“MEOW!”
* * *
In the ensuing hysteria, Aaron grabbed the arm of the girl closest to him: Mercy Akinyi, the one who loved Moses Ojou. Mercy shrieked and dug her fingers into his hand, but he yanked her forward, forcing her toward the door. They were almost at the courtyard before the rest of the girls realized what was happening, and when they did, they followed en masse, enveloping him in a shrieking maelstrom. Spit and paper and shoes flew around him, but Aaron focused only on keeping control of his one writhing charge.
Drawn by the commotion, the rest of the schoolchildren flooded outside, their curious teachers making no effort to stop them. With the entire school looking on, Aaron frog-marched Mercy into the middle of the yard and then, as was the custom, lifted her hands above her head and placed them on the flagpole. Mercy’s blue-and-white plaid skirt rose over the backs of her knees, exposing her smooth brown legs. Beneath them, dozens of thin sticks littered the grass, remnants of earlier beatings. Aaron snatched one up and pressed it against Mercy’s leg. A plump calf muscle twitched beneath her skin.
Aaron’s stomach had gone oily and cold. He thought he might lose control of his bowels, but he raised the stick to strike. As he did, Mercy cocked her head and smiled faintly at him.
“Meow,” she whispered.
He couldn’t do it. He threw the stick on the ground and walked home.
* * *
Grace didn’t come that evening, but the night runner did. The next morning, Aaron opened his door and was briefly surprised to see an unsoiled porch, until the stench hit him and he turned to see the clumped brown streak smeared at hip height in an unbroken circle around the white walls of his house.
Aaron went inside and called his Peace Corps supervisor. He said that he had been the target of harassment in his village, that he no longer felt as though he had anything to offer his community, and that he wanted to go home. He expected her to try to talk him out of it, to reassure him that what he was doing was valuable, but she did not. The Peace Corps had left him almost entirely alone at his site, but as soon as he wanted to leave, it was as though he’d pulled a lever and activated the workings of a complex machine. His supervisor asked him only if he felt unsafe in the village, or if he was considering doing harm to himself. When he said no, she told him to come into the office the next day to begin filling out his separation paperwork, and that was that. It could not have been easier. He was done.
When he got off the phone, Aaron filled a bucket with warm, sudsy water. He knotted up an old T-shirt, went outside, then got down on his knees and scrubbed his walls until they shone. He felt no disgust or revulsion, just a kind of deadened disdain. It was a choice they’d made, to drive him out. Like beating children was a choice. Like having unprotected sex was a choice. They chose this, he said to himself, and the words were like blood in his mouth.
* * *
As the sun set on his last day in the village, Aaron walked into town for the final time and bought himself a chapati and a Coke, and then, after some thought, a second chapati and Coke for Grace. He wondered what she would say when she found out he was leaving and he heard her shocked voice again in his head: They did not teach you about night runners at your Peace Corps school?
No, Grace, he thought. They didn’t teach me anything I needed to know.
That night, there was no Grace, and at first no night runner, only a suffocating heat that crawled into the house and stubbornly refused to leave. Struggling to breathe but afraid to open the windows, Aaron stripped to his underwear, dabbing his soaked forehead with a tissue as he squatted on his mattress. On his lap, he held a tool that he’d taken from the shed in his compound, one of the long, flat blades that people around here called “grass cutters.” He’d told his supervisor the truth—he did not feel unsafe in the village. But he felt scared and humiliated and helpless, and he was tired of feeling that way.
* * *
The knocking began just after midnight. Knock knock knock went his visitor, first at the door, then at the window. Knock knock knock. Door, window, window, door, until the whole house was surrounded by a fluttery, girlish knocking. Surely no one person could move that fast. Maybe all of Class Six had come to visit, here on a sadistic class trip. Again, Aaron saw Mercy with her hands around the flagpole, squinting up at him. Even when he’d been angry enough to beat her bloody, she hadn’t been afraid of him, and now here he was, crouching in his house like a coward. I came here to help you, he thought. He stood, hooking the grass cutter over his shoulder like a baseball bat, and crept toward the door, as the knocking spread around the house like unfolding wings.
* * *
Wait.
Wait.
Knock knock knock.
Now.
* * *
Aaron flung open the door. Two bare brown legs floated in front of him, naked toes wiggling, and then one of them kicked out toward his face, five pearled toenails scratching down his cheek. Shrieking, Aaron swung the grass cutter wildly—but the legs slid up and away, leaving him staring at a blank doorway and the chill black night, the metal blade lodged in the crumbling wood of the frame.
Aaron buckled, gagged. He spat bile onto the place where, if blade had met flesh, a girl’s severed leg would have tumbled to the floor. The shock of what he’d almost done whiplashed back to him, and curled, electric, around his spine. To think if he’d hit her. The crunch of bone. The screaming. The gushing surge of dark red blood.
But she’d escaped him. She was on the roof now, the knocking replaced by a whispery rain of tap tap taps. He stumbled out into the yard, just in time to see a small, dark shadow creep across the pitched roof. She was out of sight, but trapped, because the wall on that side of the compound was far too high for any girl to climb.
