Hiding in Plain Sight

15

Today, things are not going swimmingly for Valerie. She is not getting anywhere with her plan to ease her way back into Salif’s and Dahaba’s hearts. She speaks to Dahaba, when the girl is at Fatima and Mahdi’s, and makes an attempt to woo her with the pleasant-sounding idea of a trust in her and Salif’s names. But Dahaba says she doesn’t understand what “trust” means in this context or how it works to her and Salif’s benefit, and suggests that Valerie discuss the matter with Salif, “who is smart and bound to know the legal and other ramifications.” She then adds, “And please remember to talk about the matter to Auntie Bella, who, so far as I know, is our legal guardian.”

It is evident from Dahaba’s choice of vocabulary that she has a better grasp of legal matters than she claims. It’s also evident that she is not keen on taking a position on what her mother is suggesting. She signs off with a quick and unconvincing “Take care, Mum, I love you,” then runs off to join her friends, and gives her mobile phone to Salif.

Salif is very short with Valerie when she speaks to him, partly because it is the second time she has interrupted him during this visit with his friends. The first time she interrupted his chess game with Zubair, and when he went back to the game, he could not regain his focus and he lost to Zubair — Salif hates losing a chess game to Zubair, of all people! This time he is even more annoyed as he immediately suspects that his mother’s latest move is nothing short of a ploy to cheat him and his sister out of their rightful assets. “You are scheming to sabotage the smooth running of our lives in any way you can,” he tells her curtly, “and we won’t buy into it.” Then, just as Dahaba did, he makes kissing sounds into the phone, saying, “Arrivederci, Mum,” and hangs up.

Padmini, who stood by yesterday afternoon listening in on Valerie’s conference calls with her lawyer and Gunilla, is of the opinion that both the lawyer and Gunilla were less than enthusiastic about the idea of creating a trust. In her view, Gunilla, in fact, seems biased in favor of Bella. Padmini suggests that it was foolish of Valerie to suggest herself immediately as the trustee. In her opinion, Valerie should have made no mention of the trusteeship at all at the outset.

“I have to be the principal trustee,” Valerie insists.

“Why?” Padmini asks.

“Because I am the only living parent.”

“If that is what you are trying to do, then you better get the children on your side, especially Salif, who is no fool.”

Now, with the telephone dead in Valerie’s hands after Salif has rebuffed her, Padmini says, “This is not working out, darling, so give it up.” And as if in accordance with Valerie’s sense that the hotel room has started spinning, a glass precariously balanced on the edge of the nightstand falls to the floor, spilling the dregs of last night’s liquor and shattering on contact with the hard wooden floor.

But Valerie is as dead to the world outside her head as she is alive to the obsession that has taken hold within it, the idea that she believes will allow her to play a part in her children’s lives, giving her a chance to make up for her earlier failings. Padmini says nothing, because she knows from experience that when Valerie is in the grip of an idée fixe there is no convincing her of anything she doesn’t wish to hear and that Valerie, being Valerie, will not give up the hope of achieving her ambitions until either success dances attendance upon her or she stares into the ugly face of defeat.

Padmini comes from a traditional background of the Southeast Asian variety — never mind that she was born in Uganda and raised in Britain. She was brought up in a monogamous household — never mind if her parents’ arranged marriage was a happy one or not. The fact is that the idea of unknotting the marriage ties linking her and her husband together was not only shocking but also unthinkable to either of her parents.

Valerie’s background, Padmini knows, is different. The lifestyle in which she was raised is of the European — that is to say, British — variety. Add to this her father’s career as an actor, his drunkenness, his infidelities, and his predatory sexual behavior, imposing himself on his young daughter. Valerie is unlike most women Padmini has known. She is a woman apart, a woman who sets her own tradition, different from everyone else’s, while claiming to be continuing that tradition into which she was born. Valerie had left Aar and her children to be with Padmini and before that had done the same to a number of other lovers, abandoning each as she started a liaison with another. So Padmini knew from the beginning not to be surprised if Valerie erred in her ways, whether with a man or a woman.

