Golden Boy

by Tara Sullivan

  I squint between the branches of the tree. The moving shadows of the leaves in the breeze make it hard to see well, but since they also make me hard to see, I’m not complaining. The house is set forward, with a large open space behind it cluttered with objects, surrounded by a beaten dirt yard. I can’t tell what the shadowy objects are from this distance, but they’re not moving, so none of them are dogs or children, that much is clear. The house is a little bigger than some of the others I’ve passed, so I won’t be taking food from a poor person. Just beyond the house I see a small cooking fire, tended by a lone old man. The breeze suddenly changes directions, and the smells of a perfect dinner wash over me: cornmeal, peppers, meat. I sniff appreciatively. Even better, the old man is inattentive. With the light of the fire shining on his face, I can see from here that he’s just staring off into nothing while he waits for his dinner.

  A distracted old man with a gift for cooking. Perfect. If I can sneak up on him, I can take some food and be gone before he even notices I’m there. He’s so absentminded, I bet he won’t even notice the missing food. I bet he’ll think the money he finds was just money he dropped one day. I laugh silently to myself as I picture his baffled face. And if I don’t manage to sneak up on him, I can just throw the money at him, grab the food, and take off. I’m no athlete, but I still think I can outrun a skinny old man. I smile. Yes, this is perfect. Silence, stomach, I command. I’m off to get you your dinner!

  My stomach, obligingly, doesn’t grumble even a little as I slink across the road in the deepening dusk. A quick look tells me that I haven’t been seen by any of the neighbors. Then it’s up a second tree and over the wall into the yard. My feet land with the tiniest of puffs in the dirt.

  I’m surprised by how easy it is for me to cross the yard. For an old man living alone, he has the area swept so neatly that the dust lies in an unbroken sheet in all directions. Not so much as a twig to crack underfoot as I sneak over to the wall of the house and crouch down in its shadow.

  Wrapped again in a double darkness of night and shadow, I feel invincible. I slide one foot in front of the other along the wall, making no more noise than a snake on sand. Bending forward slightly, I peer around the corner of the house. The old man is sitting between me and the fire with his back to me. I plaster myself to the side of the house and wait for him to do something. My breathing is as soft as moth wings. I wait.

  After all the days spent running, it makes me feel powerful to be on the other side of the hunt, waiting for a sign to pounce. I’m hungry, though, and every minute of waiting is almost painful. My mouth is watering at the smells, and I have to push my fists into my belly again to keep it from grumbling and giving me away. If only the old man would move! In the entire time I’ve been watching him, he has sat in the same position, staring off into nothing. I wonder if he’s in some sort of a trance. This thought makes me reconsider my plan. If he’s a mganga in a trance, he could be really dangerous. I shuffle back a few steps and look in through the window where the moon is shining on his possessions. I see nothing in there that looks at all like medicine or magic. I breathe a sigh of relief and creep to the corner and peek around again. So he’s only a batty old man, lost in thought. I’ll simply have to wait him out.

  Just when I’m beginning to think that I’m going to die of hunger, or old age, or both, before I get any dinner, the old man finally moves. He pushes himself slowly off the ground, dusts off his hands, and turns and walks into his house. For a moment I hesitate, confused by his actions. Why would he leave his dinner out in the yard without eating it? Then I realize he must have forgotten a spoon or a bowl or something and gone to get it.

  I couldn’t have created a more perfect opportunity. Reaching into my shirt, I pull out enough shilling notes to cover a homemade meal and ball them in my fist. I’ll drop them on his stool by the fire, and then I’ll grab his pot and leave it, empty, by his door tomorrow. A slow smile creeps across my face at my own daring, and I slink forward, ready to place the bills on the stool. I reach toward the pot, eager to eat.

  And that’s when a long, hard stick crashes over my shoulders. I fall down from the force of the blow, crying out in pain.

  Whack! The stick whistles through the air and I pull my arms up over my head to protect it. Whack! Whack!

  “Stop!” I shout.

