Matt Reiser, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, landed in Abidjan,
CΓ΄te 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 HΓ΄tel here. Le Grande HΓ΄tel. 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 HΓ΄tel. 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 HΓ΄tel?"
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 HΓ΄tel?"
"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 HΓ΄tel?" 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
HΓ΄tel across the lagoon on the other side of the General
Charles de Gaulle Bridge.
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