John Goldbach - It Is an Honest Ghost

‘Stanley,’ said Boris, ‘great to see you, man!’ and they hugged.

‘You’re looking good,’ I said, and we hugged, too.

‘John, Boris, I’m so happy to see you both. I’ve spent the afternoon writing a piece for deadline and I could really use a refreshment. Perhaps a small beer or a vodka.’

‘I had a little too much vodka last night,’ I said.

‘Oh, yes, what were you doing? You arrived last night?’

‘Yes, we got in last night and got a little lit up with Boris’s father-in-law.’

‘Ha, yes,’ said Stanley, ‘Martin served some vodka — he’s a Russophile like me.’

‘Yes, but he speaks Russian and lived in Russia, unlike you,’ said Boris. ‘After the long flights it probably wasn’t the best idea to drink vodka.’

‘Well, maybe you should have another vodka, but not too many tonight.’

‘I’ll pass,’ I said. ‘For now at least.’

‘Me too,’ said Boris, ‘but please go ahead … ’

‘I think I will,’ said Stanley.

Stanley, Boris, Mark and his friend Jason, and Stanley’s sister, Sharon, and I sat at a table on the terrace. It was dark out now and loud with what I thought to be cicadas, though I wasn’t sure if there were cicadas in Nairobi.

The party had thinned out by at least half, but there were still plenty of people hanging out. Although I’d decided to abstain from alcohol earlier, I was now drinking a Pilsner. Everyone else at the table had been drinking for a while, save Boris, who, like me, had only ordered a beer now that we were seated at a table, after being at the party for hours.

Jason, a vaguely familiar-looking young man, about twenty-seven years old, in well-worn shorts and a disintegrating greyish T-shirt, was telling us about going to see Illinois State Senator Barack Obama this past summer in Nairobi. He was travelling the country with his family, Jason told us. ‘His father was Luo, from Nyangoma-Kogelo, near Lake Victoria … So western Kenya, not far from Kisumu,’ he said.

‘Sharon and I saw him speak, too,’ said Stanley. ‘It was very moving.’

‘He is a rock star here,’ said Sharon.

‘Yeah, everyone was going nuts,’ said Jason. ‘The Obamas were mobbed. It was like Gandhi was visiting.’

‘It really was,’ said Stanley, ‘it really was.’

‘He took an HIV test to raise awareness,’ said Jason.

‘Well, there’s a good chance he’ll run for U.S. presidency and win,’ said Boris.

‘Let’s hope so,’ said Mark.

‘If he ran in Kenya he’d win,’ said Sharon.

‘I got a signed copy of his book,’ said Jason, digging into his crammed knapsack.

‘I’ve been meaning to read that,’ I said.

He produced a trade paperback copy of Senator Obama’s Dreams from My Father . Jason passed it to me.

Jason — follow your dreams , he’d written, Barack Obama , he’d signed.

I looked up and saw Kenneth Karega get up from the table beside ours, where he’d been sitting, chatting with Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The two hugged goodbye and Kenneth produced a pack of Marlboro Reds from his shorts pockets and a lighter and put a cigarette in his mouth. He pulled a wicker-bottomed chair up to our table. ‘How’s it going, guys?’ he said, lit his cigarette, and fell into his chair. The wicker set to cracking beneath him as he blew out some smoke.

Somehow, eventually, we got on to the topic of open- and closed-casket funerals. Kenneth said, ‘Viewing a dead body makes some sense to me, if you want. But putting makeup on a dead body cancels out the whole purpose of looking at a dead body in the first place — i.e., to see it as only an earthly vessel, now uninhabited by a soul, not the person you knew and loved. But to cover the face in makeup — why, so it’s lifelike? I find that grotesque. The ghost is gone.’

We laughed and conceded that that made some sense.

‘The festival’s shaping up to look great,’ I said. ‘Are you planning to hold it every year?’

‘That’s the idea, but we might skip next year because of the elections.’

‘Do you expect problems?’ said Mark.

‘Not sure,’ he said. ‘I hope not but you never know.’

‘Why would there be problems?’ I said.

‘It’s going to be Mwai Kibaki, the incumbent president, who’s Kikuyu, the country’s largest tribe,’ said Kenneth, ‘against Raila Odinga, the non-incumbent, who’s Luo, the country’s second largest tribe.’

‘Who do you think will win?’

‘Odinga’s got a real shot. But that’s a problem for Kibaki. Odinga’s the more democratic of the two, to put it mildly,’ he said.

Kenneth’s cellphone rang and he stood up from the table to take the call. He paced a section of the patio while smoking and talking.

Boris said, ‘One day Kenneth will be the president of Kenya.’

‘I’d vote for Kenneth,’ said Sharon.

‘Hear, hear!’ said Stanley, laughing, holding up a bottle of Pilsner, and we all clinked drinks.

I wished everyone goodnight, ordered a bottle of water from the bar and headed for my room. Boris left when I did, too, because we were going to the nature reserve with Sveta and the kids in the a.m.

When I got back to the room I brushed my teeth and washed my tired face. I went for my toiletry kit looking for dental floss. I unzipped my kit and it smelled like the inside of a hockey bag, though it turned out to be valerian pills I’d brought as sleep aids; the cap had come off the bottle and the pills were all over the bottom of the kit. I collected them and put them back in the bottle and swallowed back two with some bottled water before getting into bed. I turned on the TV set in the top left-hand corner of my room and At War with the Army , with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, was on.

Dean sang, ‘It's easier to say I love you than tonda wanda hoy comma kalai . / And wouldn't you rather say I love you than tonda wanda hoy comma kalai .’

I stretched out on top of the sheets and propped myself up against the wall with a pillow to watch the film.

Later, Jerry Lewis sings the same song as Dean Martin, but in a dress, wearing a blond wig, to a drunken sergeant who’s enamoured with Lewis. That’s when I fell asleep for an hour or so.

My dreams were vivid and violent. I tossed and turned and awoke covered in sweat. I felt embarrassed over how much I’d sweat in my sleep, even though no one was around to witness it. I drank some water from the bottle on the bedside table. I shut off the TV.

I knew I wouldn’t be falling back asleep any time soon, so I took my laptop out of my knapsack and decided to try and work for a while. I opened a new Word doc and typed out my notes from the party, elaborating on a few of them. I didn’t have much of an idea of what I’d write for the article yet. Afterward, I worked on another story, a piece of fiction I was writing, for an hour or so, making little progress, though it occupied me for a while. Then I shut the laptop and picked up a book.

I decided to take one more valerian pill and force myself to sleep at least another hour. First, I jerked off; then, I fell asleep.

Sleep only lasted so long, though I remained motionless in bed for as long as possible. Eventually, restlessness got the best of me and I hit the shower. The shower was hot and the washroom steamed up, and there was no real change in the condition of my arm: that is, it was still discoloured and sore.

I shut off the shower and dried myself. I wiped the steam from the mirror. There was something underneath my eye. I examined myself closely. A blood vessel had burst under my right eye, by the looks of it. Under the eye it was now bruised black and looked like the black grease football players and baseball players use to cut down on the glare from the sunlight. I rubbed at it but it wouldn’t come off. It wasn’t eye black; it was definitely internal.