During the next week Rita and Dan attended several
dinner and cocktail parties to say farewell to Greg and
Maggie Chandler, and Dan thought he saw an almost
imperceptible improvement in Maggie. Some of the
emptiness left her eyes, and he began to feel that there
was someone at home, inside her, when they talked.
On the next Sunday morning Dan saw Rita off for her
trip to Madrid and Paris, and he again began to spend
his free time at the beach hut, where once in a while
Liliana could slip away to walk up the beach from the
Italian Club and they could have a few moments alone.
He continued to see her in the office for his "language
classes," but their love making on the couch tapered
off. Several times, during the early evenings in the
soft light of the sunset, Dan saw the solitary figure of
Maggie Chandler walking near the edge of the water
headed toward the wild lonely end of the beach, and
twice he saw Marlisa di Paulo and Carlo walking in the
same direction. When he mentioned this to Liliana she
said that she now believed that Carlo and Marlisa were
lovers, and complimented Dan on how perceptive and
intuitive he was.
On one occasion Carlo accompanied Marlisa to the family plantation down on the Shebeli River, ostensibly
to help Marlisa wind up some of Antonio's affairs, and
the next day Liliana walked down to the beach hut late
in the afternoon. She was wearing a large pair of dark
glasses, and Dan immediately saw that she was trying to
hide a large purple bruise on her face.
He mixed Campari and sodas for both of them and
they sat down in their usual chairs to talk. "What
happened to your face, Liliana?" he asked her.
"Nothing," she said and smiled halfheartedly.
"That's not true, darling," he said. "Something
did happen."
She inhaled deeply then let her breath expire in a
deep sigh. "Carlo slapped me," she said.
"Slapped you! Why?" Dan said in an angry tone.
"Never mind why. He has no right to strike you." He
could feel the adrenalin pump into him. "What
happened?"
"We got into an argument. He said something about
my getting too friendly with all of the diplomats here
in Mogadishu, and that I was beginning to act as though
I were too good for just an 'ordinary civil
servant,'like him," she said and started to cry.
Dan got up, walked into the hut and returned with a
box of tissues. "And?" he asked, and handed the box to her.
"Carlo said that I had ridiculed him by going to
the party at the French Embassy with the American
Ambassador."
"How did he know you went with me?" Dan asked.
"Marlisa told him," Liliana replied. "I suppose
she found out by gossiping with someone. I should have
just humored him, or lied, but I said he had his nerve
accusing me of anything when he was obviously having a
blatant and open love affair with Marlisa."
"Oh, God, pots calling kettles black, but sometimes
the best defense is to attack," Dan said. "That's when
he slapped you?"
"Yes," she said and laughed through the tears. "I
mean, yes, pots calling kettles black, and, yes, that's
when he slapped me."
"Has he ever hit you before?" Dan asked.
"Yes, but he always apologizes and tells me he's
sorry, just as he did this time."
"Are you worried? I mean do you think he's calmed
down now?"
"Oh yes. I told him that I rode from Marie-Claude's house to the French Embassy with you, but that
I left alone, and that was true. I did walk out alone,"
she said and laughed.
Dan was glad to see her laughing but worried that
Carlo might get violent again. "Where is Carlo now?"
Dan asked.
"Down at Antonio's farm with Marlisa. He'll be
back tonight," she said.
"God, he's got a lot of nerve slapping you while he
goes off to shack up with his mistress in the Somali
bush," Dan said.
"That's what I think, but that's the Italian
system," she said.
"Bullshit!" Dan snapped. "Is he still planning to
leave on Sunday?"
"Yes, he says he wants to get back to Rome and find
another job, so he can get me out of this place before
I'm ruined forever."
"He means get you back in Rome where he can keep
you under his thumb," Dan said. "Are you worried?"
"No everything will be all right." She stood up to
leave. "I promise you. Don't worry about anything."
"But I do worry. Maybe I'll have to change my
plans and retire sooner than I planned," Dan said and
stood up beside her.
