From Africa Ch. 01

From Africa, Chapter One

Northern Africa, circa 1949

‘Olu makes the coffee too strong…’

‘Well, if you’d been up earlier, you could have made it yourself, Love.’

I trudged into the kitchen, half-awake, trying to block the bright sun from my eyes. My father sat at the large wooden table, engaged in his customary morning ritual: reading newspapers from London, New York, Paris, and Berlin, while sipping on a small cup of potent coffee. He usually did this while frowning at me, for my habit of pouring a full cup for myself, then only drinking half of it.

‘Liv, here,’ he looked up from his paper. ‘Take some of this, instead of pouring yourself a fresh cup. Coffee’s expensive these days.’

‘You can afford it,’ I sipped from his cup.

‘We have a dwindling supply; we’ll run out soon.’

‘Oh, Dad, you say that about everything.’

‘So, you’ll join Olu after you’ve dressed and practiced, right?’

I frowned.

‘I thought you said I could have a day off?’

‘Yes. Sunday.’

‘I wanted to pick the day…’

‘Sunday’s a natural choice, isn’t it?’

I rolled my eyes.

‘Don’t do that. One day, they’ll stick, then you’ll be an ugly girl, instead of my lovely Olive Branch.’

‘Dad…’ I blushed, uncomfortable hearing my father’s old pet name for me.

‘I’ve told Olu to give you an abbreviated lesson today, because Anna needs you for the wedding preparations…’

I frowned again, leaning back in my chair so that my burnished brown hair could drape the floor.

‘Are you a contortionist, now?’

‘I wish. At least that would be interesting.’

‘What could be more interesting than playing piano as well as you do? You’re the best I know, Love.’

‘I’m the only one you know…’ I answered drolly.

‘After you’ve finished with Olu and Anna, we’ll have tea with Stanley…’

‘He’s not bringing Chadwicke, is he?’

‘Probably, why?’

‘Chadwicke’s annoying.’

‘He’s only fourteen. He’ll grow out of it.’

‘Why am I always saddled with entertaining him?’

‘…Because you’re close in age.’

‘I’m eighteen, now.’

‘You don’t act like it half the time… Sit up. All the blood will be rushing to your head, shortly.’

I waited until my nose started to tingle, defying my father in a playful way. We spent each morning like this, with him talking to me over the top of his newspaper while I picked over breakfast, or just sipped coffee. I hated the food; we had a limited menu, composed of a few bland choices. There were so many things that I missed: ice cream, shellfish, cheese, soda, and countless others. I’d missed Dad while I was still in the States, with my stern governess, Miss Peake, but now that I was spending the summer with him in Africa, I was beginning to miss the simplest perks of modern life. I thought I was losing my mind, because I was so homesick after the first two weeks that I even started to pine for Miss Peake.

I was visiting this summer, because my older sister, Anna, was to be married to a South African whom she’d met in Paris while attending the Sorbonne. The betrothed couple had spent the spring with my father, and Anna planned out a simple wedding, to be held at the ranch where Dad lived outside of Lagos. Anna would be moving to Johannesburg with her fiance, Mark, after the wedding.

I lay across the chair upside down, sighing at the thought of getting fitted for a new dress that afternoon with my demanding sister, when I saw a pair of long legs enter the room, clad in a familiar pair of khaki trousers. I sat up too fast, making myself dizzy, blinking my eyes at Olu’s dark, spinning form.

‘Have they brought the samples back, yet, Olu?’ Dad asked his young African assistant.

‘No, Dr. Blythe. William will bring them tomorrow.’

‘I guess I’ll have to find something else to work on today then, eh? All right. Liv, why don’t you spend the morning with Olu, to get some extra time in?’

‘Extra time?’ Olivia complained.

‘You’ll want to be prepared for the time that you start touring.’

‘I’m not good enough to tour, yet.’

‘Don’t try to start an argument with me now to stall things. I’m wise to your tricks… Olu, she’s all yours.’

‘I have to get dressed first…’ I stood, straightening my wrinkled cotton gown, walking slowly so that I could prolong the inevitable.

---

‘You’re supposed to be answering me in French, not English,’ Olu touched his hand to his head, as if he was fighting off a headache.

‘Why do I have to learn so much?’ I asked stubbornly. ‘Anna can interpret for me.’

‘Anna will be married. She’ll have her own life. You need to learn how to speak for yourself.’

‘You sound like Dad… next I guess you’ll be telling me that I’ve lived in America for too long.’

