The Blue Moon Cafe in downtown Dakar is a funky sort of place, the interior designed to resemble the inside of a passenger aircraft, with the clientele, on a busy night, crushed together in the economy-class seats, staring out of the windows of an aircraft that is going nowhere, drinking cocktails and listening to the beat. You can meet anybody there.
The other night it happened to be a white boy from Indiana, who had his hair styled like the last of the Mohicans, only in blond.
Jude had an interesting take on the world in general, which boiled down to a sense of contempt for all boundaries and nationalities, and a laid-back certainty about his own right to freedom of movement. For the past 12 years he had been moving round Africa.
Jude’s African adventures had begun with a stint in the Peace Corps in Kenya. From there he had just kept floating round the continent, hitching on to situations as and when he pleased: standing on the sidelines during South Africa’s low-intensity war against anti-apartheid forces in Lesotho in the 1980s; getting married and unmarried in Zambia; one thing here, another thing there, until he had finally fetched up here in Dakar, running a computer hardware and software outlet and just, you know, like, hanging out.
He was a funny looking juba. Apart from that yellow tuft at the front of his head (“Who does your hair?” I asked. “I do it myself, in the bathroom,” he replied looking at me with a, like, “Wow, that was a real dumb question” kind of look) he had an unusually long, sharp nose and a narrow chin, and was sporting an unflattering pair of spectacles that would have appeared, at first glance, to do nothing to improve his prospects.
Nevertheless, he walked into the Blue Moon with a stunning black babe in tow. Or rather, she walked in with him in tow.
As fate would have it, we knew the black babe.
She was a bit taken aback to find us there, but she gladly accepted our invitation to join our table, and dragged Jude along with her. Which is how we came to find ourselves in conversation (if you can call it that) with Jude.
We soon found out that Jude didn’t give a shit about anything.
The first thing he didn’t give a shit about was what country he was in, or the language that people spoke there. He thought languages were a waste of time.
On the other hand, he never allowed himself to be pinned down on the question of whether English, which is what we were all, sort of, like, speaking, was a language in the same sense, or not.
The waiter came and took our orders, in French. Jude ordered vodka with a slice of lemon, in English. He and the waiter stared at each other in mutual incomprehension until we stepped in and translated.
“Whew, what’s his problem?” said Jude as the waiter walked away.
“You’ve been here two years,” said the stunning black babe. “How come you still don’t speak any French? Not even enough to be able to ask for a slice of lemon?”
“Why?” Jude retorted. “I didn’t come here to talk French, I came here to do computers.
“Besides,” he continued, “is French a Senegalese language? Why should I talk to anyone in French in Senegal? Senegal is in Africa, not in France.” He smiled at us condescendingly, having dismissed a couple of hundred years of colonial baggage that still had us foxed in half a minute.
“So how about Senegalese languages,” the babe shot back. “Would you know how to order a slice of lemon in Wolof? Or maybe Toucouleur?”
“Why?” asked Jude, shaking his head in amazement. “Why should I get hung up about languages?”
I’ve heard about Dr No, but I’d never come across Mr Why before. Everything that we regarded as logical, he regarded as outrageous, puerile or threatening. His standard answer was “Why?” Which made you wonder why he was constantly backing himself so far up a lonely cul-de-sac. “Why? Why? Why?”
“So why Africa?” we asked.
“Why?” he replied. “I can be anywhere I want.”
“So why not America?”
“Why?”
“OK, why not Mongolia, then?”
“Mongolia? Why?”
It was useless to try and play the conversation game with this guy, just like it’s useless to try and play a game of poker with someone who insists on being dealt in, but then refuses to call, pass or stack. Just sits there with a hand of cards and laughs at everybody else for indulging in a game with dumb rules.
We got to him, though, when he decided that it was time for him and the babe to go and see someone off at the airport, at this late hour of the night. “You go,” I said to him. “The babe stays”.
The babe, amazingly, agreed. “You’ll find me here when you get back,” she said. “Why do I need to go all the way to the airport to see off someone I don’t know?”
Jude stared at her, then at us, disconcerted for the first time that evening. Maybe for the first time in his life.
“I’ll be about an hour,” he said as he rose to his feet. “Don’t do anything silly,” he warned as he fled for the door.
He was back in less than an hour. He was amazed to find his babe untouched. He sat for a few more nervous minutes, and then took her out of there, keeping the babe on a very tight leash indeed.
So it turned out that there are some rules that Jude is prepared to fight for. Rules of engagement with babes is one.
But I guess you’d have to dig real deep to find out what the rest are. It might not even be worth it.
Archive: Previous columns by John Matshikiza