Sometimes, personal items left in odd places can lead to humor, romance or mayhem. When I first arrived in Kampala at Kyambogo Teacher Training College, I was assigned a house in the usual way that teaching masters are housed when they arrive on school compounds. The house assigned me had recently been vacated by a newly married couple. The groom had taken a new job in Malaya and left his bride with neighbors. She would live at Kyambogo in a house with friends, on the school compound, for a few months, until he settled in the new post and came back for her. He was due back any day now. Together, they would move to their new post.

     In the headmaster’s office, before I took possession of the house, I was greeted with an invitation to attend a sundowner at the home of one of the college’s history masters. The headmaster ushered me into a nearby office and introduced me to my host, the young history professor, named Brain Walton.  Kathryn, Brian’s wife, sat there with him in the company of a young woman, Erin, about twenty three years, their house guest. Erin, dressed in a green blouse and pink culottes, smiled beautifully, and I noticed the yellow hair and freckles on her nose.

     Brian said, “I say, the sundowner: come promptly at six o’clock and you won’t miss any of the antics.”

     Since I had not worked among the British in the tropics before and had no idea of just what a sundowner was, I asked, “Sundowner, what’s that?”

     Brian and Kathryn, who had spent a honeymooning summer in Canada and America, exchanged smiling glances and Kathryn said, jokingly, "It’s like an American cocktail party, held on the lawn at sundown,except it’s more fun.”

     “Everyone comes," Brian added, "has drinks and toasts all around, while meeting everyone else.” 

     I left them and walked up hill a short distance past school buildings and science labs, thinking of meeting my first students in just three days.

     I found the two-bedroom house assigned to me empty. It had been recently cleaned, scrubbed from top to bottom. African servants moved my jumble of chemistry and biology books and bags in and made the beds and all was ready for my occupancy. But as I walked through the house, my foot sounds echoed softly. Although it was empty of former tenants, there lingered throughout the rooms, over most of the house, the smell of perfume. The house was empty except for the bed and bedding and my unpacked trunks and suitcases that still rested in the hallway awaiting my choice of a room for them.

     I went through each room with the doors standing open, the rooms empty, mute and  receptive . The servant opened windows bringing in wind that  fretted and billowed the white curtains about. And yet, still lingered the odor of that perfume. It was a halting essence that spoke of a feminine presence. The scent was strongest in the large master bedroom. So I put my things in the small bedroom and got dressed in casual shorts and sports shirt, hoping I was appropriately dressed for the sundowner.

     Inhabitants had apparently forgotten that sundowner, the word itself, referred to a single drink taken at the end of a hard day, usually a mixture of Malibu rum and pineapple juice and Angostura bitters, for on the several tables set up on the manicured terraced lawn were numerous bottles of vodka, gin, bourbon, Irish whiskeys, Johnny Walker Harvey’s Bristol Cream and various wines that had slipped through customs and made their way to the several tables. And now jibes of joy and ”cheers" rang out as glasses clinked, then were raised over and over again among jokes and bright laughter, saluting everyone and everything.

     A lot of liquor, beer and wine, local and imported, flowed to and from tanned-handheld glasses and happily creased faces. Gaiety prevailed and goodwill rose in animated voices and wafted over the school compound. I was toasted several times by Elliot, the geography master, and again by Brian, and I was introduced to the occupants of the spacious lawn again by those who did not know we had met in the headmaster’s office. After an hour—those sitting at tables now gladdened with the musical clink of empty bottles and glasses—the headmaster called for glasses to be filled for the sundowner. He made an impromptu announcement that there was an American on the staff and said, jokingly, that they should just remember that, in spite of our different views on education, America and England are still allies. Brendan, who was Irish, said something about the Irish Republic and if I met him in the staff room he’d teach me how to make a cup of real Irish tea. With that, someone corrected him: “Coffee, Brendan, Irish coffee.” Allan, the staff Rugby coach, said he needed another bloke for the Rugby side and wondered whether I could join up. Responding to his vernacular, I said I was keen for it. The wives were friendly and, led by Kathryn and Erin met me, a bachelor, with sparkling eyes.

     Toward seven o’clock, the sun sparkled through trees. The headmaster saluted everyone, downed a stiff drink, said Cheerios and ambled off down the graveled road to his house. I was not clear-headed, having drunk a proffered glass of waraga, the local African drink—comparable to American gin or moonshine—and the shandies that Brendan had urged on me. By the time Elliot and his wife Susan raised their beer steins, making excuses to leave early for a trip to Kampala the next day, the party had thinned as couples drifted away, the sunlight fading, dusk replacing it. When I signaled the distracted, alcohol-bemused few still remaining that I too was leaving, it was to no one’s notice, and as I started uphill toward my house, out of the shadows of a mimosa tree stepped Erin. She stumbled against me as if she had drank over her limit.

     When I put up my hand to prevent her fall, I caught a whiff of the same perfume from my new house.

     “I say, Moses, do you mind if I walk up to yours with you.”

     “With me?” I was surprised.

     “Yes, I left a few personal items in your house. This is a good time to retrieve them since Martin is coming back any day now...”

     “Are you... did you live here?  Are you the couple who just left this house?”

     “Martin and I jolly well loved it. I hope you wont mind terribly if I nip in and get my things.” She was unsteady on her feet and almost missed the bottom step. My arm guided her up.

     She wobbled directly to the master bedroom and, looking behind the door among noisy hangers, she soon held up her lacy night gowns and other garments and the perfume odor engulfed us. It struck me then why they had not been seen by me or the servants. The doors were all the way open and no one looked behind them.

     But still holding her night clothes, Erin swayed, suddenly seemed weak and sank tumbling to the floor among her personal Items...

     “Erin! Erin!" I called her several times, then knelt beside her, got my arms under her and lifted her to the bed. I looked out of the window down to the sundowner, thinking, What do I do now? Should I go for one of the women to help? Should I go down there for help? But all the lights were out and it was dark. I didn’t want to leave her alone that time of night. Besides, what Erin needed right then was to sleep. I shook Erin a couple of times but she was snoring. Better to let her sleep in the bed that she was used to sharing with Martin. I covered her with a sheet, put a pillow under her head and went to my room, unpacked and went to bed.

     The next morning, I was awakened by the crunch of gravel under Landover tires and the blaring of a horn. I open the door, then quickly Brian was in the living room with another red-faced chap whose eyes were angry and his mouth couldn’t stay still.

     Brian said,” I say, Moses, we have searched the whole blasted compound. Have you seen Erin? She didn’t sleep at ours last night, and here is Marvin just returned looking for her.”

     Before I answered them, my eyes glanced toward the master bedroom, and Brian and Marvin rushed in there and found Erin still asleep, with her lacy night gowns, still on hangers, lying on the bed beside her. Marvin took Erin into his arms, fully dressed in the clothes she had worn the previous evening. His frowns changed to satisfied smiles when he saw my wrinkled bed and me still in night clothes.

     He took his bride away. Over his shoulder, she was finally awake, embarrassed and apologetic. “Gee, Moses, after all the trouble I caused you, I suppose you’ll never speak to me again.”

     Marvin’s face relaxed, and I could see Erin and I had provided an amusing story that would be told over and over at future sundowners.

Written for my friend, Deborah Cherry  (3/10/10)