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

Was that a sea shanty he could hear from a departing Omani boom? He squinted at the glittering water. Her silhouette swarmed with activity. There was the beating of drums and tam-tams, the rhythmical stamp of dancing feet, the snapping sound of handclaps echoing around the anchorage. On the poop stood the nakhoda, a proud figure in gown and gold-embroidered cloak, watching the raising of the yardarm. With the anchor aweigh, the sail was released and fell like a stage curtain, immediately billowing to a breath of hot wind.

That blue offing, studded with departing sails … gone forever, blown away by the monsoon of time. He felt the loss as if it were his own. All that maritime industry had shrunk to a few leaky ngalawa canoes and a dozen horis with sails made from plastic bags and sackcloth. He needed a beer.

Paul wandered the narrow lanes looking for a bar. In his dejected mood, the picturesque buildings with their Zanzibar-style doors made no impression on him. Eventually he found a dingy hole in the wall with a sign that read: New, New, New! Nairobi-Style Lap Dancing!

He paid the entrance fee. The hallway was dark, and a large room at the back not much brighter. Pop music pulsed within. A couple of middle-aged foreigners sat at tables and five women in garish outfits perched at the bar nursing long drinks. Paul found a sofa in the corner and ordered a Tusker from a waif in a bikini. There was no sign of any lap dancing, but Paul didn’t mind. He had nothing better to do, and a few cold ones would see him through an otherwise barren afternoon. The whole dhow-voyage adventure looked like a dead end.

He was already on to his fourth beer when things started to liven up, if the arrival of two more greying patrons and one buxom dancer could be considered enlivenment. The woman had all the moves and a pleasant face. She wore a white sequinned bra and miniskirt, which nicely contrasted with her dark skin. The dancer latched on to a German sitting near the bar and began to work her magic, so to speak. The music had been turned up loud. She approached him with swaying hips, sliding across the room, hands rubbing her thighs. Then she swung around and leaned over until her head almost touched the floor. The dancer seemed to have no joints in her body. She jiggled her buttock cheeks in the man’s face. He wore a stupid, slightly embarrassed grin.

Her eyes now locked on to Paul and she slunk across the floor with the exaggerated gait of a ramp model. The dancer knelt in front of him, caressing her body with stiffened fingers. Paul was not particularly turned on by this. However, he did, despite himself, feel the first awakenings of an erection.

Next, she stepped up on to the sofa in her stilettos, legs on either side of him, and wobbled her hips. She unzipped her skirt and pulled it over her head to reveal a pink G-string. Her hips continued to sway back and forth as she grabbed a handful of his hair in her red talons and drove his head towards her crotch. Then, with the swift movement of a predator, she swivelled to vibrate her buttocks in his face. She crouched down and coaxed his hands on to her breasts as she rubbed her crotch against his groin.

Somehow the woman’s bra came adrift and she turned to bounce her breasts in his face. They were large and elongated. Paul pictured a pair of Zeppelins fighting a gale. Each enthusiastic nipple seemed to have a slightly different interpretation of the music. Paul’s head was spinning. From somewhere, the dancer produced an ice block and slid it across her chest. She circled her nipples until they were hard, then slipped the remains of the cube into Paul’s mouth.

The music changed. It was, inappropriately, the happy tourist song, ‘Jambo Bwana’. Paul groaned. He’d already heard it half a dozen times since arriving in Kenya. The ditty seemed designed to teach basic Swahili to pink northerners in three comprehensive minutes. The dancer mistook his groan for pleasure and reached down to give his bulging jeans a playful tweak. She winked. He winked back. He found himself mouthing the inane lyrics:

Jambo

Jambo bwana

Habari gani?

Mzuri sana

Hi

Hi sir

How are you?

Very fine

The dancer stood over him and, with hips still gyrating, dragged off her G-string.

Wageni mwakaribishwa

Kenya yetu

Hakuna matata

Visitors are welcome

Our Kenya

No worries

She leant over him and said, ‘Maybe a little something for the little lady?’

He fumbled in his wallet and drew out a ten-dollar bill. Rolling it tightly into the shape of a cigarette, she slipped it between her legs. She gave him a peck on the cheek, picked up her garments and sauntered off, the refrain ‘Hakuna matata!’ following her across the floor.

Back at the hotel, Paul lay on his bed and looked at the ceiling. His head throbbed. His throat was parched. He tried to empty his thoughts of Hannah and the arguments that chased themselves around in his brain like rabid dogs. The pain of her leaving was no longer constant. It came in bouts, like malaria, which he’d once contracted during a shoot in western Zambia. At such times he felt her on his skin, felt her eyes scalding him, felt her in his stomach. In fact, he registered her as a form of nausea.

Into his thoughts floated a dhow. She was a graceful Kuwaiti boom, her tall lateen sail bulging in the breeze — the first of the Gulf vessels to arrive in Mombasa with the summer monsoon. Paul pictured himself as her nakhoda, standing on the poop, calling commands to the crew and guiding her into port. He was a descendant of Sinbad the Sailor, the last