by Leylah Attar
“Gone where? What do you mean they sold him?”
“I mean that his parents sold him because they have too many mouths to feed. Two little ones in there, and three more out in the fields. They sacrificed one kid so the others could live. They got seeds for their farm, a bunch of chickens, and enough food to get them through for a while.”
“I get it,” I said, even though it shook me. I had seen a lot of things on my father’s foreign assignments. The good and the bad. “It’s awful that his parents felt compelled to do something like that, but Juma is with a good family, right? I mean, they must really want him if they came all the way here to get him.”
“Juma is an albino kid.” Jack was still furious. Not angry-furious, but a heartbroken, choked-up furious. He chewed out the words like he couldn’t stand them. “He’s worth more dead than alive. Albinos here are hunted for their body parts because people believe they hold magical powers. Witchdoctors make talismans out of them: teeth, eyes, internal organs. Fishermen weave albino hair into fishing nets because they think it will lure more fish. Politicians hire albino-hunters to get their limbs and blood so they can win elections. Wealthy buyers pay big money for them. Three thousand dollars for an arm or leg. Fifty thousand for the whole body, maybe more.” Jack looked at me for the first time since he’d dragged me out of the hut. “So, no. Juma is not with a good family because Juma is dead.”
His words came as a jarring shock. I knew albinos were in danger, but I had assumed it was because they were picked on, bullied, ostracized, or physically assaulted. I had not conceived of anything as brutal as their cold-blooded murder for profit and greed and superstition.
Some things are better left in the dark, where they belong. Jack’s words came back to me.
It was what he had tried to shield me from. I had thought I could handle whatever it was. I was a big girl. I lived in a big world. But in that moment, in the barren compound of Baraka, in the blazing heat of the afternoon sun, I felt small and dizzy—sick at the thought of a hacked up little boy, betrayed by his own parents. I turned away from the car and stumbled to the nearest hut, thankful for the darkness of its shadow, which shielded me from the villagers.
They all knew.
The villagers. Jack. Goma. Bahati. Scholastica.
Mo had known too.
It‘s much easier when people think they’re seeing a mzungu mother and a mzungu child.
Once a month, Mo ensured safe passage for one of the kids that Gabriel had tracked down.
The words were making more sense now. Mo had taken on a dangerous mission, but she had known.
Had she retched into the ochre soil like I was doing? Had she gone limp against the wall and slumped to the ground when she’d first heard about it?
No. Mo was strong. She always kept her guard up and her knees strong. She didn’t dwell on things that broke her heart. Like boyfriends who cheated on her, or people that disappointed her, or events that shattered her illusions. She accepted, assimilated, and moved on.
The world will screw you over. It’s a given. Once you accept that, it gets easier, she’d said after a particularly rough breakup.
What happens when you want to break-up with the world, Mo? When it throws something at you that’s so unforgivable you curl up in the shadow of a mud hut and never want to see its face again?
There was no answer, just the idling of Jack’s car as he drove up to me and waited. I stared at the wheels, caked with mud and grime from our trek. I had brought extra bottles of water, a hat, sunscreen, and snacks for Juma. We’d be taking them back unused.
“How old do you think he was?” I asked, still sitting on the ground. He could have been two, or five, or ten, or twelve.
“We’ll never know,” he replied, weary and spent.
“Can’t we go to the authorities? Have them do something about it?”
“If the police could do anything about it, this wouldn’t be happening. You can’t fight an army of nameless, faceless ghosts. Even if you catch up to them, they’re just the middlemen, working for witchdoctors, who are in turn funded by rich, powerful patrons. It’s not a person you’re dealing with, Rodel, or a group of people—it’s a way of thinking, a mindset. And that is the most dangerous enemy of all.”
“So we do nothing? Just accept it and move along? Because it’s not personal? Because it doesn’t affect us?”
