And Then Life Happens (28 page)

“I can't do that.”

“Why not? You've just become a father.”

“I have to earn money, Auma!” Ian replied adamantly.

His words had reduced me to silence. I could not compete with the need to make money. Since my move to England, I had not had a chance to contribute to our income, which was due primarily to the pregnancy and my ensuing situation as a young mother. Ian did all the shopping. I had my pride, and it was hard for me to ask him for money. I had never before had to rely financially on someone. First, I had my scholarships; later, my well-paid trade fair jobs as an interpreter and my fees as a freelance journalist. Now Ian was the sole earner, and I was completely dependent on him.

*   *   *

When Akinyi was five months old, we took her with us on a trip to visit my brother in Chicago. I wanted Barack to meet his niece—and vice versa. It was October. A cold autumn wind swept through the streets, though the sun was still high in an almost cloudless sky. I was surprised at the cold. My brother said it came from Lake Michigan, directly from Canada.

“In Canada, it's already much colder than here,” he added.

“I'm glad you don't live in Canada,” I replied with a laugh.

Over a year had passed since I had last seen my brother. In the meantime, he was living with his wife, Michelle, in their own apartment, and the two of them seemed to have a happy marriage. They were delighted to see their little niece, especially Michelle, who didn't have any children yet. Maya, too, came to visit and greeted Akinyi with a gift that was supposed to keep all evil spirits away from her.

We stayed only a week in the United States. Mich, as everyone called Michelle, and Barack had to work during the day—he as a civil rights lawyer, she as vice president for community and external affairs at the University of Chicago. In the evening, we cooked together and sat at the table for a long time after the meal and talked. At one point, Michelle's brother, Craig, who lived in Chicago, too, came for a visit with his wife and two young children.

The time with Barack was short, but it did me good. It felt great to be back in the family circle after the loneliness in Bracknell, and I enjoyed the attention bestowed on me, the young mother. I experienced those days almost as a sort of compensation for the fact that I had not been treated like a
manyur
up to that point. That is what the Luo call a woman who has just given birth to a child. In our tradition, a
manyur
is not supposed to do any work or is permitted to do only very light tasks in the first six weeks after her delivery. Her main job consists of nursing the infant. She is spoiled by her mother and the rest of the women of the family; she gets only the best food to eat and as much rest and relaxation as she needs before she fully assumes the role of mother and guardian of her child.

*   *   *

Akinyi was eleven months old when Ian and I took her with us to Kenya to introduce her to my family there. Ian, who had worked hard all year, wanted to go to the coast to relax. A visit to Nairobi did not much appeal to him, because he did not particularly like the city. But I wanted to go to the city in which I had grown up and in which all of my friends and most of my relatives lived. So we decided that I would fly there alone with the little one and then he would follow. Afterward, we planned to take the train together to Mombasa, where we had rented a vacation apartment. My mother would accompany us. That way she would not only get to spend time with her first granddaughter, but also lighten my load a bit.

I was disappointed that Ian did not want to spend more than a few days in Nairobi. I myself never lasted long on the hot coast—nor was I keen on possibly being treated there like a woman who had managed to snap up a
muzungu,
a white man. Although I was not aware of it at the time, I now think that this was the beginning of the end of our marriage. I had simply not managed to convey to my husband how much the people who loved me and wanted to be with me meant to me and what I so intensely missed in England: friendships.

*   *   *

The British and their culture remained foreign to me. I often spoke on the telephone with my friends, who all thought that I lived near London and did not understand why I was so lonely.

“But there's so much to do in that city, even more than in Berlin,” Elke said during one of our phone calls.

I explained to her that we lived quite a ways outside of the city and Ian preferred anyhow to keep his distance from it.

“Then invite people over. You have a garden, and I assume that British people like to barbecue, right?”

“I'd like to, but Ian works all the time. And when he's at home, he wants to rest.”

“But he can't be in the office every weekend!”

“Almost every.”

Most of the conversations with my other friends, who were unfortunately all too far away to offer me more than words of comfort through the telephone, went similarly. And soon the high telephone bills would become another contentious issue between Ian and me.

Our shared social life was limited mostly to going to a pub together once a week to eat curry. Curry is a popular dish and an integral part of British people's Friday night out. On those evenings, you usually meet with friends, eat together, and drink beer. For Ian, too, those occasions were an established institution.

As I had experienced at other social gatherings, here, too, the women sat separately from the men, who mainly stood at the bar and talked about politics, but above all about sports. Then, after a few (or too many) glasses of beer, it was time for the—to my mind—often-tasteless jokes. The women conversed about housework and children. I had never witnessed such a separation of the sexes in Germany. Nonetheless, I did make a few nice acquaintances, though the contact remained limited mostly to the meetings at the pub.

In the meantime, our daughter had begun to walk, and I had learned the art of being a mother and no longer felt overwhelmed and daunted by my new responsibilities. And because I loved Ian, I wanted our marriage to work. To overcome my difficulties adjusting and my loneliness, I decided to delve into the world of work in order to have a meaningful occupation and meet people.

Bracknell was not the right place to teach German or get a job in film. That would have been London, but I could go there only rarely, because I needed to be close to home for Akinyi. On top of that, I had not been involved in film circles for a while and first would have had to develop a network of relationships. So I had to look for other prospects.

“I'm sorry, but you are overqualified,” I was told again and again, until I finally got a job as a personal assistant to a purchasing manager at Boehringer Ingelheim, a German pharmaceutical company. The company had a British branch in Bracknell.

To this day, I am grateful to Gayle Reis for offering me the opportunity to do administrative work for her and thereby get out of the house. On the whole, the job was undemanding and monotonous. But Gayle, an older, maternal woman, was a wonderful boss and never hemmed me in. We also got along very well. I could on occasion even talk to her about my loneliness. She must have suspected that Ian and I were slowly drifting apart.

