Paul Theroux - My Secret History

I was driving the Fiat now. The little car strained on the rising roads — but the road was better than I had expected. Contrary to what Kofi had said, as soon as we left Accra the road had improved. We entered a higher and more wooded region. But the foliage was messy and cluttered, a disorderly forest of broken and hanging trees and dense bamboo. The birds were frenzied, and every hundred yards or so there was a dead dog in the road, some of them plump and bleeding, but most of them old and as stiff as mats. The roadside huts matched the trees and had similarly shaggy roofs. What houses I could see — the more solid buildings — were stained and cracked.

I compared what I saw here with what I knew in Uganda and Malawi. My Africans seemed more sensible and quieter, and the woods and forests more orderly, the roads in better repair. I could put that in the article.

I was so intent on thinking of the article and driving the car that I did not speak for a long time, and then I started talking, and as I did — asking questions and answering them myself — I realized that Francesca had not said a word for half an hour. Her face was averted.

“Are you sulking?”

“No,” she said. “But I wish I hadn’t taken you to see Kofi.”

“Why? Because he ignored you?”

“He didn’t ignore me,” she said quickly. “But did you see how he treated his wife?” She mimicked someone spitting. “They’re all like that.”

I drove on. Ramshackle forest. Goats. Men on bikes. Mammy wagons.

She said, “I didn’t realize until I saw you two together how much I disliked him.”

“And how much you like me?” I said, intending to tease her.

“I do like you, Andre. You know that. Sometimes I think the feeling is stronger than liking you.” She frowned and turned away.

I put my hand on her knee. “You know I love you.”

“Don’t joke about it,” she said. “It’s bad for me to like you so much.” She faced me and said crossly, “I want more than this!”

“So do I.” I meant it, and I said it with such force that she turned to me again and touched my face tenderly and let me kiss her hand. She snuggled closer and let my fingers drift between her thighs.

“This is the bush.”

“I like the bush,” I said.

The shaggy roadside woods were a preparation for shaggy Kumasi. It was a green town with sloping streets and small shops and municipal buildings plastered with red dust. Its trees were shapeless, like gigantic weeds on long stalks, though there were prettier ones, like tall feathers. We arrived as it was growing dark, and found the Royal Hotel where we registered as man and wife. There was no beer available at the hotel, so we drank the bottles that Kofi had given us.

The hotel smelled of dampness and dead insects. The wood squares of the parquet floors had worked loose. We ate mutton and boiled vegetables in the empty dining room.

The waiter said in a reproachful way, “It is New Year’s Eve. The people are all at the parties in the bars and nightclubs.”

We heard the shouts and the music from down the street.

“What shall we do?”

Francesca said, “Come upstairs and I’ll show you.”

I had never known her so amorous. We did not leave the bedroom until after midnight. Drunken men were staggering and singing in the street. We went back to the room and made love again, and then slept until noon.

That day we drove to the palace. I said, “It doesn’t look like a palace.” We went to the museum. It was shut. So was the market. Without people, the streets and shops looked dirty and ugly.

In bed that night Francesca said, “I thought Africa would be darker. More dangerous and mysterious. Sometimes I want to leave — just go away before I start to hate them.”

She held me tightly. I wondered what it would be like to travel with her. When she was amorous she was like a child. I liked that — having a lover, a daughter, a wife: one woman. And I liked the thought that she was strong, that I could depend on her.

“Happy New Year,” I said. That I was with her on this day — surely that was significant? “We’ll have to get used to saying nineteen sixty-eight.”

Francesca hugged me and said, “I’m happy, Andre.”

It was just dawn the next morning when I sat up, thinking I wanted to take a piss. I felt a familiar itch — a thread of irritation — inside my penis. I squeezed it, holding it like a toothpaste tube, and a gob of thick yellowish fluid collected on its tip. I rolled over and cursed.

Francesca threw her arm around me.

“Don’t,” I said, and shrugged. “I have some kind of infection.”

We found a Ghanaian doctor in Kumasi. He sat me down and put on plastic gloves and examined me. He asked me some simple questions.

“It is gonorrhea,” he said. “Don’t worry”—he was writing a prescription—“this will clear it up. Are you married?”

“No,” I said.

Francesca had waited in the car. I got in and said, “He says I’ve got VD.”

She crossed her legs, but said nothing.

“I know where I got it,” I said, trying to control my voice. “What I want to know is where did you get it?”

She began to cry. And then I knew, and I saw him clearly, his buck teeth, his bulging eyes. I remembered all his promises, and how she had said nothing.

I put the car into gear — it was such a little car. We tottered towards the coast.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Nowhere,” I said.

“You must drink,” the African man next to me said. We were on the flight from Accra to Lagos. Bottles of beer were being handed out to the passengers. “You must have one or two.”

The doctor in Kumasi had told me not to — alcohol reduced the effectiveness of the penicillin.

“I can’t,” I said. I still itched.

“Can’t drink?” He grinned at me in contempt, showing all his front teeth.

“I’m an alcoholic,” I said. “If I have one drink I’ll want to have another. And then I’ll get drunk and totally screwed up.”

“Yes! Yes!” he said eagerly, laughing hard, and pushing a bottle at me. “Go on!”

“And then I’ll vomit,” I said.

He was wearing a new suit. His hand went to his lapels, which he smoothed, as he laughed again, but in a discouraged way. “I understand,” he said.

He was an economist. Feeling I had nothing to write about Ghana, I pressed him for his views on Nigeria — he was a lecturer at the University of Ibadan. He was very precise in his figures, and mocking in his manner. When he told me how Nigeria financed its industrial projects he spoke in a voice that was both gloating and complaining.

“You want to know the terms of reference of this little exercise?” he said. He drank and wiped his mouth. “The company pays over the odds in order to establish itself. The minister concerned takes a twenty-percent cut — and he sends this money to London or New York. The company has an exclusive license, so it pushes its prices up. When the minister sees the profits he demands his share. That’s how it goes on. The companies and the politicians are conspiring against the people.” He smiled at this. “Neocolonialism is not just an empty term. It has an actual meaning. No matter how much money this country makes it will always be poor. Nothing will change. In financial terms we were better off under the British.”

“But in political terms Nigeria is freer, isn’t it?”

He laughed at this. “We have had two military coups!”

“I thought Nigeria was more unified now.”

“There is going to be a war here,” he said, dropping his voice. “In the east — Ibo land. Don’t go there. It’s not political, and it’s not about money. The Ibos are fighting for the most important thing — their lives.”