Golden Boy (21 page)

My mind races. I'm completely exposed. There's no way that Alasiri wouldn't see me if he came into the kitchen.
Please, Kweli,
I beg in my mind,
please be too polite to let him clean up his own dishes!

“No, no,” I hear Kweli's voice say from the other room. “Just leave them there. I'll finish up my tea and put them away when I'm done. My assistant should be back soon anyway, and perhaps he would also like some. Go ahead and leave everything where it is.”

“Very well,” says Alasiri. “I'll just put down my cup.”

Every muscle in my body tenses as I hear his footfalls cross the few steps between the table and the kitchen. My brilliant hiding place doesn't seem so brilliant anymore. I'm positive that he's going to see me and finish the job he started months ago, halfway across the country.

I look up and see a long-fingered hand with an expensive wristwatch and a finely tailored cuff reach over the half wall and set a tin cup down on the counter over my head. I wonder what—or who—had to die so that he could afford clothes like that.

I stop breathing and wait, the way a hare watches a hyena crouch when it's not yet sure if it has been seen. The hand pulls away, and I hear Alasiri's voice get fainter as he heads back toward Kweli.

“If you ever change your mind,
Bwana,
you can reach me by leaving a message for Kanu at Azize's guesthouse in Mikocheni. I'll get the message and come again.”

Mikocheni!
That's only one neighborhood over from Mwenge, where I was standing outside all day long, by myself, selling statues. Sweat is running down my forehead into my eyes even though the evening isn't hot, and it wraps me in the sticky-sweet smell of fear.

I hear the scrape of Kweli's stool and the tap of his cane finding the floor. Their voices get fainter as they both head out the front door toward the gate.

“Thank you, young man, but I do not think that is likely to happen. I wish you a good day.”

“
Kwaheri,
then.”

“Kwaheri.”

I slide to the floor in relief that I haven't been seen, my legs no longer able to support me. In the distance I hear the clanging of the metal door, and I allow myself to breathe again. But my breath comes in short, tight gasps.

Alasiri has again found my home. The wonderfully safe feeling I've treasured inside the high walls of Kweli's compound is gone, replaced by a feeling as narrow as the corn cave, pressing in on me. Whether or not it's to do business with Kweli, I'm sure that at some point Alasiri will return to try to make quick money with my death.

What do I do now?

He's here, in the city. He has developed a taste for fancy clothes. No matter what way I turn this about in my head, I can come to only one conclusion. Someday soon, Alasiri will come hunting me. Again.

When Kweli gets in from closing the gate, it's the sound of my panicked, gasping breaths that leads him to find me, curled in a ball on his kitchen floor.

“So you're telling
me that this man who was just here, Kanu, is really Alasiri?”

I'm sitting across from Kweli, wrapped in blankets to stop my shivering, sipping tea that is still warm from when it was served to the man who tried to kill me.

“Ndiyo,”
I manage, between chattering teeth. “He was looking for me, and now he's found me. I just know it.”

Kweli is silent for a moment while he considers this. My thoughts chase each other in circles, circles that make no sense. One minute I've resolved to be gone from the city by first light; the next I've decided never to leave the compound again. Why,
why
did Alasiri have to come here and ruin the best thing I've ever had? The unfairness makes me want to scream. But the part of me that feels hunted again doesn't want to make any noise at all. I stay silent.

Kweli sighs.

“I didn't like him when I thought he was simply a dealer in illegal ivory. I like him even less now. I'm sorry for inviting him into my house! Imagine if you had been here!”

I have been imagining it. I've been trying to block those images out of my mind. But, as the hot tea fills my stomach and the blankets pull the dampness of my wet clothes away from me, I feel myself thawing inside, coming into myself again. I remember why I was so eager to get home in the first place.

“
Bwana,
how are you feeling?” I'm more than happy to change the subject of our conversation. I can't process this threat right now.

Kweli gives me a rueful smile. “I spent all morning in the outhouse. I don't know what it was that I ate, but it didn't agree with me.”

“Well,” I say, “I'm glad it wasn't anything more serious.”

“Yes, yes, that's true,” says Kweli. “But having to make tea and talk to that man who showed up at my door uninvited . . . well, I'm quite tired now.”

I look more closely at Kweli in the lamplight. His cheeks seem a little sunken, and his hands are shaking slightly. I try to remember a time when I had diarrhea as a child.

