She checked to make sure she was not being followed and kept close to the perimeter wall. She stopped for a moment, thinking she could hear her grandmother’s voice in the darkness of their hut.
“At the end of the ocean there was a great tree…”
It was one of the fables Nkamba used to tell her at bedtime, the story of the monkey and the shark, and Adimu remembered that the shark tried to trick the monkey to eat her. In the end, the monkey was the smarter of the two because she came up with a way to convince the shark to let her go.
Though Adimu realized the only way out of that place was through the metal gate, she wondered if she’d be risking her life if she attempted to escape through it. Instead, like the monkey, she could devise a ploy to escape. Her attention was drawn to a lizard that had worked its way through a crack in the wall. She moved slowly toward it to touch its tail.
The lizard was completely still. Just as Adimu was about to catch it, a shadow much bigger than hers projected onto the concrete wall. Roman was there, smiling. He put his hands on her shoulders as if about to hug her. She posed no resistance and closed her eyes, froze, just like she’d done many rainy seasons before when she was hiding with the bags of grain at the mill. Just like the lizard had a few moments before. Her bibi was reminding her to use the tricks of nature to let the Spirits help her.
The man’s arms held her against his adult body, a pillar on which her future was leaning. She opened her eyes enough to see the soft cotton of his shirt pierced by the sunlight. She could smell the clean fabric, pleasant like flowers in a field.
“It’s against the rules to go out. It’s for your own good,” said Roman with a reassuring voice. “This is only a waiting place. Soon other children will come. Then we can all go together to the community. Don’t worry,” he added, patting her head.
Adimu clung to the man. If the adults wanted to hurt us, they already would have, she told herself. Why doubt what he says? His embrace is like Sarah’s. And besides, now I have a true friend to consider. Shida is younger, more afraid and less experienced than I am. She needs my help.
* * *
The islanders extended their search for Adimu beyond the confines of Ukerewe. Residents of Mwanza and other towns along the coast were contacted to find out if they knew of her whereabouts. Few people were convinced that the zeru zeru used its supernatural powers to vanish. If it had been able to do so, it would have done it a long time before. Several sailors who worked on the Ukerewe ferry confirmed the presence of an embulamaro going to Mwanza.
“It was traveling with a white man and a Tanzanian woman; the mzungu paid for the tickets,” confirmed the deckhand.
The theory that it was Mr. Fielding was eliminated immediately: The sailors knew him well and swore it was not him. “A foreigner, I said,” explained the captain of the boat, raising his voice to dispel any doubt.
At first the most probable supposition was that the two adults were part of an association for the protection of albinos, though the authorities stated that the possibility of a kidnapping could not be excluded. Word was that a foreign white man ran the most active organization in the trafficking of zeru zerus.
The Ukerewe police contacted the seven protected communities in the country. None of them had Adimu among their residents. “The associations for the protection of Africans with albinism work in coordination with the families,” said the director of the community in Tanga to the commander of the local police station. With that information added to the mix, kidnapping seemed the most likely explanation for Adimu’s disappearance. Someone had sold the zeru zeru. The inhabitants of Ukerewe began to wonder who among them was the traitor. Suspicion spread like an oil spill in the sea, suffocating friendship and solidarity with its stench and sticky consistency.
After hearing all of this, Kondo and Sefu knocked on the same door—Zuberi’s. Each wanted to know where Adimu had gone. Zuberi carried out the same magic ritual for each man, the one that matched up with requests of this type. He slit an adult cock’s throat, soaked a rough piece of fabric with its blood, and then sprinkled it with a powder that contained lion teeth and sheep teeth, cat claws, and a bat paw. Sefu was informed his daughter’s kidnapping was tied to someone who had changed his mind about Adimu. To Kondo, Zuberi said money was the motive, and a man was earning a heap of it from the disappearance.
Sefu began to harbor doubts about Kondo. Kidnapping the embulamaro would have been convenient for the village chief. That way he wouldn’t have to pay the agreed upon price, nor would Adimu enter his home and ruin his reputation.
In turn, Kondo suspected Sefu. He imagined he received a better offer for his zeru zeru from someone in another village. The zeru zeru had been seen with a white man, and Zuberi had spoken of a large sum of money. There had to be a politician involved or a very, very rich mzungu.
The inhabitants of Ukerewe chimed in with their opinions about the kidnapper.
“The white shadow is something that belonged to the father, and he could do with it as he wants,” said an old farmer as he swept the dirt in front of his wares at the market.
“If it was that shaman, his actions will not be forgiven,” said another villager, shaking his hands at the sky.
“How could Zuberi take advantage of our good faith and speculate on our misfortunes?” wondered a cassava farmer, his voice full of resentment.
“Sefu and Zuberi must be earning money behind our backs,” grumbled a peanut seller as he toasted nuts over a metal drum.
A group of fishermen held the suspicion that Adimu was in the hands of the most desperate of their trade. In an attempt to collect proof to support their hypothesis, three of them went in the night to check among the nets for amulets made from the remains of an isope. They did not find anything to confirm their hunch.
