later, after Ajany had left Wuoth Ogik and Kenya, she suddenly understood that Nyipir’s stories about the black leopard’s visits coincided with the seasons of Akai’s disappearances.
Now.
Ajany says, “We forgot Odidi’s flowers.”
Nyipir answers, “Oh!”
Three people listen to four winds creeping through rattling doum palms. Winds cover the car’s tracks, sprinkling dust over them. They race southward, to the part of the nation where unsettled ghosts have set the land afire and a gang of men are howling and dancing down a city street, dangling a man’s cut-off head. The dead man’s fingers, with their stained voter’s mark, are scattered around his new blue bicycle, next to his national identity card.
3
TODAY IS THE DAY AFTER LAST NIGHT. THE SUN ’ S FIRST RAYS strike a mosaic on a covered courtyard to the left of a dried-up water fountain. Dry thunder in this pink morning. Ajany hears sporadic bird twitters interfering with a stillness that scowls like the broody spirit of Genesis. In the dust, skid marks. Footprints. Tire trails. Pathways. Watching over her big brother, listening, feeling that any second he will tell her what she needs to know, how she must move, where she is, and what she must do.
She had told yesterday’s mortuary attendant, with his rotten-egg breath and the impatient light in his eyes—a condensation of lessons learned— This is my brother .
The man had answered, “Hii ni kitendawili ya mungu .”
God’s riddle.
Ajany had retched. The attendant had poked her right shoulder. “Wewe uliyempenda maishani yake utapenda pia kifo chake?” —You who love his life, can you also love his death?
Blood flakes beneath her nostrils; Ajany’s fingers twist her hair into thin braids. This is my brother . Today is the day after last night.
Her nose had started to bleed the moment she recognized Odidi’s form. The heavyset pathologist, Dr. Mda, had after a minute pulled her aside and applied small portions of white cotton to her nose. “Lower your head.” He had said, “Do you know what ‘autopsy’ means?” Ontopsy , Dr. Mda pronounced it, shifting vowels and consonants, introducing new sounds so that his cadence gave warmth to words and suggested uncomplicated worlds.
Ajany listened.
“ ‘Ontopsy’ means ‘see for yourself.’ ” He cleaned her nose. “That’s what we’ll do.”
Today, the day after last night. Ajany watches over her brother. She also draws lines on the earth. In order to see, she sketches.
In dust, an outline, a grooved, leaf-shaped scar. “Every crevice contains a story. Every story points north,” Galgalu always says. Odidi repeated this to her when he was telling her how to find a way home.
The scar.
Odidi had fallen on his head. It had been her fault. Ajany was in Standard Six, being molded into a hockey-playing, ethical “future leader.” Her tormentor, Ganda, who for the most part regarded her as unworthy of his bullying talent, had, while imitating Ajany’s stutter, told his posse that people from northern Kenya could not climb trees because they had no trees to climb. As his acolytes cackled dutifully, Ajany’s body moved of its own volition and shimmied to the top of the school’s grandest mvule tree.
Easy to climb: feet into furrows, up, up, up, and the next time she looked down, her nemeses were minuscule punctuation marks below. The distance between high up, where she was, and down, where she ought to be, led to her decision to live the rest of her life in the tree.
Could have been an hour, could have been more. A chubby member of Ganda’s gang who quietly idolized Odidi, then a rising rugby star, latched on to an excuse to speak to his hero, a need greater than loyalty to the gang. Scuffing his heels, he stood outside the Form One classroom, waiting for the bell to ring the end of the day’s lessons.
He accosted Odidi, and garbled the news that Ajany was lost inside a very big tree.
Just as she was praying that it
Now.
Ajany says, “We forgot Odidi’s flowers.”
Nyipir answers, “Oh!”
Three people listen to four winds creeping through rattling doum palms. Winds cover the car’s tracks, sprinkling dust over them. They race southward, to the part of the nation where unsettled ghosts have set the land afire and a gang of men are howling and dancing down a city street, dangling a man’s cut-off head. The dead man’s fingers, with their stained voter’s mark, are scattered around his new blue bicycle, next to his national identity card.
3
TODAY IS THE DAY AFTER LAST NIGHT. THE SUN ’ S FIRST RAYS strike a mosaic on a covered courtyard to the left of a dried-up water fountain. Dry thunder in this pink morning. Ajany hears sporadic bird twitters interfering with a stillness that scowls like the broody spirit of Genesis. In the dust, skid marks. Footprints. Tire trails. Pathways. Watching over her big brother, listening, feeling that any second he will tell her what she needs to know, how she must move, where she is, and what she must do.
She had told yesterday’s mortuary attendant, with his rotten-egg breath and the impatient light in his eyes—a condensation of lessons learned— This is my brother .
The man had answered, “Hii ni kitendawili ya mungu .”
God’s riddle.
Ajany had retched. The attendant had poked her right shoulder. “Wewe uliyempenda maishani yake utapenda pia kifo chake?” —You who love his life, can you also love his death?
Blood flakes beneath her nostrils; Ajany’s fingers twist her hair into thin braids. This is my brother . Today is the day after last night.
Her nose had started to bleed the moment she recognized Odidi’s form. The heavyset pathologist, Dr. Mda, had after a minute pulled her aside and applied small portions of white cotton to her nose. “Lower your head.” He had said, “Do you know what ‘autopsy’ means?” Ontopsy , Dr. Mda pronounced it, shifting vowels and consonants, introducing new sounds so that his cadence gave warmth to words and suggested uncomplicated worlds.
Ajany listened.
“ ‘Ontopsy’ means ‘see for yourself.’ ” He cleaned her nose. “That’s what we’ll do.”
Today, the day after last night. Ajany watches over her brother. She also draws lines on the earth. In order to see, she sketches.
In dust, an outline, a grooved, leaf-shaped scar. “Every crevice contains a story. Every story points north,” Galgalu always says. Odidi repeated this to her when he was telling her how to find a way home.
The scar.
Odidi had fallen on his head. It had been her fault. Ajany was in Standard Six, being molded into a hockey-playing, ethical “future leader.” Her tormentor, Ganda, who for the most part regarded her as unworthy of his bullying talent, had, while imitating Ajany’s stutter, told his posse that people from northern Kenya could not climb trees because they had no trees to climb. As his acolytes cackled dutifully, Ajany’s body moved of its own volition and shimmied to the top of the school’s grandest mvule tree.
Easy to climb: feet into furrows, up, up, up, and the next time she looked down, her nemeses were minuscule punctuation marks below. The distance between high up, where she was, and down, where she ought to be, led to her decision to live the rest of her life in the tree.
Could have been an hour, could have been more. A chubby member of Ganda’s gang who quietly idolized Odidi, then a rising rugby star, latched on to an excuse to speak to his hero, a need greater than loyalty to the gang. Scuffing his heels, he stood outside the Form One classroom, waiting for the bell to ring the end of the day’s lessons.
He accosted Odidi, and garbled the news that Ajany was lost inside a very big tree.
Just as she was praying that it
Similar Books