And yet Valerie and Padmini have always seen their rapport as special. Not for them the rows over betrayal that have caused several of the couples they know to go their separate ways. Or so it was until a few years ago in Cape Town.

They were visiting during Gay Pride Week, staying with like-minded friends in Simon’s Town. Padmini was so much in love with life in Cape Town that she suggested to Valerie that they consider relocating there. Valerie seemed to be falling in love with Cape Town too. She’d discovered a gym in Claremont that she liked, and she started going every day, returning later and later with an air of something different about her. When Padmini asked what was going on, Valerie had no explanations to offer. She said only, “We aren’t married, are we?”

Padmini went off her rocker. Such was her anger that she threw her mobile phone at Valerie. When she missed and hit the wall, shattering the phone, her fury reached epic heights. The fight escalated, with unforgivable words exchanged until finally Valerie shrieked, “You know what I like about her? Her cunt doesn’t stink.” She meant to inflict pain, and she did. Then words were not enough, and Padmini tore into Valerie, the two of them struggling like bitches in heat.

When their hosts returned from work, they found themselves staring at broken chairs, tables with no legs, splintered mirrors, and doors without handles. They couldn’t make out what had happened, since neither Padmini nor Valerie would tell them. Maybe their hosts worked it out on their own or maybe they didn’t, but they stopped asking.

For Padmini and Valerie, what happened during that week in Cape Town remains the elephant in the room, and neither will admit to seeing it. From that day on, they’ve avoided any kind of conflict that might lead them back to such a precipice. Sometimes, when it threatens, one or the other of them will say, “Cape Town,” and the reminder is enough to check their rage. But the rift that happened there has never fully mended, and it has left Padmini with the suspicion that Africa itself may not be good for them.

Already they have approached acrimony on this visit over who is to blame for the fact that Dahaba came upon them on the night they were Bella’s guests in what is still, technically speaking, Aar’s house. Was it Padmini’s fault for not staying in the sofa bed or was it Valerie’s for inviting Padmini into her bigger, more comfortable bed?

Padmini, for her part, has been trying to support Valerie however she can, even though she does not wholly agree with the way Valerie is going about things. After all, Valerie stood steadfastly by her side through all the difficulties in Uganda, which stemmed from an ancient dispute involving her family. And she is sensitive to the difference between her mission there, which was purely financial, and how much is at stake for Valerie emotionally with her children.

Still, the ups and downs are hard to weather. Valerie’s conversations with Dahaba and Salif have sent her into a dramatic oscillation between frantic busyness approaching mania and almost total inertia, accompanied by a significant increase in alcohol intake. Meanwhile, their plans for the future — whether to return to their restaurant business in Pondicherry or relocate to Nairobi if Valerie finds a footing in the lives of her children — hang in the balance. Each time they make love after one of their quarrels, they talk and talk before they fall asleep, and Padmini reassures Valerie that she is innocent of blame, and as Padmini drifts off, she hopes that the morrow will bring peace back to their lives. But nothing of the sort has happened — and Valerie is all the more obsessively driven in her pursuit.

Now Valerie is gathering some of her things, as if readying to go out: wallet, room key, and body lotion.

“Where are you going, love?” Padmini asks.

“I am not going anywhere.”

But despite what she says, Valerie continues to pack her handbag, putting into it combs, a hairdryer, a change of underwear, a pair of pants, and a couple of shirts.

“Why are you fretful?”

“Because I am getting ready.”

“Cape Town” threatens.

Valerie is on the edge. And no wonder. She has slept and eaten little and drunk a lot as she schemes about how to lay her hands on the treasures that appear close, within reach — if only! There is nothing that would delight Valerie more than to forge some closeness with her children, and after that, oversee a trust in their name. And if Padmini is unhappy because Valerie closes a deal in which the children become her own again and the problems with the trust are hammered out the way she likes, then it is just too bad, she thinks. Padmini can go where she pleases. As a matter of fact, Valerie believes that since Padmini has never been a mother, there are certain maternal instincts that evade her comprehension. The same is true of Gunilla. And if only Bella were not here to spoil things and deny Valerie’s ambitions — ambitions that are for the good of the children, she is sure. She says to Padmini, “Blame it on Bella and Gunilla, dear.”