Olu gave me a blank stare before he continued with the lesson.

‘Now, answer the next question, in French.’

‘You could be my interpreter, Olu. I’m sure Dad would allow it. He could just train William to take your place…’

‘Are you going to waste the whole day speaking gibberish?’

‘No… just half the day… How many languages do you speak?’

‘Don’t try to side track the lesson. I want you to answer the question on the page.’

‘It’s so hot… Can we take a break?’ I whined.

‘All right,’ Olu huffed. ‘Twenty minutes. No more.’

‘How many?’

‘Twenty,’ he sounded annoyed.

‘No, I meant, how many different languages do you speak now?’

‘Six.’

‘Did you learn them all in school?’

‘If all you’re going to do for the next twenty minutes is sit here and ask me questions about my life, then there’s no reason that we can’t just continue on with the lesson.’

I rolled my eyes, moving over to the window. Our lessons were like this every day. Olu resented the fact that my father had saddled him with this new responsibility of trying to teach French to me. He’d tried to complain that it would be too much work for him to teach me and to keep up with his duties helping Dad with his anthropological studies. But my father came up with the idea of training the house servant, William, on some of the menial tasks that Olu usually performed.

Strictly speaking, Dad wasn’t really Olu’s boss; he was his benefactor. My father had practically raised Olu from the time that he was fourteen, sending him to school and paying for his university education, molding him to become the perfect assistant to help him with his studies in anthropology. Olu not only served as a work assistant; he was also my father’s translator, and his traveling companion, serving as an impromptu valet whenever he took his frequent trips abroad to lecture.

Dad had brought Olu home when he was a stray, waifish lad of thirteen. My mother (who passed away a few years ago) was not happy about Dad’s idea. She refused to allow Olu to live with us at first; I didn’t understand it at the time (I was only six), but I believed it had something to do with my sister, Anna, who was only two years younger than Olu. So, Olu would visit us for the holidays, captivating my father with his quiet ways, not quite realizing that he’d become the son that Dad had always wanted.

Anna had always been jealous of Olu. They never really got along with each other, and Anna made a habit of making exaggerated overtures toward our father in order to pull his attention away from Olu. This was why she, a refined lady betrothed to an educated, middle class gentleman, was having a wedding ceremony on her father’s defunct ranch in the middle of the African savanna. I almost felt bad for her, though, because, despite all of her planning and scheduling, Dad seemed to be more wrapped up in his work than ever.

Dad’s crush on Olu seemed to get even stronger as Olu grew into a man. Dad was elated when Olu finally finished college; he would have a constant companion, now, a kindred spirit, in the lonely world of scholastics and study. To outsiders like myself, it seemed that all they did was talk about ancient history and travel to the end of the earth to dig up old bones. Olu was the only one who could appreciate Dad’s dusty bone collections, and he was the only one who could stay up all night, pouring over the dry text in Dad’s academic papers. I’d tried it a few times, but it was all too boring to me.

I never had a problem with Olu being Dad’s favorite; maybe it was because I could tell that I was the next in line. He loved a person with a talent, Olu’s being languages, mine being music. When they discovered that I could play whole songs on the piano from what I’d heard from gramophone records, all at the age of three, my mother insisted that we move back to London so that I could get proper training. Dad refused, though, and suggested that we hire an instructor to come to Africa to train me. Mother didn’t think it would be possible to get any reputable music instructor to live so far from civilization for so long, so we ended up moving back to England, just Mother and Anna and I, leaving Dad in the bush.

By the time we came back from our first season in London, Dad had moved Olu into the house, and they’d bonded, almost like father and son. But Mother constantly reminded him, and the rest of us, that Olu was basically nothing more than a glorified servant, and that my father would soon get bored with his fascination with him.

We lived in London until the war started, moving to America right before the Blitz. Dad was still in Africa, oblivious to what was happening in the larger world, living only for his studies, sure that he was about to unearth some historic discovery. I spent the war in America, being educated by a private tutor, and spending most of my time learning music. Anna attended an elite boarding school, leaving me alone with my tutor and my piano teacher. I was never really close to my mother; Anna was her favorite. I often thought that she was afraid of me, because I had a superior talent whose origin was unexplainable.

Mother hired my governess, Miss Peake, when Anna turned fifteen. I was ten, living, breathing, and sleeping music and musical theory. I think that part of the reason that I acted so childishly whenever I was with my father was because I didn’t have much of a childhood when I was younger. Miss Peake tried to ensure that I learned a little bit about other things; she was one of the few constants of my life, while I was growing up. I went through many piano teachers; Mother wanted me to have nothing less than the best, and she was constantly searching for a new, more accomplished instructor for me.

