Who Will Catch Us As We Fall

by Iman Verjee

She was gone in a squeal of tires and David let out a low sigh. ‘Too bad she wasn’t a muhindi or a mzungu, that’s where the money is to be made. Though sometimes the Americans cause too much trouble. They become offended very quickly.’ He stretched out the five hundred shilling note, its metallic stink rising up to their nostrils. ‘Remember that – always a woman because they’re more scared and it’s the muhindis who keep lots of cash in their pockets.’

  ‘What about my share?’ Jeffery had asked.

  David had folded up the money into the breast pocket of his uniform. ‘For what? Sitting there like a mjinga? Sikia, I did that to teach you a lesson. Eat or be eaten – this is no place for your conscience.’

  He told the boy the same thing that day, having climbed out of the car pocketing two thousand shillings. Prices are going up, have to adjust, not wanting to admit that he had become extremely adept at recognizing how much people were willing or able to spend and extracting just a little more from them. ‘If you want a job that values honesty and integrity then go somewhere else,’ he said, a threat-covered warning. It’s not too late, is what he really wanted to say. This is no place for young Kenyans. How many new officers had he seen joining the force, suddenly infected with the extortion and bribery vice? He was a prime example. It was too late for him, but if he could help others Jeffery took it as an opportunity to balance out his multiple sins, hoping that in some way it might restore his old faith, his naivety. Yes, the money had raised him from the muddy, shit-stained slums of his childhood, away from depravity and death, but had filled him with something infinitely worse.

  A year in as a junior constable, Jeffery’s senior officer had called him into his office.

  ‘Omondi, Omondi,’ his voice loud and gruff, petering into a tsk-tsk note of dissatisfaction. ‘You wanted to speak with me.’

  Standing at attention – with everything at stake, Jeffery moved and spoke with the greatest detail. ‘Yes, sir.’

  The man leaned back in his chair, which groaned as a complaint of his weight. ‘You are asking for a raise?’

  That morning, Jeffery had left his mother on a pile of maize leaves beside her bed. She was heaving, unable to move and slicked in her own sweat, urine and feces. He had taken off all her clothes and covered her with a thin blanket, leaving a plastic bag beside her in case she found the strength to use it. She whimpered after him as he left, ‘Help me, Constable. Help me, my son.’

  Seventeen thousand shillings a month was enough to buy him drinks at Mama Lucy’s and the occasional sandwich from Uchumi but it wasn’t enough to save a life. Not enough to save the only life he cared about.

  On the matatu, Jeffery had scrawled down his request, listing his credentials and merits, which he was sure entitled him to better pay. Clean to the bone – no bribes or misdemeanors, bringing in violators of traffic including drivers of public vehicles that were all well below the safety requirements for transporting Kenyan citizens. It hadn’t been easy, considering how inclined they were to pay him off.

  ‘I’ve been working here for almost a year. In that time, I’ve made the roads better and safer for Kenyans,’ he said, trying not to beg but finding his body arching over the desk, hands clasped desperately.

  A loud laugh ensued, papers scuffling as the senior officer rubbed his belly in amusement. ‘I will give you a raise,’ he conceded, and Jeffery bolted upright. He knew it. Wait until he told the other officers, thieves all of them, who laughed in the face of his steadfast values. Goodness always wins. Patriots are richly rewarded. ‘I will give you a raise but only if you bring in six vayhacles.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Allow me to finish. Six vayhacles at five thousand shillings per car.’

  Jeffery’s confidence waned, terror and grief climbing up into his chest. ‘You want me to bribe someone?’

  The officer expertly avoided the question. ‘Six vayhacles for five thousand each makes it thirty thousand. Try for ten thousand for one and I will give you ten percent.’

  ‘But we’re supposed to be fighting—’

  ‘Listen here carefully, kijana. I am not in the business of selflessly helping you. You give me something, I give in return. Sawa?’

