Rewriting Stella

by Tuttle, Dan;

  his tenure at the institution there

  for up to several years. They wanted him

  to reach full fluency. He’d be a rare

  resource. He hoped the skill would future limn

  in gold: some time ago he promised Stel

  he’d someday self past poverty propel.

  42.

  The emblem of achievement: silver piece

  on necklace with emblazoned seals. The first

  was classic armored dragon, epic beast

  that through Chinese tall tales was interspersed.

  It wasn’t standalone mid-cloud in flight,

  but wrapped ’round second item: waxing moon,

  a symbol of the darkness in the light,

  the yin to yang in oriental rune.

  The third was customized in Latin script:

  the letters of its winner’s name spelled out,

  proclaiming unequivocally who gripped

  this medal ’mong authorities held clout.

  Recipient was backed by Chinese state

  that hoped in commerce they’d remunerate.

  43.

  Across the village, lone in little home

  sat BLING and Stella at the foot of bed,

  possessions all arranged in view. The tome

  marked Annals (where their history’s retread)

  was the first object in the pile marked ‘take’.

  She sat, unclasped its buckle, opened to

  the illustration of when they did break

  into the shop for eggs, took rope in through

  the window. “My, how risks evolved

  since fearing framing as a petty crook…”

  She worried inwardly she might dissolve

  if her identity as writ in book

  were soaked or burned or lost or marred by ink,

  as if were soul and stories chain-tight linked.

  44.

  There weren’t too many things to choose between,

  as poverty meant Grandmum owned but cows—

  an asset small, but large enough for lien,

  both useful for the sale and pulling plow.

  The Annals, clothes, and satchel fit on BLING,

  a couple half-used pencils, one small knife,

  and necklace newly-liked were all the things

  she chose to pack to start her Chinese life.

  For all the while Abu was studying

  sly Stel spent scheming, setting up escape.

  She planned to shift her story, muddying

  her real identity. Concealing cape

  of words would let her con her way to fame

  or, short of that, at least own life reframe.

  45.

  Soft “Hodi!” at the door caused BLING to YIP!

  and trot to see who dared disturb their peace.

  That gloam-lit silhouette had scholarship

  that ought to give his life a newfound lease.

  Yet somehow shoulders slouched still. “Hi, Abu!”

  exclaimed the girl to her companion, “I’m

  surprised you came. I thought today’s breakthrough

  would be so big you’d spend the whole nighttime

  in family celebration.” “Well, sure, but

  you know I’m never in the limelight long,”

  he said, while eyebrows did toward forehead jut

  as if to cast resigned surprise at wrong

  from kin, one more omission tragedy

  from blood who doubt that he’d from rags slip free.

  46.

  His now-wide eyes as saucers with brows raised

  bombarded brain with data girl’d gone nuts.

  For taking all possessions out was crazed

  unless intending to— “Stel, you’ve got guts.”

  His eyeballs swept across the objects strewn

  around the room, arranged in piles. “If I

  were guessing, I’d say you were off to moon.”

  “To you, you know I couldn’t say goodbye,

  let’s celebrate both our departures!” Grin

  met Abu still-bewildered, grew again

  at hatching her grand plan from what coffin

  made start as sad affair. “Ab tell me, then,

  when China’s planned to send us oversea.”

  And fast explained how she’d be attendee.

  47.

  It took no more than minutes fingers show

  to walk through all that happened while Abu

  had buried brain in books to overflow

  with knowledge. Stella meanwhile had pursued

  her dream to leave: she’d gathered property

  and cash together to fund getaway.

  She’d practiced lines in case of inquiry,

  now memorized. Each story fit in gray,

  not black or white. The kerosene-cast light

  bathed room in hues that felt like setting sun,

  like Stella’s Tanzanian pending flight

  had ushered local night. “If boring, none

  will want to listen. Blandnesses elide.

  But I’ll need you.” “I’m always by your side.”

  48.

  “That’s what I’m counting on, because the truth

  is that I’m mere hired help from here on out.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “The only proof

  that’s needed is that Grandmum’s gone. No doubt

  about it, when a girl is left alone

  she’ll soon become a servant. You know how

  it works.” And then it clicked. He said, “You’ve known

  this whole time that I’d win? You sold her cows

  to go with me, and never come back home.”

  She looked him squarely in the eye. She had

  instinctive flight ingrained in chromosomes,

  and hoped it wouldn’t scare off her comrade.

  “I think,” he said, conspiracy in smile,

  “we’re going to make the most of your exile.”

  49.

  The conversation with his family took

  an insignificant amount of words.

  They said her Grandmum passed, then the rulebook

  of customs by adults was soon referred

  to, and the choice was made that Stella would

  accompany Abu as second-class,

  a housegirl paying own way where she could.

