One More Turn of the Page

Hopkins

Chapter One

In the broadest sense, we all remember, birthdays, first days, bad days, friends from days gone by. We remember images and sounds, smells and sensations. Yet also, we forget. But are remembering or forgetting simply the absence of the other or are they separate actions? In one’s mind, when remembering something, the memory becomes absolute; it can never alter its reality or create within itself something that doesn’t exist. Forgetting, however, is something different entirely; because when we forget, we don’t know that we’ve forgotten something, it’s as if it never happened. Yet even though the awareness is gone its effect lingers, for in one’s mind and without conscience knowledge, the nature of all things have changed.

The problem is that it’s impossible to recognize the difference between what you no longer remember and what never actually happened, unless something or someone illuminates those dark recesses of your memory. Nairobi was my home for nearly six months, and although I was just eleven years old at the time, it seemed impossible to me that I could have forgotten so much of that time in my life.

According to the cab driver, this was the right place. It matched the return address on the envelope in my hand. Which meant that this old stucco building, whose façade was peeling like the skin of a maturing snake, must be our old apartment building. The silent masculine forefinger of the driver which pointed annoyingly toward the building validated my position. Setting down my heavy suitcase and bewilderedly scanning the area adjacent to this busy intersection, I was beginning to regret letting the cabby go, but I just wanted to see my old home so intensely that I’d had to come here first.

The hues of my old neighborhood, stressed by the midday sun, were pale and washed out, not the vivid kaleidoscope of streetscape images somehow implanted in my mind. The pedestrian traffic was chaotic; it didn’t afford a lost soul the refuge or the time to stop and gawk while pondering her next move. If the people weren’t creating a claustrophobic feeling, the heat surely was. And it was so loud; loud enough that I couldn’t talk to myself without the alien vocabulary of others intermingling with my own, creating the most unusual of dialects. The stagnant smell of putrid sewage and rotting trash smacked like a punch in the nose, a far cry from the caressing fragrance of orchids or the satisfying aroma of freshly baked bread that I recalled. Of all the houses I had ever lived in over the three and a half decades of my life, this had always been my favorite, home to some of my most cherished memories. But as real as those warm remembrances felt, I found myself standing there, near the heart of Nairobi, Kenya, across the street from where I had lived as a young girl, and I didn’t recognize a thing. I had to have been mistaken; but I wasn’t.

I wasn’t as disappointed as I was shocked. I couldn’t believe how unfamiliar everything seemed. Even though I knew exactly where I was geographically, I felt lost. I tried to reassure myself by running through the information I was sure of, but other than the address of our old apartment and the knowledge that I lived here for a time with my grandparents, facts were hard to come by. I still felt lost. Exhaustedly, I realized that I had been standing there in a perplexed daze for longer than I cared to admit. I decided to find a hotel close by, drop off my bags and refocus.

Ready to establish my base, I turned and purposefully marched three blocks west to an old hotel, hoping for a vacancy. The reception area of what would be my domicile for the ensuing days was not much bigger than my living room back in Oklahoma and had been decorated with decidedly less enthusiasm. In addition to its ingress from the street, the room contained a door to a small office in close proximity to an elongated countertop and windowless aperture through which transactions were evidently conducted. The furnishings of the waiting area were well-worn and sparse, affording easy access to an opening in the back and a set of stairs beckoning upward. The dim illumination put off by a single light fixture centrally hanging from the ceiling and a large floor lamp next to a chair and table situated close to the stairs were far too limited to adequately brighten the room’s dark brown interior. The dimness added to my fatigue; yet still I wanted to quickly get settled and back out on the street. I purposely kept the chitchat to a minimum and the clerk seemed glad to reciprocate my succinctness. On my way up the stairs to my third floor room, I second-guessed my reticence. Why had I been so curt? One of the most enjoyable aspects of traveling, especially when traveling by myself, was the initial conversations I would have with each new person met. That was especially true in new locations and even though the young gentleman at the desk had seemed far more interested in the soccer match on his desktop television than my signature on the registration, perhaps he was just mirroring my unpolite manner. I felt guilty for not trying harder, but quickly forgave myself, exited the lobby, and started toward my room. I had a lot to do, after all.

I love to travel, and my family always encouraged it. They believed that directly exposing oneself to different cultures throughout the world was the most proficient way to enhance one’s empathy with all people.

St. Paul may have stated that faith, hope and love abide, Mom would say, but when we genuinely understand our neighbors’ hearts, that’s when God truly smiles.

Daddy would just quote Atticus Finch. You have to get inside a man’s skin and walk around in it before you consider his ways.

Empathy was a characteristic that both of my parents valued above almost anything; a characteristic I fear I have yet to embrace in my journeys, exploiting travel primarily for the sheer joy of it.