Since the day Adimu disappeared, there was not a single family in the village of Murutanga or the entire island of Ukerewe who, during the evening meal, did not discuss what had happened. People spoke of nothing else. Bad feelings and gossip passed from one mouth to another, poisoning everyone’s thoughts.
47.
Mr. Fielding scanned his office at the mine that was producing gold. Within those four walls, his word was law; there, he was all-powerful. It was forbidden for anyone to enter his room unless he was present or they had his permission. The office could be cleaned only in Jackob’s or the secretary’s presence. The objects that best represented him decorated it. There were testimonials to his financial successes and some items with sentimental value, such as his desk made out of a door that came from South Africa and dated back to the time his great-grandfather had immigrated. It was a thick piece of ebony, carved with an abundance of detail, and was protected by a piece of glass that was polished every day until it shined like a mirror. The wooden panel rested on four taxidermic elephant legs, amputated at knee-level, belonging to a pachyderm shot by his father on one of his many hunting expeditions. The tusks of the last elephant he had killed shortly before hunting was banned in the new state of Zimbabwe decorated the armrests of the desk chair. Towering behind his chair was a photograph of Charles with President de Klerk. The walls held mementos of some of the most significant events in Charles’s life—his wedding, the day he received his degree, and his framed diploma from Oxford. Behind his wedding photo, in a frame larger than the others, was a small safe that contained cash, documents, and a .38 caliber pistol.
Charles was on the telephone with a real estate agency in Dar es Salaam, negotiating the sale of his house on Ukerewe. The man on the other end of the line was driving him to lose his patience by insisting on a ridiculous price for a home worthy of a king. In frustration, Charles snapped a pencil in two.
Indeed, the day had begun badly and seemed to be getting worse. Along the road to the mine, he had seen his first and last name written in red paint on a wall, followed by advice that he go fuck himself. It was written in English, which meant the author had wanted to be certain that Charles received the message.
As soon as he had reached the office, Charles gave instructions for the grounds janitor to scrub off the writing on the wall. All the muscles of Charles’s face were tight. His chin was contracted and pulled downward as he closed the door to his inner office. He had seen tangible proof of how his reputation had worsened. No longer was he the people’s savior, an angel fallen from the sky. He was viewed as an imposter. He was several months behind in paying his employees’ salaries and was forced to lay off workers.
He was still on the telephone with the real estate agent when he heard a loud commotion and shouting from the outer office. Among the voices was his secretary’s. He put a hand in his pocket to find the key to the safe and with the other he held the phone receiver. All at once, as if pushed by an ocean wave, his office door swung open. The hinges heaved, and a horde poured into the room.
Charles dropped the receiver, petrified. Twenty, thirty, forty people pressed up against him, trampling his precious carpets, pressing their palms onto the immaculate glass of his desk. For ten long seconds, Charles was unable to understand who the mendicants invading his inner sanctum were. He finally recognized several faces and realized they were his employees, miners with their wives and children who had come to demand their salaries. In Swahili, in English, in a multitude of local dialects, each one shouted the same thing: “Pay us! Master, where is our money?”
The women, many of them with babies in slings on their backs, others with newborns at their breasts, shouted more than the men and waved their arms. Some of the bigger children laughed with excitement, others held their fathers’ hands and were silent, staring at Mr. Fielding with a fearful expression. One child did not take his eyes off Charles’s face, and when their eyes met, it was the adult who lowered his head. In those young pupils that were black as the wings of a crow, Charles saw many questions that he did not know how to answer, questions he didn’t want to ask himself.
Very few of the miners had taken off their hardhats. No longer did their boss deserve respect. Too many of them had been fired, underpaid, or didn’t have a shilling to buy flour. “We don’t belong to you anymore,” one older man said.
Charles was sweating and his breath came out in short gasps. With relief, he recognized Jackob’s face as he pushed his way through the crowd, encouraging everyone to calm down. Reassured, Charles felt a flash of hilarity. Before him was a jumble of unsightly, colorful people set in the baroque frame of his priceless designer pieces. “Open the window,” he whispered to Jackob when his assistant got near enough. The sense of hilarity passed, and what remained was crushing claustrophobia. He loosened his tie and unfastened the first button of his shirt.
Jackob acted as mediator for half an hour. One of the miners, certainly the most courageous, threatened to attack the mine, to occupy it, and confiscate whatever they could extract. “This is our land, not yours!” he shouted at the white man.
With the help of two men from security, Jackob was able to placate the crowd and usher them out. Charles, left alone in his office, was overcome by a sense of despair. He had to find a way to stitch up the gash out of which the mob had spilled.
“Charles, you have to pay them,” he said to himself aloud. The scourge of being hated prodded him to admit that his employees were worth much more than the arm of a phantom that was about to die of cancer anyway.
Later that day, Sarah saw embarrassment scrawled across the faces of Charles and Jackob as soon as she walked into her husband’s office. Charles, who was seated at his desk, was startled when he saw her. Jackob clumsily hid the paper he was holding, covering it with a magazine that was on the desk. Their unfinished conversation hung in the room.
