4
He didn’t keep pets after his father left. They moved into a small flat with skewed stairs and smirking girls in tight jeans who chewed minty gum all day and received visitors all night. Mum said it would still be all right because they were still in Kileleshwa and not far from State House.
‘James’, she would call out, from the chemical haze of her dressing table, ‘pass me the toe holder, pass me the nail polish remover. Come on James, don’t be spastic. Wait till you become a steward, you’ll fly all over the world. With your mum’s looks you’ll be the best,’ she would laugh in the early afternoon, a glass of Johnny Walker Black next to her. ‘Then you can stop spending time with that old gorilla. You know, when your father left I thought that we would just die, but look at us now.’ She would smear on her lipstick and flounce out of the apartment to meet a new man friend. (I’ve no time for boys. I need a man. James, will you be my man? Protect me.)
Sebastian rose, slowly coming to rest on knuckled palms. Jimmy watched the gorilla stand on his hind feet and move in the other direction, slowly, towards the other side of the cage. He was listening to something. Jimmy strained, and for a while he heard nothing - and then he felt against his skin rather than his ears, slow whirring sounds, followed by sharp, rapid clicks. A dark tall man walked into view. He walked with his head tilted. And with his dark glasses and sure firm steps, he could have been mistaken for a blind man. He went right to the edge of the gorilla pit, squatted, and, looking down, spoke to Sebastian in a series of tongue clicks, deep throat warbles and low humming. Sebastian bounded to the bottom of the wall standing fully upright, running in short bursts to the left and the right, beating his chest as if he was welcoming an old friend.
Then Jimmy distinctly heard the man say something in what he recognized as French. He could not understand any of the words, except, mon frère, mon vieux. The gorilla-talking man walked away briskly, and Sebastian slumped to the ground in his customary place. Jimmy saw the man walk to the orphanage notice board next to the warthog pen and pin something on it. He felt that he recognized him from somewhere; the way that one feels one knows public figures, beloved cartoon characters or celebrities.
Jimmy scrambled up, shouldered up his bag and waved goodbye to Sebastian. Now that his pass had expired, the Sunday visits would be infrequent. But what he had just seen told him that those future visits, however rare, might be the most important in all these years he had been coming – an opportunity to talk to Sebastian.