Then not quite four years after her marriage came the day when she’d literally run into him. That physical touch, accidental though it had been, left him at once joyous and alarmed. Even more miraculously, she’d begun to talk to him. And she seemed to like their conversations; she seemed to take on a glow; she wanted more.
Only she was married to the son of the man who’d saved his son’s life. So Abayomi had told himself to be content with the time the Camel Bookmobile allowed them. A gift to him from an unlikely source—a collection of books. He had managed to be satisfied, just managed, until the day she touched his cheek, ran her hand along his shoulder.
Then events began to move with the speed of a cheetah.
By now, Abayomi had reached home. He hesitated for just a moment outside the door. Matani would come to him today, he knew. Matani would come to discuss Taban and the missing books, but he would find another topic waiting. It would be difficult for Abayomi to discuss Jwahir with the man she’d married. He was good at creating drums, he knew. He spoke best with his hands. When making words, he floundered. Still, he understood that words were what he had just promised Jwahir. And he was, he reminded himself, a man of his promises.
Though the day was only beginning, he longed for it to be through.
The Teacher
THEY’D PUT A RED SMUDGE ACROSS HER CHEEKS AND three black ones on her forehead and now, though she was still wearing her faded jeans and a lavender T-shirt and her hair stood apart from her scalp, she looked transformed. Her wide-set eyes seemed to leap from her face. He was surprised he’d never before noticed how striking they were: blue in the middle ringed with the brown of the earth, as though they couldn’t make up their mind about whether to be one color or the other. He was briefly distracted by her collarbone. Most of the women here covered their collarbones with beads. He forced himself to focus again on her face. She looked as though she’d shed many moons’ worth of responsibility. “We had fun,” she said.
“I can see.” He handed her a cup of chai and a piece of bread. “Do you want to walk a bit after lunch, before we go to Scar Boy?”
She nodded. “How was the teaching?”
“They were”—he hesitated, hunting for the word—“unsettled this morning. The story of your confrontation with the monkeys has traveled.”
She took a sip of the chai and looked down into her cup. “Matani,” she said. “Will you tell me about the Great Disaster?”
Matani raised his hands to the sky. “It’s a brief story. For five years, our elders say, water no longer flowed from the sky. We call it the Time of Thorns. That’s what people ate.”
She watched him, silent.
“Half died,” he said. “Mothers learned a lesson: a lullaby will not calm a hungry child.”
She gave up sitting cross-legged and stretched out her legs, flexing her toes. “How long ago was this?”
“A generation ago. It is not in my living memory.”
“A generation? Then it won’t happen again,” Miss Sweeney said. “Not that way. Today you have irrigation. There are international organizations, and relief centers, and towns you can reach if you need to.”
Matani shook his head. “Ours is a contradictory people,” he said. “Our elders would prefer drinking from an elephant’s footprint to leading the tribe into a town or taking them again to a famine camp.”
“If they had to?”
Matani considered how to explain without insulting Miss Sweeney. “Our elders will tell you the towns and feeding centers are filled with people who have failed.” He added quickly, “No rudeness is meant.”
Miss Sweeney touched Matani’s fingertips lightly with her own, leaving behind a suggestion of warmth. “Please don’t weigh each word with me,” she said. “I’m not as fragile as that.” Matani tried not to think about the touch, except to remind himself how vastly different were relations between men and women in Miss Sweeney’s country.
“Anyway,” Miss Sweeney went on, “couldn’t you convince them that towns are not to be feared?”
“Me?”
“You’ve been to Nairobi. You’re educated. You’re kind and smart. You—” She stopped short, and a look he recognized as embarrassment flew across her face. That surprised him. She was usually brash, like Jwahir, who never seemed embarrassed. Between the two of them, he was the one given to self-consciousness.
“You misunderstand my importance to the tribe,” he said gently.
She leaned forward, silent.
“You know about age-groups?” he asked.
“Every thirteen years, all the young men between—what is it? twelve and twenty-five?—become a sort of fraternity.”
He nodded. “And each new age-group starts out by setting up camp outside the settlement to graze the cows. In this way they become a unit and their links are secured. When my group was being initiated, my father sent me away to study.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“But as result, I’m seen as different. I lack the closeness many of the men share.” He hesitated a moment. “Some question my loyalty. They say I favor the city over the tribe.”
He’d made it sound as if the men made such accusations, but in fact this charge came directly from Jwahir. She’d told him the previous night that he must send the library away after recovering Scar Boy’s books. Otherwise, she said, he was choosing the Distant City over her. As she spoke, he’d seen her father’s face staring out at him, cold and judgmental. What he’d wanted was to hold his wife in his arms, but she’d turned into a village elder. He hadn’t replied. He hadn’t told her that he believed loyalty to her and to the tribe required, in fact, doing everything he could to keep the library coming. The passing of time, he hoped, would allow them to discuss this more easily.
Miss Sweeney waited for him to continue.
