well-dressed people sipping champagne. More than half the guests were white, and Asians outnumbered Africans. The servants and guards were of course all black. Beef, chicken, and South African boerevors sausage were served up from a big propane barbeque, a colourful salad washed with boiled water was mostly ignored, and every guest in sight held a cold bottle of Nile or Bell beer.
She had been in Kampala only three weeks but more than a dozen of the faces she saw were familiar. It was a city of millions, but expats lived in a tiny bubble: their own well-guarded homes and workplaces; a few dozen cafes, bars, hotels and supermarkets where they mingled; and drivers to carry them between the islands of their neo-colonial archipelago. Africa was only a backdrop, they didn't really live in it at all.
Veronica couldn't shake the feeling that not much had changed from the colonial era. Half of the guests were NGO workers ostensibly here to save Africa from its misery, but they were still white people living like kings in an exotic land on the pretext of uplifting the locals. Only the justification had changed, from moral and religious conversion to aid and economic development. But from what Veronica had seen, most African aid benefited aid workers a lot more than the Africans.
She was making polite conversation to a half-drunk Brit named Simon when she heard a South African voice cut through the babble of conversation: "What I wonder is if Africans are even capable of love. I've never seen it, not here. I've seen them spend their lives shagging like bonobos, I've seen them leave their babies to die by the side of the road without shedding a tear, but I've never seen love."
Veronica excused herself soon afterwards, found her way to a corner of the yard, looked around, and wondered what she was doing here, at this party, in this city, on this continent.
"Excuse-moi, mademoiselle," a smooth male voice said, and a hand touched her shoulder from behind. "Est-ce que je te connais?"
He was tall, lean and muscular, with deep blue eyes, a sardonic smile, and a Chinese dragon tattooed around his bicep.
"I'm sorry," she said, "I don't – je ne parle pas francais."
"No? I thought for sure you were French."
"Not me. Born and raised in Buffalo."
"Surprised to hear that. American women don't usually look like you do." He seemed totally relaxed, a small smile playing on his lips.
She couldn't resist. "What do I look like?"
He took a moment to inspect her. Veronica felt herself starting to blush and commanded herself to stop. This was ridiculous.
"Casually stylish," he said. "At home wherever you may find yourself."
She couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sorry, but that's definitely not me."
He inclined his head. "If you say so. I'm Derek."
"Veronica." After a moment she asked, "What do you do?"
"I'm a security consultant."
"What does that mean exactly?"
"I'm afraid in part it means avoiding specific answers to that question," he said, smiling ruefully. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude."
"No, not at all," she said quickly.
A tall, thin, awkward-looking man with a goatee stepped up to Derek and muttered something in his ear.
"My friend Jacob," Derek said to her, and she and Jacob shook hands. "I'm sorry, we have to take care of something. To be continued?"
Veronica smiled, shrugged. "Sure." Not really expecting it to happen.
But half an hour later, there Derek was again, at her side with a full glass of champagne to replace her just-emptied one. They spent most of the rest of the night in conversation. She went home giddy. When he called her a few days later to invite her out to a weekend in Bwindi there were butterflies in her stomach for the first time since she was a teenager.
But Veronica knew at the same time it was crazy to be thinking about him. She would have to go home soon. The only thing she had really learned from her month in Africa was that she couldn't live here, not even in the expat bubble. She just wasn't tough enough, not any more.
* * *
"I always wanted to come here," Veronica says softly, ending the lull.
Jacob blinks, looks back to her.
"Even when I was a kid. I saw The African Queen on TV once and I wanted to be a nun here like Katherine Hepburn. Then I read Out Of Africa. When I graduated I applied to come here as a nurse with Doctors Without Borders, but they turned me down. I mean,