Elephant Dropping (9781301895199) (12 page)

‘Do you need a
receipt?’ asked the shopkeeper, putting the box containing the
shoes in a plastic bag and handing it over.

‘No that’s ok,
thanks,’ Brian replied.

As they stepped
out Lucy ignored the shopkeeper. ‘You want more shop?’ She asked,
still clearly annoyed with him.

Brian hid a
smile; this girl really was a dynamo. ‘No, that’s all I need. Can I
buy you a coffee or soda to thank you?’

‘Ok, I know a
good place,’ she brightened, ‘let’s go,’ and charged off down
another alleyway ducking and weaving through the narrow streets.
Brian followed in her wake. He was surprised as they abruptly
emerged from the old town back on the sea front road. Lucy led
Brian along it and turned right, up a flight of stairs into a
restaurant with the word ‘Gellati’ emblazoned in rainbow colours
across its front.

‘I like hice
cream,’ Lucy said licking her lips. ‘You like?’

She hailed the
European owner in Italian, as they sat down at a table overlooking
the road. He returned her greeting and brought a menu over
addressing Brian in Italian.

Brian said
stiffly. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Ah Inglezie.’
The owner said knowingly. ‘Welcome to my ‘ouse,’ and placed the
menu in front of him.

Lucy leaned
over and tapped one red fingernail urgently on a picture of the
dish she wanted. ‘Thisis one for me.’

The menu was
written in Italian, but pictures of the food were self-explanatory.
Brian ordered the large bowl of mixed ice cream for her and a
smaller one for himself, and cappuccinos for both of them. Lucy
looked out over the road at the sea. There were bathers on the
beach, a small sports fishing boat went by. ‘You like to swims?’
she asked Brian.

‘Yes, how about
you?’

She shook her
head vehemently. ‘No too many shack.’

‘Shack?’ said
Brian. ‘Oh, you mean sharks.’

‘Yes shack,
this is what I say, shack. Too many,’ she shuddered involuntarily.
Lucy fidgeted in her chair looking concerned. Suddenly, she stood
up. ‘I go piss,’ she announced, and disappeared inside the
restaurant.

Brian watched
her go. His eyes, not for the first time appreciating her slender
figure. She was quite a girl, a real firebrand, and he was grateful
for the shoes. He would never have found that shop without her.
Their order arrived, closely followed by Lucy. Excitedly she tucked
into her ice cream, smacking her lips, hissing at the coldness and
scrunching her eyes up at Brian. ‘Mmmm, it’s good,’ she hummed with
pleasure. He ate his at a more leisurely pace studying her,
enchanted. It was very good ice cream. She finished hers in record
time, scooping out every bit with her spoon, finally tilting the
bowl over her face. She put it down and started on the cappuccino,
loading in three teaspoons of sugar. Only the heat of the brew
prevented her from downing it in one go. Catlike, she sipped
rapidly and noisily at it, her pink tongue flashing as she grinned
at him between sips. The assault did not last long and she put the
cup down with satisfaction. A cocoa moustache remained on her upper
lip, she licked this away dexterously, leaned back in her seat and
belched loudly. ‘
Hamdidilai
.’

Brian laughed
out loud. She was a riot.

‘Why you laugh
at me?’ she demanded.

‘Did you enjoy
that?’ he asked.

‘Shuwa,’ she
replied.

‘Do you want
another one?’

Lucy looked
like she was seriously considering it, and then said. ‘Maybe
tomorrow, you, Birin, you nice man, arching her eyebrows, you buy
me hice cream tomorrow?’

‘Maybe,’ he
answered. The swelling on her eye had now disappeared. Her heart
shaped face was very pretty, a small aquiline nose, large black
eyes with long lashes, a voluptuous mouth.

She looked
young. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

‘Me, nineteen.’
She said proudly, straightening in her chair and pushing her
breasts out. ‘I’m a womans, have a son three years,’ she held up a
thumb and two digits.

‘Really?’ Brian
asked in disbelief.

‘Yessy, look I
show you,’ and she rummaged in her handbag, taking out a small
wallet. On one side was a photo of Lucy with a small baby in her
arms beaming at the camera, on the other, an ID card with her
photo, claiming the owner to be Amina Hargeza, born 31st September,
1987. Malindi sub location. Ganze.

‘Amina, your
real name is Amina?’

