by Leah Bassoff
“Section 10D.” I can’t help it. I am still licking the meat juice off my fingers.
“I can come get you and take you to the nun. As I said, I’m not really supposed to help people from the camps, but I want to help you. The thing is, others might want to come along, so you’d have to keep this a secret.”
Who would I tell? I do not even know this UN woman’s name.
“And the pregnant women who died in the camp?” I say.
“Well, they’re already dead...” The woman lets her voice trail off. “We can’t really help them now. Better to focus on the living, no?”
The woman has missed the point, but then, I do not know exactly what my point is, either. What did I expect her to do? Bring dead women back to life?
“Anyway, I’ll come for you within the next few days,” the woman says. “Can you be ready?”
“Yes.” I have nothing to pack. I own nothing. I have been ready to go for some time now. “I cannot thank you enough.”
“Let me walk you out of the building. That way the guard won’t give you any problems,” she says. Seeing me eye the bowl of fruit on one of the tables, she grabs several oranges. “Tuck these into the fold of your skirt and take them with you.” I nod and follow her, keeping my head ducked down. Somehow I have managed to elude Manute Deng. Now I just need to make it to the exit.
It is hard making my way out of the UN building, saying goodbye to the air-conditioning, the dust-free air, the people who walk through the halls looking as though they have important business. I wish I could drag the pot of beef stew out with me, to fill my skirt with bottles of water, but I know I cannot.
“I will wait for you,” I call out. The woman nods before disappearing back into the building, the building that already seems like a dream to me.
Now I am back outside with the heat and the flies. I walk back to camp, back to my foster mother who is surely waiting for me with her acacia branch.
———
AS PREDICTED, MY foster mother does beat me upon my return. She calls me a prostitute and accuses me of sneaking off to couple with a man. I want to laugh in spite of the pain her thrashing is causing me. This is where she thinks I have been?
The truth is, though, I do find myself thinking about Lokure. There is a foolish part of me that wants to tell him goodbye before the UN woman comes for me, but as soon as I think this, I remind myself of how our last meeting ended. Best not to see him ever again.
Yet the next day, as I am going to fetch firewood, there he is. I pretend not to notice him, but he comes right to me.
“Hey, Poni.”
“I’m busy,” I tell him sharply.
“Why did you run away from me when we last spoke? Why are you avoiding me?”
“You really don’t know? You’re the one who told me that I should stay silent, that I should control myself.”
Lokure laughs, and I really do feel like beating him.
“Poni, do you ever give people a chance to explain themselves?”
“Explain, then,” I say, anger still coursing through me.
“Believe me, I know that I can’t silence you, nor would I want to, but seeing how you incited those men made me afraid for you. I want to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting. You should have realized that by now.”
Lokure stops chuckling. How his face can shift, from amused to solemn, in just a moment’s time.
“Have I not made it clear all that I feel for you? I have been trying to win your love for so long now. I have never stopped thinking you were beautiful or admiring your boldness, but I don’t want to lose you.”
A long moment passes. I cannot think of what to say.
Lokure continues, “I have lost too many people to violence already. I don’t wish to stand by while something bad happens to you, too.”
“I can care for myself. I have survived so far.” But I can hear my resolve weakening.
“I know you’re fearless. It’s me who is afraid.” Lokure pauses to wipe sweat away from the sides of his face. “I told you what happened to my mother, but I never told you about my father. A few days after my sister disappeared, some SPLA soldiers came to question him. They were looking for more boys to join the army and had a list with my name on it. ‘Where is your son?’ they asked him. He answered that I was visiting an aunt in a nearby village. It was the truth. After my sister’s kidnapping, my mother and I went there thinking we would be safer. Still, the soldiers assumed I was a deserter. They shot my father, left him there in the dust. My neighbor saw the whole thing happen.”
A single tear trickles down, mixing with the dirt on Lokure’s face, as if he is crying mud.
I stand there, unable to respond. I want to take some of Lokure’s pain from him, to lessen his load, but this cannot be done. We all must carry our pain. Carry it until it gets so heavy that we have no choice but to lay it down.
“I see you speaking out in front of a group of men at debate club, and I’m scared for you. Will the men come for you? I have lost everyone that I love, but not you.”
Hearing Lokure’s words, I want to reach out to him. Yet, I am still doubtful. Lokure wants to protect me, but he also wants to silence me.
“Lokure, your problem with me is not only that I speak too loudly. Perhaps I am not gentle enough for you.”
Lokure’s voice is thick now. “You should know I still think all parts of you beautiful, even your wild tongue.” As if sensing I am about to protest, he adds, “And I will never be the person telling you not to go to school. I believe what our teacher used to tell us. Do you remember? He said that education is the only hope for peace. This war will end, Poni. I have to believe that. I just want you safe until then. That is all I am asking. God is constantly testing me. I don’t want to be tested anymore. I am so tired.” He looks right into my eyes. “Lele never had a chance to survive. You do.”
