Maisha returned in an old Renault 16 taxi. She slouched in the back while the driver got out. Kneeling and applying pliers to open the back door, the driver let her out of the car. Baba’s sighs of disappointment were as loud as the muezzin who had begun to call Nairobi to prayer. My sister stepped out, then leaned on the car, exhausted. There were bags of food on the seat.
She gestured at Baba to go away. He ignored her.
“So where is our Jaguar and musungu?” Baba asked the taxi driver, peering into the shabby car as if it might be transformed at any moment.
“What Jaguar? What musungu?” the driver asked, monitoring Maisha’s movements.
“The nini Jaguar. . . . Where is my daughter coming from?” Baba asked him.
“Me, I can’t answer you that question,” he told Baba, and pointed to his passenger.
She bent in front of the only functioning headlamp to count out the fare. Her trousers were so tight that they had crinkled on her thighs and pockets; she struggled to get to the notes without breaking her artificial nails, which curved inward like talons. Yesterday, her hair had been low cut, gold, wavy, and crisp from a fresh perm. Now it stood up in places and lay flat in others, revealing patches of her scalp, which was bruised from the chemicals. It was hard to distinguish peeling face powder from damaged skin. To rid herself of an early outbreak of adolescent pimples, she had bleached her face into an uneven lightness. Her eyelids and the skin under her eyes had reacted the worst to the assorted creams she was applying, and tonight her fatigue seemed to have seeped under the burns, swelling her eyes.
The driver could not easily roll up the window. He extended his arm to guard the food bags, his collateral. Baba brought out a six-inch nail and went for the worn tires. “What dawa have you given my daughter? She always comes home strong.”
The driver crumpled immediately, his pleas laden with fright. “Mzee, my name is Karume. Paul Kinyanjui wa Karume. . . . Me, I be an upright Kenyan. I fear God.”
“And you want to steal my daughter’s bags?”
“No. Please, take the bags. Please,” the man begged, trying to restrain Baba from bursting his tires.
“Aiie, Baba. You shame me. Shut up,” Maisha said weakly, pushing the money toward the driver.
Baba collected the bags and strolled from the road, his nose full of good smells, until he suddenly broke into a run, to untie the trunk before Maisha reached the shack.
The driver got into his car and was about to put the money into his breast pocket when he started frisking himself. Baba stood watching from the door of the shack. Soon it was as if the driver had soldier ants in his clothes. He unzipped his pockets, then zipped them again quickly, as if the thief were still lurking. He removed his coat, then his shirt, and searched them. He recounted his itinerary to the skies with eyes closed, his index finger wagging at invisible stars. He searched his socks, then he got down on all fours, scouring the wet ground. He dabbed at the sweat, or tears, running down his face. “Where is my money?” he said to Maisha, finally finding his voice. “Haki, it was in my pocket now, now.”
Maisha charged forward and screeched at Baba until his stern face crumbled into a sheepish grin. He returned the fat wad of notes, giggling like the twins. The driver thanked her curtly, brushing his clothes with trembling hands. As soon as he’d reconnected the ignition wires to start the car, he creaked off, his horn blaring, his headlamp pointing up and to the left like an unblinking eye.
MAISHA STAGGERED INTO THE shack, holding her perilously high heels over her shoulders. Mama had made room for her and the bags and had sprayed our home with insecticide to discourage mosquitoes. My siblings inside started to cough. As Maisha came in, Mama stood aside like a maid, wringing her hands. I could not look Maisha in the eye and did not know what to say.
“Good night, Maisha,” I blurted out.
She stopped, her tired body seized by shock. She searched my parents’ faces before tracing the voice to me.
“Who told you to talk?” she said.
“You leave full time, I run away. No school.”
“You are going to school,” Maisha said. “Tuition is ready.”
“Run away? Jigana, shut up,” Baba said. “You think you are family head now? ‘All are leaders’ causes riots. Stupid, mtu dufu! Nobody is leaving.”
Maisha glared at us, and we all turned our backs to her as she opened the trunk to take out a blanket. The sweet smell of her Jaguar adventures filled the shack, overpowering the heavy scent of insecticide. Though her arrivals always reminded us that life could be better, tonight I hated the perfume.
“Me and your mama don’t want full time, Maisha,” Baba said, picking his nails. “We refuse.”
“Our daughter, things will get better,” Mama said. “Thanks for canceling our debt!”
“You are welcome, Mama,” Maisha said.
Mama’s face lit up with surprise; she was so used to being ignored. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Finally, she sobbed the words “Asante, Maisha, asante for everything!” and bowed repeatedly, her hands held before her, as if in prayer. The women looked into each other’s eyes in a way I had never seen before. They hugged and held on as if their hands were ropes that tied their two bodies together. In spite of the cold, beads of sweat broke out on Mama’s forehead, and her fingers trembled as she helped Maisha undo her earrings and necklace. Mama gently laid her down.
I believed that Mama might have been able to persuade her to stay, but then Baba signaled to Mama to keep quiet so that he could be the negotiator.
“Our daughter,” Baba said, “you need to rest and think carefully. As our people say, north ama south, east ama west, home the best . . .”
“Maisha, no school for me!” I said. “I told Mama and Baba. They will return fee to you.”
“Jigana, please, please, don’t argue,” Maisha said. “Even you. You cannot even pity me this night? Just for a few hours?”
MY PARENTS SAT OUTSIDE, on the paint containers. I stood by the wall, away from them. I wanted to see Maisha one more time before she disappeared.
Fog brought the dew down, thickening the darkness and turning the security lights into distant halos. We could hear Maisha twist and turn on the floor, cursing the limbs of her siblings and swatting at the mosquitoes. It was as if we were keeping a vigil of her last night with us. We were restless, the silence too heavy for us. Baba mumbled, blaming himself for not going more often to sweep the church premises. He agreed with Mama that if he had swept daily, instead of every other day, Saint Joseph the Worker would have bettered our lot. Mama snapped at him, because Baba had always told her that he was not interested in Saint Joseph’s favor but in a clean place for people to worship. Then Baba blamed her for no longer attending the KANU slum rallies to earn a few shillings.
The night degenerated into growls and hisses. I preferred the distraction of the quarrel to the sound of Maisha’s uneasy breathing. When Maisha clapped one more time and turned over, Mama couldn’t stand it anymore. She rushed inside, took the mosquito net off the carton, and tied it to the rafters so that my sister was inside it. She sprayed the place again and brought Baby out to breast-feed. The coughing got worse. Baba tore down some of the walls to let in air, but, since the wind had subsided, it was of no use. He picked up the door and used it as a big fan to whip air into the shack.
IN THE MORNING, ATIENO and Otieno came out first. They looked tired and were sniffling from the insecticide. They stood before us, spraying the morning with yellow urine, sneezing and whimpering.