“Mercy?” he begged. “Linnet? Roda? Come here and talk to me. Please.”
From the other side of the house came a soft thud as whoever had been on the roof tumbled to the ground. Aaron loped toward the sound, cutting off the path to the exit. Impossible that she could have crept around the house without him seeing her—and yet the next noise came from behind him, a soft giggle followed by a whispered taunt. “Meow!”
The anger he thought he’d exorcised surged up in him again. He spun and dove to tackle her, but she slipped past him and he gave chase, out the gate and into the road, forgetting he was barefoot, forgetting he was dressed in nothing but his underwear, forgetting everything but his rage.
She ran down the night-darkened road, and he could make out nothing but the smudged outline of her shadow, first the size of a child, then as large as a man, then as small as a cat, and then the size of a girl again. He ran after her down empty streets, past shuttered houses and locked stores, into low dew-damp shrubbery and through a grove of higher trees that grabbed at him, tangling in his hair and leaving thin bloody streaks like whip marks on his chest. He ran and ran, past a church and a junkyard and into a cornfield, the young plants sharp as razors slashing at his legs, and finally up and over a wall, where he tumbled into a compound brilliantly full of firelight.
Blinking, Aaron shielded his eyes with his hand. At first, he couldn’t distinguish people from shadows. What he took at first to be a tall, emaciated man wavered and resolved itself into a flagpole. He blinked again and realized that the yard was familiar, the building behind it even more so. Clustered around the firepit, which blazed now as it always did at celebrations, were the girls of Class Six. Beside them were the girls of Class Five, Class Seven, Class Eight. Many held Cokes and Fantas. Their mouths shone with the goat that had been roasting on the fire.
It was a party, celebrating the end of term. Aaron crouched before them, panting, and as the girls caught sight of him, their eyes widened, and then one of them pointed, her face contorted with horror, and let out a tiny whimper of fear. Aaron spun to look behind him, and in that instant of turning, he believed in all the creatures of Grace’s stories before he saw the blank wall at his back and remembered himself to be pur
suer, not pursued.
A few of the smaller girls began to cry, in keening, frightened wails, but then Roda Kudondo called out boldly, “Eh! Night runner!” and the sobs gave way to hooting jeers.
Aaron looked down and saw himself as they did: ghostly apparition, cat-eyed stranger, mushroom pale. Boxers shredded and covered in dirt; twigs and leaves clinging to the hair between his legs, his skin lit by a rising flush of shame. Brave girls, he thought suddenly, as their jeers rose up protectively around them. Brave girls, to transmute terror into laughter, to joke instead of cry.
“Sssst!” came a whisper from the far corner of the courtyard. “Aaron!”
He looked up to see a figure wreathed in shadows. At first, he thought she was just another schoolgirl, but then she grinned, and he recognized her long legs, and the gaps in her smile.
“Sssst!” the whisper came again. She beckoned, mouthed a Swahili phrase.
Ukimbie nami.
Run with me.
Grace, who did not fear him. Grace, who laughed at him and told him stories, who’d teased him and terrified him; Grace, who instead of crying or raging—ran. Tomorrow, he would begin the long trip home, but tonight, Grace sprinted naked across the yard, unseen by anyone but him.
And tonight, lithe as a cat, he ran after her.
The Mirror, the Bucket, and the Old Thigh Bone
Once there was a princess who needed to get married. No one expected this would present a problem. The princess had lively eyes and a small, sweet face. She loved to smile and to joke; she was in possession of a sharp, engaged, curious mind, and if she spent rather more time with her nose in a book than was considered ideal at that time (or any other), well, at least that meant she always had a story to tell.
Suitors came from all over the kingdom to visit the princess, and the princess received each one with equal grace. She asked them questions and answered theirs in turn; she walked arm in arm with them as they strolled around the grounds; she listened, and laughed, and exchanged one story for another, and she was so charming and so cheerful that each suitor returned home thinking that a life spent married to the princess would not be a terribly unpleasant one, even apart from the joy of someday becoming king.
After these visits, the princess would sit in the parlor with the king and the queen and the royal advisor, and they would pepper her with questions. What did she think of the most recent suitor? Did she find him handsome, chivalrous, intelligent, kind?
Oh, yes, the princess would say with a dimpled smile. Absolutely. All of those things.
And how did this suitor compare to the last one?
Indeed, that other suitor was also quite appealing.
But this one was better?
Yes, probably. Well, no. It’s hard to say. They both had so many good qualities!
Shall we invite them both back, so you can compare?
Oh, no, I don’t think that’s necessary.
So you’re saying you didn’t like either of them.
I did, I did! Only—
Only?
It does seem like a bad sign, doesn’t it, that I’m having such a hard time choosing between them? I was wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, perhaps we could . . .
Invite another one?
Yes.
Another suitor.
Yes. Please.
If there are any left.
Yes, if there are any left. Might we? Please?
And at that, the queen would purse her narrow lips, the royal advisor would look troubled but keep his own counsel, and the king would sigh and say: I suppose.