“Our tribe sees itself as survivors who share a pact with the land,” he said. “The story is that we were slaves to another tribe—this is perhaps a thousand years ago. And then we escaped. We were without weapons, but the land protected us. It offered up food and hiding places. So the connection between our people and the land is strong. Not only this place where Mididima rests, but all of it. The earth, to us, is a living thing with thoughts and feelings. That’s why, when my father first brought the irrigation buckets, there was great suspicion. Many felt we should not trick the soil.”
“Your father was simply trying to make the most of what water you have.”
Matani shrugged. “Maybe you’ll understand better if I say that many here believe drought is not a natural phenomenon. They think it’s something we call down upon ourselves.”
“How?”
“Varied ways. The Great Disaster, for instance, occurred because a man of the tribe forced his will on a young woman.”
“Rape, you mean,” she said.
“I don’t know your word,” he said. Miss Sweeney took a bite of her bread, her face unreadable. “I’ve offended you.”
“No. It’s silly. Romantic of me, really, that I didn’t think of you having those problems here.” She stared at her left hand, then wiped it on her jeans. “What happened to the man?”
“Nothing for several weeks. The guilty man’s closest friend was the woman’s brother, so naturally, the brother struggled over what the Hundred-Legged One would want. Finally, the brother killed his friend.”
“How?”
“A gun. The first our tribe had ever seen. He traded two cows for it. And today he’s honored for this. He is among our sacred ancestors. He righted a wrong.”
“If you believe the matter was set right, why would this lead to the drought?”
“The punishment came too late,” Matani said. “By the time the man was dead, the drought had already bared its claws and taken hold.”
“What happened to the woman?” Miss Sweeney asked after a pause.
“She was not held blameless. Her life, too, became misery. Eventually she offered herself to a passing tribe and left.”
Miss Sweeney still had half of her bread left. She set it down on a square of cloth spread on the ground.
“And you,” she said. “What do you think causes drought?”
Matani hesitated. “I’m a modern man,” he said. “Still, I struggle with this. I cannot fully discount the idea that our misdeeds can cause catastrophes of all sorts.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. He watched Miss Sweeney push her fingers through her hair. She had so many questions, more questions than he ever knew one person could pose. The people of Mididima, it occurred to him, didn’t have that much to ask about. Some had wanted to know of Nairobi—or the Distant City, as they insisted on calling it. But a sentence or two usually satisfied their curiosity. And in school, the children sometimes asked questions, although just as often, he got wandering eyes and silent tongues. In general, none of his neighbors seemed to dream of elsewhere. By adulthood, they were instilled with a confidence that there existed no important knowledge they didn’t already have.
He was curious, though. He was curious, for instance, about Miss Sweeney.
“Of all the places you might have gone,” he said, “why here? Why Africa?”
She didn’t answer immediately. A mixture of expressions crossed her face at such speed that he wished to stop and freeze each one until he could decipher them. “I believed the bookmobile could change lives in settlements like this,” she said finally. “I still believe that. But it was personal, too. I knew something existed beyond my world, something important. Like a flavor I had to taste if I wanted to be fully alive.”
Her words stilled the breath within him. He thought he understood precisely what she meant. Matani had known, even as a boy, that he would follow his father’s path and study in Nairobi as his father had done. He’d also known he would return home to help his tribe, as his father had done. But Nairobi had shown him that there was much to experience beyond Mididima. This was the dream he nurtured for his son. His son would study in Nairobi, too. But he’d made a private vow: his son would not return to the arid desert, where there was rarely enough food and never enough water, where a man could not rise in the middle of the night to turn on a light and sit in a comfortable chair and read. His son would stay beyond Mididima, and taste the world.
Miss Sweeney stood. “Scar Boy,” she said.
So lost was he in his own thoughts about his own son that Matani felt momentarily confused.
“Let’s walk first,” she said. “And then we’ll go reclaim those books.”
Of course. She wasn’t here to talk to him and rescue calves. She was here, this woman who listened so intently, for the library books. She was here and soon she would leave.
The Girl
BADRU GREETED HER AT THE DOOR. THAT TOOK HER ABACK. Without thinking about it, she’d expected Scar Boy to be alone. That’s how she always saw Scar Boy—alone. But, then, she’d never come during the day before.
“Kanika,” Badru said. He breathed her name in a way that irritated her. She felt as if flies covered her body or mosquitoes hovered over her head.
She knew Badru, of course, but she’d never paid him any attention. Now she saw he looked as Scar Boy might have if a hyena hadn’t attacked him. His skin was the shiny warm brown of dampened soil. He had wide shoulders—in fact, she thought they were the widest of anyone in the tribe except Scar Boy. His cheekbones were high and defined, his eyes clear. His lips jutted forward, glossy as though they’d been polished. She stared at them a moment, rotating her face a little to see if she could pick out her reflection the way she did in Miss Sweeney’s mirror.
He shifted on his feet, waiting, unsmiling.
“I’m here to speak with your brother,” she said.
He didn’t move to the side. “My father told us no one should come in while he was gone.”
She laughed, to put Badru in his place. “He didn’t mean me,” she said.
