The Brightest Sun

by Adrienne Benson

  John never intended to stay in Solai. After the night his mother confessed the truth about his older brother and about the fact that she’d told his daughter’s mother he was dead, he’d shuttled back and forth from Karen to Solai every couple of weeks. The constant need to return to Solai made running his business from Nairobi hard, and so, eventually, he’d just stayed here. He’d transferred the business to Solai, and divided his time between that and taking care of his mother.

  The road up from town to the house was pitted and pocked with hillocks and holes carved out by the recent rains. John’s bottles of beer and whiskey rattled louder and louder in the back of the truck, the road growing worse the closer to the farm he got. And the louder the rattle, the more nervous John grew. He knew who he wanted the woman to be. But what were the chances? She was in America, had been for years. God knows he hadn’t been with many other women since he’d moved here, and the ones he had found time to seduce were clients. All safely back where they’d come from, America or Europe. Too far away to make him feel hemmed in. This visitor was probably just a Jehovah’s Witness or some other do-gooder. John reached up and felt the stubble on his chin. He glanced at his reflection in the rearview. The last time he shaved, he’d seen white hairs between the yellow ones. An image of his father flipped into his mind...pure white hair and beard. He’d looked like a child’s image of God.

  The afternoon was waning, and shadows were just beginning to lengthen. John pulled up next to a car parked in his usual spot. It was a Renault 4, a common car here. But he had to catch himself as he climbed out of the Land Rover; he almost stumbled and fell. This was a dusty, dented one, old and worn. His breath and heartbeat sped up. He leaned over and placed his hands on his knees. He felt he might faint. Or vomit. He remembered this car. He remembered watching it speed off, leaving him standing alone and choking on dust outside the Chabani Guest House. Now it felt as if every cell in his body were shivering. He’d thought of Leona often. He dreamed about his daughter, and he yearned to see her. But the hope that that would ever happen had died in him a long, long time ago.

  John rarely locked the house, and he was surprised when he found the place empty. “Hello?” he called, just to make sure.

  Ruthie had been dead over six months now, but the silence still seemed new to John. She hadn’t made much noise in her decline, but the feeling of another human in the house was something he’d felt. He missed it.

  The car’s driver, whoever it was, was nowhere in the house, and there were groceries to unload. Passing the dented little car again made his heart beat with anticipation. What was it doing here, and where was the driver?

  He gathered his bags and the boxes and the Scotch and piled them on the kitchen counter. They were heavy, and he paused and looked up. In the distance, up on the hill with the baobab, he could make out the shape of a figure. There was a person up there, a person sitting on the bench overlooking the headstones.

  It didn’t take long for John to stride up the hill. But as he got closer to the figure, he felt himself becoming more and more nervous. He was almost near enough to touch the person’s back when he stopped. Should he speak? Simply sit down on the bench, as well?

  Then the woman turned. John felt a jolt. She didn’t look the same. Her face was smooth and curved into high cheekbones; her eyes were clear. But the way her mouth was set; the movement of her hand to her chest when she saw him—John knew she was equally stunned to see him. She stumbled from the bench and stood. She was almost as tall as him, and John rarely met a woman he could look in the eyes without bending his neck.

  “John!” the woman said, and her American accent softened and rounded out her vowels.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His question was a stupid one, he scolded himself. There were days when the fantasy of meeting her again played out lovingly; they saw each other somewhere and she was apologetic, regretful. She’d made a mistake, she said in those daydreams of his, and she wanted to make it right. Other days his imagination was clouded with anger and he’d see her somewhere and shout; he’d demand answers and shake her if he had to. He had played out every possibility there was. Except for this one. He was utterly empty of emotion and it rendered him speechless.

  “I visited your mom here, years ago. I hoped she still lived here,” Leona said. Her voice sounded like cigarettes. It reminded him, vaguely, of his father’s. He felt a tinge of emotion then—anger. Resentment.

  “You’re about six months too late.” He nodded sharply toward the newest headstone, still pale and bright, not licked by lichen or time.

