—The elevator, gasps Mollel. The boxes go in the elevator. They’d take up all the floor space. The observers won’t be able to fit in. It’s only a couple of floors. They wait for the next one, or walk. And that’s where the switch is made.
He thinks about the helicopters coming and going above them. The ones bringing in the ballots from distant rural polling stations. What if they are not only bringing—but taking away?
And suddenly Mollel knows where he will find David Kingori.
31
—It’s thirty stories, boss. You don’t look fit to reach the mezzanine.
—Twenty-seven. We’re already three levels up.
—Can we at least try to talk our way onto the elevator?
—You saw the guards. They’ll never let us on.
—Let me go alone, then. I’ll take the stairs, arrest Kingori, bring him back down. You have a rest. You look like you need one.
—We can’t arrest him. I need to talk to him. In person.
—If he’s even there.
—He’s there.
A commander, not a foot soldier.
—Seriously, boss. Look at yourself. You’ll never make it. The climb will kill you.
Mollel has to admit that Kiunga may have a point. In his colleague’s clothes, he looks even more gaunt than usual. And his bandaged hands are causing him pain again.
But he hasn’t come this far to give up the hunt now. He leans over the banister and looks up at the levels disappearing above him.
—I’m not going to die today, he says.
—With respect, boss, says Kiunga, you don’t know shit about dying.
The statement stops Mollel in his stride. He turns and looks at Kiunga, a couple of steps below him.
—What did you say?
—I said, you don’t know shit about dying.
—Oh, really?
Kiunga’s eyes remain steady against Mollel’s glare. —If you did, he says coolly, you wouldn’t push yourself like this.
—I’ve been surrounded by death, says Mollel, since I was a baby. I found my grandfather’s corpse up on the mountain when I was herding sheep. I was five years old. Thirty years later I pulled my wife’s body out of the American embassy. You might remember that day. I certainly do.
—I didn’t say you don’t know death, Mollel. I said you don’t know dying.
—We don’t have time for this.
* * *
Mollel starts up the stairs. He is halfway up the first flight before he pauses. His bandaged right hand is sliding on the banister, and in frustration, he bites at the gauze, loosens the end, and pulls the bandage off. He grimaces as the last layer peels away from his burned skin, and he spits the bandage to the ground. Then, the skin on his knuckles splitting as he does so, he uses his free right hand to liberate the left.
The pain blazes through him, but he manages to brush away Kiunga’s concerned touch on his sleeve. The cold of the metal banister is like balm when he grabs it but like fire when he hauls himself forward. Still, his grip is good. Blindly, he takes one step, two; then he reaches forward again. He grunts as his raw palm makes contact for a second time. He steels himself, squeezes, and pulls. Two steps, three. And he’s reached the landing.
—Twenty-six floors to go, he gasps.
* * *
After that, it is all he can do to count off the stories. Kiunga, though, keeps talking. It is as though he does not care whether Mollel is hearing him or not. It is enough that his voice reverberates in this spiral.
—Death comes, says Kiunga. But dying takes effort.
Barely have his words ceased ringing from the walls before he calls, —I had a lot of people dying around me at that time. I know, you’ve known death too. But do you know dying?
Mollel is silent.
—If you live, you’re dying. But that means you’re still living. You know who told me that? A girlfriend. She was so beautiful, Mollel. The most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. And I mean it. You know, you could just see her and you’d forget to take your next breath, man. Your heart would forget to beat. But by the time she died—
* * *
Keep trudging, Mollel tells himself. Keep lifting one foot, placing it in front of the other.
* * *
Twenty-five floors to go.
* * *
—It was her husband who’d given it to her. The irony was, we were always so careful. Condoms every time. Extra strong. And I hate condoms, man. But I did it because I loved her. I really loved that girl.