Padmini has been intent on averting disaster, but at this she cannot help but say, “I wonder who Adam would blame if there were no Eve?”

Valerie takes her handbag and heads for the door.

Padmini asks again, “Where are you going, love?”

“To the bar in the hotel to have a stiff drink.”

“Isn’t it a little early in the day?”

“You are most welcome to join me,” says Valerie.

She closes the door behind her and runs down the flights of steps, not pausing until she takes a seat in the bar. Her back is to the wall as she waits for someone to take her order and watches men and women coming and going, white-shirted, khaki-trousered, well-primed specimens every one of them. How Valerie hates them; they remind her of her father.

A waiter sporting a well-tended hairdo, yellow lips, and a nervous smile asks, “Anything, madam?” He smells of Lifebuoy soap.

“Two whiskies, three tots in each, plenty of ice on the side, and two glasses of water, please.” She adds, “My friend is joining me shortly,” even though she knows this is untrue. She will drink everything, just as she has done every day for the past few days in secret binges Padmini has not detected.

“Yes, madam,” he assures her.

“We can put the drinks bill on the room, right?”

The waiter leans down to whisper as if he were sharing a confidence with her — how his body smells, despite the Lifebuoy, she thinks. “I’m sorry, madam, cash up front. That is the hotel policy for hard liquor.”

“You go and get it,” she says.

“Cash up front, as I’ve just said, madam.”

Valerie can’t decide with whom she is angrier, the waiter, Gunilla, Bella, or the children, the multiple sources of her troubles. And to top it all off, she discovers that her wallet is bereft of cash. Enough. She is sober still, sober enough to decide she won’t be bullied by a Kenyan smelling of soap.

When she gets back to the room, Padmini is reading and doesn’t even bother to look up from her book, pretending she hasn’t noticed Valerie’s return. It is broad daylight, but Valerie gets under the covers and, weighed down with depression, goes straight to sleep.

—

Qamar and Salif are lying side by side on the bed with their shoes on, their heads on huge cushions, passing a cigarette back and forth. The windows are wide open and the two ceiling fans are doggedly running, producing scant air. Through the wall, they can hear the sounds of Zubair and Dahaba shrieking with laughter as they play computer games. Salif’s phone rings.

“Are you having a good time, darling?” Bella asks.

“Yes, Auntie, we are, thanks.” Indeed, they have been having a splendid visit, eating too much chocolate, smoking, gossiping about their friends, and taking turns telling tall tales to one another. Salif is aware that Dahaba is stiff with worry about their mother’s unscrupulousness. But he will assure Dahaba, when they are alone in their house later, that he knows a lot more than his mum does about the existing will, his father having confided this to him. Their father was more worried about the legion of his so-called Somali relatives who, like vultures, would descend to make their clan-based claim on his children and Bella’s inheritance were he to die without a will. This is why the will names Bella, his closest living blood relative, as their legal guardian.

“Will you be ready if I come to pick you up in half an hour?” asks Bella.

“Is it okay if you come in an hour instead?”

“Yes, it is. See you in an hour.” And Bella hangs up.

“I’ve been wondering,” Qamar says, trailing off.

Salif teases. “Keep going; keep wondering.”

Qamar asks, “How binding is the will of a dead person?”

Qamar has probably spoken to Dahaba, who is understandably worried about their mother’s talking the way she did about trusts, with Bella seemingly unaware of her machinations. He can imagine why Dahaba would want to know if their father’s will would protect them.

“Wills are more than a word given, they are written and signed in the presence of witnesses,” says Salif. “And they are binding. Otherwise, not honoring them might create avoidable frictions within family units, and nobody wants frictions.”

Qamar draws long on the cigarette and waits for him to continue speaking. She holds the cigarette away from her face until he passes her the ashtray. Then she brushes the ash off and passes the cigarette back to him.

Salif takes a puff, and as he blows rings of smoke out, he thinks about cremations and what the Zoroastrians do: construct a raised structure on which the recently dead is exposed to scavenging birds. He cannot determine which is worse: to be interred in the ground, cremated, or become food for scavenging birds.

