City of Saints & Thieves

by Natalie C. Anderson

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  “It’s fast!”

  Michael laughs. “You haven’t seen anything yet!”

  “No! No faster!”

  Michael lets up on the gas. “Sorry. Riding just makes me feel . . . awake. Alive.” He pauses, and I’m surprised to hear something like hesitation in his voice. “I thought you’d like it.”

  I take inventory of my senses. The air is whipping past me and the shadows and the sun ripple over my arms and legs as we rocket through the jacaranda trees that tunnel the road. Their flowers lie on the ground like purple snow. It’s beautiful, and I know what he means, to have that one thing that makes you feel truly yourself and alive. It’s how I felt breaking into his house two nights ago. Like no one in the world could tell me what to do; no one knew how to do my job better. Terrifying, but absolutely right.

  “I do,” I say.

  SEVENTEEN

  We have to slow down once we get into town, and I immediately start to sweat under the helmet. I hadn’t really realized how much cooler it is up in the Ring. And down here it’s a lot less fun trying to push our way through the traffic and potholes and dust. The closer we get to the harbor, the more crowded it gets. There are bicycles and chickens and children and goats, and lots of people who just stop to gape at the motorcycle, like it’s a herald of the second coming.

  I give directions, and Michael threads through the busy streets. We have to go practically to the other side of Sangui City, over the bridge and back into the winding, narrow streets of Old Town. We drive down Biashara Street and even pass Kiki’s school. I can hear the girls shouting and laughing in the yard, and I crane my neck but don’t see Kiki as we drive past the front gates. Of course, what would I say to her if I did? Hi, sis! Remember your half brother, Michael? His dad killed our mom. ’Kay, bye!

  Right. She’s not going to know anything about all this. Ever.

  From the back of the bike, Old Town’s grit fades away into the vignettes I imagine the tourists see: rambling warrens of pale limestone buildings and waving palm trees; market stalls with perfect pyramids of yellow and red mangoes, frilly bunches of greens, bananas, and peppers hung like garlands. There are serious-faced men in long white kanzus and women wrapped in rainbow kanga prints or head-to-toe buibuis that billow like black sails. There is clear blue sky above, and below, electric blue water. From here, it looks just like paradise.

  We’re almost to the fish market when Michael clears his throat. “So are you going to tell me who it is we’re meeting?”

  We pass the big green mosque at the center of Old Town, and the hawkers who ply their wares to tourists outside the Swahili Museum: cheap Rasta necklaces and sarongs; wooden elephants and impala that stand in military lines on Masai blankets. Michael nudges the bike around an ancient man with a donkey cart piled with charcoal. Neither the man nor the donkey seems in much hurry to get anywhere.

  “Turn left up here.”

  Instead Michael pulls the bike over to a quiet spot overlooking the harbor and stops.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  He takes his helmet off and turns around in the seat.

  “Fine,” I say, pulling my helmet off too. “His name is Donatien.”

  “But who is he? Is he a Goonda? I don’t like going in blind like this.”

  I almost laugh. “No, he’s not a Goonda. He’s just a guy who knew my mom. Come on, we’re going to be late.”

  “How did he know your mom?”

  I chew my lip. “You can’t say anything, okay? He’ll kill me if he knows I told you about him.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “And if you do anything to him—if anything happens to him, I’ll know about it.”

  “You think I’m going to have him fed to the sharks or something? Look, you may not believe it, but I haven’t had anyone killed yet, and I promise I won’t start today.”

  I fiddle with the helmet straps. “He’s a reporter.”

  “A reporter?!” Michael yelps. “Are you giving him the stuff off Dad’s computer?”

  “No!” Not yet, anyway, I add silently. I make sure I don’t break eye contact, which is a dead giveaway someone is lying. “He doesn’t report on stuff like that anymore. He got . . . in trouble.”

  But I bet a story on Michael’s dad is going to get him back in good graces.

  Donatien doesn’t know that I’m about to drop pay dirt in his lap, but I have no doubt that he’ll leap at the chance to expose Extracta and its East African Big Man. He’s been obsessed with taking them down ever since Greyhill ruined his career. But he always says he needs proof. Real proof, not just theories. Theories and speculation were what got him in trouble in the first place.

  I tracked him down two years ago after I found a story he ran in Sangui’s biggest newspaper right after Mama’s death. He dared ask why her murder wasn’t investigated, insinuating that the police covered for Mr. G, the most likely killer. It got Donatien demoted, and he’s positive Greyhill, with all his connections, was behind it.

  I would have gone looking for Donatien because of the article regardless, but what really made me curious was the way he wrote about Mama. He sounded angry. Almost as if he knew her.

  Which it turns out he did.

  I can still feel Michael’s tension and try to scoot away. I think about hopping off the bike, but that might delay us even more.

  “And he knows your mom how?”

  “He was doing a story on Extracta in Congo,” I say reluctantly. “On how they were buying gold from militias instead of digging it. She was a source.”