  “I hoped she still lived here so I could ask her where you were. But I saw a man when I drove up—Daniel, he said he was—he told me about her and said you’d be back soon, that I could wait.”

  “Well, you found me. Why are you looking for me?”

  “Your daughter, Adia, she has run away. I thought she might have come to find you.”

  John felt his mouth go slack and his skin prickle. He didn’t know how to stop his spinning thoughts enough to formulate an answer. “No,” he finally managed, “I haven’t seen her.”

  Leona sighed.

  “She must have gone to Simi, then.” Leona’s voice was clear—she didn’t seem at all upset, or shocked, by these circumstances. First, John wondered how she managed to be so controlled. Then he felt the bubble of anger rising in his throat, and the shout came quickly and loud, “I wouldn’t even know what she looks like. I haven’t seen her since she was a newborn.”

  “Well, she looks like you,” Leona said. Still cool, still firm. “I need to find her. She’s with a friend, and the other girl’s parents are anxious.”

  She looked down, rummaged through a leather bag slung over her shoulder and pulled out a beaded key fob.

  John was stunned by the heat that rose in his face. Was she kidding? To see each other after all these years and the only thing she could say was, essentially, hello and goodbye?

  “Jesus, woman. You’re just going to disappear like that again? I’ve wanted to see you—to see her—for years. I didn’t even know you were in the country anymore, but even still, every time I see a girl who could be her age...every time I see a white woman who could be you, especially around here...” He paused. He hated being this emotional. He swallowed back a combination of tears and anger. “I’m not going to let you walk away. I want to meet my daughter.”

  She looked up at John. Her eyes were dark and rimmed with tiny lines. He wanted to touch her cheek. Or slap her silly. He still couldn’t decide.

  “Well, then, I could use your help. I need to drive to the manyatta, see if she’s there. Will you come?”

  John still didn’t know what to think. He hadn’t settled on the emotion that matched the situation. But he knew he didn’t want to let Leona go away again, not without some answers. And if he could meet Adia? The notion sent shivers down his back. He’d waited for so long.

  “We’ll go in my truck—it’ll be better on the roads.”

  By the time they were outside the farm gates and on the way, the sun was just low enough in the sky that it glared directly into the front window. It was impossible to see, and John went mostly on instinct.

  “I thought you were in America,” John said. “And if you weren’t, then why did you wait so long to find me?”

  “She told me you were dead,” Leona said simply. John glanced over at her profile.

  He saw her start and then she screamed.

  “Shit! Watch out!” She threw her arms up, instinctually reaching for something to grab on to.

  John was shocked into alertness and he slammed on the brakes, bringing the truck to a screeching, quivering halt. There, less than twenty feet in front of them, was a large Cape buffalo. It stood stock-still in the middle of the dirt track, its enormous head low and heavy. It held one front leg slightly aloft, delicately. John noticed the leg was bl
eeding.

  The buffalo grunted and shook its great, heavy horns. Then it was running and in seconds had thrown its full weight and battering-ram head into the front of the truck, shaking the frame, causing Leona to scream again.

  “Fuck!” John shouted, and he flipped the engine off. He watched as the buffalo turned and galloped—fast for having a hurt leg, John thought—back to his starting point and then turned again, head lowered for a second run at the truck.

  John twisted and reached for his rifle behind his seat. In one swift motion, he ensured it had a bullet in the chamber, cocked it and slid out of the truck.

  “What are you doing?” Leona cried.

  “Stay put.”

  He strode forward to meet the buffalo as it raced again toward them.

  John was an excellent shot. It was the one thing of value his father had given him. It was necessary out here. His parents forbade him to be out on the land without his rifle, and John had used it plenty of times before. Never for the pleasure of hunting, which in fact brought him no pleasure at all, but for his own safety. He’d shot the heads off snakes and killed a hyena that approached him too fast one afternoon. He’d even come close, just once, to shooting his father. He remembered how powerful he’d felt as he held the older man’s head in his sights. He knew he could hit him in one shot, and he knew that he’d be okay if he did—self-defense wouldn’t be a lie. But in the end John lowered the gun and, instead, ran fast to Daniel’s, leaving his mother alone at home to bear the brunt of his father’s mood.

