Munira rolled her eyes, flung her head back, and resumed her walk.
He said, “We really must talk, Madame Munira.”
She stumbled when she heard her name. Over her shoulder, she snapped, “You know my name?”
“In matters of lucrative commerce, it is a requirement, madame,” he said, holding her gaze. “What am I offering?”
Munira looked him up and down. “What do you know of what I need?”
The man bared his teeth—a sly grin. He ticked off the options on his fingers. “One, never having to work for anything or anyone in your life ever again. Two, paying for the dreams of those you love. Three, going where you wish to, how you want, and when, first-class all the way. Four,” he lowered his voice, “fill in your blanks.”
Munira’s external look was steadfast, but inwardly she trembled. Disbelief. Huge goose bumps appeared like welts on her body.
The man continued. “A fee for a first meeting. Paid up front, no questions. At the end of the meeting, the same amount. Call it a ‘sitting allowance.’ ” A teensy tinkle of a laugh. “If the deal goes through successfully, you receive a ‘You Fill In the Blanks’ check. Write up to one-point-five million. American. Larger sums create noise here. We don’t like noise.” Another tinkle laugh, like a happy shop bell.
Munira’s eyes narrowed; her mind was in a whirl. What was this? Was it true? All her debts to society paid? All her struggles coming to an end? Could she finally leave Pate? She had a vision of herself landing in Zanzibar with an entourage looking for her family. She could shop in Paris, London. Even Tunis. She could start again. What did he want? She twisted her lips. What did most men want of women?
“How old are you?” Munira asked the man.
“Forty.” He smiled.
She smiled back. They smiled at each other. Then the man sighed. “The arrangement is not for me. Ah, but if I could, I would.” He smiled.
She smiled.
“I am a messenger,” he continued. “Jibril making delicate arrangements for God.”
She laughed.
He laughed.
She straightened her body. She asked, “In this matter, Jibril, God is…”
“You’ll meet him soon. You’ve seen him, no doubt.”
Munira vaguely recalled a bulbous being panting at the heels of this debonair matchmaker. She shrugged. Her eyelids fluttered: “So?”
The man rearranged his posture to hold Munira’s gaze. His voice dropped four degrees colder. “We are collectors, I said. We hunt for masterpieces. We find these even if they are covered with dust.”
Munira waited. The sea churned. The sun was hot on her skin.
“So now…” the man said. “So let us talk about your daughter.”
Munira’s heart withered. And then it began to hammer against her ribs.
“Ayaana,” the man added.
Munira jumped.
He said, “She.” Stillness. “Her.”
Breath trapped in her throat, Munira stared.
The man said, “She evokes phantasmic worlds. Conjures dreams. Transfiguring, she transfigures. We saw her. He must have her. We will clean her up. Restore her. Adorn her. Position her where she can best be seen, enjoyed, experienced. She is a virgin? Virginity is important to him. Stamp of authenticity. He must have her.”
A black torrent crashed over Munira’s head. It gripped her heart. It turned electric inside her body, burning down her gullet and sending cold-hot-cold streaks of red lightning into her soul. And, for a millisecond, it was as if she had been shoved, stark naked, out of her illusory plane to Paris. First rage; then her face colored. “My daughter?” she spluttered.
“She.” The man said. “Iconic.” Holding Munira’s eyes with his. “Her.” Tilt of head. “Whoever did you think I was referring to all this time?” Toying with her. “We are perfectionists, you see.” His teeth gleamed, glittered, and dazzled.
Munira’s face flushed, and she struggled to breathe. The wind grabbed at their clothes. A cock crowed. The man said, “Boutiques! You open these in any city of the world. Your work is…fascinating. One of our factories could turn your concoctions into products. The industry worldwide is worth over a trillion. American. You must have a share. We’ll package you. Women will wear you. It is all possible.”
Munira’s fingers locking and unlocking, thoughts roiling, head lowered, voice trembling: “For my d-daughter?”
“Yes.” The man examined his nails.
Waiting.
