Hard rain, p.2
Hard Rain, page 2
part #1 of Rogue Series
A man in a white New York cap with a neck like a tree trunk is sipping his beer at the bar as if it’s lukewarm water. In one corner a middle-aged woman is eating a hamburger. Except for the two of them, Mkwepu Street’s favorite haunt is deserted.
A waitress in a tight blue T-shirt looks up from her newspaper as I enter. She motions from behind the bar that I can pick any of the thirty-odd wooden tables. I choose one in the farthest corner with a view of the door, then sit down below a sign that promises two Heinekens for the price of one on Monday nights.
Inside Hardings, it’s only a degree or two cooler than the February heat outside. A ceiling fan slashes feebly at the hot air. To my right is a newish air conditioner that will probably only be switched on later, when the tourists arrive. Sweat is pouring down my back. Why did I choose, and iron, a long-sleeved shirt for tonight?
I look at my watch again. Three minutes later than a moment ago. The music changes from Ali Kiba to Elton John. The smell of fried food drifts from the kitchen.
The waitress saunters to my table. “What can I get you?”
“A Kilimanjaro, please. No need for a glass.”
Nine minutes to seven.
The beer she places in front of me a while later is ice-cold. Fine drops have condensed on the outside of the bottle. I look at the man in the white cap, who is still sipping his warm beer. Saying “please” must have done the trick.
I down the Kilimanjaro, banishing the heat for a moment or two. The man in the cap raises his beer in a respectful salute when I smack the bottle down on the table. I signal for the waitress, who is back behind her paper, to bring me another. She nods and smiles for the first time.
I lean back in my chair. Maybe this will be my lucky night.
Everyone looks up when she walks in. Even the waitress, who obviously knows her. Ranna said “Hardings” the way other people say “home.”
I don’t have to look at my watch to know she’s late. It’s half an hour after my first beer, and Hardings has filled up with every imaginable accent and color. It’s rowdy and disorderly—which is how the photographer likes it, I guess.
She sits down, briefly laying a hand on my forearm. “Sorry I’m late.”
She doesn’t mean it, but the smile is real.
She smells of lemon and cinnamon. And something else. Smoke. Not cigarette smoke. Something more pungent. Pipe? Cigar? I can’t place it, but I don’t want to waste time guessing. What does it matter? She’s here.
“What are you drinking?” I ask.
She points at the Kilimanjaro in my hand. “That looks good. Is it cold?”
“Ice-cold.”
“Then I definitely want one.”
She turns to beckon to the waitress, but the short, buxom lady in the blue T-shirt is already behind her.
“Maggie! Nice to see you again.” Ranna takes the woman’s hands in her own. “How are you?”
“Fine.” The waitress gives her the broadest smile I’ve seen tonight.
“And your brother? Is he better?”
Maggie gives a relieved sigh. “Yes. He’ll be back at work tomorrow.”
“I’m so glad.”
“So am I. Running this place alone is killing me. What can I get you? The usual?”
“A beer tonight, please. Same as his.”
Maggie frowns. “You know how drunk you get on beer. Remember the headache?”
Ranna winks. “Who says I’m going to get drunk? Besides, this is a decent guy. Can’t you see? Look at his shirt. He’ll make sure I get home safely.”
Maggie weighs me with her eyes. Then she laughs as if she doesn’t believe Ranna, shakes her head, and turns to go.
I’m not impressed. I take a critical look at my green striped shirt. Decent? Is that what I want to be? I knew I should have worn something else.
“Don’t look so annoyed,” Ranna says, as if she can read my mind. She takes the bottle out of my hand and downs half the beer in two gulps. “It’s good to be decent. Very few people are decent.”
“Depends on what you mean by decent.”
She thinks for a moment. “It means you’ll put me to bed without getting in yourself.”
“Then I’m not so sure I want to be decent.”
