A Girl From Zanzibar by Roger King

Author:Roger King [King, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: First published by Helen Marx Books/Books and Co/Turtlepoint 2002, this edition by author
Published: 2012-10-25T05:00:00+00:00

IT'S BEEN NINE YEARS. SUPPOSEDLY HER THIRTIES AREthe sexiest years in a woman’s life, and I’ve missed mine. I never took a girlfriend in Cookham Wood, my taste preferring books, though my roommate, Bintu, came to be like a sister. Benji is still the last one.

Ron, I know, is interested, but I pretend not to understand. At the video store in Brattleboro last week, he edged me near the “adult” section, saying, “We could always get one of these.”

“These?”

“I was joking. They’re adult films. Erotic films.”

“Well, I don’t think that would be appropriate!” I feigned shock.

In fact part of me would like to be shocked. Vermont life is proving low in shocks. But Ron with his circumspection is not the man to tempt me, though I fear that sooner or later he will make a determined grab.

The only visitor to my bed who has not come from my imagination is Julia. And then only once and quite innocently. Even so, I’m inclined to think it’s had its consequences. She’s my teaching assistant for cross- cultural studies this semester and returned from break a day early, before the dorm opened. “I’ll stay overnight in Brattleboro,” she said when she called me. To which I replied, “Don’t be silly! It’ll be expensive. You can stay here.”

In my mind I was back in Hereford Road or Zanzibar: open doors, room for visitors, the Third World hospitality reflex.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” said Julia. “I have my sleeping bag.”

“I’m sure we can do better than that,” I replied without thought.

In fact I could not do better than that. In six months Julia was my first visitor and I only now discovered that there was not enough spare bedding to make up a bed on the couch.

I looked around at the house that was now revealed to be an inhospitable home. It reeked of someone who did not get out enough. There were the remains of the snacks that I make at all hours according to no particular pattern. Every surface was covered with books and papers. There were open notebooks on my desk, the kitchen table and the table next to my bed, in case I wanted to jot down some thought about class plans, my paper on migration, or my life. There used to be a notebook for each of these, but now the jottings had become intermingled: cross- cultural studies, migration, me. When did I become selfobsessed and slovenly?

“My bed is huge,” I told Julia. “We can both sleep there.” I was back to Zanzibar and the companionable way visiting friends and cousins shared beds out of simple practicality, the unselfconscious touch of Africa.

Julia gave me one of her keen looks. “OK,” she said. “Is this part of multi-cultural studies?”

“Cross-cultural. I’ve changed the course name from multi-cultural to cross-cultural. They said I could teach what I wanted.”

She stopped moving to think. “But it’s the opposite isn’t it? One’s about mixing up and the other’s about separating out.”

“You are smarter than the dean, Julia.

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