Then She Was Born

by Cristiano Gentili

  “Wherever you want. But I need to rest. Please?” said Shida, her shoulders sagging as she spoke. Adimu could see her friend’s exhaustion. Round pouches had formed under Shida’s eyes, which were rheumy and unfocused. Adimu’s feet, legs, and head all hurt. In the previous weeks, in “prison,” the girls had hardly any exercise, and now they were driving their bodies to save them.

  They hid among some prickly bushes, and Shida took off her shoes. “Just for a few minutes. I promise I’ll get up when you tell me to.” As soon as her limbs touched the soft earth, she fell into a deep sleep, and Adimu, mercifully, let her rest. Adimu wanted to close her eyes as well, but if she fell asleep, too, she knew it could cost them dearly.

  She needed to decide where they would go, and in a hurry. The less time spent on the road the better. She thought about Roman and Martha and wondered what had come of them. She imagined they had met their destiny. Adimu willed her inner strength to propel her forward so she would one day forge the destiny that Nkamba wanted for her. She took her photograph out of her pocket. How she wished Charles and Sarah were her parents! However, they weren’t, and she could not ask them to take care of her and love her forever and ever, as she wanted more than anything in the world. It was one thing to stop by for a visit on her way to the community, and it was another to show up to stay for good. What if they didn’t want her? She had Shida with her too.

  She thought about the two road signs, wondering which was the safest direction to take. She knew the thugs with Ramadani weren’t the only men who hunted albinos. The conversation she had overheard between her grandmother and the white doctor many years before reverberated in her memory. The woman had mentioned Dar es Salaam. She had said that there, children like her—albino children—lived like normal people. She and Shida needed to go to the capital[24]. Her heart, though, continued pushing for Mwanza in hopes of finding the Fieldings. In the heat of her emotional wrenching between heart and mind, Adimu yielded to fatigue.

  When the sun was directly overhead, the girls were awakened by a flock of goats intent on grazing on the bushes in which they were hiding. An elderly shepherd was watching them.

  “I’m hungry,” whispered Shida. Adimu was hungry, too, but had no idea of where to find food. More importantly, though, Adimu was afraid the shepherd might hurt them or, more likely, sell them to someone who would.

  52.

  Yunis had to go into the examining room, alone, with the doctor and his nurse. She wanted to cry. She imagined what the exams might consist of and what questions the doctor might ask. She felt her neck and face grow warm. The nurse led her behind a light blue screen and asked her to undress. In exchange for her traditional red and yellow cotton garb with a floral pattern stamped on the cloth, the nurse gave Yunis a pale green gown made of nearly transparent fabric that was open behind. She was embarrassed and did not want to come out into the exam room with it on. The nurse tried to encourage her, but Yunis’s steps were uncertain, like those of an old woman walking over uneven ground.

  With her legs spread open and her feet in cold metal stirrups, the doctor turned on an enormous light and pointed it between her legs. Fat tears began to roll down her cheeks, collecting in the folds of her neck.

  The nurse held her hand, and the man put on a latex glove and put it there, where only her husband had seen. He touched her breasts. The doctor squeezed her nipples, asking her if she had secretions. Yunis’s mouth opened, though not to speak. How could anything come out of her breasts if she had never nursed a child? she wondered. “No, never,” she replied.

  He nodded.

  She was allowed to dress, and the nurse invited her husband into the room. Yunis knew her husband had never had a medical exam either. The receptionist who had made the appointment explained that he would be seeing a specialist at the same time she was being examined. Yunis wondered if he had gone through a humiliating experience like she had. Where had their hands touched him? Yunis kept her eyes down in shame and remained silent.

  “From my examination, your reproductive apparatus seems healthy, but we will have to wait for the results of the swab and the blood and urine tests,” the gynecologist told them, looking at Yunis. “Your test results, sir, will be ready at the same time.”

  Yunis and her husband left the clinic. They walked without speaking, each tormented by his and her own thoughts.