  Jeffery protested weakly, ‘You remember the motto, Utamishi…’

  ‘Values cannot give you food. They cannot buy you a house or look after your wife and children.’ The officer heaved as if in pain. ‘Or in your case, your mother.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘They talk.’ The large man waved his hand in the direction of his door. ‘Everybody here talks except for you.’

  As the officer ushered him out, Jeffery tried one last time. ‘I need the money today. If you loan it to me, I will bring you six cars, even seven! I won’t take anything. You can keep it all.’

  ‘Do you think I am a bank?’ barked the man. ‘Go find someone else to help you – six cars in one day is easy.’ He waved Jeffery away, no room for discussion. ‘You heard me, sindiyo? Six and no less.’

  Jeffery got up from the chair and moved toward the door, confused and hurt because all of his hard work had amounted to nothing. He left the senior officer’s desk angry, determined and goaded on by the only option he had and went straight to the man he knew could help him – David.

  Already on his way out for the afternoon’s work, the man hopped down the stairs of the station, smiling. ‘Don’t worry, brother,’ he had said, with menace in his voice. ‘I know the place exactly.’

  ‌

  15

  One afternoon, the rain was so relentless it forced everyone indoors and the drain that ran along the side of the street overflowed. Leena left her brother and Michael sitting at the small table in the muggy shadows of the kitchen, where the heat of the downpour collected like steam and caused her T-shirt to stick to her skin. She dashed the short distance to Tag’s house, the rainwater rippling out onto the tarmac like a shallow river and wetting her socks.

  ‘My mother won’t like it if you dirty our carpet,’ he told her, standing guard at his door.

  So she flipped her hair over one shoulder and squeezed the water from it, roping it around her palm. Before she stepped in, while removing her shoes and socks, she squinted back at her house. She heard her brother laugh and the sound pricked her chest. She had said goodbye when leaving but he was so engrossed in his conversation he had barely glanced back at her. But Michael had paused, flicked his eyes above Jai’s head and she had tried not to scowl while he struggled to keep his grin hidden.

  ‘Do you have extra socks?’ she asked Tag.

  After he came down with a pair of old superhero socks, he led her into the living room, where she was immediately overcome by the smell of sandalwood and rose, scratching her throat and disturbing her vision. Her feet slipped on the polished, laminate floor and she slid-skidded over to the sofa, as far away as possible from the incense sticks. She focused on the framed picture of his deceased grandmother, the garland of marigolds strung over her photo in accordance with the Hindu funeral tradition. The standing lamp at the side of the room cast a low light into the endless layers of flame-colored petals, making them appear as if platelets of gold – the expensive steps to a next life.

  ‘I have an idea that I’m sure will work.’ Tag snapped his fingers. ‘Earth to Leena. You’re going to be very important in all of this.’

  Leena dragged her eyes away from the fiery frame and attempted to pay attention. She was beginning to regret having approached Tag last week, storming out of the house after finding that Jai and Michael had gone to the fruit market without telling her. It was her favorite place – Jai knew that – and he’d never failed to ask her to go.

  ‘I hate him,’ she had told Tag when he discovered her kicking stones at the wall. She had picked one up and threw it with such force that it cracked into gray shrapnel. ‘I just want him to go away.’

  It wasn’t a secret that Tag disliked Michael. The boy wasn’t one of them. ‘Have you seen his shorts?’ he had asked Leena
, coming to stand beside her. ‘Full of holes. His sandals too.’

  At this image Leena had felt a little sorry for Michael, though she had told Tag she had never noticed. It was something about the way Michael carried himself, so assuredly, as if none of what the other children were interested in mattered. It had the effect of making her feel slightly silly, more infuriated with him than she already was.

  ‘Jai says you shouldn’t hate people just because they don’t have as much money as you.’

  It was true, you couldn’t blame someone for being poor, but that didn’t mean you had to be kind to them out of pity either. Tag was tired of being humiliated, beaten in soccer, thrashed in cricket and marbles – his blood had fumed the last time they played. Not even Jai had managed to outsmart Michael at games.

