The Paper House

by Lois Peterson

  Cucu’s bench was just where it belonged, outside the house Safiyah shared with her grandmother. And behind it was the wall that Safiyah had last seen all smudged and blistered from the fire.

  But now it was covered once again in bright pictures.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How is your grandmother, child?” Safiyah’s new neighbor asked as she tucked her hair into her scarf.

  “Better, thank you,” answered Safiyah. “Have you…? I mean, who has been here?”

  “Such a good friend you have. She comes almost every day straight from school.”

  “Pendo did this?”

  “I believe that is her name. You are very lucky to have such a good friend.” The woman bent to pick up a child. “Let me know if your cucu needs help when she comes home.”

  Safiyah went indoors. The small space felt stuffy and hot. A fly flicked from one wall to the other above her head.

  Safiyah found her grandmother’s mancala board on the bed where she must have left it. She tucked it tightly under her arm. They had so little. But she still had her bracelet. And her grandmother had her precious game.

  Outside, Safiyah sat on Cucu’s bench to wait for Pendo. She ran her fingers along the wooden board, remembering how quickly the fire had taken Mrs. Okella’s house and her few belongings. How lucky the fire had not spread to her house and stolen the few reminders of their old life.

  A crowd of school children turned the corner. “Saffy!” Pendo ran toward her. “I have missed you so much.”

  When Pendo reached to hug her, Safiyah moved aside and pointed at the wall. “Did you do this?” she asked.

  Pendo grinned. “Aren’t you surprised?”

  “It’s all wrong,” said Safiyah.

  Pendo’s smile faded. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “I am. I mean, thank you. But I was…There’s a pattern.”

  “What do you mean, a pattern? It’s just color. Lots of different colors and shapes.” Pendo dropped her schoolbag on the ground and ran her hand across the wall. “There is hardly any space between the pictures. I was very careful.” She frowned. “I did it for you, Saffy.”

  “But there has to be a pattern. A design,” insisted Safiyah. “It’s a mural, Pendo. Like Mr. Littlejohn said. It is not just pieces of paper.”

  “You’re jealous.” Pendo’s voice was thin and hard. “I got the scissors and the paste. I finished it myself. You are mad because I did it and you didn’t.”

  The two girls stood facing each other on the busy street.

  Safiyah wanted to be grateful, she really did. Pendo had done just what Safiyah had set out to do. To cover the outside of the shack with bright color now that she had filled in the cracks in the walls inside to keep out the cold and the heat, the smoke and the smells. But as her mural had grown, a picture had taken shape in her head. A picture of something new and fresh out of something old and thrown away.

  This wall of color and shapes was nothing like the picture in her head.

  Safiyah yanked a loose piece of paper away from the wall. As she pulled, the strip grew and grew, leaving a long scar. She reached forward again.

  “Don’t!” Pendo stepped in front of Safiyah. “You spoiled it!”

  “You’re the one who spoiled it.” Safiyah pushed her friend aside.

  Pendo tripped against the edge of Cucu’s bench. “That hurt!”

  When Safiyah reached out to help her up, Pendo pushed her hand away. “I don’t need to be sticking bits of silly paper on an old wall anyway. I have lots of other friends. We have much more interesting things to do.” Without another word, she ran down the alley, turned the corner and was out of sight.

  Safiyah looked at the ragged piece of paper hanging from her fingers. She crumpled it up and dropped it on the ground.

  When she looked at the wall, all she could see through her tears was a blur of colors and shapes that made no sense at all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cucu was asleep when Safiyah got back to the clinic. Families were crowded between the beds, sharing food, talking and laughing. One lady who stayed at the clinic to take care of her son handed Safiyah a bean cake as she passed.

  She broke it in half and set one piece on Cucu’s blanket, then sat cross-legged on the end of the bed and watched her grandmother’s chest rise and fall. Her eyelids fluttered as if she was dreaming. Safiyah crumbled her piece of bean cake into pieces and dropped them into the dips in the mancala board.

  Mrs. Pakua emerged through the crowd and looked down at Cucu. “How is your cucu today?” she asked.

