WHEN DO YOU really discover Africa? In the airplane, perhaps, between Paris and Abidjan. The women have put on their dashikis, the men show off their gold watches. The Whites seem more relaxed than on a Paris to London flight, even the ones wearing a tie. Or does it happen at the Abidjan airport? In the shoving and disorder, with the customs man who wants to confiscate your computer? The customs man never chooses the White traveller with experience. He chooses the neophyte going to Club Med, maybe, or the naïve one full of fine dreams and hopes, like the Black who shows up at French customs, the land of equality and fraternity. The illusions are reciprocal.
African hospitality, like European fraternity, has to be negotiated. So far, the Africa you are discovering is just a European copy, even if it throws you off because it’s the opposite of what you know. Here, they are trying to cheat the White man. In Europe, they are trying to imprison the Black.
Once you get past customs, then you’re really in Africa. A hundred arms, a hundred legs, a hundred mouths come at the visitor. Promises of speed, comfortable taxis, I’ll be your guide, boss. I hear the words and I’m fascinated by the light and shadow. The light is steady and the shadows move through it. No one was waiting for me, so a thousand people were. Water, melon, banana vendors, baggage carriers, and taxi drivers who often didn’t have a taxi. When you know nothing about Africa, it’s the luck of the draw. The customs man informed me that AIDS didn’t exist in Ivory Coast, and for ten dollars we agreed that maybe there were a few cases. My luck of the draw was named Youssef.
“You know, boss, I could cheat you because I can tell it’s your first time in Africa. But then I say to myself that if I am honest, you will keep me. So maybe I’ll just cheat you a little.”
He burst out laughing, a laugh so good-hearted and convincing that I trusted him immediately.
In the taxi that wasn’t a taxi, and that cost closer to Youssef ’s price than the one indicated in the foreign aid worker’s manual, I thanked Nathalie. Though she didn’t know it, and would not have wanted to, she helped bring me here. She respected my distance, my obsession, and never questioned them.
Youssef explained it all as he drove his car like in a video game littered with obstacles: pedestrians, goats, other cars swerving this way and that, mini-buses out of control. Turn signals didn’t exist here, and neither did lights. The lampposts had nothing to contribute. Sometimes one gave off watery light. The warm wind wrapped around me like a cover. I imagined I was bathing in amniotic fluid, and drawing nourishment from it. I was in the warm, moist belly of Africa. Youssef ’s running commentary, the car horns, the figures moving past, the cooking fires, all these ghosts trudging through the darkness, this overabundance of life and noise made my head spin. When we reached the Hotel Tiama on the Plateau, Youssef asked me for more than the price we agreed on, but quickly explained why. The traffic was thicker than usual. The White man who has a favourable prejudice toward Africa is very slow to learn to say no. He knows he is relatively rich and the small act of thievery directed against him, and that he is aware of, irritates him, but at the beginning he prefers to cooperate in his own robbery as a sign of his empathy. It is, I admit, a very small example of impunity but, I would discover later, it is part of the culture and daily life and the survival reflex. It is a way of life, and the example comes from higher up. Could anyone ever set down rules and standards? How could you explain that the smallest theft, like the largest, must be punished?
The restaurant at the Hotel Tiama was Chinese, and so was the singer, and the few girls sipping on coloured water at the bar. Chinese rock is to rock what military music is to music. I had certainly seen prostitutes before, fleetingly in downtown Montreal, but never this close, never in the flesh, right in front of me. Three of them were placidly sucking on their straws, casting bored looks at the dining room that was all but empty. I couldn’t help looking, examining them, noting their moves and expressions. Yes, they were beautiful, but their beauty wasn’t what attracted me, and neither did their bodies. I was fascinated by their status as prostitutes, their trade, and how they accepted exploitation. I’m against stealing, but I accept being stolen from a little. I agree with legalized prostitution, even if the business disgusts me. Nathalie would say, “If you want to understand, try it out.”
“Do you want to talk? You look sad.” Yes, I want to talk, but I’m not sad, I’m curious. She didn’t wait for my answer. She ordered a whisky for me and one for herself. My name is Claude, I’m Canadian, and I work in humanitarian aid. That’s a nice job. My name is Lolita and I’m studying business, but life is hard for girl students. School costs so much. She answered my question before I could ask it. I understood her problem because I happened to know that since the International Monetary Fund started scrutinizing Ivory Coast, and more or less put the country under its tutelage, university tuition had skyrocketed. Maybe she wasn’t a real prostitute, just another victim of global injustice forced to sell her body to escape her precarious existence.
“Doesn’t it bother you, selling your body to strangers?”
“No. I only go with men I could get engaged to. They give me presents. It would be better to talk in your room.”
Her name was Lolita and her parents lived in the Beijing suburbs. I wasn’t going to believe that was her real name. I sat in the armchair, and she paced back and forth, answering my pushy questions.
“Lolita isn’t your real name?”
She stopped in front of me and pouted.
“You think I’m a liar, you don’t respect me because you’re White and rich. If I’m not good enough for you, tell me now and I’ll go.”
I protested. I love her eyes and her slim waist and her legs. You want to see my legs? She dropped her skirt. Do you like? She quit pouting and put on a teasing look. Yes, I like, very beautiful.
“You are too shy, I like shy men, you need to relax.”
I felt no desire, and wondered how I got myself into this mess. I didn’t want to fuck a prostitute, but she was already completely naked and on her knees in front of me, unfastening my belt, pulling down my zipper.
“I will make you happy.”
I didn’t push her away. How do you explain to a beautiful woman, even if she’s a prostitute, that, no, you aren’t looking for pleasure, but only comprehension, explanation, meaning?
I was getting sucked off for free by a prostitute. That’s not fair, I thought, I’m exploiting her, I’m using her. Once the job was done, Lolita got back into her clothes quickly. She ran one hand through her hair and put out the other one.
“A little present?”
I gave her twenty euros.
“You are all the same, you White men, you exploit us.”
I certainly didn’t want to exploit a woman’s body, even if the woman was a liar. The normal present, I learned, varied between fifty and a hundred euros, depending on the generosity of the donor. I split the difference, seventy-five euros. Lolita left with the promise she’d visit again. Sleep did not come easily. I moved back and forth between the memory of pleasure and shame. Did you have to play unfair to get a place in the sun? What would have been a productive compromise, and what compromise would have forced me into further compromises? Did I have to accept getting ripped off to help the people who were ripping me off? I’d been in Africa twelve hours, and I wanted to leave already.
The next morning at breakfast, Lolita was eating with a loud-mouthed German who, it was obvious, was a better sugar daddy than me. She was holding his hand and amusing herself by preparing and giving him little forkfuls of food.