I did not stay long at Boehringer Ingelheim because my contract expired after eight months. I left the company with a heavy heart. At that time, Akinyi was going to preschool, which I paid for from my salary. It was very expensive, which was due to the fact that in England those institutions are privately run. Now I understood why so many British mothers stayed home. They probably didn't see why they should give up all their earnings for preschool.

I applied at the University of Reading, which is about half an hour away from Bracknell. There, I was hired as a part-time lecturer. A few hours a week I now taught German literature and grammar to undergraduates. But the job was not very fulfilling.

Meanwhile, the relationship between Ian and me was worsening. We barely had anything in common anymore; our conversations revolved only around our daughter, her well-being, her activities.

“Just do something,” Ian often said when I complained that I found no satisfying occupation in our town.

However, I didn't want to do just anything. He had once wanted to help me make films in England, but there was no longer any mention of that. And I was too proud to remind him of his promise. In a way, I was not only angry with Ian, but also with myself. I was, in a sense, trapped.
Why has this happened to me?
I thought reproachfully.
I should have known better.

Eventually, I resigned myself to my role as mother and housewife. Often, after I had brought the little one to preschool, I lay down in bed again and did not get up until it was time to pick her up. In retrospect, I can say that in those days I was functioning more than I was living.

*   *   *

“Auma, is that you?” The ringing of the telephone had roused me from the half-sleep into which I had sunk that morning as I so often did.

“Yes, who is it?” I asked drowsily.

“Tsitsi.”

“Tsitsi?” Suddenly I was awake and sat up in bed. “Tsitsi? How's it going? What's up?”

“I searched for your number for a long time,” she replied.

Tsitsi was from Zimbabwe and had, like me, studied at the film academy. I was happy to hear a friendly voice from the past. We talked about what had happened since we had last seen each other. After a few sentences, she knew that something was wrong with me.

“What's going on, Auma? You sound so different,” Tsitsi asked worriedly.

“I'm doing fine.” I tried to sound cheerful. “Really!”

“I don't believe you. I can hear that you're faking.”

Her words cracked a dam. Her familiar voice, which awakened memories of all that I had once been, and the thought of what had become of me, brought tears to my eyes. Silently, I let them flow.

“Auma, what's going on? Talk to me.”

“There's not much to say. I'm here, have the sweetest daughter in the world, and have a husband who loves me and works hard. What more can you ask for?” With almost every word my voice broke.

“What more can you ask for?” Tsitsi repeated in her dry way. I began to cry again.

“Much more. Much, much more,” I said softly.

For a few seconds, she just let me cry. Then she said, “I have something for you. That's why I'm calling.”

Tsitsi explained to me that in her native Zimbabwe an event called the African Screenwriters Workshop was being planned. The organizers were looking for young, talented filmmakers who wanted to write screenplays. Of course, prospective participants would not be accepted automatically, but had to apply for one of the few places.

“You definitely have to give it a shot. I know how well you write stories,” she said enthusiastically, after she had finished explaining.

“I don't even remember how. It's been so long. I don't know if I can still do it.” Fear welled up in me; I had grown so insecure that I had no more confidence in myself.

“Auma, you have so much talent. What happened to the energetic woman I met in Berlin?” Tsitsi said many more things about me. She brought back to my mind a person who had become a stranger to me.

Finally, I asked her what I had to do for this project. Her relief was palpable even through the phone. She would not have hung up without a yes; in retrospect, I was certain of that.

“Well, you don't have much time and here's what you have to do.…”

She gave me all the necessary information and let me know that I had to send the organizers a screenplay as soon as possible.

“And Auma!” she said at the end of the call. “You don't need to be afraid. Really. You just have to write. And you can do that. I'm sure that you'll get in.”

Tsitsi's phone call was my salvation. After I had hung up, I suddenly felt less alone and lost. I realized that I was excited about the possibility of being admitted to the screenwriting workshop.

I called Ian and told him what I had been offered.

“And who's going to pay for it?” he asked.

“The organizers cover everything. The whole thing lasts ten days.”

Ian hesitated briefly, and then he said, “Maybe you'll actually get in.”

It was not only a chance for me that presented itself here, but perhaps also for our marriage.

*   *   *

The trip to Zimbabwe was like a resurrection; I recognized that I was heading toward a better place and a better stage in my life. The workshop was exactly what I needed. I had applied with a screenplay that revolved around my parents' youth. It depicted how they had grown up under British colonialism and how, at the time when Kenya attained independence, both of them had abandoned themselves to their love of ballroom dancing. The participants from all different African countries as well as the instructors were enthusiastic about my story.

In this friendly atmosphere, I could open up and let my old self come out. It was like coming back to life. Surrounded by people who believed in me even though they hardly knew me, I recovered my energy, my ambition, and my enthusiasm for life.

 

24.

W
HEN
I
HAD BOARDED
the plane to Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, at Gatwick Airport on a mild spring evening in 1999, I did not yet suspect that the impending trip not only would save me from slipping into deep despair but that I would also meet the love of my life on the way back.

On my return flight to London, Marvin was on the plane. He had boarded late and only caught my eye when he moved up two rows, having apparently sat in the wrong seat. Because the plane was pretty empty, I, too, had previously changed my seat. I had barely seen the stranger's face, only his profile, which was also concealed by a small leather cap.

Because I had gotten into the habit of reading during takeoff, I was soon absorbed in a book—or at least I thought I was, for my eyes repeatedly moved away from the pages and wandered over to the stranger who had in the meantime taken off his cap so that I could see his clean-shaven head.