The Brightest Sun

by Adrienne Benson

  She paused to catch her breath and noticed Adia’s blank expression.

  “Your dad!” Grace said. “For when we go find your dad.”

  Adia loved having a friend. A best friend. Mostly, she felt she’d do anything to keep Grace happy so the friendship would stay intact. She never wanted to go back to eating alone, to having the other kids roll their eyes when she walked past. She didn’t notice those things anymore, not since Grace came. But, for the first time since she’d known Grace, Adia regretted being open. She didn’t know if she wanted to find her father now. Not yet. And she was pretty sure she wanted to do it alone—or even with her mom—when she did. But here was Grace, so eager and so excited, she’d planned the whole thing out.

  “So,” Grace said, “I’ll convince my mom to let me spend the night at your house... I think she’s getting used to your mom enough to say yes. And then we’ll sneak out and get a bus to your dad’s house. You can find out if there’s a bus, can’t you? You know all that stuff.”

  Grace’s face was shiny and hopeful. Adia couldn’t bear to disappoint her friend.

  “Well, I know the bus to Narok.” Adia hesitated, thinking. It would be fun to introduce Grace to Simi. “Then I usually take a matatu from there to Loita. I don’t know where my dad lives. But he runs his safaris kind of near Loita. They may have heard of him, anyway.” Adia knew this would buy her time. Maybe by the time they got to Loita, Grace wouldn’t want to go farther. Maybe nobody in the manyatta would know how or where to find her dad, anyway. There was always that possibility. “We’d need more than just one night, though,” Adia told Grace. “Ask your mom to let you stay with me for the whole weekend. Friday after school to Monday.”

  Adia could have told her mom the plan—not the whole plan, but the part about taking Grace to meet Simi. Maybe her mom would even have given them a ride to the manyatta. The secrecy Grace imbued the plan with, though, deterred her. What would her mom care, anyway? She might not even notice—Adia had taken herself to the manyatta plenty of times.

  It was dark when Adia shook Grace awake on the chosen morning a few weeks later. They needed to catch the early bus in order to make it before dark. She’d let Grace have her bed, and Adia had curled up on the bedroom floor in a sleeping bag. She knew Grace wouldn’t be comfortable on the floor, although Adia knew well that any spiders or beetles in the house could just as easily crawl into the bed. What Grace didn’t know didn’t hurt her. Adia wondered what Grace would think of life in the manyatta—it made her feel nauseous to think that Grace might hate it, might find it too dirty and different. If Grace was uncomfortable there, Simi would be hurt, and the one person Adia wanted to hurt less than Grace was Simi.

  They’d both slept in their clothes, so when Grace finally woke up, stretched and crawled out of bed, they didn’t have much to do before tiptoeing down the stairs and out the door. It was dark and chilly, and the girls were silent as they trudged down the street outside Adia’s house to the closest matatu stand, where they could get a ride to the bus depot. Miraculously, or maybe simply because it was so early, the matatu they found wasn’t crowded. The girls each had a seat, and not long after they sat down, the fare taker swung himself into the van, banging the side to alert the driver, and they were off.

  Grace didn’t seem to mind the matatu or the crowds at the central bus park where Adia bought tickets for the Narok bus and then found a stall selling chai and mandazis.

  “We have an hour,” Adia said, waving Grace toward a low wall where they could sit. She handed Grace a cup of the sweet tea and newspaper-wrapped mandazi. “It’s like a doughnut,” she said. “You’ll like it.”

  The girls didn’t talk. It was still too early. They swung their legs against the wall and sipped their tea. Adia wondered if her mother was awake yet. If she would notice the girls were gone.

  * * *

  The bus left on time, which Adia assured Grace was highly unusual and extremely lucky. It was crowded, though, and Adia pushed Grace on through a throng of people and then shoved herself in, directing Grace to a window seat and then flinging herself down. The aisles would be full, too, with people and possibly livestock and poultry, she explained to Grace, so by sitting in the window seat, Grace would be protected from the possibility of having a chicken in her lap, or a runny-nosed baby.