Qamar says, after having a toke on the cigarette, “How do you know all this, about the enforceability of wills, I mean?”

Salif replies, “My dad explained it to me.”

“Why would he tell you that sort of thing?”

“It is as if he knew that our mum would one day turn up and make unenforceable claims. So he warned me about it and said to rely only on Bella, whom he would make our legal guardian in the event he preceded her.”

“My dad never spoke about this type of thing to me.”

“Maybe your situation is different and he needn’t do that.”

“Or maybe…”

“You see, Dad hoped I’d become a lawyer,” says Salif.

Salif receives the cigarette now that it is his turn to have a puff, then closes his eyes after drawing on it, holding the smoke in his mouth and releasing it gently.

“I think your mum has her madcap ideas,” says Qamar.

Salif has a hungry long draw on the cigarette for a second time before passing it to Qamar. And then he feasts his eyes on the well-presented series of photos of a young and an old Nina Simone and of Miles Davis playing a gig in a dive in Japan. Salif prefers African music in all its forms to American or European music. He has a stash of records from all over the continent and is disinterested in rock, country, or any music from elsewhere. And he doesn’t make a statement with his choice of music. Qamar is a statements girl and declares that jazz is the music to cherish. Curiously, when the two talk about jazz, literature, or anything serious, they speak in English, in which they feel more comfortable. They lapse into Somali when the topic is one of immediate concern: cigarettes, food, cinema money, or cash for more mobile phone minutes. At present, they are speaking in Somali interspersed with English words.

“Ever listen to Somali music?” Salif asks.

“I’ve had Somali music up to here.” Qamar touches her throat. “I had to listen to it as a child every time I got into the car, being picked up from school or taken shopping. Also, if I want to hear Somali music, I go downstairs: My mother has it on all the time. Except we seldom hear it in the house lately because Mum is in no mood to play music, any music, these days.”

“But you are your own person now, or so you think.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“You become more tolerant of the choices other people make when you are your own person. A girl your age with your background should allow others to make their choices and not take things in a personal way, as one does when one is a child. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The cigarette is finished. Qamar picks up the ashtray, steps into the adjoining bathroom, empties the ashtray into the toilet, and flushes it before she returns to the bed.

She says, “Have we become our own persons?”

“Listening to your parents’ choice of music and fussing are run of the mill experiences during the transition from the person our parents want us to be and the person we eventually become. Along the way, one loses a few things and gains others.”

“Life is boring, life is exciting.”

Qamar takes a sip of water from the glass on her side of the bed.

Salif says, “I bet it would be tedious to eat caviar in the morning, caviar in the afternoon, and caviar in the evening. In the end, you would want to eat anything but caviar.”

As the children of Somali parents in exile, they have each been drilled in Somali identity. Yet Qamar remembers when she once asked one of her uncles in English to pay for an ice cream cone and he answered that he would do so only if she made the same request in Somali. She refused to oblige, choosing to forfeit the treat rather than be forced to do something against her will. When she repeated the anecdote to Salif, he said she was being foolish. Qamar retorted, “I am not someone’s project. Speak Somali or else? I won’t. And I can live comfortably without ice cream, thank you.”

Salif now says, “In Somalia, a woman is not thought of as a complete person in her own right. She has become male society’s project in the making, which is why we refer to ‘women’s organizations’ as ‘mothers’ organizations.’ The same is true of Kenyan society, in fact, more so than in Somali society. You will notice that every older man is addressed as ‘Father,’ which I see as part of the project. In short, I think that African societies view having children as an integral part of project making.”

“I won’t think of myself as part of anyone’s project.”

“Will you have children or not?”

“Supposing I do?”

“Then you will be complying with society’s wish.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.”

“Don’t you talk like that to me,” Qamar said.

“Anything that requires advance planning is just a project by another name. If, from the look of things, children do well, then the project has been a great success. Look at you and me: We are but seeds projected from our ancestral Somali tree. It’s too bad we Somali offspring are unable to have direct knowledge of the country and its cultural nuances. The very parents who want us to become and remain Somali tell us it is unsafe for us to go there.”