  Now, on his couch, he finished telling Leena his plan and she played nervously with the print on the socks he had given her. It came away in her hands – blue and red flakes – broken pieces of Superman. ‘Maybe there’s another way?’ she suggested. ‘I can talk to Jai and tell him how upset we are.’

  Tag shook his head firmly. ‘This is perfect. Perfectly believable.’

  That was what made her so uneasy: the certainty that it would work. ‘It seems a little mean.’

  ‘I’ll find someone else to help if you don’t want to.’

  Outside, the rain had slowed to a light drizzle. The sun pushed through the clouds, fire-lighting their edges. Leena watched Jai emerge from the house with Michael. They were laughing about something, struggling with each other – pulling at T-shirts and shoving shoulders. One of them dropped a soccer ball and it was bounced back and forth as they trotted to the center of the street to begin a game. She willed Jai to look up, to give her that familiar smile and wave, gesture for her to join them. When he didn’t, she turned back to Tag, sighing in relent. ‘Just tell me what I have to do.’

  A few days afterward, Michael caught up with her on the street.

  ‘You’re doing it wrong, you know.’ He had come up behind her as she was practicing a hands-free technique on her bicycle. She ignored him, spreading her arms out as the bike quivered so violently beneath her that even reaching out to grab the handlebars didn’t stop it from spilling her onto the sidewalk.

  It was early and the street was deserted. Only the hushed voices of women whispering goodbye to their husbands and the high-pitched calls of morning birds interrupted her activity. Although it was not yet eight o’clock her parents had already left the house. Jai was still asleep so she had slipped out into the cold daylight, bumping her bike down the front stairs.

  From her position on the ground, she glared up at Michael and thought she detected his mouth twitching. He always seemed to be laughing at her.

  ‘What do you know about it?’ she snapped. ‘I’ve never seen you ride a bike.’

  Unperturbed by her rudeness, he held out his hand. ‘Let me help you up.’

  Though moody and unpredictable, permanently glowering at him, Leena intrigued Michael. He felt sorry for her, the way she constantly followed her brother around, eager to be allowed into their games, their conversations, and felt guilty for having come between them.

  ‘I don’t think your sister likes me very much,’ he had told Jai once, watching as she stormed into the house after he had beaten her at a game of marbles.

  Jai had brushed it off. ‘She’s just competitive – she’ll get over it.’

  But Michael noticed the way she whispered with the other children, the narrowed eyes and stiff shoulders he received whenever he tried to talk to her. That morning, as he pulled her up easily from the ground, he asked, ‘Are you okay?’

  His hand was dry and pleasantly coarse and her voice softened, despite her irritation. ‘Yes, thanks.’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m practicing riding without hands.’ As she answered, her eyes went carefully from window to window, saw that most curtains were still drawn.

  ‘I can help you if you want,’ he offered, seizing this opportunity to win her over. ‘It’s all about physics.’ Spotting her confusion, he pointed at the bike he had lifted from the ground. ‘Do you mind?’

  She hesitated a slight second, which stopped his breath, causing his cheeks to burn with hope. She shook her head. ‘Go ahead.’

  He settled on the bike while adjusting the height of the seat. ‘You’re quite short.’

  He bit down guiltily on his words, but it was difficult not to tease her.

  ‘I’m only twelve and I’m a girl,’ she defended herself.

  With a tug of the metal chain, he began to pedal. ‘Walk with me.’

  Michael’s grandmother had once traded her best chicken for a rundown silver and red BMX. He had come back from school to see it leaning against the fever tree that grew close to the shamba – a bright and beautiful image – and he had asked her, breathless, what it was for.

  ‘It’s a tool,’ she had barked, forcing him upon it. ‘You are going to learn how to be just like them, understood? Even silly things like riding this machine.’

  He had left it in Eldoret with a heavy heart, lending it to a boy down the street, who promised safe-keeping, although Michael knew he would never see it again.

  ‘Everyone thinks they have to start off slow,’ he told Leena, picking up speed. ‘But the truth is, it’s much easier when you’re moving faster and have more momentum.’

