Golden Boy

by Tara Sullivan

  “It’s quite good,” he says, handing her back to me. “The next time I go to the market, I’ll see if I can sell it.” I snap my head up and look at him. Kweli has never offered to sell one of my pieces before. A deep feeling of pride swells inside my chest. And yet, for some reason, I hesitate to say yes. I run my hand over Asu’s carved face.

  Into the silence, Kweli adds, “Even sculptors have to eat, Habo,” and I know he’s right.

  “Ndiyo. Asante sana for being willing to sell my work with yours.”

  “Karibu.”

  We sit there in silence for a few moments while I mull over Kweli’s offer, wondering, if I was somehow able to stay here, whether he might be willing to let me become his official apprentice, when Kweli clears his throat. I glance up and study his face. He seems embarrassed! I’ve never seen Kweli look anything but confident, sometimes even bossy.

  “Yes, Bwana?” I manage, trying not to laugh.

  “Hrm. Yes, well, I have a carving to show you, too.”

  Now it’s my turn to be surprised. I squint across the darkening yard. “Resentment” still hulks, unfinished, in the far darkness. This must be one of Kweli’s little statues, maybe the one I saw him working on today.

  “Sawa,” I say.

  “Here.” Kweli thrusts something toward me. I reach out reflexively and take it, feeling the weight of it before I can see its shape. It’s the head and shoulders of a person, slightly longer than my hand, and I turn and hold it up to the fire to get a better look. For a moment, I don’t realize what I’m seeing. And then I do.

  When I was eight years old, I climbed the wild mango tree at the edge of the school yard. When I was more than twice my height off the ground, I fell and landed on my back. For a moment that seemed like forever I lay there, stunned, without the ability to pull air into my lungs. That feeling is the closest thing I’ve felt to how I feel now, looking at Kweli’s statue.

  Because his statue is me.

  My eyes look out from either side of my nose; my mouth is open like I’m about to say something. My left ear is just a little lower than my right. It’s the face that has stared at me from every puddle, car bumper, and windowpane my entire life.

  But I am black.

  Carved into mpingo, I can see the way I would look if I wasn’t an albino. I’ve grown so used to the deep luster of Kweli’s Makonde carvings that I had stopped noticing it as a color. But now I see. Put into blackwood, I’m like any other African boy. Holding my head in my hands, I understand that this is why Kweli had trouble understanding what I meant when I said I was an albino. Because, in his mind, this is what I look like.

  I look at Kweli, who is still sitting on his stool stiffly, like he doesn’t know what to do with his arms or knees.

  “Asante,” I whisper.

  Kweli nods, not saying anything, and then gets up to put the dishes away.

  I turn the statue over in my hands again. The boy stares back at me. There is nothing wrong with him. There is no reason he should have to hide, no reason he should be forced from his home.

  I don’t want to die. I won’t be afraid anymore. I refuse to run.

  I make my decision. Tomorrow morning, at first light, I’m going to go into the city and tell my story to the police and get Alasiri thrown into jail forever.

  I get up and follow Kweli inside to tell him what I’ve decided to do.

  22.

  I go to bed convinced my decision is a good one. However, the longer I’m awake this morning, the more I question it. Who am I to walk up to a magistrate or a policeman? Will they even believe me? Or, like the police in Mwanza that did nothing about Charlie Ngeleja’s murder, even if they do believe me, will they care?

  I chew the inside of my cheek as I work. By the time we’re heading out the door, I can taste blood.

  “Ready?” asks Kweli. He had been delighted last night when I shared my plan with him. Your safety is the most important thing, he had said, over and over. He had even seemed slightly annoyed that he hadn’t thought of it first, certain that the police could help us. That they would be willing to help us.

  I’m not. The idea of going to the police terrifies me. The idea of meeting Alasiri again terrifies me. But the idea of losing Kweli, losing myself, terrifies me more than both of them combined.

  “Ndiyo,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  We walk down the street to the dala-dala stand, just like we’ve done many times before, but somehow now it feels different. It’s not just knowing that I’m again going toward Alasiri in order to try to get away from him. It’s also because I’ve seen the way Kweli sees me, and I can’t quite shake that image. Could I learn to see myself that way, too?

  We get onto the dala-dala going into the center of town.

  “Where should we go?” I ask.

  “We should go to the central police station,” Kweli answers. “I’ve never been there myself, but I think that will be the right place to go.”

  “Why not our local station?”

  “Well, this is a big problem. I think we should go to the biggest police station, don’t you?”

  “I suppose,” I say, feeling small.

  I sit quietly beside him, watching the high walls and tall buildings whisk by my window. Soon the traffic is so bad, we’re at a standstill.

  “Traffic is always bad in Dar es Salaam,” Kweli tells me. I mumble agreement and keep staring out the window.

  I’m unsure if going to the central police station is the best idea, but I resolve not to back down. This is finally my chance to tell the truth and have it matter.

  A while later, the dala-dala driver tells us we’ve arrived at Sokoine Drive. We get down carefully.

