I am not a fool and above all I do not come from Italy to be fooled.
I landed in Watamu with clear ideas.
I spend six months of the year here, I leave the fog, the cold and the grey, I leave that bitch of an ex-wife, the money for university to the children who don't even go and eat it, one in cocaine and the other in heavy metal concerts, and I leave the breakages in the hands of the accountant.
Here I find a kind climate, sometimes a beastly heat, fresh fish and many beautiful girls.
And I look around, that sooner or later I will move in permanently.
But beware! I'm not one to fall for it...this is not paradise, I know that.
A friend then gave me a little book written, he says, by someone who lives in Kenya and knows a lot about it.
Or at least he is someone who has informed himself and tells it well.
So thanks to this booklet, and to my friend's advice, I found a nice little flat to rent in the centre of town for two hundred euros a month, and then I was introduced to a good lawyer, who assists me in financial transactions, asking much less than what intermediaries and bullshit consultants used to charge me in Italy for every movement or transaction.
In addition, I set up a small business, just to have something to do, although with the income from the house and shop I had in Italy, I live very well here.
I can afford the restaurant twice a week, I have a maid eight hours a day, very good but intrombable, and a secretary who is incapable but very industrious on the other side.
More or less like in Italy, but spending a tenth.
I move well, like someone who has always lived around here.
I sniff out the smart countrymen and the scheming ones, the good people and the Kenyans who are worth my time.
I respect everyone and I am respected.
In the evenings, I sometimes get a little lonely. After the news, I go out for a walk, because it's always warm here and it's nice outside too, almost better than at home.
I am sitting in a local bar, with a coke baridi, as they say here, in my hand.
A beautiful, statuesque girl approaches me, a cougar of the kind you don't even see in Treviglio at night, maybe because they are too dark, who knows.
Other than my secretary!
That one, however industrious, has the femininity of a mahogany shelf.
This one is shapely, racy, with lips that taste of sin.
A sin would be not to sit her down, not to offer her a drink.
I can do it quietly, without risking anything; I have studied the lesson in the book anyway: the Naomicambells in these parts are very dangerous.
Worse than the sirens of Ulysses, they make you fall in love and then they clean you out.
But I won't end up like that.
‘How are you? What's your name? From Watamu?’ my English ends here, but luckily (and this is also written in the book) she speaks and understands Italian.
‘Well, thank you...my name is Jane...’
Jane, sounds like ‘hyena’ to me.
I wonder where she comes from, to fleece me.
They're all from Nairobi, even the ones from unknown villages, the book says. It must be because they want to give the impression of being towns, and not come from huts in the bush. Nairobi is a modern city, it is the capital...there is culture, work, nice places, lots of opportunities.
Other than this town of wretches, bantus and arabets, other than the derelict world you find around the corner of the resorts.
Here only mud and palm trees, toothless old men begging and children asking for candy.
‘Are you from Nairobi?’
‘No, I am from Matumbuku.’
‘Ah...interesting...how did you say?’
‘Matumbuku, it's a village near Machakos’
‘Um...is that where Machakos is?’
‘Not far from Nairobi’
‘Ah...that is...near Nairobi...now I understand...’
‘Yes’
‘And what were you doing in...’
‘Matumbuku’
‘Matumbuku’
What do you want a piece of girl like that to do...these ones tell you they are all students, or they have recently finished school and come to the coast to look for work in tourism...that's what all the ones who want to fool you say.
She really has the face of a graduate, this one.
It makes me laugh.
I really want to hear what lies she's telling me...the schoolgirl.
‘I wasn't doing anything, really. I stayed at home and helped my mum, but as soon as I could I went out to have fun with my friends. I didn't like studying, and I was bored. So when I was fifteen I left for Machakos, then I moved to Nairobi, and again to Mombasa, and finally I came here to Watamu'.
Here...she doesn't study, she doesn't have a job.
This one is even more cunning than the others, she is pretending to be sincere...I get it...she will surely put it on pathetically, on victimhood.
Fatherless, a very sick mother, little brother to send to school, sister raped...you name it.
‘And your family in Matambu...there, near Nairobi...how are they?’
‘Fine, thanks!’
‘No problems? Mum, dad? Are they still there?’
