Paul Theroux - My Secret History

“Why didn’t they tell me before? That people die of it?” Femi said.

The mother had distracted me from what Femi had been saying, and so I asked a simple question and then regretted it as soon as Femi answered.

“Because they can’t stop the bleeding,” Femi said. “And I lost so much blood I was fainting all the time. I took iron tablets. I am still anemic.”

“God, those planes are noisy,” I said, as another roared past, making the flimsy walls of the hut vibrate.

“And my family was ashamed of me,” Femi was saying.

“But that’s over now. You can finish your studies.”

Femi looked away. She wasn’t listening to me. She said, “When I left this place to be with you in Uganda they were so happy. It was such an adventure. They were proud of me. George was boasting about me.” She frowned and said, “And me, I was happy as well.”

I said quickly, “It wasn’t my fault.”

“And when I came back so soon they were just sulking like hell.” She touched her turban, steadying it with a long red fingernail and said, “I did not think I would come back. It is horrible to go back when you don’t want to.”

“I didn’t want it, Femi.”

“It was very hard,” she said. “And then it was worse. I mean, then I had to go to the village.”

“Which village?”

“Where they do these things. Where they cut you. Where the old woman was living. She was big and fat. She cut me. That is why I was bleeding.”

As she said bleeding another plane went over. It became a drone and a dog barked crazily, choking on its barks. The air in Femi’s hut smelled of dampness and heat and of the ditchwater with the toothpaste and soap scum that stood bubbling beside the hut.

“You didn’t have to go to the village,” I said.

“But I wanted to finish my studies.”

“Did you start in September?”

She half closed her eyes. It meant no. “I was still bleeding then.”

I hated this conversation. It was like visiting — not a hospital but a leprosarium or a village of sick people. There was a pathetic stink of neglect in the air.

But what else could she say? This incident was all that linked us now. She had visited me in Uganda, and after a month with me she said she was pregnant — two months pregnant, the doctor said. At first I had said, That’s impossible . But I was wrong. She had another life, and so she had returned to it, and I had tried to forget about her.

I had visited her out of friendship, but I did not want to hear this.

“And the boy didn’t give me enough money, so my father paid for it.”

“I would have given you the money.”

“Why should you? It was not your problem.”

That was true.

“It was the other boy.”

She was twenty-one, but we were all boys to her. It had made me feel like a boy but it had turned me into a man — and it had turned her into a woman. Yet she wasn’t bitter. Her manner was still dismissive and haughty.

“The other boy was getting married. He was from Onitsha, an Ibo. And these days he is fearing about the fighting. There is trouble in the eastern region. It is all shit. I want to go away. Are you angry?”

I shook my head: no.

“White people look angry much of the time,” she said.

“I’m not angry, honey.”

“But I made you sad,” she said. As she changed position on the chair her gown shifted and the purple and gold tumbled over her knees. “I was sad. And I was sick, too.”

There were dogs and children bawling outside, as though competing or quarreling, the mutts and the kids, and with this racket was a jangling of tin plates.

“Maybe you can come to Uganda sometime for a visit,” I said.

She smiled, but it was a sad smile, and she made a noise that sounded like no.

“I think you will be happy in the future time,” she said. Her face twisted like a little girl’s, frowning, and she looked funny and glum, not wanting to be pitied.

When she made that face I was reminded of how I had loved her, how she had seemed solid and patient and tender; and how I had hated to see her go. The worst of it was that she had blamed herself for it all, and that she had been brokenhearted, facing her family.

“You’ll be happy, too,” I said.

“I never will be,” she said. “But I can try.”

Her mother put her head through the ragged curtains and chattered at us, urging us to drink the orange soda.

“She thinks I am stupid. When you go she will criticize me.”

“Then I won’t go,” I said.

“You must go,” she said flatly. “I don’t care about this old woman, my mother. She wants me to be someone’s wife and have children and get beaten by my husband.”

And then I began to ache, and to wish that I could take her back with me. But it was too late. We had had our chance and had made a mess of it.

“They all say, ‘Where is your beautiful Nubian?’ ”

“Those stupid people,” Femi said, and she laughed. She was pleased. “What is a Nubian?”

“It is a tall black woman with a lovely long neck, from the Sudan.”

“The bush!” she said, and made a dismissive click with her bright teeth.

“Have you got a girl now?”

“No,” I said. “No one.”

“You can find one,” she said. “If you have trouble I will find one for you.” And she laughed again at the absurdity of it. “A nice village girl who will cook your meals and be very quiet. One that is a bit primitive and obedient.”

“Like you?”

“Oh, no!” And she laughed again. “I am a modern girl. I like the fast life — music and dancing. I like reading books, too. I listen to the wireless. I use lipstick.”

“I want one like you.”

“That is nice,” she said, nodding her head and then elevating it in pride, becoming a Nubian. “That is a nice thing to say.” She smiled at me. “I am glad you said that, because when you leave I am going to be sad again.”

“Don’t you have a friend?”

She closed her eyes briefly: no. “That stupid boy got married in Enugu, and he is afraid to come here because there is going to be a war.” She sighed and said, “I would like to go away in a plane”—one had just gone overhead—“but I think I never will. I can forget the other thing, because it is in the past. But I get afraid when I don’t know what is coming.”

I was glad when her mother returned and pressed me to eat, because the rest was ritual. I ate — steamed yams and stew, while the mother and daughter served me, saying nothing. They brought me a basin of water; I washed my hands; I said I had to go — I had an appointment at the Ministry of Information, for my article, that didn’t include any of this.

Femi walked with me to the road. Dressed in her robes, she seemed especially tall and stately, with her fine turban and the bangles on her wrists, and her haughty eyes. The wrecked huts were all around us, and the mangy dogs and dirty children, and the tin shacks and the planes overhead screeching so loudly that when at last we kissed she exclaimed and her words were lost. I could not hear her, but she was laughing, and I wished I knew why.

At dusk in Kampala, in the district of Wandegeya where I lived, all the bats — thousands of the mouselike things — flew squealing from the tall trees by the swamp and darkened the sky. That was how night fell every day in bat valley.

From my taxi I saw them rising like shreds of soot, little fluttering smuts. I had just arrived back from Lagos, after that long Christmas trip. I looked up and saw the bats, and stared at them. The sight was not threatening. It was something that occurred every day in Wandegeya. So I knew where I was. It wasn’t horrible — I was home.