I watch as laughter spills over her lips, along with the last of the beer. She stems it with a quick hand. “That’s not a very decent remark.”
“At least we agree on that. So I’m not so decent after all?”
She’s about to reply, but something, or someone, behind me distracts her. She tosses the thick black curls back over her shoulders and cranes her neck to see past me. Her blue eyes, paler tonight against her white T-shirt, turn into searchlights, only to fade with something like disappointment. At last her gaze returns to me.
I turn, but all I see is a sea of people. Was it someone she knows?
She puts down the empty beer bottle with a loud enough noise to get my attention and fiddles with the label at the bottle’s neck.
“I know people.” She carries on as if there was no interruption. “You can object as much as you like: you’re a decent man. Something happened to make you that way. Something that chewed you up and spat you out a long time ago, and it’s too late to do anything about it now.” She lets go of the bottle and trails a lazy finger along my forearm. “And no, there’s nothing wrong with being softer, either. Softer sleeps better. I can promise you that.”
“I suppose softer is okay.” I think for a moment and decide to forget about the people behind me. “And so is decent.”
She laughs. “Well, why are we arguing then? How about another beer?”
“Done!” Ranna shouts.
She slams down the bottle on the table. It teeters to the right, then the left, but stays upright. The German tourists next to us, all sporting stiff broad-brimmed hats and light-brown hiking boots with clean soles, applaud enthusiastically. They’re leaving for the Ngorongoro Crater tomorrow.
I down the last of the Kilimanjaro and hold the cold bottle to my forehead, where a headache is lurking. “You win. Again.”
She holds out her hand. “That’ll be five dollars, thank you very much.”
“You’re cleaning me out. Whose idea was it to play for money, anyway?”
“Well, why don’t you win it back? Winner of the next race takes all.” She points at the pile of crumpled bills in front of her.
I count the bottles to her left. Nine. Most men would be on the floor by now. I’m on eight beers, and it’s more than enough. Sounds are coming to me dimly, from a distance, and there’s a sour taste at the back of my throat.
Where’s Maggie? Maybe she can help.
I turn, spot her behind the counter, her shoulders stiff under the blue T-shirt. She looks at Ranna, then at me. Her expression says she doesn’t want to know. She takes the yellow cloth that’s draped over her shoulder and begins to polish the beer glasses lined up in front of her.
I turn back to our table.
“Ranna,” I try to say over the drone of voices. Then louder: “Ranna, no! Come on. Time to go home.” I run my finger across my throat. “Enough.”
Instantly her smile vanishes. Her eyes turn an icy blue. “I offer you a chance to win your money back, and you chicken out?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to drink anymore. Let’s go. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She motions for Maggie to bring her another beer, but the waitress shakes her head, pointing from Ranna to me.
I get the message. The photographer is my responsibility.
The German tourists look upset and start to grumble as if I’m spoiling their fun for wanting to take Ranna away.
I ignore them. Tomorrow they’ll be gone, and we’ll still be here. Besides, I like Hardings. I don’t want Maggie to ban me from the place.
“Why do you want to go on drinking?” I hang my head in a show of defeat. “You beat me hands down. I give up.”
Ranna presses her lips together. Then she leans across the table and smiles broadly. From ice to water in one unpredictable second.
“What do I win?” she asks.
“A week’s beer money.” I point at the pile of bills on the table. “And someone—a decent guy—to walk you home.”
“You said you’re not decent.”
“I lied.”
“Is that a habit of yours?”
“Lying? Only out of decency. Like any good Afrikaner boy.”
Her laugh comes from a place deep inside her throat, and I can’t get enough of the sound. She gets up quickly, sure-footed, as if she’s been drinking orange juice. Then she stops and tilts her head, deciphering the music in the background.
Turn up the volume, she motions to Maggie. This time the waitress obliges.
Ranna’s hips, clad in tight blue jeans, begin to sway. The movement is hypnotic.
