Only when the train stopped at small stations could she see that the
land was peopled with children, dozens of them, selling beads and
mopane
worms
and carved wooden statues stained with mahogany-colored shoe polish. Few people on the
train bought anything, but the children’s voices were high and loud and their
hands empty of food. From a young sculptor, she bought a soapstone carving of a
boy’s face. The chin was long and eager, the lips full, with small vertical cracks
carved into them.
When the train arrived in Gaborone, she
caught sight of Lawrence before he saw her. He was wearing a safari suit and moved with
an ease she hadn’t seen in him before. His face had filled out, and he looked
large and healthy. His straight brown hair, which had once hung in his eyes, was combed
back from his forehead.
He held her carefully by the shoulders, and
they kissed each other on the lips. The veldt had slipped into his eyes. For some reason
she thought she might have gotten the wrong person, that perhaps she was kissing
Lawrence’s brother. She touched his cheek and mouth with two fingers, like a blind
woman.
She was dazed by the strangeness around her:
women carrying their babies on their backs, tightly bound to them like bandages, the
sound of Setswana, the train station with its tea shop, the dust that hung in the air
and caught in the throat, the smell of rotting vegetables. Sights and sounds and smells
poured through her. A boy gnawed on a long piece of sugar cane. A donkey stood tethered
to a cart loaded with wood, its eyes clotted with flies.
Lawrence took her elbow and led her to his
pickup truck. His flat was undistinguished, part of a Type I government building that
adjoined another flat and another after that, with an enclosed piece of ground in back
where a clothesline hung. Underneath the clothesline was baked dirt, swept clean of
vegetation and surrounded by a chain-link fence. Inside, the government-issue furniture
was tinted the same shoe polish color as the wooden carvings the children had been
hawking on the train platform.
While Lawrence went to the bathroom, she sat
at the table and took the covers off the food that Dikeledi, his servant, had cooked.
Strips of beef sat sullenly in a metal bowl beside another bowl that held white rice,
scooped into a sticky ball; in another were little round squashes cut into halves. On
the far end of the table was some kind of tinned fruit with a pitcher of custard sauce
beside it. Lawrence sat down, and they served themselves. Dikeledi was in the kitchen,
and then the door shut behind her, and Alice heard her shouting to friends in the
backyard.
She felt suddenly forlorn.
The beef was tough and dowsed with black
pepper. She told Lawrence it was good. In those days, she didn’t set out to tell
lies, but the truth was often buried under politeness. In fact, the rice was without
salt, the squashes watery like something that had been strangled and drowned. Lawrence
held her hand after lunch and led her to the bedroom. An hour later, he was on his way
back to work.
He’d taken a job as an underling in
the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and had already been promoted twice.
His friends were mostly economists, and their principal topic of conversation, apart
from where to get good marijuana, was development. She didn’tknow what they were all talking about. The word was one she’d heard before only
in relation to breasts. Except for Lawrence, she was offended by these economists who
talked as though Botswana had been a great emptiness before they’d arrived.
During the days he was at work, she toiled
away at her thesis. It was winter in the southern hemisphere, with rainless warm days
and cool nights. In the evenings, she and Lawrence read around a small electric fire.
She looked up from her book at the two glowing rods and there he was. After the sun went
down, the stillness in him was different from his daytime self. Occasionally they
stepped outside to
land was peopled with children, dozens of them, selling beads and
mopane
worms
and carved wooden statues stained with mahogany-colored shoe polish. Few people on the
train bought anything, but the children’s voices were high and loud and their
hands empty of food. From a young sculptor, she bought a soapstone carving of a
boy’s face. The chin was long and eager, the lips full, with small vertical cracks
carved into them.
When the train arrived in Gaborone, she
caught sight of Lawrence before he saw her. He was wearing a safari suit and moved with
an ease she hadn’t seen in him before. His face had filled out, and he looked
large and healthy. His straight brown hair, which had once hung in his eyes, was combed
back from his forehead.
He held her carefully by the shoulders, and
they kissed each other on the lips. The veldt had slipped into his eyes. For some reason
she thought she might have gotten the wrong person, that perhaps she was kissing
Lawrence’s brother. She touched his cheek and mouth with two fingers, like a blind
woman.
She was dazed by the strangeness around her:
women carrying their babies on their backs, tightly bound to them like bandages, the
sound of Setswana, the train station with its tea shop, the dust that hung in the air
and caught in the throat, the smell of rotting vegetables. Sights and sounds and smells
poured through her. A boy gnawed on a long piece of sugar cane. A donkey stood tethered
to a cart loaded with wood, its eyes clotted with flies.
Lawrence took her elbow and led her to his
pickup truck. His flat was undistinguished, part of a Type I government building that
adjoined another flat and another after that, with an enclosed piece of ground in back
where a clothesline hung. Underneath the clothesline was baked dirt, swept clean of
vegetation and surrounded by a chain-link fence. Inside, the government-issue furniture
was tinted the same shoe polish color as the wooden carvings the children had been
hawking on the train platform.
While Lawrence went to the bathroom, she sat
at the table and took the covers off the food that Dikeledi, his servant, had cooked.
Strips of beef sat sullenly in a metal bowl beside another bowl that held white rice,
scooped into a sticky ball; in another were little round squashes cut into halves. On
the far end of the table was some kind of tinned fruit with a pitcher of custard sauce
beside it. Lawrence sat down, and they served themselves. Dikeledi was in the kitchen,
and then the door shut behind her, and Alice heard her shouting to friends in the
backyard.
She felt suddenly forlorn.
The beef was tough and dowsed with black
pepper. She told Lawrence it was good. In those days, she didn’t set out to tell
lies, but the truth was often buried under politeness. In fact, the rice was without
salt, the squashes watery like something that had been strangled and drowned. Lawrence
held her hand after lunch and led her to the bedroom. An hour later, he was on his way
back to work.
He’d taken a job as an underling in
the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and had already been promoted twice.
His friends were mostly economists, and their principal topic of conversation, apart
from where to get good marijuana, was development. She didn’tknow what they were all talking about. The word was one she’d heard before only
in relation to breasts. Except for Lawrence, she was offended by these economists who
talked as though Botswana had been a great emptiness before they’d arrived.
During the days he was at work, she toiled
away at her thesis. It was winter in the southern hemisphere, with rainless warm days
and cool nights. In the evenings, she and Lawrence read around a small electric fire.
She looked up from her book at the two glowing rods and there he was. After the sun went
down, the stillness in him was different from his daytime self. Occasionally they
stepped outside to
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