Page 56 of The Secret
I grimace at this. “That’s very kind of your family …” I start, but he leans in and gives me a wicked grin.
“And also, I saw your picture.” He winks.
I shake my head. “In my country that would be harassment.”
Alarm darts across his face, and I smile at him. “I’m joking.”
I don’t want to worry him. Being an interpreter, a guide for Western tourists, journalists, and aid organizations is one of the best-paid and most prestigious jobs possible in countries like this. I can already tell from her broad smiles that Ramesh is his mother’s pride and joy, despite the scolding.
“Get settled in, and we will have some tea.” He gestures for me to follow his mother.
“A beer?” I raise my eyebrows, and he laughs, widening his eyes scandalously.
“I’m afraid you won’t find any alcohol in this house, but we’re going to be traveling around to the poorer communities, so when we’re on the road, I’m sure we will find some.” He winks.
“Beer?” his mother questions over her shoulder, frowning.Shit.
Ramesh rattles something off to her, and as I consider him, he turns to me and shrugs. “I told her we were joking, and that Americans call hot teabeer.” I roll my lips together trying to stop my smile and he grins, eyes roaming across my face.
This is going to be fun, but I’ve clearly got so much to learn. I’ve never felt more like I’m starting at ground zero. That one conversation with Jo and Kate brought me here to the edge of something different, the start of something new. Somehow I have to put what happened behind me, treat it like one of those curveballs life occasionally throws at you. Which feels ridiculous right now: I don’t want to forget Dan. But no matter how hard, I have to move on from him.
PRESENT DAY
26
LISS
Saturday, January 22, 2022
Adebe and Gloria, the big welcoming family where Dan and I first met over okra and beans, are first on my list of things to do. I have presents tucked in my backpack for their kids, much older now of course. I peer out the window of the car I had to undertake a lengthy negotiation for at the airport. He has driven me for hours along the dirt roads, my chest tightening as we’ve drawn ever closer. The scent of brown earth and rotting food, the shouts of street traders, mangy dogs lying outside shops hoping for a scrap, all seep into my soul like my mother’s hand on my hair when I was little.
My knuckles roll over my lips as I take in the extent of the destruction. Kiwanja is pockmarked with places where bullets have hit. Mortar shells have taken down whole walls of buildings, but among this there is still so muchindustry: a market, a roof going onto a building, people on the street with their baskets and bags piled high with produce to sell, stores open despite the fact they are patched up with pieces of wood and have cloth covering their smashed windows and holes in walls. Parts of the buildings have been painted in bright colors, like flowers in a battlefield.
I’m here to talk to as many people as possible so I check in at the local hotel and chat with the lady who runs the place. She tells me I’ll find the local aid workers in a bar down the street. The rooms are basic, and the three-story building is tattered and crumbling, but it’s cheap and clean. After I’ve settled into my room, I head out into the mele. A cold drink beckons like a mirage.
The bar is in an old colonial building that I think was once some kind of community meeting place. Crates are piled high behind the counter, a fridge stands in the corner chaotically wired to a box hanging halfway up the wall in a way that makes me smile, and stools crowd around tables on a dusty wooden floor. As I slide onto a barstool, eyeing up the choice of drinks on the shelf, a smiling barman ducks under a curtain from the back. I settle for a local beer and turn to scan the room, but almost do a double take when I catch a familiar face tucked into a table at the far wall.Jesus Christ.Brian?He’s stillhere? I grab my bottle from the bar, and as he clocks someone is heading his way, his eyes swing up and his mouth drops open.
“My God,Liss!” he says, breaking into a bright smile. He shoots to his feet and puts his hands on my shoulders, examining my face before pulling me into a bear hug.
Am I surprised he’s still here?I guess. Brian was a well-paid management consultant in the US before he lost his wife, Helen, to cancer. He found his escape here, just as I did.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” I say, as he pulls back.
He laughs. “Nor I you.”
I pull up a chair, and Brian grins at me and fills me in on the last three years of his life. He left the company that brought us both out here after a year of hard graft and now has a management position with an aid organization. He laughs when he tells me that it’s well paid and that he’s turning the shambles into something better organized and more supportive. I’m delighted he’s built something positive here and that his life has moved on in this unexpected way. When he asks me what I’m doing, I tell him about the funding from the university and how they wanted me to work on the project. He listens intently, nodding along. As he takes a swig of his beer, he assures me that it‘s vital work, really needed here on the ground.
Finally, he brings up Dan, and my stomach curdles. I swirl my bottle watching the last of the liquid morph into a bubbly whirlpool. I fill him in on how Dan came to Manhattan after I returned home, how unexpectedly all his messages stopped. I recount my attempts to track him down, about talking to the police and ultimately hiring a private investigator. He eyes me earnestly, the lines on his forehead growing deeper as I talk.
“My God, Liss.” He taps his beer bottle against his mouth. “Do you think he’s okay?”
“I don’t know. Either something happened to him, or it was his way of ending things with me.” I swallow as a lump sticks in my throat.
Brian draws a breath through his teeth, shaking his head. “I never thought he’d be a guy to ditch a girl he liked. He seemed like one of the reliable ones.” He stares off into the middle distance, fingers mindlessly toying with the rim of his bottle as he thinks. “Apart from his thesis, I didn’t know a great deal about him. I had a sense that he might have lived in South Africa at some point, but he never talked much about his background.”
“He lived inSouth Africa?” And I’m speechless for a second. God, if I’d had some starting point on this continent, I could have looked there. “What made you think that?”
He waves a hand. “I’m sorry, Liss, I can’t remember exactly. The first time I met him he said something about Johannesburg, and he gave me the impression that he knew it well. But maybe I just assumed something because of that.” He shrugs. “I guess he didn’t talk much to you either, given the surprise on your face.”
