“Nothing, I…I promise,” stuttered Adimu, overcome by a sudden wave of emotion.
At least once a day they asked Martha and Roman to confirm that they were going to be placed in the same community, and their affirmative reply guaranteed the girls the necessary dose of daily happiness. Adimu often thought about Charles and Sarah and how much she wanted to see them before she was moved to her new residence. Her request for a meeting with the Fieldings was ignored, and it both demoralized her and added to her increasing sense of anxiety.
One afternoon while Shida was resting, Adimu asked Roman if he had a book she could read. He returned shortly with a thick volume that had many pictures in it. Adimu put on her glasses and began to turn the pages. It was a beautiful book, written in large letters and with magnificent color illustrations. Overcome by the array of stories, she opened to a random page and began to read. After more than an hour, she was sitting in the same position and hadn’t noticed Shida had awakened and was looking at her with interest.
“What are you doing?” she asked with a still-sleepy voice.
“I’m reading,” replied Adimu, turning a page.
“You look funny with glasses!” Shida laughed. “Do you always have to wear them when you have a book?”
“Yes, whenever I read,” she replied with maturity. “Otherwise my eyes hurt.”
“What are you reading?” Shida sat down next to Adimu.
“It’s a beautiful story about a man who has three children. But his wife dies, and they go to live in the forest.”
“And then what happens?”
“He builds a house in a tree for himself and his children. The only way in or out of the house is with a rope ladder. Every day, before he goes to work, he tells his children not to let anyone climb the ladder because witches inhabit the forest. One of his children asks how they can be sure it’s him when he asks for the ladder.”
“And what does the father say?”
“He says that if they hear someone call out ‘Kithengee, Kithengee’ they must lower the ladder and let him climb up. One day, however, a witch, who had been watching them for many evenings and heard the password, imitated the voice of their father and kidnapped the children.”
Adimu paused to show Shida the illustration. “See?” she said, pointing to the page. “This is the tree, and there is the house.”
“What happened to the children?” asked Shida, worried.
“Their father saved them. With the help of the village shaman, he found the witch’s hiding place and killed her and freed his children.”
Reading the book had raised a doubt that Adimu had never completely put to rest. Could Martha and Roman be imposters, just like the witch in the story?
“We’re lucky like the three children,” said Shida, distracting Adimu from her thoughts. “We have a big room all for ourselves. We’re safe, and soon we’ll be in school with many other children who are just like us.” She turned the pages of the book, looking for other pictures.
Adimu did not reply. She understood that it was useless, if not cruel, to alarm her friend. She recalled things Shida had told her—about how she’d always slept next to her grandparents, how in the winter, they prepared her sleeping mat near the fire and let her sleep with a goat to keep her warm. Adimu realized Shida had lived without the fear, shame, or the sense of having been abandoned that Adimu had felt since birth.
Now Adimu understood why Nkamba had never praised her too much or had taken her side often. Her bibi had wanted her to be clever and independent, to shy away from strangers, and not to count on her clan for her survival. Shida, instead, was naïve and sweet. I need to protect her now that she doesn’t have her grandparents, Adimu told herself.
“Don’t you think that Roman and Martha sometimes tell lies?” Adimu asked.
“My grandparents never told lies.”
Adimu decided not to insist. “Do you want to take a walk outside?”
“They told us to stay here,” replied Shida, unable to imagine disobeying an adult.
Adimu went to a window. Better to avoid the door as the adults might be watching it. She dragged one of the rusty bed frames under the window and climbed onto it so she could reach the handle. It squeaked as she pulled it open.
Shida watched her friend’s movements with attention. “Where are you going?”
From the windowsill, Adimu replied, “Outside.”
“Wait! Stay here with me!” Shida begged.
“I’ll be right back.” She jumped down.
Adimu’s first thought was to discover where the adults were. She snuck past the office. Through the window, she caught sight of two men and Martha. They were talking and gesturing excitedly. She moved closer to the window, ready to flatten herself against the wall. She had spied on her peers in the village for years and knew how not to be seen.
