Dexistence

Circa. Ramsgate, England 2009

Shelley said “A stupid word Mzee, you cannot say it either with your lisp and stammer”

Some juggling around accounts, the named and open ones left with enough to keep them open for a few months. I went to Dar es Salaam back to Zanzibar, five times in a week, the immigration man stopped asking for the passport I said I never carried. I paid some debts, made some new ones, left some part paid.

We ate lunch in a bar beyond the airport, a good buffet. “This is a good place to come in the evening, for nyama choma and that kind of stuff. It is not popular at lunch time”

I dropped off at the airport, “Safari njema”. There were four hours to wait and watch.

At passport control always a nervous moment even when I have a visa it was easy. The new passport scanned, not even a good hard look. In the departure lounge I looked for a good place to throw the mobile phone sim cards. They are easy to lose but very hard to effectively get rid of. I decided to wait.

He had said, so long ago “Never keep the phone sim cards. It is always too tempting to use them, to check for a last message, to feel bad about someone you did not say good bye too. But each and every mobile phone call or text will be traced to where it was made”

Through Dubai, a truly never sleeping airport. I do not even like the checks in transit there, but it is all suspicion and news paper reports, I have never had any trouble. At Heathrow the new passport worked fine, the boorish Border Guard did not pause in his conversation with the lady Border Guard in the next booth. The last three entries through Gatwick had been three stop and waits in a row.

In the little park by Embankment station I took out the carefully kept UK sim card and buried it in the flower beds there.

At the bank in Sandwich, Kent, I ordered a new cheque book. The lady looked at her screen.

“It says you ordered a cheque book in 2004 and have never used a single cheque”

“I will use one this time”

“I have ordered you another one. It will take four days to come. The old one is probably tucked away in a draw somewhere”

At Job Centre Plus, Ramsgate the Group Four security guard with the very tattooed neck informed me that “you are late for your appointment Mr Harrison”. As consequence I would now have the Job Seeking Assessment first and the Financial Assessment second, a reversal of normal procedure. I thanked them for this accommodation.

The job assessment office told me, after gentle questioning, that he had worked in the auto mobile manufacturing industry for thirty eight years had been self employed for five years and had been an employment counsellor in Job Centre Plus for one month. It had been a long and complicated process to get his present job.

He typed in my National Insurance Number, looked hard and long at his screen.

“Mr Harrison have you worked before?”

Yes

“There is nothing showing you see”

I have been abroad. For twenty five years.

He looked again. The form needs an entry to progress to the next box.

“If it is all right with you I will just write living abroad”

It is alright. We got on well, I was the first of his customers ever to have claimed any linguistic skills and we amicably agreed on some employment goals for me to pursue. I agreed to do three actions every two weeks in my search for a job.

Two hours later the cheerful young lady conducting the Financial Assessment looked hard at her screen and then at me.

“Have you got your National Insurance number.” I showed her again, she re-entered the number, same result.

“It is blank. You do not exist”

“Oh dear” I said.

“Have you got any ID, two pieces?”

I showed her my new passport and new driving licence. These are signs of a right to exist. A death certificate would have shown conclusively that I did not exist.

“You see I said I have been abroad. I have come primarily to re- establish my existence”

“You do not want to claim any benefits?”

No

“Do you have any savings, any assets” She looked very sincerely concerned. To exist requires the means to continue existing and I had no chance she thought of claiming any of the benefits on her list.

“Have you any dependants? A partner?” No, none of these.

It is ok, I do not need benefits at the moment.

She called over the supervisor.

“This gentleman has been working abroad, for twenty five years” she said looking at me with I thought some combination of fascination and scepticism.. “Shall we record his work on the form.” Turning to me “You have been a Company Director, I understand”

The supervisor was sharp and confident in her answer.

“Don’t write anything about this work because we cannot verify it”

This was a very good answer.

“Will you go of on your travels again?”

“If I get an existence, I might. Do you think I will?”

