With the pipe in hand, he sets to work prizing the edge of the metal sheet free. Raising one corner, he is now able to get a purchase on the sheet he wants to lift.
He strains again. It’s slippery this time. His blood runs along the edge. The sheet is still not moving. A jeer rises from the watching mob.
—Come on, Maasai, one of them yells. If you get in, you can have first go on the old woman!
He pulls again, gasping. Every muscle in his body is part of this effort. Pain burns through him. When he feels something give, the minutest of shifts, he thinks at first it is his own body giving way. But it is not. It is the metal. Another heave, and it comes again, more definitely this time. He scrambles to realign his hands on the greasy sheet. And heaves.
With a creak, the sheet begins to come free. He pulls, and nails pop from their positions. One final effort, and he folds the sheet back, revealing a gap just wide enough for him to squeeze through. The mob cheers him, and he can’t help casting them a grin and a triumphant wave as he edges around, and down, and in.
42
He thinks of the mice, or rats, that had scuttled in Orpheus House. Now he is the one padding carefully across the rafters. He tries to recall where the hatch is, but he can’t even picture the layout of the rooms below.
—Faith? Honey? It’s me. Mollel.
No sound. And nothing to see, either. The faintest glimmer of light leaks in from the hole he forced in the roof. He feels his way along the rafters with his feet, picking his path under crossbeams and over water pipes.
He pauses. Against the sound of the clamor from outside, he thinks he hears a noise. He listens, trying to separate the strands of sound—that which is outside from that which is below.
It is prayer.
Unmistakably, directly beneath his feet he hears prayer. Faith’s voice: the Lord’s Prayer. He bends his head down to be sure. Moves around so that he can bring his ear to lie flat against the board of the ceiling of the room below.
A blade thrusts up right in front of his eyes. It pulls down, leaving a hole, a sliver of streaming light. He cries out.
—No, no! It’s me!
The blade appears again, between his legs. It’s a panga, probably the one that Faith uses to cut plants in her garden. He recoils, feels himself toppling backward from his perch on the rafter. He feels his back hitting the ceiling board, feels it giving below him, and with a sickening, split-second splintering, it breaks and he free-falls, landing with a crash and a cloud of dust on the floor of the hallway of Faith’s house.
He blinks. Dazed. Looks up. Honey is standing over him, the small, curved blade of Lucy’s knife in her hand. Beyond her, through the doorway of the storage cupboard, he can see Faith standing on a box, the panga raised. Adam is at her feet.
—Dad!
—Thank God it’s you, cries Faith. We thought it was those wamera trying to get in. What have you done to my home, Mollel?
—Any closer with that panga, he says, and I’d have been circumcised a second time.
As he rises to his feet, he is almost knocked over once more by a sudden oncoming rush. He feels warm limbs around his neck, and skin against his cheek. Adam is squeezing him with violent affection. Mollel puts his own arms around his son and lifts him up as he stands.
For the first time, he realizes what he could have lost. And he never wants to let the boy go.
Honey touches his shoulder and plants a gentle kiss on his cheek.
—I knew you wouldn’t let us down, she says.
Reminded of her presence, Mollel reluctantly lowers Adam and detaches himself once more.
—Where were you when we needed you, Mollel? demands Faith. We’ve been here all night with those yobs shouting threats and throwing stones. We thought … we thought they were going to kill us.
Faith sits down on the box and buries her face in her hands. Honey goes over to her and places her arm around the old woman’s shoulders. The small, cruel knife is palmed in her hand.
—Shh, Faith, she says comfortingly. Mollel got here as soon as he could. He was on his case. He had work to do. Did you find anything out, Mollel?
She raises her eyes to his. There is the faintest glimmer of challenge in her gaze.
—Not much, he says. The shape this city’s in, I doubt one little murder’s even going to count anymore. I think I’ve hit a dead end. Have either of you got your phone? I can try to call for help.