“They have a point,” Qamar says.

“Don’t I know it?”

“You’ve no business putting your life at risk,” says Qamar.

“Yet the European passport on which I travel is to me a mere document permitting me to legally board flights, fill in forms, go into and out of other lands — and have some form of identity.”

“Why do you have a European passport?” Qamar asks. “Was it via your mum?”

“No,” says Salif. “Our EU passports were granted to us thanks to my dad’s working for the UN. Another way of gerrymandering the boundaries of identity.”

“Hence the question,” Qamar says.

“Question, what question?”

“What does it mean to be Somali in this day and age?”

“What about your Kenyan papers?”

“Our father obtained Kenyan citizenship through bribery after living here for decades as an undocumented refugee.”

“I had no idea.”

“Yes, they were declared stateless when they first arrived, along with all the other Somalis fleeing the civil war. Eventually, they got Kenyan papers, but I do not think of myself as a Kenyan since I am not welcomed as such. I am Somali, and my loyalty is to Somalia, which I’ve never visited and do not know. My attitude toward Kenya will change the day the people of this country accept me as Kenyan and do not tell me to go back to my own country!”

Salif says, “Our hearts are not where our papers are.”

He lights yet another cigarette, but when he passes it to Qamar, she shakes her head no.

“Who knows what will become of people like us?” she says.

“We are difficult to define, aren’t we?”

Dahaba calls to Salif. He stubs out his cigarette and Qamar hides the ashtray before Dahaba appears in the doorway, leaning against the jamb.

“Do I smell what I think I smell?” says Dahaba.

“What’s your beef, Dahaba?” says Salif.

She furrows her forehead and holds her nose in disapproval. “You promised!” she says.

“Promised what?” challenges Salif.

“You promised our father.”

“Were you with us when I promised?”

“No, I wasn’t, but you told me.”

“Anyway, what is your point?”

“You swore you’d quit smoking.”

A sudden unease dominates the room. Salif gets out of bed and stares at Dahaba, annoyed; Qamar looks sheepishly away.

Dahaba says, “I’ll tell on both of you.”

But just as Dahaba prepares to leave the room, looking as if she might indeed report them to one of Qamar’s parents or make a phone call to Auntie Bella, Salif says, “Listen, Dahaba.” He has a look of mischief on his face. “You may tell on us to anyone you choose as long as you don’t tell Qamar what happened last night, since you’ve already shared it with Zubair.”

“How do you know I told him?”

“Something tells me that you have.”

Salif has Dahaba’s total attention and Qamar’s too.

“What happened last night?” Qamar asks. She looks from Dahaba to Salif and back.

Salif is trying to rattle Dahaba’s cage, but he hopes she realizes that telling on him won’t help anyone.

Qamar says, “Will someone tell me what happened last night?” She turns on Dahaba. “I thought we shared everything, you and I?”

Dahaba tenses. “You tell her,” she says to Salif.

“No, you tell her. You saw what happened with your own eyes. I didn’t.”

Qamar says to Dahaba, “Let us trade secrets.”

Dahaba says, “It all started with a YouTube video that Dhimbil, a distant cousin on our father’s side who lives in Kampala, forwarded to Salif. Salif, being mean, wouldn’t share it with me.”

“Cool. And then?”

Dahaba tells what she saw at their house, her mother and Padmini “doing it.” And then her phone rings. It’s Bella, who says, “My darling, I am waiting in the car outside the door. Since I do not want to disturb Fatima or Mahdi because they may be napping, would you give them my best and thank them and come to where I am parked?”

And before Qamar can say anything, Dahaba and Salif run off to join Bella in the car.

Driving away from Fatima and Mahdi’s house, Bella is in a good mood and so are the children. She is getting the hang of how Nairobi works, and she is also getting the hang of how these children work. She prods them less about what has been said by whom because she is beginning to realize that the young are like sieves when it comes to secrets, which they share as readily as they would share a sandwich.

