He got a confirmation within five days:
Citing Acting Inspector Nyipir Oganda for indiscipline, insubordination, and criminal activity; failing to protect civilians, stealing police equipment and stock, absconding from duty; protracting military conflict … Verdict: dishonorable discharge.
That was 1969, the year Tom Mboya was murdered, and Nyipir lost Kenya. Often, for him, it was still 1969.
Later, despite a decree that had declared that it was not possible, somehow, the Leader of the Nation managed to die. In 1978, a lean cattleman, an inarticulate teacher, took charge, and Kenya changed again. Still, nobody dared talk about 1969 and why Tom Mboya died, not even Nyipir.
Until the day Nyipir washed his son’s naked and unmoving body, and heard how a grieving Kenya, to receive a new year, 2008, had set itself on fire.
Ajany returns from her final pilgrimage to her brother’s death scene. She had waited by the road, staring at the remains of a white flower on the spot. Later, she had gone to seek Justina, to breathe all that was in and of her that was also Odidi’s. She had found herself wandering from door to door, had discovered that not one of the doors was familiar. “Justina?” she had asked passersby.
No.
Not even stout Gloria could remember that Justina had existed.
“But I saw her … you showed me …”
“Are you sure, Mami? Can I fix your hair?”
Out of Ajany, a tiny whimper.
The kiosk man had frowned. “Ai! Madam, Justina?” Ajany had examined the bland look on the man’s face. A shield. She had turned away, taken steps toward the dusty road. Walked through the late-morning light and paused to pluck out fragments of a lily stuck on a hard black road. Odidi’s flower; she would take it with her to Wuoth Ogik.
In the late day’s sky, morning’s wandering birds fly in array back to mountain nests.
Ajany walks into the guesthouse’s reception area, limbs weighed down. Everything of life is out of focus, and she has lost her feeling for time.
Just then, a taxi driver skids in. Isaiah leaps out. He is returning from the Rift Valley, where he has experienced arcane space, color, and Great Rift Valley silences. He has also seen flamingos on Lake Nakuru.
“Hello,” says Isaiah in resolute cheerfulness.
Ajany, lethargic, offers a nod, avoids his eyes.
He knows. “You’re leaving.”
Another nod.
She drags herself to her room.
Isaiah reaches her door in time to hear the lock turn. He waits outside, then shakes his head and walks toward his room with the caution of one traversing sliding rocks that abut a crag. Flesh and woman; delirious remembrances of intimate shadowed selves. All of a sudden, they had become afraid of each other. They were not lovers who needed words to wound; absence sufficed. Wordless, they had both fled, before dawn, to opposite portions of the land.
In the evening, on impulse, Isaiah orders Thai takeaway for two, avoiding Calisto, who is stalking him. He did not ask for his twice-a-day hot pineapple-vanilla-ice-cream crêpes.
“Arabel?”
Ajany has stuffed some clothes into an open case. She is busy removing Odidi’s office photograph from its frame when she hears Isaiah’s knock. His voice. She hesitates. A clock’s minute hand settles into nine-fifty-two before she turns to unlock the door.
Isaiah lifts the greasy brown paper bags.
“Last Supper?” He lifts a bottle of Australian red wine. “Thai chicken, jasmine rice,” he adds.
Ajany forces a smile.
What endures?
Absence.
They eat.
They start their meal in silence.
Listening to outside sounds; cars, voices, birds, drip-drip of a leaking tap; whispery wind on plants. Tick-tock. A woman and a man suffused by vague, steamed jasmine rice scents chewing on Nairobi-cooked Thai chicken.
Then Isaiah speaks, much too loudly: “I saw flamingos today as pink as Wot Ogyek.”
“Wuoth Ogik,” mutters Ajany.
Isaiah grins as he pours red wine into a coffee mug.
Fruity.
Ajany looks and looks.
The room spins.
The wine is the color of Odidi’s morgue blood.
A crevasse splits open — a summons, a memory.
Appetite dissolved, Ajany falls in.
Exhausted by mysteries, of confusing answers, fuzzy thoughts, bad dreams, drowning in unknown sensations, the accumulation of silences, Ajany rises up like a creature on fire and flies out of the room. She runs past Jos, onto the lawn and through the gate.
Isaiah follows her, the wine bottle in his hand.
He shouts, “Just a minute. Wait!”
He thrusts the half-full bottle at Jos.
Light-streaked darkness.
Ajany runs blind.
Down Ngong Road, she runs and runs. She runs, and then she stops, looks left and right, crosses the road to her right, and comes to an abrupt stop outside the mortuary gate. Stands still, as if she is waiting for something majestic to appear.
The green glow of the morgue lights stains her face.
Her fingers cling to the gate wire.
Rustlings.
Vigil for a riddle.
The Old Dead gather to watch.
Rustlings.
The last time she was here, there had been radio prattle. White and pink chalked numbers on a blackboard. Green walls, creak of a faulty fan that cooled nothing and whirled in time to the ticktock of a hidden clock.
They had found Odidi’s body.
Baba had groaned, then shut up and become stone.
She had bled from her nose, and from her life.
Something died.
Arguing over a body.
Then a rituaclass="underline" preparing the deceased in a grossly understaffed morgue. She went to buy Odidi a new suit, and shoes from the mall.
Nyipir Oganda was wiping Odidi’s chest when she returned, the attendant watching him, clasping a hand to his jaw.
Her father’s deformed hands were gentle. He wiped Odidi’s face with a cream-colored cloth. He hummed a lullaby:
Nyandolo
Nindo otere
Nindo man e wang’ baba
Obi mana ka
Nindo man e wang’ mama
Baba finished and gestured for the clothes.
They dressed up Odidi together. Black socks on Odidi’s feet, laces on tan leather shoes, tied up just as he had taught her.
Ali Dida Hada’s radio crackling, “Stand down. Calling all units.” And shouting, “Oganda, leave for Kalacha now. Security forces have taken over the election center.”
Dr. Mda puffed out his cheeks. “Aieee! Ngod,” he shrieked. “Are we sntupid?”
Now.
Fading voices.
Fading traffic sounds.
Delicate night-rain falls. The corroding wire of the padlocked gate cuts into Ajany’s fingers. Shadows within the grevillea upon which, not too long ago, a metallic-mauve bird sang.
Memory’s voice — sounds like a groan.
A choice.
She could climb over and never have to return to this side again.
Stillness.
And mutterings from in-between people: the Newly Dead.
Rustlings.
The earth is soft where Ajany stands.
Fetid scent.
Echoes.
Why does Obarogo need eyes at night?
Come.
Tug of subtle tendrils.
Come.
Whistling; breathed prelude of a shared desert song. She listens and feels Odidi as a flame without light. But when her heart should have stopped — swallowed by painful joy, she hears, Choose, and she is poised before a red cave’s entrance. She is standing by a roadside, seeing herself inside Odidi’s eyes.