The weather was beginning to improve and, as a result, the company’s business picked up. I had flights scheduled almost every day. I tried to call Ana when I could but did not always have access to a phone. When I did find one it usually didn’t work.
It was a Friday afternoon when two policemen brought a prisoner, in handcuffs, to the airfield and said we had to fly him to Belle Yalla, a prison in the northeastern part of Liberia maintained by the government. It was a very bad place to go. Mike told them that we couldn’t fly him until Saturday—no airplanes were available. Then he asked what the man was charged with.
“Na yo binness,” said the policeman with the sergeant’s stripes on his shirt sleeve.
“Who is he? Where’s he from?” Mike asked.
“Dat too, na yo binness,” said the policeman.
More than likely the man had said something against the president or had crossed one of the Big Men, or possibly it was a tribal issue. So, they sent him to Belle Yalla, where there was an excellent chance he would never be heard from again.
Since we couldn’t transport the prisoner until the next day, the two policemen agreed that as far as they were concerned the prisoner could wait until Doomsday. They proceeded to handcuff him to an old VW engine block that had been placed outside the hangar.
“Dat be too fine! See ya Sattaday,” the sergeant joked as they drove away.
It had started to rain so Paterson had some of his boys give the man a piece of thin sheet metal to hold over his head with his free hand. I found a couple of bananas in the office and gave them to him. I got the assignment to fly him out so I was at the airfield around 10:00 a.m. the next morning. When I arrived, I noticed a long, deep groove cut in the dirt leading up to the road. Neither the prisoner nor the engine block was anywhere to be seen. The groove ended abruptly at the road. I suspected that he had dragged the engine block the half mile to the road, gotten on a money bus, and paid his ten cents. Nothing and no one rode for free on the money bus. I’m sure the bus driver charged him another twenty-five cents for the engine block, probably telling him that it was ten cents for him and twenty-five cents for the “jewelry.”
When Paterson arrived he, of course, found the prisoner missing and followed the telltale groove to the road. Paterson’s rollers and field boys expressed great admiration for the prisoner, commenting excitedly about his strength and determination.
“My-oh! Da boy ee buku buku strong, oh!”
I must admit to feeling some admiration for him myself. It took more than I had in me to drag a hunk of metal that distance then take a chance that a bus driver would accept me and an engine. It could have been the bus driver knew something of the legal system in Liberia and decided to give the man a chance.
The police were very upset when they saw what had happened. I thought they might be angry with us and try to blame Mike or one of the boys, but they ignored the missing prisoner almost entirely and just shouted at Mike about the handcuffs.
“Now we mus buy new cuffs, oh! Handcuffs are spensive, you know, mon, vey vey spensive!”
That evening I managed to reach Ana by phone. She had rented a cottage on the beach for the weekend. Since I had been working steadily for the last two weeks, Mike granted me leave for a couple of days. I grabbed a change of clothes and underwear, jumped into my trusty VW, which I had named Junebug, and struck out for the beach. The wet season had ended and I was looking forward to drying out in the intense sunshine.
I found the cottage after a few wrong turns. It was about as I had imagined—a minimal living area with an adjacent bedroom, a small bath, and a very small kitchen. But the refrigerator was working and there was a radio in the living area. It was airy and clean. The ocean breeze flowed through the large open windows and doors, keeping the place cool and saturated with the salty, organic smell of the ocean.
Ana greeted me at the front door. She was dressed in a thin cotton gown popular with the native women. She usually wore her hair pulled up in a twist, which was expertly done, but on this occasion, she had let it down and it flowed freely and delicately over her shoulders. Her smile was radiant, and seeing her there, she looked like an unnamed beauty from a medieval tale of chivalry. I dropped my small bag and took her in my arms.
After the lovemaking we lay for a long time enjoying the breeze and listening to the gentle sound of the surf washing up onto the beach. She held up my hand, looked at it, and then kissed it.
“What have you been doing? This is not the hand of a pilot,” she said.
“I’ve been doing some maintenance work for the company. Mike lost his head mechanic and asked me to fill in until he can find another. There’s a lot of digging into hard-to-get places and rolling stuff up into neat bundles. It can be rough on the hands.”
“I like a man with a man’s hands,” she said, placing my hand on her breast. “Use those hands,” she whispered in my ear.
Ana had hired one of the local women, Tina, as housekeeper and cook. Tina seemed to understand what was expected of her. We only saw her at meal time and for an hour in the morning when she cleaned the cottage. We took our meals under a large umbrella on the beach, then read or slept in the shade. Since we had been warned against swimming in the ocean due to the strong undertow, we played “catch ball” in the surf, or simply let the surf tumble over our bodies. Tina would clear away the plates and utensils after each meal then discreetly disappear. I never knew where she went, but she always left and returned silently.
During that weekend Ana and I made love in almost every place that we could—on the beach at night and in every room in the cottage except the kitchen. Ana had rented the cottage for two nights and it was then, the last night, while we were enjoying a glass of wine after dinner, that she told me she would be going back to Germany.
I hesitated. I hesitated a long time. Then asked, “When?”
“After Christmas; I won’t be here for the new year. I’ve been offered a job with a film production company.”
“Doing what?”
“In their accounts department.” She paused. “I know it doesn’t sound very exciting, but it’s a start, and it’s what I want.”
I had known this would come. It had to come. Ana had a vision of her future that did not include me. And I couldn’t ask her to share what I had, which was an uncertain future at best. She told me what she wanted from the outset and she had not wavered in that.
“Would you be my guest at the Christmas party?” she asked. “The Embassy always gives an excellent Christmas party.” She paused. “We can say our goodbyes then.”
I left early the next morning. Ana was still in bed, though awake, and Tina had not arrived. I kissed her and told her that I had an early flight. She smiled and said, “Call me when you can and let’s talk about the party.” I said that I would and left.
Truth is, I did not have an early flight. I had no idea what was on the schedule for that day. I did know, however, that I needed to leave before I said something foolish, before an unrealized feeling boiled to the surface. I couldn’t deny that I was viscerally hurt, that a part of me screamed for her not to go. The rational side, however, the logical side, said that what I wanted with Ana couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t to be our reality. I would call, of course, but I resolved not to see her until Christmas.