“Yes! Yes, you accept it! Just like I’ve had to accept it.” Jack’s eyes raked over me with scalding bitterness. “There is nothing more personal than losing a daughter. You think I haven’t wanted to punish the people responsible for killing Lily? You think I haven’t tried to picture their faces? I lie awake every night, grasping at smoke and ashes, breathing the stench of my own helplessness. So don’t preach to me about being unaffected. And if you can’t handle it, you might as well pack your bags and go home, Rodel, because this is not a fucking tea party in the cradle of Africa.”
I kept my chin up even though it trembled. He wasn’t the only one who had lost someone. I had lost my sister. And by some crazy twist of fate, our paths had crossed—two people with fresh, tender grief, thrown into a hopeless situation, trying to save a bunch of kids when we could barely keep our own heads together.
I laughed at the irony of it. And then I laughed again because I was beginning to understand the hollow, mirthless ways that Jack laughed. But my laughter turned into soft, silent sobs. It was the stoicism that got to me, the acceptance of tragedy—self-inflicted or perpetrated. I had seen it in Jack’s eyes, and then again in the hut, in Juma’s mother’s eyes. Perhaps when you’ve watched the lion bring down the gazelle, time and time again, when you’ve felt the earth tremble with the migration of millions of wildebeest, it comes naturally. You make friends with impermanence and transience and insignificance. Whereas I had never entertained tragedy or failure or disappointment. I resisted it. I forged ahead with the deep conviction that happiness was the natural state of things. I believed it. I wanted to hold on to it, but it was slowly being wrangled away from me.
Jack let me cry. He didn’t try to coax me or comfort me. There was no rushing me, or telling me to stop crying. When I finally got into the car, he gave me a curt nod, the kind I suspect one soldier would give another—an acknowledgment of respect, of kinship, of having survived something big and ugly.
As we drove into the shimmering blue of the hazy horizon, I caught a glimpse of his soul. So many pieces of him had been fed to the lions. And as dark and bitter as it had turned him, he was a gladiator for standing where I would have surely fallen.
BEYOND THE ISLANDS of flat acacia trees, wisps of crimson and violet seeped into a waning sky. Even as night fell upon the vast plains, the light was dazzling and clear. This was the Serengeti, a region of Africa extending from northern Tanzania to southwestern Kenya. Renowned for its magnificent lions and herds of migrating animals, the Serengeti encompassed a number of game reserves and conservation areas.
“We’ll have to stop somewhere for the night,” said Jack. “It will be dark soon. Time to get off the road. We took longer than expected in Baraka.”
Because of my breakdown, I thought.
We were still hours from the farm, driving along the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater, the crown jewel of the Serengeti. Once a gigantic volcano, it had erupted over 3 million years ago and collapsed into a 2,000-foot drop crater. Now the world’s largest intact caldera, it shelters one of the most expansive wildlife havens on earth. Another time I might have paid more attention, but I stared vacantly at the road ahead. I kept thinking of Juma, and how he’d still be alive if Gabriel and Mo had made it—how we’re all connected in strange, mysterious ways. Pull a thread here and a life unravels there.
Jack turned into a campsite as the sun started to set. The sign at the entrance said “Luxury Safari Tents”. Small, dark forms slipped through the grass as the car bounced on the dirt track leading up to the reception. Nights in the Serengeti belonged to the animals, and I was grateful for Jac
k’s sturdy, enclosed Land Rover.
“Can we get something to eat?” Jack asked at the counter, after we’d checked in.
“Dinner is in a couple of hours, but there are still some snacks from this afternoon in the dining room.”
We headed to the open canvas enclosure and got a table facing the crater. The western sky was turning a pale violet in the sun’s afterglow.
“Would you like something to drink?” one of the staff asked.
“Tea, please,” I replied.
“Coca-Cola,” said Jack.
“I’ll bring them out right away. There is no menu. Please help yourself to the buffet.” The waiter pointed to the table.
