Hard rain, p.4
Hard Rain, page 4
part #1 of Rogue Series
“It hasn’t been raining that long, has it?”
“Apparently parts of the countryside are flooded.”
“Oh. What does the minister say?”
“Listen. Here it comes.”
“Fine, let’s talk about the rain.” The bald man in the neat blue suit speaks heatedly. “Let’s ignore the much more significant problem of the budget deficit.” He takes off his glasses and wipes the sweat from his brow with a white handkerchief someone to the right of the podium has handed him.
“It’s too early to say whether the rain is going to be a problem,” the minister says. “As you all know, we have long rains and short rains every year, and this year the long rains have come early. They don’t usually set in before March, so we’re not used to seeing them in February. And the rainfall has been a bit heavier than usual, but what can we do about it?” He pats his chest with his open palm to illustrate his frustration. “All we can do is wait and see what happens. Maybe, if we’re lucky, it will stop raining earlier than usual. That’s also a possibility.”
“So the government isn’t seeking international aid just yet?” the man from a local paper, the Daily News, persists. “Two people died yesterday when their motorcycle was swept away.”
The minister wipes his brow again, gives an exasperated sigh. “Every life is precious. That’s how it’s always been, and that’s how it will stay in Tanzania. But what happened yesterday was an accident. I know, because I spoke to the police myself. Those men crossed the river where they shouldn’t have. The bridge is a mile downstream, but they were in a hurry. My point is: Why should we apply for international aid at this stage? There’s no crisis at present, and it’s no use meeting trouble halfway.”
“So you’re not even slightly worried?”
The minister’s mouth becomes a thin line. He seems about to lash out angrily when his gaze falls on Tom and me, and he coughs uneasily.
“We’ll keep a close watch on the situation,” he says, assuming a more reasonable tone. “We may decide that it’s a good idea to alert the international community early on, just in case things go wrong. You never know. The weather is remarkably unpredictable these days.”
Next to me Tom writes everything down. It has been one of the better press conferences of the past few weeks. Two stories for the price of one: the budget deficit and a looming natural disaster.
I look around the room. I seem to be the only one battling to focus. For a while now my pen has been moving of its own accord. Situation. Aid. Go wrong.
Go wrong.
Where is Ranna?
She’s not among the huddle of photographers in the corner aiming their lenses at the minister like an impatient firing squad, waiting for him to stop talking. By now they’ve grasped that the bigger story is out there. Photos that can change the world. People battling to see another sunrise while the rain keeps pouring down. In here, there’s a lot of talk, as if you could sidestep death by devising a three-point plan.
Along with the smell of sweat and last night’s alcohol and moldy suits specially dusted off for today’s event, there’s something else in the air. Somewhere in the midst of everything, only barely discernible. If you lift your nose slightly, like an eager predator, you’ll be able to identify it as the smell of anticipation. Of something about to happen.
8
Tom holds the Marlboro between his thumb and index finger. He drags on the cigarette, exhales. Looks around for an ashtray, then tips the ash in the fronds of a dried-out fern. The drone of voices around us abates as the members of the media finish their tea and coffee and leave.
I want to ask him, yet I don’t. How much will I be giving away if I speak to him?
At last I give in to the need to know. One day it will probably be the end of me.
“You don’t happen to know where Ranna is?”
He raises a quizzical brow, blinks rapidly. Again. There’s an inscrutable expression in his eyes.
“So you’ve got a thing for her as well now?”
First Hadhi, now Tom. Why is everyone harping on the same string? I open my notebook and pretend to look for something. “I just want to know where she is, that’s all. There’s something I want to ask her.”
Tom seems unconvinced. He stubs out his cigarette in the fern’s soil as one of the hotel’s managers approaches, shaking his head reprovingly.
“Sorry! I didn’t know I’m not allowed to smoke in here.”
As the manager stomps off, Tom turns back to me.
“There isn’t a single journalist in this room who hasn’t asked me that question. Except Gerald, maybe.” He motions at a muscular guy with a crew cut. “And only because he’s gay.”
I knew it was a bad idea to ask Tom about Ranna. “Forget I asked.”
He laughs and holds up his hands. “Don’t let me upset you, Alex. She’s one of those women who drives guys nuts. But she’ll grow old alone. Men are too much work for her. Too much everything. She feels trapped, then she runs away. End of story.”
“I’m worried about her, that’s all.”
“She can take care of herself.”
“I know, but still . . .”
The Englishman is silent as he gives me a searching look. Is he looking for confirmation that I’m telling the truth?
“She and I have been friends for a long time. Years,” he finally continues. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but she’s going to fuck you up. Let it go. Don’t get involved. Look for someone else to pass the time with while you’re here.”
“Do you know where she is, or don’t you?”
“Yesterday she was fine.”
“So you saw her yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Late afternoon.”
“And she was okay?”
“Ye-e-s.” Tom stretches out the word. He frowns. “Why?”
If what Tom says is true, then whatever went wrong must have happened in the few hours since he last saw her and my encounter with her at Hardings. Or could Tom have been involved?
