He says, “Anguish has its pleasures.”
He says, “I clean up tragic houses, strip them down, sell their content, refurnish, sell for a profit, buy another house, and then another.”
Distant traffic, voices downstairs, Calisto’s voice, Jos’s high-pitched answer.
Ajany says, “You’re here now.”
“Yes.”
“What if he doesn’t want to be found?”
Isaiah says, “Tell me more.”
Words jam in her mind. Then an admission: “I can show you.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
“I wish Moses …” Isaiah waits, and then: “The woman this evening, Justina, she is …”
“His.”
“She’s pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“His?”
“Mhh.”
“What’s she doing … there?”
“That’s where they met. She’s waiting for him to come back.”
Outside, rustling, shuffling, knocking, tapping, twittering, and ringing. Inside, hearts beat. Something unravels.
Ajany listens.
Isaiah moves his arm over her body.
Many routes through desire.
Yearning. To not feel empty. Or lost.
First, they lie together side by side for a long time.
Much later.
He unzips her dress slowly, peels it off her body. He helps her unbutton his shirt, and loosen the belt of his trousers. She sits cross-legged to pull off his shoes. He watches her movements.
Wordless.
Skin to skin.
She concentrates on the quietness of this.
Inhales his waiting, his eyes needing her. A mirror, she thinks.
So she bites his ears, tastes skin, strokes his forearm, collects the feeling of his face, the bony structure, brow ridge, distance between eye orbits, shape of nasal bones, chin form. She strokes nose, eyes, ears, lips, and chin.
They will grope secrets, share unanswered questions and infinite presences. They will also dance between tombs of demoniacs. A man drinks in a woman’s scent, her curves, hollows, and shadows. A woman is suspended in her body’s shocked meeting with tenderness. She will use the backs of her hands to rub the texture of a man’s chest hair. The man will rock to and fro inside her soul, cover her and fill her, and cling.
Somewhere outside, it becomes dawn. Inside this room set apart from the world, she breathes in the man slumped on her body, studies the muscled arm that is pale against her nakedness. She could paint just this. Nothing else. Her fingers move on their own, pinching skin to estimate muscle, fat, skin layers, and contours. They pluck at nuances that create gesture and texture. She strokes soft, hard, warm, cool, hot, wet. She’ll gather and store what she needs.
Outside, a small wind and shards of washed-out red light. Outside, a cracked lamp attempts to cast light. Outside, a huge moth with feathered black wings immolates itself on glass-covered lightbulbs. Inside, stillness. Ajany tries to disentangle herself from Isaiah’s hold. He clings. She pulls. He lets go.
She disappears into the bathroom.
There she touches her body.
Life markings.
Blood from a new battle dance. She listens for whisperings, the ones that suddenly promise, You might live.
Water. Warm. Arousing.
When she sniffs under her arms, she smells that Bernardo’s odor is fading. She scrubs away what persists.
Then.
She creates a list in her head as the water runs:
Plasticine dust.
Oil-based clay.
It is for the face.
And to frame neck and shoulder, wire.
Ajany re-emerges, wrapped in a big cream towel.
Steam rushes into the room where Isaiah sits naked on the edge of her bed, head in his hands.
She stutters, “Daylight?”
His head snaps up, eyes bleary. “Yes.”
She drops her towel. “Sleep well, Isaiah.”
“And you, too, sleep well.”
She snuggles into her pillow.
Isaiah watches Ajany close her eyes.
She is asleep.
Deep sleep’s soft breathing.
He rouses himself to switch off lights, intending to return to his room. He lingers, trying to remember what it is like to be able to simply drop into asleep.
He returns to the bed, where he rests his head on the pillow next to hers. A coconut-caramel-flavored scent from her side of the bed wafts toward him — perplexing, soft, and promising. He closes his eyes, inhaling that fragrance. In less than a minute, he is snoring.
29
ON THE ROOFTOP OF A CITY POLICE STATION IN NAIROBI, THE early morning broods over a city, a nation, that is gluing its cracked shell together again. Ali Dida Hada and Petrus stand as if they are on a cracked stage and are about to dance.
They were in their office that morning when Ali Dida Hada announced to Petrus, “Afande, a copy of my resignation.”
Petrus looked over his spectacles, and reached for his drooping cigarette.
Leaving? An empty feeling in his belly, as if he were … afraid?
Petrus asked, “Retirement?”
“Yes, sir.”
Petrus had whistled at Ali Dida Hada. “So soon?”
Until Ali Dida Hada spoke, Petrus had not known what he was going to do.
“It’s time,” Ali Dida Hada answered, gathering papers from the table.
“Then, Ali.” Petrus’s eyes were bright. “Together, brother, we must erase all impediments to your exit.”
Ali Dida Hada glanced at Petrus. A scheming djinn, he thought. Could I shoot him? Claim a gun accident? He tipped back his head, rubbing his eyes. Men like Petrus always had contingency plans.
There is something of the look and shape of a cornered brown cat against a black-stained wall in Ali Dida Hada. Petrus watches the sky-dance of the Nairobi City Council’s self-appointed mascots, the marabou storks. Petrus says, “I’ll miss this city.”
Ali Dida Hada waits.
“What’s your opinion on a local tribunal? Will they call us to testify?”
Ali Dida Hada waits.
Petrus says, “Tomorrow, there’ll be a peace march from Dandora to Kangemi.”
Ali Dida Hada waits.
“Peace and goodwill for the nation.” Petrus purses his lips, the cigarette dangling. “But, as a people, do we even want to live together?”
Ali Dida Hada frowns.
Petrus continues, “You and I, Ali — our terms of references include dying for the nation. Others, our ‘masters’ …” He pauses, shakes his head. “Asked to choose Kenya, fall over exits trying to save their fat buttocks.” Below them, traffic. Fumes float up. Low-voiced: “Now there are those who are waiting for any excuse to light up the nation again.” A snort. “Was wondering the other night … trying to picture one Kenyan who has given our country a dream as big as a national educational airlift. Forty years. Anyone you can think of?”
Ali Dida Hada rubs his forearms.
Petrus changes tacks, looks at Ali Dida Hada. “I met Nyipir Oganda in ’69. After Mboya was murdered.” His voice drifts off.
Ali Dida Hada leans back, uneasy.
Petrus continues. “His fingers?”
Ali Dida Hada recalls Nyipir’s darkened, twisted digits.
“I did it,” Petrus explains.
Ali Dida Hada straightens up.
“To save him. Sixty-nine … Were you here? Couldn’t tell from your file. This chaos …” He waves in the general direction of the city. “We were here before—’69, when Tom Mboya died. Unfinished Kenya business, this.”
Hadada ibis fly in formation above, screeching as they go.
“Bad times.” Petrus’s gaze is distant. “Remember?”