  “Better, I think.” Safiyah ducked her head.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m all right.” Safiyah stared at her lap.

  The bed squeaked as Mrs. Pakua sat down, careful not to disturb Safiyah’s grandmother. She touched Safiyah’s cheeks with her finger. “Are those tears?”

  “I had a fight with my friend,” Safiyah told her.

  “I am sure you can soon make up.”

  “She doesn’t need me.” Safiyah gulped. “She has lots of other friends at school.”

  “I expect you’d like to go to school.”

  Safiyah chewed her lip. There was no point in answering.

  “Chidi can go to school,” said Mrs. Pakua with a laugh. “But he would rather stay home.”

  “Blade doesn’t go to school,” said Safiyah.

  “Rasul. We call him by his proper name.” Mrs. Pakua’s voice was sad. “No, Rasul doesn’t go to school anymore.”

  “People are scared of him,” said Safiyah. “But he is kind to me.”

  Mrs. Rasul’s eyes filled with tears. “Rasul likes you too.” She stroked Safiyah’s cheek. “You remind him…you remind us…” she stammered. She took a breath and smiled sadly at Safiyah. “His sister was your age when she died,” she said. “We all miss her.”

  Safiyah wanted to slap her hands against her ears. She didn’t want to hear anything more about people dying. About people losing their mothers or fathers. Or their little girls.

  She struggled to think of the right thing to say. But the words got all mixed up in a tangle of anger and sadness. Finally she asked quietly, “What was her name?”

  Mrs. Pakua blinked. A tear trickled down her cheek and dropped onto her bright kitenge. “Arafa. Her name was Arafa.” A smile quivered on her lips. “Do you know what that means?”

  “No.”

  “It means intelligent. Arafa was a bright spark in our lives. She loved school.”

  She patted Safiyah’s knee. “As I am sure you will. One day.”

  Safiyah fingered the crumbs in Cucu’s mancala board. How could that ever happen? she wondered. “Rasul should be in school,” said Mrs. Pakua. “But life here in Kibera is hard for everyone, as you know. And much of what Rasul and his…gang…” Mrs. Pakua cleared her throat. “I don’t like to think of them like that. But that’s how everyone thinks of them. Rasul and his friends do many things that I might not approve of. But he takes care of his family.” Her voice was low and fierce. “We all need to take care of our families if we are to survive.”

  “Like my girl here.” Cucu was awake.

  Safiyah sat quietly as Mrs. Pakua helped Cucu sit up. There was so much to think about. Blade’s—Rasul’s—sister. Survival. Taking care of each other.

  “I am pleased to see you looking so much better,” Mrs. Pakua told Cucu.

  “I feel better,” said Cucu. “I think it is time I went home. Did you bring what I asked?” she asked Safiyah.

  As Safiyah held up the mancala board, crumbs trickled onto the blanket. She gathered them in her hand before Cucu saw her wasting food.

  “This is one of the few things that we brought with us from our village,” Cucu told Mrs. Pakua. “Saffy. Hand me my stones.”

  Safiyah pulled them out from under the mattress, where she had tucked them days ago. The stones rattled as she emptied the bag onto the blankets.

  Mrs. Pakua picked one up. “So pre
tty.”

  “Shall I play with you, Cucu?” asked Safiyah.

  “You?” Her grandmother frowned at her. “It is a game for old ladies, you said. Boring.”

  “I changed my mind. I want you to teach me.”

  Cucu grinned as she found a flat place in the blankets to set her mancala board.

  Mrs. Pakua stood up. “I will leave you to your game. But first I want to speak with the doctor. Later, Rasul will bring you supper.”

  “Send the little boy too,” said Cucu. “I forget my troubles when he is around.”

  Safiyah watched Mrs. Pakua step between the patients and their families, who filled the ward. She held the mancala stones in her hand, ready to play a game that her mother and grandmother had shared in a village that seemed farther and farther away every day.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By the time Cucu was ready to leave the clinic, her cough had almost gone. The shadows around her eyes were not so deep and her skin was cool and dry.

