A Fleeting Moment
He seldom visited Charlie’s place before evening, when he’d stop by hoping Rose had prepared goat pepper soup, or maybe had enough of his favourite, pounded yam and egusi, to serve him a meal. It wasn’t a restaurant, it was their living room, but they’d come to an understanding that if he was hungry at night Rose would probably have something leftover for him to eat. Mostly he went for beer, as Charlie was one of the few in the village with a working fridge and a steady supply of cold Crystal.
In the evenings when it was cooler, he preferred to sit on one of the rickety wooden chairs under the baobab tree, but this afternoon the humidity forced him inside the front room. He sat on one end of the large brown faux-leather sofa, aware that his sweat soaked T-shirt would stick to it uncomfortably. The overhead fan rotated slowly, but the air felt too thick to move. Rose came out from the back where she’d been nursing her youngest, and gracefully pulled her wrapper up to cover her large brown breasts when she saw who it was.
“Mo”, he greeted, in the language of the people of Uzairue.
“Mo,” she replied, adding in pidgin, “how now?”
“I dey fine,” he answered, knowing this was all that was expected of him, being an Oyibo. The other white men, the Christian missionaries, could carry on an extended conversation in Ikpe, having lived there much longer. Father Boyle, for example, posted to Uzairue since independence, and who enjoyed sharing his vision of the Almighty over a glass of brandy whenever he stopped by. The missionaries had devoted their lives to serving the people of Nigeria, but he would be returning home to Canada at the end of his two year volunteer contract at Ste. Angela’s, leaving little incentive to learn more of the language. All that mattered to him now was getting a cold beer.
Before he could say anything, Rose asked, “Beer?”, and took his smile to mean yes. He was even more pleased when he saw the label, wet with condensation, was Star Lager, his favourite, the beer he first tasted in Kano. That was just over a year ago, when he landed along with about ninety other pale-faced Canadian teachers, and what a year it had been. Homesickness, heat stroke, malaria, food poisoning, loneliness. He had survived those challenges, and now felt almost invincible, stronger than he’d even been.
But today something felt wrong. It starting with a rumbling tummy, loose bowels, explosive diarrhea, and a raging headache. He feared this might signal the start of another round of malaria fever. He sent a boy from next door with a note for Sister Annette, the principal, saying he wouldn’t be in to teach today, but his Form Fives could review Act 3 of Macbeth and the Form Fours continue reading Things Fall Apart. He tried to sleep but his mind, like his stomach, was too unsettled. He worried about the several other tropical diseases he may have contracted.
Eating was out of the question, but beer, yes, beer might help. So here he was, early afternoon, drinking a cold Star from the bottle, and hoping Charlie might return soon so he could share some of his misery. He shifted his position to look out though the open doorway, wide enough for a car to enter as the front room had originally been a garage. Charlie, always looking to supplement his meagre wages as a driver for hire, had now put it to better use. Word soon got around that Charlie’s wife Rose served beer and food, and on any given night this place served as a welcome alternative to the noisier Jane’s Beer Parlour in Jattu, in the adjoining village. No one came during the day except the Canadian, who considered beer a food staple.
The view out front wasn’t unusual. The dark green leaves of the baobab tree. The sandy brown dirt laneway. A tethered goat coming in and out of view. The heavy grey sky above the corrugated metal roof across the way. And something else, something he hadn’t noticed before — a rusty old motorcycle, parked by the doorway, looking like it hadn’t moved in years. Had it always been there? He couldn’t recall seeing it any other time. He thought about the scene in Things Fall Apart, when the villagers had tied the missionary’s bicycle to a tree so it couldn’t get away, and grinned.
The grey sky gave way to light showers. The rainwater glistened on the motorbike’s handlebars, and the image before him appeared to take on a surreal significance. It all seemed so oddly beautiful in the silence and stillness, but he didn’t quite know why. Did it bring back a memory of a painting he had seen? Maybe it reminded him of a song, or some obscure verse by Dylan? And then as if by magic, in a flash, he was back at Sir George Williams, in English class, puzzling over a poem by William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow.
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
“Yes!” he cried out excitedly, not intending to speak out loud, “Exactly!”
Rose came out from the back, as if signalled, “Beer?”
“Yes please,” he grinned, “another Star.”
All of the day’s upsets had suddenly disappeared. His worry was gone, his stomach calm. It’s all so simple, he thought, simply wonderful. A fleeting moment of beauty, caught on the fly. A fresh perspective. A readjustment to the present moment, the gift of being alive, now. Maybe Father Boyle was right after all, God is in everything. He let go a short laugh. Damn, even the beer tasted better!
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