Afraid he would call out, he buried his face in her hair, growling into her neck while he reached around to pleasure her. He felt Leda come, clenching him in waves, her thighs quivering, her orgasm fueling his.
“I’m ready,” he breathed into her ear.
She clenched him harder, reached back to pull him deeper inside her.
When he came, he nearly pitched forward. He saw the stars swim above him, felt as if the whole universe approved of their union.
Leda spun around and kissed him, laughing.
“Was it too fast?” he asked, made self-conscious by her amusement.
“No,” she said. “God, no, I can barely stand.” She pointed at her knees and they were indeed shaking. “I’m just happy. Very, very happy.” She looked up at the sky and the stars and took a deep breath. Then she said it again, “I’m happy,” loud enough for Kibera, for the world, to hear.
Ita laughed. “Me, too,” he said, feeling his smile strain at the edges, feeling the warmth of Leda’s skin coursing into his. He wrapped his arms around her waist and nuzzled his head in her hair. But a worry crept into his stomach, tied a knot in his insides.
Now the devil knew.
December 25, 2007, Kibera—Leda
Christmas morning, Mary returned to the orphanage, so Leda and Ita could go buy the food. Once a year, Ita said, everyone had meat and new clothes. What the other 364 days brought was implied.
Leda skipped along the path, her footing sure as a doe in the forest. She smiled at so many residents doing the same, out to celebrate on a sunny day. Christmas and the coming elections—a cocktail for optimism.
Ita zipped ahead, in high spirits, skidding through the crowds like a water spider.
“This way!” He pointed out a duka ahead. “Nelson’s,” he said.
There were dozens of dukas in every quadrant, so no one had to walk far to get margarine, cooking fuel or tins of tomato sauce. Nelson’s duka had the typical pack of kids playing out front with two matrons standing watch. The women debated and laughed in equal measure.
“Joyce!” Ita called out merrily and one of the women smiled and waved him over.
Joyce had a laugh like Mary’s stew—rich and hearty, deliciously layered. A laugh like that could cure any of the world’s woes, Leda thought to herself.
“Merry Christmas!” Ita said, and both women fluttered their eyelashes in response.
Leda had to admit, his looks served him well.
“What you come running up here for, Ita? You not yet bought all the meat, then, for them boys of yours? They been troublemakers this year?” Joyce’s smile matched Ita’s as she teased him. “I think we all out,” she said, pointing. “Look, only onions.”
“Oh, well, then I guess we’ll be going round the way—”
“Brother!” A wiry old man appeared, waving his arms at Ita. He was strong looking in spite of his age.
“Nelson,” Ita said warmly.
The man’s eyes bore the yellow stain of hepatitis, but they glinted with benevolence. “Don’t listen to that crazy woman.” He grinned at his wife. “We saved the best for your boys. You’ll see.”
They waited while Nelson ducked back inside. He reappeared with three hulking parcels wrapped in newspaper. Ita took two and Nelson unwrapped one to show.
The contents made Leda’s stomach churn like a cement mixer. A mound of meat, firm in places, squishy in others, ribbons of fat meeting jagged bone and matted clumps of hair.
“Goat,” Ita said to her. Probably because her face exposed her thought: human.
Leda rearranged her lips into the best grin she could muster. “Yum,” she offered. Sarcasm was an American thing, she realized, as both men nodded in approval.
* * *
Best damn barbecue Leda had ever been to.
They gorged themselves on skewers of magically greasy, smoky meat and ate as much mandazi as they could stomach. Grace clucked over Leda’s henna scabs. Then she taught her to make coconut bread for dessert. Paul and Ita talked soccer while the women played with the children.
Watching Ita and the orphans and Mary’s brood, Leda imagined they felt as she did—that the day was one big metaphorical exhale.
Late in the afternoon, Mary’s family took their leave, hugging each of the boys and kissing the tops of their heads. After they’d gone, Ita clapped his hands together. Present time. The boys took their seats on the mat, wriggling like Mexican jumping beans.
