by Joseph Wallace

When Pete and I stepped through the beaded curtain at the Hotel Chiromo restaurant's entrance and were greeted with a standing ovation from the prostitutes gathered there, we almost turned around and walked right out again. But it had already been a long day, we were hungry, and anyway, we'd come to Kenya for adventure, and what could be more adventurous than this? It was certainly not an experience I'd had back in Brooklyn.

At first I thought we'd made the wrong decision. As I struggled to reach a table, the women were all over me, their hands caressing my arms, rubbing my back, probing parts of my body that had never been probed before, at least not in a restaurant. Pete was running a similar gauntlet a few feet away. It seemed highly unlikely that an actual meal was going to be the endpoint of this experience.

Finally, one of the hookers, a tall, slender woman with a blonde wig, a sequined see-through blouse, and inch-long crimson fingernails, decided to take a more direct approach. She stepped in front of me, blocking my way, and twined her arms around my neck. I could feel her nails digging into the flesh of my upper back as she leaned forward to kiss me.

But suddenly she stumbled away, crashing into a chair and almost falling. When she regained her balance, she began spitting curses at the slightly built young woman who'd dislodged her. A woman who now stood at my side, looking up at me as calmly as if we were old friends who'd happened to run into each other at a party.

"Thanks," I said.

She smiled. "Those Kikuyu women," she said. "They don't know how to behave."

I noticed that all the prostitutes had backed off at her arrival. They muttered and sneered, but none of them seemed willing to take her on. At first I thought she must have some sort of authority over them, but as she took my hand and led us to a table, I realized that she was a prostitute too. But different.

"My name is Sarah," she said, sitting down opposite Pete and me. "What are you called?"

I took a moment to look her over before answering. Where the other women in the room were mostly tall and willowy, she was small, fine-boned, with chocolate-brown skin and dark eyes. Her hands, resting on the table, were long and delicate. She was wearing a simple black minidress that was far less gaudy than the peacock-like costumes displayed by the others.

She might have been twenty-two, or she might have been seventeen.

Pete and I introduced ourselves. Then I said, "But, Sarah, I have to tell you we're not interested inó" I waved a hand, not sure exactly how to phrase it.

She shrugged. "I don't care. I like talking to you."

"I just don't want to waste your time."

She grinned, a sudden upward turn of her lips that transformed her face. "You're not," she said.

"At least let us buy you dinner," said Pete.

"No. I'm not hungry."

Now that I looked more closely, I saw that she seemed thin and tired. "Are you sure?" I asked. "Eat with us."

Sarah shook her head. But she did let us buy her a drink when the waiter came by. "Where are you from?" I asked when he'd gone.

"Uganda." Her eyes glimmered. "Fort Portal, in the west."

"I was there," I said. "Seven years ago."

She gave me a surprised look. "Maybe we met." Reaching across the table, she touched the back of my hand. A delicate touch. "I think I would remember, though."

"Sarah," I said.

She drew back her hand. "So, you have a girlfriend?"

"Yes," I said. "We're going to get married."

Her chin lifted. "I have a boyfriend."

"Yes?"

"His name is Glen. He's a sailor. An American. He's going to come back in three weeks, and then we're going to get married too."

This sounded like a series of untruths, but all I did was smile and say, "That's great."

I felt a hand begin to massage the back of my neck, nails scrape against the soft flesh below my ear. I didn't turn around, but saw Sarah look up and scowl. In an instant she was up on her feet, speaking in a low, venomous voice in Swahili to someone behind me. The hand withdrew.

But as Sarah sat down again, I heard heavy, thudding footsteps approach the table from behind me. I saw her eyes widen, her expression turn fearful.

Before I could turn around, a massive fist slammed into the table, sloshing our drinks onto the cloth. I looked up to see a huge man in a sweat-stained suit glaring down at Sarah. She held his gaze, but her hands were shaking.

"Sarah," the man said. "I knew it would be you making trouble with the other butterflies. It is always you!"

"They were bothering my friendsó" she began.

Again his fist pounded the table. "Shut up!"

She shut up.

"If you make trouble again," he went on. "If I hear from any of the other butterflies that you are arguing or fighting, I will send you back to Uganda. You hear me?"

She nodded.

"You hear me?"

"Yes," she said.

Without another word, he turned and walked away. I watched him go, striding past the grinning hookers perching on barstools or standing near the door. When I turned back, Sarah's expression was bleak. "I cannot go home," she said. "There is too much war in my country. My family is dead. I have no home there. I cannot go." She rested her head in her hands. "I'm tired."

After a moment's silence, I said, "Sarah."

She raised her head.

"I really like you," I said, as gently as I could. "But I'm not going to change my mind."

"I don't care," she said once more. But a minute later, when three men in British army uniforms came in, she joined them at their table. Within a few seconds, she was sitting on one soldier's lap, sticking her tongue in his ear. The man turned his head and licked her face.

Watching them, I felt a jolt of anger. Or maybe it was merely jealousy. But what could I do? What did I want to do?

So Pete and I just ate our dinners and drank beers and smoked cigarettes. Before we were done, Sarah and her soldier got up and left the restaurant. He was a burly guy with a pink face and mean, piggy eyes, and he had his arm draped over her shoulder, as if she were a child being led to her room.

She gave me a half-smile as they walked by, a look so filled with understanding and acceptance and weariness that it made my heart bang in my chest.

*

I met Sarah in 1977. Her homeland, western Uganda, was very close to ground zero of the worldwide AIDS epidemic, whichóthough not yet identifiedówas by then spreading explosively outward from its Central African epicenter. AIDS was, and is, mainly a heterosexual disease in Africa, and its first chief carriers were prostitutes. Looking back, I think that Sarah was most likely already sick when we met. She was probably dead within two years of our meeting.

If I had gone to the Hotel Chiromo's restaurant seeking to appease other appetites than hunger, I would likely have come back to the United States as one of the first wave of AIDS sufferers in the hemisphere. I might even have become famous after I died.

But those who were the earliest victims of the disease? They've been forgotten, lost in the tidal wave that followed their unmourned deaths.

But not by me. I won't forget Sarah.