“Kikuyu means fig tree, fertility,” he said, and Esther and Martha poked each other, watching Ita’s handsome face in the firelight. “Kikuyus call God Ngai, The Apportioner, because God gave gifts to all the nations of the earth. Kikuyus received the skill of agriculture. God controls everything, including the rain and the thunder, which he uses to punish evildoers.” Ita looked to the sky ominously.
He’s a natural, Leda thought.
“Every person has a spirit, ngoma,” he continued, gazing around the circle, “which after death becomes a ghost. The ngoma of a murdered man will hunt his murderer until he confesses, preferring prison to the relentless ghost.”
The chill in the air made a ghost story all the more fitting for their campfire. Esther made a wooooo sound in Martha’s ear, making her jump.
Ita lowered his voice another notch. “Burial rituals must be observed, because spirits are to be feared. They live in the trees, and you must feed them—”
Leda recalled piles of food she’d seen one day in Kibera. Too tidy to be scraps. Offerings, Ita had said.
“—or else Ngai will punish you with lightning. But—” He broke off. His gaze landed on Leda. “Kikuyus believe that a man’s character is decided by God. He cannot help what he is. And his life—rewards or punishments—is predestined.”
Leda looked back into Ita’s eyes, hypnotized by the shadows dancing over his face. How handsome he looked, bathed in the fire glow. But haunted. Leda could sense the ghosts that swirled around him, followed him. She shivered and wrapped her arms tighter around herself to listen to his next tale about destiny.
Eventually there were no more requests from the sleepy audience. The group splintered off for bed, in pairs, to their tents. Leda had her own tent, as did Ita, far off somewhere, apart from the group’s circle.
Ita made the rounds, making sure everyone was comfortable, had everything they needed, while Leda slunk nervously off to her tent.
She stepped in and sat down, breathlessly debating what to do. Undress? She’d worn matching lace panties and bra under her safari clothes all day, but, come on, it was freezing. Her skin prickled with gooseflesh as she deliberated. All day, she’d been waiting, all night, waiting to touch him, kiss him, feel those hands run over her skin again.
Finally, Ita’s footsteps stopped outside her tent. “Everything okay? Anything you need?” he asked loudly.
Leda smiled. She poked her head out, and he looked down at her.
“Later,” he whispered. He looked left and right, before placing a warm, soft kiss on her forehead. “Soon.”
She zipped up in her tent and endured the longest wait of her life, all thirty minutes of it. Nervousness unfolded in her stomach like tulips shivering in a breeze. Ita was so tender, it disarmed her. The electricity she felt around him raised every hair on her body, but it was about to set her on fire. Whoever first said the thing about the butterflies, Leda decided, they weren’t a genius. They were stating the obvious.
“Leda,” a whisper came in the night.
She jolted in her tent, trying not to pant. She heard Ita’s shuffling feet on the ground just outside. With trembling fingers, she unzipped a tiny gap in the entrance to the tent, granting herself a breathtaking view of the moon and Mount Kilamanjaro. But even those were dwarfed by Ita’s smile.
“May I come in?” he whispered, hunched over in the dark, cold night like a naughty teenager sneaking out.
She nodded eagerly. As he slipped in past her, she zipped up the tent against the last sliver of the sea of stars.
She scooted on her knees to meet him in the middle of the tent. Gently, he pressed their foreheads together so their smiles could look themselves in the mirror. It was such an innocent gesture, it warmed Leda’s skin in the cold air.
He put a hand to the small of her back and pulled her in. His lips found hers and she dove into the softness. His hands caressed her back and flank, and hers went exploring, too. They kissed, grasping and breathing and stroking, until the desire built up between them like an underground spring.
Leda untangled herself. She lay down, stretched out on the sleeping bag, and Ita snuggled in beside her. He didn’t jump on her hungrily as she expected him to. Or as she wanted him to. He traced his fingers over her face and brushed back the baby hairs from her temples.
“It is as if you came from the stars,” he said.
But she didn’t have a chance to respond, because he kissed her, first her eyelids, then her cheeks, her earlobes, her neck—in a slow procession that made her arch and squirm and moan.