  “I see why you told me not to bring anything that wouldn’t fit in my backpack,” Grace said as more and more people filled the bus. There was no room to move. Adia was pressed against Grace, who was pressed against the window. Both girls clutched their backpacks to their chests.

  “This is why I brought so much stuff to Simi when your mom drove us down here. When I’m on the bus, I can’t really bring anything.”

  By the time the sun was directly overhead, the crowded bus had wound down the Rift Valley escarpment and was bumping along the pitted tarmac toward Narok. Grace had fallen asleep, her head bumping against the window every time the bus hit a pothole. Adia vacillated between excitement at seeing her friends and Simi again, and introducing Grace to all the people she most loved, and terror that it wouldn’t go well. She didn’t let her mind wander to the reason for the trip. Finding her father, meeting him in person, seemed so outrageous a notion that she couldn’t even bring herself to imagine how it would unfold.

  * * *

  Grace remembered Adia’s Maasai mother from the time they met in Narok. She was waiting at the fork in the road about a mile away when the matatu from Narok dropped them off. Grace couldn’t understand how she knew when the girls would arrive, but Adia said she’d probably been waiting for a while. When Simi saw Adia, her face filled with an expression Grace couldn’t imagine seeing on Leona—it was a face full of complete devotion. Grace noticed that Adia’s own face matched. It was obvious Simi and Adia adored one another.

  Grace ducked her head when Adia introduced her, the way Adia had told her to, and Simi touched the crown of Grace’s hair and then said in English, “You are welcome here, like another daughter.” Grace knew why Adia loved Simi so much; there was something about her. She made Grace feel immediately welcome and safe. Even in this completely unfamiliar world.

  * * *

  Grace woke up in the pitch-black of a thick, predawn night. The night before, the family, Simi’s husband and some other people—Grace couldn’t figure out the connections—cooked a goat to celebrate Adia’s visit. Adia helped. She held the goat’s four feet so when it was on its back and prone, it couldn’t kick and escape. A man had delicately slit the animal’s throat, and then held it upside down so the blood emptied into a large pot. Later, the same man removed the goat’s skin in one whole piece, and cut rectangular pieces of it out. He then slit the rectangles in the middle, and slid one on Grace like a bracelet. She could still smell wood smoke in her hair and when she moved her arm, she could feel the goatskin clinging to her wrist. When she reached down to touch it, she could tell it was still slightly damp and malleable. When it dried it would tighten and stiffen, and it would hug her wrist. It was bad luck, Simi told her, to cut it off. Goatskin bracelets had to be worn until they broke off on their own.

  Grace stretched and pulled the thin cloth shuka over her. She and Adia slept on the rawhide platform in the little hut where Adia was born. Grace hadn’t slept well. Adia had fallen asleep instantly, and her heavy breathing and the sounds of the livestock just outside the hut kept Grace awake. She could have sworn that sometime deep in the night, she’d heard lions, too.

  The people in the little village started their day early. Before the sun gripped the sky and dragged itself upward to illuminate the Loita Hills and the early spring grasses, Grace heard movement outside the hut. There were voices and sounds of someone herding the cattle out of the enclosure to graze. A baby cried, and there were clanks of metal pots being filled with water for tea. Grace couldn’t bear to open her eyes; she was too sleepy still. But then Grace heard her friend’s voice out there,
too. Adia was a different person here. Grace couldn’t believe how seamlessly Adia merged into the Maasai language and Maasai life.

  “Hey, Grace! Morning!” Grace rolled over at the sound of Adia’s voice.

  “Come on, Simi’s making tea.”

  Grace sat up and rubbed her eyes. She slipped a rubber band from her wrist and made a ponytail in her hair. Then she followed Adia out into the morning sun.

  Simi’s house was smoky and warm. Grace could see Simi through the murky light. She was blowing on the embers of last night’s fire, and tossing handfuls of tea leaves into the big, dented sufuria. When the fire grew hot, she added fresh milk and sugar to the boiling tea leaves. Next to the fire was a little pot full of white porridge. As the tea boiled, Simi scooped out spoonfuls of the paste into enamel bowls and handed one to each girl. Grace watched Adia dig right into it. She used her fingers to scoop out the stuff and roll it into golf ball–sized portions she then flicked into her mouth. She made eating with her hands look elegant, easy. Grace tried to mimic her, but the porridge was sticky and it ended up all over her hands.