When Mother passed away, we stayed in New York with Miss Peake, because the war made it too difficult to travel. This was the third summer I’d spent with my father in Africa, since Mother died, and it was the first that I’d spent with Olu here for the entire time. He’d been in school again, working on his post-graduate studies, when I’d made the first journey. Anna had been spending her summers with Dad as well, but she’d become a virtual stranger to me.

Now that we were all back together, the house was always full of tension. Anna was suspicious of Olu, I avoided Anna, and Olu was wary of us both. Dad, as usual, seemed to be oblivious to all of our melodrama, and I noticed that whenever Olu was with Dad, Anna would burst into the room, full of hustle and bustle, distracting them from whatever they were doing, always ending up annoying both of them. I’d decided to take a different tack to get Dad’s attention (outside of his admiration for my musical prowess), so I began trying to take an active interest in his work.

---

‘I can’t believe that Dad’s invited her. He knows that I don’t want her here,’ Anna fumed as she inspected the delicate fabric that was to become my dress for her wedding.

I held my breath as Bina, the seamstress, made dozens of straight pins disappear in the rose colored fabric that clung to my body.

‘You’re bigger than before,’ she eyed my bosom, motioning with her hands.

‘Only a little,’ I smirked, looking down at my meager breasts.

‘She’s getting to be too big in the bottom,’ Anna sneered, tugging at the back of my dress. ‘Too many sweets.’

‘She has pretty curves,’ Bina complimented me. ‘Nice legs.’

‘They’re all covered by the dress,’ I complained.

‘If I let you have your way, you’d wear dungarees to my wedding,’ Anna motioned to Bina to expand the back of the dress a little.

‘Who has Dad invited?’ I ask bravely.

‘Who do you think?’

‘Olu?’

‘No, silly… Henriette.’

My heart jumped a little at the mention of her name. Henriette Duvall was my former French teacher, and my father’s one-time paramour. She’d left us to return to France a few months ago, upset that my father hadn’t planned to marry her. Henriette was beautiful, a raven-haired woman who had the flash of a movie star. She turned heads whenever she walked into a room; even my father wasn’t immune to her charms.

‘What’s wrong with Henriette coming back?’ I asked, hoping that Anna would reveal some scandalous secret to me about Henriette’s abrupt departure.

‘Dad shouldn’t lower himself to associate with her; I don’t want her anywhere near my wedding…’

‘But why?’

‘She’s… she’s nothing but a whore.’

‘Anna!’ I looked to Bina, expecting a rebuke.

‘She’s a tart,’ Anna whispered, looking around her, but apparently ignoring Bina.

‘How can you say that?’ I was shocked. ‘Henriette is a nice person.’

‘Of course, you’d think she was nice; I wouldn’t be surprised to see you follow in her footsteps…’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No, Anna. You’ll tell me,’ I was getting angry, offended by the judgmental tone of her voice.

‘Bina, that’s enough for now,’ Anna waved her hands, as if she was shooing a fly.

‘You’re just jealous of Henriette,’ I accused her, stepping down from the chair to the floor.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Henriette’s a free spirit,’ I defended my friend. ‘You wouldn’t know anything about that…’

‘I’ll not stand here and have you insult me, Olivia.’

‘Well, just leave, then…’

‘I knew she would get to you. She’s bewitched all of you.’ Anna stormed out of the room, trying to hide the tears that were running down her cheeks.

---

‘You little twit! Come back here!’ I was getting all sweaty, in my clean dress, chasing Chadwicke through the dusty yard, past the chicken coops and through the garden, and back to the house. He was energetic today, running at top speed through the narrow halls of the house, artfully dodging all of the sharp corners and rickety tables that filled the quiet rooms. Dad and Mr. Stanley were in the study, smoking, cheerfully ignoring my angry screaming and our loud stomping through the house. On a trip through the kitchen, I almost collided with William as he brought the tea service out.

‘Sorry, William!’ I zipped by him, speeding up to catch Chadwicke.

I had intended to thoroughly pummel Chad whenever I caught up to him. He’d lured me out to the yard, around the back of the house, and exposed himself to me, showing me his ass, which was as white as a sheet, and his wormy little penis, laughing as he watched the shocked look on my face. I tried to grab it and yank it, to teach him a lesson, but he ran off, struggling for the first few steps to pull his trousers up, but he sped his pace soon after that, leading me on a long chase around the property.

