Serendipity 4

Things are not going well with my work on the book. I am beset by
feelings and the words are clumsy.

I have decided to leave Toamasina because of the distractions. My
girlfriends are demanding and I have lost my way.

The doctor told me that in the groups of women, the strongest principle
they pass on to the young girls is that the men have their strength.
They can work and earn money. All the women have is their sex. So they
have to make it pay.

This way of thinking means that the women get their sense of esteem
within the community of women based on how much money they get from the
man. This is how they measure each other. A woman who gets a lot of
money is respected.

When he told me that I understood the words only.

Now I have experience. But still it isn't easy to get my head
around.

One thing he had said which stuck in my mind was that he had heard tell
of a special relationship here in Madagascar. One where a woman would
be with a man for love. But he said he had no experience of such a
thing, he had never seen it and he didn't believe it.

I know that with me the love is sweet. But I also know that they want
my money. New shoes. Imports. Some beautiful fabric for a dress she
wants to make, for her mother's operation, for a rice field which has
been ruined.

My friend Davide says, 'all over the world, men pay'.

There are also the girls to think about - what they hope for. Too much
a little money to help their family when the foreigner flies home to
his rich apartment, with a little more knowledge filed away in his
theory of the universe.

In Toamasina I had one girlfriend for four days. Lydia. She studied
couture, lived with her family and went with men. She was as delicate
as a sigh but I was driven to know if her love for me was real and I
tested it.

'But I only want money, she would say, 'and you have plenty'

'I'm leaving tomorrow, I said dramatically, 'Diego Suarez'

It troubled me that much.

*********************************

A few days later I was sitting in the main square.. Diego Suarez,
northernmost tip of Madagascar, the end of the Boulevard Joffre where
the girls march in the evenings around the tall baobab trees.

I was writing in my journal about a chance meeting with a girl in a
caf? that morning..

When she lay down she reached across, feeling me, squeezing gently and
then pulling me towards her

I reached up to kiss her but she moved her head and laughed, just
pulling me on, insistently

I tried to resist but in a movement she had me, hand first, on and in..
soon crashing into her strong bones

In the caf? she had been shy.. now she is beating the bed like a
banshee.. both hands, face invisible, rocking and writhing and doing
her dance..'

I looked slowly round the square for a special girl, then down the wide
avenue. Le Boulevard was all closed up. It was too hot for the street
sellers. Just a few shambling figures in the shade. But I noticed a
guy, sleazy looking. He had short tinted locks and he was staring
intently. He looked like a cunt.

I was habitue to the staring of Africa. I was used to the constant
demands for my money. All but the girls were transparent to me.

So I looked through him and carried on with my journal;

she's shouting.. I'm working.. she's screaming now, at the top of her
voice.. cherie.. c'est magnifique.. je t'aime.. using every ounce of
power in her petite frame

I kissed her gently, and then her breasts, covering her nipple with her
mouth, one finger still holding her, I began to suck hard and could
taste the milk, sweet and warm, like a baby I hung on, not letting up,
pulling drinking it down..

'Bonjour Monsieur'

I squinted hard into the strong sun and made out the cunt approaching
the steps of the grand statue of Don Diego, the spanish pirate whose
men had raped and pillaged the town two hundred years before.

'Bonjour' I said

'OK', he says

'Oui',

'You are touriste or you work here', he says. He is trying to get a
conversation together and he sits down on the steps with that same
stupid smile.

'I work a little' I said, and glanced up for a second and then
continued with my recollection. I have worked with babies crying,
arguments raging, it is easy after a while;

the sun was streaming in the shutters and the pousse pousse drivers
were arguing in the street when I heard her first low moan.

the milk was warm and a little sweet, but to lie like a baby, with a
mothers arms around me as I sucked it from her breast.. that was
beautiful

But not for long. For the cunt was still there, still smiling and
staring and it was no fucking good. I closed the book and stared back
with my deadest eyes.

But they had lost their power. The cunt had it as a cue, jabbering so
fast I could only get snatches.

He wanted to be my guide. To take me to see leeeemours, and to a park
somewhere I think.

'I saw a leemour in a cage, I said, 'at the restaurant venille.

'So where you want to go', he says

'I'm going back to my room in a minute', I said

'Why you being like this?' he says

'I'm not interested in you' I said

'Why', he says

'I'm a writer not a touriste'

'And what you write?' he says

'I'm almost finished a book'

I had lost my way somewhere and he had me in conversation. But as it
happened, he didn't seem that bad. So I told him why I came to paradise
and how my work was going and the problems with the girls and the money
and how I am a sensitive soul and how it can only be love of the heart
with me.

'Everyone here, the cunt says, 'they try to profit from you'

'Ah oui', I say, 'but I understand, I have money and they have
none'

I told him I had no interest in anything he might be offering or
proposing. I said I wasn't interested in nature or animals or flora and
fauna. I said that I was a man and by definition, he had nothing I
could be interested in.

'Le drug', the cunt said hopefully. It was like a last throw of the
dice.

It is a few weeks since I have had any drugs and I thought it might
help me focus on the book so I tried to mask the excitement in my eyes
and thought quickly.

'It is important for me to be careful', I said

If someone tips off the police that I have drugs, their cut of the
bribe would be like winning the lottery.

'I am honest, the cunt says, 'with me there is no problem'

So I am thinking.. thinking

'Cinq cent', the cunt says

'18p' I thought. 'Look I want the drug a lot, you get the drug for me
and I'll give you five times that'

'No, the cunt says, 'you come with me, a la maison, then the next time
you'll know where'

'No, I say, 'you bring it here. I'll give you some money and the rest
when we meet'

'No, he says, 'we'll go to my maison and have smoke.. there is a girl I
know.. very nice.. tres gentil, not a prostitute, very beautiful also..
I like to present her to you'

'Really?', I said

'Oui, elle est tres belle'

In a moment of discipline I remembered my work and what I wanted the
drug for and I stood my ground.

I gave him most of the money and arranged to meet him later with the
rest.

As I watched the cunt walk slowly across the square, I thought things
might be looking up.