  “Well, Habo?” asks Kweli. “Do you see the police station?”

  I look up and down the road. This place feels familiar to me, and for a moment I can’t place why. Then I see the looming hulk of the train station and I remember. This is where I began my journey in Dar es Salaam. I take a deep breath.

  “I’m not sure, Bwana. Let’s walk down the road a little and see if we can find it. The dala-dala driver said this was the right place.”

  “Sawa,” says Kweli, and puts his hand on my shoulder. I know it’s only because we’re in an unfamiliar place that he needs the extra guidance, but having Kweli need me makes me braver.

  “Let’s start this way.” I pick a direction at random and head down the street to our left. Within half a block, we’ve found it. The tall white building is labeled in big letters even I can see, and there are policemen standing around outside. There’s no way to be confused about what it is. My palms begin to sweat.

  You can do this, I tell myself.

  “Bwana, I think I’ve found it.”

  “Excellent!” Kweli has none of my misgivings. “Let’s go in and see who we can talk to about your story.”

  I take a deep breath and lead Kweli toward the big painted doors. Walking through them, we step together into a shadowy, tiled entryway. There’s a man in a khaki uniform sitting at a table to one side. He doesn’t look up when we enter.

  “Well?” prompts Kweli when I pause inside the door.

  “There is a policeman at a table,” I tell him. My voice carries in the open space. I shuffle forward, Kweli still attached to my shoulder.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes?” The man sounds annoyed.

  “I . . . I . . .” Get a hold of yourself! Do it! “I have some information about a criminal who’s in the city right now,” I say.

  The man gives me a long, cold stare and then runs his eyes over Kweli, too, taking in everything about us. Our inexpensive clothes. My white skin. Kweli’s cane and unfocused eyes.

  “What kind of information?” he asks.

  “I—”

  “We would really be more comfortable giving the information to a detective
or a supervisor,” Kweli cuts in smoothly over me. “I don’t want to talk about what we know in an entryway.”

  The man glares at Kweli, but after a brief hesitation gets up from the table.

  “One moment,” he says. I wait with Kweli, shuffling from one foot to the other, feeling braver by the minute. We haven’t been thrown out on the street yet. A few minutes later, he comes back and says, “Follow me.”

  The policeman leads us down a passageway with many doors in it. He stops at one about halfway down and opens it for us. There isn’t much in the room. A fat, cranky-looking man sits behind a scarred metal desk with a computer and a small lamp on it. A bookshelf and a single chair are the only other furniture. Everywhere there are piles of paper. I think it’s to make the man look busy rather than because he’s actually busy. The top papers on the pile by the window are yellow and curling up at the edges from being in the sun so long.

  “Here they are,” our policeman says to the man sitting behind the desk, then turns and walks away. He doesn’t introduce the man, and I’m left wondering who it is we’ve just been led in to see. He must be a detective or a supervisor, though. His shoulder has three eight-pointed silver stars pinned on the khaki fabric. The policeman in the front hall only had one star.

  “Well?” bellows the man. The buttons of his shirt strain across his belly when he talks. “Don’t just stand there! Come in, sit down, and say what it is you have to say.”

  At his brash manner all my confidence vanishes. I remember how no one cared about Charlie’s murder and wonder why I thought it would make a difference for me to come here. I swallow and lead Kweli to the one chair in the room. I stand in front of the big man’s desk, wiping my sweaty palms on the sides of my pants. There’s a ripped map of the city on the wall by the window. I tell myself that the pinholes in it are all crimes this man has solved to give myself the courage to start talking.

  “My name is Habo,” I say. I flick a glance up at the man, whose eyes keep floating over to his computer screen as he listens. I talk a little bit louder. “I would like to report a criminal who is in the city right now. His name is Alasiri. He tried to kill me when we lived in Mwanza.”

  The man starts typing something on his computer. He talks to me sideways, over his shoulder.

  “That’s not my jurisdiction. That has to do with the police in Mwanza.”

  “But . . .” I say, trailing off. Auntie said the police in Mwanza wouldn’t do anything. I’m beginning to wonder whether this is true of all the police everywhere. Thankfully, Kweli comes to my rescue again.

  “This man is not in Mwanza now,” Kweli says calmly. “He is here, in your jurisdiction. He was at my house yesterday.”

  The man holds up a finger—wait—and keeps typing.

  “One moment,” he mumbles.

  For a few minutes, Kweli and I can do nothing but wait for the man to finish typing. In a way, I’m glad. It gives me a chance to think about what I can say to get this policeman to help us.

  Yes, the crime I’m reporting happened in Mwanza, but I need to get rid of Alasiri here. I rack my brain, thinking of what I can say that will get him put in jail. Then it comes to me: Alasiri is also doing illegal things here in the city. I clear my throat. The man behind the desk looks up at me, annoyed. I don’t wait for him to say anything, though, I just plunge forward.

  “Alasiri is also doing illegal things here in Dar es Salaam. I met him when my family was crossing the Serengeti. I saw him take ivory tusks from an elephant there and then drive them to Mwanza province to sell. Yesterday he tried to get Kweli”—I wave a hand in his direction—“to carve tusks that he has brought into the city and plans to sell to China.”

