Golden Boy

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Golden Boy Page 3

by Tara Sullivan


  “I can’t believe you’re doing this!” Asu says to her. “You look ridiculous!”

  Mother ignores Asu entirely. “Put some of these on,” she says to me. The sides of her eyes crinkle as she says this.

  I stare at her, baffled.

  “Why?”

  “Just put them on. You, too, Chui.” She holds a piece of cloth out at arm’s length. “Asu,” she says warningly, “do as you’re told.”

  Chui reaches into the pile and starts to drape a big purple thing around himself. Asu grabs the cloth from Mother and glares at her.

  “This is a terrible idea,” she says, then turns her back on Mother and starts to wrap the cloth around herself, hiding the original color and drape of her khanga from home.

  “What are we doing?” I ask again, although I, too, am following Mother’s lead, dressing myself in a red cloth with thin purple stripes.

  Asu sighs and looks over at me.

  “Mother has decided that it would be a great idea for us to sneak through the Serengeti on foot.”

  “And hitch a ride if we can,” adds Chui, nothing but a voice from the middle of a big purple mess.

  I’m glad we’re not going to stay here and try to earn bus fare, but this plan doesn’t make sense to me.

  “Why do we need new clothes to do that?”

  Mother turns to me, that light I don’t recognize in her eyes again. She clutches the red-checked cloth so tightly in her fingers, I can see her knucklebones popping out against her skin.

  “We’re disguising ourselves as Maasai,” she says. Her voice is higher pitched and fuller than normal. “That way we can make it across the parklands without paying entry fees or being stopped by rangers.” A smile darts across her face like an animal crossing a road: quickly, unsure of itself.

  I finally puzzle out her tone. My mother is having fun. I layer on the unfamiliar clothes without another word.

  Soon we’re walking along the Serengeti road, a slightly too short Maasai family of four with all their worldly belongings balanced on their heads.

  Mother, Asu, Chui, and I walk late into the night, heading north. We stay on the road for safety and so that we don’t get lost, but even after dark Mother insists we leave our Maasai robes on. I feel silly dressed up as something I’m not, but the extra layer of cloth does keep me a little warmer in the dark. Only when we’re all stumbling from exhaustion does Mother lead us off the road a little to sleep under a tree. We take turns staying awake, holding a big stick, just in case any wild animals show up.

  This seems like a great idea when it’s my turn to sleep. But when it’s my turn to sit there, squinting into the darkness with my bad eyes, holding nothing but a piece of wood and looking for animals with giant teeth and claws, I think it’s really, really stupid.

  Dawn finds us stiff and cranky. Since we didn’t unpack last night, we just get on our feet and keep walking north, in the direction of my mother’s people, away from Enzi and home.

  By midday my throat is parched and the sun is blazing down on us. Even though it’s the dry season, it still gets hot in the middle of the day. The land is grassy all around us now, with few trees. By the time we find one to shelter under during the hottest part of the day, I’m feeling dizzy from the heat. The backs of my hands and the tops of my sandaled feet are burnt, and even my face is pink under my hat. We all collapse in the shade, and soon the others have fallen asleep. But I can’t sleep. I’m hot and miserable and there’s nothing quite as lonely as being the only one left awake. When I can’t stand it any longer, I lean over my sister and whisper her name.

  “Asu!”

  She stirs on the ground.

  “What is it, Habo?”

  “Will you tell me the story of when I was born?” I ask.

  “Oh, Habo, not now! Go to sleep,” she grouses.

  “I can’t sleep. I’m burned.”

  For a moment Asu is quiet, scowling sleepily up at me. The light and shadows of the leaves flicker over her high cheekbones and highlight her dark brown eyes. I’m afraid she’ll say no again. But instead, she pushes herself up on her elbows and opens her pack. She takes out a little gourd full of aloe and takes my burnt hands in hers.