  The first bullet hit the buffalo’s chest, tearing away a chunk of flesh and causing the animal to stumble, grunt in agony and turn in the direction of the pain. He must have seen John moving, and John heard Leona scream as the animal, fueled by pain and fear, hurtled away from the truck and toward John.

  John backed up as quickly as he could manage. He recocked the rifle—Christ but how he wished he’d counted the bullets in the chamber while still in the safety of the truck—and fell backward. He saw a wall of black buffalo descending on him, close enough that later he found the animal’s blood on his boot. He fired again, and the buffalo fell. Immediately there was a thick silence. The only sound was a breeze through the grasses and the faint echo of the gunshot where before there had been hooves beating the ground and John’s and the buffalo’s terrified breathing.

  The buffalo was beautiful. Huge and healthy, but for the broken leg. It was a shame he had to die.

  Leona appeared next to him. She stood at the buffalo’s head, looking down.

  “Fuck! I thought I was going to see you trampled to death.”

  John looked up and saw Leona’s hands were shaking. She had her sunglasses perched on the top of her head, and her eyes were wide-open and round with shock. She knelt down and stroked the buffalo’s ear. “It’s a beauty, though.”

  “Did you see its leg?” he asked. He hoped his voice would steady soon. In his mind he could still feel the ground shaking beneath him as the heavy animal came barreling toward him. Fear and adrenaline made his muscles weak and his blood pounded in his veins. He could hardly believe he’d felled it with that last shot.

  “It was broken. He would have died soon anyway...a lion would have gotten it, a hyena. It would have been eaten alive...” He stopped. Leona already knew. She’d been in Kenya long enough to know. Life was hard out here for the unfit, the unhealthy. A quick death by bullet in the brain was far better than the alternative. He didn’t need to tell her that in his own life he’d learned that death is often the kindest thing.

  In this drought, the dead buffalo would give all the scavengers a rare meal. Tomorrow it would just be bones. Maybe he would go back and retrieve the skull as a reminder of the afternoon. He’d start a future soon, one he would write for himself. He was alive, and for the first time in ages, that felt like it might be a lucky thing.

  * * *

  The bus from Narok to Solai was far more crowded than the one they’d taken down the Rift from Nairobi the day before. Adia climbed on first and stood in the aisle, looking around for two seats together. Grace stepped up behind her, and stood so close Adia could feel her breath on the back of her neck when Grace said, “We can sit separately. I don’t mind.”

  The bus was crowded. Only a few seats remained, and with the dozen or so people behind Grace, trying to board, Adia knew they had to grab any seats they could. They’d be gone in minutes.

  “Okay, you sit up here.” Adia pointed to a window seat just behind the driver. A prim, middle-aged lady sat along the aisle. Adia knew Grace would be safe from errant hands—men who thought it would be funny to pinch a young woman. “I’ll take that one in the back.”

  Grace slid into the seat and adjusted her backpack on her lap. “No prob,” she said and flashed Adia a brilliant smile. “I’ll see ya on the other side!”

  Adia squeezed into an aisle seat at the back of the bus. A large woman in a vivid pink dress and pink plastic shoes occupied the window seat. She held a baby, swaddled in a kanga, on her lap.

  “Jambo,” Adia greeted the woman in Swahili, and then leaned back and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to get into a conversation. For this reason, she felt grateful that Grace and she had to sit apart. Adia wanted to think, to calm her nerves and try desperately to figure out what to say if, when, she saw her father.

  The bus rattled and bounced along the heavily pocked road to Solai. The lady in the pink dress fell asleep and her head lolled onto Adia’s shoulder. Adia opened her eyes then and glanced down. She smiled at the baby who stared back at her with big, shiny eyes. Adia looked up and saw Grace’s long brown ponytail waving in time to the bus’s jolts. She was proud of Grace. Grace hadn’t complained once about the buses or the matatus, and she’d seemed comfortable in the manyatta. Adia had been terrified to introduce Grace to that part of her life, and the relief she felt now, knowing that it had gone so much better than she could have anticipated, was warm. She looked out the window at the golden land sliding by. She couldn’t be down here, at the bottom of the Rift, without feeling lucky. This was her home. The most beautiful place in the world.

