A rooster crows somewhere nearby. In the distance, a voice chants through a loudspeaker: Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
As my eyes adjust to the light, I remember where I am, and every nerve in my body starts to tingle. I smell the smells again. I feel the energy in the air again.
Until I hear Waldo snorting in the bed next to mine, and then I see him drooling on his pillow with his hands down his pants. I can't believe they're making me share a room with that pig.
Stepping quietly out of bed, I get my jeans and a fresh T-shirt and tiptoe into the bathroom, where one look in the mirror almost brings me to tears.
My hair's sticking out in all directions—and it's full of dust. I need to shower, but first I have to explore. I have to at least look around outside.
After pissing, brushing my teeth and applying deodorant, I set to work on the curls—squirting a little gel into my palm and distributing it with my comb, then tucking the hair under the rim of my cap and carefully positioning several strands in a haphazard arrangement in front of my eyes.
Perfect.
There's a bang at the door. "Hurry up!" Waldo shouts. "I gotta piss!"
"I'm almost done!" I say.
"Hurry the fuck up!" He bangs harder and I feel the rage swelling.
"I said I'm almost done!"
I glower at him as I open the door and he shoves past me, not even bothering to close the door behind him before he starts to piss. Probably getting piss all over the toilet seat too. God, I hate him.
I slam the door and I hear the voice still chanting in the distance. I think it's some Muslim thing—some sort of morning prayer. I look out the window in the direction of the chanting and my whole body jolts at the sight of a shirtless black man standing outside the window, staring right at me through the metal bars.
He's carrying a machete in one hand, and he waves at me with the other, his mouth stretching into a crocodilian grin. Trembling, I wave back. He says something but I can't hear him through the glass.
I flinch as Waldo kicks the bathroom door open. "Guess what?" he says. "There's no fucking hot water!"
I turn back to the window and the man's gone. Waldo yanks on his cap and pulls on his sneakers then says, "This is bullshit. I gotta talk to Mom and Dad about this."
He storms out of the room and across the hallway, while I follow, the image of the man's creepy grin stuck in my head.
Mom's sitting up in bed, reading Born for Love: Reflections on Loving. Dad's sitting next to her with a coffee mug in one hand and a Time magazine in the other. Ellie's snuggled up to his shoulder, eating what looks like an orange.
"There's no hot water!" Waldo says.
Dad winces and lowers the magazine. "You don't have to shout, Waldo. We know full well there's no hot water. We talked about this back in Canada. And remember, you mustn't drink the cold water from the taps either. There are bottles of boiled water in the kitchen for drinking if you're thirsty."
Waldo dramatically slaps his face with both hands and drags his fingers down his cheeks. "This just keeps getting better and better! How the heck am I supposed to have a shower if there's no hot water?"
Dad turns back to the magazine and clears his throat. "You'll have a cold shower, Waldo, won't you?"
"I am not having a cold shower!" Waldo says.
"Why don't you have some breakfast?" Mom says, pointing to the tray on Ellie's lap.
"Try the papaya," Ellie says. "It's divine."
I was about to try the papaya, but now I take a piece of melon instead. How does she even know what divine means?
"I want normal breakfast," Waldo says. "Like cereal or toast."
"Well this is all there is," Dad says. "Now why don't you just go away if you're only going to spoil the atmosphere? And for goodness sake, William, put on some shorts. It's far too hot for jeans."
Waldo storms back out into the hallway, and as I follow, I grab a piece of papaya.
~
He waits for me while I change into shorts in the bathroom, and when I come out he points at me and laughs. "Chicken legs!"
"Shut the fuck up," I say.
He flaps his elbows and goes cluck-cluck-cluck, then laughs again as he leads the way back out into the hallway.
Who'd have guessed I'd be spending my first morning in Africa tagging along after my dumbass brother. I should be out exploring the jungle, observing wildlife. But I can't stop thinking about that creepy man with the machete.
"It's too fucking hot," Waldo says, fanning his face with his T-shirt as we reach the end of the hallway. We enter a lounge filled with carved wooden furniture, colourful tapestries and black leather sofas. "I can't believe I'm stuck here and don't even get to watch the Stanley Cup Playoffs."
He opens one of the cabinets to reveal a large screen TV.
"Thank God," he sighs, wrapping his arms around the TV and tenderly kissing the screen, then making a sour face as he wipes the dust off his lips.
"What's wrong with this piece of shit!" he says, slapping the side of the TV after trying to turn it on.
"Is it plugged in?" I ask.
"Yes, it's fucking plugged in." He looks behind the TV to make sure it's plugged in, then slaps the other side, then looks around the lounge and shouts, "Who's in charge of this place anyway!"
As if in response, there's a clang behind a nearby closed door, and Waldo turns and storms toward it.
Behind the door, there's a narrow galley kitchen where two barefoot men are sitting crossed-legged on the floor, peeling potatoes with little knives.
"The TV's not working," Waldo says, pointing over his shoulder toward the lounge.
The older man laughs, revealing a mouthful of rotten, mostly missing teeth, then he says something in some other language and scratches the top of his balding head with the handle of his knife.
