By the Sea: A Novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah

Author:Abdulrazak Gurnah [Gurnah, Abdulrazak]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, World Literature, Africa, East Africa, Political, Literary
ISBN: 9780593716540
Google: kOy3EAAAQBAJ
Amazon: 059371654X
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 2023-09-04T22:00:00+00:00

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Ali was disgusted when I told him that Elleke was a man. Or rather that Elleke was the name of the mother of the man who used to write to me and called himself Elleke. “These Germans have strange ways of getting their fun,” he said. “Keep away from them. You don’t know what they’ll want from you.”

But I didn’t keep away, and the first time I arranged to go back to Dresden to see them, Ali glared and sulked at me, as if I had betrayed him. My foot was now healed, but it was a miserably cold February day, and my feet were already numb and stiffening while I was indoors. Ali made me try on his spare pair of shoes, and frowned with disappointment when they fitted well enough for me to wear them. “Come with me,” I said. “I’m sure they’d like to meet you too.” But he grimaced and shook his head. “I don’t want anything to do with their games,” he said. “You make sure you don’t get into any trouble with the authorities, either. They sound like troublemakers to me.”

There was only one other passenger on the bus, a short, dark-complexioned man who leaned over the back of his seat and stared at me for about five minutes without interruption. He was wearing a dark, heavy workman’s coat, its shoulders hunched up round his ears as his cocked arms spread out on the seat rail, settled down for a good long stare. I looked out of the window and was grateful for Ali’s shoes, even though they were too tight and pinched my toes. It looked like it would snow. When I glanced back into the bus, it was to find the man’s liquid eyes resting watchfully on me, unraveling a deep mystery. He had a big hairy mustache with bits of gray in it, and when I glanced his way it twitched slightly, nervously. I caught the driver’s eye in the rearview mirror and I thought I saw amusement there. After his five minutes were up, the man made a snorting noise and turned to face the front again. In a moment he began to hum a tune and then to sing softly, his shoulders heaving in silent laughter. I caught the driver’s eye again and saw that he was laughing too. I didn’t know what they were laughing about. The sun came out as the bus crossed the river, a low-hanging sun that turned the water into a rippled sheet of lead and made the ships that lined the river throw a shadow of their nests of thickets and hawsers on the quays.

I remember that second visit to Jan and Elleke imperfectly. It is merged with subsequent visits, and they are all shaped in my mind by the pleasure they took in their hospitality, the ceremony they made over the modest meals, the elaborate and sometimes beautiful crockery, all of which had a kind of faded elegance. I remember

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