Roman was sweating, and he had his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He pulled out something flimsy and rectangular and used it to fan his face. Adimu put on her glasses so she could see better. What she saw paralyzed her. The muscles in her face sagged. They were imposters! Even white people behave dishonestly! Roman was waving a blue envelope in front of his face, the letter he was supposed to have sent to the Fieldings.
Martha looked at him, lifting her eyebrows. Deep lines formed across her forehead. “I thought you’d thrown that away. Why have you kept it?” she asked.
He hesitated. “As a reminder of just how gullible children are,” he said with a mocking smile on his lips. He looked at the envelope and put it back in his pocket.
Adimu moved closer to the wall and heard the man next to Roman say, “We’ll do it when the moon is full. We’ll start with the girl from Ukerewe. We’ll take her into the forest, like the other times.”
Adimu recoiled from the window with such force that she fell backward and onto the ground. Her legs extended out in front of her, and she stared at her feet. Her slip-on sandals flew up in the air and landed by her hand. She turned to the gate, her heart beating as loud as rain on a sheet-metal roof. She ran as fast as she could toward it. The iron gate was heavy, and it took all her strength, plus the strength lent to her by her bibi, to push it open and run away. Her body sprung forward like a cat’s. She paid no attention to the sharp rocks under her bare feet.
Once in the forest, she kept running. And running. And running. She gripped Shida’s hand and murmured encouraging words through her choppy breath. She ran, she flew, and she saw the lush branches that would protect them from the shark, like in Nkamba’s story. She stopped and gazed up at the vegetation of a tree in front of them. The branches were unreachable. A moment before, the plants had been reassuring. Now they seemed to twist and tangle, and she feared they would trap them in their foliage. She heard what sounded like an animal, a rustling that was moving closer. She squeezed Shida’s hand and turned to look at her friend. But Adimu’s hand was not clasping Shida’s; Adimu’s was a tightly closed fist. She was alone.
Adimu returned to her senses. She had run off, abandoning her best friend. She had to go back to bring Shida with her, but if Martha and Roman found out that she escaped, she knew they’d never let her out of their sight. Oh, Bibi, what should I do?
She rested on the roots of a tree to catch her breath as she recalled what had happened the day before. She and Shida had been in the courtyard eating. When Adimu had been distracted, the guard dog had devoured the food on her plate. The dog hadn’t gotten to Shida’s food so Shida offered Adimu hers. The only other person who would give me the scraps off her plate was Bibi. How could she leave Shida behind? “‘Destiny,’ ours will be one and the same, alive or dead,” Adimu declared about Shida to her friend the wind.
She could live in a prison so long as she had a person to love, someone who loved her back. Hadn’t she been living in a cell built of rays of sunlight until only a few days before? Her jailers had been Prejudice, Superstition, and Ignorance. The time she served was Hate, Contempt, and Estrangement.
&nbs
p; She noticed small colorful flowers among the tangled roots. She picked a few. She would pretend to have gone for a walk. She needed to stay calm. It was the only way she’d convince her kidnappers she had no intention of escaping.
An attentive eye spotted Adimu while she was picking violets. He held his gaze on the girl. Akili was hidden and still. He was on patrol. The others were scoping out other areas around this zeru zeru hiding place. The young man had considered jumping on and capturing Adimu, but he was afraid. What if the zeru zeru put a curse on him? He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, swaying in place, trying to decide what to do. If Thomas found out he had let an opportunity escape, he would kill him on sight. However, if the isope vanished, it would end everything. It was wise to wait until one of the others was with him. He would keep his mouth shut. Who would ever know about this lost opportunity? No one. No one. No one, he repeated to himself. He was convinced he made the most intelligent decision.