  “Stop?” barks a strong voice. “Stop? Why should I stop beating a thief?”

  Whack!

  “I’m not a thief!”

  “Huh. A thief and a liar!” Whack! Whack!

  “No, really, I was going to pay for the dinner! Look! Look at the money in my hand!”

  There’s a pause in the beating. I peek up through the tangle of my arms and see the old man looming above me, his hands holding the stick high over his shoulder, his head tilted slightly to the side.

  “What are you talking about?” The muscles in his arms relax a little, and he rests the stick against his shoulder.

  I’m so grateful to see him lower the stick, even a little, that I start to blubber.

  “I was hungry, and I didn’t know where to go. I don’t know the city and I don’t know where to get food, so I decided to take some from someone . . .” I see his hands tighten on the stick and I rush on. “But not to steal it! I was going to leave money on your stool, enough money to pay for the meal. Really, I would have, it’s right here in my hand. See? I was going to leave that and take the food because I was hungry and didn’t know where else to go, and your food smelled so good from the road and . . .” I realize I’m rambling and beginning to repeat myself, so I just trail off. I extend my hand toward him, shaking a little. “You can have the money anyway if you like, Bwana. Just please don’t beat me anymore. I wasn’t trying to steal, I promise.”

  Nothing happens for a moment as I hold my hand up in the air, clutching the fistful of shilling notes, and he stands above me, still as a statue. I’m afraid he’s going to start hitting me again. I push the money out against his leg.

  “Take it,” I say, cringing.

  The moment I touch his leg, one of his hands darts down from his shoulder and grabs mine. I gasp. I definitely picked the wrong old man to rob. This one has the strength of an ox. His large, calloused fingers close over mine like a trap, tight and hard. Then his eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

  “What’s this?” he asks.

  “The money, Bwana. The money I was going to leave for the dinner. See, I wasn’t lying.”

  The old man makes a funny noise in his throat. It might be a growl. It might be a laugh. I shove the shilling notes into his hand and pull my arm over my head again in case he decides to keep beating me. Instead, he raises the shilling notes to his face and sniffs them. I watch him, baffled. Then he lowers the stick to his side, one hand still leaning on it, but no longer outwardly threatening.

  “So, you really were going to pay for the food?”

  Now that my initial terror is over, I can feel every burning welt left by his stick on my sun-tender skin. My arms and back scream with pain, and my forearm with the knife cut from Alasiri has started to bleed again. I begin to feel annoyed at this man. This man who hits so hard with a stick and then is too stupid to see the money I’m holding right in his face.

  “Ndiyo!” I snap, a little more curtly than is probably wise. “I said I was. You have the money, you can see for yourself!”

  “Hmm,” says the man. I can tell from the way he’s holding his shoulders that he still doesn’t believe me. “No, that still doesn’t make sense. If you’re so willing to pay for food, boy, why didn’t you buy food from a street vendor? Why steal an old man’s dinner in the dark? No, that is the work of a thief.”

  This really makes me lose my temper, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m scrambling to my feet and yelling at him.

  “I. Am. Not. A. Thief!” How dare he insult me, even after I’ve given him the money? “How am I supposed to
buy something, Bwana?” I snap. “I have no idea what the people in this city think about people like me. I couldn’t just go up to a street vendor.”

  “What do you mean, boy, people like you?”

  I stare at him dumbly. I know it’s dark, but we’re right beside the fire, and even I can see the slight glow coming off my white skin. Then I understand. This old man is mocking me. He’s standing there, holding my money in one hand and a stick to beat me with in the other, and he’s playing word games with me. I begin to hate him.

  “If you can’t see for yourself what I mean, then I’m hardly going to tell you!”

  The old man cocks his head slightly at me, hearing my hostility.

  “Well then, I guess I won’t ever know,” he says. Slowly, he stretches out his arm and offers my money to me. I hesitate for a moment, then take it. It may be a trap, but I need that money. He lets me take it, then drops his arm to his side. I clutch the money tightly against my chest and start backing up.