  A whisper of a breeze revived Yunis. She lifted her head to the sky and breathed. In a few days, she would find out what was wrong with her and if there was treatment for it.

  Later that night, after a long and emotionally exhausting day, they got into their bed. Yunis settled herself next to her husband and fell asleep, hugging him from behind.

  Charles was in his office, defeated by worry. He was unable to summon up the solution to his problems without picturing Adimu. And, yet, he had feelings for the girl; it was useless to deny it. He inserted a small key into the lock on his desk drawer, opened it, and took out a tiny silver box. It contained the strands of Adimu’s hair he had collected from the back of her chair the first time she had lunch at White House. He set the sparkling, delicate strands in the palm of his hand and allowed himself to scrutinize them. When he heard a knock at the door, he ignored it. Adimu’s hair looked like thin strands of gold. He took a single strand and burned it with a large tabletop lighter. It curled up and disappeared, leaving a smell of singed hair in the room. It was not gold. Rather, it was a hair like that from any human. But he had been well aware of that before he burned it. Why can’t I get this girl out of my head? he asked himself. If I help Adimu, I’ll make Sarah happy.

  There was a second knock at the door, then a third and with greater insistence. He stood up quickly, but the door opened before he had time to send the visitor away. Two men crossed the threshold. Following on their heels was his secretary, who was trying in vain to precede them.

  “Who the hell are you?” demanded Charles.

  “Good morning, Mr. Fielding. My name is Robert Marvin, and I am a bailiff for the court of Mwanza,” said one of the men as he leafed through documents in a folder. “It is my duty to present you with this sequestration order regarding your property,” he continued, extracting several papers from the folder and handing them to Charles.

  “Impossible. There must be a mistake.” Charles asked his secretary to leave the room.

  Mr. Fielding sat at his desk and read the documents. It was a standard foreclosure decree and appeared to have legal validity. He reread the court order. He turned to look at his walls: the photo of him with the president of Tanzania, the one with the mining minister when his mining license was granted, the photos of him on his yacht, the photo of him as a child sitting on a stuffed lion in his father’s office, Sarah smiling from a cliff in Cornwall. For a terrible instant, it seemed to him that the memorabilia on his walls were questioning where his life took a wrong turn.

  The child who sat on the lion seemed to be shaking his head in shame. Tears were teeming down Charles’s cheeks like rain hammering the dry earth after a devastating drought. A moment later Charles said to himself, By God, get hold of yourself, man! There is only one thing to do. He told the officials he needed to make two phone calls. They agreed to leave his office. He was, after all, Charles Fielding.

  He contacted the minister of mining and the president of the court in Mwanza. A few minutes later, the cell phone of one of the court representatives—who was now sitting in Charles’s outer office—rang. The man answered, listened, and nodded. In the meantime, Charles opened his safe and took out some cash. American dollars.

  “We’re leaving,” said the man to his colleague as soon as he put away his phone. He knocked gently on Charles’s door, which Charles opened. “Please excuse us, Mr. Fielding, for this unexpected visit. We’re very busy and have to go. It will be at least another ten days before we can consider your situation.”

  “No problem,” replied Charles, handing an envelope to each of them, which they took in exchange for a handshake
.

  Charles sank into an armchair. The faces hanging on his walls went back to being photos. The solution was at hand: Adimu. She will be a good daughter and a happy girl, even with only one arm. She will be rich beyond her wildest dreams. His temples pulsed.

  He rushed out of the office, told his driver he was taking the car, and jumped behind the steering wheel. He’d reach the protected community in Musoma in the shortest time possible.

  Driving at an insane speed, Charles was unable to think of anything other than ending his nightmare. A baby impala stepped into the road and looked at the headlights of the Rolls Royce. There was a dull thud, and the sound awakened Charles from a trance. He stopped, got out of the car, and ran to the body of the animal. It was sprawled on the pavement, mortally wounded. The poor beast was struggling for breath. Blood seeped from its muzzle. Why did I do this? he asked himself. It could have been avoided. He lifted the little animal’s body and set it on the side of the road. He opened the car door and fell to his knees. Charles thought of how Sarah would have cried if she witnessed this pointless death.

