“And you,” he asked, staring at his plate as his knife cut away neatly. “Do you like to travel?”
“I do,” she said quietly.
“And how does Africa sound to you?” His voice was edged with indifference.
Jeri leaned forward and settled her head in her hands. Her hair glowed copper-red in the candlelight. “I would say it sounds dirty, dangerous… real. Like anything new I think it would be incredibly visceral. And if it’s anything like what I’ve read, I’m sure it would be unbelievably intense.”
Rob paused in mid-cut and looked at her, trying to read Jeri’s steady, intense glare. “Right. Well, I suppose I’d agree with that assessment – which is exactly why I have no interest in going.”
Jeri glanced across the room. The last dying ray of sunlight clung weakly to the wall, its former fire now just a whisper of dull light. She watched as it faded into the dark mahogany, evaporating submissively into the void with a final, anti-climactic flicker from existence.
“That’s okay,” she said slowly, her voice cool and crisp.
“You’re not invited anyway.”
9.
The locals called it harmattan.
The dry, immense trade wind erupted from the great desert and blew downward into the moist tropical interior of Africa with the beginning of the late autumn dry season. As it traveled south, the hot, restless wall of air sucked massive amounts of Saharan sand into its grip, turning the sky into a dull smudge of cinnamon that could veil the sun for days. It normally started blowing in late November – the desert-fired air and thick, dusty haze providing a mixed blessing of low humidity and pulmonary irritation – but this year the great wind, often called “the doctor” had come weeks ahead of schedule.
He knew this because he woke to a ruddy-orange African sky that refused to yield blue as the sunrise drew upward into morning. His throat was dry and scratched and his mouth held the gritty, mineral taste of sand and earth that was only slightly less pleasant than the morning-after taste of Jack Daniels. He glanced at his watch, checked his cell phone, then slowly rose from the bed to wash in the tiny, green-tiled bathroom of the hotel room. A cockroach darted fearlessly across his path as he scratched at the short dark curls on his head, reminding him to ask the concierge for a room upgrade. If only there was a concierge. Or a room upgrade.
The torrent of Port Harcourt’s morning traffic was already rolling and churning as he descended onto the street. Cars and buses jostled along the dilapidated road of potholes and pavement, a collective symphony of honking horns and screeching brakes as the smoke-farting motorcycle taxis called achabas and their daredevil pilots darted around them at fatal speeds. He fell in step with the vibrant current of locals that shuffled along the narrow line between merchant stands and vehicles, ducking his head beneath the noxious cloud of motor oil and gasohol vapor that hung suspended in the air.
Within minutes he knew he was being followed. He’d been taught how to sense it– a subconscious awareness he’d slowly learned to trust. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted them. Three small, painfully thin boys gazed back at him with large, yellow-stained eyes. He stared at them coldly before slowly easing his face into a smile. The boys instantly smiled back at him just as they had the previous morning. The largest of the three bolted towards him, his tiny chest swelling arrogantly under a dirty, threadbare shirt.
“How now, how ya body?” The boy’s thin, shrill voice asked in Pidgin English as he walked beside him.
“Fine-oh,” he responded with a low voice, not breaking his quick pace.
The boy’s rail-thin arm lifted upward as he held out his tiny, mocha-colored palm.
“Abeg,” he said confidently; his deep, mica-black eyes liquid and intense.
He stared down at him with mock irritation as his hand worked into his pocket, slapping 300 naira into the boy’s palm before gripping it in the vice of his hand. “Coke, and some hot suya,” he mumbled.
The boy nodded quickly as he pulled pleadingly at his arm.
“Okay mista, okay!”
He released his grip and the boy shot into the dense forest of people, his two tiny colleagues trailing closely behind him. “Do quick!” He yelled after them, a sly grin creasing his lips. Within minutes his breakfast would be served.
He continued walking, weaving inconspicuously through the mob as it shuffled and flowed around him. It was market day, and the normally heavy throngs of locals clad in bright shirts and long, flowing bubas seemed to have multiplied two-fold as they converged under the smoldering, sand-blown sky. Everything was in constant, clamoring motion. Fluttering, leg-strapped chickens dangled from tall poles. Wheelbarrows loaded with exotic fruits teetered along the pock-marked streets. Baskets brimming with plantains and yams towered over him, balanced precariously on the pele-wrapped heads of local women.