The younger man—maybe in his twenties—gets up, wipes his hands on his shorts and extends one hand toward Waldo. "My name is Abdul Francis Kamara," he says with a warm smile. "What is your name?"
Waldo looks down at Abdul's hand with unconcealed disgust. "Dude, you got stuff all over your hands."
Abdul drops his hand and his smile wavers, and I feel sorry for him, and I feel angry with Waldo for being such an asshole.
"I'm Waldo," Waldo says. "And that's my brother, Will." He flicks his chin toward me and Abdul glances my direction while I try to hide my skinny legs behind the door, and then he looks straight back at Waldo, like I don't exist.
"How come the TV doesn't work?" Waldo asks.
"Is no generator in the daytime," Abdul replies.
"Great," Waldo says. "So I guess there's no goddamn air conditioning then either, is that what you're tellin' me?"
"There is no air conditioning," says Abdul with a little laugh, like he thinks Waldo's joking.
The older man says something else in the other language, but Abdul keeps looking and smiling at Waldo.
"Well at least we can watch TV at night, right? What channels you guys got? ESPN? The Movie Channel?"
"There is no channel," says Abdul.
Waldo's face scrunches up. "There's a box right in front of the TV that says Satellite TV, what's that about then?"
Abdul laughs again, a wholehearted laugh, confident now that Waldo's joking.
"The satellite is not working," he says.
"What are you laughin' at?" Waldo says, curling his upper lip. "What the hell do you guys do round here for fun without TV?"
Abdul seems confused by the question, like he doesn't know what to say—a feeling I can relate to.
"Maybe we should go outside and look around," I suggest.
Abdul looks at me and smiles. "I could show you around the property, if you like."
"Whatever, man," Waldo says, sticking his hands into his pockets and storming back out the door.
~
A warm breeze wraps around me as I follow Abdul and Waldo through a creaking screen door out the back of the building.
"Jesus!" Waldo says, squinting and pulling the beak of his cap down over his eyes as the sun hits our faces.
It's hotter than I imagined—fierce, suffocating heat that presses down on me from all sides, making my bare skin prickle and sting. I love it.
There's a sort of lawn consisting of patches of yellow grass and dry earth, and on the opposite side of the lawn, there's a cinder block building encircled by palm trees, which Abdul seems to be leading us to.
"So you are coming from Canada?" he says, smiling at Waldo, again not even pretending to give a shit about me.
"Yeah," Waldo says. "But England originally."
The palm trees are huge, filled with clusters of little white star-shaped flowers. In one tree, two tiny yellow-green birds are frenziedly chirping and flitting about, like they're dancing, or maybe fighting, or maybe performing some mating ritual. I wish I'd brought my binoculars.
"Do you play football?" Abdul asks.
Waldo stops and wipes his sweaty forehead on the back of his arm, then looks through one of the building's open doors into a room with cracked plaster walls and a single filthy mattress on the concrete floor. "Shit, man, who sleeps there?" he asks. "The dog?
Abdul laughs. "This is my brother Mohamed's room." He points through the next open door and says, "Here is my room."
The only difference between the rooms is that Abdul's mattress is dirtier, and on his wall there's a giant crinkled pin-up of a blond-haired woman with huge breasts, opening her legs and spreading her vagina with two fingers.
I've seen pictures of naked women in undignified poses before, but nothing like this. This is the most disgusting and saddest thing in the world.
"Hubba hubba," Waldo says, nodding at the poster, which makes Abdul laugh. Then Abdul looks at me and goes quiet.
"There is the cook hut," Abdul says, pointing to a nearby mud hut with a thatched roof. "That is where we are making the chop."
Waldo squints suspiciously at the hut, inside which a fire smolders between three smoke-stained rocks, and a machete leans against the wall. "What's the chop?" he asks.
"The food," Abdul smiles again.
That poor woman had such a defeated look in her eyes, like she'd given up on her dreams and accepted that the world is run by a bunch of perverted pigs. If I were rich and powerful, I'd go find her and tell her to put on some clothes and wipe that lipstick off her beautiful face. I'd tell her to come live with me in my jungle mansion, from where we'd set out each morning to explore.
From the cook hut, Abdul leads us through a rock-lined garden of sweet-smelling flowers filled with clouds of white butterflies, and then around the side of the house to the front driveway, where a jaw-dropping panorama opens before us.
There's a river—a wide, chocolate-brown river with flocks of black-and-grey birds gliding above its shimmering surface. In the distance, a shirtless man stands in a dugout canoe, propelling himself upstream with a wooden pole. On the far shore, rising to the distant mist-shrouded mountains, is jungle. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Waldo goes to the edge of the retaining wall that separates the driveway from the river, looks down and starts frantically flapping his hands, signaling for me to come over.
"Holy shit, Will!" he whispers. "Holy shit, come check this out!"
I run over, thinking it must be a hippopotamus or a crocodile. But instead, when I look down, I see a crowd of naked black people at the river's edge.
"We shouldn't," I say, jumping back.
"Don't be a pussy." He narrows his eyes and curls his lip at me. I don't want to be a pussy, so I step forward and look again.
