Christopher soon abandoned the tour. I was surprised he lasted as long as he did in the wet heat, listening to the guideâs rote listing of the statistics â numbers of slaves caught per year, price paid per slave, numbers lost while being held waiting for ships to arrive, numbers loaded on board, numbers dying en route, hundreds of thousands upon thousands after tragic, unthinkable thousands. He headed off down the wide trail to the white beach. I followed. He went straight for the water, and he walked with such determination that I thought he might not stop till the waves came over his feet, or might not stop at all, and I asked myself could I watch him drown, but he halted at the waterâs edge, stood on the hard white sand, looked south over the water, stared south at the shimmering water and blinding sky while I stood beside him, wondering what he was thinking about: enslaved ancestors desperate on the middle passage; innocence, optimism, and beauty; onrushing death? He bent down finally, cupped up a palmful of Atlantic, splashed it on his face, looked blankly at me, and then walked back, me beside him this time but just as distant.
We never before let things separate us. I still remember our first months, when every dayâs set of odd glances and misunderstandings, every foot in a mouth here or unsuccessfully hidden bit of anger there, was every nightâs conversation before sleep. Once we entered a restaurant arm-in-arm, andthe grinning hostess looked at me and said, âTable for one?â and that night we laughed hysterically together. Christopher always insisted that when people donât understand it isnât because they canât. It isnât because theyâre not white or not black or not men or not women. Itâs because they donât want to understand and change. When one of us didnât understand, then it was the otherâs task to explain, and to say that a black man and a white woman could not understand each other was to admit and accept stupidity. But now he is truly different, for he will die soon and I canât understand, Christopher believes that I canât understand, which he says every time his face tenses so as not to signal that his body is no longer his own.
In the early evening, after we both rested, Christopher arranged for a taxi driver to take us around the city. We visited a string of nightclubs along the central ring road, and when the music there proved unsatisfactory we moved farther out, to a makeshift metal shack with three tables, a guitarist, and a drummer; on to a passable small imitation of a seventies disco, complete with glitter ball and canned music; then a family home with a man rushing to get his guitar; then what seemed to be a wedding celebration with tables set up on the street and a full band that we heard for blocks as we approached, and where, as at every other place, we were warmly welcomed. I could not like the music, but only guess that I would have done so if I still had a right or a capacity to know whether I liked something. Christopher was not satisfied and we kept going, and it seemed to me that he had no true optimism, but was continuing just to make a point, a point to me; again he looked at me, waited, and then turned to the driver and asked him to continue, which we did till the city started to shutdown and finally Christopher said no more, and we returned to the hotel. In their last conversation our driver told him that really one could not hear highlife in the city at all; it was necessary to get away, and he named the region and the town where the best, most authentic highlife bands were concentrated. The same collection of men who had given their advice the night before gathered again to assure Christopher that yes, everyone knew this town was the place to go for highlife, and it was a dayâs bus ride away.
In the night I was awakened by Christopher, who was beside me on his knees in the pose of the
We never before let things separate us. I still remember our first months, when every dayâs set of odd glances and misunderstandings, every foot in a mouth here or unsuccessfully hidden bit of anger there, was every nightâs conversation before sleep. Once we entered a restaurant arm-in-arm, andthe grinning hostess looked at me and said, âTable for one?â and that night we laughed hysterically together. Christopher always insisted that when people donât understand it isnât because they canât. It isnât because theyâre not white or not black or not men or not women. Itâs because they donât want to understand and change. When one of us didnât understand, then it was the otherâs task to explain, and to say that a black man and a white woman could not understand each other was to admit and accept stupidity. But now he is truly different, for he will die soon and I canât understand, Christopher believes that I canât understand, which he says every time his face tenses so as not to signal that his body is no longer his own.
In the early evening, after we both rested, Christopher arranged for a taxi driver to take us around the city. We visited a string of nightclubs along the central ring road, and when the music there proved unsatisfactory we moved farther out, to a makeshift metal shack with three tables, a guitarist, and a drummer; on to a passable small imitation of a seventies disco, complete with glitter ball and canned music; then a family home with a man rushing to get his guitar; then what seemed to be a wedding celebration with tables set up on the street and a full band that we heard for blocks as we approached, and where, as at every other place, we were warmly welcomed. I could not like the music, but only guess that I would have done so if I still had a right or a capacity to know whether I liked something. Christopher was not satisfied and we kept going, and it seemed to me that he had no true optimism, but was continuing just to make a point, a point to me; again he looked at me, waited, and then turned to the driver and asked him to continue, which we did till the city started to shutdown and finally Christopher said no more, and we returned to the hotel. In their last conversation our driver told him that really one could not hear highlife in the city at all; it was necessary to get away, and he named the region and the town where the best, most authentic highlife bands were concentrated. The same collection of men who had given their advice the night before gathered again to assure Christopher that yes, everyone knew this town was the place to go for highlife, and it was a dayâs bus ride away.
In the night I was awakened by Christopher, who was beside me on his knees in the pose of the
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