I hadn’t thought about food all day, my appetite curbed by the brutal reality of what I’d learned, but my stomach growled as I picked through the leftovers of what must have been afternoon tea. Cucumber sandwiches, little cakes and pastries, sugar-sprinkled cookies.
“Thank you,” I said, when the waiter brought my tea.
I grinned when Jack returned to our table, his plate piled higher than mine.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” But even as I tried to contain it, something broke loose.
“What?”
“This.” I raised my cup and motioned toward the crater. “A fucking tea party in the cradle of Africa.”
At first, he didn’t react. He just looked at me, shocked at having his own words thrown back at him. Then his eyes smiled, and it took a few seconds for the rest of him to catch up.
It felt good to laugh. And have Jack laugh with me. His real laugh was warm and deep, like something that had been unearthed on a sunlit day.
“Not just the cradle of Africa,” he said. “Quite possibly the cradle of mankind. One of the oldest pieces of evidence about mankind’s existence was found out there, in Oldupai Gorge.”
We stared into the space. It was dark now, and so vast that it seemed to stretch out forever.
“Zinjanthropus,” I said. “The Nutcracker Man.”
Jack tilted his head and assessed me. “You’re full of surprises, Rodel Emerson.”
“I’m a teacher.” I shrugged. “And you can call me Ro.”
He sipped his drink straight from the bottle. Coca-Cola by the crater. “I like Rodel,” he said. “I’ve never met a Rodel I didn’t like.”
“Is that a roundabout way of saying you like me?” We both knew he’d never met a Rodel before.
“I’m not a roundabout kind of person.” He put his bottle down and pinned his cat eyes on me. “I like you. I like that you stand your ground and see things through. I like that you can fall, dust yourself off, and get on with it. I like that you have this . . . this innate faith. That no matter how dark it is, you hold out for the light. I like sitting at this table with you, being called out on my own bullshit. I’m sorry if I was harsh earlier. I was pissed about Juma. With his parents for what they did. With the circumstances that go with it. With you for bringing me out here. With myself for not being able to do anything about it. I felt just as powerless as I did the day I lost Lily.”
I stared back, tongue-tied. Jack Warden was an ever-changing enigma. He complimented, apologized, and bared himself, all at once, with a directness and sincerity that left me speechless. My ticker-tape of emotions went haywire around him, regardless of whether he was happy, angry, sad, or contrite.
“I get it,” I replied. It was all I could manage. I hadn’t realized exactly what I’d been asking him to do, but it was clear why he’d shut me out the first time. The last thing Jack needed was someone banging down his door, asking him to shoulder the responsibility of another child’s life, when he believed he had failed his own. What man would willingly face the reality of his worst nightmare yet again?
We finished the rest of our food in silence.
A watchman with a rifle and a flashlight lead us to our tent. It was nothing like the average tent at a camping ground. It sat on large wooden pallets, with a high ceiling supported by wooden beams. There were two beds with small night stands, a trunk full of blankets, and a wardrobe rack to hang our clothes. A connecting door led to a sparse, but functional bathroom.
“Dinner is in an hour. Signal me with your flashlight when you want to be escorted to the dining room,” said the guard.
“I don’t think I can eat again,” I said, after he left.
“You might change your mind. It’s not like there’s a vending machine if you get hungry in the middle of the night.” Jack tossed his shoes off and reclined on the bed.
When they’d told us there was only one tent left, I hadn’t thought it would be a problem, but the small space seemed dwarfed by his presence.
“I think I’ll go freshen up.” I grabbed my handbag and disappeared into the bathroom.
I was out two minutes later and heading for the exit.
“What are you doing?” Jack watched as I tried to pry the zip open.
“The toilet won’t flush. I’m going to let them know.”
“You can’t just walk to the lounge, Rodel. This place isn’t fenced in, which means there are wild animals roaming around. And that’s not an automatic toilet. You need to pour water into the tank when you want to flush.”
