An African Affair Page 9

  “Not really.”

  An uncomfortable pause.

  “Well, so after the marriage, then what?”

  “Then there were others. Many others. But nothing worked out.”

  She realized she was pushing kind of hard. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right one.”

  He put out his cigarette. “I thought I had. I’m still recovering from that. Listen, Lindsay, I’m not . . .” His voice trailed off. “I can’t seem to make the commitments that most women want—that most women have a right to want.”

  “Are you warning me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, don’t. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

  “I believe you,” he answered. “I think you could do just about anything you wanted to.”

  “We’ll see.” She smiled and leaned back. “Don’t you want to know about me?”

  “I don’t think I’ll find out what I want to know by asking you questions. Shall we go?”

  Walking back to the hut, he reached for her hand. In the room, James busied himself trying to fix the mosquito net by tying knots to close the holes. She lay down and watched, wanting him to make the first move.

  He finished working on the net and turned to her. He seemed to be struggling against his own desire.

  “Are you tired?” he asked.

  “A little. Are you?”

  “Yes. But I have some reading to do. Will the light bother you?”

  He opened his briefcase and took out a folder. Heading to the bathroom, she murmured just loud enough for him to hear: “It’s not the light that’s bothering me.”

  She washed up, wondering what to sleep in; her sexy nightgown no longer felt appropriate. She settled on an oversized T-shirt. She lay down on the bed, feeling ridiculous, angry at him and at herself. Was it possible she had so misunderstood him? Had her reluctance on the beach so easily turned him off?

  The bedside phone rang and she picked up the receiver. After a moment she answered: “Listen, that’s just not possible. I cannot wait two days for a line to New York. I need to get through by tomorrow morning.” She heard her voice rising. “How can you call yourself an international hotel if I can’t make a phone call or use the Internet or send a fax? What am I supposed to do, use the talking drum?”

  She slammed down the receiver.

  James put his work aside and with a sigh walked over to the bed. He sat next to her, brushed the persistent stray hair out of her eyes, and said gently, “That sounded pretty angry.”

  “Well, I have a right to be.”

  “Are you sure it was the hotel that made you mad?”

  “Yes, of course. What else would it be?”

  “I thought it might be me.”

  She fidgeted, playing with the mosquito netting.

  “I think I may have misread our relationship, that’s all,” she said casually, getting up to unpack.

  “This is what I was trying to warn you about,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I thought you were talking about a commitment. I didn’t think that extended to enjoying each other.”

  He smiled. “Aren’t we enjoying each other?”

  She put down the shirt she was holding and looked at him.

  “You know what I mean.”

  He met her gaze.

  “It usually doesn’t. But it does with you.”

  “James, is this your way of saying you’d like us to just be friends? Because if it is, that’s okay.”

  “No, Lindsay. I’m just being cautious. Trying to build something real before we jump into bed.” He saw her stiffen. “Look, if we become lovers too quickly everything changes. It will end sooner. I’ve been through that so many times.”

  It was, she thought, an odd perspective—one she had never encountered from a man before.

  “Fine,” she said, grudgingly. “I don’t want to talk about this. Let’s go to sleep.”

  He nodded and put his papers away, then climbed into bed next to her and turned out the light.

  They lay silent for a moment.

  “What was that about on the beach?” she blurted. “You weren’t so cautious then.”

  “I know. But that was before I realized that this might be more than a few days’ diversion.”

  Silence again.

  “Maybe you just think too much,” she added. “Don’t you ever just follow your impulses?”

  “I thought you didn’t want to talk about this.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Good. Good night, Lindsay,” he said.

  In the morning, she awoke early because she itched all over. She was covered from head to toe with mosquito bites. Her neck, arms, legs, and stomach were blotched with angry red welts. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Oh, God, they were on her face too. The mosquito net had been completely useless.

  When he awoke, his expression didn’t temper her anxiety. She tried to hide her face. “Move your hands,” he ordered gently. He had brought some calamine lotion and tried to apply it with cotton balls, first dabbing lightly at her face, then her arms and legs. Miserable, she looked at him. Miraculously, he had emerged relatively unscathed—just a few bites on his legs and chest. “I guess I’m just not as sweet as you are,” he said.

  “That’s for sure,” she said. “But I should have known better.”

  “Well, you said you wanted an authentic African village.”

  “Not a really authentic one. I wanted a tourist African village, a sanitized version without snakes and mosquitoes. No wonder the other cottages were all empty.”

  “Yeah, that was a clue. I warned you about romanticizing Africa.”

  “I know. You’ve warned me about all kinds of romance. What about you? Are you itchy?”

  “No. But we’ve got to get you to a doctor. You’re having an allergic reaction and you probably need some extra quinine too.”

  They packed their few belongings. While he went to settle the bill, she waited in the car, too embarrassed to be seen. She looked around the parking lot to see if the number 4 license plate was still there. She found it, and watched three men approach the car. She didn’t recognize any of them. One of the men got behind the wheel. Another rode shotgun. The third, probably the health minister himself, climbed into the back. He was tall and heavyset, dressed casually in a pair of khaki pants and a loose-fitting lightweight shirt. When James returned seconds later, she gestured toward the car and asked if he recognized anyone. He too couldn’t identify any of its occupants.