"Don't jump to conclusions!" she said and slipped
her arms around his neck. "Remember we are living one
day at a time, letting life happen to us."
Dan kissed her on the cheek. "I hope you're
right," he said.
"I am," she said. "Come Sunday afternoon everything
will be back just the way we like it." She jumped down
the steps and ran to the edge of the water, then turned
and waved.
Carlo did leave on the next Sunday's plane, and Liliana
and Dan resumed their lives together. If the week
before Rita and Carlo had been like a honeymoon, the
next week, after Carlo left, was a second honeymoon,
except that they took more precautions about Liliana
leaving her car parked outside the beach hut. So long
as Marlisa was in Mogadishu they decided to be careful
since Marlisa was an obvious conduit of gossip and
information to Carlo. Liliana began leaving her car at
Marie-Claude's house, then she either taxied to their
rendezvous point, or Dan sent his embassy car to pick
her up. With the dark, tinted, bullet-proof glass
windows it was impossible to see who was inside the car.
They did not resume their walks on the beach since
Marlisa frequently walked up to their favorite spot, but
they met at the beach hut to sip sundowners and share
the events of the day, ate quiet suppers at the beach
hut or at the residence, and they made frequent love. They attended several farewell parties for Greg and
Maggie, but they both arrived and left separately. On
the last Thursday before Greg and Maggie departed for
Rome the Italian Ambassador gave a black tie, sit-down,
dinner party in honor of the Chandler's departure from
Mogadishu, and to welcome them to the diplomatic corps
in Rome. Both Liliana and Dan received invitations, as
did Marlisa di Paulo.
Liliana made the same stand-by arrangements with
Marie-Claude, as she had made for the party at the
French Embassy, but this time she drove her own car to
the Italian Embassy, and Dan arrived alone in his.
Mercifully, Dan thought, he was placed at the table
between Maggie Chandler on his right, and Liliana on his
left so the conversation was light and easy, although
Dan still detected a deep sadness in Maggie. Marlisa
was seated straight across the table from Dan, next to
Greg, and they both engaged in an animated conversation.
In so far as Dan could tell Marlisa, paid little
attention to Liliana and him. Dan eavesdropped on some
of the chatter between Greg and Marlisa, and he learned
that Marlisa was planning to leave Mogadishu on the
Sunday following Greg and Maggie's departure. By the
time dinner was over Dan thought Marlisa might be
considering Greg as a possible lover once they were both in Rome together. To the best of dan's knowledge
Marlisa never gave any hint to Maggie that she knew of
Maggie's love affair with her late brother. By
prearrangement Dan left the party first, drove to Marie-Claude's house and waited until Liliana arrived to leave
her car, then together they drove to the beach hut to
spend the night.
By this time they had reconstructed the fragile web
of communication that bound them together in mutual love
and care for one another, and they were totally absorbed
with their own lives together. They sat on the terrace
with a full moon hanging over the sea in cool fresh
breezes. While sipping champagne, Liliana shared
stories of her childhood in Amalfi, or her college days
in Naples. She was a bookworm, she said. "I was always
a kid with a book bag full of books and skinned knees
because I stumbled and fell while trying to read and
walk at the same time."
She told Dan about her mother who loved to cook and
write poetry, and of her father whose hobby was
bookbinding old books that he searched out in used book
stores. She loved both her mother and father very much,
she said, and she knew that they would love and accept
Dan. They danced, and made up fantasies about what life
would be like once Dan was a professor and she a librarian on an imaginary college campus in the States
that she dreamed up.
"It will be a small campus," she said. "It will
have grass and a lot of trees where the students sit
under them to study, and kiss and hold hands, just like
in American movies. I can ride a bike, and in the
autumn the leaves will change color. Maybe it will snow
in the winter, and we can sit in front of a fireplace to
have coffee after we eat the big Italian meals I'm going
to cook for you," she said.
