By the Sea

Living alone in a seaside town in England, an anonymous elderly man (later revealed to be Saleh Omer) waits for a woman named Rachel, who does not arrive. The disappointment triggers a memory of his arrival at Gatwick Airport as a refugee. There, an immigration officer interrogated him. Acting on advice he had received, Saleh feigned an inability to speak English as the officer inspected his luggage, focusing on a mahogany casket of incense. When Saleh claimed asylum, the officer processed his entry but confiscated the casket.

The memory of the incense takes Saleh back to his home in 1960 Zanzibar. He recalls his life as a furniture dealer and his friendship with Hussein, a Persian trader who told Saleh stories of his family’s financial ruin under British colonial policies. During a transaction, Saleh accepted Hussein’s incense as partial payment for an ebony table that Hussein wished to give as a present to Rajab Shaaban Mahmud, a Public Works Department clerk, and his family: “I knew, everyone knew, that he was wooing the beautiful son […] but I could not imagine that the ebony table would be of any interest to him.