The Outsider(S) (6 page)

“You are going to Spain?” asked a woman with dark wiry hair and deep red lipstick seated at the corner. I watched her carefully. After the chaos that Uncle Helmut and his bride had unleashed, I was in a very harmonious mood.

“Spain isn’t Africa.”

“Are you sure?” she asked with an attentive expression on her face. “Are you going to Greece then?” she persisted.

I clenched my teeth but remembered that this wasn’t the right time to feel upset. “No. I am going to Africa. Spain and Greece are part of Europe.”

I turned and was met by Silvana’s gaze. Of all of Mother’s new friends, she was the only one I had seen before. Silvana, according to Mother, was a thief who couldn’t keep a job.

“No, no, no…” Silvana started, shaking her head. “They are part of Africa. That is why people go there on holidays. I read in the
Bildzeitung
21
that they don’t work. They sleep half of the day and have sex the rest of the day.”

Everyone burst out laughing. Elke, a plump woman with long, ash-blond hair, was the first to speak.

“They are very good at it. I once had an Italian during holiday. He was very good.” She giggled.

Mother sneered. “At least you had the common sense to leave it at that.” There were murmurs of agreement before the tiny woman in the corner spoke.

“Heidi Klum is married to a black man,” she said awkwardly. I could see that it embarrassed her to say it loudly.

“Is she fat and ugly?” Marita, a short woman with a low-hanging butt and a protruding stomach asked. There were bellows of laughter.

“No, she is a model. A super-model!” Silke retorted. “And she is a real blond,” she added and threw me a glance. There were gasps of shock in the air. “
Oh
gott!
Oh
gott
!”

I got up and went to the toilet. I couldn’t take the crap anymore. That level of ignorance was totally unacceptable. I came back dressed in my jacket.

“This will soon be a part of Africa. They come every day. Do you see any Germans any more? We have become exotic in our own country!” Mother was saying in her know-it-all way. There were nods of approval.

“Even our national football team is no longer ours.” Harald, Silke’s husband said slowly. He looked thoughtful.

“Good-bye,” I said abruptly.

“Wait, I have a present for you,” Mother said, getting up. I realized that she was a bit tipsy. I pretended to go to the toilet again and made my escape. Every Christmas, she dutifully gave me a nicely wrapped present. It was always the same. A bunch of knives. They only differed in their lengths and widths. The previous year she had decided to lower her already low standards. I had not believed that that was possible until I saw the old, ugly, German shepherd dog. A lot of things had gone through my mind thereafter. I had contemplated dropping the dog transport box somewhere on the Autobahn. But I didn’t have the courage. In the end, I drove to a dog rescue center and gladly got rid of my Christmas “gift”. I wasn’t going to allow a repeat.

I drove home with the sole purpose of trying to find out as much as I could about Africa. I switched the TV on and sat down. The American sitcom
Two
and
a
Half
Men
was on, but I barely paid attention. Charlie Sheen’s cocky attitude, which I had always found hilarious, suddenly seemed drab and forced. My relationship with black people up to that point had been… I tried to remember a word that could appropriately describe it and realized to my amazement that there was none. I had practically nothing to do with black people. In fact, I avoided them like the plague. And this was not without good reason. My childhood was dominated with stories of scary black men. I could still vividly hear the song “
Wer
hat
Angst
vorm
Schwarzen
Mann
”
22
ringing in my head. Up to that point, I had only ever had one encounter with a black person. A black man had once sat next to me on the train to Hamburg. Dragging his big red suitcase, he had come and sat next to me. I sat rigidly looking outside the whole way. He proceeded at some point to produce a comb and start combing his hair. White dandruff flew off and landed on my blouse. I was, however, too terrified to move or protest. By the time we reached Hamburg, my bladder was on the verge of bursting. That was the last time I set foot on a train. I can’t say it was the main reason, but it certainly played a part. Thereafter I made sure never to look a black person in the face. And this wasn’t difficult at all. I hardly ever encountered black people in my daily life. Of course, there were those on TV, but I didn’t think of them as black people. Will Smith was, as a matter of fact, my absolute favorite actor. But this didn’t lessen the terror that I was feeling. I had absolutely no idea how black people, who were not on screen, were. Of course, I knew about the hunger and all the catastrophes that bedeviled Africa. But all that was at a theoretical level.

In that instant, I made a decision. I was going to do a crash course on Africa and its inhabitants. I wasn’t going to go to Africa without basic information about the continent. I thought about Mother and her bunch of ignorant friends. That level of ignorance was unacceptable. I turned the TV off and picked up the magazine that was lying under the coffee table. It was a
Newsworld
that I had been handed out on one of my many flights around Europe. On the cover was a story about African dictators. I was going to prepare my mind in the best way possible by reading as much as possible about Africa and its inhabitants.

I flipped through it. There was an article about the booming mobile phone business in Kenya and especially about
M-Pesa
, which was a way to send money using mobile phones that was being touted as one of the most successful African business stories. But I was more interested in the political stability of Africa. At the bottom was an article about African dictators. Kenya, it stated, had a grand coalition that was formed after the disputed previous elections during which many people died. I felt a cold shiver. On the right-hand side was a picture of two old men shaking hands. I took it to mean that they were the presidents, or whatever titles African leaders apportioned themselves. I watched them carefully, wondering if they were going to start some war during my stay there. At the end of the page was stated in bold:

“His
Excellency
President
for
Life
Field
Marshal
Alhaji
Dr.
Idi
Amin
Dada,
Lord
of
the
Beasts
of
the
Earth
and
Fishes
of
the
Sea
and
Conqueror
of
the
British
Empire
in
Africa
in
general
and
Uganda
in
particular,
VC,
DSO,
MC,
CBE,
the
rightful
king
of
Scotland.”