"It sounds pretty good to me," he said. "In fact
it sounds like just what I want, and that's a big change
in me. When I came out here I didn't want to retire,
but now, in this moment, I wish that I were retired from
the Foreign Service and sitting with you in front of a
fireplace in a small New England college town."
"That's what love does to us. It changes us."
"What is your idea of love, Liliana?" he asked, and
they walked to the edge of the deck to look out at the
waves breaking over the reef in the moonlight.
She put her arms over her breast as though hugging
herself, and thought for several minutes. "I can't put
it into words, but I know that in the last few weeks I
have discovered what love is."
"What have you discovered - what is love?"
"Well, in school, the nuns used to teach us that
there is 'no greater love than that a man lay down his
life for his friends,' but I don't believe that, or
maybe that's an ideal towards which we're all striving.
There are a lot of ways that you can express love by
giving something less than your life, though. I believe
love is sharing - sharing the joys, the pains, the good
and the bad - the income and the expenses. Love is
sharing fantasies and dreams - and sharing myself by
just being there for someone when they need me, and
knowing that they'll be there for me when I need them.
I think the closest I'll ever get to God in this life is
when you make love to me. When I have an orgasm with
you, I see God's face. I feel God's presence in my
life, in our lives."
"That sounds like pretty powerful stuff," he said,
and slipped his arm around her. "But I feel the same
way."
"It is powerful," she said. "Believe me."
"I'll always be there for you, when you need me,
Liliana," he said and kissed her lightly. "Shall we go
to bed now?"
"And I'll be there for you when you need me," she
said. "Yes, I'm ready to go to bed."
Things on the diplomatic front returned to normal during
that week as well. By mid-week, the Italian accident
investigation team confirmed that the light plane in
which Mario and Antonio had died had run out of fuel.
The tensions in town, as well as on the Ethiopian
border, diminished, even though up on the border the
armies of the two countries were at a standoff with both
sides poised to strike at one another.
Inside the government, from all Dan heard, the
situation was also quiet, and the Prime Minister called
Dan to his office to announce that he was planning an
unofficial visit to the States. A famous Hollywood
movie actor who was fond of wild animals and East
Africa, and with whom the Prime Minister had become
close friends, had invited the PM to visit him at the
actor's home in Palm Springs, California. The Minister
would be leaving in two weeks, which happened to be the
same flight on which Marlisa di Paulo would be returning
to Rome, although there was no significance to this
coincidence. Dan cabled Washington telling them of the
PM's forthcoming visit, set up some informal
appointments, and resumed his quiet life with Liliana.
On Friday morning, after the dinner party at the
Italian Embassy, Liliana and Dan slept late, and Dan,
after making love to her, got up before she did. There was no repeat of the sudden phone call, nor the
subsequent frantic rushing naked around the bedroom to
pick up her clothes, although the bedroom looked the
same. Dan was, however, again surprised by the sound of
airplanes flying in low over the reef on their approach
into the Mogadishu airport.
This time it was two old propjet Viscounts freshly
painted with the blue and white colors of Somali
Airlines, and he was surprised since in the embassy they
knew nothing of any plans by the government owned
airline to acquire new aircraft. Dan didn't attribute
any special significance to the planes' arrival, but
later that day he called Dave Winters, the CIA Station
Chief, and asked him to look into it, just to see if
there was something that they were missing. If Dan had
any character defect it is that he sometimes errd on the
side of caution. He payed too much attention to detail,
and he looked for significance where there was none. As
things turned out the arrival of those planes in
Mogadishu would have significance in the events that
would shape Liliana's and Dans lives as well as the
future of Somalia.
Liliana got up, they drank coffee, ate a leisurely
breakfast together, and Dan dropped her at Marie-Claude's house to pick up her car on his way to the
tennis courts. They met later at the residence for
dinner and spent the night in the hut, and on Saturday
Liliana brought Juliana to the hut so Dan could take her
sailing. Juliana was thrilled, but no more than Dan
was. He had forgotten the joy of sharing a new
experience with a child. Dan knew that once he and
Liliana were established in the States, at their quiet
little college, he and Juliana would get along fine.