  She was forced to break into a jog to keep up. He straightened his back, lifted his hands smoothly from the handlebars, stretching them out until his fingertips grazed her shoulder. The bike never veered and eventually he brought it to a slow halt.

  ‘Why don’t you try it now?’ He readjusted the seat, knowing exactly what height to slide it back into.

  She did as she had watched him do and he walked with her – his strides matching her pace exactly as he instructed her. ‘Put more weight on the back of your seat. Good, now take your hands off but leave two fingers on each bar.’ He started to jog, pushing her into a faster speed. As she moved past him, she heard him call out, ‘Now take them off.’

  Stretching out her arms, she pulled up her back and let the wind fuss her hair. She was distracted by it, the low, sweet whistle in her ears and the tarmac speeding by, and almost didn’t hear him shout, ‘Stop!’

  It was too late. By the time she had reached the bend, her bike had already tipped over the curb and sent her somersaulting onto the grass.

  Michael sprinted after her, falling to his knees when he reached the bike. ‘Are you okay?’ His voice was urgent, eyebrows furrowed with worry. ‘Leena, answer me.’

  To hear him say her name was jarring. Up until then, they had been strangers, hardly speaking a word to each other. He was the boy she despised without knowing why, the one she scowled at suspiciously at every chance she got. He was also the boy who had taught her a new trick and made it seem easy. Who laughed and teased her as if it were the most natural thing to do, and when he said her name it was in a way that made it sound not like how it was but as it should be.

  ‘Answer me,’ he was saying.

  She took his offering fingers once more, grinning hugely and throwing her leg back over the bike. ‘Let’s do it again.’

  He relaxed under her untroubled manner, pleased with the way she was looking at him. But before they could begin again, Angela was calling out for him.

  ‘I have to go.’ He waited for a moment, giving her the chance to say something and she almost asked him to stay. But then her feet were pedaling once more, the racing power back in her thighs. He kicked away a stone, his gaze trailing her until she turned the corner. Then he spun around and headed back toward his mother.

  The next morning she was woken early by a stomach knotted with excitement. Her parents were downstairs, filling the house with the opening and closing of kitchen cabinets, the kettle’s steamy whistle, their low conversation. When she heard Angela’s voice through all the commotion, her anticipation grew until her body couldn’t contai
n it and her knees began to jerk impatiently. Finally, both the front and back door sounded, followed by the revving of the Nissan. She threw off her blanket and leaped out of bed. She was half-way across the room when Jai woke up.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he murmured sleepily.

  ‘To the washroom.’

  The fib came swiftly, confusing her because she had never been deliberately untruthful with her brother. She waited, frozen mid-step until the muscle in her calf began to pulse and protest, but she refused to move until she was sure he had fallen back asleep. Yanking the bicycle from the cupboard where it was stored, she sped down the stairs and into the thin morning light.

  But the street was empty.

  He wasn’t there.

  As the realization hit her, she was overcome by a feeling of foolishness. Hearing Angela’s voice downstairs, there had been no doubt in her mind that Michael would be waiting for her, as eager as she was, but there was no sign of him, no sound or activity – just a lonely, wide circle of houses.

  She climbed onto her bike and began a slow ride around the compound.

  She thought of all the things she would say to him. Traitor. Deceiver. Liar. He had never outwardly promised her anything and yet she felt betrayed by him. Perhaps she wouldn’t say anything at all. She set her mouth and nodded to herself. Yes, she would never speak to him again.

  ‘Good morning.’

  The voice pulled her bike to a bumpy halt.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ She kept her back turned to him, trying to swallow down her relief.

  ‘I thought you might want to practice some more.’

  She wrung her fingers around the handlebars, flicked the pedals and let them whirr manically as he came around to stand in front of her. ‘You’re late,’ she pouted, and when she lifted her eyes, saw that he was regarding her seriously.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  At his apology, her anger faltered. ‘Come on,’ she said, pushing past him, a smile on her face.