I sighed and threw the magazine under the table. Maybe the TV would be more helpful.

I switched the TV back on, this time to Phoenix. It was a channel that mostly showed documentaries and political discussions. I had in all my life never watched any Phoenix program to the end. In fact, I often wondered why anyone would be interested in the kinds of programs they showed.

Right then, they were showing a documentary about some Godforsaken country in Africa. To be specific, it was a report about Sierra Leone, mostly about children. A white guy was being interviewed. He was a worker in one of the many charity organizations that tried to save Africa from its misery. I watched him closely to try to understand what motivated people to waste their lives away like that. There was no way in hell that I would voluntarily go to Africa.

A young boy appeared on the screen. He looked dirty, very dirty, even by African standards, which I presumed didn’t value cleanliness too much. The camera zoomed in on a big wound on his lower leg. I cringed. It was a hole, and there was a mixture of blood and pus oozing from it. I thanked God once again for instilling the common sense in me to never pursue a career in medicine. The only good thing in medicine as a profession was the title
doctor
.

The report continued. I sat upright, determined to see it through to the end. Maybe it would be my only chance to get tangible information about Africa. The topic was child labor and child trafficking. The little boy had been sold by his family for an equivalent of ten Euros. He had been rescued by the charity organization, but there seemed to be a problem. “Are you glad that they rescued you?” the interviewer was asking him.

“I can’t go back to my family. My mother will be very upset with me,” the little boy responded amid sobs.

I thought I missed something. The white guy came back on the screen.

“Most of the children we rescue are terrified of the wrath of their parents. They do not want to go back home.”

I felt a forceful upsurge of the coffee I had drunk an hour earlier. On the verge of vomiting, I ran to the bathroom. I was gasping for air. I did what my class-one teacher, Mrs. Müller, had taught me many decades earlier. I started counting: one, two, three…

After what seemed like an eternity, I started breathing regularly. I sat in the corner of the bathroom and tried to concentrate on the tiled terra cotta floor. Tears were flowing down my face.

I couldn’t fathom that level of cruelty.

That was it with me and my pursuit of knowledge about Africa. There was no point in subjecting myself to torture. I was just going to wait and experience it, I thought silently as I walked to my bedroom.

Philister
Taa

Kenya, Nyayo Stadium

I
hardly slept that night. I kept thinking of ways or reasons not to go through with the plan. I thought of all the possible things I could do: sell water, pick up plastic from garbage dumps, work as house help. The list was endless. But I had done most of these before, and I knew the result.

At exactly five a.m., the first cockerel crowed. That was followed by a dozen others. Life was a competition, I thought sadly. Even the cockerels seemed aware of that. I continued lying on the thin mattress and looked up at the roof. There were holes in the tin, and I could clearly see the sky. The sky was dark, and for a moment I wondered if there was some truth in the saying that the darkest moment is the one before the light. I certainly needed some light in my life.

Someone cleared their throat roughly and then spat. I knew that it was a huge piece of slime. And I also knew that Kanga was going to throw a fit about it. I got up slowly and took the piece of stick that I used for brushing my teeth. I had bought it from “the woman from Zanzibar.” At the prodding of my workmate Boi, I had paid twenty shillings for the stick. A fortune by all standards. Brushing my teeth with the sticks from Zanzibar was supposed to protect me from the evil eye and all misfortunes. But I wondered now if I hadn’t been too gullible.

My mind drifted to Tamaa Matano. She had left the previous evening for a job at the shopping center. Robberies with violence had recently increased, and the shop owners wanted their shops protected. It was a dangerous job and was only done by those who had nothing to lose.

I went outside and squatted on what I called a veranda but what in actuality was a mound of red soil beside my cube. I rinsed my face and noticed at that point that the water smelled of the
omena
23
Tamaa Matano and I had eaten the previous evening.

“
Bwana
asifiwe
!”
24
a voice called out. It was Tush walking by pretty fast.

“
Asifiwe
sana
!”
25
I responded. The one thing that bound all the slum residents was our belief in a supernatural power. It didn’t matter which one. Whether it was the woman from Zanzibar or Jesus or Allah, all of us believed that someone else was watching over us. And from the amount of misery, must have been doing quite a poor job of it.

A few minutes later, dressed in an oversized gray T-shirt, I was ready to leave. A KBS bus number 34 appeared. Even though it was completely full, I boarded it and hung by the door. I didn’t have any money and hoped that I would reach my destination before the conductor came round. For the whole ride, I was preoccupied with watching out for the conductor. I was nervous. The last time I had been caught, he had used his ticket machine to hit me in the head. I still felt pain thinking about it.

The bus hissed to a stop at the Nyayo Stadium, and I jumped out relieved that I had survived the ride. I walked up slowly. There were many people walking in the direction of industrial area. I had been trying the whole time to suppress thoughts of my upcoming meeting with Okot. I felt myself shivering, and for a moment I thought of turning back and going back home. But there was no home. Without a job, my landlady, Taptap, named after her shiny silver block shoes, was soon going to throw me out. I took a deep breath and went up the stairs. There was a long line. I sat on the bench at the end of it.

Shortly after I heard mumbling and excited voices. I looked up and saw Okot walking towards me. He was accompanied by four police officers, each carrying a gun. They looked around suspiciously, as if the people waiting to see Okot were some kind of terrorists. Our eyes met, and for a moment he seemed transfixed in one position. But then he turned his face and looked away.