—Don’t you think we’ve tried? wails Faith. The network’s down. Probably everyone in Nairobi’s trying to call for help right now.
—What do you mean, a dead end? demands Honey. You’re still going to investigate the Nalos, aren’t you? Forget about the murder. What about finding Lucy’s child?
She strokes Faith’s neck while she turns the knife in her hand.
—The priority right now, says Mollel, moving Adam behind him and edging forward, is to get out of here. Faith, what have you got in the house that we could defend ourselves with?
—I’ve got this panga, she says, looking up at him fearfully. There are some knives in the kitchen. And there’s Ngugi’s old walking stick around somewhere.
—Okay, says Mollel, that’s a start. Honey, that little knife’s not going to be any good to you. Better give it to me.
Honey looks up at him. —Why don’t I hang on to it, just in case?
—It’s evidence, remember? says Mollel. He is close now. He holds his hand out, palm up. Burns and lacerations: a crippled hand. But a hand that’s going to take the knife.
Honey gives a quiet laugh and hugs Faith to her. The blade dances beside Faith’s ear, her cheek, her neck.
—She’s shaking, Mollel, sobs Faith. Can’t you see she’s terrified? We all are. Let her keep the knife if it makes her feel better.
Mollel’s palm remains open, insistent.
—Give it to me, Honey.
* * *
She looks him in the eye. Her dark eyes shine with tears.
—You know, don’t you? she says.
—Give me the knife, he repeats softly.
—I’m sorry for lying to you, Mollel. I never thought anyone would take a poko like me seriously. Most people would agree with Wanjiku, that the baby’s better off elsewhere. But they don’t know me, Mollel. I’d be a good mother. No one’s got the right to take a baby away from its mother. No one had the right to take my baby away from me.
—From you? says Faith, jerking her head up. She gives a cry of pain.
—Careful, Honey! shouts Mollel.
—You’re hurting me!
Honey tightens her arm around Faith’s neck. The tip of the knife is pressed against her jugular.
—Mollel was the only person who ever listened to me, Honey cries into Faith’s ear. The only one who really wanted to help me. And she told me, Mollel—she looks up—she told me how she was going to take Adam away from you. You were right. She thinks you’re not a fit parent. Well, they did it to me. I’m not going to let her do it to you.
—Gran! shouts Adam.
Faith stares wildly in fear and astonishment. At that moment, there is a crashing sound. Metal collapsing. The gate to the compound has been forced.
—Take Adam and go, Mollel! shouts Honey. He doesn’t need to see this! The two of you should be able to get out of here if you go, now!
Adam’s arms grasp his waist. —Don’t let her do it, Dad! Don’t let her hurt Gran!
—What anyone else says or thinks means nothing to me anymore, Mollel. But I want you to understand. I need you to understand.
—We can talk about it later, says Mollel. Please, Honey.
But even as he says it, he knows she won’t leave this place.
She has a far-off look in her eyes. Her words begin to pour out quietly, softly. As though she is speaking to herself as much as to them.
—I woke up in my apartment. I was on the mattress. Lucy had curled up next to me. That was what we did whenever we both needed to sleep at the same time. We were both used
to it. Every Maasai is. I never really got used to sleeping alone, without the smell of hide and smoke and brothers and sisters all around.
—Her skin had the sweet, milky smell of a baby. And then I remembered: my baby!
A rattle overhead signals another shower of missiles hitting the roof.
—Honey, whatever it is you’ve done … begins Faith. But Honey tightens her grip.
—You don’t speak, she hisses. You’re just the same as them.
—She’s not, insists Mollel. She’s not the same.
He advances toward Honey, but she casts him a look full of warning and danger.
—Hear me out, Mollel. You’re going to hear me out.
He raises his hand, backs off a few steps.