Ayaana. Munira imagined her daughter. Ayaana. She imagined how the worlds of this creature would mark the…child. She also thought of Ayaana being secured for life. She imagined paying workmen to repair and expand the house, adorning it with the beautiful things she had wanted. She saw herself paying for an investigative process that would find Ziriyab. Ayaana. Their triumphant escape. Ayaana. They could outdistance shadows that killed hope. Ayaana. Freedom. Munira whispered. “My baby, my daughter. A child?”
The man said, “Most humbly, I disagree.” His tone was low and intense and reasonable. “A good painting is a painting, large or small. Art”—he looked upward—“it is without time or age. She. Untouched. Beauty lit from within. We have watched her…Such grace…like a deep-water bird. Little bones. She will flower with a gentle touch. He craves the beautiful.” The man gestured. “To sip its light.” He engaged Munira’s eyes. “So tell me, dear one, when is a girl not a woman?” He grinned. “He is besotted. You understand.”
Munira was breathless. “Art?”
“An original.”
Munira moved her veil to cover her face. She looked around. Soft-feathered white-and-black birds near her feet, two tomcats yowling, an old lame rooster with long spurs—was it now ten years old?—gave her a quizzical look, as if she might be food. She asked, “You do this often?”
“What?”
“Collect girls?”
The man frowned. “We are connoisseurs. We like beauty. What’s wrong with that?”
“What about the girls?”
Distaste twisted the man’s lips. “No complaints so far. Certainly not from them. They can fly first-class to Dubai, Rome, or Istanbul.” Tinkle laugh. Copperish gleam in the eye. “My dear, dear, how do you decide?”
Munira whispered, “I need time.” Her body shook.
The man clucked. “How unfortunate. Time—the one commodity we cannot spare.” Munira gasped. “You are surprised,” the man said.
Munira gritted her teeth. “When I woke up this morning, I didn’t know it was the day I would meet those who control time and fate. Is it true your kind are also excused from death?”
The man hooded his lids, clenched and unclenched his jaw, before forcing geniality. “Sarcasm, heh-heh. Luxury for your kind. Well done. But, still, you decide. You are a mother. I shall give you five minutes. If the arrangement is unsuitable, we leave tonight.” Shop-bell laugh. “When he decides on something he wants, it is only that and nothing else. Counterfeits breed discontentment. He is always certain about his first choice. First choices have made him wealthy. He does not think in Option B’s. But he never forces his will. The decision is in your power.”
Munira’s mouth was agape.
“You would have three days to prepare the girl.” The man swung some keys he had retrieved from his pocket. As they jangled, he said, “Dress her up. Scrape out the mud. He loves that rose scent. Yours? It drew him to her. Delicate. Such an inspiration. He must have her.”
Munira glowered. “Do you have an opinion?”
He raised one brow. “Yes, his.”
In the stillness, a formless void seemed to emerge from beneath the earth under Munira’s feet. The man added, “We would meet at your house. It is discreet. Thursday evening for our first meeting?” He leaned into his shirt pocket and pulled out a fat wad of notes. “Seventy-five thousand
shillings. For your preparations. Sufficient to cover a lost husband’s debt? You are shocked, heh-heh; we do our research. We are not insensitive to ordinary human concerns.”
When Munira moaned, the man smirked. “Most businesses plan to fail when they disregard due diligence. The context bewilders them. We have never failed.” High laugh. “Dress the girl in softness. Pastels. Mother-of-pearl?” He leaned forward. “Satin on female skin…” He kissed his fingers.
Magnetized, Munira’s eyes were locked on the cash. Silence was a presence, a being between them, and it obliterated even the sounds of the sea. Munira watched. She waited. Four minutes. Emotions swirling. Terror. Clamped down on a scream. Flee! She saw herself running, but her feet were glued to her portion of soil. Seventy-five thousand shillings. She could even scent the rust residue of her old buried dreams, could see the envy in the eyes of those who had mocked her, felt herself rise, become the woman she had meant herself to be. Three minutes. The cost of her child? Stillness. Murmurings of her unrequited hungerings in her inner ear. They waited. Neither moved.
