Changes (13 page)

       
10

The next time Ali showed up at Esi's was late morning on a Sunday. It had rained the night before, as it had done most nights of the previous week. Sometimes it had rained in the day too, and occasionally non-stop for a solid twenty-four-hour period. The sea was brimming and green. The grasses and leaves of the giant
nim
trees stood or hung at their greenest and silvery with raindrops. The world was slaked, content and quiet.

Esi had woken up feeling fine. The previous evening, she had gone to Oko's mother to see Ogyaanowa. There had been some tensions as soon as she entered the house. Leaving them she had told herself that if she could only stop herself from missing the child so much, she would just stop going to that place. But she couldn't. One Saturday, she had decided not to go. As some test of her willpower. It had not worked. That weekend, she had experienced a strange restlessness. The following weekdays the restlessness had become so intense she had finally relaxed only after she had gone to see the child on Wednesday evening after work.

This morning she had stayed late in bed reading. When she finally got up, it was to have a shower and get into a pair of shorts and a much-worn loose shirt that was something of a favourite. Next, she had rummaged through her rather impressive music library for some choral music. She smiled to herself as she remembered what her grandmother had said about that the last time she had been around for one of her very short visits. When Esi put on the cassette tape with her special selection of local Christian music, Nana had pointedly put one ear near the recorder. She had nodded her head and hummed along with the group who were singing: obviously enjoying herself.

Then when it was all over, she had looked straight at Esi: ‘My lady, if you want to be with your God on a Sunday morning, just get yourself to church.'

At that, Esi had protested that we can worship God everywhere and at any time.

‘Why did our ancestors build the shrines and the white people build their churches then?'

The two of them had had one of their long and friendly arguments. Obviously, the older woman had read her. As usual. This time to discover that because she was too lazy to go to church, she played Christian music on Sunday mornings so that she would not feel too guilty.

Now to guilt was added shame. But the hardest habits to break are our lazy ones. So here she was again, turning over her albums and her tapes. Later, the issue of what to play settled, she had sat down to her standard Sunday morning breakfast of
dokon-na-kyenam.
She was just thinking that after all living alone was not the unpleasant business people made it seem, when she heard the sound of a car pull up at the gate.

She drew a curtain to see who it was. It was Ali. She went outside to open the gate. He drove into the courtyard. She locked the gate again, and strolled after the car.

Esi was truly delighted to see Ali who in the meantime had brought his car to a standstill behind hers. She put her head through the window on the passenger side of the front seats and said, ‘Hello.'

‘Hello, Esi,' replied Ali, equally delighted. He jumped out of the car, and they both entered the house. As soon as Esi had shut the front door behind them, they embraced. Following their usual practice, Ali was clearly embarking on a long kiss which would have ended on Esi's bed. But although she had missed him rather badly, or rather, because she had, and was somewhat afraid of what it would all mean in the long run, she was not going to have any of that. At least, not yet. Ali immediately sensed her reluctance, and withdrawing a little from her, asked her ‘why' with his eyes.

‘Don't you think we should do some talking first?'

‘No, I don't think so. Talking can be done anytime.'

‘Not always, Ali,' she said uncertainly. ‘Sometimes things get too late even for talk.'

‘Okay. I believe I owe you some explanation for promising to come the other day, and then not showing up for two weeks.'

Relief flooded through her. She was grateful that he had recognised that something had not been correct.

‘Yes,' she said, eagerly.

‘But don't you think I could have a proper welcome first?' Ali was persistent. Esi wasn't yielding either. By this time, they were standing in the middle of the sitting room. ‘But can I at least sit down?' Ali asked.

‘Yes, of course,' said Esi, with a voice that clearly said that even that was a big decision to make. Ali sat on the couch and patted the space by him for Esi to sit down. She did.

‘Actually, I tried to phone.'

‘Then you might as well have saved your energies,' she said with something like resignation. ‘We all know the phones

‘They hardly work at the best of times. And with the recent merciful downpour, and possibly all the poles down, they'll stay dead until the end of the century!'

‘Oh Africa. Fancy a normal blessing like rain coming to us with strings,' Esi said with a very big sigh.

Ali protested vigorously at her tone and reminded her that after all, Allah had been kind to the continent and its people. What was causing some confusions was inefficiency.

‘Drought and all?' Esi wondered, uncertainly.

‘Drought and all.' Ali had no such doubts. As far as he could see, given the enormous resources of the continent, even solving the problems that natural disasters such as drought created should not have been difficult if people worked seriously. Spoken with such earnestness, Esi had to see his point. So they both laughed a little bitterly and scolded themselves for being too serious and consequently depressing themselves on a beautiful morning. After that, Ali rushed through his explanations for that long period of absence. How it had occurred to him that it was vitally important that he checked his telex machine. And so from her place he had driven back to his office instead of going home, and on and on and on. Esi accepted all that. What else could she do? She knew that Ali knew that she had to believe any movements he claimed he had had to make based on messages received on the telex machine. Although of course there always were other factors. She could only guess at these because she did not know enough about his life to make any other type of deductions. And what use is guess work most of the time?

