Aminatta Forna - The Memory of Love

That is all he knows. Also that she does not wear a watch, for all watches stop on her, as a consequence of which she is frequently either late or early. He would like to know everything about her, but she seems to have begun their friendship at an arbitrary point, dispensing with introductions and preamble. This makes him feel welcome. The place makes him feel welcome. The regulars sit at their tables, sip beer, eat the same plates of rice as Adrian and Mamakay. Nobody stares at him when he is with her. So he behaves as she does and asks no questions. He waits for the layers of her to be uncovered, by whatever wind their conversation is carried upon.

‘There’s a guy going around with a story about his daughter being bitten by a snake. He says the little girl is in hospital and he needs fifty thousand for the antidote serum or she’s going to die.’

A man with an almost identical story had approached Adrian on the beach two days before when Adrian had stopped for a beer. The child had been hit by a car, the man said. Surgeons were standing by to operate but he had no money to buy drugs. Adrian had dug in his pocket for half the amount and the American merchant sailor, newly arrived the week before with whom Adrian had shared a few words of conversation, had given the rest. Afterwards the sailor had shaken his head as they watched the man walk away. Shit!

‘Mary says she’d had three customers who have given him money in the last week.’

In the corner Mary holds up four fingers as she continues to count. Adrian is silent.

‘I think it’s ingenious,’ says Mamakay. ‘He deserves the money.’

Mary shakes her head. ‘Give money to that thief? Better give it to me first.’

‘He’s not a thief. He’s a con man and a good one. All he’s doing is trying to survive.’

‘We’re all trying to survive,’ answers Mary, licking her finger and counting off notes. ‘Anyway, I heard somebody called the police on that one.’ Wan , the way she says it.

‘I was near the peninsula bridge. I saw a thief caught by a crowd,’ says Mamakay. ‘His shirt was torn. I think they’d already roughed him up a bit. He was trying to get away, walking. Walking, not running. He knew, you see, that if he started to run it would set them off. They’d go after him like animals. They’d kill him. He crossed the street in front of the taxi I was in. Someone shoved him in the back. It was beginning. The expression in his eyes. He knew he was probably going to die.’

‘What happened?’ asks Adrian.

‘A UN peacekeeper was near by. Though I wouldn’t have liked to be in his position. He was armed, at least. Afterwards nobody in the taxi had any sympathy with the thief. They wouldn’t have cared if he’d been lynched.’

‘Stealing from your own people,’ tuts Mary, whose ability to count money at speed and still follow the conversation impresses Adrian. Her fingers flick through the notes faster than the eye.

‘Don’t you think it’s strange?’ continues Mamakay. ‘The government stole from their own people for decades. They’re still at it. Did people say anything? Did they protest? No. Their children dressed in rags and went hungry. Nobody stood up to those men. And yet a poor man would be lynched for stealing tomatoes.’

‘So it goes,’ says Mary.

‘I’m afraid it does,’ says Adrian. Displaced anger, one of the most brutal paradoxes of exploited people. The tomato thief paid the price for the Minister’s Swiss bank accounts.

‘What were you told had happened here? Before you came, that is?’ asks Mamakay turning to him. ‘Ethnic violence? Tribal divisions? Blacks killing each other, senseless violence! Most of the people who write those things never leave their hotel rooms, they’re too afraid. And wouldn’t know the difference between a Mendeman and a Fulaman. But still they write the same story over and over. It’s easier that way. And who is there to contradict them?’

‘What would you say it was?’ asks Adrian carefully.

‘It was rage . It wasn’t a war, what happened here, in the end. It was fury. Having nothing left to lose.’ She leans back and looks around the room. ‘Can we have some coffee, please, Mary?’

Adrian remembers Ileana’s words to him the day they first met. Nothing to lose.

When the time comes to pay the bill, Adrian pulls out his wallet, but Mamakay waves the money away. ‘Mary owes me.’

He looks at Mamakay, leaning back in her chair, her gaze following Mary as she does the rounds of customers. Mamakay’s wide-apart eyes, her softly shaped nose, her hair braided into a knot at the crown, her neck exposed down to the neckline of the cream T-shirt she is wearing. Any moment now she will look round at him and their gaze will meet. And she will know for certain what he is thinking. He must not let that happen. He searches for something to fill the silence, but no words come to him. His brain is too crowded with emotion. At that moment she looks round, straight into his eyes. Her lips are parted, about to speak. But she says nothing. There is the moment of recognition, realisation behind the light reflected in her eyes. Adrian drops his gaze.

They part on the street corner, and he watches her go. She walks swiftly, picking her way along the uneven pavement. He will see her the next morning, maybe, when he delivers water. This small hope is enough to carry him through the afternoon.

Adrian spends more and more time at the mental hospital, helping Ileana restore lost records, those burned or otherwise destroyed during the invasion. In this he is helped by Salia, who keeps the names and history of every patient who has passed through the hospital logged in his memory. Adrian interviews patients one after another. Hours spent listening to delusions, fears, anxieties, dysfunction and dreams, confirming a diagnosis where possible, classifying them accordingly. In this new role Attila seems more inclined to him, less resentful of his presence. They have even conversed once or twice. Adrian finds pleasure in having a structure to his day, pleasure in the respect in the eyes of the attendants, pleasure in Salia’s acceptance of his suggestions. So, and for the moment, Adrian is content to occupy himself with this work. Though on his way to and from the hospital he scans the crowds like reels of silent film: people crossing the road, gathered around stalls, waiting for transport, the beggars and madmen, he scans them all for Agnes. He can’t help it. He never finds her, never catches a glimpse of the yellow-and-black lappa , or the T-shirt with the dolphin, her slender bowed form.

Returning home the day of his lunch with Mamakay, Adrian passes Kai standing by the roundabout in the centre of the town. He sounds his horn, waves and pulls over. Kai climbs in.

‘Thanks.’

‘Lucky I saw you,’ says Adrian. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, this and that.’ Kai looks away, out of the window. Adrian has learned to recognise these moments, wonders if Kai has any notion at all of how unsettling his abruptness can be. Still, Adrian’s mood is good and cannot be easily shaken. He looks across at his friend. Kai’s face is drawn, as if all the features had been dragged down. He is resting his head on the windowpane, his forehead bumping against the glass, letting the sights outside slide over his eyes. Adrian has not seen him in days.

‘Want to stop off for a beer?’

‘Sure. Why not?’

Through Mamakay the landscape of the city has altered for Adrian. For the first time since he arrived, the city bears a past, exists in another dimension other than the present. Places he passes, the Mary Rose, the water pump, already hold memories. Growing in confidence in the city and his place in it, Adrian heads out of town towards the Ocean Club. And because the Ocean Club, like so much else, makes him think of Mamakay and he wants nothing more than to talk about her, he says, ‘I tried a new place for lunch today — the Mary Rose. It’s good.’