and dealers for rich American and European collectors and galleries, who waited for him in the air-conditioned lobby of the Golden Tulip Hotel out by the airport. It was, as he said, “sweet.”
He was thriving, and within a month he had bought himself a Mazda van to carry his goods. I remember sitting with him one afternoon at a beach bar called Last Stop that he liked and had made his informal headquarters. It was a Sunday and very hot, and he had talked me into meeting him there “For the breeze,” he said, “if nothing else. Who knows, you might actually enjoy yourself for a change and meet somebody you’d like and maybe even fall for.” For some reason, Zack was eager to see me involved with a man. “Or a woman,” he said. “Doesn’t matter to me, so long as you get your own pad if you decide to shack up with him. Or her. Two’s company, three’s a drag.”
We sat out on the terrace and drank the local Gulder beer and watched a gang of small boys and girls chase the surf while their tall, slender mothers stood knee-deep in the water with their skirts pulled up and talked. The breeze off the sea was aromatic and cooling. I kicked off my sandals and showed my face to the sun and admitted to Zack that I was glad I’d come out there.
“Yeah. Too bad there’s nobody interesting here today. Probably still too early.” He’d completed a successful sale that morning of a half-dozen rare, elaborately carved chieftain’s stools to a midtown Manhattan gallery and was more pleased with himself than usual. “Actually, this gig’s going so good I’m thinking of setting up a gallery of my own here, with maybe a branch in the States in a year or two. Cut out the middleman, you know?”
“You’re the middleman,” I said. “Jesus, Zack, do you have any idea how you sound?”
“Look, there’s no more trust fund, babe,” he said, spreading his empty hands. “Same with you, y’know. No more checks from Mommy and Daddy waiting at the American Express office. This is Africa , babe, not Ameri-ka. So lighten up, will you?”
“I never took money from my parents, you know that. And don’t call me ‘babe.’”
He scowled. “You put me down all the time, but look at you , for Christ’s sake. Taking U.S. dollars from a university lab that’s financed by a U.S. pharmaceutical company that’s trying to patent and sell a drug that cures a disease that’s been inflicted on the liver of some poor African-American woman who’s addicted to another drug that’s imported by the CIA from Southeast Asia. Terrific. I suppose that’s better than being an upscale African street peddler like me? Because that’s all I am, you know. A street peddler. I mean, c’mon, Hannah, which of us is really working for the enemy?”
“Dawn.”
“Hannah. We’re not underground anymore.”
“Dawn Carrington is who I am here. So I’m still underground.”
“Yeah. Whatever,” he said and flagged the waitress impatiently.
“I used to think I was attracted to dangerous men,” I said. “Dangerous to me , I mean. And I don’t necessarily mean sexually attracted.”
“Fuck you. Find yourself a dangerous man then.” He waved his hand around the bar like an impresario or a pimp. “A little while and the place’ll be full of ’em. The whole fucking city’s full of ’em.” And it was. In the mid-1970s, Accra, and this bar in particular, along with several others like the Wato and Afrikiko’s, were catch basins for First-World drop-ins: anti–Vietnam War draft dodgers, black U.S. military personnel gone AWOL, and ex–Peace Corps volunteers, and probably more than a few of them were CIA agents collecting information on the rest of us and sending it back to Washington. They were Zack’s and my tribesmen and -women, although only a few were women. West Africa was peppered with Americans like us in those years.
“You used to think I was dangerous,” Zack said. “And now you don’t. Is that what you’re
He was thriving, and within a month he had bought himself a Mazda van to carry his goods. I remember sitting with him one afternoon at a beach bar called Last Stop that he liked and had made his informal headquarters. It was a Sunday and very hot, and he had talked me into meeting him there “For the breeze,” he said, “if nothing else. Who knows, you might actually enjoy yourself for a change and meet somebody you’d like and maybe even fall for.” For some reason, Zack was eager to see me involved with a man. “Or a woman,” he said. “Doesn’t matter to me, so long as you get your own pad if you decide to shack up with him. Or her. Two’s company, three’s a drag.”
We sat out on the terrace and drank the local Gulder beer and watched a gang of small boys and girls chase the surf while their tall, slender mothers stood knee-deep in the water with their skirts pulled up and talked. The breeze off the sea was aromatic and cooling. I kicked off my sandals and showed my face to the sun and admitted to Zack that I was glad I’d come out there.
“Yeah. Too bad there’s nobody interesting here today. Probably still too early.” He’d completed a successful sale that morning of a half-dozen rare, elaborately carved chieftain’s stools to a midtown Manhattan gallery and was more pleased with himself than usual. “Actually, this gig’s going so good I’m thinking of setting up a gallery of my own here, with maybe a branch in the States in a year or two. Cut out the middleman, you know?”
“You’re the middleman,” I said. “Jesus, Zack, do you have any idea how you sound?”
“Look, there’s no more trust fund, babe,” he said, spreading his empty hands. “Same with you, y’know. No more checks from Mommy and Daddy waiting at the American Express office. This is Africa , babe, not Ameri-ka. So lighten up, will you?”
“I never took money from my parents, you know that. And don’t call me ‘babe.’”
He scowled. “You put me down all the time, but look at you , for Christ’s sake. Taking U.S. dollars from a university lab that’s financed by a U.S. pharmaceutical company that’s trying to patent and sell a drug that cures a disease that’s been inflicted on the liver of some poor African-American woman who’s addicted to another drug that’s imported by the CIA from Southeast Asia. Terrific. I suppose that’s better than being an upscale African street peddler like me? Because that’s all I am, you know. A street peddler. I mean, c’mon, Hannah, which of us is really working for the enemy?”
“Dawn.”
“Hannah. We’re not underground anymore.”
“Dawn Carrington is who I am here. So I’m still underground.”
“Yeah. Whatever,” he said and flagged the waitress impatiently.
“I used to think I was attracted to dangerous men,” I said. “Dangerous to me , I mean. And I don’t necessarily mean sexually attracted.”
“Fuck you. Find yourself a dangerous man then.” He waved his hand around the bar like an impresario or a pimp. “A little while and the place’ll be full of ’em. The whole fucking city’s full of ’em.” And it was. In the mid-1970s, Accra, and this bar in particular, along with several others like the Wato and Afrikiko’s, were catch basins for First-World drop-ins: anti–Vietnam War draft dodgers, black U.S. military personnel gone AWOL, and ex–Peace Corps volunteers, and probably more than a few of them were CIA agents collecting information on the rest of us and sending it back to Washington. They were Zack’s and my tribesmen and -women, although only a few were women. West Africa was peppered with Americans like us in those years.
“You used to think I was dangerous,” Zack said. “And now you don’t. Is that what you’re
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In the City of Gold and Silver
Kenizé Mourad, Anne Mathai in collaboration with Marie-Louise Naville