I study the bald journalist with the nicotine-stained fingers. No. Ranna is taller than him, and he’s probably right: she can look after herself. She’s the kind of woman who knew how to make a fist and throw a punch by the time she went to nursery school.
“Alex.” Tom speaks again. He takes the Marlboros from his shirt pocket, reconsiders, and puts them back. “What’s going on?”
I sigh impatiently. “I don’t have time to explain. Do you know where she is, or don’t you?”
He relents. “Try the road to Korogwe. She said something about a butterfly migration. That’s all I know.”
9
Korogwe is a long way to the north. I’ve been driving for more than two hours before I come across the first butterflies. A few miles farther along, the scattered clusters of white turn into swarms of fluttering insects, oblivious to their surroundings, blindly following their instincts.
I know I’m supposed to write up this morning’s conference, that I can’t simply abandon everything and chase after a woman as if I have nothing better to do, but the realization doesn’t make me turn back to Dar. Instead I follow the swarms of butterflies as if they’re bread crumbs, constantly on the lookout for Ranna’s white Land Cruiser.
It’s hard to find a single vehicle among a horde of others. I try and locate her car between the multitude of shops, dala dala taxis, motorcycles, cattle, and goats at the roadside. I see nothing. Then, just as the patched, tarred road has taken me through a village and spat me out among the hills, I spot her 4x4 under a giant acacia tree.
I draw up behind her vehicle. Something doesn’t feel right. The door on the driver’s side stands ajar, but there’s no sign of Ranna.
I jump out. The muggy air hits me between the shoulders like a wet fist. I jog to her car and look inside. Nothing. I close the door. There’s blood on the door handle, just as there was blood on her front door this morning.
I turn and search for the flicker of a lens in the afternoon sun that occasionally breaks through the heavy gray clouds. Listen for the creak of the worn leather boots she wears in the field.
Nothing.
Then I hear it. Click. Click-click-click.
I veer sharply to the left and run into the long grass.
Click.
Deeper into the grass. Faster.
Click, click.
Then I see her. She’s squatting on a red sleeping bag in the veld, her camera turned skyward. Click. Click, click.
Relief floods me like cool water. I almost laugh, but Ranna’s voice brings me to a halt.
“Stop right there if you don’t want to get hurt.” She speaks in a low voice, her back to me.
I stop in my tracks, boots parked in a muddy puddle.
Click. Click. Click.
Shadows move across her face, the folding and unfolding of hurried wings, like the fluttering pages of a book. I look up. Hundreds of butterflies are passing overhead, white specks against the overcast sky. Some fly into my face, my neck.
Impatiently I brush them off. “Are you okay?”
She lowers the camera. Her eyes move from the butterflies to me. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
I gesture over my shoulder at her car. “The blood?”
“I scratched my finger and it bled. Mosquito bite.” She holds up her ring finger. A scratch runs down the right side. “Nothing serious.”
She raises the Nikon. Click. Click, click, click, click.
I want to move to the right, get closer to her, just to make sure, but I stay where I am.
“Can I move now?” I ask at last.
She lowers the camera, straightens up, turns to me. There are mud stains on her elbows and on the knees of her jeans.
“What are you doing here, Alex?”
“You weren’t at the press conference.”
“So?”
“I was worried about you after last night.”
She straightens her shoulders, her eyes suddenly a sullen dark blue. “Forget what happened.”
“As simple as that?”
“Yes.”
“You were bleeding. How do I forget that?”
“Same as when you’ve written a story. It’s not your blood, so it’s okay.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” A warm breeze stirs up a few stray leaves around my feet. “That I don’t care?”
“I’ve read your stories. You keep your distance. Always. Like the article on the HIV/AIDS clinic. It’s very good, informative, but in a clinical way.”
“What do you want me to do? Break down every time I write about death?”
“I suppose you’re right. Keeping your distance is one way to survive.” She takes aim at me with the camera, takes two photos. “Or, rather, it’s how one learns to survive. Who taught you to survive, Alex?”
Typical of Ranna. Attack is the best defense.
I refuse to play along. “I care about you. I care about what happens to you. It’s all that matters. Stop being so difficult.”
There’s a moment’s silence, then she throws back her head and laughs.
Startled butterflies flutter up in the air.
“Was that a declaration of love?” she asks.
I shrug, tired of being cautious, of measuring and weighing my words. “Call it what you like.” I turn, not waiting for an answer. Not wanting to see the pity on her face.
I head for my Land Rover as fast as I can through the tall grass and search for the keys in vain.
I’m still digging in the pocket of my jeans when the rain starts coming down, hot and heavy, as only tropical rain can fall. Within seconds I’m drenched.
Did I drop the keys somewhere? I punch Ranna’s Land Cruiser door with an angry fist. “Fuck.” Kick the wheel. “Fuck everything.”
At last I find the keys in the long grass.
I drive off without looking back. I’m hardly in second gear before the first butterflies land under my windshield wipers like crumpled bits of paper, just like discarded love letters.
On my way back to Dar I write the morning’s article in my head. It’s better than thinking about Ranna. Tom was right: the woman is trouble. In capital letters.
