Mackenzie Ford - The Clouds Beneath the Sun

More people had drifted out of the bar. All of them were black, all of them were looking in her direction, and several of them were shouting.

Natalie felt the sweat on her throat. She decided to cut her losses and head back to the hotel. She turned, crossed the road, and sprang on to the pavement. But now more than half a dozen of the revelers, all obviously the worse for wear, were crossing the street, moving towards her.

She sensed it would be a mistake to run but she couldn’t avoid quickening her pace. The hotel was two hundred yards away. She had brought a wrap, draped around her shoulders, but now she lifted it and covered her head.

The group—seven or eight of them—were heading her off. She would be trapped unless she ran. But something stopped her. It would, she knew, be a defeat. It would spark something. But she was getting angry.

Suddenly, above the shouts in Kikuyu, or Swahili, or whatever language was being spoken, she heard a voice in English. “Hey, whitey lady, you looking for black sex? You want king-size liquorice? Whitey men no good?”

The others cackled and she saw two of the men make lewd gestures.

“Hey whitey, whitey lady, you want ebony stick?”

More laughter.

And now the men were blocking the pavement. The women were standing in the road. They were humming, and swaying in time to the song.

But the men weren’t singing. Four of them blocked the pavement. Two just stood still, looking serious. A third man, she could see, held a walking stick, a carved ebony stick with an animal head—a lion?—at one end. He held the stick in one hand and beat the animal head repeatedly into the palm of his other hand. The fourth man had extended his arm and was leaning against the window of the shop before which this was all taking place. He was gulping in air in big breaths.

The stench of sweat, tinged with alcohol, passed over her in waves.

Her own sweat dripped down the sides of her cheeks, down her throat and between her breasts, inside her dress from under her arms.

The man with the stick pointed it at her. “You looking for trouble, whitey lady? You want Nairobi nightlife?” He cackled. “You found it!”

He moved towards her, still brandishing his stick.

As he did so, one of the other men said something in the language Natalie didn’t recognize, but it was obviously aimed at her because the man with the stick laughed and half turned his head to acknowledge what had been said.

Quickly, Natalie leaned forward and snatched the stick from his hand.

Surprised by the suddenness of her movement, he couldn’t prevent her taking it.

Natalie raised the stick. She held it so that the animal head was at the far end.

The man looked at her. He had stopped smiling. The other two men stood next to him.

It was a standoff and there was nowhere she could go. She was surrounded.

Sweat ran down her cheeks, between her breasts. Her anger was on the rise.

The man reached down, unbuckled the belt of his trousers and unthreaded it from the loops that held it in place. He wrapped part around his hand and let the buckle hang free.

He took a step forward and raised his arm.

Suddenly, the fourth man, leaning against the shop window, collapsed to the ground and vomited all at the same time. He retched again.

The man with the belt turned his head. One of the other men said something. One of the women called out. The man with the belt bent down next to the man retching. The woman called out again and she too moved forward and knelt next to him. All eyes had now turned to the sick man.

Natalie guessed he was choking on his own vomit and too drunk to realize what was happening.

She was still surrounded.

But she was on fire with anger and she was itching to act. Without warning, she took half a step forward and leaped over the sick man’s body. Her foot slipped on his vomit and her ankle complained. But not badly and she cleared his form, her shoulder bouncing off the shop window. She winced and gasped loudly but kept going.

Someone called out but she didn’t know who and she didn’t stop. She threw the ebony stick into the road and kept going. Thank God she had wedge heels, she thought, and not stilettos.

Was anyone giving chase? She was breathing so heavily she couldn’t hear. The hotel entrance was a hundred yards away. She kept going. Her wrap had come off her head and was hanging down her back. If anyone was chasing her, he could grab it. But she was ready to let it go, even though her mother had given it to her.

She kept running.

Then she noticed a figure was moving towards her. Black or white? It was too dark to see. She was ashamed of herself for thinking in those terms but now wasn’t the time to … was he going to stop her?

The figure was blocking the pavement.

She leapt into the road.

The figure moved off the pavement, towards her. If only she’d kept the ebony stick.

She summoned a spurt of energy, of anger, and ran faster. The hotel was sixty yards away.

“Natalie?”

It took her a moment to realize that the figure was Jack.

She stopped, breathing heavily, turned, and leaned into him. There was a pain in her side. Sweat shone on her skin. “Am I glad to see you.”

He put his arm around her. “What happened? I saw a group of people, heard shouting. I saw you jump.” He reached round her and rearranged her wrap. “You’re shaking.”

She turned again. A figure, about thirty yards away, was scurrying back to the group by the shop window. Someone had given chase but hadn’t caught her, and had given up when Jack appeared. Her anger began to subside. Her breathing came more easily.

She was still shaking as Jack steered her towards the hotel and again put his arm around her shoulders.

Between sucking in huge gulps of air, she told him what had happened.

He nodded and said, “I blame myself.”

They had reached the hotel.

“I had assumed you’d turn right, out of the hotel. I know, all the regulars know, that turning right leads to the main street and the bright lights, the cafés, lots of people. The other way, left, the way you went, leads to—well, Nairobi’s red-light area. It’s safe enough in the day, but not at night and I should have warned you. I’m sorry, it’s my fault. That’s why I came looking … I suddenly realized that I hadn’t warned you and that maybe you had turned left. Natalie, I’m very sorry.”

He held the hotel door open for her. “How about a late-night whiskey, to help settle your nerves?”

She nodded eagerly. She was still shaking.

At the bar he ordered her a scotch and asked the barman to leave the bottle with them. “Knock back the first shot in one go, then sip the second. I find that always helps after a shock or bad news.”

She did as she was told. The first one certainly had an effect. Her heart showed some signs of coming under control.

“There was a lot of talk in a language I didn’t recognize. Was it all about sex, do you think, or race?”

“They had come out of a bar, right?”

She nodded.

“A bit of both, I would say. The men were with women, so they were on their way to have sex with them when they encountered you. But, the black–white thing, it’s always there, isn’t it? There’s a story in the papers today about Tanganyikan troops training in Russia, and inviting the Russians back to train more of their troops. The idea is to teach Tanganyikan troops to act behind enemy lines—in this case South Africa, to make trouble. The blacks in Africa are getting more assertive every day. That is as it should be, with independence coming up, but it does mean that there’s friction everywhere.”

Natalie sipped her second scotch. “Lucky for me you decided to come looking. Whovever was chasing me might have caught me.”