He took his sweet time with her body, his hands taking laps like a runner pacing himself around the track. Off came her shirt, so he could kiss her collarbone, tenderly kiss her healing henna marks. For a moment, he held her hand to his cheek. Next, he kissed her sternum, then just above and just below her belly button. After he tugged off her pants, he kissed each of her hips and her sides and the tops of her knees.
Then he stopped, looking up, pausing to catch his breath, or else for permission. Whichever it was, Leda nodded. Yes. Please.
He pulled down her panties and nuzzled his nose in the uncovered triangle of hair, the most endearing gesture. What he did after that, however, was hardly so innocent. He stripped off his own clothes, giving Leda a view of muscle and girth that made her moan, then he dove down on her, his mouth a magical combination of softness and pressure—urgency mingling with relish.
Leda lay splayed like an anemone and Ita washed over her like the sea. She let herself be nourished, by his touch, by his tongue, by the way he looked at her as if she really was a shooting star falling from the night sky.
And then, after he retraced his path of kisses from her hips to her neck, he kissed her, achingly hard, as he readied himself, then thrust inside her in one deep swoop from tip to base.
Leda cried out beneath his lips. She arched into him, her back like the crescent moon, then curled up her hips, forcing him in even deeper, allowing it, needing it, so thick and so hard her body squealed against the fullness, but begged for it.
Ita groaned. He plunged into her, harder, faster. He grabbed both her hips, pulling her to him. When he reached beneath her, gripping her ass, Leda bit down on her fingers to keep from crying out.
Suddenly, smoothly, he rolled her, pulling Leda on top. With her breasts in his hands, he squeezed shut his eyes and let her ride until she came. The first orgasm was a torrential surprise, the second a cresting wave, the third a rocking hurricane, whereupon she collapsed into his scent and skin, consumed by pleasure. Once she’d exhausted herself, Ita rolled her over again, flipped himself on top.
His eyes searched for hers. Even in the near darkness, she could see his gaze, loving, hoping.
This time as Ita entered her, it was slow as honey drizzling into tea. He kept his eyes locked on hers, in and out, in and out, until Leda felt tears well in her eyes. He put his hand to her cheek, on the side of her scar. First he wiped the tear with his thumb, then he caressed the wizened skin at her jaw, as if he could smooth it away—the memory, the pain, the hurt. By the time he leaned forward to kiss her, by the time his lips closed over hers, they were both coming like the rumble of a crumbling dam, wrapping their arms tight around each other once the gushing broke through and overtook them both.
* * *
Ita lay with her for a long, long time, staring into the dark. Playfully, they whispered little dreams back and forth, each starting with the magical phrase we could.
“We could take the boys on safari,” Leda said, picturing them piled up in the jeep, pointing out elephants. “Or we could go other places in Africa. The pyramids. Egypt. The Nile.”
“We could visit your home,” he said.
She sucked in a breath. It was the sound of the cartoon dream bubble above them threatening to pop. “We could.”
She tried to imagine Ita in Topanga. It wasn’t that hard, actually. She saw him scratching Amadeus behind the ears, looking through her bookshelves, lying beside
her like he was now. Maybe he was what had been missing from her home. He would fill the airy rooms with coziness, warmth, laughter. Happiness.
He kissed her earlobe, ran his hand along the curve of her hip. “It is difficult to imagine giving this up now that I have tasted it.”
Leda sighed. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Chapter 20
January 1, 2008, Kibera—Ita
IT’S NEARLY MIDNIGHT when Ita leaves the boys’ room, letting the sheet fall, wishing they had built a door along with the bunk beds. Slinging the rifle over his shoulder bangs the stitches he gave himself and he winces as he makes his way to Kioni’s post near the orphanage door.
Outside, close, a baby’s been crying for hours, since before the sun dove into darkness. The sound is broken periodically by other screams, louder, higher-pitched—mothers and children too old to be crying like that.
Ita listens, feeling every muscle in his body pulled taut as though jerked by a puppet master. His mind races, considering the crying anew, deciding if there is a threat.