“I adore Angélique Kidjo.” She pulls me to my feet. “Come, dance with me. Just for a minute. Then we can go home. Swear.”
I wonder if I still know how to dance, but the promise of her body against mine is too tempting to refuse.
On the small, crowded dance floor at the back of Hardings I try to draw her body to mine, but she evades my hands. She raises her arms, shakes her hair back over her shoulders, closes her eyes, and starts moving to a rhythm my beer-fogged mind fails to grasp.
I remain still, staring at her, until finally she calls me closer. I put my hands on her hips, where I can feel her pulse, warm and rapid. Instantly I forget everything I said about going home.
We leave Hardings in the early morning. There’s been a shower, bringing relief from the night’s heat. The clouds have drifted away, and the clear, bright sky is flush with stars. Nights like these almost make me homesick for the farm.
Behind me Ranna is counting her steps. “Seventy-one. Seventy-two.” She stops when her phone rings.
I turn when she doesn’t answer the call. She’s standing motionless on the poorly lit sidewalk, her long fingers pensively stroking her lips, as if she wants to erase the fear I can see hiding there. She’s staring at the cell phone in her hand.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?”
“It’s the middle of the night. It’s got to be a wrong number.”
“But you’re awake, aren’t you? And what if it’s a story?”
She returns the phone to the pocket of her jeans. “I’d rather talk to you.”
She comes up beside me and links her arm through mine. We walk on in silence.
I know I should ask, but I don’t want to. It’s like knowing you’re going to lose someone, yet still getting up every morning as if nothing is wrong. Or like calling your mother and talking about the weather, or the article you’re working on, or the busy lambing season, but never your father.
You don’t want to know. You silence the voices in your head. Because you know it’s usually only a lover—past or present—who will call at three in the morning.
4
Someone forgot to switch on the air conditioner in the conference room, or maybe, like Hardings, the Skylark Hotel is saving money. The air in the long narrow room is so stuffy I battle to keep my eyes open. For the umpteenth time in the hour since I sat down, I yawn.
“Stop it,” says the man next to me.
Tom—Tomboy, Tom Pom—Masterson freelances for a few publications, including the Guardian. Because of his name and the chest hair that spills over the top button of his shirt, he has to sing “What’s New Pussycat?” at every foreign correspondents’ Christmas party. It helps that he has a good voice, of course. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been told. If I’m still around at Christmas, I’ll probably find out whether it’s true.
He runs his hand over the blond stubble on his chin, over his nearly bald head and sunburned neck. His eyes blink rapidly. Stop. Blink again. It’s an irritating habit that makes it hard for me to look him in the eye.
He gives a long yawn. “See? It’s contagious.” He looks at his fake Rolex. “How long have we been waiting?”
“Fifty-three minutes,” I say. “For the minister of health to come and open a brewery, because the president is in China. Am I the only one to find it ironic?”
To our right a number of journalists, mostly from the local media, are milling about. I’m here because I have nothing better to do. More than any other profession, journalism understands the value of the comparative degree.
“How long are we going to give the man?” Tom scratches his dry scalp with the chewed end of a pen. It grates like sandpaper. “I’d give anything for a beer. You?”
I look at the assembled audience, mostly factory workers in overalls and yellow T-shirts, hovering near the cases of beer stacked in the corner. From time to time, two bulky men in dark suits stop someone from pinching a bottle. The beer is for later, and probably the only reason anyone would be prepared to listen to a long list of boring speeches.
“I think it’s going to be a long wait, Tom.”
My nose picks up Ranna’s scent before I see her. I register the elusive citrus fragrance combined with what I suspect is Cuban cigars from last night. It makes the hair at the back of my neck stand on end. Her unhurried approach is accompanied by the faint crackle of static electricity generated by her long blue skirt.
Finally her black Doc Martens reach us and come to a halt. “I can’t believe you actually thought they’d start on time,” she teases.
I wave a greeting. “I was optimistic. What time did you get up?”
