I’d arranged to meet some visiting Canadian army guys at Notos for dinner. The place was packed when I arrived. Shirley was behind the bar. Jazz was playing. Cooks tended fires. Waitresses carried trays of food. Spices filled the warm night air. Jake and Ron waved when they saw me come in. They already had bottles of local beer open in front of them. Marlene greeted me with a wide smile and took my order. I thought how different this place was from the Blue Nile. Two men sat at the table next to ours, devouring pizza. One man was as white as a piece of paper. He had pale blond hair and eyes the color of Arctic ice. The other was jet black. The black man said something and the white one laughed. Maybe this country had promise after all. We ordered our food and were catching up on the news when a group of six men arrived. They swaggered in, puffed up with their own self-importance. Government officials. I recognized two senior police officers. Marlene rushed to serve them. Her real smile was gone, replaced with a tight one.