  “Did you ask about your dad?” Grace asked. Then slurped at the tea Simi handed her; an attempt to cover the unpleasant flavor of the porridge.

  Simi looked up from ladling tea into Adia’s cup. Her eyes were wide.

  “Adia,” she said. Her words were hesitant. “Your father, he is not alive.”

  Adia spoke in Maa. Grace wanted to tell her to speak in English, so she could understand. Instead, she interrupted. “He’s not dead. He runs a safari business. Adia thinks he may have hired guides from here. Do you know?”

  Adia looked stricken. She and Simi locked eyes and then, slowly, each turned to look at Grace. Grace was suddenly uncomfortable. Had she broken some cultural rule she didn’t know existed?

  Simi reached out and grasped Adia’s arm. Adia looked like she might cry. They spoke to each other quickly in Maa. Grace sat back. She sipped her tea again, trying to pretend she wasn’t there. Obviously her question was unwelcome.

  Adia glanced at Grace. On one hand, she was angry with her friend. It wasn’t Grace’s place to get involved in this. Adia consented to bringing Grace here because she figured she could tell her that nobody knew of her father and then they could head back to Nairobi. But a small part of her, deep down, was excited. Grace pushed her to this, and now, maybe, it was the right thing to do.

  “Grace, I had to explain to Simi that he isn’t dead.” Relief washed over Grace. She hadn’t broken any rules, just good news. She thought Adia had told Simi already—Adia couldn’t blame her for not knowing, especially when Adia and Simi mostly spoke Maa to each other.

  “Anyway,” Adia continued. “She does know a few moran who worked for a muzungu man a couple of years ago. She doesn’t know if it’s him or not, but she’s going to find the guys and introduce me.”

  * * *

  Leona hated the telephone. It always meant bad news. Especially when it rang this early in the morning. She opened her eyes. Jesus. It was only nine thirty. And a Sunday, too. Fuck. It was probably her mother. Joan never seemed to remember the time difference. Mostly she called in the middle of night, which was okay since Leona stayed up late, but every now and again there was a wake-up call.

  “Hello, Mom?” She coughed and told herself, again, she had to stop smoking. The voice on the other end wasn’t her mother, though.

  “Leona? Hi, this is Jane. Grace’s mom.”

  Leona rubbed her eyes and sighed. It was a mother but at least it wasn’t her mother.

  “I’m just calling to check in with Grace. To see when she wants me to pick her up.”

  “Um. Okay.” Leona sighed. She suspected it would be easier to just do what Jane was asking rather than trying to put it off, or ask if Grace could call her later. “Let me see.” She put the phone down and shuffled down the hall to Adia’s room. The door was closed and the room was quiet. Leona knocked and listened. Nothing. Expecting to see the girls fast asleep, Leona cracked the door open. Sun was pouring into the window, and the room was still. Adia’s bed was unmade, as always, and the sleeping bag was piled on the floor, but nobody was sleeping. The girls were gone.

  “Shit,” Leona muttered. She wasn’t worried about Adia and Grace as much as she was worried about what Jane would say.

  * * *

  Grace couldn’t take her eyes off the men who crossed the ground in long strides—it looked like they were floating—to speak with Adia about the man they once worked for. Adia translated sporadically, but Grace barely listened. She watched the men’s long fingers play on the pale ends of the rungu they each carried, a smoothly polished wooden throwing club they wore tucked into a leather belt around their waists. The men were each wrapped in bright red cloths—two pieces, one tied at the shoulder, like a sideways cape, and one wrapped around their waists. Their shoes were sandals made from strips of car tires, and they all wore bright beaded strips of leather around their wrists and necks. Grace had seen Maasai in books before, but the pictures had no smell, and the men were heavy with the scent of mud and ochre in their tightly braided long hair. When they first approached, they laid their spears down and Grace saw how sharp the tips were, how long the ebony handles were. She heard Adia say, “Yes, yes, John.” And then the men unfolded their long legs and floated off again. Grace wished they would stay longer—having them so near was thrilling, like living in an exotic book. Grace felt a heavy emptiness in her chest as she watched them go.