  “Fine,” she grumbles, rubbing the sticky stuff into the angry red welts over my knuckles as she talks. “You were born on a hot, cloudy day, right before the long rains. Mother was inside the house with the mkunga, the midwife, and Father stood outside with us, waiting. Then that mkunga screamed so loudly that we all poured in through the door of our house to see what was the matter. I was only six at the time, but I remember it. You should have heard her, Habo—she shrieked like a baboon!”

  I smile. The mkunga in our village is a cranky old lady, dried out like a banana skin left in the sun. “Where was I?” I ask, even though I’ve heard the story a hundred times before and know exactly where I was.

  “You were lying on the floor, bellowing,” says Asu.

  “No one would pick me up.” I got this detail from Chui, though he was only two and probably doesn’t even really remember it.

  Asu scowls. “I picked you up,” she says, and scoops more aloe out of the gourd for my other hand, “and Mother wasn’t awake, so you can’t blame her, either. Just Father and the mkunga.” She crinkles up her nose at me. “You’re welcome to blame them.”

  The aloe is heaven on my hands. I sigh, content. Asu goes on.

  “You’d be amazed, Habo, if you could remember it. Everyone was arguing about what you were. The old men thought you were a ghost of the ancestors. That stupid mkunga was wailing on about demons. I think Father figured you were the son of one of the white men who come to climb Mount Kilimanjaro or take a safari. All those people, arguing back and forth, and no one paying attention to the fact that you were acting just like any other newborn baby.”

  I look down at my white and red hands nested in her even brown ones. I wonder again, for the thousandth time, why I’m so different.

  “And then I looked at your white skin, your yellow hair, and your light eyes, and I said to them, ‘Yeye ni mtoto dhahabo!’”

  “I was a golden child.”

  “Ndiyo, and so we called you Dhahabo, gold.” Asu lets go of my hands, now shiny with aloe, and puts the gourd into her bag. “Now let me get some sleep, Golden Boy. We have a lot of walking ahead of us.”

  “Asante, Asu, for the aloe,” I say.

  “Karibu,” she says, and lies down again.

  We continue walking that evening, pushing as far as we can in the failing daylight. We all keep a lookout for the plume of dust that means a car is coming along the road—that might be the park rangers. Anytime we see one, we find a place to hide until it has passed us. We get so tired that everyone starts snapping at one another. Then we get so tired that everyone stops talking to one another altogether. When darkness falls, we settle down for another uncomfortable night. Tonight I can hear the animals—grunts and coughs in the distance, and from time to time the vibration of many hooves hitting the ground at once. We avoid the long grass and the trees and lie down on the road itself, in a line. It’s uncomfortable to be on the packed earth. No matter how much I brush my palms over the surface, there are always little rocks I’ve missed that jab into me as soon as I try to lie down. I’m having trouble getting comfortable enough to fall asleep.

  “I’d rather sleep in the grass,” I grumble to no one in particular as I squirm.

  “Cars have headlights,” Chui whispers, “lions don’t. Go to sleep, Habo.”

  That thought doesn’t help me relax. No matter which way I face, the waving grass is only a few feet away. The darkness plays tricks with my mind, and I keep thinking I see a whisker or a tail. It takes me a long time to fall asleep.

  In my dreams I’m being stalked by a huge lion. I’m running down the never-ending road, alone, and I can hear the whisper of its movement th
rough the grass as it stalks me. No matter how fast I run, I get no closer to the end of the road, and no farther from my hunter. With a great roar, the lion jumps onto the road behind me, its teeth bared, its eyes glowing brightly. As it pounces I think, foolishly, that this lion does have headlights. And then I wake up.

  For a moment I’m not sure if I’m still dreaming, because I’m blinded by yellow light and there’s a shadow looming over me. I cry out and put my hands up in front of my face.

  “Easy!” says a man’s voice. “Do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

  I blink up at him in confusion. Then I look behind him and see the rest of my family gathering their belongings and pushing them into the back of a battered white Jeep. That’s the source of the light that’s hurting my eyes.

  “You sleep like the dead, boy. Come on!” And a dark hand extends down out of the light and pulls me to my feet.

