Brazzaville Beach (10 page)

The odd trance passed. She shivered, naked, in the sitting room. She ran back to their bed and slid between just warm sheets.

USMAN SHOUKRY'S LEMMA

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Kwarizmi was an Arab mathematician from Khiva, now part of Uzbekistan in the USSR. He lived in the first part of the ninth century A.D. and is remarkable in that he not only gave us the word algebra (from the title of one of his books—Calculation by Restoration and Reduction—al-jabr means “Restoration”), but also, more interestingly, from his name—al-Khwarizmi—is derived the word algorithm. An algorithm is a mechanical procedure for solving a problem in a finite number of steps, a procedure that requires no ingenuity
.

Algorithms are much beloved mathematical tools. Computers operate on algorithms. They imply a world of certainty, of rotas and routine, of
continuous process. The great celestial machine, programmed and preordained
.

However, algorithmic procedures are of little use for phenomena that are irregular and discontinuous. Fairly self-evident, you would have thought, but how often have we tried to solve the problems in our life algorithmically? It doesn't work. I should know
.

There is another appellation in the world of mathematics that comes faintly tinged with contempt. A Lemma. A lemma is a proposition that is so simple that it cannot even be called a theorem. I appreciate lemmae—or lemmas, maybe—they seem to have more bearing on my world. “You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs”…“More baste, less speed
”…

Usman gave me a lemma once
.

We were in bed, it was dark and we had made love. The roof fan buzzed above our heads and the room was cool. I could hear only the steady beat of the fan and the noise of the crickets outside. I turned to him and kissed him
.

“
Ah, Hope,” he said—I couldn't see his smile in the dark, but I could hear it in his voice—“I think you're falling in love with me
.”

“
Think what you like,” I said, “but you're wrong
.”

“
You're a difficult person, Hope. Very difficult
.”

“
Well, I am feeling happy,” I said. “I'll give you that. You make me happy
.”

Then he said something in Arabic
.

“
What's that
?”

“
It's a saying. What we always say. A warning: ‘Never be too happy
.'”

Never be too happy. Usman Shoukry's lemma
.

Sometimes I wonder if a lemma is closer to an axiom. Axioms are statements that are assumed to be true, that require no formal proof: 2 + 2 = 4. “A line is a length without breadth.” Life is full of lemmae, I know. There must be some axioms
.

 

Usman said he would be on the beach that afternoon if I wanted to meet up with him after my provisioning trip. As it happened I was finished by half past three and a hotel taxi took me down to the bathing beach. I saw Usman's car, parked alongside a few others in the shade of a palm grove, and let the taxi go.

The palm trees here were very tall and old; their tensed,
curved, gray trunks looked too slim to hold themselves erect, let alone bear the weight of their shaggy crowns and burden of green coconuts. The ground beneath them was grassless and hard, almost as if it had been rolled and swept. This had been an exclusive beach once and all along the shoreline were the remains of wooden beach houses and cabanas. Most had rotted away over the last few years, or had been dismantled for their timber and tar paper roofs. Locals had settled here and a ribbon of shanties, made from the recycled cabanas, lurked in the scrub behind the littoral's tree line. With them had come rubbish dumps and livestock of all kinds. Goats and hens scrounged amongst the palm trees, stray dogs loped along the sand, sniffing curiously at whatever the waves had brought ashore.

One or two of the beach houses were still in good repair. The general manager of the bauxite mines had one, and a few Lebanese and Syrian merchants had clubbed together to keep others functioning. But whatever their efforts, the mood of this stretch of shoreline was inescapably sad, a morose memory of former glories.

I saw Usman standing waist-high in the sea, his torso canted into the green and foamy breakers that rolled powerfully in, smashing and buffeting his body. With particularly large waves he would dive beneath them, hurling himself into their sheer, tight throats just before they crested, and emerge, spitting and delighted, on the other side.

“Usman!” I called and he waved back at me. I sat down on his mat, took off my shoes and lit a cigarette. Behind me, four men played volleyball outside one of the refurbished beach huts. They were brown—Lebanese, I guessed—wore very small swimming trunks and played with histrionic abandon, making unnecessary dives for very gettable balls.

