The Cinnamon Tree (17 page)

‘J
udit – Judit stop, it’s European lipstick, it will look … mmm.’ Yola’s protest ended in a mumble as the Dutch girl, holding her firmly by the chin, started to apply a thick coat of lipstick.

‘Relax, don’t smile, it makes your lips go thin. We must make you look voluptuous!’

Yola had no idea what voluptuous meant, but it seemed just the right word to describe their last crazy half-hour.

She was remembering the only time she’d been inside the Palace Hotel. Uncle Banda had taken her in, just to have a look. Most Kasembans could not afford to go in there because one drink alone cost a day’s wages. The only Kasemban women there were the wives of government officials and strange,
solitary
girls extravagantly dressed, smoking alone at small tables.

‘Don’t stare!’ Uncle Banda had whispered. ‘Those are good time girls.’

‘What are good time girls?’ she’d asked.

‘Girls who hope some rich man will buy them a drink or take them to the disco.’

When Yola got upstairs, Judit already had her small
wardrobe
thrown out on the bed. Yola made a dart for a bright print, but Judit took it from her.

‘No, you are a good time girl, you must wear black,’ and she held a long black tube dress up against a startled Yola.
Helpless
, in that no man’s land between horror and giggles, Yola let herself be peeled like a banana and then, in an attitude of
surrender
, inserted into Judit’s black tube dress. The fit was
surprisingly
good, but Judit wasn’t satisfied.

‘You are the wrong shape for the job!’ she complained. ‘What we need is more bosom.’

Once again, Yola’s vocabulary let her down, however when she understood what Judit meant their whole scheme nearly foundered in uncontrollable laughter.

Eventually she stood in front of the mirror, truly startled at the transformation before her. All that she had ever wanted, and more! She turned to Judit, intending to give her a hug, but found that when it came to moving, her feet seemed to be tied together. She felt like a goat with its legs hobbled. The black dress might be perfect for a girl with two sound limbs, but for an amputee it was a disaster. Judit grabbed her scissors.

‘You can’t!’ Yola exclaimed, seeing Judit on her knees.

‘This is your good leg, isn’t it?’

‘Ouch. Yes.’

‘Well, you are going to show a lot of it!’

‘But your beautiful dress!’

‘Don’t worry, it will just be the seam.’

Judit stepped back to view her work. Yola walked over to the mirror and the black dress parted seductively up her thigh. Her artificial leg was concealed. They were impressed, and a little awed by their success.

‘I have an evening bag you could put Hans’s walkman in. I reckon you should wear the earphones, it will make Mr Birthistle think you can’t hear. More like you’re waiting for someone.’

‘Oh Judit, I can’t. You don’t think someone will want me to dance? I
can’t
!’

Judit laughed. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised at all. But I’ll be there to keep an eye on you.’

Judit’s small car climbed laboriously in and out of the gigantic ruts on the road down to the hotel. Twice, Yola opened her mouth to ask her to forget the whole escapade, but she was stopped each time by the thought of the desperation in Fintan’s voice. They had a moment of panic when Yola, practising with the controls of Hans’s walkman, discovered that he had
forgotten
to put a blank tape in it. Then Judit had the bright idea of covering the broken-out tabs of a music cassette, which she had in the car, with postage stamps; it recorded perfectly.

Standing outside the Nopani Palace Hotel, Yola looked
longingly
after Judit’s homely little car as it lurched towards the car park. She had never felt so alone. Her unnatural bosom caught her eye as she looked down to walk, and the slit in her dress seemed to stretch up to her armpit. A mixed group of
Kasembans
and Europeans approached, making for the revolving door of the hotel. Yola followed closely – anything to get over this first hurdle. One of the European men stood back to let her into the door ahead of him. Before she could stop him he had crowded into the segment of the door beside her. For a
horrifying
moment she felt a hand on her thigh. She was furious and made to hit him but there wasn’t room, all she managed was a seductive movement of her padded chest against him. She heard jeers from his watching companions, who pushed on the door and ejected her like a pip from an orange into the entrance hall.

Gathering her wits and her dignity, Yola thrust through the leering faces and made for the foyer. The one thing she wanted
was a mirror to see if anything was out of place. She turned into an alcove and was met by a girl looking anxiously for
something
. With a start, she realised that it was her own reflection; the alcove was backed by a mirror! She apologised
automatically
and backed away. She looked down to check her dress, and noticed that she had almost walked into an arrangement of dead flowers in the alcove. But all was well. Her outfit was fine, and the flowers hadn’t fallen over. She turned and
surveyed
the room, it was full but not crowded. She chose a small table with a view into the bar and sat down; her skirt parted in an alarming manner but she dared not touch it because heads were turning.