At the bottom of the wall, dozens of men, women and children are splashing, laughing and lathering their bodies in the shallows. Some are washing their hair. Others are washing clothes. Others are filling containers with water. All of them seem completely unfazed by the fact that they're surrounded by penises, vaginas and breasts.
"Check out the tits on that one!" Waldo nudges my shoulder and points, and I don't know who he's pointing to, but I wish he'd stop pointing and shut the fuck up. We shouldn't be doing this. This isn't right.
"Oporto!" a little boy screams, jumping up and down as he points back at Waldo. "Oporto, oporto!"
Waldo and I simultaneously leap back from the wall as all of the bathers turn to look up, and then they all join in pointing and shouting, "Oporto, oporto, oporto!"
Waldo's beside himself, gasping and clutching his knees with tears of joy in his crinkled eyes. "Holy fuck!" he laughs. "Holy fuck, Will!"
"I fucking told you we shouldn't look!" I tell him.
Catching his breath, he stands on his toes to peek back over the edge of the wall at the raucous crowd, then grins back at Abdul and says, "I think we pissed 'em off, man."
"No, no," Abdul laughs, putting an arm around Waldo's shoulder like the two of them are suddenly best friends. "They are not angry. They are just happy to be seeing white peoples in Port Pikinia."
I fucking hope he's right.
~
Mom steps off the veranda in a white skirt, blue sleeveless blouse and yellow sunhat. Her hair is tied in a ponytail and she's not wearing lipstick. She actually looks kind of pretty.
"It's called the Gambon River," Dad says, stepping off the veranda behind her, holding Ellie's hand. "Spectacular, isn't it?"
"Glorious!" Mom says, stopping to take in the view and in a deep breath of muggy air. "Isn't it just glorious!"
"Your mother and I were thinking it would be nice to go for a family walk—go and explore the property," Dad says. "What do you say, boys?"
Waldo shakes his head and beelines for the front door. "Nah, I'm going inside to play Game Boy."
"Actually, you're part of this family." Dad blocks his path with an arm. "So you're coming with us for a walk."
"It's too hot!" Waldo groans. "And I've already seen everything!"
He tries to push past but Dad grabs the scruff of his T-shirt and spins him around with a strained smile. "It's not optional."
"Come along now," Mom says, patting the top of Waldo's head as Waldo kicks a rock over the edge of the riverbank.
"Spec-tacular," Ellie says with a fake sigh.
Waldo huffs and drags his feet while Dad holds Mom's and Ellie's hands and leads us through the garden.
"Frangipani," Mom says, pointing to a bush filled with little white flowers, then to a tree filled with bright orange flowers. "Flame of the forest. Birds of paradise. Jasmine. Oh, what a magnificent garden!"
Dad says that the property belongs to an African-American businessman called Mr Kamara, who spends most of his time in the United States. "The hospital's renting us a couple of rooms here at great expense until it can find us a house of our own," he says. "And then you children should be able to have bedrooms of your own."
"Hopefully our new house has a TV that actually works," Waldo says.
"Hibiscus!" Mom says, opening her arms toward a cluster of purple flowers swarming with white butterflies. "Oh my goodness, how beautiful!"
As we round the corner and approach the driveway, a fat woman waddles through the gate toward us, panting and balancing a huge wicker basket on her head
"Kusheh," Dad says with a wave.
"Kusheh," the woman replies with a weary smile.
"That means hello in Krio," Mom says, winking at Ellie and me.
"I am Fatima," the woman says between heavy breaths. "Mr Bangura asked that I provide you with the food."
"Mmm, that smells lovely," says Dad.
Fatima proceeds to waddle into the shade of the veranda, where she dishes out plates of sticky white rice with some oily green sauce at the glass table. "This is called cassava sauce," she says, still breathing heavily.
"Would youlike to say grace?" Mom asks, folding her hands.
"I would!" says Ellie.
"How about someone else for a change," Dad says, then looks at me. "William?"
The food smells amazing and all I want to do is eat, but now Dad and Mom are staring at me like a couple of religious fanatics, expecting me to play along with their stupid charade. Mom once told me she doesn't even believe in God, and I've heard Dad say—after a few glasses of wine—that the only reason he goes to church is for the music.
I take a deep breath and, trying not to sound pissed off, recite, "For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful."
"Amen," say Dad and Mom in unison, making the sign of the cross.
"Take your caps off at the table please, boys," says Dad. "Don't forget your manners."
Again I try not to look pissed off as I pull off my cap and the curls unravel around my ears.
But the food is good—salty, sweet and just a little bit spicy. Exactly how you'd expect African food to taste. While I eat, I watch the waves of heat rising off the river and I listen to the birds chirping in the trees, and the occasional splash, laugh or shout from the riverfront below.
"Sit up straight and eat your food, Waldo," Dad says as Fatima fills our glasses with bottled water.
"I'm not eating that," Waldo snorts, pushing his plate away.
"That's more food than most people in this country get to eat in a day," Mom says. "Now sit up straight and eat, sweetheart. Please."
"I wouldn't feed that to a dog," Waldo says.
The metal legs of Dad's chair screech against the tiles as he jumps up, grabs the back of Waldo's T-shirt and yanks him away from the table. "Get to your room!" he hisses. "You rude child!"