  Suddenly, Adia saw the pink-dress woman’s head jerk forward and smack the seat in front of them, hard. Adia saw the baby bounce and, without thinking, she flopped her head and chest and arms down, covering the baby and pinning the tiny body to the mother’s bright pink lap. She felt a pain slice through her skull and vaguely realized that her head, too, had slammed into the metal bar at the top of the seat in front of her. She registered the glass flying over her head, and the horrible, uncontrolled movement of the bus, but, oddly, she didn’t feel fear. Later, she’d play this moment over in her head until she could name what she felt—utter acceptance. She was going to die. It was this that frightened her most in the weeks and months to follow. The ease with which she gave up. Then the movement stopped as suddenly as it had started. The air, the people, the vehicle, Adia’s thoughts were all completely still and silent. Nothing moved.

  Adia tasted blood and ran her tongue over her teeth. One was jagged and broken, and her mouth filled quickly with blood. She watched the blood fall to the dirty bus floor and make a little pool. No one spoke; no one breathed. Adia looked up and saw the green lights on the dashboard flicker and dim. She couldn’t see Grace’s ponytail. She hoped Grace wasn’t scared.

  She looked over at the pink-dress lady and saw that she was still, too. Her head thrown back and resting on the cracked bus window. There was blood on the window. Then the panic rushed in, a tsunami of terror, and Adia could hear herself screaming. Underneath her arms, something moved. There were those shiny eyes and there was that baby’s mouth, open like Adia’s own, screaming and screaming loudly and long out the broken window and over the pitted dirt of the road and over the dry grasses waving in the wind as if nothing had happened at all. Then Adia realized they weren’t the only ones crying and screaming, but that others, too, from where
they were, were moaning and sobbing into that clear, wide-open Kenyan sky.

  The baby’s mother moved then, she slowly lifted her head from the window and Adia watched her eyes as they made a shift from dazed and unsure to horror as she realized what had happened, and then how they slid into relief as she noticed Adia leaning into her lap, still clutching the baby. Adia sat up then. Her head hurt, and her back did, too, and so did her still-bleeding mouth. She managed to reach down and pull her backpack out from where it had wedged under the seat in front of hers, then she picked her way gingerly toward the front of the bus. There were bodies she stepped over. Broken ones and bleeding ones. Some moved a little, some made terrible sounds, but the worst were the ones that were completely still. Adia couldn’t see Grace at first. She saw the prim woman Grace sat next to. There she was—she was a still one, flopped like a doll over the seat clear across the aisle from where she’d been. Her eyes were wide-open, and she looked perfect, but Adia noticed the slight off-kilter look to her back. Backs didn’t bend that way.

  Then Adia saw Grace, curled like a bug near the driver’s seat. Her silken ponytail gliding across the dirty bus floor. Adia knelt down to tuck Grace’s hair over her shoulder. She leaned down and whispered in her friend’s ear, “Grace! Grace, it’s okay. I’m here.” Grace’s eyes were closed. Maybe she was sleeping. Adia felt like escaping into sleep, too. Adia bent herself over her friend as she’d done the baby. The baby had survived. The baby was all right. She ran her palm across Grace’s cheek, and then she closed her own eyes. Maybe none of this was happening at all.

  The bus shook and the voices of the people wove themselves around Adia’s consciousness. Men were shouting, people were lifting bodies out of seats and carrying them past Adia and Grace. The bus was crowded now, so crowded and noisy. After a while, a man leaned down and grasped Adia by the shoulders. He said something. His hands were rough, his grip strong. Adia pulled herself from him and clutched at Grace again. She wouldn’t leave Grace. This was not Grace’s world; she’d be scared when she woke up surrounded by unfamiliar faces and a language she didn’t understand. The man said something else, he wrested Adia away from Grace and lifted her up, high above her friend and the dirty bus floor and the broken people who still littered it. He lifted her down the bus steps and into the sunshine.