The Outsider(S) (7 page)

“
Karibuni
!”
26
he said to the people sitting on the left side. I watched and saw them smile up at him. The knot in my stomach tightened, and I felt a rage I hadn’t felt before. I got up and followed them, and before the last police officer could close the door, I pushed it open.

The police officers cocked their guns, and I heard people screaming.

“Stop!” I heard Okot shouting at the cops. “Leave her alone.” The police officers looked at each other but left without saying a word.

A few moments later, we sat alone opposite each other. Okot’s office was spacious and luxuriously furnished. There was a red couch in one corner with a coffee table in the middle. At the back of the room was the picture of President Moi.

“I am a busy man. What do you want?” he asked tersely.

“My friend Tamaa Matano and I want to be a part of the women’s national football team,” I said flatly.

“Aha,” he responded while staring at me with mocking eyes. For a moment I felt like fleeing and cursed Tamaa Matano for convincing me that it was a good idea.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Yes,” I responded, unsure of what he meant.

“That will never happen!” he said finally and burst out in thunderous laughter.

“OK,” I said, getting up. “I will tell every single person what you did to me.” I felt warm tears flowing down my face.

“I did nothing to you. You wanted it!” he said, spreading his arms.

“Oh really?” I asked, my voice trembling.

He regarded me for a moment. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said, and I realized that his initial arrogance was slowly being replaced by terror. “I never meant to hurt you.” He took a step towards me.

“Don’t!” I shouted.

For a moment we just stood there. “Only one of you,” he said in a voice barely audible, and handed me the passport application forms. I wanted to protest but had neither the energy nor the desire. I just wanted to get away from him.

Ramona

Germany, 2010, My Dream

I
have this habit that I am very proud of. I look at everything and everyone very carefully. I also listen to everything very carefully. I try to remember every detail of what I do. I am arranging the CDs that are sprawled all over our house. I put them back carefully. In the background, SWR-3 radio is playing. They are interviewing some people who are demonstrating in Stuttgart.

“Why are you demonstrating?” the interviewer asks in a voice that is a bit too cheerful. I get the feeling that he quite likes the fact that there is a demonstration.

“I don’t know what the demonstration is about, but so long as it is against the city council of Stuttgart, I will be a part of it,” the protestor responds with a chuckle. I smile to myself.

I am convinced that remembering such details will one day be the ticket out of my routine, boring life. I just know at the bottom of my heart that I will one day be a star. I will be at the center of a major event. I will be a witness to something so extraordinary, the whole country will come to a standstill just to watch me shine. I need to arm myself for that day. I look at and listen to things carefully so as to be able to narrate them exactly as they were later on. I can picture myself on ARD or ZDF.
27
In fact, I can picture myself being interviewed by Klaus Kleber on
Heute
Journal
. The thought makes me smile. I like Klaus Kleber. In fact, if I am completely honest, I would say that I don’t just like him, I have a small crush on him.

“Mama, Taxi is dumb!” a sulky voice rudely interrupts my daydreaming. It is my son Lukas. Lukas is four, and he hates his brother, Tankie, with a passion. Out of total spite he calls him Taxi.

“Lukas, his name is Tankie!”

“Stupid name!” he retorts and walks off.

I watch his back. I don’t know any more what I should tell him. I just wish he would be nicer to his brother, who is only thirteen months.

Motherhood demands all kinds of competences. One has to be a Kofi Annan, Mother Teresa and Dalai Lama all wrapped in one. And the other thing is that one must have quite some thick skin. I still have not gotten over the embarrassment of being pregnant. Being pregnant isn’t glamorous at all. There is a sinister way people look at you when you are pregnant, that suggests that you’ve been up to no good. If you survive that, then you find yourself confronted with what I have named the
‘How dare you look’
. This look could be friendly or hostile. The meaning is always consistent. You are a social misfit or a lesser being for daring to reproduce. But despite all that, I actually enjoy motherhood. My first two sons grew up too fast. Before I could settle properly into motherhood, they were already going to school and had their own friends. Now, I hardly see them.

School, football and friends seem to take up all their times. But at least I have Lukas and Tankie.

Tankie comes out of Lukas’s room. He is holding Lukas’s red car. Lukas’s favorite toy. It is broken into two. He has a wide grin on his face as he walks towards me. Automatically, I shout, “
Scheiße
!
Scheiße
!”
28

He stops and looks at me. I can see the surprise on his face. I bend down to get the toy away from him. He hides it behind his back and then proceeds to mutter the unmistakable, “
Scheiße
!
Scheiße
!”

The phone rings. It is Mother.

“Why didn’t you pick up the phone?” she asks in what sounds to me like a very hostile voice.

“I did,” I respond. Very straight and to the point. That’s what I do with Mother. I mostly wish that she would leave me in peace. And this is not without good reason. Mother’s favorite pastime is humiliating me. Every Christmas I watch her handing Irmtraut a nicely wrapped present. She makes sure to wrap it in the glossiest wrapping paper she can find. I never get anything from her. Last year she stepped it a notch and gave her a dog. I had seen the dog earlier and had secretly prayed that she gives it to me. But no, she handed it to her precious Irmtraut. That was when I made up my mind not to go to her house this Christmas.

But there is no getting away from her. Yesterday, she arm-twisted me into going to dinner with her. She talked the whole evening about Irmtraut. How successful she is. How proud she is of her, and the worst bit: that she is going to Africa. She has not only been promoted to the senior vice president position but is also going to Africa. I almost choked when I heard that. I am not a hateful person but I struggle to accept Irmtraut’s existence. It is difficult to like someone who has everything that you don’t. Something that mother said yesterday has been playing in my mind the whole day.