Fatima hurriedly waddles away and Mom makes a pained face, clutching her chest and reaching for her water. "Harold," she gasps. "You're—giving me—indigestion."
Waldo storms into the house while Mom gulps water, and Ellie and I keep our heads down and our mouths shut. Dad's chair screeches again as he pulls it back under the table, and then he jabs his rice with his fork and turns toward the river.
"Remind me to give the children their malaria pills this afternoon," he says, covering his mouth with a hand as he chews.
~
While Fatima clears the table, Mom and Dad drink Earl Grey tea and talk about apartheid. I'm pretty sure I just saw something moving in the jungle across the river. Possibly a gorilla, except I don't think they have gorillas in Sierra Leone. Whatever it was, it was black and very big.
"What do you think, William?" Dad says, raising his eyebrows at me.
"Pardon?" I say, sitting up.
"I asked if you can guess where they came from?"
He frowns and raises his eyebrows higher while I frantically try to guess what the fuck he's talking about. "I—ah—don't know," I say.
He takes a deep breath, then a sip of tea, then says, "They're the descendants of slaves who helped the British fight the Americans in the American War of Independence. After gaining their freedom, many went to live in Nova Scotia, and from there many went on to West Africa to establish the colony of Sierra Leone. That's why the capital is called Freetown."
"Fascinating," Mom says.
"Are there still any slaves anywhere in the world, Daddy?" Ellie says.
"Not in civilized countries," Dad says. "America was the last civilized country to abolish slavery, in 1863 if my memory serves me."
"Civilized?" Mom harrumphs and takes another sip of tea as a vehicle roars down the driveway toward us, sending birds flying off in all directions from the surrounding trees.
The Land Rover skids to a stop and Solomon leans out the window with a big grin, his gold chains and teeth glinting through the cloud of settling dust.
"Are you ready for the grand tour of Port Pikinia?" he says exuberantly.
Dad goes inside to fetch Waldo, and Mom goes inside to fetch her handbag, while I reposition my cap and arrange my bangs in front of my eyes, then get into the back of the Land Rover beside Ellie.
"You are looking very elegant today," Solomon says, grinning at Ellie, who's wearing a white skirt and yellow sun hat like Mom's. "Like a princess."
"I'm wearing my mommy's perfume," Ellie says. "It's Chanel Number Five."
"Oh, you are a lucky girl!" Solomon flashes his gold teeth at her. "You smell almost good enough to eat!"
Ellie giggles nervously as Waldo comes out of the house, looking more pissed off than when he went in. I squish up close to Ellie to make room for him as he slides in and slams the door.
"Don't slam doors!" Dad says, getting into the front, followed by Mom.
Solomon grins back at Waldo. "Why the long face, Mr Waldo?"
Waldo looks down and yanks his cap over his eyes.
"He's just tired," Dad says. "We'll have to have an early night tonight, won't we, children?"
Solomon laughs and shifts the Land Rover into gear. As we start moving, Abdul waves to us from the lawn but no one notices him, so I wave back. Even if he is a pervert.
"Did you sleep well?" Solomon asks.
"Yes, very well, thank you," Dad says. "It was a very comfortable mattress."
"Surprisingly comfortable," Mom says.
"Only the best for Mr Kamara," Solomon says.
Beyond the gate, the trees are so dense they obscure the sky. There are banana trees and ferns and vines, and what look like a giant mango tree full of unripe mangos. There's a concrete house surrounded by a high stone wall with shards of glass sticking out the top, and a small mud brick house with a cook hut and a shirtless man outside, hacking away at something with a machete—reminding me of the creep from this morning.
The trees are thinning now and the sun is pouring in all around us. There are more houses—actually more like dilapidated shacks than houses, covered with scraps of metal and random bits of wood. Solomon slows as we approach the end of the road and a shirtless boy comes out of one of the houses, points at us and starts screaming, "Oporto, oporto!"
Solomon hits the gas as we turn onto a wider road, engulfing the screaming boy in a cloud of red dust.
"There is the mosque," he says, pointing at a big white domed tower skirted in red dust.
"We heard the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer this morning, didn't we, Ellie?" Mom says, smiling at Ellie. "It was beautiful. Reminded me of mornings in the Comoros."
"There is the Catholic church," Solomon says, pointing to a much smaller and cleaner yellow building with a large white cross over the front door.
"Where we'll be going this Sunday," Mom says. "Apparently the priest is a Florentine missionary. I look forward to chatting with him."
"There is the power station," Solomon says, pointing to an old brick building with a missing roof and windows.
"Why's there a power station?" I wonder aloud—and then quickly look down, praying no one heard. But Mom looks over her shoulder at me.
"What was that, William?"
My heart starts beating fast, thudding in my ears. "I, ah, just wanted to know why the town has a power station if there's no electricity," I say, hating the sound of my pathetic, high-pitched voice.
The Land Rover veers around a corner and an old man with a walking stick leaps into the ditch to avoid being run over.
"It is an old power station," Solomon says, raising a finger and smiling back at me. "Before our country's independence in 1961, there was both electricity and also running water in Port Pikinia. There were many good things before independence that now are gone, unfortunately."