Now Ita knows the stories. Earlier this evening, he and Kioni snuck into his office to listen to the radio. The things they heard—women raped in front of their husbands, children trampled and killed, men with panga wounds to their skulls, left to bleed to death in the street—he and Kioni could only stare at each other in disbelief. Next came the dawning understanding that they would be barricaded in the orphanage, under siege for who knew how long. The announcer’s voice sounded scared as he rushed on. Live TV coverage suspended. Riots everywhere, not just in Kibera, but even in the tree-lined streets of Nairobi. Thousands fled, thousands more hiding—no one to clear the bodies. Raila’s supporters, Luo protesters, now feeling the full vengeance of Kikuyu.
“They asleep?” Kioni turns, sees Ita standing there, frozen.
“Or willing to pretend,” he says.
“They are good boys,” she says as he sits down stiffly beside her.
Each point of contact sends pain shooting through his nerves. He can feel Kioni watching him, noting his wounds but saying nothing.
They took turns that day tending the children. Kioni moved her things to the boys’ room and slept some. Then she served the boys lunch while Ita chased sleep in his stuffy room. It was a futile endeavor. Every time he closed his eyes, buried memories of Kioni and Chege mixed with more recent nightmares until he became paranoid that something bad was about to happen with Kioni on guard.
Like a gullet full of lead, Ita still feels the conditioned urge to protect her. But her silence fills him with dread, not to mention a running tally of his faults.
Now that the boys are in bed, the reviled feeling comes stronger, as much as he tries to shake it—he should feel grateful for her help, not this pinching desire for her to leave.
Side by side, they sit and listen to the horror movie playing just outside. Ita keeps the rifle in his lap, his fingers already stiff from clenching the metal. His whole body is tense, ready to fight the world and knowing that eventually he will have to.
“The boys, they talk about a white woman. Leda.”
Ita’s heart nearly stops at the sound of Leda’s name on Kioni’s lips.
“They think she is coming to save them.”
Ita opens his mouth, but finds no words to respond. Even though both women sat here in this very spot, destined to share the same reservoir of regret in his heart, Kioni and Leda in his mind are like two continents crashing in the ocean.
“Her things are here. They showed me. Is she coming back?”
Kioni’s words lance his heart, especially the boys’ impossible fantasy that Leda will return.
“Ita?”
He still can’t bring himself to answer.
“Well, they are right to worry,” Kioni says. “There is not nearly enough food. Supplies. Water. Do you have money to last—”
“Very little.” He’d paid most of the safari money toward bills when they came back through Nairobi. And on Christmas presents.
“Ita, what happened here? To her? To you?”
He clenches his teeth, says finally: “She’s gone. Leda left the night of...of the riots.”
“As she should have. This is no place for a mzungu.”
“Stop. Please. Just—” Ita’s teeth feel as if they will crumble into his jaw.
“Leave? Do you want me to go?”
Yes. “No, you cannot go back out there. You have to stay.”
Silence.
Silence and screams in the night.
“If she isn’t coming back, maybe we should sell her things.”
“No!” The volume of Ita’s voice startles them both. He frowns—doesn’t Kioni think he would have considered that? Even if it would kill him emotionally, he would do it for the children. “It’s impossible in Kibera now. And unsafe.” So many things were impossible now. Ita sighs. “Please,” he says softly, “please do not speak to me of her again.”
Kioni is studying him, her eyes boring into his skin. “Ita, it’s not your fault she left.”
A bitter snort escapes him. “I could have protected her. It was my fault she got hurt.”
The statement hovers in the air between them, accusing and remembering, growing like a monster under a full moon. Until they have to look at each other, hear the echo of his words dripping with regret, swollen with the sorrow that belongs to the memory that binds them, the one that drove them apart.
“Oh, Ita,” Kioni says. She lays a hand gently on his shoulder.
He flinches as if she struck him.
“Ita!” The front door rattles like a demon banging from the underworld. Kioni and Ita jump to their feet, terror lighting their faces on fire. Ita aims the rifle at the door. Kioni backs away.