* * *
In this way, one year passed, and then another, and then three more, and the princess worked her way through all the princes in the kingdom, and all the dukes, and all the viscounts, and all the untitled-but-obscenely-wealthy financiers, and all the untitled-and-not-very-wealthy-but-respectable craftsmen, and finally all the artists, who were neither titled nor wealthy nor respectable, and still, in the princess’s eyes, not one of them distinguished himself from all the rest.
Soon, you couldn’t travel ten miles without bumping into one of the princess’s former suitors. And it would have been one thing, all of these suitors agreed, to have been rejected for a reason, but to be passed over simply because one was, in some vague way, not good enough—that was an unequivocal blow.
Five years in, the princess had rejected nearly every eligible man in the kingdom, and the whispers had begun to spread, and along with them, discontent: perhaps the princess was selfish. Spoiled. Arrogant. Or perhaps this was simply a game she was playing, and she did not want to get married at all.
* * *
At the close of the fifth year, the king lost patience. He informed the princess that the next day, all the rejected men would be invited back to the castle. The princess would pick one and marry him and that would be the end of it. And the princess, who was also tired of this procession, and troubled by her own inability to choose, agreed.
The suitors returned, and once again, the princess walked among them, chatting and laughing and exchanging stories, although perhaps not quite as vivaciously as before, and each of the suitors decided anew that a life spent married to the princess would not be a terribly unpleasant one, especially given the joy of becoming king someday.
The day passed without incident, and at sunset, the king and the queen and the royal advisor sat down in the parlor with the princess and asked for her decision. The princess did not answer right away. She bit her lip. She gnawed at her fingernail. She ran her hands through her long dark hair. Finally, she whispered:
Please, may I have one more day?
The king bellowed and overturned the table in a fury. The queen jumped up and slapped the princess’s cheek. The princess buried her face in her hands and wept, and all was chaos and misery until the royal advisor intervened.
Let her have one more night to think it over, the royal advisor said. She can choose her husband in the morning.
The king and the queen were hardly pleased, but the royal advisor had never steered them wrong before, so they allowed the princess to go to bed that evening with her decision still unmade.
* * *
Alone in her room, the princess lay awake, twisting herself in the sheets and searching her heart as she’d done every night for the past five years. Why did no one satisfy her? What was she looking for that she couldn’t find? Her battered heart offered her no answers. Exhausted and miserable, she had just drifted off to sleep when a knock came on her door.
The princess sat up. Was it the queen, ready to offer a kiss of apology and commiseration? The king, bearing one more threat or warning? Or perhaps it was the royal advisor, in possession of some magical task she could present to her suitors that would separate the most worthy one out from all the rest.
But when the princess opened her door, the figure standing in the hallway was not the king, or the queen, or the royal advisor. It was someone she had never seen before.
The princess’s visitor wore a black cloak that fell from neck to ankle, and a black hood covering his hair. But his face, when she gazed straight into it, was lovely and captivating and warm. His cheeks were round, his lips were full and soft, and he had bright blue eyes to drown in.
Oh, the princess whispered softly. Hello.
Hello, her visitor whispered back.
The princess smiled, and when the visitor returned her smile, she felt as though all of her blood had been drained from her body and replaced with a mixture of soap bubbles and light and air.
The princess drew her visitor inside, and they spent the night together in the princess’s canopy bed, kissing and joking and talking until dawn. When she fell asleep, just as the sun was rising, the princess was happier than she had ever been, and when she dreamed, she dreamed of a life full of more joy than she had ever dared to imagine, a life overflowing with laughter and happiness and love.
The princess awoke with a smile dancing on her lips, her lover’s hand on her
hip, and the king and the queen and the royal advisor standing over her.
Oh dear, the princess said, blushing. I know what this looks like. But listen—I’ve done it. At last, after all these years. I’ve made my choice.
She turned to her lover, who was still hidden under the bedsheets. I love him, she said. Nothing else matters. This is the man I choose.
The king and the queen shook their heads sadly. The royal advisor snatched the covers off the bed and threw them on the floor, and then, before the princess could object, he lifted the visitor’s thick black cloak and shook it. Out of the cloak tumbled a cracked mirror, a dented tin bucket, and an old thigh bone.
The princess felt a crawling sensation on her hip where her lover’s hand had been. She looked down and saw that it was only her own hand there, twitching with fear.
I don’t understand, the princess whispered. What have you done with him?
We’ve done nothing with him, said the royal advisor. This is all he ever was.
The princess opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.
Here, the royal advisor said. Let me show you.
He lifted the thigh bone from the bed and propped it against the wall. He lashed the mirror to the top of the bone with a bit of string, and he tied the bucket to the middle, and then he draped the black cloak over it all.
You see, said the royal advisor. When you looked in your lover’s face, you were looking at your own face reflected in this cracked mirror. When you heard his voice, you heard only your own voice echoing back to you from this dented bucket. And when you embraced him, you felt your own hands caress your back, though you held nothing but this old thigh bone. You are selfish and arrogant and spoiled. You are capable of loving no one but yourself. None of your suitors will ever satisfy you, so put an end to this foolishness, and marry.
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