After having collected a sufficient number of violets to justify her absence, Adimu ambled toward the iron gate as though she had been innocently gathering a bouquet. She heard Martha railing against a guard for not having closed the gate with a chain. Adimu felt a tremble radiate out from her knees as she materialized behind the woman.
“It’s okay,” she said with feigned lightness. “I brought flowers for our room. I didn’t go out through the gate; I went through the wall. I can do it, you know,” she added, sure to make an impression.
The guard took a step back. Martha dropped her chin and lifted her eyes. Her jaw clenched, like a bull ready to charge.
“Who do you think you’re fooling, you stupid girl!” she yelled, slapping Adimu with force.
Roman saw her and jerked Martha’s arm before she could strike again. Adimu was silent, her eyes brimming with tears that overflowed and splashed on the ground, and her upper lip lifted and trembled. The man took her by the hand and walked her back to the dormitory.
“You shouldn’t leave the compound alone,” Roman told her. “I’m going to have to lock the door so you and Shida don’t do such a foolish thing again. Martha was terrified that something had happened to you.”
Adimu didn’t say anything and let Roman take her back to the room where Shida was waiting for her, the book of fables still in her hands. “I’m sorry, I won’t go out again,” Adimu said to Roman before he closed the door.
Night fell, and as soon as Shida was asleep, Adimu slipped out of bed and climbed onto the windowsill. Through the dirty panes, the sky seemed dusty. She was enchanted by the treetops that were reaching to kiss the moon, which was big and yellow like a ripe peach. It was almost full.
49.
From the day Adimu had disappeared, more and more islanders had attended Sunday Mass. Father Andrew continued to invite the faithful to pray for her return. Her disappearance had served to bring the villagers back under the baobab to seek salvation from Jesus, he thought, alleviating some of his guilt for having sacrificed—yes, sacrificed—Adimu.
The inhabitants of Murutanga were consumed with remorse for having permitted the theft of their zeru zeru from right under their noses. “Not a theft, a plunder,” one of the fishermen had specified. The only hope they’d had to improve their mediocre existence was gone. Really, they felt more treachery than regret. Now another community would have the chance to use Adimu to resolve their problems. If they had known this would happen, they would have already chopped off her limbs.
“The only thing worse than our misfortune is knowing our enemies are profiting from it,” said a cassava farmer to the fishermen who were waiting for the wind to pick up.
“Adimu was born on this island, and they’ve stolen her through trickery.”
“It’s not right,” mumbled a middle-aged man, intent on removing the shells caught in his nets.
“Can you imagine what will happen if the fishermen in Mwanza get hold of the zeru zeru?”
“The few fish on this coast will migrate straight into the nets of our neighbors. Thanks to our own stupidity.”
* * *
Yunis lay on the bed next to her husband, worried about Adimu. When she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of being at the lake with Juma. In the dream, they were both unclothed, pregnant, bathing under the golden light of sunset. Yunis watched as the water rolled off her friend’s taut, black rounded belly, under the warm, glowing rays. A sense of peace pervaded her as she thought of her childhood friend. She looked at her own belly and whispered to the creature she felt moving inside her. With cupped hands, she lifted water from the lake and poured it over her breasts and abdomen, feeling it flow toward her groin. She laughed.
She awoke with the sensation of wetness between her legs, and she put her hand where, in her dream, the water had collected. She opened her eyes and leapt from bed at the sight of her dark red blood. She covered the stain with a cloth so her husband would not see it when he awoke, and then she went to wash. The moon was already in the sky, and the night was dark. Yunis shivered in the cool breeze.
She was tired of waiting for Zuberi’s longtime promised zeru zeru. Plus, she knew Adimu was a real baby, and benefiting from the mutilated breasts and genitals taken from a real woman with albinism repelled her. An aunt of her mother had given her the name of a well-known gynecologist who, once a week, received patients at The Fielding Health Center of Ukerewe.
