Nairobi – Now
The restaurant was on the implicit border between the good part and the not-so-good part of the city. Its terrace naturally faced the good part, but on the other side, beyond the colourful paintings and the beige wall was a stinking alley and the government’s postal office, forlorn and faded, as if to prove that people didn’t send letters anymore. Although it was probably because the people in charge of keeping the office vibrant had chosen to reallocate the office’s resources to keep their lifestyles vibrant. She’d glimpsed this difference from her hotel window on the twentieth floor, seen the way buildings on the lower side of the city seemed dangerously close together and so haphazardly built compared to the spacious and well maintained buildings on the upper side, but the receptionist downstairs, on learning that she was from Sarajevo, seemed to know more about Berlin and Paris than of Nairobi. When this did not garner perceptible interest, he started on what safaris to recommend and what places to visit around the city, asking if she was going to be touring on her own. “No, I’m meeting someone,” she said and promptly walked away to avoid further questions.
She knew he did not live in the city but she wondered where he stayed when he was in the city, what restaurants he ate in, were they on the lower or upper side. Would he show her around?
She’d planned to visit Kenya for a while now, and she’d debated for so long if she should tell him. When?, he’d asked when she finally did decide. December, she’d texted back almost immediately. Maybe that made her seem to eager to meet him?, she wondered. But deleting it would be worse, she knew that he knew that. I’ll be home in December, he’d also immediately replied, and then added And yes, I’d very much like to catch up with you.
Now here she was, December, in Nairobi, sitting in a restaurant he’d suggested they meet, and he was late. He’d always been late. She smiled to herself and thought, at least that hasn’t changed about him. She was nervous though; things had ended so fast and none of them had seen it coming. He’d sort of predicted them falling out – he always had a way of reading rightly into the future – but even he could not have imagined how fast they would be strangers again.
Sarajevo – Past
“We’ve finally arrived, “ he said, more to the cold, morning air than to her. He looked around, his hand in hers but his eyes taking it all in, the buildings and signs and her face and her hair blowing in the weak breeze and her eyes, shining with joy, albeit sleep deprived. “Yes, my mum will be here any minute to pick us up,” she said taking her phone out to record this moment, the unbelievable culmination of words spoken in jest two years ago when they had first met.
“Who knows. I could come to Bosnia. See Sarajevo for myself,” he’d mischievously said.
“Absolutely!” she’d agreed, with a countenance that countered all doubts. He was going to visit her in Sarajevo.
“But if I come, you’ll have to come to Kenya.”
“That’s only fair.”
Then they’d both laughed it off and now here they were, the first part of that conversation realized. After a few minutes, her mother arrived and took the two tired teenagers to
go sleep their exhaustion off. They did not sleep for much longer because she wanted to show him around desperately and he wanted to see around desperately; as if the city was
running away, as if the buildings wouldn’t stand tall if they didn’t go visit.
“So tell me,” she said all the while scrutinizing his face for the slightest of reactions when he tried the first bite of ćevapi ,” what do you think?”
Around them, a throng of families, tourists, after-work people, teenagers. Wafting aromas. Sounds of pigeons fluttering, and feet tapping, and sizzling of meat on grills.
“I think it tastes good. It’s really ni…”
“He doesn’t like it,” she concluded.
“No, I do!… they really are deliciouuuussss.”
“Mmm. I know you don’t like it,” she said kicking him under the table because she couldn’t punch his arm in public.
“Aaaa you’re wrong. I like…”
“No, I know you. You don’t.”
Nairobi – Now
She felt eyes on her, even from the pedestrians who thronged the streets. A white woman with blonde hair, sitting on her own in Nairobi. She wondered if this is what he had felt when they walked through the war-recovering-town of Sarajevo, when strangers had asked to take pictures of him. If he’d felt uncomfortable, he hadn’t shown it, and she was good at reading him. He’d laughed about it, made jokes about it. This is the first place abroad people look at me differently in a good way. I might as well savour it, he’d said as he took pictures with strangers and laughed with her friends and jumped with her in the pool.
She ordered strawberry lemonade and the waiter tarried by her table asking if she needed anything else and going on to suggest kind of food he thought she’d like in an accent that tried its best to be something it wasn’t. “Youi shhyuould try the megamega meat pizzzuh,” the waiter went on, “ Iet ies so giooud and our chef is…”
“That’ll be all thank you.” she cut the waiter short before he tried wooing any further. She smiled while doing it because just then, she realized that if it were him, he would’ve listened to the waiter drone, and nod his head in agreement as if he too found the megamega meat pizzzuh most finger-licking, even though chances were that he had never tried it. He always had that thing. The thing where he could find something interesting in the most mundane of conversations, nodding his head away as if he were in a TED talk . Then she rubbed her smile off before the waiter took it for interest and waited until the waiter left to turn her head around, looking for him. Where the hell was he?!