“Ita,” the voice comes again. “Let me in!”
Ita and Kioni look at each other, each registering the voice at the same time. Chege.
Ita hesitates, keeps the rifle where it is, jabbing the air. Kioni looks at him strangely, back and forth between him and the door, hearing the frantic shuffle of Chege’s feet, his desperate banging.
“Ita,” she hisses. But she doesn’t know. She doesn’t understand.
“Shhh,” he says. But the knocking only intensifies. Chege begins hollering nonsense, his words spraying the orphanage like shattering glass.
Ita lowers the rifle. He will tell him to go away. Forever. To go away forever or he will kill him. He undoes the lock, slides open the rusted metal and meets Chege face-to-face.
“Go away,” he says through closed teeth.
Chege stares, his eyes like a wild animal in flight. He shifts back and forth on his feet, looks behind him worriedly, back at Ita, then back into the street. His clothes are torn and filthy. His right eye is engorged with blood, his nose swollen monstrously where Ita punched him. He’s barefoot, with more bloody cuts on his arms and legs. In one hand dangles his machete. “Please, they coming. I have to come in. I have to tell you. You don’t understand. Ita—”
Chege tries to worm his way in, then glimpses Kioni in the shadows. His desperation flips to confusion and he stares at her as if she’s a ghost fluttering down from the sky.
She, too, is stunned, but her lips curl in disgust at his appearance. “Chege. Yes, it’s me.”
While they stare at each other, Ita peers into the darkness behind Chege, realizing in an instant what might be following him. Ita remembers the police that dragged Leda away, the look on their faces that said they’d been given free reign to murder at will in the name of the law, how lucky he was to escape that fate at their hands.
Lost in the memory, Ita is caught off guard as Chege rushes the gate, knocking him off balance and squeezing his way inside.
“Ita,” he says and stops. “Ita,” he begins again and stops. It’s as if he’s short-circuiting. He drops his machete to the ground with a clatter, pulls at his dreads, rubs his eyes, scratches at his shoulders.
He is like a dog gone rabid. Ita feels ready to shoot
him if he bites.
But then Chege does something wholly unexpected. He slumps to the ground, between Ita and Kioni. He reaches out and grasps both of their legs at once, with such force that they slam together. Chege starts to sob uncontrollably.
Ita and Kioni find themselves face-to-face, inches apart and quivering with Chege’s cries. And Ita knows if anyone could understand his twin hatred and loyalty to Chege, it is Kioni. If anyone has reason to hate or love him as much as Ita, it is she.
But where does loyalty end?
Chege staggers to his feet, thrusting them apart. Kioni and Ita stumble backward. Chege is up, weaving like a boxer about to go back down.
“Oh,” he says, and starts to moan. He looks back and forth between Ita and Kioni. Then he takes his head in his hands and swings back and forth. “Oh, oh, ohh. I’m sorry. Ita. Brother.”
Kioni stares.
Ita’s heart goes cold.
“I’m sorry,” Chege whispers, his eyes closed.
Ita looks away, disgusted. But Kioni’s eyes fill with tears. Her brown eyes, all grown up, force Ita to remember. Remember when things were different. Remember when they were a family.
November 29, 1991, Kibera—Ita
“Get closer!” Chege barks, pushing Ita and Kioni deeper into the scavenged crate, so his head is the only one that sticks out in the storm. Ita can feel Kioni shivering, so he wraps his cold arms tight around her, as if he can hug warmth into her by sheer force of will.
Chege spends equal time on the lookout for thieves and gazing upon Ita and Kioni as if they are a riddle he is trying to solve.
The smell is even more awful than usual, and Ita knows it is sewage that runs into the crate. They’re downhill from the biggest latrine in the ward, and Ita now sees why this area was clear to set up camp.
“We should move,” Ita says between chattering teeth. “To a hill.” It isn’t that cold, and he wonders briefly if he has a fever. He presses his forehead against Kioni’s cheek to see if he can feel a temperature difference. Trying to still both their shivering, he watches the brown liquid seep over his sandals.
What Tears Us Apart Page 17