‘Yes, they are not old. They work. Mum teaches in the primary school in Matumbuku, Dad drives trucks, he is hardly ever there. I have three brothers, an older one who works in Nairobi in a garment company, a sister who goes to high school in Machakos and is very good, and a little brother who is seven years old and studies in the school where mum teaches'.
What a pretty picture...all good and all happy...let's see where the catch is, surely her choice of life will have put her in a difficult position here on the coast.
‘And here in Watamu, where do you live?’
‘For now I am staying with a friend.’
Bingo! That's what the tricking panther was getting at.
Of course, she took it wide, to seduce me properly.
Surely she will need the money to find her own house, furnish it...rents in Malindi are so expensive...she will need a hand, that is why she is here at the table with me. I seem like a nice person to her...and she is forced occasionally, out of need, out of desperation...indeed no, she would never do that...it is not just out of gratitude that she would indulge, but because she really likes me.
If she thinks she's playing me for a sucker, she's sadly mistaken, sooner or later I'll bring her down.
‘And you have no home of your own. Jane?’
‘A home? I don't really need one right now...’
‘What about your own things, your own wardrobe for clothes, if you want to host family and friends...?’
‘But how many questions do you ask me...are you a policeman in Italy?’
‘No...actually...I was selling insurance policies...’
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing...insurance...whatever, never mind.’
Something doesn't add up...this one is really a tough cookie, she wants to keep me on the edge, to hint that she has secrets, to surround herself with an aura of mystery...but sooner or later she'll drop the ace in the hole. I know, because they are all like that.
The white man is just a big fish for them to bait. Each one has his own particular bait.
‘So you have a normal, quiet life...are you happy?’
‘Happy?’
She laughs, the actress.
She revels in her physiognomy, she thinks she can charm anyone.
Little does she know that I know, or at least imagine everything.
‘Of course! Malindi is a good place to live, you live there too, don't you? You know...I like dancing, being with friends, having a beer now and then.’
Dancing...hanging out with friends...beer...is there or is there not?
And how can she then claim to want money, pretending to be a good girl, if I take her to bed?
What other weapon does she think she can use, if not compassion?
With the situation in Africa, its miseries at hand what does he do, does he not take advantage of it? This is a pathological case...I absolutely have to understand.
I decide to precipitate things.
‘Would you like to come to my flat?’
‘Why not?’
She had no hesitation.
What if she was a professional robber?
A terrorist in the pay of some powerful Islamist?
What if she was paid by Italian cooperation to take the names of all the depraved Italians living in Watamu and Malindi?
The important thing is not to give in before you are convinced you know the whole truth.
I have to get inside his head, understand the psychology, what tactics he is using and why.
The book says that these girls are chameleon-like, they adapt to your way of doing things and immediately discover your weaknesses, only to make you end up like the male praying mantis.
We take a tuk-tuk and in five minutes we are at my place.
One hundred shillings.
I'm paying.
We enter the house, we're in the room.
She smiles, goes into the bathroom. She comes out naked. A perfect body, firm breasts, standing on their own as if she had had them done in Dalmine. She advances sinuously with a ravenous look.
‘But...what have you put on your head?’
‘I took a shower...isn't that good?’
‘Mah...Jane...I thought we should talk...first’
‘We can talk like that too, don't you think? Do you want me to undress you?’
‘I...I...’
‘I get it, you're afraid of spending too much. So, if you want to do it all, it's 3000 shillings. Otherwise, I'll give you a discount.’
‘But you...you...you are...’
‘I am a prostitute, Italian. A prostitute for hire. Have you never seen a ‘malaya’? Aren't there any in your neck of the woods? If you wanted a nun, the diocese is only a few hundred metres from here, if you want to be a romantic story and then ask me to be your wife, you've got the wrong guy, dude. I just do it for money. What do I do, get dressed again?’
‘No....no...for goodness sake...I got up even without viagra...’
I am in the presence of a very intelligent, and undoubtedly very beautiful creature.
I have not yet been able to understand what her diabolical design is towards me.
She has probably also realised that I am not easily fooled.
She has even gone so far as to play the part of a slut...this one aims high....
But I will expose her, I swear I will expose her!