“Ah. Got it.” I marched back into the bathroom and looked around. “Umm . . . Jack?”
“Yes?”
I startled to find him right behind me. “There’s no tap on the sink.”
“You get the water from here.” He lifted a flap and pointed to the row of buckets filled with water. He removed the lid off the toilet tank, poured water into it, and flushed.
If I had thought he took up all the space in the tent, I could barely breathe in the cramped bathroom. There was something about Jack that brushed against the boundaries of my awareness—the way he moved, the way his arms tightened when he lifted the bucket, the way he radiated heat and warmth. But that was just Jack. I was pretty sure it was the response he drew from most women—the chance gaze, followed by a pause; the appreciation of something magnificent, no matter how fleeting. I would have to be six feet under not to react to him. It wasn’t just about the way he looked. He had something more. Solidity. Substance. The kind of thing the moon does to the tides, making the waves rise to attention. Jack could give you goosebumps simply by circling past you. I shuddered to think what it would be like if he deliberately decided to slay you.
“Thank you,” I said, as he returned the empty bucket. “I think I’ll hop in the shower now.” I practically shoved him out the door. I liked goosebumps, but I liked them on my own terms. And this was not a goosebump-approved situation. With a goosebump-approved man.
I was halfway undressed when I realized there were no taps in the shower either. And no showerhead. Just a drain in the floor.
Crap.
I slunk back into my sweater and opened the door.
Jack was standing there, arms folded, leaning against the beam, like he’d been waiting for me.
“It’s a bucket shower,” he explained, anticipating my question.
“No hot water?”
“Only in the morning. But they’ll heat some water for us if we request it.”
“I can wait. I’ll just use a wash cloth for now.” I shut the door again and heard his footsteps recede.
When I came out, I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around myself. It was nice to be wiped clean of the grime and dust, but the water had been cold, the temperature had dropped, and I was freezing.
“You all right?” Jack opened one eye. He was lying on his tummy, fully clothed under the covers.
“Uh-huh.”
“Cold?”
“No.”
“Want to go for dinner?”
“Yes.” If only to warm up in the heated dining area. “Can we go now?”
“Hungry, so soon?” His voice carried the slightest hint of a smile.
“Famished,” I replied.
Jack signaled the watchman with his flashlight.
“He
re.” He removed his hoodie and draped it around my shoulders as we stepped outside.
“What about you?” I asked, sinking into its warmth. It smelled like him, and I found it oddly comforting.
“I’m not so hungry,” he said.
A bubble of laughter surfaced and got lodged in my throat. He’d caught on to the fact that I wasn’t about to admit I was cold, so he was playing along.
I swallowed the chuckle because I couldn’t afford to like Jack Warden. Not that way.
Dinner tables were assigned by tent number in the dining area. Jack and I ended up sharing a table with an elderly couple.
“Hi, I’m Judy. And this is my husband, Ken,” said the woman. She had platinum blonde hair, and was wearing a brightly patterned dress.
“I’m Rodel.”
“Jack.”
We shook hands before taking our seats.
“Is that an English accent I detect?” asked Judy, when the starters arrived.
“Yes. I’m from the Cotswolds,” I replied.
“But you’re not,” her husband remarked, taking in Jack’s tanned skin. He had silver hair and eyes that twinkled when he spoke.
“No. I was born here,” replied Jack.
“Well, it’s nice to see a couple that didn’t let a little distance get in the way.”
“Oh, we’re not . . .” I gestured between Jack and me.
“We’re not together,” both of us said at the same time.
“That’s what I used to say all the time, didn’t I, Ken?” Judy laughed. “We’re not together, we’re not together.”
“And here we are,” said Ken.
“Over forty years later.”
“Only because you want to see the world and need someone to carry your bags.”
“We pick up knick-knacks from around the world, for our vintage shop in Canada,” Judy explained.
“A place called Hamilton.”
“It’s by Niagara Falls.”