  She was feverish on the long drive home. She finally fell into a fitful sleep full of dreams in which she narrowly escaped multiple dangers: a crocodile crept up on shore and dragged her underwater, bandits chased her with pangas, and a lion paced up and down, up and down outside her tent, ready to pounce the moment she emerged.

  CHAPTER 13

  It took nearly a week for the fever to subside and the welts to diminish. James visited every day, bringing lotion and Benadryl to control the maddening itch. He sat on the edge of her bed, telling her stories about his adventures in bush villages trying to locate religious sculptures. He was charming and attentive, but, although he liked to tease Lindsay about her romantic notions about journalism, he resisted mentioning his own emotional state, or their standoff in Ibadan. She began to wonder if he simply wasn’t attracted to her. She would have liked to talk more with Maureen, but Maureen was busy following her own stories and, when she was home, spent a lot of time in her room. She seemed to have come down with some kind of lowgrade virus that sapped her energy. It worried Lindsay, but Maureen dismissed it as simply a reaction to the heat.

  Lindsay used the enforced bed rest to write and file her feature on Roxanne Reinstadler. By the time she was ready to resume her full workload, several weeks had passed since she had identified Babatunde Oladayo’s body. There had been no announcement or local coverage of his death—no student uproar, no demonstrations, and, so far, no government reaction to her story. The military government
hadn’t even responded to her Olumide interview, which had in fact made the front page in New York; the silence, as they say, was deafening. So far, the American ambassador’s predictions hadn’t come true. There was no move against Fakai, whose campaign seemed increasingly paranoid. He made a few public appearances but didn’t announce them ahead of time, in order to keep the authorities in the dark; he gave no interviews to the foreign press, though his aides still held out the promise of an underground press conference sometime in the next three weeks. In fact, the political scene was strangely quiet, like a huge bloated balloon floating eerily in the air while everyone waited nervously for it to burst.

  She understood that she had done little to help move the story forward. It was the first time ever she had become so distracted that it affected her work. Since the trip to Ibadan she couldn’t stop thinking about James.

  Her ambition returned with her health. She determined to follow two loose threads: the killing of Babatunde and the murder of William Agapo and his wife. It was widely believed that Agapo’s death was a political assassination—his wife’s murder was likely collateral damage. But why was Agapo killed? The most likely reason was that he angered Olumide. Since he was one of Olumide’s closest advisers, his crime must have been more than just lining his pockets. She figured that Agapo had been a spy and that Olumide had discovered his betrayal. But if that was true, who was Agapo spying for? Rumor pointed to the CIA, but there was no proof. Still, she thought she’d try talking to the new political officer. Maybe she would point her in the right direction.

  She called the American embassy and asked for Vickie Grebow. Vickie was in meetings most of the day, but Lindsay set up a lunch date with her for the next afternoon. In the meantime, she would get to work on her other priority—Babatunde Oladayo. Her first stop was the high commissioner’s steward. Driving up to the guard at the gate, she pulled out her press credentials and U.S. passport. “Good morning,” she said brightly, handing the papers through the window. “I’m Lindsay Cameron. I left my purse here at a party a few weeks ago and I wanted to check with the high commissioner’s steward to see if he found it.”

  “He gone,” the guard answered mechanically, barely glancing at her.

  “Well, when is he coming back?”

  The guard shrugged.

  “Do you mean he is not working here anymore?”

  The guard shrugged again.

  “Then please tell the high commissioner I’d like to see him,” she bluffed.

  “He not at home, madam.” The guard’s eyes danced nervously.

  “Oh, what a shame. Could I possibly see his wife? She’s a friend of mine.” This was more risky, but she counted on a high commissioner’s wife having duties that would take her away from home.

  “No, madam.” The guard was slightly more attentive now. “Madam go out early.”

  “Well, then I think I’d better have a word with the steward’s wife,” she said with relief.

  The guard hesitated.

  “It’s important that I find my bag,” she said. “I’d really rather not bother the high commissioner with this. He might worry that someone on his staff stole it.”

  The guard relented. He phoned the house, swung open the gate, and touched his cap as Lindsay drove through and parked. She had just gotten out of the car when a young woman, carrying a small child wrapped in a kanga on her back, entered the courtyard and approached her.

  “Good morning,” said Lindsay.

  The woman shifted the baby’s weight but didn’t look up or answer.

  “I came to see your husband. Do you know when he will return?”

  Still looking down, the woman spoke with hushed intensity. “He not here, madam. Please no go come here. He in hospital. He very bad.”

  Lindsay felt her mouth go dry.

  “What happened? What’s wrong with him?”

  “An accident, madam. A car go hit him on de street. Please no go come here. Please no go see him. Leave us be. We no want trouble.”

  Lindsay didn’t speak for a moment. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled at last. “I thought he wanted to tell me about Baba—”

  The woman interrupted her.

