16 If Death Is Freedom (1/2)

Late evening, just as the last light of dusk is being swallowed in sips. Mozwa, a sprawling slum of shacks and shanties scattered somewhere along the fraying hemline of one of the big West African coastal cities.

A light knock on a door – the knock of a gentleman, of which there are none in Mozwa.

A sharp reply like a gunshot, through the door: YAS!

'Good evening,' the knocker greets; an insufficient voice, inappropriate in the present surroundings.

'Bia finis.h.!.+' the voice on the other side of the door delivers

like a slap.

'I don't want a beer,' the gentler voice says, sounding bruised from the slap, its owner's lips almost touching the red rust of the metal-sheet door; he seems pathetically unable to project his voice in a shout to match the other's. 'I just need a place to lie for the night.' 'Hia not hotel!' There is a dismissive tone in that last shot.

The soft man is unrelenting, ironic for someone with such a wooly voice. 'I was told I could get a room here for a night.'

Blossom, out of curiosity cultivated from years of living around criminals and their crimes, comes to the door with the dull shuffle of a large, languorous person. She opens it a crack and quickly sizes the stranger up in a practiced look that sweeps him from top to bottom – that is, cream fedora to velvet loafers – and back up to the mirthless eyes on her. She takes in these neat aristocratic features casually.

'Five hundred,' she says.

A crisp note appears in the man's hand – 'Here.'

She hesitates, eyeing the fine fingers with a wary tilt of her head. 'You not blackey?' 'What?'

'Po-lis.

'Oh. I'm not.'

Relief pa.s.ses briefly over her brow. She s.n.a.t.c.hes the bill and lets him in, shuffling aside heavily. He notices that the reason for her shuffling is not actually the enc.u.mbrance of her ma.s.sive frame, which it should have been, but it is largely due to the weight of the inertia sitting on her slumped shoulders, such that she has to drag herself, bosom, belly and bottom, around with some effort. And everything about her seems to fill the room – her wide, proprietorial frame; her heavy breathing, which is a throbbing presence on its own; the thick stench of a week's worth of sweat hanging about her armpits; and her big, manly voice.

'Only one night,' she booms, gloomily.

'I don't intend to stay longer than that.'

'Only one room hia o.'

'I won't be needing more than one.'

'Fine. Come.'

She leads him through the only other door in the place. The room they enter is the size of a pantry. Her size makes it look even smaller, shrinks it, as everything about her – voice, stench, limbs, b.r.e.a.s.t.s and b.u.t.tocks – takes up all the s.p.a.ce in the room. Dusk shadows gather and crowd the walls to shrink the room further. This room has its own odour, which is so heavy it manages to wrestle the woman's to insignificance, and the poor man's lungs almost collapse under the weight.

'All this for just five hundred,' he says, looking around, as

limited as 'around' is.

'Just five deah,' Madam Blossom purrs, in a most unladylike manner which gives her masculine voice a grotesque texture,

Smithereens of Death

shoving the fresh note far into the depth of her bra, out of the reach of the man's second thoughts.

The man, not one of many words, gives the door a long, hard stare. She follows his gaze.

'Oh, sorry. . .' she says, reaching for the door. 'Shout if you need me, or anything.' She smirks, and winks.

He winces. He doesn't see how he would need her, or how anybody would for that matter.

'All I need is rest . . . and some quiet if you can manage it.'

'Ahhh. . . plenty quiet hia! Just shout me if you need anytin'.'

'I'll shout,' the man promises, in that small voice that is unaccustomed to lifting beyond genteel whispering.

'Good,' she smiles, 'Shoo-gah. My name.'

'Sugar. Sweet. I'll remember . . . Goodnight.'

He holds the door open for her, pinning a hard look of contempt on her vast unyielding forehead, until she moves.

She stops in the doorway, filling it, her figure looming ominously like a mountain. 'An' if you hia gunshot don't die, is jus' children playin'.'

'Thank you.'

He closes the door on her reluctant behind.

He lies awake, listening to the night – frogs' raucous discussions, babies' weepings, fishwives' relentless rantings, churches' chantings, random gunshots, cries of Tif! Tif! and scattering feet – until fatigue breaks into his thoughts and sleep steals him away.

* * *

An hour later, a young thin-faced girl enters the front room. She is wearing the miniest dress from which her legs continue for miles; beautiful, lengthy legs with boy's hips to go with them; narrow, bony hips that make her body look attractive in that fragile anorexic way of models.

Her dainty face does not carry the dampness of apathy that prost.i.tutes wear over the cacophony of their make-up; she wears her ugly, personalized scowl like a fas.h.i.+on accessory, proudly, but instead of marring her cherubic beauty the frown seems to accentuate it, and makes her small face seem crowded, with worry.

Her tired jaws are working old chewing gum around her mouth mechanically.

She flings her empty handbag into a chair and herself into another.

'I need a d.a.m.n beer!'

'Bia finish,' Madam Blossom says. 'You finish?'

'Yeah,' the girl answers, shutting her purple eyelids and s.n.a.t.c.hing the scarf off her hair; the full hair falls and pours everywhere, some spilling over her face.

Madam Blossom glances at the clock on the wall. 'You finish

early.'

'The streets are slow tonight.'