***
He felt her before he saw her. As soon as he laid eyes on her figure poised on the chair, he knew he was meeting a stranger who like him, had conformed to the pressures of time and inevitably changed. How very different her visit was compared to his; they had planned that she would visit him the year after he had visited her. But then ten years were plenty for things to change, given they’d stopped talking a month after they’d said their goodbyes at that small airport in Sarajevo. Ten years now and there she sat, a once known friend, sipping a lemonade she’d ordered to find reprieve from the sweltering heat of the city.
He watched her for a while although it was clear from the way she glanced around that she was waiting for him. She kept tapping her foot and fiddling endlessly with her dress. At least that hadn’t changed, he thought, of the many things that had changed. He watched her pull the phone out of her pocket for the sixth time in a minute and tap it vehemently, her eyes straying between the constantly shifting crowd around her and her phone. The she stopped tapping and held the phone to her ear, this time standing up and craning in search of someone. People bustled about, indifferent to her scrutinizing eyes, some glancing at her with interest because she was a striking woman. She never liked being called beautiful. How many times had he told her that and how many times had he been slapped for it, as if the word was a curse. He heard his phone ring and he felt his hand, almost involuntarily, pick it out of his jeans. He made a mental note to change his ringtone, and his fingers, ever so slowly, tapped the green circle as he proceeded to place the device on his ear.
“Hi Redsy.”
“You told me you were here already?” she began. No hello. No I’ve arrived. No Where are you?
But then she’d never been one for triviality. That hadn’t changed.
“I see you already. I’m in the sky blue t-shirt waving at you,” he said as he made eye contact with her and for a moment, he was sure he couldn’t breathe.
***
The first time they met would have been like any other time people meet other people if the sky wasn’t filled with stars so much that it looked as if some might fall down to breath. Or if the air between them wasn’t charged with the noise of strangers getting to know each other. Or maybe if the bonfire did not make everyone seem nice and kind by its light, its sparks cracking and rising up to take the place of the stars that had descended to breathe.
He was sitting on a log, thinking of how hectic the past two days had been; flying across the globe for the first time, to a place where he did not know anyone and deciding if he should be scared when she came and slid next to him. He watched her for a split second before automatically saying, “Hey, I’m Vinda.”
“Redsy”
“Where are you from Redsy.”
“Bosnia. You?”
“Kenya.” he said looking up, “and here we both are.”
“Huh, I saw you looking at the stars. Do you believe in fate?”
“Well…I love looking at the stars on a clear night such as this. There is a vastness to it that’s simply breath-taking. Thinking of them so far away but still bright.”
“And fate?”
“What about it?”
“Do you believe in it?”
“I don’t really know. But I believe that things happen.”
“For a reason?”
“Well, they just happen.”
“Mmmm.”
Silence reigned awhile as they both looked at the bonfire and the oblivious bodies dancing and running around it.
“so for no reason…mmmm”
She was looking at him.
“Either can do. What about you? Do you believe in fate?”
“Yes. I believe in the idea of it. That there’s an end we are reaching for and most things we do or that happen are geared to that.”
“Good”
***
Nairobi – Now
“Hi,” she said, extending her arms to hug him.
“Hi. Sorry I’m late. I didn’t realize how much courage it would need to make it here until three hours ago,” he said, taking in her familiar smell, which even with the perfume, was still traceable.
“Yes, it’s been a long time.”
“Have you ordered?”
“Well, the waiter was suggesting Mexican pizzzaaaa,” she said chuckling.
“Mmmm, I don’t know about pizza, but I figured you could try ugali, and then if you don’t finish it, I’ll rule that you don’t like it,” he laughed at this. He always laughed when he teased, a boisterous laugh that shook his shoulders and forced him to look up.
“You didn’t like the ćevapi.”
“I didn’t finish them”
“You ate five.”
“In that case, I’ll ask the waiter to bring an exceptionally large chunk of ugali and expect you to finish.” he said, raising his eyes from her partially filled glass of lemonade to meet her eyes, which were fixed on him.
In that moment, nothing else seemed to exist. Nothing else mattered, and if someone had a keen enough eye, they would have noticed that in that moment, the world slowed down to let them catch up.