  He finally arrived at the protected community in Musoma, road-weary and dusty, his eyes red and swollen. He had not expected the director of the community to tell him that Adimu was not and had never been a resident there.

  “That’s strange,” said Charles. He asked the director for the phone numbers for the other communities. Excluding calls to his wife and closest friends, Charles Fielding hadn’t placed a call that wasn’t for business in years. On that day, he called one community after another. Adimu was not in any of the centers.

  On his way back to Mwanza, Charles thought about the impala, Sarah, and Adimu. “What the hell am I doing? Am I losing my mind?” he asked himself aloud and more than once.

  53.

  When Adimu and Shida finally reached the village, Adimu bought two ears of corn and a small piece of charred chicken, which they tore in half. Then they went to the bus station to get information about transportation to Dar es Salaam.

  “You need to go south,” a street vendor told them. “Have you got enough money for the ticket?” Adimu nodded. “Go wait over there where those people are,” the man explained before he hurried off to sell bags of toasted peanuts through the windows of a bus that was leaving.

  The two girls went where the man pointed and hid behind a pyramid of peeled oranges that were ready to be sold in bags of five. They waited for what seemed like an entire afternoon. Finally, the bus appeared on the horizon, a tiny speck in the distance.

  They stepped onto the bus after the other people got on. Adimu studied the faces of the passengers, one by one, and only when she was certain they’d be safe did she give her money to the ticket seller. She noticed with regret that she had but a few shillings left.

  “How long will it take to reach Dar es Salaam?” she asked the driver.

  “Only twelve hours,” he chuckled. Deep wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes.

  After the girls took their seats, he winked at his colleague standing beside him. In a cheery voice he said, “Today is a doubly lucky day—not one, but two embulamaros on the bus.”

  Shida fell asleep as soon as the bus took off, bumping its way down the road.

  Adimu, who had been sitting forward, her foot swinging beneath the seat, leaned back and began to relax. Finally she could read the pages from the encyclopedia and find out more about that word!

  Albinism is a hereditary, congenital condition that manifests in an absence or reduction of the melanin in skin, hair, body hair, and eyes. It is found in all ethnic groups and in all animal species. It is considered to be one of the most widely spread genetic disorders in the animal kingdom…The parents of most children with albinism have normal pigmentation of their skin, hair, and eyes, conforming to their ethnic group of origin, and they do not have a family history of albinism… Development and growth in children with albinism are consonant with their peers. Intellectual development is normal. Overall health is regular…

  Adimu reread the passage over and over, wanting to be certain to have understood every sentence. She didn’t know the meaning of all the words, but she gleaned that she was considered neither a phantom nor a beast. She would never vanish. She did not have the power to cause bad or good luck. Ramadani had told her the truth. According to science, the blame for her white skin belonged to her parents, not to her. She had done nothing wrong, and she hadn’t caused harm to others: no curses, no witchcraft, no shame. She felt her heart skip a beat and then thump faster than usual. Is this what happiness feels like? A fluttering inside, almost the same as when I’m afraid, she thought. Sefu and Juma might really be my parents even though their skin is black, and Mr. Fielding probably isn’t my father. I wish he were, though it’s better to know the truth. He could be the best adoptive parent in the world.

  She looked at Shida sleeping beside her and set her hand delicately on the back of her head. She wanted to wake her to tell her about the incredible discovery but decided to let her rest. She passed her fingertips tenderly over her friend’s face and the marks where Shida had been beaten. The skin on her wrists was red from rope chafe, and she noticed bruises and scratches on her slender legs. How was she going to take care of this little girl? She didn’t even know how she would take care of herself. She fixed her gaze on Shida’s face. Her pink cheeks were streaked from tears and, although they had dried, narrow strips of brown dust remained. From the window of the bus, Adimu saw a woman shouting at a little boy. He’d started to walk into the road, and she pulled him close to keep him safe. Like a light beaming in a dark room, Adimu understood that Shida would be in danger if they stayed together. It was too dangerous—at least until she found a safe place for them. Her heart broke when she thought of separating from her best friend. It would be better for Shida, though, Adimu knew, to return to her grandparents. If only she had thought of that before getting on the bus. Shida could have gone to Kigoma instead of making the trip home from Dar es Salaam all by herself. Maybe it was better this way. The long trip taking her friend in the wrong direction would make it harder for the hunters to find her. Rocked by the movement of the bus, Adimu gave in to sleep.

