Thomas was convinced that a curse the zeru zeru had put on Ramadani was responsible for his disappearance. The zeru zeru they’d found was an especially powerful one, and if they could catch her and bring her in, Thomas could demand top dollar.
The group traveled to the only village in the area—the one Adimu and Shida had passed through. When they got to the town market, they saw a small crowd and several buses preparing to depart. Amani asked if an embulamaro had taken a bus, and the peanut seller said that he had seen not one but two zeru zerus get on a bus for Dar es Salaam that very morning. Suspecting the man was making fun of them, Thomas asked a woman who was toasting ears of corn the same question, and he got the same answer. They jumped into their car and left immediately.
“We have to be careful. This zeru zeru has incredible powers,” commented Akili. “It can disappear, make a copy of itself, and make an enemy evaporate into thin air.”
Amani nodded, contemplating the road they had in front of them.
* * *
Adimu wandered around the bus station. The only time she had been in a city, aside from passing through with Roman and Martha, was her short “birthday” trip to Mwanza with Charles and Sarah. Now it was evening, and the city was bright with a thousand lights shining everywhere. Buildings, twice as tall as those in Mwanza, ones as high as trees, shaded the paved roads. People walked with their arms full of fabric and plastic bags, worn out suitcases, and screaming children. An indefinable smell mixed with the familiar odors of roasting corn and chicken. Shida would have been scared to death in a place like this, Adimu thought. She felt a pang of sadness and yearning at the thought of her friend. A woman whose face was hidden by a black veil bumped into Adimu and kept walking. Three children skipped behind her. Adimu wondered why the woman was shrouded in black from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. Could she be albino too?
To keep herself from thinking about her hunger, Adimu focused on the shop windows, which mesmerized her. Displayed in them were things she wouldn’t know how to use. She was struck by the objects’ shapes, colors, and prices.
She was overcome with awe by the giant dolls in one shop window when it dawned on her that people walked past her without paying any attention. No one avoids me or stares at me or insults me or spits on the ground. The white woman doctor told the truth: in this city, no one takes notice of the color of a person’s skin. Slowly an unknown sensation took hold of Adimu—it was freedom. She felt light, free from the shackles of a body that had never been accepted by others.
On the opposite side of the street, Adimu saw an adolescent albino boy with a bag over his shoulder. He was wearing shorts and sneakers and a T-shirt of the same green color. Adimu had never considered the possibility that male albino children existed. She had always imagined herself with a friend exactly like her. She realized how shortsighted she’d been.
She crossed the street and followed him from a distance so he wouldn’t notice her. He turned into an alleyway that ran along the side of the bus station and from there into a large grassy area. Adimu noticed something extraordinary: all the boys who were gathered there were albinos. They wore green soccer uniforms with black numbers printed on their backs. Their skin was white like hers. She sat down on the sidewalk, her legs trembling from emotion.
The match began, and Adimu watched as the boys laughed and joked, patted each other on the back and argued. She put on her glasses so she could see them better as she watched them play. She cheered for the team with the boy who had involuntarily led her there. She was so happy she forgot she hadn’t eaten since the morning. Exhausted as she was, she felt her eyelids grow heavy, little by little. She adjusted her position so she could lean her back against the wall of a building but then became afraid. It was so tall. What if it collapses on me? A tree was planted at the center of a dry flowerbed in the sidewalk, and she went to sit under its canopy. I’ll just close my eyes for a moment while the boys play, she told herself as she got comfortable, and at the end of the match, I’ll make friends with them. Her drowsiness got the best of her, and soon she was asleep.
Adimu awakened suddenly with someone squeezing her wrist.
“We’ve got our zeru zeru!” shouted a male voice.
She didn’t have time to be shocked. She saw a flash of gray sky above her as she was picked up and carried into a car.
Thomas stopped the car just outside the city and called Zuberi to let him know the job was completed. When the witch doctor found out they’d caught a female, he couldn’t keep himself from shouting with glee; female breasts and genitals were more desirable than male parts and would be perfect for Yunis. He squeezed Jane with affection and tossed her playfully into the air.
“But how do we keep it from vanishing?” Thomas asked. “And what if it tries to put a curse on us?”
“Trap it inside something that makes it visible,” suggested the healer. “For example, a plastic bag would work.”
“I could paint it or rub mud on it.”
“No, no! Don’t do that! The skin and hair must remain untouched. They are worth their weight in gold!”
Thomas got back in the car, bringing with him a big wad of plastic he’d pulled off the top of a pile of garbage. “Akili, wrap the zeru zeru inside this. It’ll keep it from vanishing,” he said as he took his place behind the steering wheel.
Akili wound the plastic around Adimu, leaving only her head and neck exposed as if she were wearing a transparent, synthetic wraparound dress.
“Damn, there’s not enough,” mumbled the boy. His hands moved quickly as he tried to cover as much of her as he could. Then he took the rosary, looped it on his wrist, and hung it around Adimu’s neck. “God will help us. If He can’t do it with this devil of a phantom, who else can?”
“God will help me, not you.” These were Adimu’s first words since she had been pulled into the car.
