I look out on the beach. A heavy shower of rain has just passed over. In the sun the warm teak planks of my deck steam visibly, as if a vat were bubbling beneath them. Out at sea the sky is filled with the soft baggy furniture of clouds-the dented beanbags and winded sofas, the exploding kapok cushions. The wind hurries them away, and leaves the beach to everyone and me, washed and smooth.

My house, you will have guessed a while ago, was Usman's. His legacy to me. I spent most of my severance pay from Grosso Arvore renovating it and moved in as soon as the roof was on. I had his fine drawings of his horsefly airplanes framed and they hang now on my sitting room wall above my bookcases. Usman with his vivid dreams of flight...

And they were dreams. I bought a book (I don't know why-because I missed him, I suppose), a history of the exploration of outer space. On reflection, I should not have been that surprised, but I have to tell you it came as something of a shock to learn that there were no Egyptian astronauts. Not one. There were Vietnamese, Indian, Syrian, Mexican and Saudi Arabian, but not a single Egyptian. But Usman's lie does not really bother me: the dream enchanted for a moment, which gives it a kind of validity, I would have thought.

Usman has been much in my mind, recently. A week ago, the newspapers were full of a bizarre story. In a Latin American country an insurance claim was filed for a Mig 15 Fagot that had crashed on takeoff. When the loss adjustors examined the wreckage it was discovered-from serial numbers on certain components-that this very jet had crashed before, here, in this country, a year previously, victim of a navaid failure while returning from a raid on FIDE positions in the central highlands. The plane had been lost without trace.

It has since transpired that, of the eight Migs lost to navaid failures, the wreckages of only three were ever located. There has been a hum of scandal in the air; the noise is all sour accusation. A former minister of defense has been forced to resign over his business connections with a Middle Eastern arms dealer. Nothing can be proved, but there is a powerful suspicion that, while the war was at its height, these jets were being systematically stolen by their pilots, flown to a foreign country, repainted and covertly sold.

Of course, I realize there were some genuine navaid failures, some genuine crashes, so who can say? Who can be sure of anything? But I have my own strong intuitions, and a curious feeling that the former owner of this beach house may pass by to check on the renovations.

And, strangely enough, everywhere I go now, I think I see him. There are many Syrians and Lebanese here, and my glance is always lighting on bearded or mustachioed men (somehow I imagine he would grow a beard...).

It reminds me of that time before I met John Clearwater, when my life was gravid with the anticipation of our encounter; the air thickened with the imminence of that meeting.

I step out onto the deck and squint out to sea, over the refulgent ocean, the sun warm on my face.

John Clearwater.

I had hoped there would be a message in the notebook he left on that stone bench, but there was nothing, apart from some scrawled, runic equations. So I am left with my imagination, and I imagine that he did everything spontaneously, in a matter of seconds. He started to dig and suddenly, could not tolerate what the future held for him and walked to the pond. It is the future that bears down on the suicide-all that time, waiting.

John selected his slab of stone, eased it out of its mossy socket, buttoned it into his jacket, hugged it to him and waded out to the center of the pond and fell forward. One deep, open-mouthed breath would be enough. What cannot be avoided must be welcomed, as Amilcar had told me.

I look at my watch. I have an appointment with Ginga in an hour. I still work for the project, you might be surprised to learn. I meet people off planes, organize transport and supplies in town for the two research stations. It was Ginga's idea: now they are twice as large, the project needed a contact here, an administrator. They pay me generously; there is no shortage of funds since the book was published. Primate: The Society of a Great Ape. Look it up, check it out. Read the large footnote on page 74. "We acknowledge here the invaluable work of Dr. Hope Clearwater...."

I have not been back to Grosso Arvore-Ginga thinks it prudent to stay away-but I have seen Eugene Mallabar three times, briefly. He greets me fondly, but with a distant pomposity-a false avuncular charm. "My dear Hope..." "Ah, Hope, bless you..." He spends more time in America these days, lecturing. Ginga and Hauser run the research stations on a day-to-day basis. Nothing has ever been said about that time in the forest. And no one, as far as I know, ever found the bodies of Pulul, Darius and Conrad.

I walk down the steps onto the beach. The heavy rain has leveled the ridges and obliterated the footprints. The sand is dimpled like a golf ball, firm and damp.