  By the time I’m awake enough to figure out what has happened, we’re flying down the road, the headlights showing the world in swaying patches, the wind whistling in through the open sides of the Jeep and making my eyes water. It had been Asu’s turn to stay awake and hold the stick when the Jeep came up the road. The driver had gotten out and asked her what she was doing on the road in the middle of the night. She told him that she and her family were traveling north and we had nowhere else to sleep. The man said he was driving north to a hunting base camp and offered to take us as far as he was going. From there it was a simple matter of packing the belongings, waking the boy who slept on even when the car’s lights hit him in the face, and squeezing in between our things and the man’s gear. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s so much better than walking that none of us complains. I watch the tall grass zip by on either side of us and think to my dream lion, Take that! I’m ahead of you now!

  I’m just dozing off when laughter wakes me. Asu is talking to the man as he drives. Even Mother seems amused. “What?” I ask.

  Asu turns to me with a smile. “We’re in the car, at night, with the entire day!” Mother laughs again, but I still don’t understand. The driver takes pity on my confusion.

  “My name is Alasiri,” he says, and waits for me to get the joke.

  “I understand now,” I say. Alasiri means “late afternoon” in Kiswahili. Asubuhi, my sister’s name, means “morning.”

  Alasiri’s white teeth shine in the darkness when he smiles. I’m not sure why, but I’m reminded of the lion in my dream with the shining face, and it makes me look away from him. But Asu turns toward him and smiles back.

  I soon lose interest in their conversation, and I doze off again as we flash along the road like a metal fish swimming with the current of a dusty stream.

  Dawn is still a few hours away when we pull off the main road and bump over the brush to reach Alasiri’s camp. After a few jarring kilometers of driving where there’s no road, we get there. It’s not a fancy place. There are dust-colored tents circled around a smoldering campfire and stools and cooking supplies pushed over to one side. This tells me that other people must share this camp with Alasiri, but no one’s here now.

  “Sleep near the fire,” he says. “The light and the smoke will keep away the animals.”

  We don’t ask which animals he’s talking about. I can see signs of relief on the faces of my family and, really, I’m glad to be here, too. The safety of a fire and a man makes everyone feel better than when we were sleeping on the road. Though it’s only a few more hours until morning, we all lie down in the circle of orange light and sleep.

  I wake up soon after sunrise. I pull myself to my feet, stiff after another night on the ground, and lift my arms high over my head to stretch out my shoulders. I kept the Maasai cloth on for warmth overnight, but now I unwrap it and leave it on the ground next to my pack. I see that Asu, sitting over by the fire, is back in her usual clothes, too. Now that it’s daytime, I’m expecting to see more of the men around, but it’s still just Alasiri. I wonder where the others are. There are tents and supplies for at least five people.

  I go behind the Jeep to pee and then walk over to where Asu and Alasiri are talking while she makes coffee in a pan over the fire. When I get there Alasiri is finishing a story. I think he’s trying to impress her.

  “So, what do you do when you’re not in the cities?” she asks as she stirs the grounds in circles with a long ladle so they don’t stick to the bottom. She’s smiling at him. I sit between them, pretending this is only to be near the fire. But really I don’t like the way she’s smiling at him. Also I’m hoping that, being so close, I’ll be able to get some coffee this morning, too. I prefer tea when I can get it, but in the middle of the wilderness here, I’ll be happy with any warm drink.

  “Some of this and some of that.” Alasiri’s smile gleams in his dark face. Handsome face, I admit grudgingly, noticing his clear brown eyes and high, thin cheekbones. I scowl down at my feet. “During the tourist season, I help with safaris. When there are no white people around, I find other work.”

  “That’s interesting.” Asu nods.

  “And what about you?” Alasiri continues. “Why is such a pretty girl not married yet?”

  Asu looks flustered and I know it’s not just because of the flattery. It’s embarrassing enough to be poor, to be dressed up as Maasai and sleeping in the road, but we’re so poor that we’ll probably never have enough money to get Asu a good husband. I can’t tell if this man is teasing Asu or flirting with her, but either way the answer will embarrass her. I break into their conversation so that she doesn’t have to answer him, and say the first thing that comes into my head.

