Аннотация: Написал одну историю по Английски для подружки из глубокой Африки.
WHITE LION
Making a soft sound of rolling gravel under rubber tyres, the car stopped at the restaurant with the shiny sign "Riches". I hadn"t seen my friends for two years. Only seldom do business opportunities bring me the good fortune to come to Africa. Closing the door with a flopping sound, I let the taxi go telling the driver to come back in 3 hours. He surely would come back. Here American dollars still had good value, and I was paying double.
In anticipation I ran up the short stairs and pulled at the painted blue wooden door.
A wave of music wrapped me in a relaxing fairytale atmosphere. Puffs of tobacco smoke were slowly sailing in the hall, cut into circles by intimate coloured lights from above. It was jazz. Strikes of piano, hissing drums with African accents, and romping bass guitar, made me feel like an alien visiting a distant galaxy, exploring the undiscovered culture of a lost civilization. I smiled. My friend Japeth, screaming happily, spied me from a table near the stage where this exotic band was playing.
- No, this isn"t jazz, ha-ha. How are you my friend? For how long I didn"t see you? Ah? - His voice was husky from smoking strong smelly cigars, the voice of my old black friend as I used to remember it. I wouldn"t mistake this voice out of thousands of others. This was him, the ever cheerful cordial Japeth.
- No? This isn"t jazz? What is it, reggae? - Of course this wasn"t jazz. I know what jazz sounds like, but it was jazz for me. It was a stream of emotions and impressions. This was a style of moving, walking, smiling. It was jazz.
- No man! You don"t know black man"s music! Ha-ha... Look... - He skilfully shook his body, grabbed the hand of a passing waitress, and made her dance with him. God, I would give my life to learn to dance like that. This wasn"t something a white man would ever master. I unwittingly got carried away just looking at them. My good friend... I wish to come more often to your deep den in the middle of this strange hot and carefree place. How different your life is to mine, but I love it. For a second I envied him. Only for a second.
- Some drink? - The table was already full of bottles and strange looking dishes. His pals were keeping us company.
- Vodka. - I should have added "please" but manners are for some other place. Here one has to speak straight. This is part of our business. We have to keep face and raise respect in partners.
My hand slipped under the table. I felt a gun on my hip. A pleasant feeling. This is just in case, and the cases where I had to use it, ah, I wish they were not so often. But here I am with friends. Checking for the gun is my habit.
- Vodka?
- Well, this is what we drink in Russia.
- You are so funny! How can you drink this muck? No my friend. Tonight you are my guest. We gonna drink whisky. We don"t have vodka here, ha-ha!
All right. This is jazz. Let"s drink whisky.
We talked and laughed. One of his buddies told a funny story about a bushman who got a computer for his birthday. It wasn"t a real story, but we all laughed. My Chesterfield burned down to the filter and I stuck the butt head down into the full ashtray, leaned back in the red leather couch and just sat like that for a while. The restaurant was noisy. Most of the public were already drunk, but this was joy. How different this was from all those civilised, disgraceful places, which grow around like a virus. This place was wild and simple. Don"t come here with no gun.
The music stopped and started again. The musicians were looking smart. Smooth gestures, black tuxedos... unreal! Whisky stroked me in the head. They started a new song.
My god! What"s this? Who... who is this? I looked at Japeth, wanting to ask my question, but he was also looking at her. The deep clean voice made everybody silent. She was moving on the stage like a black panther, elegantly and insidiously. Light shiny dress and a body as if it was cut of hard black stone by genius sculptor. I swear I never saw such gorgeous woman. I don"t know what she was singing. Maybe it was in Tswana or some other language that I don"t know, but it didn"t matter. Her song ate at me and I was eating her with my eyes. What is her name? I called her black queen for my self, or maybe Black Panther. Later I will ask Japeth but now I can"t turn my head away from the stage.
Japeth, however, did turn his head away a bit too sharply. And then he said:
- Damn!! - Yes, I think this is what he said. And then couple of other voices repeated the same word but louder. I didn"t want to bother but seeing him slowly sliding under the table I became curious.
Just for a second I looked at the entrance to the restaurant hall, but saw nothing of interest. There were few guys standing looking a bit upset with something. Actually there was one interesting detail about them. They were looking at us. Maybe at me, because I was the only white guy for many kilometres around, or maybe they had another reason to look at us like this. In other circumstances I would ask them to look in some other direction. In this case, however, what was on the stage was more exciting than these guys. So, I ignored them. The jazz was getting faster. I felt it was going to explode very shortly.
