Dinner for Old Times

I knocked. Wearing a t-shirt, a black loose plaid skirt and bare foot, bearing her thin pale legs and knobbly knees, Angela opened the door. Her bony feet, one angular foot upon the other, fidgeting with each other. After all these years her nervous habits persist. Smeared onto her face is her big shiny shy smile, revealing all her teeth. Next to me is Paul, who at first pauses before he gives off a condescending giggle. Angela giggles back, letting her smile swell even further. Finally she says Well aren’t you going to come in? I say nothing and Paul laughs. A loud, strong hearty laugh, like he has always had. Large like his hands, like his frame.

Years it has been since the three of us were together. Paul and Angela recently got back from their studies in Russia. Now, for the moment, we are in the same place again. Relaxed and casual as if it was only last month we sat in class together. Why don’t you come in or else I will just let you stand outside all night she threatens finally. The living room is tidy, austere even, with ochre colored walls, two pieces of furniture, a fridge and a small coffee table. None of the usual 5 piece furniture set blocking all the entrances with their puffy bulk and covered in the original plastic covering with doilies, as is typical of working class Zambians. Intead. there is space for the computer, printer and half an empty bookshelf.

Paul sprawls himself across one of the two seater couches and chirps so, where is the supper Angie? Angela squeals in response and puts up an act of being aghast at the audacity of the suggestion, that she should cook for us on her own. She even throws on a scowl for a moment before breaking into a giggle. I thought you cooked Paul says, playing the fool some more. Angela opens the fridge and produces the five pieces of raw t-bone steak. And the bottle? Paul demands. Angela produces, from the top of the fridge, a bottle of brandy. Then she puts one hand on her hip, shifts her waist and says Will there be anything elsein a sardonic voice. Paul says, YES, you can cook the supper! To which he gets the reply Ah, Paul, be serious. The two of them seem to enjoy jibing at each other with these taunts. Their chemistry has not changed in 8 years. I suppose it isn’t surprising since they did go to Russia together. I on the otherhand don’t know where to fit in to the little vocal dance of feigned argument, though at one point I used to play a central role. Indeed, it almost seemed to me once that their friendship only functioned to support my relationship with Angela. Now that it is long gone, their friendship of incessant teasing and rebuke seems healthier than ever.

To produce the supper of fried t-bone steak, greasy fried potato chips and salad we step into the tiny kitchen. What I call a bum rubbingkitchen. Angela laughed at the joke. She laughs with her eyes closed, shoulders bunched up and all her teeth showing. A laugh relished like it might be her last, just the way she used to laugh, before she had so much to cry about. We all cook the supper and chat about times gone by and their student lives lived in Russia. Well actually, Paul and Angela cook while I stand in the outside doorway and listen. Soon Paul teases her about her exboyfriend, the one who lost his mind. Paul don’t say that! she protests. Instead I beg Paul to continue. Paul, if you say anything else I am going to use this knife on youshe said while bringing the tip of her chef’s knife level with her eyes and pointing at Paul. Doing this she lets slip an evil giggle and Cheshire cat smile.

I guess this is how I should spend my few weeks here in Lusaka. At a friends houses for dinner every now and then. I will just go from friend to friend, mopping up and feeding off feel good nostalgia as I go. Hell I might as well. Since they all so independent now, with their new professions. A doctor, an architect, a human rights lawyer, a business man.  I suppose Angela does alright for her self, with her well kitted out little flat. She bought the steaks and brandy without a fuss, without demanding a portioning of costs as my London friends are liable to do. In true Zambian timing, Sunga showed up shortly before the food was served. Instead, Sunga studied in Zambia and is qualified as an architect. Recently he has found steady employment and a way with women, that has made him quite cocky. Previously, Sunga had been the runt of the pack, at what ever school we were at, and had always been the butt of most jokes. Still, Sunga loves a good joke and always out to make one or be the first to laugh at some witty observation. The trouble is, Sunga too quickly breaks into laughter before the joke is told.

Now things have turned around. Instead I am increasingly on the butt end of jokes. That I had let Angela slip away was the recurrent theme. References to the new husband were embedded in Paul’s every second sentence. However, Angela was also victim to this and stood accused of over preparing for my visit (since Paul never got brandy on his other visits) and even going as far as making a special visit to the hair salon on my account. Or otherwise I was the odd thing in the room that must be fixed, or at least reflected upon until I am thought to be suitably ashamed of myself. Why don’t you just work in Zambia man, there is money to be made here now? - are the sort of questions I was getting from Paul. Only he could still use the word “man” in such a way and still keep a straight face. Sunga evinced a little theory about getting jobs in Zambia which means knowing the right connections  and knowing the right people. Paul continually returned to the theme I feel behind as it is, when I look at the cars my friends are driving. And then I look at you and you want to go BACK to study? Angela would frown at me now and then and sneer with her shut wrinkly eyes and say Why don’t you just go teach at the university?

But still, we were merry that night. Paul, having recently taken to the bottle and shed his childish innocence, poured our drinks and insisted on us knocking them back with a certain militant and Russian gusto. Why, before the steaks were cold on our plates, we were well into regaling harrowing stories of assault in foreign lands. Paul told of being beaten by gang of white supremacist Russian nationalists on a late night metro train in Moscow. Paul told it with such animation and re-enactment he made it out to be as if he were the hero of the day, even though him and his friend took flight through every carriage until the last for protection with the driver. I too told of my London mugging story. Then came the toilet humour, in the form of the graffiti we could recall in the squalor of our putrid boarding school toilets (mu lenya the? [your shitting aren't you?] scribbled on the back of one of the cubicle doors). At the peak of things, Sunga jumped in and told a story we could only half follow and killed the laughter. Later, Angela saw us to the gate (which is a long way off in the Zambian residential front yard) and I drove Paul and Sunga home. On the way, Sunga refined his theory on job hunting in Zambia and expanded into all other aspects of life. Then I returned to my parents home, where my suitcases lay unpacked and my life in a somewhat intransigent state. I found dad fast asleep in front of SKY news in his arm chair, with his whisky still in hand.