  “So what is it, exactly, that you do when you’re not on safari?”

  Alasiri’s gaze eats my face.

  “A white boy in a black family,” he muses. “How odd. Where did you come from, white one?”

  Now it is my turn to feel embarrassed, but I refuse to hang my head in front of this disrespectful man, and so I scowl at him instead.

  “The same place everyone else did,” I snap. This makes Alasiri laugh.

  “Well, well, the little zeruzeru has teeth!”

  This makes me dislike him even more. I hate it when people call me zeruzeru. The name means “zero-zero,” “nothing.” A zeruzeru is an unnatural thing, like a zombie. It’s like calling me an animal.

  “Don’t call me that,” I snarl.

  “Habo!” exclaims Asu, horrified. “Don’t be so rude to Alasiri when he’s gone out of his way to help us.”

  Now I’m mad at her, too. The only reason I got involved in this conversation in the first place was to defend her, and now she’s defending him. Alasiri gives a small cough that could have been a laugh and changes the subject.

  “Tell me, boy, why are you so interested in what I do?”

  “I just am,” I say, still bristling.

  Alasiri strokes long fingers down his chin, considering. Then, “Would you like to see for yourself?”

  Asu and I both look up at him in surprise. I’m not entirely sure I want to do anything with this man. Was he flirting with Asu? Is she flirting, too, talking to him and making him coffee? Or is she just being her usual nice self? I can’t decide. I want to tell him I don’t feel like going anywhere with him, but he has a job and a car. If he’s really trying to be Asu’s boyfriend, I don’t want my stupid temper to ruin her chances of a better future.

  “Ndiyo,” I lie, deciding to play it safe for Asu’s sake. “Very much. Asante.”

  Alasiri chuckles softly. “Well. We’ll see how much your curiosity likes what it gets once I finish my coffee.”

  “Here you go,” says Asu, ladling a serving of coffee into a tin cup for Alasiri and a half serving into a clean jar for me. She’s careful as she pours, but even so, as I sip at the steaming jar, I can feel the bitter gravel of the coffee grounds lodging in my teeth.

  I wonder where Alasiri will take me whe
n we’re done.

  4.

  Chui has never wanted to be anywhere near me.

  I learned this clearly six years ago on my first day of school when he tried to talk Asu out of sending me to school entirely.

  “Does Habo really have to go to school?” he had asked.

  “Of course,” Asu replied. “He’s seven now, just like you were when you started school. Why wouldn’t he go?”

  “Well . . .” Chui glanced sideways at me. “Look at him.”

  I remember how Asu’s eyes got hard when he said that. She turned to me.

  “You’re right,” she said, “let’s double-check. Habo, reach your hand over your head and touch your other ear. Can you do that?”

  I did. It was a little bit of a stretch at the end, but I was able to touch the end of my longest finger to the top of my opposite ear. This is how the teachers know you’re over seven and old enough for school if you don’t have a birth certificate. I smiled a missing-tooth smile at her. She smiled back.

  “Okay, Chui, I’ve looked at him, and it seems like he’s old enough to go to school after all. That is what you meant, isn’t it?” She looked him straight in the eye, her question an outstretched hand with a piece of broken glass in it.

  Chui knew better than to grab it. He dropped his gaze.

  “Ndiyo, Asu,” he mumbled.

  “Good. That’s settled then. Off you go,” and she’d pushed us out the door together.

  Chui and I had set off on the tiny footpath that led from our family’s small farm to our village. Since we were walking into the rising sun, I kept my head down so that the brim of my hat kept my face shaded. I was watching Chui’s black ankles in front of me, comparing them to my own white toes, when suddenly the feet turned around. I looked up, squinting. Chui stood in front of me, with both arms crossed over his chest, blocking the path.

  “Now listen,” said Chui. “Just because you’re my brother doesn’t mean I have to walk with you.” I stared at him. Hadn’t he heard Asu’s scolding?

 

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