Kid Moses

by Mark R. Thornton

  At the entrance to the ship hull, he sat. He took off one of his sandals and pried a small goat’s-head thorn from the thin rubber sole. He held it between his fingers and looked at it. He wondered where it was from—the huts, the cave, the place he buried Kioso? He flicked it aside. A strong fist-sized beam jutted out from the hull. It was polished smooth from years of hands touching it or using it as a banister to climb down into the hull. Moses put his hand there and rubbed it and looked around. There was nobody home today. The place felt empty. Perhaps the kids were out.

  He kicked at a board and then went under it and crawled into his old home. Signs of the living were there: some cigarette butts, a broken bottle, banana peels that were old, but not so old. It was still a good shady place, he thought. He took some old newspaper and swept the boards clean of dust and sand and cigarette butts. He then sat and looked out over the ocean through the cracks in the hull. The blue was brilliant that day, and the sun was strong on the water. He watched a boat pass with two fishermen on board. They looked tired, perhaps returning from a night fishing at sea, one man at the bow looking towards the shore and the other slouched in the back steering them in. The one in front called out to the shore, his arm half bent above his head, his fist clutching the wide tail of a mackerel.

  Moses lay down and fell asleep while looking at the sea through the boards. When he woke up, there was only a sliver of light remaining in the day. It was unnerving to wake up in the near dark. He had not intended to sleep all day. He sat upright and looked through the cracks and into the deep blue darkness of twilight. He peered around at his surroundings and the barrenness of it all. He saw the board where Kioso had once etched their names: Heriel, Moses, Kioso … He thought of them and how long it had been since he had stayed there with them.

  Moses left the hull briefly to find cardboard, matches, and some water to drink. He returned with all three items, as well as a mango. He gathered some rubbish and sticks near the hull and went back inside. He made a small fire and spread the cardboard down for his bed. The fire died quickly, but its small embers glowed nicely and kept him company. He slept again.

  The following morning, he set off to look for Mama Tesha. He journeyed through town, stopping for a while at a row of wooden stalls where people were selling medicine—powders in small jars and various barks, roots, branches, and neat bundles of dried leaves tied with strands of sisal. A few women and a man were selling black, tarlike honey from Ugalla, as well as the lighter, cheaper local stuff.

  “Moses? My God, is that you?”

  “Grace!” Moses ran over to grab her hand, a wide smile over his face. He never knew he would be so happy to see her. And it surprised both of them. He had thought many times of her: her womanliness, her hair and hands that seemed to know how to do things like cook and sew and mend.

  “You are so skinny. Where have you been? My God, look at you. Are you okay?”

  “Do you still live in that room?” he asked her.

  Grace looked down at the wretched boy, filthy, weightless, and gaunt. His eyes were the same, but he looked much older.

  “Come with me.” She kept his hand in hers as they turned to walk down the street, but then let it go. He was almost as tall as she was, she thought. Not quite, but certainly taller than before. They walked down an alleyway and over to another street, and stopped at a shaded area with tables and chairs and umbrellas. A man was stirring a cauldron of food over a large fire. Some women came and went from inside a small shack where there was another fire for brewing tea and milk for the patrons outside. Grace and Moses sat on the white plastic chairs under an umbrella.

  They drank tea and ate plantain and tripe stew. Moses could not finish his food, and Grace pointed at his bowl with her spoon. She still had not smiled.

  “What’s this? You are not hungry? Look at you. Eat, you boy.”

  Moses forced more food in his mouth as she wagged her spoon at him again. He had not had such a nice meal in a very long time, but simply could not eat much of it, even though it tasted so wonderful.

  “Do you still live in that room?”

  Grace sighed and nodded. “Where have you been?” she asked.

  It was as if neither wanted to talk about themselves, their lives. For her, it meant discussing the continuation of her life with no improvement. Yes, still in that room, still here. For her, it was a reminder of her stagnation, of dreams unfulfilled, whatever they might have been. A husband maybe, or more money so she could do this or that or move or start again or find work—or anything. And for Moses, where he had been was a long story that he simply wasn’t going to tell.

