Golden Boy

by Tara Sullivan

  21.

  “So you’re telling me that this man who was just here, Kanu, is really Alasiri?”

  I’m sitting across from Kweli, wrapped in blankets to stop my shivering, sipping tea that is still warm from when it was served to the man who tried to kill me.

  “Ndiyo,” I manage, between chattering teeth. “He was looking for me, and now he’s found me. I just know it.”

  Kweli is silent for a moment while he considers this. My thoughts chase each other in circles, circles that make no sense. One minute I’ve resolved to be gone from the city by first light; the next I’ve decided never to leave the compound again. Why, why did Alasiri have to come here and ruin the best thing I’ve ever had? The unfairness makes me want to scream. But the part of me that feels hunted again doesn’t want to make any noise at all. I stay silent.

  Kweli sighs.

  “I didn’t like him when I thought he was simply a dealer in illegal ivory. I like him even less now. I’m sorry for inviting him into my house! Imagine if you had been here!”

  I have been imagining it. I’ve been trying to block those images out of my mind. But, as the hot tea fills my stomach and the blankets pull the dampness of my wet clothes away from me, I feel myself thawing inside, coming into myself again. I remember why I was so eager to get home in the first place.

  “Bwana, how are you feeling?” I’m more than happy to change the subject of our conversation. I can’t process this threat right now.

  Kweli gives me a rueful smile. “I spent all morning in the outhouse. I don’t know what it was that I ate, but it didn’t agree with me.”

  “Well,” I say, “I’m glad it wasn’t anything more serious.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s true,” says Kweli. “But having to make tea and talk to that man who showed up at my door uninvited . . . well, I’m quite tired now.”

  I look more closely at Kweli in the lamplight. His cheeks seem a little sunken, and his hands are shaking slightly. I try to remember a time when I had diarrhea as a child.

  The memory catches me by surprise, as do the feelings that come with it. I had been very young then, still too young to go to school, and I was very sick. Enzi and Chui had left for school. Asu, though she hesitated at the door and told me she’d hurry home, had left, too. I had tossed and turned, shivering and sweating by turns on my pallet in the corner, not wanting to bother Mother because, even then, I had the sense that I was the reason for her sadness. Which is why I was surprised to wake up later and find that she had left her chores and was holding me as I slept.

  I had startled awake and then relaxed again quickly, so happy to be in her arms that I pretended to fall asleep again so she wouldn’t leave. And she didn’t. She sat there, braced against the mud wall of our house, with my head and shoulders propped on her lap as she swabbed my forehead, neck, and shoulders with a damp cloth. She spooned salted honey water into my mouth and she sang to me. Her songs weren’t real, but just a one-sided conversation that she put into music.

  This water will bring your fever down, rest now, rest now. Soon you’ll feel better, little son. Sleep now, heal now. Her voice wasn’t very good, but I didn’t care, and I still don’t. When I woke up again it was Asu beside me and Mother was working, not looking at me, but I know I didn’t dream it. Neither of us ever brought it up, but I held that moment close whenever Mother turned away from me in the years since.

  Thinking about that day, I get up and find the honey jar that Chatha and Davu left with us. I pour a fresh cup of the nearly cool tea and stir a large spoonful of the honey into it along with a pinch of salt.

  “Here, Bwana, drink this.”

  When Kweli has finished the tea with honey, I suggest he lie down. Soon he’s asleep. This is good for Kweli, because I’m sure that liquids and rest are all he needs to make him feel better, but it’s bad for me, because now I’m left with nothing to do but clean up the teacups and think about Alasiri.

  I have to get out of here, I think as I rinse the cup he drank from. The scar on my arm stretches as I reach to place the cup on the sideboard, a flat pink line that whispers up at me about death.

  For the past few months I feel like I’ve been looking over my shoulder, afraid. And now Alasiri has found me again. He must have asked around the market, found out about Kweli’s albino apprentice. And even if he wasn’t here for me, he’s sure to try and find out more about Kweli and then he’ll know I’m here.