“Were you speaking badly about me?” She smiled, closing the door and stopping midway into the room with her hands clasped in front of her. Charles, having recovered from the initial surprise of her visit, smiled back. Sarah, who was wearing a pair of wide-leg trousers and a tight blouse, looked like a teenager.
“Darling, come in!”
“If you prefer, I can come back later,” she said, moving toward the desk to glance at the paper Jackob hid.
“Jackob, tell her what we were discussing,” Charles said to his assistant.
Jackob, surprised, looked at Charles for confirmation.
Charles nodded. “Please, Sarah dear, sit down.”
“This is a list of the protected communities that have zeru zerus,” said Jackob with hesitation.
Sarah’s mind shot out of the starting gate at a gallop. She thought of the ragged, fearful children who lived at the community in Shinyanga. Sadness, poverty, solitude, neglect, ignorance.
Sarah squinted. “People with albinism, not zeru zerus, Jackob,” she said, setting a hand on his forearm.
Jackob bowed his head, recognizing his error.
“Charles, you’re not planning to place Adimu there, are you?” Sarah looked at her wrists. She could still feel the guard’s forceful grip that left purplish marks on her delicate skin.
Charles, seeing a mask of melancholy blanketing her face, got up from his chair, went around the desk, and hugged her from behind. As he did, his eye caught sight of a small handprint on the glass tabletop, a remnant the cleaning attendant had missed when he disinfected and polished the furniture. Charles thought of the boy who had stared at him, the one who seemed to be made of stone.
Sarah sighed deeply, and Charles turned to look into her soft eyes. “Do you want to help Adimu?” asked Sarah, who stood, lifting herself onto her toes to nuzzle her face between her husband’s neck and shoulder.
“I already am.”
“If you really want to help, send her somewhere better than a protected community.”
Charles gently pulled away from his wife while resting his hands on her upper arms. “Adimu has disappeared,” he said. “It seems she was last seen in the company of a white man. I was asking Jackob to contact the communities to find out if she’d been spotted. The police have already called them but without success. I prefer to check myself.”
Charles had hoped the little girl would swiftly and safely be returned to her small mud hut and his wife would never need to find out about her disappearance.
Sarah gasped and tried to free herself from her husband’s grip, but Charles didn’t let go. He pulled her into an embrace. Her face froze with the exception of her quivering lips.
How many unpleasant emotions can arise in a single day? Charles asked himself.
That morning, before the employees’ incursion, the police had been at the entrance to the mine. The two officers knew who he was. “Excuse me, Mr. Fielding?” one of the policemen asked.
“I know Mr. Fielding,” responded Charles. “He’s here, but he’s not here. How’s that for an answer?”
The policemen understood that between the lines Charles was saying, conclude your business rapidly and with respect and discretion.
Better to perform their duty close to home than count banana trees and listen to Kalashnikov bullets whizzing through the air on the border of the Congo. Everyone in Mwanza knew the white man in the light suit was one of the most powerful in the country, and they had heard about the stupid mistake their colleagues in Shinyanga had recently made.
“We will disturb you only for a moment, sir,” the man said mildly. His partner nodded. “Do you know an albino girl named Adimu who lives on Ukerewe? Have you seen her recently?”
“What’s happened to her?” asked Charles.
“She’s been missing for three days, sir,” the policeman informed him. “She was last seen with a white man and a Tanzanian woman. We are from the Mwanza district headquarters, the missing persons and homicide division.”
“I know the girl. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen her since she’s been reported missing,” Charles responded.
The agents thanked him and left quickly. Charles focused on his breathing. The muscles in his stomach were tight as a fist. I’m looking for an albino too, he said to himself. God, I hope I didn’t give anythi
ng away. What if this is the police’s way to keep an eye on me?
“Is it true that Adimu has disappeared from the island?” Charles asked Jackob right after the employee uprising.
“Yes, sir, into thin air.”
“Why didn’t you inform me of it?”
“Because…well…” Jackob was trying to come up with a good excuse. “I thought it was just temporary.”
Charles went to his desk and sat down. “The visit by the police has got me concerned. This isn’t the moment to make waves. Wait a few days, and then tell Zuberi to start the hunt again for a terminally-ill albino.”
Jackob was pleased with himself. He had made the right decision about not going to Zuberi. He knew his employer well.
48.
“I’m bored,” said Adimu.
“Me too,” said Shida tugging on a thread at the hem of her dress.
They had been told to stay inside the dormitory from sunset until early afternoon. “It’s for your own safety,” Roman and Martha had said. They were allowed to spend a few hours outside in the afternoon, in the presence of the two adults and the guard, so long as they stayed within the walls.
The girls entertained themselves by running after the hens or, when it was too hot, walking hand in hand in the shade along the perimeter wall. The tickling game was Adimu’s favorite way to pass the time with her new friend. They touched and explored each other with the curiosity of two small animals that had been kept in isolation. It was fun to roll on the ground, laughing without fear of being rejected or blamed.
“Nothing can ever come between us,” promised Shida.
Then She Was Born Page 25