Usman came out of the sea, shaking his head like a dog. He had put on more weight since my last visit and there was a soft overhang of flesh at the waistband of his swimming trunks. He sat down beside me and with delicate, wet fingers helped himself to one of my cigarettes.

“Going to swim?” he said.

“I'm frightened of the undertow, you know that.”

“Ah, Hope. That sounds like an epitaph to me—‘Hope Clearwater, she was frightened of the undertow.'”

Usman was Egyptian and in his early forties, I guessed. He wouldn't tell me his exact age.

“You're getting fat,” I said.

“You're getting too thin.”

He spoke very good English, but with quite a heavy accent. He had a strong face which would have looked better if he were less heavy. All his features—nose, eyebrows, lips, chin—appeared to have extra emphasis. His brown torso was quite hairless. His nipples were small and neat, like a boy's.

A fly settled on his leg and he watched it for a while, letting it taste the salt water, before he waved it away. There was a milky haze covering the sun and a breeze off the ocean. I felt warm but not too hot. I lay back on his mat and shut my eyes, listening to the rumble and hiss of the breakers. Grosso Arvore, my chimpanzees and Mallabar seemed very far away.

“I should have brought my swimsuit,” I said. “Not to swim. To get brown.”

“No, no. Stay white. I like you white. All the European women here are too brown. Be different.”

“I hate being so white.”

“OK. Get brown, I don't care that much.”

I laughed at him. He made me laugh, Usman, but I couldn't really say why. I sensed him lying down on the mat beside me. We were silent for a while. Then I felt his fingers gently touch my face. Then they were in my hair, brushing it back from my forehead.

“Stay white, Hope,” he whispered dramatically in my ear. “Stay white for your brown man.”

I laughed at him again. “No.”

I felt dulled by the warmth and the smoothing motion of his fingers on my head.

“Hey. What's this?” Both sets of fingers were in my hair now, parting the strands to expose my skull. I kept my eyes closed.

“My port-wine mark.”

“What do you call it?”

I explained. I had a port-wine mark, a sizable spill, a ragged
two inches across, above my left ear, a dark prelate's purple. My hair was so thick you had to search hard to spot it. No pictures exist of me as a bald baby. My parents waited until my hair had fully grown in before they put me in front of a camera.

“In Egypt this means very good luck.”

“In England it means good luck too. It's bad luck if it's full on your face.”

He looked resigned. “I just said it to make you feel good.”

“Thank you.” I paused. “Actually it does make me feel good. I often wonder what I would've been like if it had been on my cheek.” I squirmed round and rested on an elbow, looking at him. “You wouldn't be lying here for a start.”

This time he laughed at me. “Yes. You're probably correct.”

“See. It brings me good luck.”

I lay back again. A clamorous argument was going on amongst the volleyball players.

“Do you want to go to that Lebanese restaurant tonight?” he said. “I shouldn't be back too late.” He sat up. “I have to go now.”

“Where?”

“I'm flying.”

“A mission?”

“No. I've got to test the wiring. You know, two days ago, I was on reconnaisance. I pressed the camera button and my fuel tanks dropped off.”

Usman was a pilot in the federal air force. A mercenary pilot, I should say, not to put too fine a point on it. All the Mig 15s at the airport were flown by foreigners, on hire to the government. Apart from Usman there were two British, three Rhodesians, an American, two Pakistanis and a South African. Their number varied. All had signed contracts and theoretically they were instructors. They were issued uniforms, but did not have to wear them. No discipline was imposed on them. There was a fairly rapid turnover: people who had simply had enough, or casualties. In the year since Usman had been there only one pilot had died while on a mission. Six others had died as a result of mechanical or navigational failures and subsequent crashes. “Your ground crew,” Usman said phlegmatically, “is your greatest threat.”