One Sunday, Father Andrew noticed with surprise that Mrs. Fielding was among the faithful. It was the first time she had come to Mass. He gloated. His mission would get recognition if well-to-do white people began attending his Sunday services. The white woman stood out among his fellow villagers like a poppy at the edge of a field of wheat. The usual congregants didn’t take their eyes off her during the Eucharist. Sarah was last in line to receive the consecrated host. When it was her turn, Father Andrew looked into her eyes and smiled, his lips stretched just enough to reveal a thin line of white teeth. He wanted to express to her his appreciation for her support.
Sarah wore a tense expression. Father Andrew held the dish under her chin and the host to her mouth. She kept her lips sealed.
“The body of Christ.”
The words seemed to break into pieces against the woman’s impervious expression and fall to the ground as dust. Sarah stared at the priest; he looked at her hands. Maybe she wanted to hold the host herself, he wondered. The woman opened her palms and lifted them, showing him a lemon candy. She unwrapped it in front of the shocked priest, put it in her mouth, and returned to her place. At the end of the service, Sarah remained seated and waited for the others to leave. The priest went to her.
“Do you think I offended your God more than you have?” she asked before he could say anything to her. “I had heard people speak highly of you. Instead, I see someone who is poor in feelings and rich in ambitions, like most everyone here,” she added, sweeping her arm to indicate the huts in the village as well as the mainland.
Father Andrew’s right eyelid began to twitch, and his mouth closed so tight that the skin above his chin puffed out.
“How could you give your consent to the marriage of a child?” Sarah said with a trembling voice. She stood up and walked away, leaving him petrified that she found out.
From the moment, Sarah had heard of Adimu’s disappearance, she had been unable to think of anything else and began her firsthand investigation. She had received confidential information from her faithful cook who, for her part, had overheard a conversation between two coworkers at White House. They had spoken of a secret—how Father Andrew had given his consent to the preteen’s marriage.
A dark sense of guilt, which grew greater as each day passed, hounded Sarah. Anger and frustration were driving her crazy and, on that Sunday morning, she allowed herself the small satisfaction of morally slapping one of the people she held responsible for having sealed Adimu’s fate.
Above all, she was angry with herself. She could have done more for Adimu if she had been braver and more independent of Charles.
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Father Andrew tried to rationalize his sin. He asked himself how a white woman could possibly know what was best for his parish. The marriage might have been a small step forward for Adimu, and, in any case, she had disappeared before the exchange with Kondo had taken place. It was useless to torment himself over the opinion of some privileged white woman. What does she understand? The important thing was the number of people who attended Mass. Each Sunday more worshippers were praying under the baobab than the week before. His words rang in the souls of his brothers and sisters more strongly than the church bells in the town of Mwanza. His preaching directed his people on their path toward the Lord. What more could he want? Only one thing: Adimu’s return.
Charles had to be sure that the healer was not involved in the girl’s kidnapping—not even indirectly. The visit by the Mwanza police had upset him.
“Don’t concern yourself, Mr. Fielding,” said Jackob, when his boss approached him. “The police have spoken with everyone who knows Adimu. However, if it makes you feel better, I will speak with Zuberi.”
But Jackob didn’t. It was not necessary, he assured himself more than once. They were already in agreement about finding a nobody, possibly a terminally ill one. Possibly…though not necessarily. Moreover, Jackob was certain the witch doctor wasn’t involved in Adimu’s disappearance. It was prohibited to decide the fate of a member of the community without authorization from the head of the village and the clan elders—Zuberi wouldn’t have taken her without Kondo’s consent.
A few hours after the conversation with his employer, Jackob called Charles.
“Sir, you have nothing to worry about. I contacted Zuberi as you requested,” Jackob lied. “And, as I thought, he had nothing to do with Adimu’s abduction. In fact, I have heard from the director of the protected community in Musoma that she is a guest there. For now, this fact must remain confidential as it seems there was a group of hunters following her, and we wouldn’t want to tip them off about her whereabouts.”
Then She Was Born Page 26