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We flew into Dayton through a thin pane of music. It's the music of America, said Wilbur. It's the music of get-up-and-go, he said. He was happy to be home. But I was having second thoughts. Already I missed the breathing of the jungle and the tom-tom pulse of Africa.
 We landed in a fairground, trailing rags of red and green seaweed acquired at sea, along with a coat of salt that sparkled on our wings in the vivid Ohio sun. Wilbur had fallen asleep at the controls, and we would surely have perished had not our dipping wings splashed water in his face. I do not blame him: the flight from Africa to Ohio is long, as the map will prove to you beyond a doubt. How I managed to hold on to the straps for so many nights is a mystery. (Wilbur flew only at night so that he might practice his celestial navigation. Don't ask what we did during the daylight hours, because I can't remember. What, have you never experienced what psychologists call "selective amnesia" and drunks call "blackouts"? I have, and often.)
We bounced along the midway and came to rest by a circus tent, topped with smartly snapping flags. An elephant trumpeted a greeting; and, despite its silly hat, a longing for Africa jumped up strong in me. Though I had been stung and bitten, lost and clawed, I missed it still.
"Take me back," I said.
"It will be years before there is regular passenger service to Africa," said Wilbur. "We flew entirely by unscientific means, which cannot be duplicated."
The sun blared in the Ohio sky. The band played "My Fox Trot Girl" until the wind blew into the bandstand and scattered the music on the lawn. Women drifted like small white clouds across the grass as a crowd of men in derbies rushed to ogle our machine, wings yellow with pollen.
Oh, how I missed the pleasant gardens of Mombasa and the breeze that nightly rose from the Indian Ocean.
"Come," said Wilbur, taking my arm. "Orville is waiting."
*
The brothers walked through the streets of Dayton in long black coats and derbies. They walked silently, hands in pockets, their heads wreathed in sunlight. As I followed them about the city, I saw their potential as heroic monuments.
Bouquets arrived almost daily from the princes of Europe. The house where the brothers lived with their father and sister was mobbed with flowers whose confusion of perfumes made me dizzy. Boxes of cigars also arrived; and these the brothers distributed on their walks, having early on renounced tobacco as well as strong spirits. That they were chaste goes without saying, and the women they received as gifts from various sultanates were found respectable situations in the homes of the brothers' many admirers.
*
"While you were in France, I gave a demonstration flight for the army that lasted 70 minutes," said Orville.
"I flew all the way from Africa," said Wilbur.
"Yes, but that doesn't count," said Orville, "because you used magic."
"True," said Wilbur.
*
I worked in the brothers' bicycle shop, tightening spokes and polishing the bicycle lanterns while the brothers were in Washington, selling their machine.
"It will make an excellent war machine," they said, "for the war that is coming."
"What war?" I asked, but they only winked and would say no more.
Anna had joined me from the Hamptons (by train); and we were happy for a time, living in the back of the shop. We found the smell of oiled chains piquant and would close the shop in the afternoon to make love.
"Do you still long for Africa?" she asked me as she rolled her stockings down her legs, a sight that never failed to arouse.
"No," I lied.
*
The brothers were famous all over the world, but fame did not turn their heads. They still walked the streets of Dayton, preoccupied by the arithmetic of flight. Sometimes, they would stop and loudly debate some aeronautical issue. The passers-by smiled. They understood that their future was in some obscure way linked to the brothers; if not their future, their children's.
I was becoming increasingly unhappy. I wanted to return to Africa, but Anna kept a careful watch over me. She need not have bothered: I was broke, and it would take years working in the bicycle shop to save enough money for the boat fare.
"I wish Africa would sink into the ocean!" she shouted as I moped
about.
For all I know it may have.
I began to suspect the whole thing was a dream. Anna was not, I soon realized, as I remembered her. For one thing she wore no underwear; and while my years of absence on the Dark Continent might account for a change of fashion, what could account for the buckets of pistachio ice cream she consumed when I knew quite well she was allergic to pistachios! And the bicycles! At the end of three months every man, woman, and child in Dayton was astride one of the brothers' black bicycles; and yet I don't recall having sold a single one! And the brothers themselves: increasingly, I had difficulty telling them apart. Wilbur was bald and his brother was not, but they seldom removed their hats. And why did it never rain it Dayton? And why did the band invariably play "My Fox Trot Girl" when I went to the fairground to examine the petrified elephant dung? All this, of course, is nothing to the flight from Africa itself? How can one explain such a technologically inexplicable event?
"Am I dreaming?" I asked Wilbur or Orville.
"Pinch yourself," one of them said.
But I was afraid.
*
"I'm thinking of leaving you," Anna said one afternoon as we were lying on the bed in the back room of the bicycle shop.
I said nothing.
She sat up so that the sheet slipped from her charming breasts.
"Did you hear me?" she asked.
"Of course."
"You're incorrigible!" she said angrily, covering herself. "You will not stop thinking of Africa!"
"But I'm not!" I protested.
"You were seen at the fairgrounds, studying the elephant dung. A
man of your age!"
She was disgusted, she said. She had had enough, she said. She would go back to the Hamptons and forget me, she said.
For the second time I said nothing.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Do you think this could be a dream?"
She scratched my face in reply.
I went to the sink and looked at my face in the mirror. There were scratches, but couldn't they have been made by some wild beast? Might I not be asleep in my tent under the Southern Cross?
"It proves nothing," I told her.
"Fool!" she sneered.
*
After the brothers had left for Europe, I found a note on my pillow:
Anna is right: you are a fool. Remember Pennington,
whose throat was cut. Remember Madam Tussaud,
whose face was white. They are dead. They wanted
you to keep them company through the long night.
Is that what you want? Your Africa is a savage,
backward place. It is better that you remain in Dayton.
We will turn the bicycle shop over to you. If Anna leaves, we shall give you our sister's hand in marriage.
Think about it: you could do worse.
Cordially,
Wilbur
Terrible nostalgia for Africa!
*
I am building an aeroplane, using the brothers' latest plan. Now that Anna is gone, I have all afternoon to work. I confess to missing her, but I miss Africa more. When I am there, I will think of her in the Hamptons, and that will be enough. Besides, there are lovely women in Mombasa and Nairobi -- there are lovely women everywhere. (The brothers' sister, alas, is not one of them.)
"Such a trip is technically impossible," said the reporter from the Dayton Herald, who came to interview me. "I telegraphed the brothers, and they agree."
He rattled a flimsy telegraph in my face.
"I have only to close my eyes," I said, smiling mysteriously.
"Crackpot!" he shouted, slamming the door behind him.
I pulled the shade and set to work on a navigation instrument of my own design containing ivory and dried elephant dung. With it I will find my way to Africa -- or rather my aeroplane will, for I'll be asleep. I'll wake over the green islands, unless Africa is a dream and I drown.
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