  “What do you mean?” I ask when I’m out of range.

  “I mean, boy, that I will never know. You have just said you will not tell me, and I cannot see for myself what you mean.” His sudden smile surprises me. It’s as if he’s about to tell a great joke and is anticipating the ending. “I am blind.”

  I stare at him with my mouth hanging open like a fish. Of all the things I expected, this was not one of them. Not from a man who could hit so hard and so accurately. Not from the man who, just a moment ago, had me curled on the ground, begging him to take my money. My brain cannot process what he just said.

  The old man’s laugh fills the silence like the October rains: a quick burst, then gone. He shuffles to his stool, using the stick to find it, and then sits down.

  “So, boy-full-of-secrets-who-is-not-a-thief, would you like to join me for some dinner?”

  I can’t help it. I laugh. And although it stretches my bruised shoulders painfully, it feels so good, I do it again. The old man’s smile catches the firelight.

  “Ndiyo,” I say, hiccuping. “Thank you, I think I would.”

  14.

  I lower myself gingerly onto the dirt beside the old man’s stool. He serves out a portion of his dinner for himself, and then scoops some into another bowl for me. It’s killing me to wait until he’s done eating, with the bowl sitting in my lap, filling my nose with dreams of goat, chilies, and corn, its warmth seeping into my thighs. I try not to drool. And then I laugh, realizing I could drool all I want: The old man is blind!

  “What’s so funny, boy?”

  I collect myself quickly. “Nothing, Bwana. It’s just that my evening isn’t turning out at all like I expected it to.”

  The old man smiles. “No, I’m sure it’s not! It’s not every day that a young boy like you gets beaten so soundly by an old man like me.” And now he’s laughing, too, and even though it’s at my expense, I join in. Then he says, “So, you’re a polite boy; I can hear that you’re waiting to eat until I’m done.”

  “Ndiyo, Bwana,” I say, surprised.

  “Hmph. Excellent. Well, while you wait, you should do something with that mouth of yours. If you won’t fill it with food, fill it with words.” He waves his left hand in my general direction. “Keep your secrets if you want, but tell me something else.”

  “What else, Bwana?”

  “Smart boy like you should be able to come up with something. Tell me about yourself.”

  I am momentarily baffled. I’ll keep my secret, but without saying I’m an albino, I don’t know what to tell him about myself. It has always been the first thing everyone saw about me, the most obvious way I thought about myself. To tell my story without talking about the way I look is strangely difficult. The old man gives a little grunt to remind me he’s waiting. I shake my head and begin talking.

  “Well, my name is Dhahabo, but everyone calls me Habo for short.” I pause.

  “Gold,” the old man grunts. “Unusual name.”

  I don’t explain why I have it.

  “My name is Kweli,” he says. “Everyone calls me Kweli for short.”

  I can’t help but laugh again. Somehow this makes it easier to go on.

  “My family and I used to live in a small village outside of Arusha, but my father left when I was young.” I feel like I’m telling only half the story and the pieces fit together oddly, forming a picture I barely recognize. “When our farm failed in the drought, we had to go to Mwanza, where my mother’s sister lives with her family.”

  “That’s a long way. How did you get there?”

  This part is easy. Our trip across the Serengeti doesn’t have much to do with me, and so I tell him all about Enzi staying behind to finish the coffee picking, running out of money for the bus, and walking across the game lands until we met Alasiri. I choke a little on his name, remembering too late that some people believe saying a person’s name can call them to you from far away. I don’t know if I believe that, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. I curse myself for being so stupid. Kweli notices my stutter.

  “You didn’t like this man?”

  “No, I didn’t. I don’t. He came and found us later and tried to hurt me.” Again, half the story. I rush on before the holes in my story seem too big.

  “So I left my family and took the train from Mwanza to Dar es Salaam. I arrived yesterday and I’ve been walking around the city since then, and tonight I tried to take food from the wrong old man.”

  Kweli’s laugh barks out again at that.