I am surprised by the sound that emerges from my mouth — half human, half animal — and then my head is on Lokure’s chest, and he is holding the back of my head with one hand, the other arm dangling loose at his side. I can feel myself surrendering to him, tucking myself into the hollow of his chest.
Within this one moment of our bodies touching, I immediately know everything about him. Neither of us has the luxury of excess flesh to hide our secrets. We have been whittled down, the two of us, and now I can feel every part of Lokure — his bones, his organs, his heart — that internal drum longing to be set free. I know he can feel every dried-out, sharp-angled part of me as well. Lokure is like a tree offering me momentary shade.
How can I refuse this comfort, this human contact? Truly, it has been so long. But at the same moment that I am thinking this, I am also reminding myself that I have to leave. I promised the UN woman I would come alone.
Yet how to leave Lokure behind?
Though it makes my throat ache with pain, I pull myself out of Lokure’s arms.
“I have an opportunity to leave, to go to a nun in Nairobi who takes in girls.” I see the look that passes across his face, a look of sad resignation. He will lose me, too.
Part of me hopes that he will beg me to stay. But he doesn’t. Instead he forces a smile onto his face.
“I told you all I wanted was for you to be safe. If you have an opportunity to leave, you have to take it. Leave, and don’t look back.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll find a way to escape. I’m strong, too.”
Legs like sticks, and yet it’s true. He brushes his fingers along the side of my cheek. Fingers that are callused but soft like grass.
“I’m happy knowing you’ll be safe. I’ll find a way to be with you again.” He should know how dangerous it is to make a promise like this.
“Your words, Lokure, I know it is selfish of me, but I need more of your words to keep me going.” And then I tell him ev
erything. I tell him about the letter I never destroyed, the words that I memorized.
Lokure laughs, as if this is the funniest thing he has heard. “Ah, the truth comes out. I knew you couldn’t resist my charms.”
“Now you know,” I tell him. “Your words helped me more than you could have imagined, but I’ve used them up now. I need more of them to take with me. Please, Lokure. Don’t make me beg.”
“I have so many more words to give you. I’ve been saving them all this time.” Then he bends and whispers words into my ear, words that cause the skin on my neck to prickle under his hot breath, words that make the flies around us momentarily fade away. I devour these words, but I also try to ration them, to shove them into the folds of my skirt.
What if this is all I will ever be able to keep of him? What if this is all I can take with me?
“I wish I had something to give you in return.”
“You have already given me what I crave. You were the thing I wanted. I was waiting to tell you.”
“I won’t forget you.” So many of my memories are now in a deep place that I can’t reach, but I won’t forget this one. I take Lokure’s hand, and we stand like this. For once, I don’t want time to move.
I can’t look back at him when I finally turn to leave. The pain that radiates through me nearly stops me from walking away.
But I do. My legs never forget how.
———
I TRY TO AVOID MY foster mother, but when I do see her, she tells me, “I have found a man who sells tobacco here in the camp. A good businessman. He has earned enough money to offer a bride price. He has other wives, but who knows if they survived or not?”
Am I to be a replacement wife? First a replacement daughter and now a replacement wife? Oh, how little my foster mother knows. I almost laugh angrily in her face. You will try to marry me off? Ha! But I will be long gone.
The UN woman is coming to save me any day, any hour.
I want this to be true. My eyes are always craning, waiting to spot the UN woman wandering through the camps. I look everywhere for pale skin and yellowy hair. My legs jiggle and itch with readiness. At night I hardly sleep. I promised the UN woman I would be ready to leave. And who knows? Perhaps she will fetch me during the night.
I picture the UN woman appearing and softly motioning for me to follow her. The two of us would glide out of camp together. She would usher me into an air-conditioned car and take me to the nun. I would thank her profusely, of course, shake her hand or maybe embrace her, if this is what white people prefer.
I watch and wait for her. I do this for a whole week.
Finally, I accept the truth.
She isn’t coming.
She said it herself. “Help one person and you have to help so many more.”
Did I really think that I was important enough for her to save? No. There is no use relying on others.
If I am going to escape, I must do it on my own. Now that I know about Sister Hannah, I must go to her myself. It is my only chance.
Tihou is the only one with whom I share my plan. As expected, she is full of ideas. Thanks to my beer sales, I already have enough money for a lorry ticket. Tihou, meanwhile, has a small map of Kenya that she helps me study.
“You must come with me, Tihou.” Though I can’t bring Lokure with me, bringing another female, another girl at risk, should not hurt my chances with Sister Hannah.
“I need to stay and take care of my sister. She is not well enough to travel.” Tihou’s sister has tuberculosis. It is obvious from her coughing and fever.
“What if you left your sister behind?” I wait to see how Tihou will react to my harsh suggestion.
“You think my sister is going to die?”
I should lie, just as Tihou did when she assured me that my father wasn’t tortured. Yet I also feel an absolute desperation to get Tihou out of the camp, both for her sake and my own. We will be so much safer traveling together.
I know I am asking Tihou to turn her back on her sister. I am asking her to be as cruel as I am.
But I cannot stop myself. “I know you are doing the right thing, Tihou, helping your sister, but perhaps you can find others who could care for her. As for you, this might be your only chance to escape. They say Sister Hannah is able to save the girls who find their way to her.”