“Children are nice but they make one stupid.” She had said this slowly while looking at me intently.

I raised my eyebrows and wondered as I often do why I bother with her.

“It happens gradually,” she continued in her croaky voice.

“Before I had any kids, I used to be very smart. After I gave birth to Irmtraut, I felt my brains deteriorating.” She paused and looked at me thoughtfully.

“And then I gave birth to you, and by that time my brains weren’t tiptop.” I opened my mouth but didn’t say anything.

“I don’t really blame you for turning out like you did.” She finished and threw me a sympathetic look.

“I thought Irmtraut and I were twins,” I said finally unable to hold it any longer.

“Yes, but there is a three-and-a-half-minute difference between you,” she stated in a matter of fact tone before taking a sip from her glass.

At that point, I felt a strong urge to stand up and strangle her, but then I stopped myself. How would it look if or when Klaus Kleber read that?

“
Parents are supposed to love their children. At least, that is what most people would expect.
” At this point, I imagine that he would pause in that regretful, intelligent way that only he can do. The camera would zoom in, and an even larger picture would appear. And then he would continue: “
A young woman
(what do you call a thirty-nine-year-old? Is that already old?)
whose mother has relentlessly bullied all her life, finally had enough
.” At this point, he would clasp his hands and tighten his lips.

“
She strangled her!
” I feel a thin smile spreading across my face. Maybe my one minute of fame isn’t too far away.

Irmtraut

Germany, 2010, the Farewell Party

I
was in my office finishing up some things before the farewell party the company was throwing in my honor. I heard a voice and the distinct sound of Nadia’s high-heeled shoes walking into my office. I sat upright and looked at the laptop in front of me. Ever since the company announced my promotion, she had not spoken a word to me.

“Hi there!” she called out.

“Hi!” I responded and deliberately continued looking at my laptop, hoping she would leave. But she made no move to go. I raised my head slowly and smiled up at her.

“I got something that might be of interest to you” she said in a surprisingly sweet voice. She moved forward and put a piece of paper directly in front of me. I looked at it. It read:

A
white
couple
was
found
dead
yesterday
in
an
African
Resort.
The
couple,
whose
nationality
hasn’t
been
established
yet,
was
in
Africa
for
professional
reasons.
What
is
shocking
is
the
growing
number
of
brutal
murders
of
whites
in
Africa.

I looked up at her and smiled brightly.

“They probably just had bad luck!” I said, looking back down at my screen.

“No, I don’t think so!” she said and stared at me evenly. There was no sign of the sweetness she had shown a few seconds earlier.

“Your point?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. I could feel my hands shaking, but there was no way I was going to show her my vulnerability.

“I think it happens more often!” she said with feigned nonchalance, and turned to leave.

As soon as she was gone, I walked to the door and locked it. My heart was racing.
What
if
she’s
right?
I thought desperately. Ever since I’d got that promotion, I had experienced all kinds of emotions. And they were always extreme. One minute I was feeling really glad to finally be a senior vice president and the next minute I was terrified of living in Africa. The phone rang.

“Are you coming?” Philippe asked. I hesitated for a moment.

“This party is for you,” he added, and before I could say anything, he hung up. I grabbed my bag and walked out.

On the way, I bumped into Marta, or rather she waved me down. She was the accounts director, and as she constantly reminded anyone who cared to listen, she had been in the company longer than Nadia or I.

“You have to dress every day in that burgundy dress you wore two days ago. You looked fabulous!” she mouthed in that secret tone close friends use.

Taken aback, I almost said, “Thank you,” but was interrupted by her continuation.

“But weren’t you freezing? I could see goose bumps from so far away. That’s the problem with such skimpy outfits.” She started walking away. I increased my pace so as to be able to walk with her.

“That Susanne from ARD, she had an outfit exactly like yours sometime last week,” I said brightly.

“Oh really?” she asked and stopped walking. She was looking very pleased with her choice of outfits. Dressing like a TV personality certainly meant that one was in the know in fashion issues. But I wasn’t finished.

“Yes, and she looked very nice. You know these vertical stripes look very nice on slender, beautiful women!”

I saw the smile fade and could literally see the rage spread across her face.
Don’t
dish
out
what
you
can’t
handle
, I thought with a secret smile. Marta, at close to 110 kilos, was definitely not slender.

“See you around!” I called out as I walked into the conference room where my farewell party was taking place.

Philister
Taa

Germany, 1990,
a cellar in Germany

Spiegelein Daily April 6th 1990

The
Kenya
women’s
football
team
has
disappeared.
According
to
the
team
manager,
Mr.
Bakari,
the
team
left
to
jog
in
a
nearby
forest
but
didn’t
come
back.
Police
in
Berlin
have
launched
a
search.
The
team
shot
into
the
limelight
this
past
week
after
losing
their
first
match
with
a
whooping
margin.
Against
Mexico,
they
lost
17
to
nil.
Apart
from
the
Mexican
team’s
obvious
superiority,
the
Kenyan
players
almost
seemed
like
they
had
never
played
football.
More
than
once,
one
of
their
players,
Agatha,
attempted
to
score
a
goal
against
her
own
team.
This
would,
of
course,
be
hilarious
if
it
wasn’t
for
the
fact
that
it
appeared
as
if
she
didn’t
really
know
the
rules.