  I walk over to where I’ve been sleeping to pack my things, but I find that my hands aren’t willing to move in the way that I tell them to. Instead, I find myself squatting there, staring at the woven blanket Kweli gave me for my bedroll, my carving knife with its sweat-soaked handle that fits my fingers perfectly, my fraying long-sleeve shirts and floppy hat. I sit and stare, thinking about packing them, but not doing it.

  Why can’t I make myself do it? I angrily reach up and brush the wetness off my face. Alasiri has found your home, I remind myself. This is just like Mwanza. I force myself to start rolling up my blanket. Just like Mwanza, just like Mwanza echoes in my head as my hands work. But by the time I’m done with the blanket, I’ve stopped again. Because this is not just like Mwanza. In Mwanza, I was hidden away and I couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t even really a person. Here, I’ve talked to people, worked in the market, helped Kweli.

  I look over to where he’s sleeping and see that his breathing is deep and even.

  Yes, I’ve done things here that I couldn’t do in Mwanza. I’ve been someone I couldn’t have been in Mwanza. Been someone, period.

  It doesn’t matter; you have to leave. Is being someone worth dying for? asks the voice in my head.

  To my surprise, the answer to that question is not as clear as it should be. Of course I don’t want to die, but for the first time in my life, I have a life.

  A clunk pulls me into the present. I look down to see what made the noise and find a piece of wood that I’ve knocked over resting against my foot.

  I remember when Kweli gave it to me. It was weeks ago, just a few weeks after I had started to help him tend the shop at the market. It was a day in mid-October when I was having trouble getting my family off my mind and I had rattled around the shop like the seeds in a dried gourd, unable to sit quietly or do anything useful. Kweli had listened to me pace and mutter for a while, but then headed into the storage room behind the shop and returned with this piece of a branch. About as long as my arm and twice as thick, it was covered in an uneven bark. It was not a wood I had ever carved before. Kweli rested his hand lightly on my head.

  “I bought this for you a little while ago, but it’s a difficult wood to work with, and I’ve been saving it. I think that the challenge may be just what you need now.”

  “What kind of wood is this?” I had asked.

  “It’s ebony wood.” I caught a flash of one of Kweli’s smiles. “It reminded me of you.”

  I remember looking at the branch in my hands. It reminded him of me how? I’m dense? Rough? Ugly? Scarred? Rare? I gave up.

  “How does the wood remind you of me, Bwana?”

  Kweli chuckled. “You’ll see” was all he had said, and he had gone off to tend to a customer. I had put the branch in my bag, determined to figure out its mystery some other time, but had brought it home and promptly forgotten about it because Davu had been waiting for us and I got distracted talking to her. Then, since I hadn’t yet finished my “Change” sculpture, I continued to work on that, and by the time I was done, I had forgotten about the ebony.

  Now, as I squat here in the dark trying to decide whether to leave or stay, I suddenly have to know why Kweli gave it to me.

  I pick up my blade and gently shave away the gray-green bark. I give a small snort of annoyance when I see what’s underneath. Of course it reminded him of me. The wood is white. I sigh against the disappointment of having become a white boy in Kweli’s mind, too, and
think about what I might carve with it. This was the first time Kweli gave me wood without telling me what he wanted. I think he wanted to see what I’d come up with myself.

  For a while I do nothing but sit there, cradling the wood like a puppy in my arms, trying to force myself to think like a sculptor, but worrying instead about the problem of Alasiri. And then it comes to me. I gave Kweli a picture of the evil I’ve known. Now it’s time to balance that out with the good I know. Especially if I’m about to leave Kweli forever, I can at least do that much to show him his kindness wasn’t wasted.

  I heft the wood again and start to carve the outlines of my plan. I’m surprised by how hard the wood is. I remember Kweli’s story of when he was a young man, telling me how he tried to force art out of the mpingo wood. Now I know what he means. I’ve never had to wrestle so hard with wood myself until now. It wrestles me back.