If Tihou is angry with me, she does not show it. “You’re right to tell me all this. I don’t like hearing it, but you’re right.”
“Come with me, Tihou. After the war, we’ll pray to God for forgiveness. We’ll pray that we made the right choice trying to save ourselves. But we have to escape. We have to find a way to go to school again.”
“I’m all my sister has left,” Tihou replies. I can see her deliberating. A decision like this can instantly turn you old. I see Tihou’s shoulders turn inward, see her spine sag.
“My sister needs me,” she finally says. “She may still get better. There is a Red Cross volunteer, and if we just wait, we might be able to get help.”
Ah, yes, the Red Cross line. Person after person waiting in the heat in order to see one overworked doctor. Yet this is Tihou’s decision.
I think back to my own mother. She told me to run, and I did. But if I had known I wouldn’t see her again, would I still have made the same choice?
“I accept your decision, yet it’s so painful leaving you.”
“I will get by,” Tihou says, and I try to believe her.
———
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, I busy myself with preparations. Tihou learns from one of the other women how to obtain a lorry ticket from Kakuma to Lodwar. From there I can take a minivan to Kitale and, finally, a bus to Nairobi.
The day before I am to leave, I visit Tihou one last time.
“You’ve got to be wary of the Somali shifta,” Tihou tells me. “I heard someone say that bandits look to steal and even kill people.” Then she adds, “I know you’ll make it, Poni. You’ll find your way to the nun.” I take Tihou’s hand and hold it. “I want you to have these.” Tihou gives me a pair of simple gold-colored hoop earrings. “It is good to have something to sell if you need to.”
“I can’t take these from you.”
“You have to. They’ll bring you good fortune,” she insists.
A long time ago I had holes in my ears. But, like the rest of me, these holes are now covered over with scar tissue. Still, I take these earrings and force them in, feel the skin pop as I push them through the lobes.
“These will always remind me of you, Tihou,” I tell her. Then, as if I am channeling the voice of Mama, I say, “Promise me that you will continue your schooling, Tihou. Find a way.”
“You know I’ll try.”
Before leaving, I enter Tihou’s shelter to look upon her sister. Agii is even more ill than when I last saw her. Her eyes are now unfocused. Her teeth are starting to bare. It is a look I know too well now. Death has already begun to claim bits of her. It is only a matter of days or weeks before it claims her entirely. Tihou cradles her sister in her arms and tries to give her a small bit of water.
“Ask God to pray for us, Poni,” Tihou says quietly, a look of absolute grief upon her face.
I could wait for Agii to die. Tihou could come with me.
But then I think of my foster mother and the man she has chosen for me to marry, a man who sells tobacco and has many wives.
No, I know I cannot stay, not one day more.
— 20 —
WHAT MAKES YOU THINK you can leave? Thousands remain in Kakuma, and yet you have the nerve to escape. The voice in my head sounds like that of my foster mother, all its soft edges worn away by fatigue and disappointment.
But then I hear my mother’s voice, and it drowns out this first one. Do not listen to this, Chi Chi. Just leave quietly and then, as soon as you can, run. Run like you always do.
>
I walk out of the shelter on the balls of my feet, do not even look at my foster mother. As soon as I reach the fence, I give the guards their bribe, and then, as soon as I am past the camp’s exit, I run without looking back. I leave it all behind: the cracked ground that resembles old skin, the slabs of tin that try to pass for roofs, the women who stand with their backs bent over the small amounts of grain they are trying to turn into a meal.
Though I know my foster mother is counting on the bride money I will bring her, I do not pity her. With or without me, she will continue to talk to the ghost of her dead daughter, will hang somewhere between life and death.
Yet, leaving Lokure behind is too painful. I borrowed so much from him — first his book and then his words — but left him with nothing. Maybe I am selfish. Maybe my heart is harder than most people’s.
Those fingers of yours, Lokure, like tall grass — gentle and rough at the same time.
I believe I will miss your fingers as much as I will miss your words.
— 21 —
I AM SITTING ON A BUS, and as I look out the pock-marked window, I see the brown barrenness recede behind me. I am finally emerging from a dust storm, rubbing my eyes to clear them.
The color green. Ah! How long has it been since I have seen this color? Back in dry Kakuma, this color was absent, as though someone had spirited it away, but now it is everywhere.
I touch the earrings Tihou gave me. These are all that I own. I no longer even have undergarments, having washed the only pair I owned so many times that they eventually fell apart in my hands. There is little left to cover me other than my worn-thin dress. Luckily, I have not had my monthly bleedings for some time now, probably because of how thin I am.
The bus heaves and shakes as we ride from Kitale through Eldoret and Nakuru. I remember when I rode on top of the pregnant woman having a seizure. The bus is no different. It seems to want to throw me off.
I look out the window and see sights that stir my soul. Pink flamingos lining the edges of Lake Nakuru, zebras near Naivasha, an occasional giraffe off in the distance. And colors of all kinds. Such colors.