Petina Gappah - An Elegy for Easterly

I found myself compelled to do what a man has to do when he finds himself in great need without a partner. But I was afraid of my host finding stains on his bedding. Besides, there was the unsavoury state of the bedding; I was pretty sure something would be fertilised. So I took out one of the condoms that I had hoped to use with Mabel, opened it and sheathed myself.

I no longer remember why I did this, but I also took off my clothes. I knelt on the bed and remembered the advice that my friend Robson had once given me; it is sometimes good, he had said, to use the left hand and rest the right — it will feel like you are cheating on yourself.

Indeed it did. I was about to do a hau madoda, hau madoda of my own when I heard the sound of footsteps leading to my room and the sound of my door opening. I dived under the blanket and pulled it up to my chin.

The door opened fully and in walked the proprietor of the Hotel California Bed and Breakfast. He switched on the light. I blinked and stared at him over the blanket.

You are still up, he said.

I nodded and smiled weakly and said nothing.

You said you were tired, he said.

Very tired, I said, and feigned a yawn.

I had a long day too, he said. It is probably because the days tend to be rather long at this time of year.

He stretched and yawned and talked on. It had been a dry year, he said. No rains at all this year. Would the rains ever come, he wondered. He did not know. No one knew for sure. Even the farming report could not be certain. Did I like Radio 2? He could not pass a day without listening to Kwaziso .

Even in my discomfort, I marvelled that the matchstick in his mouth still did not budge as he talked. A burst of laughter almost escaped from me but the urge to laugh soon ceased. With mounting horror, I watched as he took off all his clothes except for his underwear and got into bed beside me.

I was too startled to say anything. Under the blanket, I was naked but for the condom. I was suddenly aware of it — the smell of latex seemed to fill the room. I wondered that he did not notice it. I clutched the blanket closer. He reached for his share of it. I moved right to the edge of the bed, and lay there. He spoke. I pretended not to hear.

Meanwhile the sounds from next door continued, but I had ceased to care. I lay back until his breathing became even and I was sure that he was asleep. I eased my hold on the blanket, and as I did so, he shifted in my direction. I froze again. This continued for what seemed like half the night, until finally he began to snore, and I relaxed a little.

I must stay awake, I told myself, I must stay awake.

I woke up to find the sun in my face and my sleeping companion gone. I leaped out of bed and looked on my body for the condom. It was not there. I thought it might have got stuck to my back and craned and twisted my neck and felt for it, but to no avail. I shook the blankets and sheets. I shook my clothes. I shook the pillows. I even lifted the mattress and searched under the bed. I could only conclude that it must have slid off during the night and been picked up by my companion.

I put on my clothes, moved to the sitting room and tried to sneak out of the building to my car.

Good morning, said my bedfellow.

He spoke from a corner where he sat dunking bread and margarine into a mug of tea. His matchstick moved with his mouth. I had enough wits about me to wonder whether it was the same one from the day before.

Good morning, I said, I must be off.

What about breakfast, he said, we offer bed and breakfast.

I must press on, I said.

Drive well, he said.

He grinned and waved.

I ran to my car and drove out of Kamativi like I had all of Legion’s demons after me.

By the time I had finished my story, my Prado friend and I had become firm friends. Muri vahombe, m’dhara , he said, You are really something. We dropped off the others and he insisted on buying me a drink. He even gave me back the million that I had paid him for the lift. I only got home well after seven that night — we ended up drinking first at Londoner’s then at Tipperary’s. He drove me home afterwards and we parted on the friendliest terms.

Shaky called me just as I was waving him off. I was in such fine spirits that I had almost forgotten the soured petrol deal.

Diamonds, m’dhara , Shaky said. I am with someone who knows someone who can get us into diamonds.

I walked into the house with the phone to my ear and listened as he talked about the diamonds that had been discovered in Marange and that would make us, him and me, rich beyond all our dreams.

The stories in this volume originally appeared as follows: ‘At the Sound of the Last Post’ in African Pens: New Writing from Southern Africa and in Prospect , under the title ‘Oration for a Dead Hero’; ‘An Elegy for Easterly’ in Jungfrau: Stories from the Caine Prize 2006 ; ‘Something Nice from London’ and ‘The Annexe Shuffle’ in Per Contra ; ‘The Mupandawana Dancing Champion’ and ‘In the Heart of the Golden Triangle’ in the Weaver Press anthologies Laughing Now and Women Writing Zimbabwe . I am grateful to my first editors at these publications, particularly Will Skidelsky and Miriam N. Koitzin who took a chance on an unknown writer and set me firmly on this path.

I also wish to thank everyone at Janklow & Nesbit (UK), and particularly Clare Paterson, agent extraordinaire, without whom none of this would have been possible, Rebecca Folland who successfully sold me to the world, Jenny McVeigh who brought me to Janklow and Eric Simonoff who made me want to stay.

At Faber, many thanks are due to my fantastic editors Mitzi Angel and Lee Brackstone for their good humour, their patience and their eagle eyes, and for loving these stories while making them better. Thank you to everyone involved with this book at both Faber and at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, especially Helen Francis, David Watkins, Chantal Clarke, Becky Fincham, Sarita Varma and Jeff Seroy. I also thank publisher Stephen Page for welcoming me so warmly to Faber.

Then there are the many friends who gave me rooms of my own and more, who rooted for me at every turn, who endured the I-want-to-be-a-writer lament for far longer than they deserved, and who are required to buy at least five books each now that I have mentioned them by name: Victoria Donaldson, Ingrid Cox-Lockhart, Martin Mbugua Kimani, Itai Madamombe, Sybilla Fries, Barbara and Gilbert Walter, Athita Komindr, Ian Donovan, Lisa Jacobs, Bonnie Galvin, Niall Meagher, Tom Sebastian, Hunter Nottage, Fernando Pierola, Pamela Collet, Chuma Nwokolo, Dirk Mueller-Ingrand, Nemdi and Olufemi Elias, Rob Campbell, Donata Rugarabamu, Bathsheba Okwenje, Marlon Zakeyo, Delice Gwaze, Ali Menzies, Maureen Chitewe, Jessie Majome, Thoko Moyo, Suzana Vukadinovic, Steve Thom, Luigi Principi, Werner Zdouc, Lindy Nleya, Justin Fox, Molara Wood, Silvia Candido, Gugulethu Moyo, Muhtar Bakare, Binyavanga Wainaina, Shailja Patel, Munyaka Makuyana and Darrel Bristow-Bovey.

I also wish to thank Stephen Chan, Irene Staunton, Dolores and Anthony Fleischer and the South African Centre of International PEN, Helen and Nick Elam, Jamal Mahjoub, Veronique Tadjo, Susan Tiberghien, Eunice Scarfe and everyone at the Geneva Writers’ Group, my many friends at the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, and my wonderful colleagues at the Advisory Centre on WTO Law, and in particular, Carol Lau, Leo Palma and Frieder Roessler. Finally, I wish to thank Jane Hirshfield and Oliver Mtukudzi for allowing me to use their words, John Coetzee for his generosity and Silas Chekera for everything.