What now? What next? All these questions. All these doubts. So few certainties. But then I have taken new comfort and refuge in the doctrine that advises one not to seek tranquility in certainty, but in permanently suspended judgment.

I walk along the beach enjoying my indecision, my moral limbo. But it never lasts for long. The beach endures, the waves roll in.

Two dogs appear from the trees and sniff at the tideline. My beefy Syrian neighbor jogs down from his beach house in a pair of indigo swimming trunks. He waves cheerfully at me. "The sea is always fresher after rain," he shouts, and sashays confidently into the surf. I wave back. A boy watches three goats graze in the palm groves. A crab sidles into its hole. Someone laughs raucously in the village. The webbed shadow of the volleyball net is sharp on the smooth sand. I examine these documents of the real carefully, these days. The unexamined life is not worth living.

Praise.

"INTENSE AND INTRIGUING...BRAZZAVILLE BEACH IS DIFFERENT. IT LEAVES ITS MARK."

-The Philadelphia Inquirer.

In the heart of a civil war-torn African nation,

primate researcher Hope Clearwater made

a shocking discovery about apes and man...

Young, alone, and far from her family in Britain, Hope Clearwater contemplates the extraordinary events that left her washed up like driftwood on Brazzaville Beach. It is here, on the distant, lonely outskirts of Africa, where she must come to terms with the perplexing and troubling circumstances of her recent past. For Hope is a survivor of the devastating cruelties of apes and humans alike. And to move forward, she must first grasp some hard and elusive truths: about marriage and madness, about the greed and savagery of charlatan science...and about what compels seemingly benign creatures to kill for pleasure alone.

"Breathtaking...

rich in action and thought...a master storyteller...[Boyd is] a daring craftsman, a writer who allows the scope of his work to expand to the point of bursting."

-Los Angeles Times Book Review.

"Dazzling...flawless...extraordinary...a novel of runaway ambition and what happens when it is thwarted...Boyd has deftly woven everything from science to revolution into his story."

-Detroit Free Press "What an engaging yet intellectually challenging novel this is...a bang-up adventure novel with substantial phrenic heft."

-People "A novel of ideas, of big themes...utterly engaging...at once mythic and provocative...William Boyd is a champion storyteller. His prose style is intelligent, vigorous and pleasant."

-The New York Times Book Review "A superb novel of power, intelligence and imagination."

-Dallas Morning News "Superbly told...Scientists are only human, and the same goes for chimpanzees-this is the theme of William Boyd's brilliant novel, which mixes an offhand pessimism of the Graham Greene variety with a plucky heroine who would do pretty well in a thick, bawdy Fielding or Thackeray novel."

-Entertainment Weekly "A fine work...[of] visual and emotional power...William Boyd keeps writing better and more ambitious books...[He] combines a powerful narrative pull with an intricate structure and a deep seriousness of purpose."

-USA Today "Beautifully written and, often, just plain fun...a serious provocative book about man's search for knowledge...immensely readable and absorbing and full of surprises, and yet it deals with some of the underlying concepts that shape our view of the world...Boyd succeeds in making his narrator not only a believable scientist but a fully credible, intelligent, independent woman."

-St. Louis Post Dispatch "Dazzling...highly entertaining...a fast-moving, intricately plotted novel that further demonstrates his great storytelling talent...Boyd writes with charm, clarity and energy, propelling his story through thickets of symbolism that would hopelessly snag a less-skilled novelist."

-Wall Street Journal "Riveting...taut, daring...a tour de force...Boyd gives vivid life to incidents and characters alike...An altogether splendid entertainment."

-Cleveland Plain Dealer.

"Remarkable...poignantly disquieting...nimbly plotted, gracefully written...a gripping story told with a calm, austere beauty, as though in the aftermath of a tropical storm...a substantial achievement."

-Newsday.

Other Books by William Boyd.

ARMADILLO.

THE BLUE AFTERNOON.

THE DESTINY OF NATHALIE X AND OTHER STORIES.

A GOOD MAN IN AFRICA.

AN ICE-CREAM WAR.

THE NEW CONFESSIONS.

STARS AND BARS.

Screenplays.

AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER.

MR. JOHNSON.

end.