That doesn't make any sense. Mom and Dad made it sound like colonization was a terrible injustice inflicted upon Africa by Western countries.
"So, why did they want to become independent then?" I ask, my voice trailing off as I realize I'm thinking aloud again.
"Speak up, William," Dad says. "No one can hear you."
"I think what William's asking," says Mom, "is why Sierra Leoneans wanted independence when there were so many benefits to being part of the British Empire. Is that right, William?"
I nod and look down again, feeling the weight of everyone's eyes on me.
"Ah," Solomon says, looking back again, and when I glance up I see he's no longer smiling. "That is because, child, people have got to be free."
~
Our first stop is the marketplace, where Mom gives Waldo, Ellie and me five hundred leones each to get ourselves a treat.
Waldo screws up his nose and swats a fly out of his face as he opens the door and steps out of the Land Rover. "Ugh, what's that smell?"
"That will be the dried fish!" Solomon laughs. "It is very delicious!"
A barefoot boy kicks a half-inflated soccer ball in front of us, then he skids to a stop and points wide-eyed at Waldo. "Oporto!" he shouts. "Oporto, oporto!"
More kids instantly appear, crowding around us, pointing, clapping, laughing and chanting, "Oporto! Oporto! Oporto!"
"What are they saying?" Mom laughs.
"Oporto?" Solomon says. "That means white man in Temne."
I'm not sure how I feel about being called a white man. For one thing I'm not a man, and for another it doesn't seem very polite to follow people around chanting the colour of their skin. I mean how would they like it if they came to Canada and kids followed them around chanting "black man, black man"?
Anyway, at least Waldo's here to hide behind. While Mom, Dad and Ellie follow Solomon around the marketplace, greeting locals and shaking hands, I accompany Waldo on his increasingly desperate search for candy.
"There's gotta be something decent to eat round here," he says, wiping his sweaty forehead on the back of an arm as we make our second round of the stalls, pursued the whole time by a crowd of chanting kids.
There's lots of fruit, vegetables, T-shirts, shoes, soaps, shampoos and canned food, but no candy. When we finally find a stall with something resembling candy, it's just a bowl of Dandy bubble gums—the sort of thing that sinks to the bottom of your Halloween bag until there's nothing else left to choose.
"Don't you have any chocolate?" Waldo asks the woman attending the stall. "Or chips? Or anything good?"
The woman smiles and covers her mouth with a hand, and then one of the boys in the crowd points at Waldo and shouts something that prompts the others to to stop chanting and erupt into maniacal laughter.
"You want some chewing gums?" the woman asks, suppressing a laugh of her own.
"No, I don't want any damn gums," Waldo says. "I'm asking if you have any choc-o-late or chips or anything good."
Another boy shouts something that sends the crowd into fresh peals of laughter, and Waldo slams his five crinkled hundred-leone notes down in front of the woman. "How many gums can I get for that?"
The crowd falls silent as she counts out 50 gums and slides them across the stall to Waldo, who unwraps two and shoves them into his mouth, then stuffs the rest into his short's pocket.
A little boy shoots a hand out in front of Waldo's and in a soft voice says, "Please, sir. Geef me one."
Suddenly hands are shooting out from all directions and countless voices are chanting, "Please! Please! Please!"
Waldo backs away from the crowd, his eyes darting side to side. "Back off!" he shouts. "Everyone back the hell off!"
Behind him is a display of dried peppers which he almost knocks over, and a woman with a baby strapped to her back starts shouting and throwing up her arms at him. The look on Waldo's face is priceless—his cheeks flushed and eyes bulging. It reminds me of Homer in the episode where he's choking Bart.
And then a hand reaches up from the crowd and pulls Waldo's cap off his head, and the kids all start going berserk—shrieking, hooting and jumping on top of each other to try to get hold of the cap, while Waldo's face trembles with rage.
"Gimme back my fucking cap!" he roars, diving into the crowd with teeth bared and fists flying.
He grabs one kid by the neck and hurls him to the ground, then bowls over another like a ninepin. Then, when he finds the boy holding his cap, he grabs him by the front of his T-shirt and punches him in the stomach.
The boy falls to his knees, wheezing as Waldo jerks the cap back on his head, then glares around the suddenly silent crowd.
"I fucking told you!" he shouts. "I told you to back off!"
Panting, he unwraps another gum and shoves it into a bulging cheek, then looks down at the wheezing boy, who looks back up and grins and says something that makes everyone burst into laughter again.
"Fuck this," Waldo growls, marching off in the direction of the Land Rover while kids scramble to get out of his way.
I'm about to follow when a boy steps out in front of me—the biggest, meanest looking boy I've ever seen. He must be almost six feet tall, with scars all over his cheeks and forehead.
"Hello," he says in a deep, rasping voice, glaring at me with an intensity that makes everything inside me go limp.
"Hi," I say, looking down.
"Will you be my friend?" he asks, holding out his giant hand.
"Um, okay," I say, and as I realize he wants me to shake his hand, I quickly place my palm in his.