The last three weeks for Maggie were a living nightmare,
but it would be several years before Maggie could
acknowledge the source of her strength to endure them.
The round of farewell parties, the congratulations and
the forced gaiety all tore at her insides. Between
parties and packing Maggie grieved, walked alone on the
beach and prayed that God not let her go as she
frequently felt her ability to endure one more day
ebbing out of her.ut She knew that the love she had
shared with Antonio had been the pinnacle of her life,
but she also knew that she would have to bear the burden
of her grief alone. No one but God could share it or
relieve her of it.
When Sunday, the day of departure, arrived Maggie
had reached her limit and she knew that she could not endure one additional day. Even though all of their
personal things had been packed and shipped Maggie and
Greg stayed in their house until the last day, and she
was up early to drink coffee on the terrace as the sun
rose over the Indian Ocean. When the alarm sounded
Maggie returned to the inside of the house and busied
herself with getting the children dressed, then she
bathed, dressed herself and closed her suitcases.
Although Maggie had many times said goodbye to the
servants with whom they had shared a part of their
lives, the farewells to Yassin and Amina were more
painful than anything she had ever experienced, and both
Maggie and Amina were crying when she and the children
climbed into the back of the embassy sedan which was to
take them to the airport.
The car headed across town over the same route that
led out to the highway to Antonio's plantation through
the sights, sounds and smells that had become so
familiar to Maggie. As they passed the turnoff to
Afgoi she looked out the car window at the narrow strip
of black highway that stretched across the bush, and she
recalled her first trip to the plantation. It seemed
lightyears away in the past, but she could remember
every second of that day. Then the car rolled to a stop
in front of the airport; taking a deep breath she climbed out into the sweltering humid air for the last
farewells which seemed to go on interminably.
On Sunday morning Dan was back at the airport to say his
final goodbye to Greg and Maggie. They had both been
popular members of the community, and the VIP lounge at
the airport was overflowing with other friends who had
come to see them off. A bar had been set up, and
despite the fact that Sunday was a workday, the
equivalent of Monday back in the Christian world, the
champagne was flowing profusely.
The atmosphere was electric and highly charged with
some new energy that seemed to come with the end of the
tangambili. Even though it was still hot, dusty and
humid, with the fresh breezes and just a semblance of a
change in seasons, people came out of their cocoons of
introspection, lethargy, and short tempered narcissism
to once gain reach out to one another. There was a new
resolve to help each other endure and survive the
boredom, tedium and monotony, and somehow get through
their tours in Mogadishu. Dan stayed only a short time,
and after circulating through the party for a while he
said his farewells and left the airport to return to the
embassy.
The flight was called Maggie took Kathy by the hand and
together they all walked through the heat waves rising
out of the tarmac ramp toward the big silver Alitalia
DC-8 that waited in the blistering African sun. Once
inside the cool aircraft a wave of peace swept over her
as Maggie strapped herself and Kathy into their seats.
Maggie sat near the window, and thumbed through a
magazine until finally she heard the whine of the
engines starting. Then they were moving and as they
taxied out to the runway she looked out the window where
in the distance she saw the twisted wreckage of the
small light plane that she knew had carried Antonio to
his death.
Stopping at the end of the runway the engines
screamed as the pilot pushed the throttles forward, then
with the release of the brakes they were rolling down
the runway, and finally airborne. Maggie looked out the
window again at the gray limestone cliff and the red
sand dunes; then they were passing over the Lido and the
beach huts along the strip of white sand behind the
barrier reef. Turning inland they flew along the narrow
strip of highway that leads to the river country, and in
the distance she could see the fertile green areas along
the banks of the meandering muddy river. It looked like
a large green serpent stretched across the vast brown thorn tree covered bush; then, just before they turned
north to follow the river, she saw the old tea house and
Antonio's plantation. With her face still turned toward
the window, she leaned her seat back, closed her eyes,
and very quietly she cried.