I had met Usman on the first provisioning run I had made from Grosso Arvore. I had arrived at the hotel earlier than expected and, hot and thirsty, had gone into the bar for a beer. The barroom was long and thin and was lined with simulated leather. The chairs and tables were modishly Scandinavian, the chairs organic looking, a warped kidney shape with splayed iron legs. The tables were like large paving stones, inlaid with shards of broken colored glass. It was very gloomy, and, because of the simulated leather walls, warm. The two ceiling fans were always switched to full blast. The blurred, whizzing propellers produced a stiff breeze that blew your hair about. I had never been in a bar like it and I grew oddly fond of its singular atmosphere.

When I went in that first afternoon the place was empty. Then I saw someone kneeling at the far end apparently searching for something on the floor. He looked up as I came in. He was wearing khaki trousers and a Hawaiian shirt which, for some reason, made me assume he was the barman.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “I'm trying to catch a frog.”

I waited while he did this. Then he brought it over to show me: a small, livid, lime-green tree frog, its throat pulsing uncontrollably.

“I'll have a beer,” I said. “As soon as you're ready.”

He pushed the frog out through some louvred glass windows at one end of the bar before going behind it and pouring me a glass of beer.

“How much?” I said.

“The house will pay.”

Then he engaged me in conversation, in the time-honored bar-keep-to-client manner: “Where are you from?” “How long are you staying?” Fairly soon I began to suspect he might be a manager—he seemed far too forward and intelligent to be running a cocktail bar at the Airport Hotel. By the time he asked me to have dinner with him that night I realized I'd been had.

“You thought I was the barman,” he said with some glee. “Admit it. I got you.” He was very pleased with his subterfuge.

“Not for one second,” I said. “I knew it as soon as you opened the bottle,” I improvised. I pointed to the bent bottletop lying on
the bar. “No barman in Africa would've left that there. He'd pocket it.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed. “You sure about that?”

“Check it out the next time you're in a bar.”

He wagged a finger at me. “You're lying, I know.”

I kept on denying it and agreed to have dinner that night. I was intrigued by him. He told me his name—Usman Shoukry—and spelled it for me, and told me what he did. After our meal that evening—during which I was introduced to two of his fellow pilots, whose prurient speculation I could sense swirling about me—he walked me back through the gardens to my room.

We stopped at an intersection of two paths.

“That's my chalet,” he said, pointing. “I was wondering if you'd like to spend the night there with me.”

“No thank you.”

“It's for your own good.”

“Oh yes?” Suddenly I was beginning to like him less. “I don't think so.”

“No, honestly.” His eyes were candid. “If those fellows you met tonight ever think we haven't slept together they'll be round you like…like flies. Buzzing, buzzing.”

“I'll risk it.” I shook his hand. “Thanks for dinner.”

He shrugged. “Well, I warned you.”

But six weeks later, when I returned on my second trip and he invited me to his “chalet” again, I accepted.

 

Usman pulled into the airport and showed his pass to the bored guard. The barrier was raised and we drove through.

“Would you like to see my plane?” he asked.

We stopped by a large hangar, got out and walked toward a row of half a dozen Mig 15s. Here on the concrete apron one really felt the physical force of the heat. I could see the haze rising off the runway, almost as if the rays of the sun were rebounding, corrugating the scrub and palmettos at the perimeter.

Some of the Migs were silver—almost painfully bright in this sun—and some had been painted olive drab. Here and there a mechanic worked. To one side I saw a row of small trolleys with pairs of teardrop-shaped tanks on them. Usman led me past the
first two planes and stopped by a third. He spoke in Arabic to a mechanic who was fixing something in the undercarriage bay. Usman was wearing a blue shirt over his swimming shorts. On his feet were rubber flip-flops. I wore shorts and a T-shirt. I felt strange, as if we were Sunday barbecuers inspecting a friend's new sports car in the driveway of our suburban home.

I looked at Usman's Mig. To my eyes it was an ugly plane. It sat low on the ground and was tilted back somewhat, as if on its haunches. The air intake to the jet was in the nose, a large black hole. On either side of this were twin elliptical recesses, each containing the snub barrel of a machine gun. We walked round it. The wings were swept back, their leading edges showing a dull gleam of aluminium where the paint had been worn away by the friction of wind and dust. There were dark streaks of oil and grease on the flaps and the soft tires looked like they needed inflating. I touched the thin metal sides of the plane. It was hot.