‘Yes, bit
everyone call me Lucy. Thisis Baraka, my son,’ she tapped on the
photo. ‘See, me a real woman, I have a son!’

‘Yes,’ agreed
Brian, ‘but according to this ID you’re eighteen not nineteen, and
there is no thirty first day of September. There are only thirty
days in September.’

She shrugged
dismissing the information. ‘Where we go now, back to your
hotel?’

Brian said.
‘I’m going back to my hotel. Where would you like me to drop
you?’

‘I’m coming
with you,’ she announced confidently.

Brian having
already witnessed how volatile she could be, waved to a waiter to
settle their bill. ‘Where is your son now?’

‘He, with my
aunt. Back home in Ganze, my home village, that way,’ she said,
extending a bangled arm in the air.

Brian paid the
bill and they walked down the road along the seafront in the
direction of the town centre.

‘You want
taxi?’

‘No wait.’
Brian looked at her kindly. ‘Listen Lucy, thank you. I’m very
pleased with the shoes, but now I must go back to my hotel.’

She looked at
him, frowning. ‘You have a wife?’

‘No, but even
if I did, I’m not looking for romance - although you are very
attractive,’ spotting storm clouds brewing.

Lucy glared at
him. ‘You don’t like me, you don’t like us African womans, you
queer?’

Brian smiled.
‘No, none of those things.’

‘So, what your
trouble?’ She demanded her voice rising.

Brian had to
admit he was torn. Lucy was beautiful and good fun, but that ID
could not be accurate. He tried to explain himself. ‘Look Lucy, I’m
an old man. I’m old enough to be your father.’

‘Oh,’ she
stared out to sea, ‘so you old man, no power?’ Making a rude motion
with her forearm.

Brian smiled.
‘Yes, I’m old man, no power,’ he agreed.

‘We go to
chemisti, buy you medicinis, you become man, I helep you.’ She
offered brightly. ‘Look my body, just plessha for you.’

‘No Lucy, look
I really must go,’ said Brian waving down a taxi. ‘Here, take
this,’ he reached for his wallet.

She walked away
from him. ‘Go,’ she said, then louder. ‘Go! I don’t want money. Go
you shit,’ she shouted and strode down the road away from him.

Brian looked
after her with regret. He climbed into the waiting taxi and gave
the driver the address of the hotel. He waved as the taxi passed
her. The striding figure ignored him. He was sorry the afternoon
had ended on a sour note. In two minds, he almost asked the cab
driver to stop, but, instead he thought of the shoes as a memento,
they certainly had a story to tell.

Lucy stormed
down the road, affronted. Stupid man, how could he say no, must be
a queer. She should have taken his money. She made her way back to
the shop where they had bought the shoes. Barging in, she demanded
her commission.

‘Out,’ he
shouted, reaching for his stick.

‘What about my
money?’ She demanded.

‘For what?
Bringing the price down? Out, now whore!’

Lucy beat a
hasty retreat. ‘Another fool,’ she yelled back at him, as she
stepped out of the door. Why did I help the
mzungu
? I could
have made money on the shoes and taken the money he’d offered. What
was I thinking? She made her way through the old town of Malindi,
wondering where to go. She paused at a shop window to examine her
reflection, emerging at the square where she and Brian had caught
the taxi. She crossed it and went into a small bar frequented by
civil servants. It wasn’t the right time of the month, the patrons
would be broke, but sometimes she could get lucky here. The bar was
almost empty and as she entered she hailed the barman for a soda,
and then sat down to wait at a table by the door.

Lucy was in
fact eighteen despite her young looks, and born of a Somali
fisherman and an Ethiopian mother. Her smooth skin and fiery spirit
was from her father’s side, her distinctive crinkled hair from her
mother. As a child she had grown up in the town of Merca, on the
Somali coast. The in-clan fighting there had spread out from the
capital, Mogadishu. Her father exchanged his fishing net for an old
rifle and went to war to defend his clan’s honour.

Eight-year-old
Lucy, her two younger brothers, an aunt and her three children,
were bundled into a large, wooden cargo Dhow, already overcrowded
with four hundred other refugees, they set sail south for Mombasa.
On the second day the engine failed, a makeshift sail was rigged
up, but this was of no use when they were becalmed. The captain had
only laid in fresh water for the length of the trip, and passengers
began to die, first the old and infirm and then the children.
Tossed unceremoniously over the stern, this bounty attracted a
school of sharks, who circled the dhow all the time expectantly,
dark torpedo shaped shadows flitting through clear blue water.