  The vehicle stopped abruptly and Adimu awakened with a start. She realized her head was leaning on her neighbor’s legs. She felt her face flush from embarrassment and began to move. The woman set her hand gently on Adimu’s shoulder. Then Adimu remembered what she had just read: she was normal. She was a person like everyone else, and there was nothing strange about a normal girl leaning against an adult. She’d seen other girls her age do it. She relaxed, and shortly before falling back asleep, she turned her face toward the woman’s belly, reached out her arm and hugged her around the hips. Feeling confident about who she was made it possible to trust a stranger.

  The bus driver was tired of staring at the backside of the big truck in front of him. It was slowing him down. His wife and children were waiting for him at home so they could all eat together. He thought about the meat soup simmering in his kitchen, and his mouth started to water. The driver downshifted and pulled out to pass the truck. The motor of the bus strained as it gained speed. Over the crest of a hump in the road, a van appeared, bearing down on the bus at great speed. The driver and his colleague gasped. At the last moment, however, the oncoming vehicle swerved, letting the bus pass. They exhaled.

  “I would never have tried passing if we didn’t have those two zeru zerus on board,” said the driver to his colleague. “I knew they’d bring us extra luck.”

  They finally arrived in Dar es Salaam.

  “We have to split up,” Adimu told Shida as soon as they stepped off the bus. The five words came out of her mouth hard, flat, and cold.

  Shida teetered and shifted her right foot to maintain her balance. Her ears filled not with the chaotic noises of the city bus station but with a high-pitched buzz that numbed her senses.

  “Did you hear me?” said Adimu, grasping Shida’s shoulders with both hands. “We ha
ve to go in two different directions.”

  Shida’s eyes were wide open, unblinking, and she shook her head.

  “You have a family that loves you. They’re waiting anxiously to know how you are, and if they don’t hear from you soon, they’ll die from heartbreak.”

  Shida had never had to choose between the people she loved. The thought of seeing her grandparents, her home, and her goats made her eyes fill with tears of joy, but leaving Adimu would be unbearable. And she was afraid of facing the trip alone, not to mention the night. She sought her friend’s hands. “Come with me.”

  “Don’t behave like a little child,” said Adimu. “Don’t be selfish. Think of your babu and bibi. You’re very lucky to have them. Don’t worry, I’ll come visit you soon, and then we’ll go together to a real community.”

  At the bus stop for Kigoma, they said goodbye. Adimu paid for her friend’s ticket and gave her the rest of the change. Shida got on the bus without looking back and sat in a seat next to the window. She looked down at her feet, and her face appeared rigid.

  Adimu waited for Shida to turn and wave. With a weight in her chest, Adimu walked away.

  It was in that moment that Shida put her face to the window and saw Adimu’s blond hair float among the crowd. She had wanted to call out to her, but a knot in her throat kept her from making a sound. With her eyes, she followed the hair until all she could see was a small white shape, which then disappeared, swallowed up by the colors of the city in motion.

  54.

  Thomas and the rest of the group searched every inch of the forest. They couldn’t find a trace of the zeru zeru. They went back to the compound where Adimu had been locked and found the place deserted. They overturned all the rooms in hopes of finding some clue as to where she might be heading. Ramadani took advantage of the situation and left the headhunters. He had enough. He’d redeemed himself by completing his mission: to save the life of an innocent person. In his mind, he was making amends to Josephat by joining the hunters. That he had the chance to free the girl from Ukerewe made his undertaking all the more meaningful.