His fingers clamp around mine as she pulls my hand toward his face, inspecting my watch. "This is a nice watch," he says, twisting my wrist from side to side to see the watch from different angles. I try to pull my hand away but his grip tightens and he glares back into my eyes in that way that makes everything go limp again.
"Please, friend," he says, "geef me this watch."
Is he fucking kidding? There's no way I'm giving him my watch. It's a Swiss Army watch, waterproof up to a hundred meters—and the only decent thing I got in my stocking last Christmas. I try again to pull my hand away and as I do he seems to grow taller, his eyes widening and lips curling into a snarl.
I'd call Waldo for help, but he's probably out of earshot and I doubt he'd care anyway. All around me kids are laughing and pointing, and I feel my hand burning and my eyes filling with tears.
"William!"
Mom's voice sounds far away, but when I look up I see her waving from a nearby stall. "William, come on!" she calls. "We're about to head out!"
With a burst of adrenaline, I rip my fingers free, plow through the crowd and run to Mom's side, and she smiles and taps the beak of my cap with a finger while I cling to the back of her blouse shirt, trying to act normal.
"Nice to see you're making new friends," she says.
~
Our next stop is the village chief's house, which I imagined would be bigger, like a palace or something, guarded by spear-wielding warriors, but it's just another mud brick house.
"Spit out your chewing gum before we go inside," Dad says. "And take off your hats. Both of you."
As I remove my cap, I feel the curls springing out and I imagine transforming into Jean-Claude Van Damme from Double Impact and knocking that pompous look off Dad's face—roundhousing him and watching spit fly from his bearded mouth as his head wheels and he crashes to the ground.
Solomon leads us through a wooden door and into a dark room, where as my eyes adjust I see an old man with a little white beard hunched over in an ornately carved wooden chair. He's wearing a red and gold robe, a grey skullcap and gold-rimmed sunglasses, facing us with a stony expression.
While Solomon bows and speaks in another language, the old man nods and slowly tugs at the little white beard. I've never understood people wearing sunglasses indoors. It's so obvious that you're just trying to look cool you might as well wear a sign that says "I'm a fucking poser". There's no furniture in the room except for the wooden chair, and the walls are bare except for a single carved wooden mask hanging behind the chair. It's a creepy mask, with pointy horns, an evil grin and little slits for eyes. It occurs to me that it might be some sort of voodoo thing, and then it occurs to me that the chief might be a witch doctor.
A chicken squawks frantically outside a nearby window then abruptly goes quiet as a woman's voice starts to cackle—and it occurs to me that it could be one of the chief's minions using the chicken as a sacrifice, concocting some evil spell.
The chief is talking now—whispering actually. Solomon nods and keeps saying "Mm-hmm" but I doubt he can actually hear what the guy's saying. Dad and Mom are watching and pretending to listen too, while Ellie clings to Mom's arm and Waldo swats at a fly that keeps trying to land on him.
There's a creaking sound to my right, and I turn to see two eyes peering through the darkness of a nearby doorway, looking directly at me.
There's a whooshing sound, like all the air is being sucked out of the room as the eyes grow brighter and bigger, and a face emerges behind them—a nose, a chin, two lips and two glossy red-brown cheeks framed by a billowing cloud of black curls.
It's a girl, around my age, with the most mesmerizing eyes I've ever seen.
Dad coughs, breaking the spell, and I quickly look down at my shoes.
What the fuck just happened? Who is that girl and why is she staring at me like that, and why was I staring back at her?
I hold my breath and glance back up, but she's gone.
Dad walks up to the chief and clasps his hand in both of his, then leans in close to his ear. "I am a gen-er-al sur-geon," he says, pronouncing each syllable like he's talking to some retarded hearing-impaired patient. "I come from Ca-na-da to help the pe-ople of Port Pik-in-ia,"
Solomon translates and the chief laughs as Dad steps away from him, and then the chief says something to Solomon, which makes Solomon laugh.
"What did he say?" Dad asks.
Solomon stops laughing. "He—ah—it is nice to meet you."
Dad clears his throat, smiles and says, "Nice to meet you."
Solomon quickly says something else to the chief, who nods and resumes whisper-talking to Solomon.
Then there she is again, her fingers curling around the doorframe, her eyes glowing like moonlight in the darkness, locking me helplessly in her gaze.
"Ouch!" Waldo shouts as Dad smacks the back of his head.
"Stop it," Dad hisses.
"This guy's taking for-ever," Waldo says.
Dad smiles again at the chief, who smiles back and continues whisper-talking. The girl is gone again, the doorway dark and empty again.
"I'm thirsty," Waldo says.
"Be quiet," Dad says.
The chief stops talking and sits back in his chair, and as he does the sunglasses slide down the bridge of his nose, revealing two cloudy white eyes, reminding me of the zombies in that movie Return of the Living Dead.
Solomon turns to Dad as the chief pushes the glasses back up his nose, concealing the zombie eyes.
"The chief wants to give you many thanks for coming to help the people of his village," Solomon says. "Especially now when there is so much dust in the air and many people are getting the lung sickness."
Dad bows and says, "It's an honour. Thank you for having us."