The memory catches me by surprise, as do the feelings that come with it. I had been very young then, still too young to go to school, and I was very sick. Enzi and Chui had left for school. Asu, though she hesitated at the door and told me she'd hurry home, had left, too. I had tossed and turned, shivering and sweating by turns on my pallet in the corner, not wanting to bother Mother because, even then, I had the sense that I was the reason for her sadness. Which is why I was surprised to wake up later and find that she had left her chores and was holding me as I slept.

I had startled awake and then relaxed again quickly, so happy to be in her arms that I pretended to fall asleep again so she wouldn't leave. And she didn't. She sat there, braced against the mud wall of our house, with my head and shoulders propped on her lap as she swabbed my forehead, neck, and shoulders with a damp cloth. She spooned salted honey water into my mouth and she sang to me. Her songs weren't real, but just a one-sided conversation that she put into music.

This water will bring your fever down, rest now, rest now. Soon you'll feel better, little son. Sleep now, heal now.
Her voice wasn't very good, but I didn't care, and I still don't. When I woke up again it was Asu beside me and Mother was working, not looking at me, but I know I didn't dream it. Neither of us ever brought it up, but I held that moment close whenever Mother turned away from me in the years since.

Thinking about that day, I get up and find the honey jar that Chatha and Davu left with us. I pour a fresh cup of the nearly cool tea and stir a large spoonful of the honey into it along with a pinch of salt.

“Here,
Bwana,
drink this.”

When Kweli has finished the tea with honey, I suggest he lie down. Soon he's asleep. This is good for Kweli, because I'm sure that liquids and rest are all he needs to make him feel better, but it's bad for me, because now I'm left with nothing to do but clean up the teacups and think about Alasiri.

I have to get out of here,
I think as I rinse the cup he drank from. The scar on my arm stretches as I reach to place the cup on the sideboard, a flat pink line that whispers up at me about death.

For the past few months I feel like I've been looking over my shoulder, afraid. And now Alasiri has found me again. He must have asked around the market, found out about Kweli's albino apprentice. And even if he wasn't here for me, he's sure to try and find out more about Kweli and
then
he'll know I'm here.

I walk over to where I've been sleeping to pack my things, but I find that my hands aren't willing to move in the way that I tell them to. Instead, I find myself squatting there, staring at the woven blanket Kweli gave me for my bedroll, my carving knife with its sweat-soaked handle that fits my fingers perfectly, my fraying long-sleeve shirts and floppy hat. I sit and stare,
thinking
about packing them, but not doing it.

Why can't I make myself do it? I angrily reach up and brush the wetness off my face.
Alasiri has found your home,
I remind myself.
This is just like Mwanza.
I force myself to start rolling up my blanket.
Just like Mwanza, just like Mwanza
echoes in my head as my hands work. But by the time I'm done with the blanket, I've stopped again. Because this is
not
just like Mwanza. In Mwanza, I was hidden away and I couldn't do anything. I wasn't even really a person. Here, I've talked to people, worked in the market, helped Kweli.

I look over to where he's sleeping and see that his breathing is deep and even.

Yes, I've done things here that I couldn't do in Mwanza. I've been someone I couldn't have been in Mwanza. Been someone, period.

It doesn't matter; you have to leave. Is being someone worth dying for?
asks the voice in my head.

To my surprise, the answer to that question is not as clear as it should be. Of course I don't want to die, but for the first time in my life, I
have
a life.

A clunk pulls me into the present. I look down to see what made the noise and find a piece of wood that I've knocked over resting against my foot.

I remember when Kweli gave it to me. It was weeks ago, just a few weeks after I had started to help him tend the shop at the market. It was a day in mid-October when I was having trouble getting my family off my mind and I had rattled around the shop like the seeds in a dried gourd, unable to sit quietly or do anything useful. Kweli had listened to me pace and mutter for a while, but then headed into the storage room behind the shop and returned with this piece of a branch. About as long as my arm and twice as thick, it was covered in an uneven bark. It was not a wood I had ever carved before. Kweli rested his hand lightly on my head.

“I bought this for you a little while ago, but it's a difficult wood to work with, and I've been saving it. I think that the challenge may be just what you need now.”

“What kind of wood is this?” I had asked.

“It's ebony wood.” I caught a flash of one of Kweli's smiles. “It reminded me of you.”

I remember looking at the branch in my hands. It reminded him of me how? I'm dense? Rough? Ugly? Scarred? Rare? I gave up.

“How does the wood remind you of me,
Bwana
?”

Kweli chuckled. “You'll see” was all he had said, and he had gone off to tend to a customer. I had put the branch in my bag, determined to figure out its mystery some other time, but had brought it home and promptly forgotten about it because Davu had been waiting for us and I got distracted talking to her. Then, since I hadn't yet finished my “Change” sculpture, I continued to work on that, and by the time I was done, I had forgotten about the ebony.

