I keep breaking the ten-to-four curfew that Bialy imposed on himself and tries to involve me. He says that walking under the scorching African sun in extreme temperatures will give heat shock, stroke, or worse. He talks like a father, an ageing, compulsory father. So, I split up with him and walk the side road uphill on good tarmac, every day farther and higher.
Today I reach the flat top of a hill. I gaze around, and a memory of my friend Liz comes to me. Liz is a traveller, an African traveller, and a romantic soul. She went on expeditions with her buddies from the geography department. They drove across the Sahara in a jeep and travelled from Alexandria to Mombasa. Then, she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Oh, yes! At home, she would light scented candles and weave endless stories, and the snow-covered mountain poster would flicker magically among African artefacts, masks and sculpted wooden heads, some spears and arrows.
Liz is half German from her mother. She never touches alcohol, never plays the guitar or sings. Yet, in her low alto, she reveals mysteries of the Black Continent and draws images of the savannah, the desert, and the people. She recounts the hardships, like the four-day climb to Africa’s roof.
I view the town that spreads unexpectedly wide, the bridge over the Benue, and the lazy flow of the river. I am away from White House, far from the university campus – no students there for the next three months. Oh yes, I feel the lightness of existence. I am far away from my homeland, and life is simple. Yet, I yearn for the meaning. Liz calls it Das Angst.
I want to send her a postcard but do not have the address. Liz has family in West Germany, aunts and cousins, and occasionally, she visits them. She went there a while ago and has not returned yet. Has Liz fled the current Polish muddle, Polnische Wirtschaft, for good? What would Liz say if she stood right beside me on this hill overlooking a Nigerian town and vast plain in the noon sun?
Stan, you did it; you came to Africa, the Motherland of all humans.
Yeah, Liz. But this hill is not Kilimanjaro, where you put your foot.
Come on, Stan. Tell me, you will live here for two years and teach African students.
Is it good enough an achievement? Do you think, Liz?
Oh, yes. And don’t worry, you’ll pull it through. It will be an adventure, and you will enjoy it.
I feel the sun on my skin and my shoulders. Not a soul around. People are in the settlements below, in an African town. Grasses are tall and thick after the rainy season, and the air does not move. It is stuffed with oily aromas, which embalms my body and ooze my nostrils. “The rainy season is long gone” – these words come to me from a novel (by Henryk Sienkiewicz) on the African stunt of a boy named Stas (aka Stan, when he grows up) – he wrote them on a kite to tell time to whoever will read the message. But not long gone the rainy season, I would tell Liz. Hey, this is real, my genuine African adventure, not fake like travel with a finger on a map or from pages of a book. Liz, it is happening; it is true.
When I walk back from the hill, I spot a piece of grey cable lying in the dirt on the side of the road, tightly coiled, not more than three paces away. I stop at once and freeze …