The Other Language (18 page)

It has not been easy to get rid of Farida. She was very upset when I began to smilingly signal “You can go home, it’s fine, I know the way. Just go home now, I’m okay.” But the stubborn girl didn’t want to move.

“Who is she?” Jeffrey Stone asked. We had just been introduced by Tescari, who had rejoiced when I had invited myself for a drink.

“You need a break from that madman, eh?” Tescari said, and I think he winked, too. “What did I tell you?”

“Who is this girl now?” Jeffrey Stone asked again.

I didn’t reply and Farida didn’t budge.

“Can you speak to her in Swahili? Please tell her she can go home, that I’ll be fine, I know my way back.”

Both Tescari and Stone spoke to her with the brisk tone people use with servants in this part of the world. Farida seemed hurt. She gave me a look under her long eyelashes, perhaps expecting me to explain her role to these men. She was my hostess, her face
said, she was responsible for me. We must go home together. But I didn’t obey her silent request. Instead I moved my hand again toward what I figured was the direction home.

Please. Please go.

Then a couple of words from the Swahili book resurfaced.

Nyumbani, tafadhali
.

Reluctantly she turned and started walking away.

Jeffrey Stone lives in a slightly nicer concrete box than Andrea’s, although no building on this odd, seemingly seaviewless island meets any of the requirements that might elevate it to something even remotely romantic. Stone has made an effort to make the place look cozy, though. He has a few colorful throws scattered across his sofa and armchairs, a Moroccan rug on the floor and a few coffee table books with old photographs of hunting expeditions or East African interiors. We sit outside on the veranda on plantation chairs and an older man with a severe expression in
kanzu
and
kofia
brings out a tray with iced gin and tonics and freshly roasted cashew nuts. Apparently Tescari has brought the booze all the way from mainland Tanzania and, judging from what’s left in the bottle, they’ve had quite a lot of it already.

Tescari has an appointment tomorrow morning with the Ministry of Land and he’s pretty optimistic that he’ll get his permits without a problem.

“Despite,” he adds, turning to me, “what your friend claims.”

I ignore his remark and say yes to a refill of my glass.

“He has married a local, right?” Jeffrey Stone inquires as he pours.

“Was that her?” Tescari asks.

I nod and feel both men’s eyes on me. I know they expect me to make a remark or to crack half a joke as a sign of solidarity to the white man’s cause when stranded on such unfriendly land, but I keep my straight face and ignore the question, asking Jeffrey
what his job involves and whether he’s planning to stay here much longer. He isn’t, he’s applied for a post in Uganda. Come the end of the year and he’ll get the hell out of this hole.

This short parenthesis in the colonial world on the island has had the power to rejuvenate me, probably because of the alcohol intake, but I walk home strengthened, and full of ideas.

Andrea’s on the porch, crossed-legged on the
baraza
. Pretending to be looking into some miraculous cloud formation in the sky. I know he’s been waiting for me, but when I walk in he just says hi, as though he’s not interested in where I’ve been. I move to sit next to him and he scoots over to make room. We sit quietly for a moment, though I am not quiet inside. I am energized and determined to pierce through the armor with which he has been shielding himself. We enjoy a moment of silence, then I begin.

“How come one never sees the ocean on this island?”

“On this side of the island it’s more difficult to see it.”

“Then take me somewhere where I can. Otherwise I’ll never believe this
is
an island.”

He stares into nothingness.

“Come on. Let’s go. Just you and me this time.” I make my voice sound as conspiratory and commanding as I can.

But he looks up at me, as if weary.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve come all this way to see you, and you, Andrea, haven’t spent a minute with me. You’ve either handed me over to your wife, or talked to me like a stranger.”

He doesn’t reply and looks away. I can feel him retreating, curling up. I raise my voice.

“Come back!”

He looks at me, startled, almost frightened. “What do you mean,
come back
?”

“Just come back, for God’s sake!” I shout. “Come back into yourself! Come back! I feel you have turned into an alien.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“It doesn’t matter and who cares? It’s exactly what I think. This
person
you are pretending to be—is not you.”

“Oh really? And who am I then?”

“I’ve known you a long time. Longer than anybody else here. I know this is not you.”

He stares at me and doesn’t say anything. I hold my breath. Does he hate me?

“No you don’t,” he says coldly. “You think you know me, but you don’t.”

He glances toward the door of the house. “And please lower your voice.”