Even at a young age, I always felt safe and comfortable when traveling, mostly because I am always overly prepared. I hate the chaos of uncertainty. I loved the preparation of the journey, perhaps as much as the trip itself. I always had my itinerary set, down to the minute. My plane, train, subway, and rickshaw tickets were, whenever possible, purchased in advance and my directions to each venue were carefully printed in a pocket sized notebook purchased specifically for this purpose and completely rehearsed before each day’s excursions. I would study the culture, learn about the history, scout out the sights that I definitely wanted to see and then determine the order in which I wanted to see them. Of course, bad weather at times created the need for an alternative itinerary, in which case daily adjustments were easily made from such a well planned schedule. I always tried to learn some of the native language, usually more of the local vernacular than your standard hello and thank you, but typically I gave up long before becoming proficient.

As a child, I would travel with just about anyone who would have me. Most of my earliest trips were in a car, sometimes for six to eight hours at a time. I never minded. I always came prepared with books or puzzles or crafts. For me, the time seemed to soar by as fast as the oncoming traffic. Now the really big trips, those involving a plane, the ones I excitedly lost so much sleep over, they were almost always trips with my grandparents. In fact, it was Nana and Papa who took me on my first international trip. I traveled and acclimated to different locations so easily that they were sure I would do well on one of their yearly missionary trips to Kenya. That first trip, now more than a quarter of a century ago, was the start of my long love affair with foreign travel, an obsession that had taken me around the globe yet never back to where it all started.

For this year’s trip, Nairobi had never been a consideration. For twelve full months, the island of Madagascar had been my destination of choice. Because it was the farthest distance I had ever traveled, this trip required more planning than even I normally deemed necessary, with layovers in New York City, London, and Nairobi, all prior to arriving in Antananarivo. I envisioned Madagascar’s beautiful soft sandy beaches on its west coast, lush river forests to the east and high tectonic plains separating the two. It should have been a dream come true. Yet there I was, preparing to unpack my suitcase in a random, beat-up, old hotel in the middle of downtown Nairobi, Kenya. If I hadn’t lived through it, I wouldn’t have believed it.

I made my way up the last flight of stairs to my room, used the bathroom, brushed back my long blond hair and quickly put it up into my traditional traveling ponytail. I walked toward the door and stopped as I reached for the knob. What am I doing? Why am I here? I sat down on the bed and stared at the closed door. I should have been swimming in the ocean about now but there I sat in a hotel that didn’t even have a pool. I sighed. This had all started with that stupid letter I found in Nana’s book.

The weekend prior to leaving for Madagascar, I was in Kansas City helping Daddy go through some of Nana’s things. My grandmother had died nearly a year earlier and Mom and Daddy were finally going through her house in preparation for an estate sale. I was so close to Nana and Papa that emotionally I wasn’t sure I could handle the task. But I had promised to help and though I was going to leave on my trip in just three days, I was willing to do my share. With 1984 being one of the busiest weather seasons in a while, overtime at work had been required, so I was well behind on much of the traditional preparations I needed for a productive international trip. I had yet to choose the books I would read on the planes to and from Madagascar. Fortunately, Nana’s library was full of wonderful books that she and I had read as I was growing up. I came across a book that I hadn’t read in almost twenty years, Out of Africa, by Karen von Blixen. It was a great choice since Madagascar is part of Africa, and knowing that the book was soon to be made into a movie, I pilfered it from Nana’s collection.

Later that week my flights went off without a hitch. I was exhausted from numerous long nights at work monitoring storms from the meteorology research center and family responsibilities with Nana and Papa’s estate, so I slept almost continuously till we arrived in London. On the next flight, traveling to another connection in Nairobi, I decided to read the book I’d brought from home. As I pulled it from my carry on bag and stood in the aisle loosely holding the book in my hand, an envelope fell out and landed on my seat. It was addressed to Nana but forwarded to the address of her church in Kansas City. The return address on the back of the envelope—1802 Wabera St. Central Business, Nairobi, Kenya—was hand printed with no name above the address. And the date on the postmark told me that the letter had been hiding in this book for nearly a decade and a half.

The envelope was cleanly cut open and its contents easily visible. I hesitated only a second before I opened it to find a simple one page note of condolence written to Nana after the death of her husband, my papa. In the body of the letter, the writer conveyed great admiration for Papa and stated how lucky she was to have worked and lived in the same place as he—which meant the unrecognizable apartment building that I saw earlier was definitely the one we’d lived in, I think. The letter was signed, All my love, Naomi. I wondered who Naomi was. As old as the letter was, I assumed that she was deceased or if not, living in a nursing home somewhere in Nairobi.

