The Pickup Read Free Page B

quarters of someone not used to looking after herself; to seat himself he removed the stained cup and plate and a spatter of envelopes, sheets of opened letters, withered apple-peel, old Sunday paper, from a chair. She was making the usual apologies about the mess, as she did to whoever dropped in. She opened wine, found a packet of biscuits, sniffed at cheese taken from the fridge and rejected it in favour of another piece. He watched this domesticity without offering help, as her friends would, nobody lets anyone wait on anyone else. But he ate her cheese and biscuits, he drank her wine, with her that first time. They talked until late; about him, his life; hers was here, where they were, in her city, open in its nature for him to see in the streets, the faces, the activities—but he, his, was concealed among these. No record of him on any pay-roll, no address but c/o a garage, and under a name that was not his. Another name? She was bewildered: but there he was, a live presence in her room, an atmosphere of skin, systole and diastole of breath blending with that which pervaded from her habits of living, the food, the clothes lying about, the cushions at their backs. Not his? No—because they had let him in on a permit that had expired more than a year ago, and they would be looking for him under his name.
    And then?
    He gestured: Out.
    Where would he go? She looked as if she were about to make suggestions; there are always solutions in the resources she comes from.
    He leant to pour himself some more wine, as he had reached across for the sugar-bowl. He looked at her and slowly smiled.
    But surely … ?
    Still smiling, moving his head gently from side to side. There was a litany of the countries he had tried that would not let him in. I’m a drug dealer, a white-slave trader coming to take girls, I’ll be a burden on the state, that’s what they say, I’ll steal someone’s job, I’ll take smaller pay than the local man.
    And at this last, they could laugh a moment because that was exactly what he was doing.
    It’s terrible. Inhuman. Disgraceful.
    No. Don’t you see them round all the places you like to go, the café. Down there, crack you can buy like a box of matches, the street corner gangs who take your wallet, the women any man can buy—who do they work for? The ones from outside who’ve been let in. Do you think that’s a good thing for your country.
    But you … you’re not one of them.
    The law’s the same for me. Like for them. Only they are more clever, they have more money—to pay. His long hand opened, the fingers unfolding before her, joint by joint.
    There are gestures that decide people’s lives: the hand-grasp, the kiss; this was the one, at the border, at immigration, that had no power over her life.
    Surely something can be done. For him.
    He folded the fingers back into a fist, dropped it to his knee. His attention retreated from the confidence betweenthem and escaped absently to the pile of CDs near him. They found they did share something: an enthusiasm for Salif Keita, Youssou N’Dour and Rhythm & Blues, and listened to her recordings on her system, of which he highly approved. You like to drive a second-hand car but you have first-class equipment for music.
    It seemed both sensed at the same moment that it was time for him to leave. She took it for granted she would drive him home but he refused, he’d catch a combi ride.
    Is that all right? Is it far? Where are you living?
    He told her: there was a room behind the garage the owner let him have.
    She looked in—didn’t allow herself to ask herself why.
    Looked in on the garage, to tell him that the car was going well. And it was about the time of his lunch break. Where else to go but, naturally, the EL-AY Café, join the friends. And soon this became almost every day: if she appeared without him, they asked, where’s Abdu? They liked to have him among