ve been told is called
baraza
. It could be local gossip, or perhaps they are just recounting a fishing expedition; I notice one of them is moving an open hand like a knife slicing his forearm, perhaps demonstrating the size of his daily catch. Andrea hasn’t introduced me to any of them.

After lunch—another disappointing meal of plain white rice and fried fish with too many bones—I tell Andrea I’d like to go out and take some pictures of the village. I have begun to feel hostage to the house, as though—inexplicably so—there’s an unwritten rule that I am to stay put and not wander out. It is decided that Farida is to accompany me in my wanderings. Apparently it doesn’t look good for any woman—
mzungu
or local—to be out on the streets by herself. This has of course not been openly stated, but somehow I get the drift. Farida reappears clad in her black
buibui
, showing an unforeseen eagerness for the assignment she’s been given, and off we go. The minute we are alone she urges me in sign language to enter a neighbor’s house. I try to protest—I’ve had enough of being shut inside—but she won’t relent. Evidently she’s no longer so scared of me.

We enter another squared house with a small inner courtyard where an old lady wrapped in a bright pink cloth sits quietly next to a goat with her withered legs stretched out in front. She looks blind, and strangely beautiful. Farida ignores her and we enter a dark, stuffy room. I hear giggles coming from its depths. There are two young women about Farida’s age who get up from the floor and come toward us. Farida shows me off to them with pride, like a girl with a new doll. I have a feeling that news of my arrival has been spreading and the neighbors are expecting to get a glimpse of me. There is a brief discussion, then the young women decide I have to follow them to the next room, darker than the first one.
Here they pat the floor mat till I sit down. More women, both young and old, join us now, appearing from the recesses of what looks like a big house, and sit across from me, making sounds of appreciation. I am surrounded. The room smells of cheap lotions, cloth, sweat, boredom and sleep. Farida must have told them it’d be okay to go ahead and touch me, because now they tug at my hair, at my clothes, they inspect the fabric, grab my wrist, discuss my rings, my watch. The room is stifling; my clothes stick to my back as sweat rolls down my spine. I glance at my watch and I see it’s only half past three. The end of the day still feels a long way ahead.

After two more visits in the neighborhood, we are back on the road, although the way Farida grips my arm enhances the feeling of being her prisoner. We walk past the mildewed Soviet tower, toward what looks like the center of town, but soon I realize there is no center, no pretty square as such, no leafy gardens, no latticed verandas, no bustling heart of the village, but only more cement buildings decaying among heaps of trash. The market—the destination I have so eagerly prepared for—sits underneath yet another concrete structure, built by the same ghastly planners. At this time of day it’s half empty except for packs of stray dogs wandering through the leftovers of market day.

I look around, searching for a view of the ocean. It comes to me that since I’ve landed I haven’t seen a single shade of blue. I look in every direction, walk this way and that, but the sea is nowhere to be seen. How can this be possible? How can an island—especially such a small island—conceal the water surrounding it? My anxiety mounts. There must be an outlook, a promontory, a belvedere from which one can see water. I pose the question to Farida. Where is the sea? The sea! I ask in an almost desperate tone. Water? But she shakes her head, amused. I try with Italian.
Mare? Acqua? Eau?
No, she doesn’t understand a
word, and I didn’t carry my
Teach Yourself Swahili
with me. Suddenly I must see water. My heart pounds. This must be what a real attack of claustrophobia feels like.

It is then, from out of the corner of my eye, that I get a glimpse of khaki. My brain registers the shade, the texture of the fabric, and instantly flashes a message. Your tribe. It is indeed a man in his thirties, in a light blue shirt and shorts. Right behind him are the loafers of Carlo Tescari. He and his friend Jeffrey Stone—tall, with thick blond sideburns and round across the waist—are chatting as they come out of the fishmonger’s with a parcel wrapped in newspaper.

My brain flashes again. I know exactly what’s happening here. They will have delicious peppered shrimps in chili sauce for dinner. I raise my arm and yell.

“Hey!”