“What did you say, ngazu?” asked Amani, turning to glare at her.
“I said that God will help me and not you. Ngazu is a word that doesn’t mean anything, and you all are ignorant,” she replied, enunciating each word. “Do you know what ‘albino’ means?”
They looked at each other with their mouths shut.
“Read this,” said Adimu to Akili, awkwardly working her hand into her pocket to get at the page from the encyclopedia.
He threw a quick glance at the words on the page. To his eyes, she had handed him a piece of paper with rows of black markings on it. He held out the encyclopedia page to Thomas.
The leader of the group would never admit it, but he couldn’t read either. He took the paper, crumpled it up, and threw it out the window.
“You don’t scare me. I’m normal, like you. The things people say about zeru zerus are just stupid legends. I’m even better than you because I know how to read and write, and I’m going to become a doctor,” she continued with a new contempt in her voice. She was free, and she would no longer accept being treated like a monster.
“If what you say is true,” sneered Aki, “how did you disappear into the forest?”
“Ramadani let me go,” she replied.
“Ha! The one whose life was linked to yours let you go? You think we’re stupid enough to believe that?” shouted Akili.
“Shut up,” growled Thomas.
Oddly, Adimu felt safe. If they had wanted to kill her, she knew she’d already be dead. Kondo must have ordered they kidnap me and take me back to the village to marry his son, even if Ramadani doesn’t want that.
Charles did not want Jackob or Zuberi involved in his plans for Adimu so he asked his driver to take him to a healer in Mwanza to help him find her. He needed information from an African who was skilled in the magical arts. Sitting in front of the old witch doctor, he felt like a child being punished. The man asked him about the evil for which he needed a cure, and Charles confessed his desperate financial situation and opened up about Adimu’s kidnapping.
“I-I-I just want to know where she is,” Charles said
.
“I’m sorry; I cannot help you,” the healer replied, shaking his head.
“What do you mean? Aren’t you a shaman?”
The old man looked into Charles’s eyes. It seemed to Charles that the face before him had been shot through with a bolt of compassion.
“We depend on the will of the Spirits, but we are subject to the hands of men,” he said with a sigh. “As is the girl.”
“I beg you, tell me where she is.”
The healer took the white man’s hands in his. His rough palms felt like dry wood, and Charles had a wild impulse to pull them to his lips and kiss them. He could no longer offer sums of money, but he would have borrowed any amount if it meant finding Adimu.
“Sir,” said the old man, “I use the fruits of my land to heal the illnesses of my people. I am a traditional healer. I am sorry; I cannot help you.”
* * *
Ramadani was in no rush to return to Murutanga. He had not spent time in Mwanza since graduating from school and decided—free from his father’s overprotective gaze—to spend a few unscheduled days there to visit with former schoolmates, now married, many with children. He had heard rumors that a few of his friends had continued on to university, which had been Ramadani’s dream. But mostly, Ramadani wanted to visit Josephat, and he knew just where to find him. That morning, before taking the ferry back to Ukerewe, Ramadani went to the university where his friend studied. Josephat welcomed him with a hug and asked him about his life.
“There’s not much to tell,” said Ramadani lowering his eyes, thinking about his time with the desperate headhunters. “What about you?”
“I’m going abroad on a scholarship. After I graduate, I’m going to work with a team of researchers who are studying the HIV virus,” replied Josephat.
“Really? Tell me about it.”
“There aren’t many people here who know the name of the virus that causes AIDS,” Josephat said, looking at Ramadani with his light, light eyes. “I want to do my specialization abroad and then come back to help. There’s still too much ignorance about this disease.” Josephat invited Ramadani to lunch, but he declined.
On the ferry to Ukerewe, Ramadani thought that maybe it wasn’t too late for him. He would try to talk with his father, confess that he didn’t want to succeed him as the village chief, that he had a calling to study and was willing to make whatever sacrifice necessary to realize his dream. Above all, Ramadani would make an appointment to see a doctor, to find out how much longer he had to live.
After the ferry docked, he went home on foot, not wanting his family to know he had returned to the island. Ukerewe was the same as always, although it seemed something subtle had changed, was irreparably lost.
The sun was setting, and the sky was striped purple. Kondo was happy to see his son safe. He looked at Ramadani, and his oldest seemed to be hiding something, a hunch that Kondo couldn’t explain, as if a frosted glass wall had been erected between them.
“My son,” he whispered as he opened his arms.
Ramadani stepped forward and pulled his father’s body toward his.
“Are you cured?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” Ramadani replied firmly.
The following morning Ramadani made an appointment with an infectious diseases specialist at The Fielding Health Center of Ukerewe.
Before opening the door to the medical suite, Ramadani dried his palms on his pants and then wiped them again. He didn’t want to shake hands with the doctor by offering sweaty palms. He was led to an examination room, told to undress, and was examined. After the examination, the doctor asked Ramadani to meet him in his office.
Sitting behind his large metal desk, the doctor read Ramadani’s medical file carefully. Looking in his patient’s eyes, he said, “You’re HIV positive as I believe you know. But do you know what that means?” asked the physician, peering at Ramadani through a pair of metal-framed glasses.