  “Okay, I think it’s him.” Adia sounded tired. “If we’re going to go, we should go now. The bus for Solai leaves from Narok this afternoon.”

  * * *

  “I can’t put Grace on the phone now, unfortunately. The girls left already.” Leona spoke firmly into the phone. She wanted to convey an air of authority, of confidence in her ability to survey a situation with her daughter and know everything was fine. Jane didn’t seem convinced. In fact, she melted into a panic with a swiftness that startled Leona.

  “Oh, okay,” Jane answered. “Where did they go?”

  Before Leona could think of a good lie, she told the truth. “I don’t know—Adia has a whole litany of places she goes.”

  “You don’t know where they are? When did you last see them?”

  Leona realized she didn’t know. She thought they’d been at the house the evening before. When she was out in the yard last night, curled in the wooden chair she’d dragged out there so she could stare at the stars and smoke, she thought she’d heard them. Hadn’t she?

  Leona assured Jane she’d call back soon. But when she hung up the phone, she had no idea how to proceed, no idea what to do next.

  A few minutes later, while pouring herself tea in the kitchen, Leona saw Gakaki emerge from his room. His quarters were set against the side of the house, a two-room concrete addendum to the house built when it was common for household help to live on site. Leona had offered him the rooms when she first moved in. Adia was too little to stay alone then, and she wanted him to be there when she needed to leave—alone—on short notice. She rapped a knuckle on the window and waved him over.

  “Adia was packing things to eat,” he said, when Leona asked when he’d last seen the girls. “She was putting food in her backpack. And water bottles.”

  Leona was relieved. She knew what that meant. Adia often woke early on weekends to take the bus to Loita. When she did, she foraged in the kitchen for snacks to eat on the bus. “Ah, they went to Loita,” she said out loud.

  “Miss Leona, I heard Adia and her friend talking of the father. Of Adia’s father.”

  Leona’s head swam and her hands began to shake. How on earth did Adia know? And why hadn’t she realized this could never be kept a secret? Leona called Jane back and kept her voice light. No reason to worry this other mother who seemed to worry over nothing no matter what. “Yeah, they just went to meet Adia’s friend. Yes, yes,
they’re fine. I’ll have Grace call the minute they get back.”

  “Gakaki, if they call or come back, tell them to get in touch with Grace’s mom.” Leona didn’t take the time to pee or fill up a water bottle. She just jumped in her car and started driving toward Solai. If she paused to think, even for a second, she would lose her courage.

  BUFFALO

  Sunday was shopping day, and John had paid the Muslim shopkeeper for the supplies and was loading them into his truck.

  The basics—milk, eggs, tea, a bit of sugar—and some luxuries like beer and Scotch whiskey.

  He turned to push open the shop doors with his shoulders, but stumbled a bit when the door opened from the other side.

  “Sorry, John!”

  It was Daniel’s wife’s brother. John had met him several times before, but couldn’t remember the man’s name. He was successful, though—owned a beautiful plot of land just outside town where, rumor had it, he was planning to build a safari lodge. John had been meaning to speak to him about cross-pollinating—bringing his clients to Solai for discounted hotel fees. He couldn’t begin that conversation now, though, because the man stepped into the shop and said, “I saw you have a visitor up at the house. I just drove past your gate and saw a muzungu woman there. A relative, perhaps?”

  Startled, John fumbled one of the bags, and the shopkeeper’s young assistant rushed to his side, “Mister John, pole, pole...” he murmured as he slid a few of the plastic bag handles from John’s wrists onto his own.

  John looked up and saw the man still smiling at him.

  “Yes,” John said, not knowing what else to say, “a cousin. Distant. Lives in Uganda.”

  He set the bags in the bed of truck, lodging them tightly with the spare tire and an old tarp so they wouldn’t slide around too much on the way home. “Muzungu,” the man had said. A white woman. Who on earth could it be?