She had never been the centre of attention like this. The women’s heads turned with sharp disapproval. Men’s eyes swivelled in barely concealed appreciation. At a table nearby a group of middle-aged aid workers tried not to notice her. One had a small silver cross around her neck: a nun. What if Sister Martha came in? Another minute and Yola would have walked out, but then she looked towards the bar. There was Fintan, staring at her as if he had seen a ghost. She smiled with relief and, without thinking, beckoned him with her head. The faces, which till then had been concentrating on her, swivelled
towards
Fintan. Face flaming scarlet he crossed the room and leant down. Turning his eyes from her exposed thigh he
whispered
, ‘We’re in the small room directly over from the bar! Please God, I can keep a straight face.’

Yola tossed her head and told him to get lost in Kasembi, then she took out the earphones of her walkman and pressed the record button. She waited till he had disappeared and then got up in a leisurely manner and followed him across the room.

There was no sign of Fintan or anyone else in the small room. She sat down out of sight of the door and took up a magazine, hoping that she had got the right room. A waiter appeared with a tray. Speaking firmly in Kasembi, she ordered bottled water with lemon and ice. Judit had told her that this would look like gin and tonic. It cost her a day’s wages for the drink, so she tipped the waiter with another day’s wages and a smile in the hope that he would leave her alone. She glanced at the magazine, but apart from wondering at the name, OHM, could not focus on it. Suddenly she realised that someone had come in and was standing behind her. A man’s voice,
magnified
in her earphones, said in English, ‘Scuse me Miss, this room’s taken.’

She smiled up at him, shrugged helplessly and told him in Kasembi that she did not understand. He gazed down,
swaying
slightly, and asked her where she was from, but his words were slurred so she had no difficulty shrugging again and
managing
to show a bit more thigh. He patted her on the shoulder. Then, to her alarm, reached down towards her lap. She shrank back, but all he did was take the magazine she was holding and turn it the other way up. As he moved away she heard him say, ‘Seems to speak no English, and I suspect she can’t even read. If it wasn’t for Becky, I’d say you should try your luck, eh lad!’

Fintan’s reply came with unnecessary vigour. ‘No thanks! Not my type at all.’

Yola struggled to suppress a grin and stared at the magazine as if her fortune were written in it. That man must have been Mr Birthistle. Then she realised why he had turned the
magazine
around for her – WHO magazine, of course!

They seemed to be taking up a conversation they had started before.

‘Well done lad, good answer, I’ll let you pick up a chance card for that.’

Yola was alert – surely this was Birthistle’s arms-game talk! How had Fintan got him started on that? She forced herself to turn a page of her magazine; her fingers were sticky with sweat. Then she realised she had missed Fintan’s reply.

‘Nukes, boy? No, no, no. Don’t touch them, put that card back.’ It was so realistic that Yola was tempted to turn to see if they really had cards. ‘Tell you why?’ Mr Birthistle continued. ‘Simple, I don’t want my Becky nuked, and the only people that’d buy an atom bomb would nuke just about anybody.
Myself
, I don’t mind the anti-nuclear campaign because while they march they take people’s minds off our little business. Who’d bother about banning a machine-gun when they could ban an atom bomb! Let’s throw the dice again.’

‘How about this?’ laughed Fintan. ‘Pretend I’ve landed on a square that says Dublin Conference on Arms Control – it starts in a few days – should I buy that?’

‘Ha ha, Fintan old son! You want to know what will happen if your Dad has a change of heart, don’t you. Crafty, I like you! You’re like me, you know, two peas in a pod, and you just
starting
out in life. Makes me feel young to help you. Well … let me see … that conference could be bad news for the toy trade so … how about this. Let’s say I had a little project in Africa, for example, exporting air bag stabilisers to the natives. Suddenly my partner tries to pull out, all that effort, all that money down the drain – all can I do is bring Plan B into operation. Imagine it,’ here Mr Birthistle’s voice acquired a dramatic turn, ‘it’s the first day of the Dublin conference. Everyone is patting little neutral Ireland on the back, cetra, cetra, then up speaks a voice. “Madam President. Do you know that Ireland is making a
particularly
nasty landmine designed to kill deminers? Here is the
evidence!” Gasp – hush – horror. Talk your way out of that, Madam President!’