Salif has forfeited his turn in the front seat to Dahaba, who jumped at it and thanked him. Nevertheless, Bella smelled cigarette smoke on Salif’s clothing when they hugged, and she plans to have a word with him on the subject when the time is right. It’s a waste to speak to the young when they are not ready to hear you, she is learning; you need to speak to them at a time and in such a way that they think they are the ones who made the choice.

Back at home, they assemble in the kitchen and Bella first shows them the big album she made out of the photos she brought from Rome. And then she shares with them the album that Gunilla presented to her. She must call Marcella, she reminds herself, but right now she is enjoying what the children are doing, sitting side by side, delighted with what they see: photographs of Bella; of Hurdo, their Somali grandmother in Canada; their father back when he was writing his dissertation. A photo of baby Salif and one of baby Dahaba, Bella with Salif in a kindergarten in Geneva, learning his alphabet in French. Padmini with Rajiv, whom neither child remembers.

Salif says, “How long did it take you to collect these photographs, and where did they come from? They are quite something, very much worth the effort.”

Bella asks them both if they remember Gunilla.

“But of course we remember her,” Dahaba says.

“She was our father’s lover for a time,” Salif says.

Bella pretends not to have heard his assertion.

“Gunilla brought many of them last night in an album of photographs that she gave to me, and the other album I brought with me to give to you.”

Salif says, “That is brilliant.”

Dahaba says, “I’d love to see Gunilla again.”

“What about you, Salif?”

“We both liked her. Gunilla was fun.”

“I’ll ask her to come to dinner,” Bella says.

“That will be great.”

Then the children retreat to their rooms, text messaging or consulting websites of one sort or another or listening to music of their choice until dinner is ready and Bella shouts to them to come down and eat.

—

Valerie’s mobile phone squeals, breaking into the late-afternoon silence in the hotel room. It rings on and on, and Padmini does not pick it up. Valerie has been in the bathroom forever, doing who knows what. Eventually, the phone stops ringing, and Padmini thinks, what a relief.

Today, Padmini has been finding Valerie more difficult to deal with by the hour. The time has come, she thinks, for them to question whether there is any point in staying on in Nairobi. Padmini hasn’t yet shared her worries about their mounting expenses with Valerie because her partner has the pie-eyed look of someone who has been in her cups for days. Padmini is coming around to thinking that it is time they cut their losses, just as they did in Kampala, and return to Pondicherry, where, according to the sign they put on the door, they are due to reopen their hotel and restaurant in less than a week.

Valerie’s phone rings again, and again Padmini lets it ring until it stops. But when the ringing begins again, with still no sign of Valerie, Padmini picks it up and answers.

“Is that Val?” The woman on the other end of the line has a heavy Teutonic accent, and she sounds supremely self-assured. “This is Ulrika Peters. Remember?”

Padmini explains that she is answering Val’s phone. A short pause follows as Ulrika absorbs this information.

Ulrika says, “You met us, you and your English rose, Val, last night, remember? She said to call and maybe we could meet up and have a little more fun.”

“Where would you like to meet?” says Padmini. She is playing for time as she tries to figure out if this is the beer-guzzling Oktoberfest-type giant with the iron handshake who so impressed her and Valerie last night with her heroic drinking abilities and her carrying on with the women on either side of her. Nipple pinching and toe sucking in public! The things some people go for, thinks Padmini. But maybe Valerie would like that sort of thing.

“At Bar in Heaven again,” says Ulrika, “the friendliest bar in all of Nairobi. The best bar on the entire continent, except perhaps for a couple of bars in De Waterkant in Cape Town.”

Do not mention Cape Town again, please, prays Padmini to herself. But to Ulrika she says, “And when?”

“Tonight, why not?”

“Just a second, please,” says Padmini. “I need to consult with Valerie.” She knocks on the bathroom door.

“Go ahead,” says Ulrika. “I will wait.”

“What’s happening?” says Valerie, heavy-tongued, emerging from the bathroom with toothpaste on her chin and her hair carelessly brushed.

“An invite is happening,” says Padmini.

Valerie says, “Tell me more!”

Padmini tells her. “What say you?”

“I say let’s go! Let’s drink and be merry.”

