“Keep telling yourself that. You dance?”
“Mhh.”
“Like that?”
Ajany is against the steel pole. Hearing melodies that had been played in Bahia, wanting to throw off the weight of her world and its realities, she dissolves like wax into the music, feels it become her body. Now she is simply Arabel, and the other side of the song is silence, and its roots are in eternity.
“No,” says Isaiah.
“Dance with me?” Justina asks.
“Yes,” Isaiah replies.
Ajany emerges from the vision in sound after the DJ mixes in some Hi-Life. She finds the present. She is outside the clubhouse, staring at a starry sky. She finds Kormamaddo the sky camel. Tears. She must return to Wuoth Ogik.
The taller bouncer asks, “Leaving, madam?”
Over-the-shoulder grin: from malaya to “madam” overnight. She peers at her phone, calls Peter the taxi man. “Need to go,” she says.
“I’m praying for you,” Peter reminds her.
He is worried about the state of her soul.
“Evening, Jos.”
“Morning, madam. Better today?”
Ajany winces. “What time is it?”
“3:30 a.m.”
“When do you sleep?”
“In the day.”
“I’m checking out, Jos.”
“Leaving?”
“Going home.”
“Now?”
Ajany nods.
“Woyee! I’ll miss you.”
Ajany makes a face at him.
An hour later, Ajany has cleared her room, stuffed clothes, portraits, pictures, and art materials into two holdalls and three plastic bags, and left a large tip on the dresser. She pulls the door open — hinges squeak — and walks into a block of heat, Isaiah. In that moment they are alone. Nothing moves, not even breath. Not the night. A gush of fear, as if she might never find her way out. She takes a step back into the room. Isaiah follows. She propels herself forward, fighting to leave.
Isaiah had intended to be reasonable. To scold her for abandoning him at the club. Had meant to tell her he had paid Peter the taxi man to leave, that it was unfair of her to go without talking to him first. He had wanted to ask Ajany for one sensible conversation about Wuoth Ogik, finish things so they could return to their lives in peace.
Thwack!
Her handbag got the side of his head. Shock greater than the sting. Her eyes are dark with decision. She is willing to behead him if she has to. He is afraid she will spit on him again.
“Hngngh!” Isaiah dives to the ground, his flailing foot slams the door, he is still holding on to her.
It is possible to brawl in private silence. He can’t remember locking her legs to the ground with his own. He remembers the intoxicating blend of sweat, adrenaline, soap, and woman.
Turned on.
Wanting.
He is large enough to contain her, sad enough to need to get lost inside her, with her, through her.
She kicks, aiming for his balls. Her punch catches the base of his nose. Scent of blood, screaming pain.
He could hurt her.
Hands squeeze her neck and arm.
She bites him.
Isaiah grunts and wipes his bleeding face.
Ajany reaches for his head and yanks at his hair. Bites his arm again, breaks skin. He shakes her off. Her nose is bleeding. Her teeth grasp his fingers. He drags his fingers from her mouth. He pulls back his arms to deliver a blow. She whimpers. He sees how small she is. Remorse.
Inside-out pain.
His hands fall to his sides, and he turns his face and body away from Ajany.
Breathing.
Lonelinesses spill and mix.
She wipes the blood from her nose.
Isaiah whispers, “I am sorry.” For many things. Coming to Kenya in defiance of his mother. Chasing after ghosts. The solitude of walking through restless dunes into North Horr. Nobody noticing. Arriving at a place that was the same as the one left behind. How could a human being endure such infinite spaces? Causing a woman’s nose to bleed — wounding another creature. What had happened to him?
Ajany listens to Isaiah breathe.
Warmth, darkness, stillness. She is lying on her stomach. Can crawl into herself. Expectations disintegrate and leach into the floor. Pain on her shoulder — is it dislocated? She chooses not to speak. She waits. She is learning how to wait.
For the next moment.
Outside, a night bird coughs and coughs.
Inside, silence.
Breathing.
Sweat, silence.
Rasping air.
Blend of blood.
In the parts where her nails have ripped his skin, a tingle.
Isaiah is motionless.
The thing that had invaded his body with heat, hatred, and fire leaves. He turns to Ajany. “I won’t hurt you.”
Part promise.
To life.
Ajany’s eyes are solemn. Isaiah touches the drying blood beneath her nostrils and straightens her twisted arm. Wipes her face with his wrists. She watches, sees when he notices the small space between their bodies.
Contours of desolation.
She smells fear, finds that it is cold on her tongue. She tastes sadness. Shared flavor. She waits.
He licks his lips. Tastes blood.
A burned taste, like dark-roast coffee.
Dusk’s light invades their space.
His right hand hovers over her.
She wonders about his touch, what it would tell her body.
He drops his hand to the floor.
A cold stone spreads from his heart, and he curls over.
A despairing admission: all losses have secret names.
Thirst is a dry scratch in the back of Ajany’s throat.
And his. He squeezes his temples and blocks out the light, which pokes at his throbbing head. Could do with a cigarette, even though he had smoked for only a year and that when he was only twenty-one. Long ago.
Memory shapes.
To name something is to bring it to life.
His loss, the failures.
Bodies touch.
No one pulls away.
He whispers into Ajany’s mouth.
Seeking light.
Breathing.
Slow-motion memory patchwork, the times in his life when disbelief was like certainty, illusion had become real. Once upon a time, when he was failing and being abandoned he had run and screamed and howled out a name.
Then limped home to wait for normal to return.
It never came.
Isaiah lifts his arm, touches the back of Ajany’s head. She peers into his eyes. Old eyes. Her left hand frames his face. This, too, she could paint. Touch, shape, mold, and draw. Here. She could carve an outline of a man.
Isaiah says, “Life’s ephemeral.” Memory kaleidoscope: another face, a beach, the sea, an eternal absence.
From the light of their window, silhouettes and shadows.
Hidden things start to whisper all at once.
Ajany remembers Odidi.
Isaiah touches her face.
He says, “You’re waiting for your brother. Picking up rubble from his life. You think you can rewind time.” His left hand cups her face. “The Styx is a one-way bridge, honey.”
Ajany stiffens.
“Will you return from the dead?”
She closes her eyes. She asks, “Where d-do you go?”
“War zones.”
A sad sound.
“Photographing passersby.”
“D-does it work?”
“Sometimes.”
“And when it fails?”
“I photograph warlords.”
“Why?”
“Souls that coexist with the shades of death they create: no excuses, no explanations, no platitudes. Wondered how their faces look through light.”
“And?”
“I ask them to smile and photograph how their eyes disappoint their attempts.”
Isaiah’s fingers tug at Ajany’s braids.
She flinches.