Now, as I squat here in the dark trying to decide whether to leave or stay, I suddenly have to know why Kweli gave it to me.

I pick up my blade and gently shave away the gray-green bark. I give a small snort of annoyance when I see what's underneath. Of course it reminded him of me. The wood is white. I sigh against the disappointment of having become a white boy in Kweli's mind, too, and think about what I might carve with it. This was the first time Kweli gave me wood without telling me what he wanted. I think he wanted to see what I'd come up with myself.

For a while I do nothing but sit there, cradling the wood like a puppy in my arms, trying to force myself to think like a sculptor, but worrying instead about the problem of Alasiri. And then it comes to me. I gave Kweli a picture of the evil I've known. Now it's time to balance that out with the good I know. Especially if I'm about to leave Kweli forever, I can at least do that much to show him his kindness wasn't wasted.

I heft the wood again and start to carve the outlines of my plan. I'm surprised by how hard the wood is. I remember Kweli's story of when he was a young man, telling me how he tried to force art out of the
mpingo
wood. Now I know what he means. I've never had to wrestle so hard with wood myself until now. It wrestles me back.

I'm digging into the white wood with the blade, unearthing the general shape of my statue, when my knife slips and pulls out a deep wedge. I look down at the chunk, baffled. The wood is no longer white.

I turn the ebony branch over in my hands, looking at it from all angles for the first time, and there, at the bottom where the branch was cut away from the tree, I can see the wood for what it really is. Once you get past a thin outer ring of whiteness, the wood is a deep, pure black all the way to the core.

It reminded me of you,
Kweli had said.

I smile.

I lay my knife against the ebony branch and work until my head slumps onto the table and the knife slips out of my hand onto the floor. I don't even realize I've fallen asleep until I wake up the next morning with the sun shining in my eyes and a dent in my face from where it has pressed up against the black branch all night.

Rubbing gently at my cheek, I know what I have to do; I'm just not brave enough to do it.

I'm stirring the porridge, which I've made thinner than usual so that it'll be easier for Kweli to eat, when he shuffles out of the house and joins me by the fire. He sits heavily on his stool, still tired from being ill yesterday, but his cheeks are no longer sunken.

“Good morning,
Bwana.
”

“Good morning, Habo. Thank you for all your help yesterday.” His tone is stiff. He seems uncomfortable.

“Karibu,”
I say. “It wasn't a problem.”

“I don't . . .” Kweli pauses, struggling to finish his sentence. I stir the porridge and wait. “I don't like having to get help from people,” Kweli finally admits.

I think about it, think about how cranky Kweli gets when Chatha tries to do too much for him.

“I understand,” I say, wanting to show him I do. “My sister used to do everything for me: make sure I dressed right and stayed out of the sun; made sure I had only easy chores and bigger food servings. She'd even fight with my brothers for me.” Chui's sullenness toward me suddenly makes more sense as I say this.

“Sounds like you had two mothers,” Kweli says with a smile.

“
Ndiyo.
I liked it as a kid. It made me feel safe. But I never realized how good it feels to take care of myself until I came here.” I think for a minute. “I wouldn't ever want to go back to having someone do everything for me. It's like . . . I don't know.”

“It's the best way to remind others, and yourself, that you are not a child or an invalid.”

“Exactly!” I say.

“You do understand,” Kweli says. I see the tight lines around his mouth relax again. “Perhaps that's why it's not as difficult for me to accept help from you. Either way, though,
asante.
It was nice to not be sick alone.”

“Karibu,”
I say again, and hand him his breakfast.

For a few minutes we sit there quietly, eating and listening to the mumble and whir of the city waking up outside the walls. Enjoying the light breeze while it lasts.

Then Kweli says, “We need to talk about my visitor from yesterday.”

The thin porridge turns into a brick in my belly.

“Ndiyo.”
I sigh. “We do.”

“With this man, this Alasiri, loose in the city,” Kweli goes on, “I don't think you should go anywhere alone.”

“Should I stay here, inside the compound?”

“What do you think?” asks Kweli, the early morning light glinting off the white in his hair, reminding me how old he is.

“I don't know,” I say. “I'm afraid if I go out into the city again, Alasiri will find me. I don't know if it's safe for me to go to the Mwenge market anymore if he's staying in Mikocheni.”

“No,” Kweli agrees. “It's not worth your life.”

I don't say anything to this, because what my life is worth is the very question I've been turning over and over in my head. I've been told that I'm priceless. I've been told that I'm worthless. Which, if either, is true?