Suffering for my art

I’m not often enough offered the choice between crab and lobster, let alone fresh crab and lobster. On Lamu, the island which in retrospect is taking on the characteristics of an opium dream, crabs and lobsters were abundant and many of them scurried their way into fisherman’s pots and from thence onto the menu. For some reason, crabs and spiders are over-represented in the literature of hallucination. Gerard de Nerval might have conducted a lobster around Paris on a leash in the name of Surrealism but lobsters don’t seem otherwise to feature in literary trip-outs. Dicing with my future nightmares it might have been, I nevertheless chose the crab.

Seven other wedding guests and I stayed in a sprawling and magnificent pile of a house called Bustani Square: white stucco walls, pink leopardskin cushions and bougainvillea everywhere. Three wonderful men called Justin, Anderson and Alfred looked after most of our needs. When fishermen knocked at the door with buckets full of flamboyant, irascible, delicious crabs, they were kind enough to cook them for us. A photo of buttery picked crab meat with lime and garlic isn’t going to look like anything but it tasted fantastic.

I’ve spent a great deal of time attempting to throw off the Protestant superstition that easy living must be followed by a period of long suffering. Just in case, I remind myself of the vast sufferings and deprivations I have already endured in my short life. I deserved to eat all the crab I ate on Lamu, down to the last last claw and cracker. Perhaps there is such a thing as earthly justice.

Furthermore, Mark and Warren and I broke the cycle of being waited upon by buying big fresh crabs from a local and cooking them up ourselves with lime and salt. This chap tasted sweeter than any promise of redemption.