Paul Theroux - The Lower River

The other disturbance was different but just as troubling. Meeting Aubrey for the first time, Hock had taken him to be lean but healthy, certainly healthier and better dressed than anyone else in Malabo. But in the uneven fire of the lantern light Aubrey’s skin was gray, his eyes bloodshot, his face gaunt. He was not lean but thin, and with his sleeves rolled up the skin of his arms was dry, crusted with whitened flakes of scurf. Aware that he was being scrutinized, he removed the sunglasses from his pocket and put them on, to cover his reddened eyes.

Or was this all an effect of the slippery light from the smoky orange lantern flame with an untrimmed wick? Hock was uncertain, and suspicious. He had lived too much on his nerves.

“You want to see me?”

Aubrey spoke in a low voice. He knew the meeting was secret. And his direct question was so strange to Hock, who was accustomed to the canny obliqueness of Manyenga and the others.

“Have a seat,” Hock said.

Aubrey motioned to Zizi, a two-part hand gesture that indicated “chair”—he pointed to the stool — and “bring it,” a beckoning with a stab of his skinny finger.

“No,” Hock said when Zizi moved toward the stool.

This surprised Aubrey, and the sudden expression revealed a slackness in his face to Hock, who saw how a person’s health is more obvious when making a physical effort.

“She’s not your servant.”

Smiling, Aubrey muttered in Sena to the young man who’d accompanied him. Just a few words, and the boy snatched the stool and moved it to a shadowy spot near Hock. As he sat, Aubrey glanced over at Zizi.

“She is proud,” he said in a tone of resentment, because Zizi had smiled when Hock had intervened.

“She’s got manners.”

“Because she works for the mzungu. ”

“I’ve got a name,” Hock said, but before Aubrey could speak again, he said, “You can call me nduna. ”

“Okay, chief.”

The boy was quick, in a manner he’d learned from foreigners, as Manyenga had. A sly alertness, not deftness but a slick evasion, and he had the words, too.

“She doesn’t work for me.”

“Whatever,” Aubrey said, tilting his head.

“I’m her guardian.”

Aubrey raised his head, facing Hock, but the sunglasses masked his expression. Was he looking at him in mockery?

“And I don’t want anyone to touch her.”

Aubrey tilted his head again, as though he was silently indicating “Whatever.”

“You understand?”

“I hear you.”

Hock felt himself growing angry. He had not realized until now how strongly he felt about Zizi’s virginity. He was certain she was a virgin — Gala herself had said so.

“I know she is still a girl,” Aubrey said. “She has not had her initiation. People call her kaloka, the little lock.”

Zizi frowned, hearing the word.

“Who’s got the key? Maybe you, bwana.”

“No one has the key,” Hock said with force.

“I hear you,” Aubrey said, suddenly contrite. That was his manner — a boast, a wisecrack, and then a retreat when he saw he’d gone too far. “It’s special, you know. Most of the girls her age are”—he shrugged—“unlocked. They even have kids. But not her. We say of such a girl that she has all her cattle.”

Zizi said something under her breath, hissing at Aubrey.

And after her sharp reaction, Aubrey gave a tight smile, as though he’d just been slapped. He said, “She’s being rude to me,” and laughed, because the young boy with him had also reacted. “A wet snake, that’s what she said.”

“Maybe that’s what you are.”

“In our language it means something else.” He became angry again and sat more stiffly, keeping his face out of the light. “Did you want something?”

Hock stared at Aubrey’s gray twitching hands before replying. Finally he said, “I’ve got a job for you.”

“Some kind of favor?”

“A job.”

“It’ll cost you,” Aubrey said without hesitating.

But Hock was glad. That’s what he wanted, not friendliness, not a favor, which always carried a penalty with it, but a paid-for job. Aubrey, in his crass knowing way, was the man he needed.

Hock said, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

The smile on Aubrey’s thin face was sly, snake-like, ingratiating. He jerked his head to indicate, “Go on.”

“You’re going back to Blantyre soon?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“If you want me to go.”

“What if I do?”

Aubrey agitated his fingers, but subtly, touching his fingertips, his city gesture for money.

“I’ll give you two payments — one now, the other when you come back.”

“Who says I’m coming back?”

“You’ll be coming back with my friend, to show him the way.”

Now Aubrey smiled, and nodded almost imperceptibly, a tremor of his head, seeing another opportunity.

“You’re going to take something to Blantyre for me.”

“Like what?”

“A message.”

“That’s easy,” Aubrey said, and as though he’d regretted saying it, he corrected himself. “I can do it. But you’ll have to pay me in dollars.”

“I’ll give you fifty.”

Aubrey shrugged. “A couple of hundred at least.”

Although Hock had pretended to be relaxed, defying him, Aubrey seemed to understand that Hock was desperate, seemed able to smell it, the hopelessness, the anxiety. And Hock knew that Aubrey could not have seen any other mzungu in a hut like this, sitting in ragged clothes, with the skinny girl and the dwarf and the mat of pounded flour in the courtyard.

Tapping his finger on the arm of his chair and leaning close, Hock said, “You get a hundred now and a hundred when you show up with my friend. That’s a lot of money.”

“I need bus fare. And my small brother”—he indicated the staring boy—“he is needing too.”

“You know the American consulate in Blantyre?”

“Everyone knows it,” Aubrey said. “There’s always a long queue of people wanting visas.”

“That’s the place. I want you to go tomorrow.”

Aubrey said, “What’s the hurry?”

“No hurry. If you want to do it, you go tomorrow. That way I know you’re serious.”

Nodding, Aubrey said, “Okay, bwana.” And then, “Where’s the message?”

“When you’re ready to go, I’ll give you the message, and the money.”

As they had talked, the moon had risen, a nibbled crescent in a sky of stars, with high thin veils of cloud. Shadows brimmed around them, and they sat in the small pool of light from the lantern. Normally, Zizi would set a row of lanterns along the veranda at this time, because it was too early to sleep, too hot to retreat inside. But tonight, as though understanding the secrecy of the meeting, she merely sat, her knees drawn up, her chin on her folded hands, her cloth wrap gathered for modesty.

Hock could see the whites of her eyes, the dull gleam of her shaved head in the moonlight. He was too moved to speak, because she was pure. The night sky gave him hope, the way it was dusted with streaks of gray and masses of stars, a great flawless capsule of light — hopeful because it represented a bigger world than the small flat shadow of Malabo, like a crater, in lamplight, the moths fluttering around the sooty chimney, bumping it and burning.

In the silence, Hock sensed that Aubrey was eager to help— greedy for money; impatient, too, for the trip to Blantyre. But out of pride, or to keep the upper hand, he didn’t show it.

“You were born here, eh?” Hock said.

“Yes, but…”

Hock could sense the young man recoil. He said, “But you don’t like it here.”

“Yes, I don’t like.”