  The Pioneers thus leaped past first impasse

  they’d feared: permission. Getting it had freed

  their tongues to talk in truer words about

  their origins and intentions. To mislead

  about such basic things ran risks. The grout

  preferred back then was pure veracity

  o’er lies’ backdrop, plus pertinacity.

  50.

  Departure morning dust had settled, breeze

  confined itself two feet above the ground.

  Wafts of last scent of loved acacia trees

  would leave the Pioneers with noses drowned.

  The inter-village dala dala came

  on time, because it had no time to come.

  For all things fit in place where time’s reclaimed

  away from watch-hand by mere eyeball’s sum.

  Abu and Stella boarded, fortunate

  to have a seat in van considered treat.

  As kids in cars oft packed are orphans, sit

  on laps or stand with bodies incomplete

  in coming or in going, feet on floor

  with torsos stretched beyond the half-closed door.

  51.

  Their luggage cinched upon the no-rack roof,

  in plaid two-handled plastic bags well-known.

  For prevalence in region was clear proof

  that cheapest way to transport stuff was clone

  the one-use bag, quadruple thickness, and

  add zipper strong enough to hold in roots.

  That morning, as was typical, the land’s

 
tremendous produce sat in sacks, the shoots

  extending past bags’ twine-rope ties and zips.

  The women riding prior to dawn had reaped

  plants stuffed in sack to sell. Their roles eclipsed

  descriptions statisticians tried to keep

  of what is formal work for GDP

  and what is household informality.

  52.

  With infants squeezed by kangas to their chests,

  those women simultaneously ran

  home’s childcare work and finances, no rest

  from cooking, sowing, picking, selling. Man

  held stake in some small sums his wife had brought

  through selling extra produce. That would change

  when cash migrates to phones—they’d longtime sought

  accounting privacy. On seats the range

  of household heroines was fairly wide,

  in patterned prints with proverbs, pleasures such

  as ‘savings never go bad’ or the guide,

  ‘just bit by bit will fill the measure’. Crutch

  for nation was their dedication, an

  adhesive force as fierce as tie to clan.

  53.

  So Abu, Stella, and her puppy BLING

  sat butt-to-butt with all these women who

  brought business to the market. Life’s upswing

  was driving off into emergent blue,

  away from home where Gumi’s mystery

  was faked, where fears were overcome, where speech

  was known, toward lands with faceless history.

  He’d gone for studies’ riches, she to reach

  a place where expectations’ shackles fall.

  Each window peek showed advertisers’ paint

  in blurring colors, roadside sprawl, strip malls.

  Their skipping minds danced freely, no constraint

  in dollar, word, or warrant barred them from

  their rags-to-riches tale: to feast, from crumb.

  54.

  Before they’d left, in accented decree

  their light-skinned Chinese sponsor clarified

  they’d be received by colleague appointee

  in town. He said the air’d be rarefied

  in airplane, that they’d best drink water so

  they not dehydrate, that they’d sit eight hours,

  and that the massive noise was apropos

  of engines big enough to superpower

  a hunk of metal through the sky. How odd,

  Stel thought, not having ever seen a plane.

  Its easy glide through air would leave her awed,

  not knowing pressure can great lift attain.

  Word blast from omnipresent stereo

  engendered new concern: “Ab, where we go

  55.

  no one will understand us.” Bass wave din

  shook dala dala. Bongo beats matched spat

  Swahinglish, lyrics powered by old men’s sin.

  Stel grasped accustomed tongue. “Guess our chitchat

  can be a secret code, then,” he replied,

  “for times we need to talk so no one hears.

  Outsiderness in this case coincides

  with opportunity: words for our ears

  are ours alone. So when we need it we’ll

  ongea Kiswahili, hakuna

  matata. Don’t you think it adds a thrill?

  It’s fun. We’ll learn. And soon we’ll attune a

  quick ear to how they speak. Chinese I’m sure

  is learnable.” (That hope proved premature.)

  56.

  The throughway hustle densified each mile,

  with bustling auto shops, food stands, and bars.

  White-collar signs and other versatile

  small biashara plugged to passing cars.

  Dar es Salaam grew up as port of call

  for traders from the Middle East and from

  much further, even: China did befall

  its shores before da Gama rounded thumb

  of Cape Point in South Africa. Schoolbooks

  forget Zheng He, the Admiral, lived in

  the fifteenth century and overtook

  the seas. He could have conquered. But fleet thinned

  when next Ming emperor’d abominate

  non-Chinese worlds, and closed his border gates.

  57.

  The architecture altered, too, as they

  steered deeper into city sprawl. Stel knew

  that Muslims lived near coast not faraway,

  but less what they would look like. Their debut

  was curvature in building tops, designs

  whose intricate geometry was matched

  where sousing lustrous hues bucked anodyne

  whitewash of plastered concrete. Gone were thatched

  plant roofs, and huts of well-planned mud caked dry.