“Two minutes,” said the man.
Munira cried, “What’s your other name?”
A half-smile. “Really? Is that necessary?”
Munira pleaded, “I beg for time.”
Silence. One minute. Munira spun to walk away.
She did not see the astonishment in the man’s eyes, did not notice the relief that sagged his shoulders. Would not have recognized the glee flickering across his face as if he had seized a secret victory. If she had, she would have reconsidered looking back to say: “Thursday. Six-thirty. My house. As you suggest. I’ll make the snacks. Or don’t your kind eat food? She’ll be readied.” Munira lifted her nose. She pressed the veil to her face. She heard a bell-tinkle laugh chase after her and understood that Ibilisi might use a similar sound.
[ 25 ]
In that same hour, Ayaana, who had haggled with fishermen for fish—dagaa and chole for dinner—was meandering along the waterfront, eavesdropping and unaware of a glint of light reflecting off powerful binoculars trained on her from the yacht. Beachcombing, not so much needing to know the nature of objects as wanting to imagine where they came from and how they had traveled, so she could touch them. Messengers. She made up messages: Driftwood, the shape was the story. Dead eels were dead eels. Blue plastic turtle: a child setting his toy free to wander and gather tales from the world. In her imagination, she rode on the back of the plastic turtle and sailed to ports of the world where she was fêted, loved, and was able to retrieve Ziriyab from his hiding place, so that, at last, Muhidin would return. In her mind, Pate was not being leached of its people, and there were no new forms of darkness in night windows where flickering lanterns and candlelight shadows once affirmed life and presence.
Ayaana crouched, fingers in sand, wondering and not able to reach her inside pocket for Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Amado, which she wondered if she should be reading, but was reading anyway. Something strange had happened that morning. An angular, drawling, bushy-haired Suleiman had accosted Ayaana where she was washing clothes.
“Ayaana!” he had cooed, adopting a casual stance in his self-designed hip-hop getup. He wore his hair in a large, thick Afro now.
Ayaana had sniffed as she scrubbed a collar, dipping that portion into the soapy bucket.
Suleiman stood opposite her. “I’ve seen you.”
Ayaana sniffed again. “I’m busy.” The loss of a future through study had hit her hard, caused her dread; in front of her peers, she shrank.
“I’ve seen you swim in the sea,” Suleiman said.
Ayaana dropped her washing. Her heart thumped. Suleiman, even though his presence caused her body to feel awkward and her palms to sweat, was a loudmouth.
“You are good,” he said, “but I am better.”
An upward gaze. “You won’t tell?” A plea in her voice. She resented the sound of it.
Suleiman pursed his lips. He had wanted to see her get into even more trouble, but he needed to out-swim her and confirm to himself that he was better. In the secret murmurings of adolescent peers, Ayaana had become the subject of lewd teenage fantasy, not because of anything poetic but because of her illicit origins, which made her forbidden fruit. There was a bet among the boys as to who would secure the prize. At one point, Suleiman was certain that he was in the running for her attention. But when he approached her, she usually took off in another direction. Something about her made him want to bruise her. If she were a butterfly, he would have peeled off her wings in small strips. Ayaana’s dropping out of school had left Suleiman at the top of his secondary class. He had obtained a great exam grade.
Now he tilted his head, quietly gloating. “I have excellent news.” He studied her face for a reaction. “I’m going to the University of Sharjah. In the Emirates,” he said. “As you know, my marks were the best in the district. I need a place that will grow my intelligence.” He waited. “Kenya is too small for me.”
Ayaana wanted to cry aloud. It was not fair. She was the better student. But then she lowered her head. Who was she fooling?
Suleiman then asked, “What will you do with your life?”
“Do?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“Yes.”
