Swirling fog.
Waits three seconds too long.
That, too, is a decision.
Sundering.
Cold smokelike wisps unravel, returning her to a center within other inner worlds. Mist stairs evaporate into unreachable portions of darkness. Her knees give way. Surrendering.
A lone firefly hovers.
On impulse, Ajany crawls over to scratch at a goo-encrusted plaque at the gate. Hic locus est ubi mors … The rest of the words are indecipherable. “This is the place where death rejoices to teach the living,” the full plaque once declared.
Tremulous touch on Ajany’s face, tender, moist, warm on skin. A hard arm around her body: she is propped up by its weight. Isaiah’s head heavy against hers. Wetness slides down her neck. “You’re c-crying,” she says.
They take the long route back, through the city center, traversing edges of peril. She wants to stay lost. He has nowhere else to go. They walk until Ajany’s toes cramp. They skirt fringes, where noise is muted and people scarce, and find themselves crossing a half-gated piazza, at the center of which looms a silhouetted cross. Hazy light outlines a side building. They approach its orange-hued stillness and discover other quiet souls, some seated, some kneeling, three with their heads buried in their arms. A monstrance glimmers on a rude table adorned with yesterday’s flowers. A red light flickers on the wall adjacent to the table. It is a place to sit out the night with no risk of anyone’s asking for payment or an explanation. They sink into a bench next to a small bookshelf and sit close together, like two lost children, holding hands and hoping to be found.
Later, for the first time in the years of his meanderings, Nairobi’s flower man will be stopped in the middle of the street just before dawn. A stuttering woman wants lilies, rosemary sprigs, and baby’s breath for all the money she has, which is two hundred and fifty shillings. Such a fresh experience; he offers her the flowers for two hundred.
Isaiah and Ajany will return to their guesthouse in the indistinctness of that time of day. In her room, they will grip each other, engulfed in mongrel plant aromas. But first, he will strip off his clothes, and then hers, crushing spaces of distance, the limits of skin. Crumbling in her bed, she will arrange his limbs around her body in order to become cocooned. Entangled, secured, and warm, they both sleep at once.
Midafternoon, Jos phones the room. “Madam, an Officer Hada’s here for you.”
Ali Dida Hada’s eyes narrow when he sees the small, puffy-eyed woman, and the haggard, darkly tanned man next to her. He remembers the time of his first encounter with Ajany; she looked just as half-worldly then as she did now, with Odidi standing in front of her like a defense shield.
The fear and questions are huge in her eyes.
Resignation, too.
“Eh …” he starts, “Wuoth Ogik livestock were stolen.… Pole … Galgalu, he was hurt.” Quickly, “He’s safe, don’t worry.”
She whispers, “Baba?”
“Asking for you. I’m leaving. Police plane. Wilson Airport, fourteen hundred hours. If you want to come.” He glances at Isaiah.
Outside, two crows caw — a bird quarrel in full throttle. Ali Dida Hada watches Ajany.
“She’s not there,” Ajany tells Ali Dida Hada. “She left us all long ago.”
Ali Dida Hada removes his cap, scratches, returns it to his head. “Tomorrow. Fourteen hundred hours.”
Isaiah steps forward. “Is there an extra place? I’m going back anyway. I’d be grateful for a ride back.”
Ali Dida Hada turns to Isaiah with a tiny frown, offers him an imperceptible nod, and exits.
Somewhere in the northern frontier, a Trader marches with a new and loaded AK-47 in a frenzy fed by assorted phantoms’ murmurs for vengeance. Today the man will be an exorcist in a steaming Kenyan desert.
Ajany, Isaiah, and Ali Dida Hada leave Nairobi the next day. They leave in an unmarked white car under cover of a blue-gray cloud with the smell of lilies and roses and rosemary sprigs. Isaiah carries Hugh Bolton’s clay face. They take off from the police air wing in an eight-seater laden with supplies: six retreaded tires, newspapers, and a sack of mangoes and oranges. The other passenger is a government assistant minister. He speaks about Kenya’s future, now that Article IV has been accepted — it is rosy. They speak of the state of the world — it is precarious. They say the rains are late for the second year running; they confirm that weather patterns have changed. They will land in a drizzle of locusts.
32
A BALD ELDERLY MAN WITH WHITE EARRINGS, WRAPPED IN A dark blanket, his feet in tire sandals, smoking a black pipe, walks by. Distant cowbells. A slow-sailing cloud covers a premature moon, which casts a shimmery eye over an earth amphitheater of stone and shrubs. Locusts form a small, low-hanging, moving cloud. The acacias are big-headed dryads. In the horizon is a tourmaline-shaped rock hill with etched panels. In the foreground, Aaron Chache, in creased uniform, gesturing like a marshal, guides a plane to a halt.
When it does stop, Ali Dida Hada, Ajany, and Isaiah climb down and walk into the scrawny police post.
“Karibu, Karibu! Afande Ali Dida Hada? You’re here? You’re really here?” Aaron’s eyes glow, though his salute is unsteady. He detests locusts. A pre — wet season invasion; the beasts are everywhere.
Ali Dida Hada drawls, “At ease. Status update.”
“As reported. Unchanged, sir. Apart from the locusts.” Aaron’s eyes move to the sack of fruits and the newspapers. He apologizes for the state of his uniform. “Charcoal iron, eh!” His finger reaches for the newspapers, eyes clinging to the sack. “Mangoes.” He sighs. “And flowers.” Newspapers! “How is Kenya?” he asks in Kiswahili.
“Depending on the will of God. The will of man has proved faulty.” Ali Dida Hada brushes a pesky insect from his face. A bucking wind hauls in scents from a faraway lake. Ali Dida Hada exhales. A constriction in his chest dissipates. I’m happy.
Plane offloaded, the pilot waves and takes off, fighting for daylight. Watching the small plane circle, Ali Dida Hada says to no one in particular, “We leave for Wuoth Ogik now.”
They turn to him. Aaron’s mouth curves downward. The loss of company shakes him. The rich conversations he holds with himself need an audience. “So soon?”
Ali Dida Hada knows something of Aaron’s dread. Those deep groans within silence. Many-layered thick darknesses, murmurs from one’s soul. Unseen footsteps and other unaccounted-for night sounds. He needs to be kind. “The fruits and newspapers are yours, ndungu Aaron. We’ll meet again soon.”
Aaron clears his throat. “At least take some doum nuts with you.” His voice cracks.
Night journeys have their rhythm. On the open, long, winding road, shades and shapes of blurred identities. The sound of the car’s engine intrudes. They watch the moon hurry past dark clouds. They pass a euphorbia bush that emulates the leaning Tower of Pisa.
Isaiah says, “I walked this way.”
Ajany glances at him.
“From Wuoth Ogik. On my way to Nairobi.”
Ali Dida Hada asks, “Where did you go?”
“North Horr.”
Ali Dida Hada whistles. “Didn’t get lost?”