Fletch, Too

“Hello,” Juma said. “Stay where the crocodiles are used to us. They are very territorial, you see.”

Naked, Barbara and Fletch were swimming in the river.

Naked, Juma sat on a rock in the river watching them.

“Crocodiles?” Barbara stood up in the river.

“Haven’t you seen them?” Fletch asked.

“Crocodiles that eat people?”

“I don’t think they’re particular.”

“Fletch,” Barbara whispered. “Juma’s naked.”

“So are we.”

“What does he mean? That there’s nothing sexual between us? Among us?”

“I’ll ask him.”

“Screw crocodiles.” Barbara started for the riverbank in haste. “Never even got to wash my hair.”

Fletch climbed up onto the rock and sat beside Juma.

“Barbara wants to know if there’s nothing sexual among us.”

“What does she mean?”

“Among us three, I guess she means. You and her.”

“Barbara wants a baby by me? That would be odd.”

“No. She doesn’t. We three were just naked together.”

“People put on clothes to be sexual, don’t they?”

“People do many things to be sexual.”

“What else are clothes for?”

“Pockets.”

Juma was rubbing the fingers of his right hand against his leg. “Africans don’t have pockets. We have nothing to put in them.” The red stain on his fingers was not coming off. “People can be sexual with each other whether they wear clothes or not.”

“True.”

Juma was looking at the mark on the lower right side of Fletch’s stomach. Juma said, “So you are partly black.”

“And blue.”

“I have never seen such a thing before. Is that the way a baby would look, if Barbara and I had a baby? I don’t think so.”

“No.”

“It looks odd.”

“Black people do not turn white where they are hit.”

“Who hit you? Did someone in Kenya hit you?”

“Why are your fingers red?”

“Miraa.”

“What’s miraa?”

“You don’t know miraa? It’s a drug we chew. A pleasure drug.”

“Like marijuana?”

“What’s marijuana?”

“A pleasure drug.”

“It leaves the fingers red, and the gums and tongue.” Juma showed Fletch how red his gums and tongue were. “Also, I suppose, our insides. It’s not very good. One of the men gave me some.” Juma nodded up the riverbank toward the cook tent. “You can buy some in any store which has banana leaves over the door.”

“I read some of that book you lent me, Weep Not Child.”

Juma snorted. “Ngugi blames white people for almost everything.”

“Including inventing war.”

“As if they were gods.” Juma put his hand on the back of Fletch’s neck and squeezed. “Are you a god, Fletch?”

“Tell me about my father.”

“He’s all right.” Juma returned to trying to rub the red stain off his fingers. “A bit of a mutata.”

“What’s mutata?”

“Troublesome.”

“He’s a nuisance?”

Juma laughed. “Once he rode into Narok on his motorcycle, slowly, slowly, dragging behind him with a rope around its neck a hyena.”

“He still rides a motorcycle.”

“He insisted some people bet him the night before he could not lasso a hyena and bring it into Narok by the second hour of daylight the next day.” Juma laughed again. “Trouble was, no one remembered having made such a bet with him. No one would admit to such a bet.”

“He sounds crazy.”

“It’s all right. No one likes hyenas much.”

There was a particularly loud chattering from the jungle across the river.

“Juma, when Carr took me to Lake Turkana he told me there’s an elephant skeleton, very, very old, buried near there, at Koobi Fora.”

“Of course it’s very old, if it’s a skeleton.”

“The skeleton of an East Indian elephant.”

“Buried in East Africa?”

“It didn’t swim across the Indian Ocean.”

Juma thought a moment. “You’re talking about Carr’s woman.”

“Her name is Sheila.”

“Well, her skeleton will belong in India.”

“She was born in Kenya. In Lamu.”

“All the borders are colonial. Have you thought that? The borders of all these nations were set by the English and the Germans and the French, not by the tribes.”

“I like Sheila. I like Carr.”

“Perhaps while you are here, I will take you to Shimoni.”

“What’s Shimoni?”

“It means hole-in-the-ground. It’s a place on the coast. I have been there.”

“Sheila worked for a car rental agency when Carr first met her.”

“Perhaps you and I will go to a three-in-one hotel.”

“What’s a three-in-one hotel?”

“You have never been to one?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Three in one bed. They are very popular here. I think they are very good especially for a man who must treat one wife at a time.”

“I see. Are you married, Juma?”

“No. I want to go to school. I want to work in television. Don’t you think it would be very good to work in television?”

“Yes. I do.”

“What is your work?” Juma asked.

“I work for a newspaper.”

“Oh, I see. That would be interesting work. Somewhat the same work as television, I think, except no one can see your face. If you are going to tell people something, don’t you think you should say it so people can see your face?”

“I believe it is easier to find out what to tell people if they do not see your face.”

“Oh, I see. Yes, perhaps that is true.” Juma stood up on the rock. “Well, it is time for you to go have your Scotch whiskey.”

“Why?”

Juma shrugged. “You had a Scotch whiskey last night at this time.”