Ayaana shifted her body and looked toward the sea. Tear-shine. Accusing life. Unfair. One person’s life horizonless with opportunities, and hers contained in a leaking red bucket. She shrugged in answer. Suleiman rocked from side to side. Her shoulders hunched, and shadows deepened on her face. She asked him, “What are you going to study?” Her tone was so wistful.
“Industrial engineering and management. B. Science.” He sounded as if he had already obtained the degree.
She nodded. “Now I need to finish the washing.”
“Ayaana,” Suleiman said, “I could tell people that you swim alone in the sea.” He was smirking. She shrugged but her heart pounded. “But I like you.”
She pivoted to stare at Suleiman. They were the same height, but he was bulkier. The sheen of wealth was on him. It was a scent; airy, textured. He grabbed her damp right hand, wiped it with his warm, soft one, and then pressed a cream-colored square of cloth in it, on which he had placed a marble-sized pale-pink pearl, from a necklace his mother used to wear.
Paralyzed, Ayaana gaped at the objects in her hand. Suleiman then lifted her wrist to his mouth, to suck on the skin. “You must wait for me to come back,” he was saying as she closed her eyes, believing she could disappear into Suleiman’s certainties for a second. He would have tried to kiss her had she not bent her head to conceal her confusion. He might have tried again, so that he could announce a victory to his peers, if his mother had not shrieked from some spot, “Suleiman!”
Suleiman dropped Ayaana’s hand as if it were a stonefish and took off.
Ayaana called after him: “Suleiman?” He looked over his shoulder at her. She kissed her hand and waved it at him. Suleiman whooped.
Ayaana’s heart did not calm down. She washed the rest of the clothes in a daze.
* * *
—
Now.
Beachcombing with wind, sea, and birds. A cock crowed. With the crunch of sand beneath her feet, Ayaana suddenly remembered time. She took off, veil flying, fishes in hand. She ducked her head to avoid the whirling dust that discomfited all creatures, including the goats, which bleated incessantly. Partly blind, Ayaana slammed into a body that huffed.
“Samahani!” she stuttered—Forgive me. Ayaana squinted at a bald-headed man from China, Mzee Kitwana Kipifit. His hand had stopped her momentum.
* * *
—
“Mingyun,” he said. Destiny.
They looked at each other, and for no reason other than the experience of the moment, they both started to laugh. Ayaana suddenly remembered a dry rose petal folded into a Persian calligraphy book.
Mzee Kipifit patted her head and winked.
Stooping, he dodged the wind as though dancing, heading for his leaky fisherman’s shack near the mangrove beach, where he also cooked seaweed and fish and tended to wounded birds, plants, cats, insects, and the other living things that were now seeking him out. Mingyun, Ayaana whispered to herself in the same high tone the wind was using. She retrieved the fish from the ground, wiping dust off them. What a day. And what exactly had Suleiman promised her? She clutched the single pearl as she walked home.
[ 26 ]
Ayaana circled her mother. Munira was unbalanced. Happy, then sad; delirious, then depressed; hugging her, then pushing her away. Speaking in riddles and preoccupied with the fate of women. Munira told her, “When clever women see options, they seize them.”
They were washing dishes. Ayaana considered the words as she played with the soapsuds. “I’ll go to school. I’ll do well, you know…and then university.”
“Where do I get the money to pay for this?” snapped Munira.
“I can…”
“What? Help me decorate women? Teach English to fishermen? Marry that drunkard who drives trucks? Become a servant in Saudi Arabia, from where you will return to us as a corpse? Why not marry the elderly camel-trader? The toothless bachelor from Kismaayo? Is that the life you want?” Munira’s voice rose in fury, and Ayaana frowned at her.
After dinner, Munira sat on a floor mat and called Ayaana to her side. She started to brush her daughter’s hair. Ayaana leaned in to her and said, “I can be an engineer. I will see the world.” Munira listened as she teased out Ayaana’s black curls. Ayaana dreamed. “I’ll study business. I can start a business, Ma-e. I’ll pay for you to live in a big house. In Mombasa.”
The Dragonfly Sea Page 15