Fifteen years of never eating fresh vegetables, but only rice, chapatis and fried fish in coconut oil have modified his shape, the texture of his skin, the molecules of his inner organs. Fifteen years of not having access to decent books, but just airport paperbacks snatched from the few foreign visitors, must have starved his mind, shrunk his intellect. Fifteen years of not speaking his mother language, forgetting its poetry, its songs, its sonorities and rhythms. And how about going to prayer five times a day, kneeling on a mat, his forehead touching the ground? In which way might that strict discipline transform an agnostic, a free spirit, a biker with long curls?

“
Why
are you still here?” my voice breaks. I had no idea I’d be so crushed.

He doesn’t say anything.

I think about my boyfriend of five years, Gregorio, whom I’m not sure I’m still in love with but who has become my family, our sunny two-bedroom apartment in Monteverde Vecchio, my old dog, Olga. My daily morning run in the park, my small, cluttered office at the faculty, a couple of my brightest students.
The list of my life’s highlights is not that long and maybe not that interesting.

Who am I to judge? Maybe Andrea didn’t come here seeking adventure. Maybe he has chosen this place to venture inward rather than expand, since everything here—the people, the buildings, even the geography—lacks beauty and brilliance. Maybe he was relieved when he found a place where he could shrink and settle into a smaller life, away from the eyes of others. From all our expectations.

“I am here because this is my home now,” he says, looking up again, to somewhere far away, above the mango trees across from the house.

“Don’t you ever miss Rome?”

“Rome?” he asks, as baffled as if I’d said Mars. “No. Never. I never think of Rome.”

“And us? Don’t you ever think of us?”

He shakes his head slowly.

“No I haven’t. In a long, long time.”

That’s fair, I think. I hadn’t been thinking much about him either. I hadn’t truly missed him till now.

“Take me to see the ocean, Andrea. Just the two of us.”

He stares at me and something shifts in his eyes—is it tenderness? Or maybe just a spark of it.

We drive for almost an hour in his battered Toyota with the NGO’s logo painted on the side, heading north through a thick forest and then turning west, toward the setting sun. We walk on a sandy path through the bushes and suddenly it’s as though a curtain has been lifted. Miles and miles of open view, of deep blue sea and sand lined with the vibrant green of the forest. The sand is as fine as talcum powder and snowy white, just as Tescari’s brochure described it. I fill my lungs with the salty air, exhilarated by the open space.
We sit, and watch the sun go down. It’s low tide and the water has just started to retreat, its rivulets are sculpting wavy furrows in the sand, the crabs running obliquely on its translucent surface.

“This is beautiful,” I say.

The sun looks like an egg yolk ready to plop into the sea. I stand up and quickly strip off my shirt and unbutton my trousers.

He stands up, too, alarmed.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going for a swim.”

“No. You can’t go in like that.”

He quickly picks up my clothes and hands them back to me.

“Yes, I can. There’s nobody around for miles and miles. And you’ve seen me naked before.”

“Stella!”

I drop my panties on the sand and I slide off into the velvety, lukewarm water. I dive in and swim until I’m almost out of breath. When I reemerge I see him standing on the edge of the water with my clothes crumpled in his hand.

I swim out and out, where the sea gets bluer and darker, and after the last strokes I can muster, I wonder if I should worry about sharks. Suddenly, I make out a shadow, as a dark, elongated shape darts past me. I shoot up screaming, and he emerges from the froth, like a shiny dolphin, stark naked.

We drive back in silence. It’s a good kind of silence, as if the swim has exhausted us but also washed something away. The opaque film that has shrouded my days here has dissolved and now everything looks brighter.

By the time we reach the village it’s night; there has been a power cut, and the house is wrapped in darkness, but for the faint glow of the kerosene lamp flickering through the windows. I can tell that Farida has been looking after our supper, there’s a smell of
curry wafting onto the porch. Before entering the house Andrea stops for a moment and rests a hand on top of my shoulder.

“You are the first person from my old life who has come to visit. It was a shock to see you. It was a shock to be speaking Italian again. I am sorry if I’ve seemed distant. It just felt like—well, like a lot to contend with.”

“Of course. I understand. Don’t worry.”

“The day you arrived I was up all night, I just couldn’t go to sleep. I was reminiscing, you know—all this stuff that I thought I had forgotten started coming back.”

“I’m sorry I barged into your life just like that, I didn’t—”