  “You know, I remember your room. I remember your bed, exactly how it was. I remember the picture on your wall—you and those people in the country. I remember the cross on the wall. You had pinned it there by itself and it was a bit crooked. I remember your hair and that it was all over the place. I remember that the kanga you were wearing was white and green. Was that your family?”

  She looked at him as if wanting to crack a smile at this funny child, but not able to bring herself to do it.

  “Yes, it was. You have a good memory.”

  They ate the rest of the meal without much more talk, both sitting looking at each other, slowly chewing their food.

  They finished their food, and she paid and rose to leave.

  “Goodbye, Moses. You stay out of trouble, okay? I don’t want to find you somewhere.”

  “Where are you going, Grace? Are you working tonight? Are you going home now?”

  “Goodbye, Moses.” She paused. “Yes, I am.” And she turned and walked off. Moses watched her leave, her wonderful walk, so elegant and neat. He watched her walk the whole way down the road, not stopping once to look in a shop or to turn her head. Just walking, head held straight, off and down the road.

  Moses carried on toward Mama Tesha’s house, but when he was about halfway there, he stopped and turned back towards the harbour. He did not think why. He just did. Something in him—a physical thing—turned him around.

  That night, he saw one of the phantoms roaming the street. He recognised the old man with his glassy white eyes and the web of garbage draped over his shoulders—plastic bags, strips of rags. He remembered how he and Kioso had heckled him once, laughing, saying bad things to the man. The phantom had only waved his arm slowly at them, dismissing all their words in one indifferent sweep. Now Moses looked at him, and he appeared no different—his grey hair in messy curls, with grass and dirt stuck in it. It reminded him of the Ndorobo couple.

  The phantom did not look at Moses from the side or make any gesture that acknowledged his existence. Moses continued to watch the man as he approached a rubbish heap steaming with fish parts and foul produce. A pair of wiry cats scattered. The man reached inside the heap, feeling for food, things. He seemed to not notice the violent odour, which Moses could smell from some distance away. He seemed to not even see what he was groping for, but just probed the rubbish, his hands like a heron’s bill in muddy water.

  The phantom shuffled to within touching distance of Moses, but still did not acknowledge him. Moses rose and walked to the rubbish heap to peer at its contents. He then left the man and walked to the mosque to drink some water from the tap outside. Tomorrow is Friday, he thought, and the Muslim shopkeepers will be handing out coins to beggars.

  When he returned to the ship hull, someone was there. A boy like him, but one he did not recognise. The boy lay in the corner, stoned from glue and glossy-eyed like the phantom. Drool came from his mouth and yellow snot from his nose.

  “Who are you?” Moses demanded.

  The boy did not respond.

  “Hey—who are you?” he said again, nudging the boy with his foot.

  The boy sniffled and shuffled slightly upright.

  “Hey! Say something, you.” Moses wanted to kick him. A rage suddenly came over him, and he wanted to slap the boy’s face and throw him out onto the beach, into the water. For a moment, he fantasised abo
ut drowning him, holding his head under water while he squirmed. Then of holding his face in the sand, in shit, under his shoe, and finally suffocated and dead on the beach for the next day’s sun to bake.

  The boy only looked up at Moses vacantly. Then he took a sniff of glue from the plastic container he held in his hands.

  Moses wanted to scream at him, kick him, beat him. But he didn’t. He didn’t fulfil his dark fantasies. Instead, he left that place.

  For two days, Moses wandered. He walked, drank water at the mosque, and ate very little. He slept in various places. He once returned to the ship hull only to hear strange voices from inside, so he walked away. One night he wandered into a small forest in between some houses and a park. He had always noticed it, but felt it was a dangerous place to go alone because of thieves and men like Prosper, but he wriggled his way into a thicket so dense that only a cat could penetrate it. He smiled at his discovery. Once inside, he was surrounded by thick walls of vegetation. He made a small clearing just large enough for his body and he bedded down like a small antelope, curled, hidden, but with one ear up for danger.

