Mango

He was holding up his shoe, inspecting the sole of it, and barely balancing on one leg, when I first saw him.

I had asked him about the shoes – and he said any sort would do – that it was like a walk in the park, but there was an area where it was rocky.

So, it was a perfect day for a climb with Crispin and Ivy – a couple of people I had gotten to know, and I had time to kill on Table Mountain, where I saw a lot of sea – the rhythmically repeating waves, from a plunging perspective.

In CAR – that’s south of Chad and north of Congo – Crispin struck Ivy, and in CAR, Ivy did not speak to me.

In the lee of a tree, I overheard her say to him, But you are! and Crispin answered, Tell me the truth! and she said, Stop already!

But I was the one who could not stop already – acting erotically. He said: Nobody has ever done that!

My behaviour – what I thought of as my strokes of genius – interested Crispin.

The heat was so bad. We were handed cold mangoes by a missionary and I put my face into it – the sweet dripping mango.

Under other mango trees, children were throwing sticks at the fruit and when ripe fruits fell the children would eat them and then gnaw on the pits like I still always do now when I have one.

We made friends with missionaries when we arrived in CAR and were invited by them to bathe.

Please don’t use too much water! they said – and Watch out for snakes! They only bite below the knees, we were told, so we wore our high rubber boots.

Snakes! I don’t want to suppose that I am a snake – a serpent I hate – but it is true that I never had much concern for Ivy.

Could she have cared deeply for a man who hit her? – is what I might have thought but did not.

But take a look at Ivy – how her upper lip protrudes a bit over the lower – which is suggestive of what?

She loved to wear a red turban, and when seated her hands customarily crossed over her breast – which habit must be obvious evidence to the very knowing of what?

*

At home with Crispin, who is mine now, in our own country, I have ended up wrapped up in myself. One might see the signs.

I even pin my hair into braids that wrap around my head. My arms are often around my waist, holding on … as if I, myself, can serve as my own ill-gotten gain.

But this is what Crispin is!

Recently I watched him climb the stairs – night-time and to bed, where I worry, these days, he will be unsympathetic.

I did not follow right away, but I need to make him more friendly.

The problem I guess is my own meanness, which begins as mild censure – when I say to him, Can’t you see? Or, Can I show you something? What I really intend is, Obey me!

I found him in what I’d call an insolent posture, when I did enter our room – unbent, slung low in a chair, legs stretched out, and he was passing his hand through his hair – pulling on strands, rolling a long piece of it between his fingers.

He had the right to rule his hair, until finally I said, Don’t do that! which led to what we did – what I have seen a couple of dogs hard at many times – combat – muscular and painful.

But it was as if we were getting encouragement from the sidelines.

I was reminded of this thought this afternoon, when a nursemaid on the village green called out, Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! I am watching! – to a tot on a tiny scooter.

I see a lot of nursemaids in the park with their charges, and more often the tiniest appear drunken, dumb or bored – drunken, dumb or bored – nearly asleep or furious.

But what I delight to see is an expression that is curious and attentive – serious, but not passionless.