—God knows where he’d picked it up. She said he was always a flop in bed, so maybe he was an mbasha. Who knows. Who cares. The thing was, he knew about it. He’d known about it a long time. He’d been on the ARVs for years. But he didn’t use a condom, because, hey, he didn’t want his wife to suspect anything. And she—well, she didn’t suspect, did she? Didn’t suspect a thing until it was too late.
* * *
Twenty-four.
* * *
—It was too late to manage the HIV. The doctors said that the best they could do was give her time to get her affairs in order. That’s how they put it. If she was admitted to the hospital immediately, there were things they could do—drips, transfusions, things—to mitigate the worst effects. Buy her a few extra weeks, months. It was going to be costly. But he had a good job, didn’t he? Nice benefits, company car, and a first-rate health insurance package.
—She went home, packed a bag. Never confronted her husband about the HIV. They both knew he was the one who gave it to her. But she figured he had his own price to pay. She didn’t possess one trace of cruelty or malice, that girl. She told him she was going to the hospital and he wouldn’t see her again. And she left.
* * *
Twenty-three.
* * *
—She called me. She told me. She had to. You never knew, however careful we’d been. It was all right, by the way. I was all clear. But you know, I was pretty fucked up by the whole thing. I couldn’t bring myself to go see her straightaway. I needed to get my own head around it. What the hell, I wasn’t as good as she was. I didn’t deserve her. And when she needed me most, I wasn’t there for her.
—After I got my results, I went out. Got trashed. Got myself beaten up—I mean, really. Somehow I found myself in a bar in Westlands. Picked the biggest, ugliest group of Asian guys and started telling them to leave our girls alone. Told them otherwise, I’d start sleeping with their daughters. You can imagine what happened next.
* * *
Twenty-two.
* * *
—So what was all that about? Self-loathing? Self-punishment? I didn’t know at the time. I just knew that they felt good, those cuts and bruises. I stayed home and nursed them a few days. Cherished them. Ran my hand over the lumps on my ribs and thought, I can still breathe. Counted the burst veins in my eye and thought, I can still see.
—I think for the first time in my life, I was glad to be living. I’d had a close call, a near miss. It was like, you have to nearly lose something to appreciate what it’s worth. What I can’t believe now is that I knew that much but still only thought about myself. I was a selfish bastard, Mollel. A shallow, selfish bastard.
* * *
Twenty-one.
* * *
—It took a long time for me to go and see her. At first it was because my ribs were too sore for me to leave the flat. Then I told myself I didn’t want to upset her, my face all messed up like that. But my face healed. My ribs healed. And still I didn’t go to see her.
—Work was a good excuse. You know I’m no slacker, Mollel. But I never worked so hard in my life. Extra shifts, double shifts. I was a one-man crime-fighting machine.
—I knew which hospital she’d checked into, and I always thought, Next time I go past, I’ll go in and see her. But I never went past. Somehow I’d always end up taking a different route, even if it meant zigzagging through backstreets or circling through the suburbs.
* * *
Twenty.
* * *
—You know what made me go, in the end? It was Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day, Mollel. She always loved Valentine’s Day. She never got anything romantic at home, and I played that game well. Knew what to buy her, where to take her, what to say to her.
—So there were all the office girls in town, wearing red. Red blouses, red belts, red dresses. Man, you know how they love to play the game, too. Slushy music on the radio. I was getting a hard-on just thinking about it. And then I thought, With her insurance, she’s probably got a private room. Sure, she might not feel up to it, but who knows? Certainly a blow job wasn’t out of the question.
* * *
Nineteen.
* * *
—I bought some chocolates and a bunch of Naivasha roses off a street vendor. Three hundred shillings’ worth of red roses, cost me nine hundred bob. But what the hell, it was Valentine’s Day.
—I was feeling pretty pleased with myself as I went into the hospital. That’s part of the charade of Valentine’s Day, isn’t it—walking around, flowers in hand, the gracious lover. I could see that the nurse on reception was impressed. I gave the name, and she just stared at me. No such patient here, she said. There must be, I said.