Padmini hesitates, her hand over the phone, taking in Valerie’s condition. Then she tells Valerie that she will accept, on condition that Valerie rests up and refrains from drinking until they get to the bar. Into the phone, she says, “What time do we meet there?”

“Ten o’clock.”

“See you at ten.”

Padmini calls room service and orders a club sandwich for them to share and a glass of milk for Valerie instead of her usual sundowner. Then they sleep until just past nine.

They rise and shower in turn, and then Valerie calls the concierge to order a taxi for ten-fifteen. “Let’s get there half an hour late,” she says to Padmini by way of explanation. “We don’t wish to appear too eager, right?”

“Okay by me,” says Padmini. But she can see that Valerie is wide-eyed with anticipation.

“We’re going to enjoy ourselves, you’ll see.”

Padmini is not so sure about that. But she is glad for an excuse to get out of their stifling, expensive room.

“This calls for a celebration, I’d say.” Valerie brings out a bottle of chilled champagne, and Padmini, conceding defeat, gets two glasses. Valerie opens the bottle and Padmini puts out some French cheese, her favorite, on a low table, along with a baguette wrapped in the front page of The Independent and a stash of white and dark chocolates.

As they eat and drink, Padmini reads a news story to Valerie from the front page of The Independent, which is a week old. The article cites a letter from an eight-year-old English girl to a British MP who was quoted as saying that gay couples are not fit to raise children. In her letter, the girl describes herself as the happy daughter of a lesbian couple and tells the MP that she is “perfectly fine… a real child with two mothers, who are real people with real feelings.” The girl closes by writing, “You can be brought up well by anyone who loves and cares for you and who makes sure that you are happy.”

The paper has withheld the identity of the girl and her parents. Padmini and Val now debate the merits of this. Padmini questions whether it’s right to withhold the name of the girl while publishing the MP’s. Valerie retorts that no newspaper in Britain would dare publish the name of a minor without the approval of a parent or guardian. “She could be bullied at school or worse. And maybe it’s out of deference to the mothers’ feelings.”

Padmini asks, “Do you think they care what others might say about them?”

“Their situation is unlike ours.”

“How so?”

“We are in Africa.”

“And your children are not only half African but also Somali and Muslim,” says Padmini. “Somalis are bigots, every single one of them. They would delight in burning us at the stake. They see us as deviants, worse than devil worshippers, and they believe we deserve commensurate punishments.”

“And you think the West is so much better?”

“There is no depth to the commitment, despite the laws on the books. But at least we can go to sleep at night confident that we won’t be arrested just because we are gay.”

Valerie says, “You know, Pad, Aar came to accept our relationship in the fullness of time, and so did my mother, especially after knowing what my father did to me. But not your parents.”

Padmini says, “And Bella?”

“Neither she nor Aar is your typical Somali or typical African,” Valerie says. “I think it’s because their mother was ahead of her time.”

Carried away by the prevailing positive mood, Valerie wonders aloud, “I wonder whether we can persuade Salif and Dahaba to throw in their lot with ours.”

“You mean, come with us to India?”

“Why not?”

“Who knows?” says Padmini. “The idea might excite them. The subcontinent is a much bigger world than either of them has known. Don’t they say, ‘See the elephant; see the world’?”

“And if living in India doesn’t much take their fancy, we should be open to the idea of moving to Britain. You wouldn’t mind if we did that?” Valerie asks.

“Not if it is the only option open to us,” says Padmini. Her straying hand touches Valerie’s cheek, and before long, they are making love in a way they haven’t for a long time. Then they go down to the waiting taxi and head off into the night to join Ulrika.

—

From the outside, the nightclub looks uninviting. The building is composed of a ground floor constructed along utilitarian lines that can accommodate any use: workshop, fitness center, or a place of worship. Inside, however, a lick of paint and a raised ceiling have transformed it. At one end of the floor, there is a bandstand where a group of women is playing. At the other is a long bar with stools and tables and chairs, for which there is an extra charge. Tonight all the tables are taken, and the dance floor is full.

