Whoever Fears the Sea, Justin Fox [i love reading .TXT] 📗

for the movie, but he was now so fascinated by his subject that he couldn’t help himself.

VOICE-OVER: Every summer for a thousand years, the inhabitants of East African coastal towns looked northeast. The arrival of dhows with their merchandise marked the start of the trading season. Graceful, round-hulled vessels would glide into the anchorages under a cloud of sail. The nakhodas and crew, dressed in their finest robes, would break into song as horns echoed across the roadstead and townsfolk lined the waterfront. The mood on both sides was electric.

A new season had begun. The engine of change was the monsoon cycle: the summer Kaskazi that brought the dhows from Asia and the winter Kusi that propelled them home. An intricate network of political and social ties between Indian Ocean ports grew up around this commerce. Families intermarried, Islam was imported, a culture was disseminated along routes determined by wind and tide, and a distinctive society of coastal people was born: the Swahili.

Walking back to the inn, feeling buoyed and on top of his research, Paul passed a telephone box set into a coral wall. He had a pocket full of coins and, on impulse, picked up the phone and dialled a number in New York. He heard the receiver being lifted. ‘Hannah, I —’

‘Hi, this is Hannah. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you’d like to —’

He slammed the handset back into its cradle, his heart pounding.

 

CHAPTER 12

 

Paul began frequenting Hapa Hapa, an open-sided, beach-style restaurant on the promenade, from where he could watch the comings and goings in the channel. Backpackers played chess and cards while sipping iced punch, crushed from piles of tropical fruit that stood knee deep behind the bar counter. Donkeys would poke their heads into the restaurant to see what the tourists were up to and maybe receive a nibble or a scratch on the snout. Bob Marley throbbed in the background without interruption, day and night. Among the Lamu dhow crews and beach boys who hung out with the tourists, the most popular frame of reference was Jamaica and reggae music. Many grew dreadlocks, wore Rasta colours, spoke in affected accents and used catch phrases plundered from their favourite tunes. One song got the most airplay and its words had become ingrained in Paul’s brain:

There was a buffalo soldier in the heart of America,

Stolen from Africa, brought to America,

Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival.

A group of American exchange students used Hapa Hapa as their hangout. They were a loud bunch and colonised the tables around Paul. He quickly grew irritated by them and tried to steer clear, picking a table at the opposite end of the restaurant. He resented the way the Americans tried to ingratiate themselves with the locals, making any number of instant friends and singing along enthusiastically to the reggae songs.

The women students’ garb was almost a uniform: baggy T-shirts, blonde dreadlocks, kikois, bandanas, leather sandals, moon bags round their waists, henna tattoos and bellybutton rings. A young woman from upstate New York hardly let go of her Swahili lover, whispering never-ending sweet nothings in his ear. Jah Will Provide read the lover’s T-shirt. Failing Jah, this week’s mzungu fuck buddy would do just fine.

The Americans had acquired an entourage of local brothers who were showing them the haunts, getting them the requisite herbs. Which was all kind of okay with Paul, but the effusive greetings, coded handshakes and pat Swahili phrases sounded glib, as though everyone was acting a part. Or was he being too cynical as he eyed them from his corner table? Why didn’t he, too, find himself a brother who’d slap him on the back, provide the ganga and show him the ropes? Was he too aloof, a stuck-up white South African looking down his nose at the Americans going native? He was probably seeing too much of Hannah in them, her naïve immersion in other cultures, her passion for the ‘real’ Africa, whatever that might be.

Paul tried to counter his own prejudice: weren’t they actually getting a better take on the people and culture, getting under the Swahili skin in a way that his own inhibitions prevented? He’d had a brief engagement with the sailors on Fayswal, but hadn’t he recoiled? Was his pursuit of dhows and dusty African history less rewarding, and safer, than the Americans’ active involvement, their forging of bonds with real live Swahili people, not with old books and pieces of carved wood? Maybe he could learn from them.

Despite his reservations, Paul edged a bit closer each day. After all, he’d been feeling kind of lonely. Eventually, he was able to pass the odd comment to one of the African-Americanos. However, he was not, once they found out he was a South African, fully embraced as one of the brothers. They seemed to view him with circumspection, suspicion even. A lone, white, note-taking man from the racist south who claimed to be African — better be careful of that one.

After a few more encounters, Paul was able to join the conversation. On the fifth day, he learnt the details. They were on a semester abroad from various American universities and were doing a course on Swahili culture and history. The group had been studying in Mombasa, but was currently on a field trip.

‘Brought to America, fighting on arrival, fighting for survival,’ sang Bob in the background. Then the whole of Team USA hit the refrain, along with their tame waiter: ‘Woy yoy yoy, woy yoy-yoy yoy, woy yoy yoy, yoy yoy-yoy yoy yoy!’

Suddenly, a tropical shower burst overhead and drove the pedestrians from the waterfront. The ground turned to steam and bedraggled donkeys stood about looking more long-suffering than ever. Perhaps because of the rain, the barman moved from the soul-searching of Marley to more fun-in-the-sun reggae: Eddy Grant, Shaggy and other beach-party hits. Led by