Ali had had the telex machine installed in his office when it became clear that the agency's business was expanding sufficiently to make the acquisition of such a facility worthwhile. Fairly soon after that, it occurred to him that messages come in at odd hours because people have a tendency not only to finalise travel and holiday plans at odd hours but also immediately to move to do something about them. Besides, there was also the matter of time differences between the countries of the world. He had therefore told himself
that since he was not the head of a government department, and since he could not pretend to afford to run a nine-to-five schedule, the least he could do was, once an evening, to go and check on the telex machine. Although it was already possible for him to delegate such duties even by the time he met Esi, and in the meantime he had disciplined himself to see that, except matters of life and death, nearly every issue can wait to be handled in the light of the next day, he kept up the practice of occasionally checking on the telex.

There had been one other reason why Ali went to his office first after leaving Esi's instead of going straight home. It was not something he could tell Esi. In fact, he couldn't have told anyone else but himself — that it was an essential part of managing his situation.

Again, by the time Esi became part of his life, Ali had learnt to expect Fusena to phone his office if he was not at home by a certain time in the evening. He had never believed in making a bedroom of his office. He knew that some executives did. But he was aware that Fusena had her own ideas about what he stayed up there so late to do so often. So although he had given up trying to dispel her suspicions, he had decided that at least it helped if he was sometimes in when she rang. In fact, one evening Fusena had been so suspicious that she had actually driven over to check things up for herself. Ali had been absolutely alone. Fusena had felt so ashamed, she had never repeated the trip. But once in a while, when the waiting got really unbearable, she still rang and he always enjoyed taking those late night calls. There are few pleasures left, and surely one of them must be having the chance to prove you are a faithful spouse — especially when you are not.

So from Esi's place, he continued. He had passed through his office, and sure enough a couple of messages had come through after they had closed for the day. In fact, one of them was from Abidjan, and it sounded as if a major crisis were brewing in the office there. It was clear he would have to get there the following morning, although he did not like the idea. After all, hadn't he just made some other adjustments to enable him to stay put for a while for among other reasons, to be with Esi? Anyway, he had stayed in the office to put some papers together. Then it had started to rain. He had rushed home. As Esi also knew, it had rained all that night. The next morning he had passed through his office on his way to the airport and tried to phone her from there.

‘And the rest, as they say, is history!' Esi finished for him.

‘Thank you,' said Ali, giving her a squeeze on the ribs. As he was speaking, Ali himself was aware that he had to make sure that that sort of thing did not happen again. He made a silent vow to put some machinery into motion to take care of such emergencies. But one should be careful not to make too many promises too early, he also silently warned himself.

‘But you could have asked one of your people from the office to bring me a message.' It was as if she had read his mind.

‘Yes, Esi, and I'm ashamed of myself for not thinking about it.' The confession was made with great charm and accompanied by another squeezing of her ribs.

‘Can you forgive me?' he pleaded.

‘Well…'Esi began playfully. Ali stopped whatever she might have had in mind to say. He started to kiss her rather hungrily, and proceeded to undress her at the same time.

‘Let's at least go to the bedroom

‘No …'

Then starting from the top of her head, he began to feel her all over, with his eyes tightly shut, and therefore genuinely groping like a blind person. Each time he touched any part of her that he found specially erotic, a massive shudder shook him. It happened with her nose, her mouth, her breast. By the time he got to her pubic hairs, he could not hold himself any longer. He moved to part Esi's legs. But the legs parted for him, willingly. And then he was inside her, feeling his way into a cave that was warm, of uneven surfaces, wet and dangerously inviting … On her part Esi felt somewhat cramped because the couch was rather narrow. But then she also thought that she would rather not be comfortable if it would mean having to give up all those different kinds and levels of sensations she was enjoying without shame. She wanted to scream, and scream and scream.

It is not possible to feel like this on this earth, she was thinking. And nothing is as sweet as being inside a woman, he was thinking. Then both of them were moaning and moaning and moaning.

Some weeks later, Ali went to Esi's clearly in a pensive mood. She noticed it immediately. They drank, made love, listened to music. Ali wasn't talking much. And Esi had never believed in forcing conversation on people anyway. She let him be.

When Ali finally spoke aloud, Esi was a little startled.

‘You know Esi, I keep wondering …'

‘What about?'

‘I keep wondering how any one woman can be as beautiful as you are, and still manage to be so clever.'

Esi laughed aloud with sheer relief. She had feared that when he opened his mouth it would be about something very serious.

‘Please Ali, don't flatter.'

‘It is the truth.'

‘Okay, I too keep wondering how any one man can be so handsome as you look and still manage to be so sharp.'

‘We are not talking about me,' Ali said authoritatively.

‘Yes we are ... And by the way, you haven't told me when you came back from your last trip!'

‘Just last night.'

‘Ei, really?' Esi's surprise showed.

‘But did you think that I could be back in this city for over twenty-four hours without trying to see you?'

‘Oh well,' said Esi, shrugging her shoulders shyly. ‘I missed you too.'

‘Did you? True, true?' Ali was delighted.

‘True, true. And in any case, why do you sound so surprised?'

‘Well … it's just that you don't strike me as someone who'll miss anybody.'

This time the surprise was not so pleasant. In fact, she almost felt rebuked.

‘How do I strike you?'

‘Just kind of relaxed … like … like ... as if you don't need anybody.'

Ali was groping somewhat because he realised that even if he knew what he wanted to say, he was not sure any more that that was the way he had wanted to say it.

‘Thank God that outward looks can be so deceptive. Ali, there isn't a single human being who doesn't need somebody.'