As soon as Padmini spots Ulrika sitting in her own special corner, a little away from the other tables and farthest from the music, she recognizes her as the big-boned but well-honed woman she remembers. She also remembers her suddenly as the woman who made a pass at her the other night and had the gall to call her the “brown beauty.” But she lets Valerie lead her by the hand through the melee of drinkers and dancers and busy waitresses. When they get to Ulrika’s table, she welcomes them with a hug and kiss, and then introduces them to two African women who are sitting with her. What a promiscuous woman you are, Ulrika, thinks Padmini.

Ulrika explains that the owner of the club is a Kenyan, a former lover of hers, and Ulrika was one of the first investors in the venture, which has been a roaring success. The special table is her perch. She turns to Valerie. “Dammit, I forgot to bring the two books I promised you.”

Valerie looks as if she can’t for the life of her remember anything about any books, but she says, “No worries. Maybe next time.” But Padmini says, “What books?”

“Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? and Jackie Kay’s most recent novel, which is set in part in Nigeria, where her birth father hails from.” Ulrika flags down a waitress and asks what they want to drink. “You are my guests,” she says, with the same Teutonic certitude Padmini heard on the phone. “The first round is on me.”

“What is a giant German woman doing in Kenya?” Valerie asks. “I am curious.”

Ulrika tells them that she makes her living as a masseuse. Well over six feet tall, with a laugh to match, she also has a larger-than-life generosity of spirit that leaves her open to new ideas and new ways of having fun. Her business is booming too. It’s adjacent to her home, in several thatched huts, each with its own Jacuzzi. There’s also a swimming pool of Olympic proportions, a bar, and a small gym. At the extreme end of these structures is the well-appointed apartment where she lives, often alone.

“How do you mean, often alone?” Valerie asks.

“Sometimes I have guests, family, friends. And at other times, I entertain my lovers.”

She is close to her parents, she says; they helped her to establish her business.

“How often do they visit?”

“Twice a year,” Ulrika answers. “They spend the whole European winter here.”

“And who helps you run it?”

Ulrika tells them she employs two young men, one from Cape Town and the other from Sydney, along with several African women, for the running of the business, plus a couple more that she has trained as masseuses. She adds, “I grew up in South Africa, where my father was West Germany’s consul.” She explains that her father always insisted on sending her to the same schools as the locals and not, say, to the German school in Cape Town, so Ulrika has always felt more comfortable in the company of Africans.

“And whom do you cater to?” asks Valerie.

Padmini can see that the idea of Ulrika’s working on her body turns Valerie on, and, sure enough, Valerie says, “Can I book a session?”

The band launches into a cover of a popular song by a Congolese group, and the two Africans sitting next to Ulrika invite Padmini to dance with them. By the time they return to the table, Ulrika and Valerie are deep in conversation.

“I’ve always dreaded what would become of my body,” Ulrika is saying, and Padmini guesses they are talking about pregnancy. Ulrika tells one story after another, and Padmini has just about fallen asleep when she hears Valerie ask, “An indiscreet question, if I may?”

“Go ahead and ask,” Ulrika tells her.

“Do African women do it too — woman to woman?”

“Of course,” Ulrika answers.

“Who did you have your first experience with?”

“An African girl who was several years older than I–I was nine, she fifteen, and from that day on, I’ve never looked at a boy. In Africa, because no one suspects women to be interested sexually in other women, people leave you alone. The idea of two women doing it is basically alien to African men. But they abhor the idea of men doing it with other men. You can see their disgust in their expressions. And yet I know many African gay men.”

“Maybe it is like the Muslims and drinking.”

“How do you mean?”

Valerie says, “When they come to functions at European embassies where the drinks are flowing, they ask to have their wine and other haram drinks put in coffee mugs so no one can see what they are drinking.”

“But since Allah sees all, why bother?”

“It is for show.”

“You mean saying that we have no gays is for show?”

“That’s what I think.”

“Maybe you are right.”

“Maybe I am.”

Now it is time for Ulrika and Valerie to go to the dance floor. At first Ulrika pulls Valerie close, her hands wandering all over Valerie’s body. But Valerie disengages, and they dance a meter apart. For once, she is doing her best not to upset Padmini.