“I have AIDS.”
“Not really. You are only HIV positive.”
“Yes, I have AIDS,” repeated Ramadani.
“I’ll be as clear as possible,” said the doctor. “Being HIV positive does not mean you have AIDS. You can infect other people by having sexual relations without using a condom or through contact with your blood. For now, though, you do not have the disease.”
“Does that mean I’m going to live?”
“You are living now, and you will continue to live a healthy life if you follow the treatment I prescribe for you. This treatment won’t cure you, but it will prevent your HIV from turning into AIDS.”
“How long do I have to live, doctor?” Ramadani asked, which was his most important question.
“If you take the medicine I prescribe, for the rest of your long life.”
55.
Charles leaned his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands. His office building was deserted. He wasn’t able to bring himself to return home that evening. When the phone rang, he was tempted not to answer it, though after a few rings decided to. It might be good news, he thought. And anyway, he did believe in always answering the phone.
“I’m not leaving you because you don’t have a shilling,” he heard the voice of his wife say, “but because you’ve been lying to me. And have been for years. That you honestly believe I married you, followed you from one continent to another, that I gave up my dream of having children…all because I wanted your money is proof that you don’t know me. And that you don’t deserve me.”
Charles produced a sigh, the only sound he was capable of making after receiving such a sharp blow to his gut.
“It’s over,” said Sarah, and she hung up. She had finally looked through her husband’s papers, and she’d found the folder that contained the property seizure. She knew everything.
Charles had the sensation that all the air had been sucked out of the room. With difficulty, he stood up and searched his pocket. He found the key and opened the safe. There was very little left inside—no gold, no cash. Only a few documents, and a gun. He looked at the revolver for a long time, keeping himself a stride’s distance away. He stared at the barrel, the trigger, the cylinder, the ergonomic grip. His hand reached out as if it had a mind of its own. He counted the number of bullets. I only need one.
He returned to his desk, clutching the gun in his hand, and he sat down, setting an elbow on the arm of his chair, the barrel of the gun pointing at the ceiling. Charles inhaled, forcibly lowered his eyelids, and opened his mouth. He focused on the sensation of his wide-open jaws. His lips stretched over his teeth. The hand holding the gun quivered and began to lower. The barrel halted in line with his temple. What would the metal feel like against his skin? he wondered. He imagined the lead boring through his skull. The blood splatter on the wall. His blood. His body sprawled on the table. His funeral. His wife wearing a lost expression, worse than his mother’s. His wife reliving the loss of her father. His desperate creditors. What do I leave behind? A small clinic with my name on some signage. Is that what I’ve lived for?
The sound of the gunshot rang through the air. Charles opened his eyes slowly and touched the ear that had been so close to the barrel of the gun. It was on fire. Fire. A runaway train roared in his head. His eyes traveled to the bullet’s trajectory. It went through the photo of him with President de Klerk, right through his own chest in the image. He looked around at the other photos in the room. His eyes rested on the two Fielding males who had come before him. Their expressions were full of pride and dignity. He pulled the trigger again and again until the barrel was empty and the pictures riddled.
Charles swiveled in his chair to face the windows. Here he was, sharing a room with death, and it had almost succeeded in soothing him, of convincing him to stop the struggle. It was dark outside, and nothing was discernible beyond the glass, but that didn’t frighten him. He had turned his back on death, and the dark of the night held no threat. It, too, was part of life, his new life that would start in that very instant.
Once the gun was back in the safe, he took a cigarette from the case he kept on his desk. “The first after so many years,” he muttered to himself.
He held the unlit cigarette in his right hand, rolled it between his fingers. They no longer trembled. I wanted to protect you, Sarah. I love you, Sarah, Sarah, he repeated over and over. He thought that he heard his wife’s voice. “You never loved me. You loved your power, your money, your success. You don’t know how to love.” Charles opened his wallet and took out the one hundred dollar bill that was inside it. With his eyes fixed on Benjamin Franklin, he set the bill on the table, continuing to roll the cigarette between his fingers—index, middle, thumb. For my mother, I was a reminder of the man who had ruined her life. For my father, I was an unexpected burden, something that had to be tolerated. Not a son. Just one more accident that occurred along the road. Sarah, I’ve never been a good husband. But I want to be, more than anything. And I will try to be a good father.
Charles picked up the lighter on his desk and lit the cigarette. Then he lit a corner of the hundred dollar bill. He spat out the heavy smoke, coughing, and threw the cigarette into the wastebasket with the smoldering money. The flame crackled. He moved the basket to watch the flames grow, spellbound by the fire. He tossed some paper into the wastebasket to help feed the tentacles of the monster. But love is imperfect, isn’t it, Sarah? And the one thing you’re wrong about is that I do know how to love. He would show Sarah that he no longer cared about money. With his foot, he pushed the wastebasket under his desk and let the fire lick at the wood. The flames were climbing up the elephant feet desk legs as he left his office and locked the door. He was killing the monster, burning it. He had been buried in the hardened mud of money, imprisoned for years. And now, suddenly, it rained and, like a lungfish, Charles was coming back to life.
Then She Was Born Page 29