When I reach home, I piece together a story on the budget and the rain in fifteen minutes. I send it off without reading it again.
The words flicker on my screen a few minutes later: How big will this story get?
Jasmine, the news editor.
The budget? I type intentionally.
No, the rain. Will it turn into a disaster?
I almost laugh. The chances are good that Tanzania is going to be flooded. It’s chaos all over again, breathing down my neck. I came to Dar es Salaam bored with Joburg, and I ran into another mess headfirst. I just don’t know whether it will turn out to be Ranna or the rain.
Or both.
Probably, I write back.
Can you handle it?
Of course. Why do you ask?
For a few minutes nothing happens, then the words come back: Because your stories sound different from when you were still at the paper. Maybe the heat is making you soft.
That’s not what Ranna said. According to her, I don’t care. Who’s right—Ranna or Jasmine?
What does caring sound like? I ask.
In my mind’s eye I see Jasmine laugh. She’s a rotund woman with a huge fear of small spaces and an obsession with Madonna.
You’re starting to write about people, not names. How long have you been there?
A few weeks.
Hmm. Who is she?
I don’t know what to say, so I ignore the question and shut down my laptop.
But the truth doesn’t always need a voice. Sometimes it waits where you left it, without anyone having to acknowledge it. Quietly and indisputably. And, above all, patiently.
10
Ranna calls two days later. Two days during which I grow steadily angrier because I’ve let on how I feel about her.
At first I don’t want to take her calls, but I give up the fight after she’s left the fourth message of the morning and my phone promptly rings again. I push my laptop aside. The story can wait.
“Bloody hell, you’re stubborn,” I begin.
“Well, we must be made for each other then, because you don’t give up either—in spite of all the rumors about me. In spite of me.”
Her tone is light, but I suspect she’s working hard to keep it that way.
“Don’t you have anything to say?” she says softly when I fail to reply. My mind is locked on “made for each other.”
“How about a beer at Hardings? Things are a bit hectic at the moment, but next week is fine.”
“Alex. Don’t be like that. I’m sorry I didn’t call before. I had to clear my head. You know, sort out a few things. Sometimes I also have to think things through. Believe it or not.”
“What kind of things?” I run a frustrated hand through my hair, then get up and walk to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee.
“Just things.”
“You see, Ranna, that’s the problem: there are so many things you don’t talk about. Like your near engagement. And I still don’t know how well you and Tom know each other.”
“Yes,” she answers simply.
“Yes what?”
“Yes to the beer at Hardings. See you tonight at six.”
She ends the call before I can tell her to go to hell.
Ranna arrives at Hardings before me. You’re ten minutes late, she indicates, pointing at her watch, smiling.
Ten minutes? I shake my head, annoyed. I tried to be even later, but before I knew it I was parking behind the bar.
Hardings is still fairly empty, with only three of the tables occupied.
Ranna gets up, inviting me to sit in the chair opposite her.
She’s the first woman I’ve ever met who’s tall enough to look my own six feet in the eye. Tonight her gaze is unwavering, though her hands betray her anxiety.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
“I nearly didn’t,” I lie.
She gestures again for me to take a seat, but stubbornly I remain standing. She looks down at her boots, which are surprisingly clean despite the rain that’s still coming down. When she looks up again, her eyes are glistening. She gives an embarrassed laugh and runs her hand through her hair.
“I would’ve deserved it, you know. If you hadn’t come.”
“Yes, you would’ve.”
She hesitates a moment, then places one hand on my shoulder and the other on my chest, almost as if she’s pushing me away while drawing me closer. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes?”
“Are you really going to make me beg?”
“Yes.” I stare at the bunch of office workers in the middle of Hardings, celebrating what seems like a birthday.
“Why?”
She sits down. I finally give in and sit down as well.
“Because I’m angry, Ranna.”
“And you want to restore the balance?”
“What balance?”
She raises the cheap whiskey tumbler and empties it. “My mother says that’s what my stepfather does when he forgets their wedding anniversary. She’s always late, no matter where they’re going. He gets her back by ‘forgetting’ their anniversary. She says he does it to show her she’s not the boss.”
“Sounds like a power struggle.”
“Maybe it is,” she agrees. “Sometimes I think that’s what every relationship is, except when the wife meekly accepts the role of cooking and cleaning and bearing children. Things like that.” She runs out of words.
“Are they still alive? Your parents?”
She toys with the empty glass. Shuffles her feet and parks her boots between mine. “Why are we talking about them here in Dar es Salaam, where it’s seventy-five degrees out there and tomorrow the rain may wash all of us away? New York is a long way from here. A lifetime away.”
She takes my hands in hers. “I’m sorry, Alex. Really.” She glances over her shoulder to see if anyone is watching, then leans across the table and kisses me gently, briefly, on my cheek.
“Alex. Please. I’m sorry.”
I move my hands over hers, wrapping my fingers around her slender wrists. I imagine I can feel the blood and whiskey pulse through the veins knotted across her hands like a river delta. The whiskey that, just like beer, can’t silence anything, no matter what people say. I wonder whether she knows it.