Leda had seen the big bag of clothes. She was expecting a free-for-all. Instead, Ita called out each boy’s name in turn and they approached like little graduates. Tears stung her eyes when she realized Ita had handpicked each boy’s favorite color. Michael got a polo shirt striped red, black and white—Manchester United colors, which the boy favored over food and water. Jomo’s shirt was electric blue, which made Leda proud that she’d noticed, too, that he always picked the blue cup for breakfast and the blue rag for washing up.
Once all the clothes were handed out, Ita looked at the boys expectantly. “What are you waiting for, little brothers?” he asked.
Like a surge in electricity, all the kids ran off to try on their new clothes.
It gave her a window of alone time with Ita. He led her by the hand into his room. When the door shut, he pressed up against her with a long, warm kiss while his hands slid up her sides like serpents. Leda disappeared into the rush and listened to their breaths spar in the hot room.
“Ita—” she said in between kisses that swept her away. She must focus. It was time to tell him. Why was she so nervous?
“Mmm—” Ita answered, his eyes closed. He moved to her neck, raising goose bumps down her body.
There was never going to be exactly the right time to tell him, she decided. She hadn’t meant to mislead him. In the beginning it was about safety, on safari unimportant. Now it was different.
But suddenly the children’s voices chirped outside, “Ita, look” and “Ita, asante.”
Reluctantly and with effort, Ita pulled away. He reached out and smoothed down her hair. She melted at the gesture. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to tell him her plan.
Ita made a show of opening the door and gasping in appreciation at the boys’ new outfits. Leda put a hand to her heart and gasped, too, but it was a hundred percent genuine. “Look at you!” She reached out and patted one shoulder after another while the boys strutted and posed. “Nzuri sana! So handsome!”
She ran off to get her camera as the boys assembled in the courtyard. Leda snapped picture after picture, viewing her adopted family through new eyes. For the first time in her life, her camera gave her not a sense of distance, but of intimacy. Through the lens, she saw the scar on Ntimi’s ear she knew was from a dog attack. She saw the glint in Michael’s eyes that betrayed the love behind his apprehension. In Jomo’s eyes, she saw the seeds of confidence. She let Jomo take a turn at the camera, imagining him becoming a photographer. Why not? If she could help them, she wanted them to become whatever they wanted. She’d always been embarrassed by her wealth, but she realized she shouldn’t be anymore. Money could do good things for good people. It could give them license to dream.
Ita clapped his hands together to get everyone’s attention. “Zawadi, Leda! Time for Leda’s present.”
She turned in shock. “Oh no, Ita.” She’d told him not to get her anything.
“Come here,” he said with a grin. He held something behind his back.
The boys obliged, hurrying to sit on the mat, all eyes on Leda. Ita instructed her to close her eyes. In the darkness, she felt him step behind her.
“Merry Christmas, Leda,” he said as he draped something light around her neck. A necklace.
Leda opened her eyes. The chain was short, but she could pull it out just far enough to see the delicate gold bird linked in the middle.
She inhaled and felt dizzy, off balance. How did he get this? It was so dainty, pretty. Expensive. How could he have spent that kind of money—
Ita kissed the
nape of her neck. “It was my mother’s.” Leda tried to breathe and failed. “A sparrow. They fly free until they meet their destiny. Then they fly together.”
Leda spun around. She looked into his eyes, wide and watery. When she fell into his arms and hugged him, she felt his heartbeat pound against hers.
The boys clapped and whistled.
“You’re like a bird,” Ita whispered. “Come from a faraway land.” He touched the charm at her throat.
“Ita—” She was overcome. “I can’t—”
“You will leave. But now, with this necklace...” He traced her collarbone, his eyes shining. “You will come back.”
She closed her hand over his, over the little gold bird. “I will,” she said, and she meant it. “I will come back.”