  The next day he cut some leafy branches and pulled them into his nest. Every time he came or went, he would make sure that he reinforced the entrance with branches, keeping it hidden and safe. At night he could hear a bushbaby in the trees above. He was sure it was only one, perhaps alone like he was, spending its days curled tight in some tree-crevice and only emerging at the safe hours of night to find fruits. He could also always hear the barking dogs, which he detested. They carried on like gangs, he thought, so stupidly just one following another.

  Toroye would like it here, he thought. He might even be impressed. Moses imagined what it would be like to bump into Toroye walking down the road, and to greet him happily and show him his lair and all the considerations he had made, like the safe entrance and the bed and the place where he could hang things if he had things. There was just enough space to carve out another resting area for Toroye, and he could go cut more branches or find cardboard for him to sleep on.

  He thought next of what he would do with Toroye, and where they would go. The harbour? The market? The ship with the new kids? The beach? Grace? But he could not picture Toroye in any of these places, and the thoughts did not make him happy, so he tried to push them from his mind. He lay back and threw the stick he was holding into the canopy of the trees above him. It got tangled in the branches and stayed there, suspended awkwardly, as if about to fall.

  When he went to the market the next day, he thought of Prosper only once and briefly. He looked over at the place where Prosper used to hang out, foolish and mean, leaning against the shoeshine stand. Moses looked at it, felt a mixture of anger, time, and faded fear, and then carried on into the market. The old man with clubfeet was still there. As he approached, he could just make out the stained white hat on his head in the deep shade of his fruit stall. The image was exact and perfect. The same as that time long ago when he ran from this place in terror. Moses walked up.

  “From the dead, look at you!” The old man hobbled to his feet, waving and shouting happily.

  “My God! Like a skinny dog you are. What is wrong with you? Where have you been? Don’t you eat any more? Come sit, boy.”

  “Hi there, mzee. Shikamoo,” Moses muttered with a small smile, referring to the man as one does an elder.

  “Marahaba,” the old man replied, impressed by Moses’s manners. He then spoke again, this time more softly.

  “Really, child, where have you been?”

  Moses paused, looked to the side and around.

  “I am here,” he said at last.

  The old man said nothing and offered Moses an orange. They ate, and still the old man said nothing. It was the first time Moses had known him to be silent. The old man then reached low inside some place Moses had never seen, in between the crates and boxes, and pulled out a plastic bag. It was tied up nicely, probably prepared by the man’s wife. He carefully untied the knot in the plastic bag. He opened it and placed it on one of the crates. Inside was a meal of fish and rice on a red plastic plate.

  “Go fetch some water there, child,” he said, motioning to a tap near the market entrance. Moses took a tin jug from the man’s side and went to fill it with water. He returned and poured water over the man’s hands as he washed them. The man then poured some water for Moses to wash his hands under. Then they ate rice and fish with their hands and did not speak.

  The old man wanted to ask many questions of the boy, this child who wandered the streets. So thin, so poor. He thought of his own children, his girl and three boys. His wife at home, who right now would be sweeping the dirt yard outside their shack, clearing out any rubbish that had blown in during the night. What does one do with such a child? A child soon to become a man with nothing but his shirt? And what a shirt it is, held together by strings.

  The old man let Moses eat. A few times he began to say something, but stopped. A few times he was about to ask the first of his many questions—what are you going to do now? But he didn’t. He sat with Moses and let the boy eat his food. Moses finished the meal, thanked him and rose to leave. The old man took him by the arm:

  “So, you’ll be here in the morning first thing to help me with those heavy crates, right, my child?”

  Moses smiled and perhaps he nodded—the old man could not tell. And in the end, he walked away. And as he walked, he sang Radi in his head, or rather, Radi just seemed to appear there:

  The days are too long, so stay with me.

  If you are hungry, then I will stay with you.

  And if you are lost,

  Then I will come to find you.

  Author’s note: This book was written before the tragic death of André de Kock in Tanzania.