  I’m digging into the white wood with the blade, unearthing the general shape of my statue, when my knife slips and pulls out a deep wedge. I look down at the chunk, baffled. The wood is no longer white.

  I turn the ebony branch over in my hands, looking at it from all angles for the first time, and there, at the bottom where the branch was cut away from the tree, I can see the wood for what it really is. Once you get past a thin outer ring of whiteness, the wood is a deep, pure black all the way to the core.

  It reminded me of you, Kweli had said.

  I smile.

  I lay my knife against the ebony branch and work until my head slumps onto the table and the knife slips out of my hand onto the floor. I don’t even realize I’ve fallen asleep until I wake up the next morning with the sun shining in my eyes and a dent in my face from where it has pressed up against the black branch all night.

  Rubbing gently at my cheek, I know what I have to do; I’m just not brave enough to do it.

  I’m stirring the porridge, which I’ve made thinner than usual so that it’ll be easier for Kweli to eat, when he shuffles out of the house and joins me by the fire. He sits heavily on his stool, still tired from being ill yesterday, but his cheeks are no longer sunken.

  “Good morning, Bwana.”

  “Good morning, Habo. Thank you for all your help yesterday.” His tone is stiff. He seems uncomfortable.

  “Karibu,” I say. “It wasn’t a problem.”

  “I don’t . . .” Kweli pauses, struggling to finish his sentence. I stir the porridge and wait. “I don’t like having to get help from people,” Kweli finally admits.

  I think about it, think about how cranky Kweli gets when Chatha tries to do too much for him.

  “I understand,” I say, wanting to show him I do. “My sister used to do everything for me: make sure I dressed right and stayed out of the sun; made sure I had only easy chores and bigger food servings. She’d even fight with my brothers for me.” Chui’s sullenness toward me suddenly makes more sense as I say this.

  “Sounds like you had two mothers,” Kweli says with a smile.

  “Ndiyo. I liked it as a kid. It made me feel safe. But I never realized how good it feels to take care of myself until I came here.” I think for a minute. “I wouldn’t ever want to go back to having someone do everything for me. It’s like . . . I don’t know.”

  “It’s the best way to remind others, and yourself, that you are not a child or an invalid.”

  “Exactly!” I say.

  “You do understand,” Kweli says. I see the tight lines around his mouth relax again. “Perhaps that’s why it’s not as difficult for me to accept help from you. Either way, though, asante. It was nice to not be sick alone.”

  “Karibu,” I say again, and hand him his breakfast.

  For a few minutes we sit there quietly, eating and listening to the mumble and whir of the city waking up outside the walls. Enjoying the light breeze while it lasts.

  Then Kweli says, “We need to talk about my visitor from yesterday.”

  The thin porridge turns into a brick in my belly.

  “Ndiyo.” I sigh. “We do.”

  “With this man, this Alasiri, loose in the city,” Kweli goes on, “I don’t think you should go anywhere alone.”

  “Should I stay here, inside the compound?”

  “What do you think?” asks Kweli, the early morning light glinting off the white in his hair, reminding me how old he is.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m afraid if I go out into the city again, Alasiri will find me. I don’t know if it’s safe for me to go to the Mwenge market anymore if he’s staying in Mikocheni.”

  “No,” Kweli agrees. “It’s not worth your life.”

  I don’t say anything to this, because what my life is worth is the very question I’ve been turning over and over in my head. I’ve been told that I’m priceless. I’ve been told that I’m worthless. Which, if either, is true?

  “Then again,” I go on, “now that he knows where you live, he could come back anytime. It would be easy for him to find out you have an albino boy living with you. We haven’t made any secret of that for a while.”

  “Then we mustn’t leave you here alone, either.”

  I pause, not sure how to say what I know I have to say.

  “Bwana, I don’t think I can stay here with you very much longer. I mean . . . I want to, but I don’t think I should. Especially if he has his knife.” I sigh and then finish. “If I stay here, neither of us is safe.”