  “What he want no import, madam,” she hissed. “Please, madam, for my babies. Go way. Don’ come back.”

  “I understand. I’m very, very sorry.” Lindsay reached over and touched the baby’s plump arm.

  For the first time, the woman looked her in the eye. Lindsay smiled weakly, turned and got in the car. As she started the ignition, the woman poked her head timidly in through the window, seemingly emboldened by the engine’s noise. “You want The Next Step. . . . Yes?” she whispered. Lindsay nodded. “Go to de Juju House.”

  “What Juju House?” Lindsay was whispering too. “Where is it?”

  The woman shook her head impatiently. “De Juju House. Ask in Surulere.” She turned away and walked quickly back to her quarters, her baby swaying as she moved.

  Lindsay knew about Surulere, a vast slum on the outskirts of the city.

  She drove through the gate, waving at the guard, who stared straight ahead. She worried about the steward, feeling a sharp pang of guilt. She didn’t even know his name, she thought, and she had brought him nothing but trouble. It was clear that he didn’t end up in the hospital because of an “accident,” and equally clear that she could never approach him again. But what had happened to draw attention to him? Was she responsible? She had started to drive home but changed her mind and passed her own house, heading for the residence of Mike Vale. Mike had gotten the Babatunde story on his own. Maybe he’d have heard something about the repercussions.

  Like most of the foreign press in Lagos, Mike lived in the same house as his predecessor. It was just a few short blocks from her own. She pulled into the driveway and got out of the car. She knocked at the door, but no one answered so she knocked again, harder. She was just deciding to leave when Mike opened the front door.

  “Hello, darling,” he greeted her. “I knew you’d reconsider.”

  “Hi, Mike. Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” He stepped aside to make room for her to enter. They sat down in his living room.

  She told him that a source had been injured and she suspected governmental foul play.

  “It’s connected to the Babatunde story,” she said. “Have you heard anything new on that?”

  Mike looked surprised.

  “I’d guess that after your story ran, anyone who helped you with it got in trouble. I’d have thought you’d be prepared.”

  “I was prepared for fallout against me,” she snapped, “but I don’t know how they found my source.”

  “They probably went back over your tracks. Maybe they questioned your source and he admitted talking to you.”

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s more likely someone at the house or at the party knew I was at the ambassador’s and figured out who I talked to. They didn’t question you, did they?”

  He frowned. “Of course not. You think I’d report you to Olumide’s thugs?”

  “No. Sorry. I’m just trying to figure this out.”

  “He’ll probably be all right now that they’ve put a good scare into him. But what about you?”

  “If you mean am I scared, yes, of course. I’ll have to be more careful.”

  Mike got up. “I think you could use a drink,” he said. “What’ll it be?”

  She asked for a vodka tonic and he left to prepare it. Restless, she got up and paced around his living room. A sculpture similar to her fertility statue caught her eye and she wondered if it was done by the same artist. Like her, Mike had bought a lot of tourist pieces, including, she noticed, a small statue very like the one that had angered James. She picked it up and studied it. When Mike returned, she put it back on the shelf. He handed her the vodka tonic and she sipped it slowly.

  “Did you get that piece from a trader?” she asked, indicating the shelf.

  He walked over and adjusted the sculptur
e so it stood straight.

  “Yeah. Don’t tell our friend James. He hates this new art.”

  “He hates when they try to pretend it’s old. He doesn’t mind the new ones. In fact, he’s exporting some. A trader showed me one exactly like this when James was over. Actually, he was upset the traders had gotten hold of it, but that’s another story.”

  “You’d better tell him I’ve got one too. You know Lagos. They could wind up pilfering his entire order.”

  “Yeah, I will.” She drained her drink. “Thanks. I gotta go.”

  She got back in her car and drove home. Martin was in the kitchen, cleaning the stove.

  “Have you ever heard of a place called the Juju House?” she asked him.

  “Yes, madam. But it not safe for you. It is in Surulere.”

  “What is it? A religious place, for spells?”

  Martin smiled. “No, madam. It’s a club. It be where Bayo play.”

  She made the connection. Bayo was a musician. She’d been told he played a mean saxophone and had about thirty “wives” who lived with him in a kind of cult. He’d been described as a flamboyant figure, a rebel artist, but not, as far as she knew, a political dissident. She had thought of him as a subject for a possible feature, if she had the time, but now it appeared he might be something more.

  Maureen was working in the living room. Lindsay interrupted her to tell her about Bayo and insist that they must see him perform sometime soon.

  “How about tonight?” Maureen replied. “If he’s that interesting, we should track him down right away, and I’m finally feeling a little better today.”

  Lindsay hesitated. “I’m supposed to have dinner with James.”

  “So what? Invite him. Or have dinner with him tomorrow. Lindsay, it could be important. Aren’t you curious?”

  “Don’t lecture me, Maurie.” Her harsh tone surprised herself. Softening, she added, “Of course I’m curious.” She paused. “Okay. Let’s go tonight. I’ll see if James can join us.”

  “Whatever.”

  Lindsay got up. “I’m sorry,” she said, moving toward the kitchen. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”