  Though Zheng He was himself a Muslim, he

  was not the culture conduit implied

  by his arrival first. No, Dar’s esprit

  was clearly from the Middle East. It mixed

  the tongues of peoples it sprung up betwixt.

  58.

  Swahili as a language came about

  when local Bantu language family

  put sprinkled nouns from Arabic throughout

  its lexicon. They fit uncannily

  by making simply one new class of nouns

  for ported words. It matched in syntax and

  in structure what the Bantu spoke. Scale down

  the breadth of words a speaker need command

  to few, with fewer synonyms—voilà!

  A language meant for trade, and quick to learn

  emerged. And thus those following Allah

  could come and talk and trade, go and return.

  Their commerce spread the language nationwide,

  and converse, threaded patchwork distant tribes.

  59.

  But snapping back to scene where Stella sat,

  smooshed sideways, shoulders sloped, the sites she saw

  were sadly sights themselves, some streets showed scat

  on surface, sewage systems never drawn.

  Sans sanitation, public people pooped

  (as privately as possible), perceived

  as practice permanent, for funding drooped

  for pipes and pumps to problems there relieve.

  Installing infrastructure there involved

  injunctions to displace inhabitants,

  insolvent individuals. Unsolved

  was squatters’ illegality. Build fence

  between the poorest and the richest, and

  the wealthy slept in peace in walled dreamland.

  60.

  Their forward progress slowed as van began

  to stop twice each kilometer, then yield

  to standstill traffic. Hawkers’ walks outran

  them. Slower snapshots of the streets revealed

  a section of the population who

  sold stacks of goods identically alike:

  bananas, peanuts, crackers, gum to chew.

  They’d wait to sense some eye contact, then strike

  at passenger in transit van, their look

  as if your purchase were to give them life

  and otherwise they’d starve. At first it shook

  young Stella, who’d seen less-grave urban strife.

  She felt a desperation in the gaze

  not seen in eyes in homeland’s lands of maize.

  61.

  “It’s tough to see, Abu.” “It’s more than what

  we’re used to, yeah.” His rationality

  cut in with explanations: “Better hut

  in village than live here. House gals get tea,

  food and a floor for sleep. Bongo maintains

  a second personality it hides.

  With one it’s farms, and fates fall with the rains.

  With one it’s towns, and what you can provider />
  with self-made jobs.” Described part, though not whole

  of how the migratory tides deprived

  folks fighting for esteemed – yet lowest – role

  that commerce could provide. Yet they survived,

  packed in, found labors, built communities

  contrasting ’gainst witnessed disunity.

  62.

  There lay before her new phenomenon:

  expanse of color corn silk left to dry,

  its texture grainy. Stel’s jaw dropped upon

  the sight it bordered: waves all alkali

  in litmus spectrum. Textbooks gave reprieve

  from disbelief. She’d heard of oceans’ girth,

  in dream alone could ever have conceived

  of space that large not filled with dirt and earth.

  Perhaps as contrast to depravities

  she’d witnessed on the journey into Dar,

  this view for Stel held striking gravity.

  Her lifetime she’d spent hauling water far

  from public tap to home, trudged can by can.

  Her muscles twitched as eyes the water scanned.

  63.

  Its vastness frightened, weight mayhaps as large

  as anything existing ever, she

  believed. That sight caused daydream to discharge,

  a recollection of the nightmare sea

  that flooded mind and land some months ago.

  Their van stopped finally not far from the coast,

  She looked away from water’s dying glow.

  Outside the door stood uniformed man, host,

  the Chinese emissary they’d expect.

  He welcomed them into the beach hotel.

  He whisked them past front desk, “You are both checked

  in, need not worry. Flight tomorrow.” Smell

  delectable passed. “That’s bizarre and new,”

  Stel said. Man smiled, “It’s Muslim barbecue!”

  64.

  Their bags were put in one of many rooms,

  identified by number on the door.

  From catacomblike corridors entombed,

  they thrilled at thought of slipping off to shore.

  Their minds were full and stomachs empty, so

  their noses guided them next door to beach.

  With drop of sun, mere charcoal afterglow

  alight in half-drum barbecues cast peach

  and orange light around. Some kerosene

  in torches on the tables stayed the night.

  They wondered how their lives had quarantined

  them from these salty, spicy odors’ bite.

  The saffron, cumin, cinnamon, and cloves

  of rich pilau blew gently off the stoves.

  65.

  The food was wondrous in its novelty,

  but vista wholly mammoth stole the show.

  The twilight navy struck colossally,

  its undulating waves aped strokes Van Gogh.

  “I…” Stella started saying, then she stopped,