  “You should call your family,” Kweli growls, but without much force. I’ve been putting him off for so long that I don’t think he really expects me to say yes anymore.

  “That won’t help,” I say. “Besides, why worry them? I’ll call them when Alasiri isn’t a danger to me anymore.”

  “Let me think more about the problem.” Kweli sighs. “There must be some way we can keep you safe.”

  I doubt I’ll ever be safe. But it makes me feel warm inside that, even when given the best reasons in the world, Kweli has not chosen to send me away.

  “Perhaps, Bwana,” I say. “Perhaps.”

  For the rest of the day, every time I hear the slightest noise from the street, I feel all the old fear wash up inside me like an electric tide, but this time I refuse to let it close over me. You need to stop this, I tell myself sternly, and I force myself to practice being calm, even as I count the things around me that could be used as weapons if I have to fight for my life.

  The ugali pan is heavy and hot.

  A statue could be thrown or used as a club.

  The lit firewood could burn and bruise.

  The day passes slowly, since Kweli is too tired to work. He sits at his workbench quietly, working on a small project. He finished “Justice” weeks ago, and it was instantly bought by a judge for his office. However, now he’s not working on the next big statue he started, “Resentment.” I’m slightly curious to know what it is he’s working on, but I don’t go over to see.

  Since Kweli doesn’t have any chores for me, I make good progress on my statue. The wood is hard, but I don’t take any shortcuts to make it easier to carve. Instead, I use all the nervous energy I’m feeling and go about carving it the slow way, waiting to make sure that Kweli is completely better before I discuss my crazy idea with him.

  I struggle with my carving, using the muscles in my arms and shoulders to pull off the extra wood. The shape of a young woman lifts up out of the branch. My knuckles ache as I force detail into the hard wood. She balances a tall jug of water on her head. The material of her khanga curves, showing she’s walking. I rub my eyes. They have to be clear for me to finish her. She turns around slightly as she walks, reaching one arm behind her, as if she’s waiting for a small boy to catch up.

  As evening falls, I finish my statue. Asu smiles back up at me from my hands.

  I look up and see that Kweli is putting a pot of water on the fire for ugali and realize that he must be done,
too. I walk over to the fire to help him prepare the dinner.

  “Oh, hello, Habo,” says Kweli. “How was your day?”

  I’m proud of how my statue turned out, because the wood was so difficult to work with, but I don’t want it to seem like I’m bragging, so I just say, “I worked on a statue all day, Bwana, like you did. It’s done now.”

  “Ahhh,” says Kweli, nodding in understanding. “Yes, it can sometimes be like that. The whole world fades away and there is nothing but you and the dream you’re putting into the wood.”

  I smile. That’s a nice way to put it.

  “Ndiyo.” I stir the cornmeal, slapping it against the sides of the pot, waiting for the ugali to get to the right consistency. “It was like that.”

  Kweli sniffs the air appreciatively. “It smells like the ugali is done, too.”

  For a few minutes the final clatter of getting the bowls and serving out the stiff cooked cornmeal wedges and vegetables is enough to claim our attention. But once we’ve settled down with our bowls, Kweli asks to feel the statue I’ve carved. I get up and fetch it for him.

  “Go ahead and eat,” he says, and takes it from me.

  As Kweli runs his fingers over my statue, seeing it, I pinch off pieces of the cornmeal and chew them slowly, giving him time to think.

  Finally Kweli looks up and asks, “What have you carved?”

  I know better than to say it’s my sister. That would’ve been my answer when I was only a boy carving things in easy wood. But Kweli has given me ebony to work with, and he said that I had the heart of a sculptor.

  “It’s ‘Love,’ Bwana.”

  “It’s very simple.”

  I am not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment, so I just explain the best I can.

  “When you’re small, small things are big. Asu always showed me that I mattered to her as much as the rest of my family. Waiting for me to catch up when she walked to and from the river told me that I was just as good as my other brothers.” I shrug even though he can’t see me. “She always loved me.”