Having settled my thoughts and myself in my hotel room, I pushed myself out the door accompanied by a map and a new desire to find something familiar. Nairobi couldn’t have become unrecognizable in just a few decades. The sounds of the city amplified as afternoon rush hour approached. There was no way to hail a cab at this hour even if I’d known where I was going. The sidewalks were choked with people who were completely occupied and uncongenial as I maneuvered through the erratic mob. As I thought of it, they were probably no more antisocial than I seemed when charging down the university hallways on my way to a meeting or to find a grad student to commandeer. I thought of my colleagues back in the meteorology department of Oklahoma University. I wondered what they were doing at this moment; it was summer break but weather never takes a vacation, keeping us busy year round. And this would be the start of their work day.

They were all so different than me. Most were married with young families. They claimed jealousy over my exotic itineraries, and alleged they would love to join me someday. I imagined they spoke from courtesy more than envy, and I reminded them that they could be enjoying the same activities if they would only sacrifice a little of their time, money, and family life to do so. They would usually point out their myriad responsibilities, T-ball, scouts, spouses, work. Then they would get around to reminding me how I would probably be the one working until I was eighty, while they would have been long since retired and comfortably relaxing at home in their gardens, grandchildren at hand. But I didn’t regret it now nor did I think I would regret it in the future. I knew that they enjoyed a very good life back home but for me, I felt like I’d enjoyed dozens of good lives, different lives, one for each new country that I visited.

I stopped at a street vendor for a drink and to reconfirm the directions to the address on the back of the envelope. This was a travel habit of mine; I liked to have the locals confirm my predetermined directions and research. The vendor must have been a new immigrant because he spoke only an African dialect and my communication skills were limited. He did recognize the street name but, using a similar technique to my mute cab driver, promptly pointed me in the opposite direction of the intersection where I’d earlier stood. At least the cabby was accurate within his rudeness. The loud bustling sounds of people and traffic were still quite distracting. The sound of two pigeons landing on his vendor’s cart was completely drowned out by the resonance of these urban environs, as if the two birds existed in an invisibly sealed vacuum. It was hard to think with such noise but I remembered becoming accustomed to it in Paris, London, New York City, Mexico City, Rio and other locales. It usually took me about a day to overcome the onslaught of auditory stimulation and become able to tune it out. Perhaps it was the noise I could blame for tripping on the curb as I left the vendor, spilling half of my drink and all of the half eaten granola bar I had just retrieved from my backpack. I felt stupid and much like a tourist—which I hate—but at least the two pigeons who silently dove to the spill site profited from my embarrassment.

I chose to go around the block and walk to our old apartment building via a different route. Maybe a new perspective would trigger an old memory. The intersecting avenue that ran adjacent to my old apartment building wasn’t as busy as the street where my hotel was located. The environment seemed more like what I would have expected of my old stomping grounds, but still I saw nothing that was remotely similar to my veiled recollections of this place. I looked above each passing doorway for the house number, 1802. Above the second to last building entrance on the block, I ultimately found it, at least in part. The eight was missing but the image of the absent numeral was silhouetted by the more faded tan colored doorframe. The numbers definitely looked like they could be twenty-five years old, however, the door was brand spanking new with a fully secure doorbell system in place.

I was stymied, but decided to wait for a random person to enter so I could (as nonchalantly as possible) follow them in. With all of the foot traffic on this street, not one person turned to enter the apartment building. After a while, as I was about to give up, a calm elderly woman with a walker in tow came strolling out. Of course, it was only polite that I should hold the door for such a lady and . . . with her safely out of the way, I just invited myself in to look around. Once inside, I was again faced with the reality of my situation. Not the entrance nor the hallway nor the reception area nor the first apartment door nor any of the stairwells looked even vaguely familiar; in fact, if I didn’t know that the address was correct, I would have bet that I had never once set foot in this place.

I quickly shook off my unease; I had to search further. There were five floors to this building, including a cellar where I found only cluttered storage and bugs. The doors to the apartments, four on each floor, were all similarly barren of personality. All were white. Some were more faded than others, but if there had ever been distinctions that could link one of them to my past, they no longer were evident. I was befuddled at either my own lack of recall or the apparent profound architectural change to this property. The latter was surely possible but the former was what concerned me. How could I not recognize the place where I’d once lived? Could my recollections be so skewed by time, maturity, and separation that they obscured the truth of my surroundings? Could it be true that we recall perceptions only and not reality? The thought itself made me just as uneasy as the unfamiliarity of my surroundings. Determined to find something familiar, I decided to search the entire building again.

