Caryl Phillips - The Nature of Blood

After her arrival, she had undergone two years of intensive language study, and then she had trained as a nurse. However, at present she was not working. She would say nothing more. He suggested that he might be able to help her, for he was a retired doctor, but she continued to stare straight ahead as though he had not spoken. Her eyes were the deepest black which made the white about them appear ivory. Her hair was also black, and short and tightly curled. It appeared to have been sheared, rather than cut, close to the natural shape of her head. He began to feel self-conscious, aware for the first time that his feet may not be moving in time with the music. And then there was the closeness of her body, and the warm strange smell of her person. Suddenly he wanted to stop this dancing, and to sit down and talk to the woman. This was a ridiculous charade. He was making a fool of himself with a woman at least fifty years his junior, whose behaviour seemed designed to remind him of the frailties of old age. None of the other women had ever made him feel this way. In the two years that he had been coming to the club, it was precisely the awful reality of these frailties that the young women seemed temporarily to erase from his mind.

(On the plane there were no seats. Just mattresses on the floor where we could squat, but most remained standing. We were frightened. Together with my parents and my sister and my brother, I prayed. And then a man died while we were in the sky. My sister and I wondered, in this new land, would our babies be born white? We, the people of the House of Israel, we were going home. No more wandering. No longer landless. No more tilling of soil that did not belong to us. What is your name? Malka. Malka, do not be shy. You are going home. And when we arrived, and stepped down off the plane, we all kissed the ground. We thanked God for returning us to Zion.)

At the end of the dance, it was a polite convention for the man to retreat and allow another to stake his claim. However, he knew that nobody would challenge his right to dominate this woman's time. He asked her if she would share a drink with him at the bar. Generally, the woman was expected to feign surprise and then agree. Drinks cost money, and so this arrangement kept the management happy. But when he asked this woman, there was no fake surprise. She simply shrugged her shoulders and led the way from the dance floor to the small bar, where she quickly found a seat on a tall stool and he, somewhat less quickly, joined her. For a moment he stared at her, and then eventually she smiled. It occurred to him that she might be laughing at his expense, and he swallowed deeply.

They each drank a glass of white wine, but there was little attempt at conversation. He asked her to dance again, and so she emptied her glass and slid from the stool. As they turned among the other dancers, he whispered that he would prefer it if they could stop at the end of this dance and perhaps talk properly. Beyond the knowledge that she was presently an unemployed nurse, all he had managed to glean was that she was nearly thirty, and that she lived with her parents and younger sister at the edge of the city in one of the developments into which her people had been placed. She refused to be any more specific with regard to her domestic arrangements. She also volunteered that this was her third, and perhaps final, time at the club. The manager had informed her that, if nobody danced with her this time, then she would not be allowed back. As she told him this, she again shrugged her shoulders, indicating that it mattered little to her, one way or the other.

When the music stopped, he followed her back to the bar. A new song began to play, one of his favourites, but he was glad that he would no longer have to dance. He wondered if she realized just how old he was. Most of the young women guessed him to be about sixty-five, which meant they really thought him to be seventy-five. He was proud of his condition, but whenever he thought of this he chuckled, for what else would one expect of a doctor? Until the heart attack, he had been blessed with perfect health. However, he knew better than most that it was impossible to insure against the ravages of old age. And then he remembered his manners.

'Another drink?'

Suddenly he was afraid that he might lose her.

'Or perhaps I could buy you dinner this evening?'

She nodded, and then climbed from the stool. For a moment he imagined that she wanted to dance to his favourite tune, but the somewhat impatient manner in which she was staring at him left him in no doubt that she was now ready to leave.

As they left the club, he noticed that there were only a few minutes of daylight remaining. The sky was darkening, but thin light still filtered through the clouds. He panicked and wondered where he could take her. Although she did not look like a prostitute, one could never underestimate people's imaginations.

'Do you have any particular place in mind?'

It was a foolish question, for it was clear that this woman had little understanding of society. He imagined that her visits to the club provided her with an escape from the claustrophobia of her family, and the stubborn manner in which they probably clung to their traditions.

'Why don't we go to a hotel?'

He turned to face her. He assumed that she must be making a reference of some kind to a hotel as a place to eat, but before he could disguise the embarrassing transparency of his own bewilderment she spoke again.

'Or perhaps your place is suitable. I am sorry, but I have no money.'

He turned from her. It was impossible to deny that it had not occurred to him that at some point he might meet a young woman on the dance floor who might offer him uncomplicated pleasure. Over the years there had, of course, been entanglements, including one protracted relationship with a musician, a cellist from Austria, whose daughter he had treated for bronchitis. Now, as he looked back almost thirty years, he had come to recognize this as probably the love of his life. Not including, of course, his wife. Since Renate, the cellist, there had been occasional and generally unsatisfactory encounters which had at least avoided the unpleasantness that he imagined an exchange of money would introduce into the whole business. However, these casual encounters were no longer validated by the thrill of pursuit and conquest, nor were they legitimized by passion. It seemed that the ladies, often grateful patients or freshly grieving widows, were, like himself, acting out some physical pantomime in which memory played an increasingly large role, and in which pity, from one to the other, seemed to be the dominant emotion. How could he tell this strange woman that he did not want a prostitute? He wanted a companion, someone to talk to, a friend even. But he had no desire to offend the woman.

He looked at the hotels that lined the seafront — tall, concrete structures without any character, to which businessmen or package tourists confined themselves. He could not take her back to his apartment, for even if he was lucky enough not to meet anybody on the bus journey, he failed to see how he might get her into his apartment without someone noticing. To his neighbours, he was a respectable retired bachelor doctor, and the ladies who visited him either did so in company, or appeared to be decent enough not to warrant any comment.

'Did you have any particular hotel in mind?'

The woman shook her head. He searched her face for any sign of fear, but he could detect none. And then he pointed to the nearest hotel, one that lay less than fifty yards from where they were standing.

'Perhaps this one here?'

She said nothing and again the man re-examined his own motives, for he doubted that he would be able to fulfil whatever expectations this woman might have. He spoke quietly.