Game Control

“You’re focused on the wrong level, Eleanor,” he said impatiently. “Prawns to beggars. Your sensation of unfairness doesn’t help anyone, does it?”

“I’m still ashamed,” she said staunchly.

“But it is not white, well-off Eleanor who feels ashamed, it is Eleanor. If you were Number Two wife grinding maize, you would feel ashamed—of your shabby clothes, of the woeful prospects for your ten malnourished children, of the fact you could not read. By what, really, are you so mortified?”

She shrugged. “Being here, I guess. Not Africa, anywhere. In some regards I’ve chosen perfectly the wrong field, though I doubt by accident. We all talk about over-population, but most of us don’t regard the problem as applying to ourselves. We think that means there are too many of them. I don’t. I think it includes me. I feel unnecessary. I feel a burden. I think that’s my biggest fear, too, being a burden. I’m constantly trying to make up for something, to lighten the load of my existence. I never quite do enough. I use non-returnable containers and non-biodegradable plastic and non-renewable petroleum for my car. I cost too much. I’m not worth the price.”

“Is this what they mean by low self-esteem?”

Eleanor laughed.

“Why not jump off a bridge?”

“That would hurt my parents. I’m trapped.”

“You can’t possibly have persuaded yourself this shame of yours has the least thing to do with environmental degradation and African poverty?”

“Some,” she defended. “I know that sounds pretentious. At any rate they make it worse.”

“So you have not remained passionate. You realize what you do for a living doesn’t make a hair’s dent in population growth, which is the only thing that would pull this continent’s fate out of the fire. You refuse to become jaded. So what has happened to you? I haven’t seen you in sixteen years.”

She smiled wanly. “I think it’s called ordinary depression. And,” she groped, “I get angry, a little. Instead of helping the oppressed, I seem to have joined them: they oppress me. And after all these years in Africa, I’ve grown a little resentful. OK, I’m white, but I didn’t colonize this place and I was never a slave trader and I didn’t fashion a world where some people eat caviare and the rest eat corn. It’s not my fault. It’s not my personal fault. Anger may be too strong a word, but I am getting annoyed.”

“You are finished, madam?” He had been waiting for her to conclude for five minutes.

“Yes, it was very good. I’m sorry I couldn’t eat it all, perhaps you could—”

“Don’t even think about it,” Calvin interrupted.

It was true that a doggie bag back at her hotel would only rot. “Never mind,” she added. “But thank you. The food was lovely. Asante sana, bwana.” The waiter shot her a smile that suggested he was not used to being thanked, though she couldn’t tell if he thought she was especially nice or especially barmy.

“If you want my advice,” Calvin continued. “You’re not married, are you?”

He might have asked earlier. “No.”

“You could use some small, private happiness.”

“Right,” Eleanor muttered, “mail order.”

“At least buy yourself a new dress.”

“What’s wrong with this one?”

“It’s too long and dark and the neck is much too high. And at your age, should you still be wearing bangs?”

“I’ve always worn bangs!”

“Exactly. And do you realize that you do not have to look at the world the way you have been taught? There are perspectives from which starving people in Africa do not matter a toss. Because your dowdy sympathy is not helping them, and it is certainly not helping you.”

They ordered coffee and Calvin cheerfully popped chocolates. “I am advising that you don’t merely have to get married,” he pursued. “There are intellectual avenues at your disposal. You can allow yourself to think abominations. There are a few ineffectual restraints put on what you may do, but so far no one can arrest you for what goes on in your head.”

“I don’t see what kind of solution that is, to get nasty.”

“This is a short life, Eleanor—thank God.” He spanked cocoa from his hands. “And what happens in it is play. Rules are for the breaking. If you knew what I thought about, you’d never speak to me again.”

She ran her thumb along her knife. “Are you trying to frighten me?”

“I hope so. You’re better off avoiding my company. It has even occurred to me—this we share—that I should no longer be here myself.”

“You mean Africa?”

“I do not mean Africa.”

“What are all these atrocities in your head you think would put me off?”

“For starters, I’m no longer persuaded by good and evil.”

“That’s impossible. You can’t live without morality.”

“It’s quite possible, and most people do. They manipulate morality to their advantage, but that is a process distinct from being guided by its principles. Moreover—” His fingers sprang against each other and his eyes were shining—“I don’t like human beings.”

“Thanks.”

“Astute of you to take it personally. Most people imagine I mean everyone but them.”

“You’re trying awfully hard to ensure I don’t dine with you again. Why isn’t it working?”

“Because you agree with me on much of what I’ve said, and especially on what I haven’t. All these dangers you skirt, Eleanor—cynicism, apathy, fatigue: the pits in which you fear you’ll stumble—they are all yourself. You are an entirely different person than you pretend, Ms Merritt, and I suppose that is frightening. Though my advice would be, of course: jump in the pit.

“Alternatively, you can claim, no Dr. Piper, I really am a prim, right-thinking spinster, and I will die of malaria in the bush helping improve maternal health. As well you may.”

The waiter brought the bill, folded in leather and presented on a silver tray like an extra treat. Eleanor asked, “How do you make a living now?”

“Spite.”

“I don’t know that paid.”

“It doesn’t pay for one’s victims, that’s definite.”

She considered fighting over the bill, or suggesting they split it, but somehow, with Calvin, she’d let him pay. For how many bills had she grabbed, how many had she divided painfully to the penny? She felt a rebellion from a funny place, one she did not know very well, but about which she was curious.

“Good,” he commended, signing his name. “You didn’t. That,” he announced, “was from the pit.”

“You said you don’t like people. Do you include yourself?”

“First and foremost. I know what I am. I told you, I shouldn’t be here. But that kind of mistake, it’s been made all through history.” He helped her with her jacket. “Sometimes, however, I remember what I was. I can get wistful. It’s disgusting.”

“You mean you were different before USAID kicked you out?”