  “And what, boy, did you plan to do here in the largest city in Tanzania, other than steal dinners from helpless old men?”

  My mouth is open, but no words rush out. The weight of a thousand unplanned days crushes my lungs. My voice, when it comes out, is high and fragile, like a small child’s.

  “I . . . I didn’t have a plan.”

  “What?” Kweli’s head snaps up. “You paid good money to travel halfway across the country with no plan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any family here?”

  “No.”

  “Any friends?”

  “No.”

  “Any skills other than dinner thieving?”

  “No.” My voice is barely a whisper. “And I’m not even very good at that.”

  Kweli chews in silence for a moment while I study the fire. Then: “Does your family know where you are?”

  This is a dangerous question. I barely know this man. To tell him that I’m all alone in the world and no one knows where I am seems unwise. It would highlight just how vulnerable I am. I lie.

  “Ndiyo, they do.”

  Kweli gives another hmph, this one in a tone that tells me he doesn’t quite believe me, but he doesn’t challenge me. For being blind, this old man sees far too much.

  “Eat,” he says when he finishes his bowl, and I do.

  The food is as delicious as it smelled, but I don’t appreciate it nearly as much as I should. My brain is still too busy thinking about the problem Kweli has set in front of me to be able to completely enjoy the stew. I chew in silence, and for a while there is nothing but the soft hiss and pop of the wood in the fire and the bellowing of tree frogs in the bushes.

  I’m nearly finished when I hear a sigh. I look up in surprise. I’ve been so sunk in my own thoughts that I had almost forgotten the statue of a man sitting next to me in the darkness.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I hear him mutter. Then, loudly, to me, “Boy, what kinds of work can you do?”

  I think quickly. “I can fetch and carry things. I can take care of animals and vegetable gardens . . .” I trail off, hopeful. “Why, Bwana? What do you need done? If I haven’t done it before, I’m sure I could learn. Quickly.”

  “Maybe you can. Maybe you can’t. We’ll see.” There is a tree-frog-filled pause, and then, “It is possible that I have a
few days of work you can help me with. You can stay here and I will feed you in return for your work. That will give you a few days to figure out what you’re going to do and give you a chance to contact your family again.”

  I can’t believe my luck.

  “Thank you, Bwana! Thank you very much! That will be a great help to me. I’ll work hard, Bwana, you’ll see!”

  I realize I’m babbling and shut my mouth, but I can’t suppress the enormous grin that splits my face. Somewhere to stay! Food! And a little more time to figure out what to do with myself now that I’m on my own. As to what he said about calling my family . . . emotions tangle inside me and I don’t know how to sort them out.

  There’s no need to rush into that, I tell myself. Best to leave things the way they are until you know exactly what you’re doing and have something definite to tell them. I’ll wait a few more days and call them then. That’s all I need, I’m sure of it. A few more days to figure out whether Dar es Salaam is a safe place for me to stay or whether I need to keep running.

  When I wake up the next morning on a blanket just inside Kweli’s front door, I’m still smiling. The sun is a bright band on the dirt a few inches from my face, but I can tell from the silence of the house that the old man isn’t awake yet. I suppose sunrise would make no difference to a blind man, but to me it feels like a holiday to still be lying in my blankets when the sun is already up.

  I stand and stretch slowly, letting my bruised muscles uncramp. Even though the packed-dirt floor was hard, I slept better here than I have in days. Every time I woke up in the middle of the night, frightened, confused about where I was, braced to run, I remembered the high wall around me and the fact that there’s no trace of my path through the largest city in Tanzania, and I would smile and go back to sleep.

  Today is the first day I will be doing work for Kweli. How I’m going to do enough work to earn my keep without burning my skin is something I’m not sure about. But, for the first time in a long time, getting burnt is not my main concern. If I have to get burnt to keep my end of the bargain, so be it. No matter what, I tell myself, you have to stay strong and get the work done here. This is too much good luck to pass up just because you’re afraid of a little sunburn.