—When I started to feel the pangs of labor, two months ahead of time, Lucy had been the one who insisted I go to Orpheus House. She said I would get free treatment there, that it was the safest way to deliver my baby. I was nervous. The baby was his, after all. George Nalo’s. How could I trust his wife to deliver it? But Lucy told me Wanjiku had no idea. She thought her husband practiced what he preached. Lucy said I had nothing to worry about. That she’d be there with me.
—And yet—when I awoke, they told me that my baby had died. Just like that. No apology, no explanation. And no body. They told me that it was deformed, unhealthy. It couldn’t have lived. But hadn’t I felt it, every twist and turn and kick, inside of me?
—I knew that child. I knew it was healthy. I knew it was still alive. And it had been taken from me.
—I’m sorry, Honey, Lucy said. But what sort of a life would the child have had, anyway?
—She told me she had to leave. She’d taken a risk bringing me there. But she wanted to check that I was all right before she left Nairobi for good.
—She explained that she needed to get away from her boyfriend. She was going to go back to her village, back into Maasai life. She’d shave her head, put on the shuka, extend the holes in her ears. Someone would take her, even as a second wife. She would disappear.
—But she needed money. She had no family anymore. No one to give cattle as a dowry. That was why, she said, she’d be in contact in a few days’ time. She needed my help to do one last job before she left Nairobi forever.
—The job, she told me, was to rob a rich old mzungu. He was one of her clients. He always picked her up on Friday nights. It was a regular thing, apparently.
—Recently she’d been persuading him to go for a twofer. He’d been reluctant at first—imagine, she’d said to me. A K Street regular, too conservative for a twofer. But she’d been working on him. My friend’s really beautiful, she told him. She’s young, but experienced. And if you don’t want to join in—well, you can always watch.
—And then she said, You know, Honey—if it’s nice, I might be open to persuasion myself. And she smiled.
—She really wanted me along. She needed me along. She said she’d call me to confirm the meeting place, in a few days time, when I was feeling better.
—She put a bottle of pills on the window ledge. A few hundred shillings underneath it, for food.
—It wasn’t until after she’d gone that I realized I didn’t even know if my baby had been a boy or a girl.
A horn blares outside. Mollel looks back nervously.
—I had a lot of time to think, those next few days, Honey says. Her eyes are glazed, trancelike. —For the first time ever, I began to feel as though I could not trust Lucy. It was that smile that did it—that seductive smile. As though I were another client to be played with on the street.
—She needed money, she told me. Money for a dowry. Yet how much money would we get from robbing a john? Neither of us could drive, so it wasn’t like we could take the car. Even a mzungu wouldn’t carry enough cash to make it worthwhile. I should know—I’ve been through thousands of wallets in my time, when they’re sleeping it off or have gone for a piss. A few thousand shillings, maximum. And that’s without splitting it.
—No, if she really intended to return to Maasai life—and this, at least, sounded true—she would need a pretty impressive dowry to find any decent husband. He’d know, from her lack of family connections, that she’d run away. Anyone could see just from looking at her that she’d been in the city. And now she wanted to disappear into a village somewhere? It could only mean one thing. And to overlook that, her dowry would have to be large. Say—a hundred thousand shillings.
—A hundred thousand shillings, Mollel.
—The price of a child.
—It all began to come together for me.
—Lucy had told Wanjiku Nalo that my baby was her husband’s. And knowing that the couple would not want any evidence of the pastor’s infidelity, Lucy had suggested a solution. Sell the child into adoption. Get some desperate foreign couple to take it on. Take it away. As far away as possible.
—And all Lucy would have asked for this little task—for offering up such a troublesome child to be simply spirited away—all she would have asked was the going rate. The payment from the prospective parents. The facilitation fee. A modest sum, all things considered.
—A hundred thousand shillings.
—I still didn’t know what Lucy’s true plan was with the robbery. I didn’t trust her anymore. But I knew that it was my last chance to see her before she disappeared forever. And my only chance to try to find out the truth while there was a possibility that my baby was still in the country. So when she called me, I went to meet her, as arranged, on K Street.
