prepares some food that I share with him. He doesnât go straight back to his own house after dinner, but rather to night school where heâs learning to draw.
In the beginning I found my house in Mombasa strange, for no reason except that to me it was like a prickly pear planted in the sand. Only the green garden that ends in a low fence separates the house from the ocean. Itâs strange how precisely the sandy coast borders the garden. From the moment I arrived at this house that Iâm meant to call my home, I passed my days hunting for comparisons between Mombasa and Beirut. Both have endured successive attacks that make each city what it is. Both extend along the sea. Beirutâs sea never changes, though. Its water isnât stingy; it doesnât recede. It isnât surprising and it doesnât frighten. The ebb and flow of the tide interests me. Iâve never seen this before, I tell Chris. But he laughs and says that all the seas of the world have tides. Beirutâs sea is no exception. Yes, it is! I tell him angrily, as if he is extracting something from inside me, from my memory, and I donât want to share it with him. Chris tells me that the waters of the Mediterranean are exactly the opposite of how I think of them. He tells me that sailors of all civilizations from the time of Homer onward were afraid of the Mediterranean because it was so changeable, always unpredictable. Sailors on the oceans, by contrast, knew what was hiding beneath them before they entered deep waters.
I know what Chris really wants to sayâheâs talking about me. But I wonât get into another conversation in which his patience and tolerance will surely get the better of me. And this wonât change my opinion about either the sea or my life with him. I get up from my chair to walk around the house and exhale smoke from my cigarette, which I am constantly relighting. I reach the back garden, searching for Samuel, and donât find him. I hear a song in Swahili from behind the garden wall and I approach the entrance to the garden, knowing that Samuel has arrived. Chrisâs voice comes from the garden, strong and resoluteâ no doubt heâs started to get angry. âYouâre not in Beirut anymore, youâre here now,â he says. He follows up in a voice meant to leave the impression that this is his final word and he wonât go back on it: âWe shouldnât need so many reasons to love a place and call it a homeland.â
Mombasaâs morning sea is never the same. Since I arrived, the only persistent sight is of the local merchants displaying their wares right on the sands of the beach, when the tide is out and the water has withdrawn back into the heart of the ocean. They come in the morning or at noon when the waterâs receded, slipping down onto the beach over the edge of the coastline. They canât come down on the roads that lead to the houses gathered on a patch of land planted with trees. These two-story houses are all alike, as though one architect built the same structure a bunch of times. There are many dogs here, dogs trained to attack strangers. Their owners bring these dogs from faraway countries to live with them in big houses they intend to live in forever. The local merchants are frightened of the dogs and the owners of the houses. The foreigners know little about the original inhabitants of this country; their curiosity is limited to expanding their businesses into more and larger markets.
The truth is that people from this country also donât know much about these foreigners, who come here from a number of different countries. The few things that they do know keep them far away from the gates of the big houses. They do know, however, a lot about natureâits changes and fluctuations. They fear nature less than they fear us, the foreigners in their country. They know the oceanâs movements, the speed of the wind and the changing
Learning to Kill: Stories