  The clamor of the ward was familiar to Safiyah now. She liked the strange smells, the quiet voices in the night, and the constant flow of people in and out. She was also glad to be going home again, to the scent of supper fires along the alley, the neighbors’ loud laughter and the rattle of kettles at the tea shop.

  Safiyah helped Cucu straighten her dress. She pinned her grandmother’s little package of pills inside her T-shirt along with the note of when Cucu should take them. The doctor said her grandmother would need them for a long time. Every day at the right time.

  Safiyah would have to ask someone to read the note. Perhaps, if Pendo came by…

  She helped her grandmother slip on her shoes, taking care not to hurt her bunions, then handed Cucu her stick.

  Her grandmother’s hand shook as she leaned against Safiyah’s shoulder while they made their way slowly through the ward. Some patients and their families called out goodbye while others waved weakly from their beds.

  In the doorway, Cucu stood blinking in the bright sunlight.

  The few coins a nurse had given them for the bus were sweaty in Safiyah’s hand, and the bus stop was a long way away. Safiyah studied the ground to make sure there was nothing to trip over as she led her grandmother into the street.

  “Were you not going to wait for me?” asked Rasul. How often he seemed to appear out of thin air! “Let me guess.” He grinned. “I bet the little pest did not tell you.”

  “Little pest?” asked Cucu.

  “Chidi, of course. He was supposed to tell you that I would be here after I had checked it out with my boss.”

  “Your boss?” asked Cucu. “You have a job?”

  “I am going to learn to fix cars.”

  “Cars! Perhaps if I had stayed longer, you could have driven us home!” said Cucu with a laugh. Safiyah expected her grandmother to start coughing. But Cucu just said, “Cars!” again, and slipped her arm through Rasul’s. She handed Safiyah her stick and held on to her elbow on the other side.

  It took a long time to reach the bus stop. As they waited in the noise and fumes of the street, three boys Rasul’s age whispered to each other and crossed to the other side. An old man waiting for the bus muttered something under his breath and spat on the ground.

  Rasul ignored them all.

  Safiyah thought of all the questions she wanted to ask but decided to keep to herself. He might be Blade to other people and to boys in his gang, but he was a good friend to her and her grandmother. It was all about survival, his mother said. And she and Cucu needed friends if they were to survive in Kibera.

  At last the bus came, billowing smoke and grinding its gears. Rasul settled Cucu into a seat between a woman nursing a baby and an old man with a basket on his lap. A chicken flapped and squawked inside.

  Safiyah stood in the aisle beside Rasul, jostled by the noisy crush of people. Some stared at Rasul and Safiyah. Others avoided looking at them at all.

  Safiyah felt shy, thinking about what Rasul’s mother had told her about Arafa. Was that the reason Rasul was so kind to her? Did she remind him of his little sister?

  As they lurched along the dusty road, Safiyah thought of the last time she had been on a bus, on the long journey to the city. Just like last time, she was so hemmed in by sweaty bodies and bulging bags and bundles she could hardly see out the windows.

  At last the bus stopped and Rasul led them along the crowded aisle. He got down first, then turned and wrapped his arms around Cucu. She laughed as he swung her to the ground. Safiyah watched them from the top of the steps.

  “Better come quick,” said Rasul.

  Safiyah leaped down just as the bus started moving again.

  While Cucu leaned on her stick and watched the bus rattle away, Safiyah looked around her. The sign over Mr. Zuma’s shop swung in the hot breeze. A brown dog slept in the sun. A jar of flowers stood outside a house, and a broken chair covered with drying clothes leaned against a wall. A raggedy line of neighbors waited at the water vendor’s stand.

  This was home now, thought Safiyah. Even if it would never feel the same as her village.

  Safiyah and Rasul walked beside Cucu as they made their way home. At their doorway, Cucu smiled at the colorful mural. “How lovely!” she said.

  Rasul hardly glanced at the house as he helped her inside.

  Safiyah stared at the ragged space on the wall where she had torn away Pendo’s pictures. She slumped down onto Cucu’s bench. Shreds of torn paper and ashes drifted around her legs as she scuffed her feet in the dirt.