Mom steps forward, smiles and shakes the chief's hand. "Yes, thank you for having us," she says.
As Waldo kicks open the front door, flooding the room with light, I look back for the girl, but all I see is darkness.
~
Our next stop is the hospital.
An armed guard salutes as we drive past a rickety gatehouse into a large fenced compound, where Solomon parks in the shade of a giant tree. There's a naked toddler pissing on the ground in front of us, gaping at the vehicle. When Dad steps out, he turns and runs away with piss spraying everywhere, screaming, "Oporto, oporto!"
As I step out, I feel my sweaty shirt peeling away from the back of the seat and the sun biting into my bare arms. There's a rhythmic squeak-squeak-squeak behind me and I turn to see a woman in a colorful skirt and black bra pumping water from an old fashioned water pump, like the one on the Stewarts' farm.
Solomon points to a large single-story brick building and says, "That is the emergency ward."
There's a goat standing outside the emergency ward, chewing on something orange and watching us with an aloof expression.
"I'm gonna get a drink," Waldo says, heading for the water pump.
I'm about to follow when Dad says, "You can't drink that water, boys. It hasn't been boiled."
Waldo arches back his head and pantomimes clawing at his face. "What the hell am I supposed to drink then?" he groans.
Dad frowns and shakes his head at Mom. Hell is not a word we're allowed to say, especially in public.
"I can get the children some Coca Colas if they like," Salmon offers.
"Yes!" Waldo says. "We like! Please get me a Coke!"
"No," says Dad. "They can wait until we get back home. Thank you though, Solomon."
Waldo groans and arches back his head again, and Mom places a hand on Solomon's shoulder and says, "Oh, if you really wouldn't mind, Solomon, that would be ever so kind of you. These poor children aren't used to the heat."
While Solomon is gone with the Land Rover, and Mom, Dad and Ellie are being shown around the emergency ward by a nurse, Waldo and I sit and wait in the shade of the tree, chewing gum and listening to the squeak-squeak of the pump.
It's a beautiful tree with long twisting branches reaching high into the scorching blue sky, interspersed with clusters of serrated leaves that glow neon-green in the sun. I wonder what type of tree it is, and I wonder what it would be like to climb it. I bet you could see the whole town from the top.
"This country fucking sucks," Waldo says, leaning against the tree and furiously fanning himself with his T-shirt.
Two shirtless boys approach and stop a short distance away, giggling, whispering and nudging each other. Finally one plucks up the courage and pussyfoots over to Waldo, holding out one hand and hauling up his sagging shorts with the other.
"Hello," he says with a nervous smile.
"Get the hell outta here," Waldo says, slapping his hand away.
The boy jumps and runs back to his companion, with whom he descends into a full-bodied, hand-clapping, head-bobbing fit of laughter.
I look back through the branches and leaves of the tree, and in the sky I see her face looking back at me, her big brown eyes pulling me in.
"There's something wrong with the kids here," Waldo says, shaking his head at the boys who now have their arms around each other's necks, either dancing or trying to wrestle each other to the ground, still laughing.
When Solomon returns with the Cokes, Waldo leaps up and starts squealing, "Gimme, gimme, gimme!"
Solomon opens the first sweating bottle and Waldo snatches it, spits out his gum and downs half the bottle without stopping for a breath, then lets out an impressive belch.
"Now that's what I'm talkin' about!" he says, smacking his lips and grinning at me as he wipes his mouth on the back of his arm. "That's what I'm spending my allowance on till we get back to civilisation."
"Don't be so rude," Mom says. "Cover your mouth when you burp. And don't spit your chewing gum on the ground. People are going to step in it."
"Actually," Dad says with a pompous smile, "your mother and I have been discussing suspending your allowances until we get back to Canada—in order to help you appreciate the plight of your African contemporaries."
Waldo stops grinning and turns to Mom with a horrified expression as I lift my bottle to my lips and take a gulp.
"She's kidding, right?" Waldo says. "Please tell me she's kidding."
"Come on now," Mom says, patting the top of Waldo's head. "We're going to go visit the operating room. It should be interesting."
As the adults leave with Ellie for the operating room, Waldo turns to me and whispers, "She'd better be fucking kidding."
The Coke is the most delicious thing I've tasted in my whole life.
~
When we get back to the house, Waldo sneaks into Mom and Dad's room and steals five thousand leones from Mom's handbag, then asks Abdul to go buy us cigarettes and Cokes from the market.
"Don't tell our parents though," he says. "They don't know we smoke."
Abdul takes the money and runs off while Waldo stretches his arms over the back of the leather sofa and grins. "I could get used to having servants."
When Abdul returns, Waldo invites him to join us for a smoke in the upstairs apartment. I've smoked with Waldo a few times before and never really enjoyed it, but I always feel honoured when he invites me.
He passes me the yellow and gold pack of 555s and I pull out a slender white cigarette, place it between my lips and tilt my head to the side like they do in the movies as I light it with a match.
The tobacco hisses and Waldo blows a cloud of smoke in my face, then laughs as he takes a swig of Coke.
"This is the fuckin' life," he says, kicking his feet up onto the glass coffee table. "You know, maybe Africa ain't so bad after all."