On the first floor, near the door to the back apartment, there was a small window allowing a clean view out onto a dirty alley. I stood there fixed on the movements of two mice, scurrying in and out of several corroded gray garbage cans. Mesmerized by the movement of the duo, I didn’t hear the building’s security door open. Finally turning to remove myself from the window, I was startled by a smallish African man with stocky features and freckled dark skin staring at me. His demeanor seemed to convey that I was more of a nuisance than a threat. I was prepared to answer his obvious question of why I was there or perhaps he could help me with a question of my own, one that I had been pondering all day. Do you know a woman by the name of Naomi who I think used to live in this apartment building? I never got to speak. He turned and entered his apartment as if I were irrelevant to his day and unworthy of his effort.

It was getting late and jet lag began to set in. I sat down on the second step of the stairwell leading to the second floor. I was starting to feel that it was just in the cards for me to fail miserably in my quest to be reunited with my past, at least for today. Perhaps tomorrow will be better, but how? How could that be if I couldn’t find a familiar starting point? How could the conclusion be distinct from the beginning if there was no beginning? I felt so dejected. As I sat there on those stairs, I reminded myself how earlier this afternoon I was at the Nairobi airport waiting with other passengers to board our flight to Madagascar. Shifting haphazardly back and forth between Nana’s book and her letter, I could only focus on the fact that I couldn’t seem to remember any particulars about Nairobi or the apartment building I’d lived in. I tried also to picture the mission where Nana and Papa had worked and I’d attended school. Nothing came to mind. I know I’d been here. Why couldn’t I remember any details? Though to be honest, I’m not sure why I would recall much. I can’t remember the last time I even thought about my trip to Kenya as a child. I don’t recall once reminiscing about that great excursion with Nana, at least not since Papa’s death.

It was getting late and I needed to leave but my legs were as heavy as my countenance. Yet that lethargy quickly dissipated as, finding a sudden burst of energy, I stood at attention. This newfound animation came from the glimpse of a familiar face. I wish I could say it was a face from long ago but it was not. And no, it wasn’t my pompous friend residing in the back apartment. It was, rather, the face of the lady for whom I’d held the front door. The unsuspecting elderly lady with a walker who I’d earlier used as an excuse to inappropriately enter the apartment building had again crossed my path. I was so busted. Even in the darkened corridor she must have easily seen the embarrassed flush on my face. But she didn’t chastise me. She merely said hello, introduced herself as Mrs. Okafor, and politely asked if she could be of some assistance.

She was portly in stature yet with a very calm composure. Her hair was grey and coarse, well kept yet not overly tended to. Her skin was blacker than most with wrinkles that added character, a statement of age without the impression of frailty. Walking closer I noticed that her eyes were like black pearls on a perfectly white tablecloth, sparkling as if they had been protected from the harmful African sun most of her life. But it was her slight smile and the casualness of her lips that told me she not only could be trusted but that she had something to offer if only those around her would take notice.

My name is Jean Hawthorne and I’m from Oklahoma City, near the center of the United States of America. Mrs. Okafor’s face twisted into a bemused sort of curiosity, no doubt spurred by the tone and pace of my diction. Why we speak loudly and more precisely to English speakers from different countries, I’m not sure, but I catch myself doing it even with bilingual people back home. Are you familiar with the United States? This wasn’t a necessary question but it was necessary for me to reestablish a more appropriate inflection.

I am, she agreed with a pleasant nod.

Though experience had taught me not to believe everyone who claimed an intimate knowledge of the States, she quickly disarmed me with her understanding of my home country, and especially of the Midwest. How do you know such things? Have you been to America? She then told me that she was a retired teacher educated in England who’d spent two years in Dallas as an elementary school paraprofessional. As a foreign black woman in the early 1930’s, it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that she was unable to be licensed to teach in Texas so, she returned home to her native Kenya at the age of twenty-five.

That was fifty years ago this September, she confidently stated while repositioning her walker toward the ground floor’s first apartment door. Would you care to come in? I have beef stew simmering on the stove and you are welcome to join me.

Now traveling to foreign lands exposes you to unique individuals as well as unusual situations; and I had been exposed to both in my life but right now, I didn’t know what to do. I once overheard my dad tell my youngest brother never to think with his gut. It’s too close to your crotch to be helpful, he’d said. For his only daughter, Daddy, or Daddy Bill as his dad always called him, would church it up a bit and say, Never think with your gut; it’s too far from your head to do you any good. Think with your brain, it will suit you better. Well at this moment my head was saying go back to the hotel but my gut was saying follow this woman; and as for Daddy, well, he’s back home, so I elected the path closest to my empty stomach and just hoped that my dad wouldn’t mind too much.

Mrs. Okafor’s apartment was so nice and her personality so tranquil that I felt safe in staying, if not totally comfortable. I followed her into a small dining area adjacent to her kitchen. A single half-wilted flower adorning a simple glass