‘Chadwicke! You get back here, you little shit!’ I screamed.

‘Such language!’ I heard Mr. Stanley shout from the study.

‘Oh, let them run,’ my father said to him, ‘Liv never gets a chance to stretch her legs.’

I finally lost him; I knew that he was hiding in one of the rooms, probably my bedroom, but I didn’t know which one I should try first. So I decided to wait until he came out. He fell right into my trap, waiting for a long enough stretch of quiet to burst from my bedroom with a pair of my underwear.

‘Hey!’ I ran after him, watching him as he stuffed them into his pocket.

Olu stepped into the way before I could stop, and I collided with him, almost knocking us both down. He grabbed me by the arms, and glared at me, his coffee colored eyes looking right through me.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Olu, let me go…’ All I could think about was what Chadwicke might do to my knickers.

‘Why can’t you behave yourself like a proper young lady?’ He shook me, holding my arms so tight that it hurt.

‘You’re hurting me,’ I looked up at him, suddenly nervous.

He stared down at me, rebuking me with his eyes. It embarrassed me, to have him hold me this way; my stomach started to flutter, and I looked away from his gaze.

‘Olu,’ I whispered, staring at the floor, wondering why I felt a small twinging between my legs when I saw his large ebony hands gripping my freckled arms, ‘He’s taken my knickers.’

‘Off of you?’ he looked confused.

‘No, out of my room…’

‘Liv!’ my father’s voice rang from the study. ‘Tea’s getting cold.’

Olu released his grip, leaving cold spots where his warm hands had been.

‘Go and clean yourself up,’ he ordered me, turning away to enter the study.

After I’d made myself presentable, I went to the study, standing in the doorway for a moment.

‘Aren’t you going to come in, Liv?’ Dad looked up from his plate.

Mr. Stanley turned around, giving me a stare that made me feel naked.

‘Hello, Olivia,’ he raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve grown to be quite the flower.’

Chadwicke snickered as he shoveled a hunk of cake into his mouth.

I glared at him, moving to sit next to him, so that I could salvage my stolen property, but Olu gave me a warning look, so I sat next to my father.

‘Leonard tells me that you’re going to be touring next year,’ Mr. Stanley smiled, folding his hands over his napkin-covered lap. ‘Aren’t you excited?’

‘Actually,’ Dad spoke before I could say anything, ‘I think that the rest of us are more excited than she is; Liv just immerses herself in the music. She doesn’t know that anyone else is alive when she’s at the piano.’

‘Hmm. Do you have a manager, yet?’

‘Somehow I knew you’d get around to asking that,’ Dad sipped his tea.

‘Do you want that last slice of cake, Liv?’ Chad asked.

‘No, Chad, you can have it.’

As he leaned over to take the slice off the service tray, I stopped him. ‘Here, I’ll get if for you.’

I lifted the slice and leaned across the table, moving close enough so that I could smash it into his face.

‘Ow!’ he yelled.

‘Olivia!’ Dad bellowed. ‘What the devil are you doing?’

I sat snickering, wiping my hand with a napkin. I was sure that Olu would be giving me another disdainful glare, but when I turned to look at him, he was staring at something outside the window. Our looks caught everyone else’s attention, and soon we were all watching as a hired car pulled up in front of the house.

The driver got out, pulling luggage from the back, before turning to help a dark-haired woman out of the backseat. She had on the most colorful clothes I’d seen since my last trip to Lagos: a white dress sprinkled with red polka dots, and a flouncy red hat that matched her bright blood colored lipstick.

Olu just stared, sitting so still that his full plate balanced perfectly on his lap without him having to hold it.

‘Oh, dear God, she’s back,’ Mr. Stanley muttered, placing his plate on the table as he stood up.

I jumped up, racing out of the house to greet her before she could even get all of her things gathered.

‘Henriette!’ I hugged her, taking her by surprise.

‘Oh!’ She grabbed her hat, laughing. ‘Well, hello, Mon Amie. I see that at least one person has missed me.’

‘Immensely,’ I kissed her cheek and let her kiss mine, before I led her into the house. ‘You’re just in time for tea…’

‘Your English tea time is horrible on my figure,’ she leaned into me, filling my nose with her sweet perfume.

By the time we got back to the study, the men were all standing, staring at Henriette as she made her way across the room to greet my father.