Excerpt of Facing the Son by M L Rudolph

Matt Reiser, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, landed in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, on a May evening in 1979. He woke the next morning with a cutting headache.

He rubbed his neck, his skin hot, gritty, and sticky, and blinked directly into a bright parched wall. He sat up with a jerk. "Ow!" His back. He twisted himself upright, confused, on a hard–pack street.

A group of strange people stood over him. A short heavy bald man in a horizontally striped shirt dangled a cigarette from his lips. A severe woman with critical eyes held a headless chicken by its feet. Several ill–dressed men looked on from behind.

"Get away from me!" Matt waved his arms to shoo the crowd. "What are you looking at?" He meant to shout but coughed. He was groggy. His body didn't respond. He needed to focus. "Where am I?"

Matt struggled to his feet, felt the blood fall from his head, and placed his palms on the wall for balance. The wall felt warm, rough. He waited for the dizziness to pass before turning to see where the hell he was. The sun caught him in the face. Too bright. Couldn't see. Shaded his eyes.

Who were these people? The bald man stared at him. Made him aware of his heavy, crumpled sport coat. Matt pressed his lower back to stand straight.

"Where is this?" He stepped away from the wall and turned his attention to the area around the building. He stumbled into the street, splashing through a curbside rivulet.

"The hell?" He looked at his wet socks. "Where are my shoes?" He looked around at tenements running the length of the street in both directions. Weeds, spindly bushes, even a short tree, poked through the broken road. Trash lay in scattered piles. An old cane chair with a busted seat butted up against a wall. A mangy mongrel rummaged through the trash at the corner of a building. Nothing like Le Grande Hôtel here. Le Grande Hôtel. The idea of it burnt brightly in Matt's yawning consciousness with the promise of cleanliness, a cool shower, and security.

"Police," Matt said, his anger taking shape. "I want the police!" he shouted. "The police! Do you hear me? Get the police!"

The old woman knocked the bald man in the shoulder and uttered something.

"My bags!" Coming to, Matt looked back at the empty space around the square building. "My bags were in the trunk of the car." He slapped his pockets with growing panic. "My money!" Then he slapped his chest to feel for his passport and rammed his hands inside his jacket pockets. "I can't believe this! They took everything!" He threw his arms out and traipsed toward the onlookers. He couldn't imagine going home empty handed, returning to his wife's everlasting disappointment.

A moped skidded to a halt beside the commotion. The rider, a teenage boy with an Afro wore an orange and green soccer jersey. He stayed seated, his feet as kickstand, watching. The boy looked fresh, as if he just woke up and was on his way to school, or work, or whatever it was these people did around here.

The group gave Matt space and watched him strut.

"I don't speak French," he asserted. "No parlez français." The bald man blinked at the smoke curling up from his cigarette. The scruffy cur dropped his head and snarled. Matt kept the mutt in sight. Was it rabid? How much worse could this get?

A number of pedestrians sauntered into view from a side street to see what the fuss was about. A cheerful school girl with tight round braids, a dark blue smock, and white knee socks, walked over to the woman with the chicken. The woman spoke to the girl, who then smiled shyly and stepped forward.

"Do you speak Eeenglish?" she said, in a deliberate, practiced voice. Matt heard her as clearly as if she'd fired a rifle shot in the middle of the night. "Yes, I speak English." He threw his head back and addressed the clear blue sky. "Thank God. Yes." He stepped toward her, resisting a strong desire to pick her up and hug her. Instead he dropped to one knee and took a breath. "Hello," he enunciated. "What is your name?" He spent his life teaching kids only a few years older than this girl.

She stood straighter and said, "My name–uh ees Tana."

"Very good, Tana. My name is Matt. I'm pleased to meet you." He reached out his hand, but she looked uncertain what to do with it. Matt continued. "I need to find Le Grande Hôtel. Can anyone tell me how to get there?" Matt decided to forget about the police and simply get to the hotel where he could access his reservation and pull himself together. He'd find someone there who could translate for him, figure out what to do, how to engage the police, how to contact the Embassy, how to make sense of it all.

Tana maintained her eager smile and said, "I study Eeenglish een the school." The group of onlookers paid attention. The dog sat to watch. "You speak very good."

"I speak very well," Tana said with a clever smile, as if she'd answered a trick question.

"Very good," Matt said, and blinked into the sun, his headache protesting. "Very well then. Do you understand hotel?"

"Yes."

"Excellent. Do you know Le Grande Hôtel?"

She turned and before she could say anything the old woman laughed at her, or rather laughed at Matt. He couldn't tell. Why was she laughing? Then the bald man instigated some conversation among the group. After a moment, Tana translated for Matt, "Yes."

"You know Le Grande Hôtel?"

"Yes."

"Can you give me directions?"

"Yes. Mon père can tell you," she said, turning to the bald man who was already motioning up the street.

Tana's father gave a short speech with confident hand gestures. When he finished, two or three other men responded with their comments. The woman pointed the chicken at Matt's feet.

"What did they say?" Matt asked.

"No shoes, monsieur," she said. "It is a long walk with no shoes. And the bridge is not safe for walking alone."

"Shoes are the least of my worries right now. Just tell me, which way do I go?" Matt pointed up the street. "Do I go this way to Le Grande Hôtel?" He pointed the opposite direction. "Or do I go this way?"

Tana's father spoke again and waved up the street in the direction Matt first pointed. If he turned right at the top of the street, Tana translated, he would see Le Grande Hôtel across the lagoon on the other side of the General Charles de Gaulle Bridge.