by Joseph Wallace

Two days after I graduated from college, my friend Pete and I took off for Kenya. We arrived in Nairobi two days later, burnt out, culture-shocked, covered with airport grime, and desperate for a bed, any bed. We'd made no plans of any sort, so we found a tourist brochure at Nairobi Airport, and picked the Hotel Chiromo at random. It was, the brochure said, "Filled with charm!"

The Hotel Chiromo was on the outskirts of town, so by the time we'd hiked over there, dusk was approaching. The hotel was a dark, dingy place, composed of long, jumbled wings that seemed to head off in every direction for no reason at all. But eventually we found our roomósmall, shabby, but fine for us in our exhausted condition.

We'd barely thrown our backpacks on the floor when we heard a scream out in the corridor. We opened our door just in time to see the door opposite fly open, and a man and a woman come tumbling out. She was crying and shouting, "Give it back! Give it back!" and trying to hit him while he, far bigger and stronger, was holding her away with no apparent effort.

When they saw us they pulled apart. She pushed her back against the wall, as if that would protect her, and gave us an anguished look. "Make him give it back!" she said. "He's got my passport."

"Damn straight I do," he said. "I've been chasing after you for two years, and I'm not letting you get away now."

They were both white, both Australian. We could only imagine the pursuit that had ended up with them in the Hotel Chiromo.

"Call the police..." she said to us.

"You do that," he said. "She's my wife. Let's see what the police say about that."

What the police did was take them both away. She was sobbing, while her husband seemed calm. I thought, watching them, that she'd probably never get away from him again.

Shaken, Pete and I headed to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We pushed through a beaded curtain at the door, into a room so dim that we were blind until our eyes adjusted. Before we could see anything, we heard a round of applauseóand then we realized that the ovation was for us. The room was filled with prostitutes, and in this slow season Pete and I were the best things they'd seen in days.

We were starving, there was no other restaurant for miles around, so we sat down. Immediately I had a woman in my lap, another massaging my neck, a third bringing me a menu. We kept saying, "We're only here to eat! Our wives are going to be joining us soon!" but the general reaction to that was amused disbelief. Why else, their smiles seemed to be, would we have chosen the Chiromo?

We weren't the only ones receiving this treatment. There was an Englishman across the room, a man who (I now realize) was a spitting image of Mr. Bean. He had a big plate of fish and chips in front of him, and he kept picking it up and carrying it to new tables, as if this evasive action would hide him from the hookers. It didn't work, though, and when one of them stuck her tongue in his ear he gave a strangled cry and fled, scattering chips as he left.

I can't remember what I ate or how it tasted, but I do recall that it was the only meal I've ever had that was fed to me, morsel by morsel, by a woman with daggerlike blood-red fingernails and a see-through blouse.

Sated (with food!), Pete and I headed back to the room. "All I want to do is sleep!" Pete said, but it was not to be. Our room, it turned out, was placed immediately adjacent to the disco, and party time was just beginning. But this was the Hotel Chiromo's disco, which meant it featured a tape with a total of about six songs on it. How many times do you think we listened to "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" that night? I don't know either...I lost count after twenty-three. I highly recommend it as a method of compelling a prisoner to spill his secrets.

At dawn, beyond exhaustion, I stumbled to the front desk to see about changing rooms. Returning to our room to rouse Pete (who had finally fallen asleep when the disco closed down at 5:00 AM), I had some trouble getting my key to work in the lock. But then the key turned, the lock slid open, and I stepped inside. And then stopped dead in my tracks.

Obviously, I wasn't thinking clearly, but as I stood there, stunned, this is what I thought: That in the ten minutes I'd been out, Pete had gotten up, rearranged all the room's furniture, and gone back to sleep. His bed was in a different place, and so were the lamps, and what the hell had he done with MY bed?!

I walked over to him, reached out to shake him awake and get some answers, when the truth hit me in stages, and I felt myself go cold with shock.

This wasn't Pete.

This was someone else.

I'd broken into someone else's room.

Every key in this hotel let you into every room.

The man in the bed was about to wake up, see me, pull the gun out from under his pillow, and kill me.

He would have every right to, since I'd just broken into his room.

I took one step back, and he stirred. His eyes moved behind his eyelids, and he said, "Huh....what...?"

I took another step, then another, and then I was at the door, out the door, and running toward my actual room. Once I was safely inside, I grabbed our packs, grabbed Pete by the arm, said, "We're going. I'll explain later," and headed for the hills.

I didn't think I could handle much more of the Hotel Chiromo's charm.