  It took me a while, but you can wear anyone down if you just sit outside their house and office and favorite bars for long enough. Donatien finally gave up and agreed to talk to me. I think maybe he was even a little lonely. Once I convinced him that I was really Mama’s daughter, he opened up. He told me that he’d met Mama in Kasisi, our hometown, eleven years ago, and that she had wanted to help him with his story.

  Michael’s eyes narrow. “A source? What did she tell him, exactly?”

  I look longingly toward our destination. “Look, once you get him started, Donatien will talk. He loves to talk about conflict minerals and Congo, but he’s a little touchy, so just let me ask the questions, okay? Can we go now?”

  Michael scans the harbor, where white-sailed dhows roll over the current. In the distance, a squat ferry is chugging toward the shore in a haze of blue diesel. Even from here you can see the rust on its hull and the throngs of people crowded at its rails. It’s a struggle to not shout at Michael that we’re wasting time. But finally he hefts the helmet back onto his head and starts the engine.

  • • •

  Open and noisy, smelling like fried chips and masala spice, the restaurant is a popular spot. It’s full of fishermen at cheap white plastic tables, most of whom seem well into drinking away any profit they’ve made selling their catch this morning.

  “Better hitch up your skirts,” I say when I see Michael’s face. “It’s a little dirtier than what you’re used to.”

  “I’ve been in places like this before. It’s fine.”

  “Sure you have. Now, listen,” I say, lowering my voice, “whatever you do, don’t tell Donatien who you are, right? I don’t think he’ll recognize you. Better yet, don’t talk.”

  “Great,” Michael says. “So I just sit there?”

  “Do what I say, okay? This is my world, and you are now my guest.”

  I lead Michael past a speaker blaring rumba. Twilight girls with short skirts and long nails cluster at one end of the bar. They flick their braids over their shoulders and watch me closely, making sure I’m not invading their turf. The smells grow denser: to the mix is added sour beer and the tang of men who sleep in fish boats.

  I don’t mind the noise and the stink. It’s more private here, in a way, tha
n many other dingy back rooms Donatien could have chosen to make our usual rendezvous spot. He won’t meet in places like that. He says there are too many bored waiter boys whose ears are too big for their brains.

  Donatien is already seated at his usual table in a shaded corner of the patio. “Who’s this?” he asks, jerking a stubbled chin up at Michael before we even sit.

  Donatien’s the only mzungu in here, unless you count Michael, but even with his pasty white skin singling him out, he still looks completely at home. Empty beer bottles are starting to gather at his elbow. A pile of whole fried fish sits in front of him, several already eaten down to the glistening bone.

  “He’s not important,” I say.

  “You know I don’t talk to strangers, Tiny.”

  “He’s a friend. It’s fine. He’s no snitch.”

  “You don’t have friends.”

  “Jeez, thanks a lot, Donatien. He’s a new refugee. I’m showing him around.”

  “Looks too soft to be a refugee kid.” Donatien means he’s too white, but he won’t say so.

  “I know; that’s what I keep telling him,” I say.

  “You’re a reporter and you don’t talk to strangers?” Michael asks.

  I shoot him a dirty look to warn him to keep his mouth shut.

  “Not ones I don’t know,” Donatien says. “But I’m not really a reporter. I’m on sports.” He says sports like it’s a dirty word.

  “That’s still reporting,” Michael points out.

  Donatien grunts dismissively and checks how much beer he’s got left. He raises his bottle to the waiter to signal for another. “Speaking of which, I can’t hang about long. I have a very important junior-league cricket match to cover in about an hour.” He waves at his fish. “You want something?”

  “Just soda.”

  Snapping his oily fingers, Donatien calls the waiter. “Sampson, leta Tuska baridi sana. Na soda mbili.”

  A man brings a fresh Tusker beer. Cold, very cold, which Donatien tests by grabbing the bottle’s neck before allowing the waiter to pry the cap off. Two orange Fantas are placed in front of Michael and me. I kick Michael under the table when I see he’s about to use his sleeve to wipe the mouth of the bottle.

  Donatien takes a grateful swig of beer, then digs into his fish again with his fingers just like any local dude. He uses ugali, white corn mash, to grab up flesh and chilies. After he wolfs the whole lump down, he belches without apology. “Your loss. Best fish in town.”

  “Donatien is French,” I tell Michael. “He’s picky about his food.”

  “Belgian,” Donatien corrects. “How many times have I got to tell you? I hate the effing French.” He regards me with bloodshot eyes. “So, half-pint? What’s up?”

  I pull the photo out of my pocket. “Do you know who this is?” I ask, pointing at the girl beside my mother.

  Donatien squints, wipes his hands, and picks up the photo for a closer look. “No idea.”

  I try not to let my disappointment show. “Are you sure? It was on his computer.”

  “What do you mean, his computer?”

  “You know. His. Don’t give me that look.”

  “Tina, you haven’t done anything stupid, have you? If you went—”

  “What, you think I broke into his house?” I scoff, ignoring Michael’s twitch. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. Somebody hacked it for me. You sure you don’t know her?”

  “When was this taken?” Donatien asks, looking back at the smiling girls. “Your mother’s young.” He glances at Michael, still suspicious of him. “They’re in school uniforms. It was taken before I met her.” He pushes the photo back to me and I carefully tuck it away.