He took her in his arms, rocking her to and fro on the sea of emotion between them. The children sprang from the mat, ensnared by the spirit, too. Ntimi hugged them first, and then Michael. Walter hugged Leda’s ankles. It was such a perfect moment, Leda felt her heart start to race. The bodies squeezing her tight, the necklace pressed against her skin, it brought thoughts bubbling up unbidden. This is too much—too good. I don’t deserve it. Leda tried to suppress the creeping thoughts, tried to allow herself this moment of bliss, of warmth.
But it didn’t feel merely warm. Leda felt hot, suffocated, like she might faint. She pulled apart from Ita and cleared her throat. “I—I have something for you all, too. One second.”
Leda went and got her bag, still packed from safari. She spilled out the candy and gifts onto the mat. The boys’ eyes went wide at the cache and they all dove for the goods, scrambling.
Ita laughed. He wagged his finger playfully at Leda for disobeying him, but was obviously pleased. It buoyed her confidence.
“There’s more,” she said a little shakily. “There’s something I have to tell you.” While the boys were distracted with the treats, Leda stepped closer to Ita, pulled him aside. “The reason I don’t have a job, it’s not exactly what you think. I don’t...need one.”
The flicker in Ita’s eyes made her gulp. Just spit it out. “My family, my mother, well, my father actually, who died, he had money. So...I have money. Lots of it.” Ita took a step back. Leda attempted a smile. “And I’d like to help.”
Ita stilled. He opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing, until finally, after seconds that wrung her stomach into knots, he put on a half-cocked, strained, non-Ita smile and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Thank you.”
Leda tried to stop her brow from knitting together. What had she been expecting? A ticker-tape parade for a superhero? A prideful refusal? She floundered, anger flittering into her mind. But then she remembered how Chege had taunted her, and Estella before him. Off to save Africa?
As her stomach sank further, Leda saw Ita trying to recover, trying to dig back up his true smile. But his eyes kept darting to the necklace around her neck. She touched it self-consciously. Did he finally see the truth—that she was unworthy of such admiration?
“Ita,” she whispered, reaching across the sudden distance between them, but he made no move to meet her in the middle. He stepped out of reach of Leda’s hands, still fumbling to smile.
When a banging sounded at the door, he turned and called out to Michael, as if grateful for the interruption. The kid darted off to see who it was as Ita stayed turned away from her.
Ntimi came to her side. He played with her hand, intertwining fingers, black and white. Leda watched the piano key pattern and felt as if the world had tilted, as if a story had been erased and written over, but she couldn’t read the new ending.
Before she could ponder it any further, she heard a familiar voice and looked up in time to see Chege burst inside the orphanage.
She watched him meet Ita’s eyes, Chege smiling ear to ear. Leda tried to imagine the river of memories between them, tried to understand their connection, their bond. But she couldn’t. She had no frame of reference, nothing to relate it to in her life.
As Chege strode closer, he reached into his pocket. Leda stared as he pulled out a bulbous wad of cash and waved it in the air. “School money!” he shouted and whacked Michael over the head with the bills. “School money for Christmas!”
Leda couldn’t move, her breath held hostage in her throat. Ita frowned.
Chege’s wad of cash lowered to his side like a withering vine. “What?” he asked, looking around the triangle he formed with her and Ita.
It was Michael who spoke, with his characteristic calm. “Leda will come back to stay. With lots of money for us.”
Ita closed his eyes, aware that Michael had been listening. Chege digested the words one at a time. Then he looked at Leda, Ntimi still holding her hand. His yellow eyes narrowed to slits, and she felt with a pang what he was looking at. She put her hand to her throat, covering the necklace. Chege stared another moment, his gaze a fire doused in kerosene. When he spun to face Ita, the icy glare made Ita flinch before he lowered his head, sheepish.
Leda dropped her chin in suit, wishing she could disappear. Wondering if Ita wished she would, too.
Chapter 22
January 2, 2008, Kibera—Ita
“CHEGE!” ITA’S SCREAM trips over Kioni as he tumbles into the street. “Chege, no!”
Ita is running Chege’s path, replacing Chege’s tracks with his own. Under the eyes of the stunned policemen, he stutters to a stop.