—It took some effort to get there. It took even more effort to look convincing. Being successful on K Street is not just about the way you look, you know. It’s about the way you walk, you hold yourself. That poise. The allure, the sexual promise must be evident in every footstep, every sway of the waist. The way you crook one knee when standing, to emphasize your hip. The way you dip your belly to heighten your buttocks when you lean in a car window. It’s a performance, a dance. And just a few days before, I’d been in labor.
—It was painful. Painful physically, and even harder mentally. I hadn’t been on the streets for months, and my body felt ravaged. The glances from the men told me I looked fine, though. I was fooling them. I just kept telling myself that whatever happened, this was not going to be a normal job. I wasn’t going to have to go through with that—not for a long time.
—She met me, and we kissed. This time she lingered a second longer than she needed to. Caught my bottom lip between hers as she pulled away, and then looked at me and smiled. It was calculated. She played every trick on me that I played for the johns—her hand on my forearm, her eyes cast down, then flashing up, then looking away—every trick I had taught her.
—She thought she could seduce me. Foolish girl. She didn’t realize that with every flutter of her eyelashes, she was confirming her treachery.
—The mzungu wasn’t far behind. He came along in his four-by-four, pulled over so that we could get in. As we’d arranged, Lucy got into the front passenger seat. I slipped in behind.
—You’re right, was the first thing he said to Lucy. She is beautiful. And he gave me a look in the rearview mirror. There was no lust in that look. Not one hint of lust. Just pity.
—I knew for sure, then, that it was a setup. This man was no john. He wasn’t even straight.
—The plan, as Lucy had explained it to me, was for him to drive us to a quiet place. No one around. Uhuru Park, she reckoned, would be safe enough that time of night. Once we got there and he’d stopped the car, she was going to pull a knife. She always carried one when she was working the street, tucked into her dress beside the curve of her back. We’d take the old man’s wallet, phone, throw his keys into the bushes, and run off into the park.
—I could tell, though—from the look that passed between them—that it was me they wanted to get alone. Well, I wasn’t going to give them the chance. We headed up K Street, back onto Kenyatta Avenue. All the time I was thinking, What do they want from me? What are
they going to do to me?
—By the time we reached the Uhuru Highway roundabout, I had it figured out. Whoever this guy was, Lucy had some hold over him. She’s managed to persuade him to assist her with her final task. When she left Nairobi, she didn’t want any loose ends. I was the only one who knew where she’d come from. We’d talked so often about her home. I knew exactly where she could be found. And anyone who wanted to find her could find her through me.
—And she would have known that if I ever found out about the adoption—or even suspected that I’d lost my baby because of her—I would have every reason to turn her in.
—I wasn’t ready to let them do it. I wasn’t going to give up that easily.
—As the car slowed for the roundabout, I thought about jumping out. I could’ve done it. But I remembered the baby. It would be a few weeks yet before any international adoption could be finalized. If she told me the truth now, I might be able to stop it. To get my baby back. If I didn’t get the truth that night, I might still be able to track her to her village. But it would be too late.
—So as the old man turned the car into the park, I leaned forward and grabbed his seat belt. I pulled it. As hard as I could.
—He swerved, and we bounced over the curb. But I didn’t let go. We hit something, flew forward. His air bag went off, but I still didn’t let go. I didn’t let go until I heard him gurgle. And he went limp.
—Lucy’s nose was bleeding. She hadn’t been wearing a seat belt, either. But she’d had time to brace herself. She was a bit beaten up, nothing too bad. She opened the door and stumbled out.
—I watched her stagger off. And then she was gone from the headlight beam. The old man was not moving. I got out, went after her. Caught up with her at the drainage ditch.
—I suppose her injuries must have been worse than I thought. She was there, kneeling. She was acting vague, concussed. Her head was rolling on her shoulders like a weight. I took her face in my hands. They came away wet. Blood.
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