Paul Theroux - My Secret History

Farther up the road, at the edge of town, there were African men lingering outside a shopfront. There was music at the door, a harmonious howling. Later I realized that this was my first taste of the Beatles: in a back street, in Zimba, a small town in Nyasaland, in Central Africa. It was not a shop. I went nearer. It was noisy, there were African girls at the windows, and young men in sunglasses watched me from the veranda. A sign above them was clumsily lettered BEAUTIFUL BAMBOO BAR.

Did someone wave to me? I thought I saw an African girl beckon, but she had vanished when I looked again. Anyway, I went in. It seemed dark inside. The few lights made the interior indistinct and had the effect of making the place seem darker and more shadowy. It was one room and it smelled dankly of piss and dirt, like a crawlspace. It was damp, smoke blew through one window, the mirror was streaked with green and red paint, and on the walls were shelves of beer — small plump bottles of Lion and Castle Lager.

The bartender wore a T-shirt and a tweed vest and ragged shorts and plastic sandals. He approached me nervously.

I said, “Moni. Muli bwanji, achimwene?”

Hello brother: it was the friendliest greeting.

He was too astonished to reply at once. Then he said, “You are speaking.”

“Yes, brother.”

“Oh, thank you, father,” he said.

“What is your name, brother?”

“My name is Wilson.”

They all had names like that — Wilson, Millson, Edison, Redison; and Henderson and Johnston.

“Thank you, Wilson.”

“And what is your name, father?”

“Please stop calling me father.”

“What is your name, sir?”

“Please, brother.”

“Yes, achimwene” —and he almost choked on the word—“what is your name?”

“My name is Andy.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Undie,” he said.

He told me that I was the first mzungu ever to go into the Beautiful Bamboo Bar. That cheered me up. Wasn’t that the point of my being in Africa?

Nearby, there were five or six girls sitting at wooden tables. The first thing I noticed about them was that they had no hair — or very little, no more than fuzz. But their shaven heads seemed to emphasize the shapeliness of their bodies. They wore dresses, but even among the shadows in the bar I could tell they were naked underneath. They were barefoot, but that seemed strangely appropriate to their having no hair on their heads.

I sat at a table with two of them and drank a beer, and I talked to them in their own language. They asked me where I had learned it.

“Would you believe Syracuse University?” And I added, “Upstate New York. United States.”

They laughed, because everywhere outside Nyasaland sounded magical. And yet I knew that Nyasaland was the only place that I wanted to be.

“American,” one girl said, trying the word out.

It seemed that they were working casually in the Bamboo. They had come from distant villages. They believed Zimba was the big city; they had attached themselves to this bar. They lived out back. The jukebox was playing Shimmy Shimmy Koko Bop , and an African girl was doing a flat-footed African dance.

Her name was Rosie. She said her favorite singer was Chubby Checker. She also liked Elvis, Del Shannon and The Orions.

“Who are the Orlons?”

“Wah-Watusi,” Rosie said.

“Oh, them.”

“And Spokes Mashiani,” she said. “South African.”

That was the kind of conversation — names of singers, names of songs, and how much can you drink, and have you ever seen a lion? And Shimmy shimmy koko bop .

Finally, Rosie said, “You’re the teacher up at Chamba?”

I said yes, and turned to the door. It had gone dark outside.

“The big house with the flowers in front,” she said.

Shimmy shimmy bop .

“It used to belong to Mr. Campbell. He went back to England.”

“They all went back to England,” Rosie said. The other girl said wistfully, “They just left us.” She sounded like an abandoned child.

I said, “But I’m not leaving.”

“That’s good,” Rosie said.

I said, “Come and visit me someday.”

“Yes,” she said, and put her hand over her face and giggled behind it.

I took a breath and said, “What about now, sister?”

She made a sound, her tongue against her teeth, that was stronger than yes.

We left, walking side by side. I pushed my bike because I could not carry her on my crossbar uphill. She said that no one minded her leaving: the Bamboo was not very busy.

“No money for European beer — just for African beer.” She meant the porridgey stuff the market women sold in old oil cans.

In the pitch-black forest I took her hand. It was hard and heavy, tough fingers and a palm the texture of an old boot. But I hung on to it.

At home I sat her down and poured her a glass of gin. She sipped it, making faces. She was barefoot, and I could see that her feet were rough and cracked like her hands. Her green dress was both fancy and ragged, and the strip of lace at her collar was torn.

I made a fire in the fireplace, burning eucalyptus logs, and we sat in front of it on the sofa Mr. Campbell had left. But Rosie was restless. She sniffed around the room.

“Books,” she said.

She looked at the pictures — of Scotland, from calendars. Of cats, of dogs. I asked if she liked them. She said no. She kept prowling.

“Table.” She smoothed it with her hand. “Flowers. Looking glass. Curtains. Carpet. Knife and fork. Tomato sauce. Mustard.”

Next to the cluster of sticky bottles on the table — they too were Campbell’s — we had dinner, served by Captain. Captain was my cook: he also had been left by Campbell. He was too nervous to disguise his leering, and he spoke to Rosie in a language I did not know, perhaps Yao or Tonga. I caught the word “American.”

She ate hungrily and with a lot of noise, wetting her fingers on the food and then wiping her lips with the back of her hand. I learned then that the frantic manners of the poor are their way of not wasting a crumb. Eating made her perspire, too, and sitting across from her at the table I was aroused and wanted to make love to her.

After the kitchen was silent — Captain gone — I took her leathery hand and, saying nothing, led her into the bedroom. She stepped out of her dress and folded it neatly on a chair. Then she sat on the bed and tipped onto her back and lifted her legs. I knelt before her and started, and a moment later she shrieked, “Mwamuna wanga!” (“My man!”). As soon as I had finished she wanted me again. We made love three times in the same sort of sandwichlike way. It had been over a month of abstinence for me. She fell asleep and snored all night. In the morning I took her back to town — downhill, on the crossbar of my bike.

“Do you want money?”

She just laughed.

“I want a beer,” she said.

It was nine o’clock in the morning, but the Beautiful Bamboo was open. I bought a Castle Lager for Rosie from the sleepy-eyed bartender and a glass of sugary tea for myself. We sat in the empty bar, saying nothing, listening to the bell at the Catholic mission being rung. It sounded stern, like a school bell.

That was Sunday. I spent the rest of the day writing letters, and Rosie appeared in some of these letters. Letters were all I had. I lived for them — writing them, receiving them. Nyasaland was a country with no writing. And I was always touched by the wornout way the envelopes looked — so battered and resolute, having reached me from so far.

I kept writing until the sun set behind Chamba Hill. I was happy. I often found memory sexier than actual experience, and anticipating a woman was always an erotic pleasure. All day I had been preparing myself for my return to the Beautiful Bamboo. I went after dinner, my bicycle lamp shaking in the dark on the bad road.