* * *
Eighteen.
* * *
—The matron came over. Tight old jike, she was. Flowers meant nothing to her. In that job, she saw flowers every day, but I doubt she’d ever been given a bunch in her life.
—The patient you’re asking for was discharged, she said.
—I’m like, discharged? I wonder why she never told me. But that’s got to be good news, right? She’s getting better?
—The matron told me they never even admitted her. She turned up, all right, letter of admission, all the paperwork in order, but these days, they always need pre-clearance from the insurance company. Just a formality. So they phoned, and the insurance had been canceled. Her husband had removed her from his policy. The company wouldn’t pay.
* * *
Seventeen.
* * *
—It was all about appearances, you understand, Mollel. A young woman like that—when she dies, you can call it malaria, you can call it cancer, but everyone knows what it is. Her husband didn’t want people knowing she’d got it from him. He didn’t want people knowing he had it at all. So he made a big show of cutting her off. He played the betrayed husband really well. Even to me. The big joke was, he didn’t know about his wife and me at all. As far as he knew, she’d always been faithful. And that was the thanks she got.
* * *
Sixteen.
* * *
—I found her, eventually, at her sister’s house. Her sister didn’t want to admit she was there, at first. She didn’t want the neighbors knowing she had someone dying of AIDS on the premises.
—I didn’t know the sister was caring for their grandmother as well. There, on the couch, was an old woman, all hunched up and bony. More like a skeleton than a living being. She could hardly move her head to look at me when I came in.
—She hasn’t got long, the old woman, I thought. But I guess you know what I’m going to say. It wasn’t the grandmother. It wasn’t an old woman at all. That was my girlfriend, there. The woman I loved. My lover.
* * *
Kiunga is silent for the final few steps to the next landing. When he reaches it, Mollel pauses.
—Fifteen, Mollel pants. Fifteenth floor. We’re halfway up.
—Not quite, replies Kiunga. We started on the fourth floor, remember?
Mollel leans on the rail. He looks down into the well. He turns and looks up.
—It’s still a good place for a rest, he says.
* * *
They sit on the steps. The sound of a helicopter outside seems to stretch and reverberate throughout this windowless tube, traveling down to the ground and back up again until it fades into the walls, attenuates, and disappears.
Mollel wants to put his head in his hands, but they’re too painful. He sits, instead, with the palms open before him like a book and feels the air on them.
—I let her down, says Kiunga. I didn’t even have the courage to stick around and hold her hand at the end. And I think about it every day of my life. I’m not thinking about her death, Mollel. I’m thinking about her dying.
—Come on, says Mollel. We’ve got a job to do.
—Do you see what I’m getting at, Mollel? You’ve got a son. People around who care about you. It doesn’t have to be like this. So you’re going to die. We’re all going to die. But you’ve got a chance to manage your condition, keep it under control. Make the best of your time.
—Sorry, Kiunga, says Mollel. You’ve got it wrong.
—I don’t think so. I’ve seen you popping the pills. You’ve tried to hide it, but I know you’ve got HIV. It’s not just this case that’s eating you up. It’s the virus.
Mollel stands.
—Let’s go, he says. It’s my turn to do the talking.
32
—Fifteen more floors, says Mollel, rising to his feet. He contemplates the staircase immediately before him.
He counts fifteen steps. Take each flight at a time. He gasps as his hand grasps the banister. One foot forward, he hauls himself up.
—Fifteen stories, he repeats. That’s what my wife climbed every day. The secretarial college was on the fifteenth floor. She didn’t like the elevator. It was always too full. She had to wait too long. The boys used to touch her. Pinch her.
Kiunga chuckles.
—Fifteen stories, up and down. No place to buy food up there, of course. She’d take a packed lunch, or buy a mandazi on the way in. But that morning she left her lunch on the table. I couldn’t bear the thought of her getting hungry. I was on a late shift. So I thought, I’ll take it to her.