Badru didn’t contradict her, but he didn’t move. Had she and Badru ever even spoken before? If so, she couldn’t recall. Now she got the sense that he was as stingy with words as Scar Boy.
“Your brother would want to talk to me,” she said.
“Let her in,” came Scar Boy’s voice.
Badru eyed her a moment more, searchingly, from head to foot, and then stepped aside. Kanika gave him a look that she’d give one of the kids who wasn’t trying during school time—though they mostly tried with her.
Scar Boy was sitting on a grass mat, straight-backed. It startled her to realize she’d never been in his hut before—they always met outside. It was messy, she saw. Metal bowls tossed in one corner, clothes into another, nothing neat. The books could be under any pile. Abayomi should have remarried. Kanika couldn’t think of another man who’d lost a wife and hadn’t.
Scar Boy grinned at her and then, glancing at Badru, closed down his smile. “Hello,” he said.
She sat before him. “I came as soon as I could get away. It’s important.”
“Badru,” he said, dismissal in his voice. Kanika did not turn to look at Badru. She watched only Scar Boy’s face.
“You need someone with you,” Badru said. “Both of you do.”
He was right, Kanika knew. It was taboo for a young couple to be alone together in a hut. Though she couldn’t imagine that anyone would suspect Scar Boy of being part of a “couple,” Badru was nevertheless trying to save his younger brother from any possible accusations. Badru’s point was reasonable, so why did he make Kanika feel so prickly?
Scar Boy hesitated, then nodded. He turned his attention toward Kanika.
“They’ve begun wearing amulets for rain,” she said. “Two of the elders are traveling to Mount Surina for special prayers.”
“Superstition,” Scar Boy said. “You don’t believe that?”
“Don’t you?” she asked. “But never mind. It doesn’t matter what we believe. If it gets even a little drier, they are going to want to find something—someone—to blame.”
Scar Boy looked at the wall to his left as if words were written there. “Maybe there is something that punishes,” he said. “Something evil and half-alive that strikes down little children or pregnant mothers. But a specific human sin that blows away the rain clouds…” He paused, and shook his head.
“I don’t want them to blame you,” Kanika said. “You have to give back the books. Now it’s not only for me.”
He reached out his hand as though to touch hers, then pulled it away. “You think of me,” he said softly.
“Of course I do,” she said, letting her voice snap. There would be no show of warmth, not with Badru listening to every word. Besides, somehow Scar Boy had turned her kindness into permission to act ridiculous. “I think of you,” she said, “and I think of me and I think of the whole tribe.”
Scar Boy was looking at her with something soft and aching in his gaze. Whatever it was, she didn’t want it. She stood up and allowed her voice to go cold. “Give back the books.” Then she turned to Badru. “That’s all I wanted to say to your brother. I’ll leave now. And you can go back to guarding the door.”
Badru shifted. “You and I,” he said. “We used to play together. When we were little.”
“I don’t remember,” she said, her words clipped where his were slow.
“That’s only because you were littler than me,” he said. “You liked it. You liked playing with me.”
She understood suddenly why Badru irritated her so. In his glance, his tone, he seemed to speak of intimacy between them. No one else dared look at her like that, not even Scar Boy.
“I don’t remember,” she repeated.
“You used to climb on my back,” he said, “and I’d take you for rides. You squealed, I remember that. I bet if you think about it, you’ll remember too.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You will.” He touched her arm lightly, his expression serious. And then, standing there facing the door with her back to Scar Boy, she felt something run between the
m, something she couldn’t name because she’d never felt it before. It was elusive, like a blast of hot wind or grass brushing against her leg. It confused her.
She pushed it away, whatever it was, and half closed her eyes as she stepped out the door, so she didn’t see him. She ran directly into Abayomi, her head bumping into his chest.
Abayomi looked even more startled than she. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “Kanika,” he said. “Are you fine? What scared you?”
Kanika didn’t answer. Let Scar Boy and his brother say what they wanted. Before she left, though, she looked directly into his face. She wanted him to see there was no apology there. As she looked, she saw where Badru came from. Abayomi’s lips had the same shape; his eyes had the same color and were just as wide. Only—and here came the unbidden thought—only he wasn’t quite as beautiful.
She would not, she vowed silently, come back to see Scar Boy during the day again.
The American
THE WALK HAD STRETCHED ON. THEY’D BEEN TALKING almost as much as breathing, in fact, for most of the afternoon, a patchwork of overlapping topics. When they paused near the monkey tree, she asked him about his mother. She didn’t know where the question came from, exactly, and he hesitated before answering. The heat that had been pressing down on their heads and shoulders was just beginning to lift.
“All I know about her is a green fabric with red flowers,” he said.
Something in his face reminded her of the fleeting scent of honeysuckle. It made her want to take that moment and hold it. She stayed very still.
“When I was little,” he said, “my father would pull out that material from where he kept it wrapped and stored in a corner. He would lay it on his lap and smooth it with his hands. Sometimes he would hold it to his face.”
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