Aminatta Forna - The Memory of Love

Organising the delivery of the chairs proved considerably more problematic. I had arranged transport through a contact of Banville Jones, a Syrian, who owned a haulage company. The company turned out to consist of a single open-back lorry. I left the man a deposit and made a booking for the morning of the party, overlooking the fact the event was to take place on a Sunday. The university buildings would be closed. I switched the booking to the Friday, but the lorry, I was informed, would be going upcountry earlier in the week. It was due back on Friday. I could have use of it as soon as it arrived.

‘How do I know your driver will be back in time?’

The owner looked at me. ‘He’ll be there,’ and smiled. ‘Inshalla.’

As luck had it the man was true to his word. I was sitting in my office when the lorry arrived; the driver parked up on the other side of the faculty building. For a few cents I had secured the labour of two of the night watchmen and we set about loading stacks of chairs. The driver sat picking his teeth with a matchstick and watching us from his cabin, his labour apparently not being part of the agreement. It was slow going. By chance two of my students passed by. One was a Ghanaian fellow, another from the provinces. They were staying on campus for the duration of the break. I called to them and within half an hour we were done. I realised I’d given no consideration to how the chairs were to be unloaded. I could scarcely remove the watchmen from their posts. Fortunately the two students offered their services and hopped into the back, while I climbed into the cab to direct the driver.

As we drove through the streets, a warm wind entered the cab. Darkness was falling over the houses. We passed through the streets of the city and began to climb up the winding road into the hills, the engine straining under the load. The two students sitting on the tailgate raised their voices against the wind. At a traffic light one of them leaned over and purchased several sticks of roast meat from a street seller and for the rest of the journey they sat sharing the meat between them and tossing the sticks over the side.

The house was in darkness. I had told Julius when I was coming. Feeling exasperated I instructed the driver and the two students to wait while I went to knock on the door.

My first knock went unanswered, as did my second. I tried one more time. Behind me I was aware of the driver sitting, worrying at the spaces between his teeth with a matchstick. He turned off the engine and dimmed the headlights. I heard him suck his teeth with impatience. The students had lapsed into silence, watching me idly.

‘Come on! Where are your people?’ called the driver.

It wasn’t something I would ordinarily do, but the weight of the man’s insistence was at my back. I reached out and turned the doorknob. The door was open. So somebody was home. Saffia’s aunt? Quite possibly she was at the back of the house and hadn’t heard the door. I moved hesitantly forward. There was no light, except that of the dying day. Too early still for a moon. I moved like a blind man. I didn’t want to give the aunt a stroke by coming up at her out of the darkness. I searched for a lamp or light switch. Another step and another, I moved forward into the house. From somewhere I thought I heard a sound, though the timing coincided so exactly with my own tread I felt unsure. I waited and listened until it came again.

Louder this time. A moan. I stood, covered by the darkness, and listened as it came, over and over. My heart began to beat, the blood rushed to my head. I felt I must leave, but I could not move. My body was rigid.

The sound of footsteps behind me. The truck driver, come to find out what was going on. As he moved towards me, I saw his face split into an obscene grin; his teeth glinted in the half-light and he uttered a filthy laugh. I turned and pushed him towards the door. He went, but with reluctance, chuckling as he allowed himself to be propelled outside. I closed the door behind us. The driver passed a remark to the students accompanied by a filthy gesture.

‘Shut your mouth!’ I would have hit him, I could scarcely hold on to my rage. He was quiet, but the insolent smile stayed on his face.

We unloaded the chairs and piled them up outside the door. When I felt sufficient time had passed, I told the driver to sound the horn. At the same time I rapped smartly on the door. The combined noise would have woken the dead. Sure enough, Julius appeared, barefoot, his shirt unbuttoned. Suddenly I found I could hardly look him in the eye. He disappeared to fetch a pair of shoes and helped us move the chairs into the house, where we stacked them on the verandah.

I told Julius I was unable to stay as I must accompany the students back to campus and make sure the truck driver returned to his place of employment. At the door I asked him to give my regards to Saffia.

‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘She’s resting.’

We returned as we had come. I kept my eyes on the road in front of me. One of the students banged on the top of the cab for us to stop; they had changed their minds about returning to campus and wanted to be dropped off in town. They bowed slightly as they thanked me and touched their fingers to their foreheads. I watched them go, the coins I had given them burning a hole in their back pockets. Ten minutes later outside the offices of the truck company, I dispatched the driver — I decided he could forgo his tip and derived some small measure of satisfaction from seeing the grin finally fall off his face. I went to look for a taxi or a bus to take me home.

A light, hot wind. As I walked the currents of air wrapped themselves around me, touching my face and filling my ears with sounds. I fancied I could hear the sea from a mile away, the sound of the waves thrashing the shore, clawing the sand as the water was dragged backwards. I walked on the road, there was no pavement. I could feel the soles of my shoes striking the tarmac, the hard ground sending shudders through my body. I walked fast, wanting to leave the events of the evening behind.

But I could not shake one sound from my head. Later that night, in the silence of my bedroom, it would torment and excite me, leave me sleepless, exhausted yet kept alert by the emotions that crackled through my being. The only relief I could find was physical, and afterwards I fell into a wretched sleep, which brought no respite. I woke early, the feelings of the previous evening as alive as ever.

The first time Adrian sees the young woman, she is standing with Babagaleh at the gate. But it is Babagaleh he is focused upon. Only when he turns to nod at the manservant out of good manners and a little awkwardness — for he is on his way to the asylum and has postponed his visit to Elias Cole — he casts a nod in her direction, too. The gesture, seen from the outside, must seem oddly brisk, a dry gesture in this warm liquid atmosphere, where people move slowly through the day like long-distance swimmers. She is slim, with wide-spaced eyes, and a wry tilt to her mouth. Her hair is pulled back and hidden under a scarf knotted at the nape of her neck. Later, waiting for a funeral procession to pass, Adrian watches the mourners move, as unhurriedly as midday shadows. His mind returns to the woman at the hospital gates. Babagaleh’s daughter or niece, perhaps? Another servant? She hadn’t responded to his nod, only looked at him, her eyes travelling the length of his body. The physical impact of that look had left a mark upon his body as painful as a graze. As he walked away, he had been suddenly and shockingly aware of something fleetingly and exquisitely possible. So much so, he almost turned back, to say something to Babagaleh — anything — to find a reason to look at her again.