* * *
Sixteenth floor.
* * *
—Ever think about what sixteen floors of reinforced concrete all around you is like, Kiunga? Ever think about the steel and pulverized stone that’s holding us here?
—I try not to.
—Sure. That’s what we all do. You think about anything too hard, it’ll all just crumble to dust. You don’t think about a landslide every time you climb a hill.
Mollel pauses a moment. Catches his breath. Catches his thoughts.
—The matatus were jammed that morning, he continues. I was hoping I’d catch her in the foyer, but it was past ten o’clock by the time I got through to Haile Selassie Avenue. I figured it would be quicker to get off the bus and walk. There was some kind of holdup ahead. There usually was. You know how the Americans were about security around their embassy. I remember hearing that squeal of tires and thinking, Kenyan driver. But then, gunshots.
* * *
Seventeenth floor.
* * *
—You know that street, Kiunga. It’s like a concrete trench. Buildings on all sides. No one could tell where the gunshots were coming from. People tried to run, but they were all running in different directions. I wanted to go forward, but someone pushed me back. The last thing I remember thinking is, Oh God, I’ve dropped her lunch. Then it felt like the ground had dropped away beneath me. I slammed into a wall. And the wall kept pressing so hard against the side of my head, and I was thinking, What’s this wall? But it wasn’t a wall. It was the ground. I’d been thrown from my feet. And all the people who had been in front of me were on top of me. I managed to get up. I tried to look around, but I didn’t even recognize where I was. There was a huge cloud of dust rolling down the street toward where I was standing. I just managed to turn my face away as it hit. Dust and grit and ashes. Mollel slaps the concrete wall beside him. —And whatever else goes into a building like this.
* * *
Eighteenth floor.
* * *
—I knew which way to walk because I could feel the way things were flying toward me. They felt like birds or bats at first, the things flying into my face. I swiped th
em. Clawed them. Pushed them down. But it was paper. So much paper floating everywhere. Then the cries started. It was as though everyone had been too shocked at first but then found their voices. So many voices. But I knew I was going in the right direction. By that time I was having to climb. There was no road anymore, no pavement. Nothing was stable or solid beneath my feet. Everything rolled. Shifted. Rocked. Slid. I kicked off my shoes, was on my hands and knees, my fingers and toes. The first time I felt hair and skin beneath my hands, I tried to help the person up. But whatever I grabbed was far too light. Too limp. It just came away.
* * *
Nineteenth floor.
* * *
—But then someone was speaking to me. The voice was so faint, I bent down and could just make out the woman. Her skin was white, as white as chalk, and I thought, A mzungu? But it was the dust. Like white ash. We were all like that. She was so small. So slight. It wasn’t my Chiku. Where were you? I asked her. Are you from the secretarial college? But she couldn’t reply. I tried to push her aside, Kiunga. I tried to push her down, but her hand kept grabbing my ankle. I kicked it away. I kept looking. But they just kept getting in the way, those people, those bodies, one after the other. Anytime I found one I thought could be Chiku, I picked her up, carried her as far as I could out of the rubble. There was a sort of flat area there, where I could put them down. Someone had water, or sometimes I used spit to try to wipe their faces, but it was never Chiku. That’s why I kept going back.
* * *
Twentieth floor.
* * *
—I didn’t know it at the time. How could I? But the people I was pulling out weren’t even from the same building the secretarial college was in. They weren’t even from the U.S. embassy. They were people who’d been hit by debris on the street. The girls from the college on the fifteenth floor weren’t going to be reached until days later, when they sent in the diggers. Of course it was a salvage operation by then, not a rescue. By that time I’d become a permanent fixture at the morgue. Because of who I was, they let me stay, cleaned me up. I washed next to the corpses in the sluice room. Someone gave me some clothes. Every time they brought a new one in, if she fitted the description, they’d let me have a look. But it was getting to the point where descriptions didn’t even matter. I still felt the need to look.
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