  I wait until he’s working on another big mouthful of fish before pressing my luck. “I keep wondering something. How did Mama know what she knew?” I go on, even though Donatien is giving me a warning look. “How does a nurse come to know someone like . . .”

  “Tina . . .”

  “. . . like you-know-who?”

  Donatien’s hand creeps to the scar on his neck. “You want to talk, Christina, your new buddy has to scram.”

  I look at Michael and jut my chin toward the door. He scowls, but stands up and makes his way through the restaurant and out the door, leaving us alone. Donatien watches him go.

  I lean in. “Donatien?”

  He runs his fingers along the little hash marks on his collarbone where the flesh was sewn back together. “You trust him? You gotta be careful who you talk in front of, Tina.”

  “I know. You’re right. Don’t worry. He’s just some wet-behind-the-ears ’fugee. I don’t know why I let him tag along.” I wait until Donatien has another swallow of beer in him and then say, “So? How did she know Mr. Greyhill?”

  Donatien sets the beer down slowly. Flies cluster around the eyeball of his fish, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “What are you doing, Tina? Why all the questions?”

  “I just . . . Why won’t you tell me how she knew what Extracta was doing?”

  I’ve tried this tack before, with little luck. Donatien will talk all day about the rebels who sell gold dug by slaves, and shady mining companies like Extracta who sell weapons to them, but any time I ask more about Mama herself, why she was willing to talk to him, or how she found out about the deals Extracta was making with militias, he goes all tight-lipped.

  “It’s not my place to tell you,” he says.

  “So I have to wait until I’m dead to ask her?”

  He winces. “It doesn’t matter how she knew. She just did.”

  I can see a twitch in the corner of his mouth, like something wants to come out. I wait. And just as I’m about to give up, he rubs a hand over his face and says, “She should never have agreed to help me.”

  It’s not the answer to my question, but still, it’s something. I lean forward. “Because Greyhill found out and almost killed you?”

  He’s told me about that day back in Kasisi, right before we left. Mama was supposed to meet him at his hotel and take him to the place in the jungle where the gold-for-guns deals were made. He was going to hide and take photographs. When the knock on his door came that night, he opened it, thinking it was her. Instead, it was a couple of guys with sharpened pangas, big long knives used for hacking through brush. Or flesh. Donatien’s told me multiple times how many pints of blood they had to pump into him (two) and how many stitches it took to close him up (forty-three). How he never heard from my mother again until she reached out to him the day before she was murdered, five years later.

  Meanwhile, Mama and I were having our own problems.

  But I don’t want to think about that right now. I want to know more about Mr. Greyhill. “Why would he wait all that time to finish her off, Donatien? And why would she come here to him at all if his militia friends were the ones who chased her out of Congo?”

  He studies me.

  “Come on, Donatien. I’m not a kid anymore! I can handle it, whatever it is you don’t want to tell me!” I lower my voice. “You can tell me, or I can go and ask him. I’m tired of being in the dark. Don’t think I won’t.”

  I can tell he’s running a thousand different things through his head, but in the end all he says is, “It might not have been him who ran her out.”

  I wait for more. But he’s silent. “I don’t understand. Who else would have . . .”

  “Other people were involved in the deals. Greyhill didn’t make the exchanges himself.”

  “What? But you said—”

  “I said your mother had seen the exchanges, and that’s how she knew that gold was being traded for money and weapons. But when I asked her if it was a white American guy making the buys, she said no. I’m the one who told her I thought Roland Greyhill was the mastermind behind it all.”

  Donatien won’t look at me. Why is he being so cagey ab
out this part? “So she never met him in Congo? Who exactly was making the exchanges?”

  Donatien’s mouth pinches into a flat line. “She didn’t say. Just that the main one was a Kenyan guy.”

  “Did you find out who he was later?”

  “No,” Donatien says, and leans back. He looks past me, toward the water. “You know all this. I dropped the investigation. I didn’t pick it back up until after she was murdered.”

  I’m suddenly overwhelmed with just how much I don’t know. I mean, who was my mother, really? A nurse. That’s all she told me. That’s all I can tell Michael when he asks. But how did she find out so much about blood gold? How did she know when and where the exchanges were happening? They were done in some secret place, way back in the jungle, according to Donatien. My mind is churning. I can’t make all the pieces fit into some solid, clear picture of her. How can I know so little about who she was and what happened back there in Congo? A question buzzes in my head like a mosquito. I bite my lip. “She wasn’t in on it, was she? The gold deals?”

  Donatien’s attention snaps back to me. “No, nothing like that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She just wouldn’t have been.”

  “But how do you know?” I demand, thumping my fist on the table. “You barely knew her! I barely knew her!” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

  He starts to reach for my arm, but then seems to think better of it. “Look, Tina, I admit it. I had the same thought. When she called me, right before she was murdered, I didn’t want to talk to her. I hadn’t heard from her since that day I almost got killed.” He looks up at me guiltily. “I thought it was her who sent those guys to my hotel.”

  I don’t move. “You suspected her?”