On the fifth
day, land appeared on the horizon, the current had pushed the Dhow
in towards the shore. That night the captain and crew fled in a
small speedboat taking the last of the petrol, abandoning the
passengers to their fate. Lucy’s mother died in the night. The
child fell asleep against her, listening to her shallow breathing
and when a sudden rainstorm awaked her before dawn, her mother did
not move. The other passengers rallied to this god sent mercy,
wringing out their colourful
shuka
s to catch as much water
as possible. At dawn, Lucy’s mother was consigned to the deep. One
large shark sped in at the sound of the splash, taking the wrapped
body and attacking it savagely. Lucy and her brothers watched
silently from the stern, as their aunt wailed a high keening
lamentation. The bilge pump ran out of fuel and the Dhow began to
fill with water, listing dangerously. A few of the passengers tried
to use the few buckets on board to bail her, but this pathetic
attempt was soon abandoned.

That was when
the U.S. navy destroyer found them. Loading pumps, food and water
and a tow line the wooden ship was soon astern of the destroyer
doing a steady eight knots south to Mombasa, with four armed U.S.
marines on board. The destroyer captain radioed for a tug to make
full steam out of Mombasa to meet them. In port the Somali refugees
were met by a UN agency, loaded into trucks and transported to a
camp north of Mombasa.

Lucy and her
aunt spent the next four years in this camp, until an
administrative mix up caused them to be separated. With no adult
relative to care for them and forced along with other children into
exchanging sex for food by the U.N. camp workers, Lucy became
pregnant and was later reunited with her aunt at the village of
Ganze south of Malindi where she had her baby. At sixteen,
emotionally scared and rebellious, she drifted into prostitution.
Now tainted in the clan’s eyes, no man would take her for a wife.
Back at the bar Lucy finished her soda and went out into the
street, making her way on foot to the truck stop bars.

*

Patel caught
the two o’clock Kenya Airways flight to Nairobi. He booked into the
New Stanley hotel in the city centre. In his room he used the phone
to arrange meetings for the next day.

In the evening,
dressed casually in jeans and a pullover, he left the hotel.
Hailing a taxi, he gave the driver the address of the NNB flats. A
short drive later at the apartment gates, Patel instructed the
driver to wait, while he approached the entrance on foot and spoke
to the security guard.

‘Hello, I have
come to see Mr Harcourt in flat five.’

The security
guard wordlessly handed him the visitors book. Patel used an alias.
The guard pointed him to a flight of stairs. ‘Third floor on the
right side.’

He climbed the
steps, turning left to Brian Nicholl’s apartment, checking the
number on the door. He removed the passport from his pocket, put it
in a brochure from Brian’s briefcase and knelt down by the door. A
quick shove and the leaflet slid inside the apartment. Brian
Nicholls might wonder how he hadn’t noticed himself dropping the
brochure, but would be more than relieved to get his passport back.
The job done, Patel got back in the taxi and drove off to meet
Kamau, his contact in the Immigration Department. The whole
operation could not have taken more than three minutes.

Patel answered
a call from Azizza. ‘Yes dear, what is it?’

‘I have just
heard from Evans, Nicholls has asked to meet the directors of
Golden Palm. He called the company registrars before coming to
Malindi, and it turned up blank.’

‘No. That’s not
possible the company is registered. There is no problem there, but
wanting to meet us or the directors is quite out of the question,
don’t you think?’

‘I agree,’
Azizza said, ‘however Nicholls is hoping we can introduce him to
the NGO organisation. It could become a problem.’

‘Yes, I can see
that. Listen, I have a meeting to get to now. Let’s give it some
thought, and I will call you later. By the way the package has been
delivered.’

‘Ha!’ exclaimed
Azizza, and rang off.

Patel had taken
the immigration officer out for dinner at a local restaurant where
they served roasted meat and cold beers. Kamau had wanted to make a
night of it, but Patel cried off after dinner; besides the officer
was already quite drunk, and not much good was to be had by
prolonging the evening. Kamau insisted Patel be driven back by his
official driver. ‘Too many thieves around these days,’ Kamau
explained, ‘see you soon my friend.’