  She kicked harder as all the anger at her friend came sweeping back, like a bad smell through a crack in the wall.

  “Saffy!” called Cucu.

  “What?”

  “Come here, child.”

  Cucu sat on the bed with her back against the wall. Her thin legs stuck out from beneath her skirt. “Take off my shoes for me, would you?”

  Rasul watched Safiyah settle Cucu. “I will be right back,” he said.

  When Rasul had gone, Cucu asked Safiyah, “Did we forget my mancala board at the hospital?”

  “I have it here.” Safiyah turned around to show where she had tucked it in the waistband of her shorts.

  “Clever girl,” said Cucu.

  Safiyah placed the board on the bed next to her grandmother.

  “It will be yours when I die,” Cucu told her.

  “Don’t say that!”

  Cucu patted Safiyah’s hand. “But not for a long time.” She took the bag of stones from her pocket and tipped them into her open hand. “Not for many years.”

  “Do you want to play now?” asked Safiyah.

  “Not today. I am a little tired,” said Cucu. “You may borrow it if you are careful not to break it. Or lose the stones. Perhaps Pendo might like to play with you.”

  “Pendo is not my friend anymore,” Safiyah told her.

  “Not your friend?”

  “She spoiled my paper wall,” Safiyah told her grandmother.

  “It looks lovely,” said Cucu. “Even with my old eyes.”

  “When I was away, she slapped everything up,” Safiyah shouted at her grandmother. “I had a plan. Now it’s just a jumble.”

  “Would you lose a friend who tried to help?” Cucu’s voice was full of disappointment.

  The springs squealed as Safiyah slumped onto the bed.

  “Come here,” said Cucu.

  Safiyah shifted close. She breathed in the dusky smell of her grandmother’s skin mixed with the tang of the clinic soap.

  “We are so lucky to make some new friends, Saffy,” said Cucu. “Mrs. Pakua has been so kind. Many neighbors came to visit us in the clinic.” She ran her hand up and down Safiyah’s arm. “One should never judge a friend who tries to help.”

  Safiyah quoted one of her grandmother’s favorite proverbs. “‘Words are easy. Friendship is hard.’ You told me that.”

  “So you do listen to your old cucu.” Cucu tapped Safiyah’s hand. “It means that you should work hard to keep the g
ood friends you have. And take care that your words do not drive them away.”

  Cucu slumped against the wall. She was better, but she still tired easily. Safiyah helped her lie down and draped the thin blanket over her.

  She looked around. The shack was already cozier, but with the cracks filled, it was dim in here, even though it was still daylight outside. “We will have to use the lamp more now,” she said. “And how will we pay for the oil?”

  Cucu hand reached out to slap Safiyah’s leg. “Go away if you wish to sulk. We are home. I am almost well. With so little, is that not enough?” She turned her face to the wall. “Now let me rest.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Safiyah barged out of the house, straight into Rasul. Water slopped onto her leg from the can he was carrying.

  “Looks like you needed a wash.” He laughed.

  Safiyah darted past him without answering.

  “Where are you going?” he called after her.

  At the corner of the street she tripped over two children playing in the dirt. She landed with one hand bent underneath her. She held it against her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. But she could not stop the tears.

  “Do you want to play?” A little boy with a very dirty face held a tangle of string out to her.

  “No!”

  “Why are you crying?” the boy asked. “Are you hurt?” Now his friend was staring at her too.

  “Mind your own business.” Safiyah stood up and wiggled her sore hand back and forth. If it was broken, she might have to go back to the clinic.

  She looked back toward her own street. For a moment she wondered if Rasul might come after her. But what would the neighbors think, if they saw a gang leader chasing a little girl?

  She looked at the busy streets and alleys ahead of her. Kibera stretched out in all directions, more streets than she would ever know, crowded with more people than she could count.

  Pendo and her schoolmates turned the corner, coming her way. Safiyah watched as Pendo strutted along with her nose in the air.

  Without planning to, Safiyah reached toward her friend. “Pendo?”