She smiles, her eyes bright. She shows no sign of last night’s heavy drinking. “An hour ago. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it. Helps if you have a favorite dala dala taxi driver who goes out of his way to pick you up.”
Tom swings his pen in her direction. “It’s not as if you sleep much anyway.”
“You leave my sleeping habits alone.”
She sits down beside me, leans over behind my back, and runs her fingers over the Englishman’s head. “You’re getting lazy. When you first came, you used to shave your head every week.”
He ducks to avoid her hand. “And when you first came, you were just about engaged. And look what happened to you.”
“Engaged?” The word is out before I can stop it.
Ranna’s lips become a thin line. “It was a long time ago. And it’s nobody’s business.”
Tom laughs and turns to me. “I forgot: Ranna never talks about what happens between the four walls of her bedroom. And you can imagine how busy it gets in there.”
“Did you get up on the wrong side of your empty bed this morning?” Her words are light, but the tone is frosty.
Tom squares his shoulders, but before he can reply, the heavy wooden doors swing open. A man in a gray suit walks in and holds up his hand for silence. The air conditioner springs to life.
The minister and his entourage take their seats.
I battle to focus for the duration of his thirty-minute speech. Nearly engaged. What did I expect? A woman like Ranna is bound to have a past. And what makes me think there’s no one in her life at present? I’ve done absolutely nothing to find out. Or maybe I prefer not to know.
Last night she kissed my cheek at her front door to thank me for walking her home. There was no offer of coffee. What more do I need to know?
5
The minute I park behind Hardings the rain starts to pour down. I make a futile dash for the door underneath the yellow neon sign.
I’m soaked to the skin when I walk in. “Hi,” I say, but Maggie doesn’t reply, shaking her head disapprovingly at the muddy footprints I leave on the floor. Another black mark behind my name. She hasn’t forgiven me for Ranna and the beer.
I wrestle through the crowd to reach our table. Maggie’s handmade “Reserved” sign stands guard, so she can’t be too upset. I sit down, tug at my wet T-shirt, and nod at the man in the white cap, who’s in his usual spot at the counter.
Cheers, he salutes, raising his beer.
It’s ten past eight. Must Ranna always be late?
I ask the people at the neighboring table for their newspaper and page through it distractedly. Fifteen minutes later Maggie brings over a Kilimanjaro without being asked.
As I’m finishing it, she puts down another one. “Would you like something to eat?”
“No, thanks, Ranna should be here soon.”
“Ranna and time aren’t exactly on intimate terms, you know. You may have a long wait ahead of you.”
“Fine.” I give in. “Medium-rare steak and salad, please.”
When Maggie brings the food, I discover how hungry I am.
After a while she fetches the empty plate and shoots me a sympathetic look, as if I should know better than to think Ranna would show up—never mind on time.
She’s right. Bloody wishful thinking. “May I have the bill, Maggie?”
“I’ll bring it.”
I’m counting out the money when the tall, slender figure appears in the doorway. From where I’m sitting her rage is apparent. She looks like a caged animal, hurt and defiant.
Ranna’s eyes search out Maggie’s. Maggie shrugs, motions with her head in my direction, and gestures something I can’t make out. Ranna pushes her hands deeper into the pockets of her wet jeans and brushes past the bodies blocking the bar counter.
I smell a strange mix of sweat and lemons as she approaches. And something else, something familiar.
The metallic smell of blood.
My eyes search her khaki photographer’s vest and white T-shirt, but I don’t see anything.
“Hi. Sorry I’m late.”
There’s no regret in her voice.
She shifts her weight impatiently when I fail to react. Wipes her eyes and shakes the rain out of her hair. “Are you angry?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“I have nothing better to do.” I get to my feet, suddenly furious. “I’m here because I wanted to see you. Fuck this, Ranna, find someone else to mess with.”
I reach for my car keys but stop when she puts her hand on mine.