Japeth"s buddies stood up from the table. One of them said that he needed to go to the toilet, and he went behind the bar - I guessed that was where the toilet was - a bit faster than if he wanted to go there badly. The other one went to get more whisky. I was watching the show.
I"m not sure what they were talking about. I didn"t listen. Only when one of them asked me something a bit too loud did I get annoyed. He was a middle-sized man with an angry puckered face. He was holding long wooden cylinder in his hand. I knew what such cylinders were for. A few other men, bigger in size, were standing behind him.
I looked at this guy as if he was a wall or just some other object. I normally don"t appreciate it when someone comes to me without invitation, but all right I am a guest tonight. Not asking a word I looked at him waiting for him to repeat whatever he was asking.
- ... my money now! - The only part that I could understand. Japeth was sitting pale. It was amusing to see my friend pale, but he wasn"t happy about these people. So, we both didn"t like them.
- Your money? Go take a shower, you smell, and put your money on this table if you are so insistent. - No, this wasn"t jazz. Normally in such situations I say something funny. Something smart and dirty. But this time... I just felt good.
The music from the stage played with greater speed. A pianist with curly black hair was putting his soul into the instrument. He was jazz pianist. His melody was running like a crystal rivulet over stones and Black Panther, following the piano strikes, was moving around the stage in her magic dance.
Strike.
I saw a metallic blink.
Strike.
My body lightning fast jumped over the table.
Strike.
A big knife pulled out of the wooden cylinder went upto the hilt into the couch"s back where I had just been sitting.
Strike.
My foot, making a circle in the air, fell upon the elbow of the hand holding the knife. The crackle of breaking bone and a painful scream got mixed up with the music.
Strike.
After a hard punch to his jaw the knife-guy fell onto his friends creating confusion.
Strike.
I jumped back towards the stage. The music stopped and I got all the attention of the audience - standing right there on the stage. I am not an artist as a matter of fact, and have never performed. But this time I didn"t want to leave the stage, because in jumping onto there I had collided with the singer. This startled her and she almost lost her balance. I caught her with my hands.
For a moment I believed that this was a dream. My hands embraced her graceful waist and our bodies leaned against each other. I looked straight into her eyes. They were dark and deep. I felt myself drowning in them. Her black hair was fashioned in hundreds of long thin braids which were falling on my hand. I wished I could stand like this for long hours, but no. The attackers were preparing for revenge and were closing in. At the last moment I asked her:
- Can I see you tomorrow?
She looked at the hall where danger was coming closer to us and then she looked back straight into my eyes. There was a question in her look. Not even a question. Bewilderment.
I left her standing on the stage and gathering my hands into fists prepared to fight. Only couple of seconds later my hearing caught the quiet whisper:
- Sure..., - that was her answer.
It was ecstasy, tempest - soul fly! I jumped into the hall, I wanted to fight. Fountains of energy were splashing from me. I felt myself to be a lion!
One, who was the biggest, got a direct kick in the chest. He didn"t fall - he was twice as big as me. In a whirling motion I got close to him and my elbow crashed into his neck. That was enough. His friends didn"t escape either. Oh, it was a fight! Flying chairs, crushing bottles on heads, blood and broken bones. My mind was cold and calculations precise. My fists were working with a speed that no one could track with and my punches were such that I seldom had to hit a second time. Not sure how many they were. The last one fell on his face dropping his gun first. He didn"t have a chance to use it.
The gun. I forgot that I have the gun. Well, now I don"t need it. I was standing in the middle of a wrecked restaurant breathing deeply. People were climbing out from under the tables looking at first cautious, then smiling. Not sure who these guys were, but apparently no one liked them. One dude just younger than me with dread locks on his head looked around the room, winked at me and put his thumb up. I smiled back.
Here is Japeth, looks better.
This entertaining of the public was too much for me. I don"t like to be the centre of attention. The business I deal in requires that I rather stand in the shadow of the days events. Being a white guy in the middle of Africa was already too much.
Throwing a last look at my Black Panther, I jumped over broken chairs and tables towards the door outside.
The night was silent and beautiful. Gravel was crunching under the soles of my shoes and crickets were singing their night jazz for me. The dark and deep African night sky reminded me of my Black Panther.
I broke into a run. My body was light and my legs felt like two powerful springs jumping from the ground every time I stepped on it. I ran into this night. It was a few kilometres to my hotel but I didn"t want to call a taxi. I just wanted to run. I was the white lion in this black African night.