Chege’s body lies facedown, his T-shirt riddled with too many holes to count. Ita’s nostrils burn with the sulfur smell of gunfire, blended with the sweet, rusted smell of blood. The gun smoke drifts to join that of the rioters’ fires, still blanketing the sky above.
Ita can do nothing. No doctor in the world would try. He drops to the ground, rocks and shrapnel piercing his knees, his blood mixing with Chege’s in the dirt, his tears following soon after.
Ita doesn’t know the physiology of how a mind snaps. But he can feel it. He can feel his mind stretch to the limits of sanity, then snap like a rubber band. The sobs that gush onto Chege’s body, they don’t belong to Ita, they are not his to control. As he turns Chege over, he hears no sound, no groaning, no escaping breath—Chege has left this body behind. Ita peels the dreadlocks from his friend’s face, but he doesn’t move his hand away quickly enough to escape the blood that spills from Chege’s mouth onto his fingers. Ita doesn’t flinch—he lets his hand glisten in the night, moves it to cup the side of Chege’s face, something he could have never done in life.
So calm. Chege’s scarred face is slack, unrecognizable, peace smoothed across it as Ita has never seen, not even when they were boys, not even when Chege slept. Ita remembers in vivid succession the thousands of nights he took his turn at watch, over Chege frowning in his sleep.
“Sleep,” Ita whispers.
In their world without mirrors, Ita knows Chege’s face better than his own. Every scar, he knows the story. They are linked. He will never escape Chege. Something Ita has always known, and which is no less true now. In life or death, their fate was woven together long ago.
In the last few moments the world gives Ita to say goodbye, he sees their relationship clearly for the first time. Grief provides the clarity like water flattening into a reflective surface.
While Ita’s face has stayed clear and smooth, Chege’s is covered in scars. He took every one for himself. For every piece of knowledge Ita prides himself on, Chege traded a piece of his soul. For every indignity Ita was spared, Chege swallowed it whole.
Ita didn’t ask for it, but he took it. Sometime, a long time ago, Chege made him believe that he was better, special. Chege decided to sacrifice, to give up the things he thought Ita could do better—school, legitimate business, charity. Love. The sacrifices created Chege’s identity. What did he see in himself? Ita wonders. What demons found him in the night? What did the little monsters whisper in his ear?
Holding Chege’s head in his hands, Ita knows that whatever his friend beca
me, Ita played his part. His role, even if it was given to him freely. Every day that he accepted Chege’s vision of what he could be, Ita let him be his painting and himself be Dorian Gray.
Chege was a murderer, a thief, a rapist. All the things that Ita could have become, but didn’t.
“Ita.” Kioni’s voice echoes in the night.
He looks up. She peeks through a crack in the door, a crack too small for scared awoken children to see through. Her eyes look to her left. Ita follows them and finds the soldiers whirring into motion like puppets whose strings have been cut.
His moment to say goodbye is over.
The soldiers stand, converge all at once. Ita can sense the agitation in the scramble of their boots. They came for a manhunt, got tricked into this mess. Still, Ita knows the danger he’s in if plays their fleeting sympathy wrong.
“Take him,” he says. That is what they want, to be rid of the evidence. They want Ita to acquit them for their zeal, for their complicity in the sacrifice. He gives them what they want.
With his head lowered, he stands, hands out, palms down, away from his pockets. He backs away, keeping his eyes averted.
When he reaches the door to the orphanage, Ita slips inside and shuts the door. He doesn’t look back.
Instead, he finds the children assembled, a line up of baby owls. Walter waddles to the front. When he sees the blood on Ita’s hands and clothes, his lip trembles and his mouth opens to cry. Ita yearns to pick him up, but Chege’s blood is still wet between his fingers.
Kioni scoops up Walter instead, fends off his wailing by bouncing him on her hip.
“Go,” Ita says to the boys. He feels the sting when their eyes flinch, wounded. “It’s okay. You’re okay. But please, go.” He sighs when they hold the line, stunned. “Michael.”
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