Some of the smoke goes down my throat and I almost cough, but manage to hold it back. The trick is to keep it in your mouth and slowly release it as you exhale through your nose.
I kick my feet up on the table beside Waldo's as I take another fake drag, and he nods at me approvingly.
"You play football?" Abdul asks, raising his eyebrows at Waldo.
"Nah," Waldo says. "Football's for fags. I play hockey."
Waldo flicks his cigarette ash on the floor and looks at me. "Chicken legs here's pretty good at hockey too." He punches me on the arm and I raise a fist and I'm about to punch him back when we hear the click of footsteps coming up the stairs.
"Dad!" Waldo says. "Shit, it's fucking Dad!"
As the door opens, Waldo and I crush our cigarettes between the leather cushions and sit back, trying to act casual.
"Oh, hey, Dad," Waldo says, crossing his legs and putting his hands behind his head as Dad stops in the doorway, sniffing the air. He's wearing a fedora hat, like Indiana Jones.
"You children aren't—smoking, are you?" he says.
Waldo shakes his head and points at Abdul. "No, just Abdul is. Not us."
Abdul's eyes go wide and his chin drops.
"And I see you're drinking more Coke. Where did you get those from?"
"Abdul bought them for us," Waldo says, pointing again at Abdul, who makes a gurgling sound as he looks down.
Dad glares at Waldo, then at me. For a moment I fear he's going to lose his shit. Back in Orville, there's no telling what he'd do if he caught us smoking. But things are different now. He knows Mom will divorce him if he lays a finger on one of us again.
"Nice hat," Waldo says.
"Dinner's ready," he says with a sigh. "Come downstairs."
And then he just walks away, leaving Waldo and me to fish our cigarettes out from the cushions and finish our Cokes.
~
When Waldo sees what's on his plate, he looks like he's going to cry.
"No, not that again!" he says. "I can't eat that!"
"Sit up straight and mind your manners," Dad says. "We've had more than enough of your nonsense for one day."
One of the servants brings us glasses and a bottle of water. "Can I at least get a Coke to wash it down with?" Waldo asks.
"No," Dad says. "Now who'd like to say grace?"
"I would, I would!" says Ellie.
Mom and Dad bow their heads, close their eyes and fold their hands while Ellie says grace, and then we start to eat.
"Why can't I have a Coke?" Waldo asks. "I got some in my room."
"Because it's unhealthy," Dad says, "and because the price of a bottle of Coke is enough to feed the average Sierra Leonean child for a week, so you're definitely not going to be drinking it every day."
"I hate Sierra Leone," Waldo says, shoving his plate away.
"What did you say?" Dad barks.
Waldo glares back at him defiantly. "I said I hate this stupid country! And I hate this food! And I hate all of you!"
"Get to your room!" Dad shouts.
"Now!" Mom says, thrusting a finger toward the door, then wincing as she presses a hand to her chest.
With Waldo gone, the rest of the meal is peaceful. I watch the river turn from light brown to deep blue as the sun descends on the distant mountains. Mom lights a candle and Dad takes out a radio and we listen to the BBC World Service. The reporter's talking about the Winter Olympics in France, then about some spacecraft passing by the planet Jupiter.
After the servants have cleared our plates, I go to the edge of the veranda and look up at the stars, which are glowing like an enchanted banner across the sky.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" says Mom.
"Yeah," I say. "It sure is."
The put-put-put of the generator precedes a blinding flash as all the lights in the house simultaneously come on, extinguishing the stars.
"How'd you like to come up to the rooftop with me?" Dad asks. "We should be able to see the stars clearly from up there."
The feeling of peace suddenly turns into tight-chested, heart-pounding horror as I realize he's talking to me—and I realize what he's asking.
Normally I love stargazing. Back in Orville, Lady and I would sit for hours on the grass at the top of the riverbank looking up at the stars, me dreaming of the future while I stroked her golden fur. But it won't be like that with Dad. As I follow him upstairs to the rooftop, I feel my heart pounding faster. When we get to the tiled rooftop, he goes to the far side and leans out over the iron railing, then turns to me with an open arm and says, "Come over here, Willy."
When I go to him, he loops the arm around my neck and I can barely breathe.
"So do you think there's life on any of those planets out there?" he asks, looking up at the stars with affected wonder. "Or do you think we're alone in the universe?"
It's a question I've thought about a lot, but I can't think right now with his arm around me. He looks down into my eyes and I look down toward the dark river.
"I—dunno," I say, hoping that the surrounding drone of crickets will cover the sound of my booming heart.
I'm a disappointment to him. I know that. His eldest son—a pint-sized, squeaky-voiced loser and halfwit. But I also know that one day everything will change. I know that the future holds something special for me. I've seen it in my dreams. I've seen it in the stars. While Dad plays the loving parent, resting his arm on my shoulder and expounding on his personal cosmology, I half-listen in the same way I've practiced half-listening to Mom's tearful laments—as if I'm on a faraway planet waiting for my childhood to end so that I can finally come down to Earth and be free.
"It's great to spend some one-on-one time with you, William," Dad says, pulling me closer while I half-listen and wait.