“ I hope so. I do not know. They will write to you”

In this the time of screens, it is not possible to just disappear and then come back saying you have been for a walk in the forest. To disappear one needs to exist and with an existence, a record of a meeting, a claim for benefit, there is existence. And with that there is the chance of alibis.

“Mr Harrison, is this your telephone number?” She read me the unregistered number for the sim card buried shallow in the little park near Embankment.

“Yes, it is”

Addicts

Circa Zanzibar 2009

Shelley gave up the life, got back to England, found a new man, found a job, we lost contact as is best when things are going well. Rudi drifted too, we had no trades and he was better off in the card rooms and the dark places surrounding the casinos that by now were opening in all the African capitals. Frank had a decent garage in Kinondoni Biafra where with his elder brother Patrick they could tinker with engines and other bits of car.

I too knew it was time to go, cash up, I made the calculations of how long I thought the stash would last: a few years, maybe five, seven if I stretched it. The Chip Pissers wife had with the Amerikans money broken the kernel, without a base, accounts and permits we could not trade. She had been a friend but I knew always that friends were dangerous, had kept few and dropped them when I thought they were too close. That I had not got away from her earlier was, I mused, another sure sign that I am old and have lost my edge along with my spirit. A few years ago, ten, I would have rolled her blows too, I had rolled worse I thought remembering the Axeman.

In amongst this pondering I had noticed but not otherwise considered the increasing hostility of the addicts. I had stopped giving them money long ago. My left eye had failed, temporarily said the doctor “If you take the medicine. Do you have someone to help you put the drops in” He looked up at my silence. “You can administer yourself. It is necessary and you are strong”. This one eyed world left me more in my own mind as I walked streets of Zanzibar and so I no longer greeted the addicts either. That angered them more than the money.

In Foridhani in front of the Africa House where there the food stalls that cater to the tourists had migrated there are many addicts. I knew mostly to avoid the place but on that evening I had gone there to meet two young people, relatives of someone I once knew, a visitor at the hotel.

The guy who started the shouting was not an addict, they are too weak to start on their own, but a papasi, a dragon fly, the local name for a hustler. His English, his build, suggested that he came from Dar es Salaam. “I am only doing my job”. When I stood up he backed away and then came with an over arm punch which fell short. His second was better a round arm haymaker that got me good in the ribs. I went down, a bit winded, go up and his third go, a full strength kick nearly missed but I was to slow and the end of the boot got neatly into my left testicle. When I got up that time there were thirty addicts around, shouting and ready for the sport.

I was very glad of the plain clothes police officer who was suddenly there in front of the mob, showing his ID, I was not bothered if it was fake or not, I was never so pleased to be arrested. He held my hand and led me out of there, the papasi and the addicts returned to their night time.

At Malindi police station the arresting officer wrote on a scrap of paper, gave it to the officer in charge and then left. The reporting office read it and then continued to write in his ledger, whilst talking to a higher ranked policeman who avoided all acknowledgement of my presence. They were thinking. After fifteen minutes or so he read the report again and then said

“This report says you were beaten”

That’s true

“We appear to have arrested the wrong person”

“I don’t think so”

He looked up at me the same look as the eye doctor, then too his ledger.

“We will arrest the others in the morning”

“Don’t bother”

“You don’t want to bring a case”

“No”

Never say more than necessary in a police station.

The policeman smiled looking at his ledger. This no paying incident could be closed.

“Have you lost anything”

“No”

“Are you hurt”

“No

He wrote in his ledger, a Report of Incident. I signed without reading it, I cold not see the writing in that light with my one good eye.

I walked back along the sea front past the dark part in front of the Music Academy, smoking a cigarette, thinking of a big shot of Konyagi and water at home, my only type of current sustenance. The tide was half full, the clear water against the wall. It was more than twenty five years since I first walked that dark stretch. I felt a moment of elation, of humour, I spoke aloud, there was no one to hear:

“Read the runes Michael”.