  I finally have the man’s attention. He takes out a notepad and starts scribbling furiously.

  “That,” he says, his shoulders rounding as he hunches over his desk, “is very interesting. Was he working alone when he went poaching in the national park?”

  “No, there were three other men with him, but I didn’t get their names.”

  The man reaches into his desk drawer and takes out a sheaf of pictures. He pushes a handful across the desk to me.

  “Were they any of these men?”

  I have to hold the pictures up very close to my face in order to be sure. The big man curls his lip disgustedly when he sees this, but he doesn’t say anything. I glance over at Kweli, remembering the statue he made for me last night. You have no reason to be ashamed, I remind myself. Just do what you came here for.

  I page through the photos slowly. Finally I pull a picture of a short man with a narrow, unpleasant face from the stack, put it on top, and hand all the pictures back to the policeman. I point.

  “This one might have been there, but I’m not sure.”

  The policeman scribbles down more information, copying the number printed on the bottom of the picture into his notebook. He’s taking me very seriously now, and I feel my confidence pick up. After a moment he says, “Is there anything else?”

  “Ndiyo.” I swallow, determined to make it clear to him that Alasiri has done something far worse than kill elephants. “When I was living in Mwanza, Alasiri was contacted by a mganga who wanted to buy albino body parts. He came after me, broke into my auntie’s home, and tried to kill me with a knife. I ran away, but he chased me . . .” I trail off because the man is no longer writing.

  His eyes flicker to the corner of his desk. I see a small bundle sitting on the base of the desk lamp. It’s wrapped in a piece of animal skin and tied with strips of red thread. I can’t tell from here what animal the skin came from, but it’s definitely a pouch of luck medicine. Seeing that my gaze has followed his, the policeman closes his meaty fist over the little pouch and pulls it into a desk drawer, out of sight.

  My hands have started to sweat again. I look at the man, doing the best I can to focus on him as my eyes shake. He meets my eyes for a moment, then looks away. He’s ashamed, I think. But knowing this doesn’t make things better. I understand now why Auntie didn’t think the police would do anything: If even the police believe in the magic of the waganga, or are afraid of it, then of course they won’t do anything. This big man in front of me, this policeman who could do so much good, is afraid of the waganga just like I am.

  I sigh.

  He caps his pen. “Do you have anything else to say about the ivory?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  The man turns to Kweli. “And you, Bwana? Will you make a statement about this man Alasiri and what he asked you to do?”

  “Of course,” says Kweli.

  As Kweli describes his visit with Alasiri, I sink into myself, trying not to let my frustration pull me away from my main problem. Yes, this man cares more about ivory than my attempted murder, but if I want to keep my life as a carver here with Kweli, I need to find a way to get Alasiri thrown in prison. I decide not to leave until this sweaty, paunchy man assures me that this will happen.

  “Habo?” Kweli’s soft voice breaks into my thoughts.

  “Yes, Bwana? I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Habo, this man has asked me to describe Alasiri for the report. Could you do it?”

  Now it makes sense to me why Alasiri went to so much trouble to try to convince Kweli to carve for him. A blind man could never betray him to the police. Using a fake name, he must have felt doubly safe coming to Kweli and laying out his whole plan. After all, what description of him could Kweli give? The sound of his voice?

  I turn back to the policeman.

  “Ndiyo, I can describe him for your report. Alasiri is tall; a little bit handsome. He has medium-dark skin and a long face, with clear brown eyes set wide apart. Yesterday when we saw him he had short hair, no beard, and was wearing a new dress shirt and a fancy gold watch.”

  The man writes all this down.

  “Thank you for your report, both
of you. I will pass this description along to the police in Mikocheni, where you said he was staying, and the surrounding areas, and we’ll see if we can catch him.”

  “And when you do catch him, what will happen then?” Kweli asks.

  “Well.” The man leans forward in his chair and scratches one ear. “We would bring him in, of course, and try to put him on trial, but—”

  “But what?” I interrupt.

  “Well, the testimony of a thirteen-year-old boy and a blind man . . . my apologies, but it might not be enough to convict him if he can afford a good lawyer.”

  I’m not happy with this. I know that Alasiri has come into money from the clothes he was wearing. I can’t have him know that Kweli and I turned him in and not go to jail. It would be like inviting him to our house to attack us.

  An idea occurs to me.

  For a moment, I hesitate, frightened by the perfect craziness of what I’m about to suggest. Then I think about my carvings, about the bust that Kweli carved of me, about Davu, my first real friend, about the artisans in the market who have quietly accepted me as one of their own, and I take a deep breath.

  “What kind of evidence would you need to guarantee a conviction?” Kweli is asking.

  “What if,” I break in, not waiting for the policeman to answer, “what if you personally, or one of your policemen, saw Alasiri walk into Kweli’s home and give him some ivory to carve? Would that be enough to get him the maximum sentence?”

  The man blinks at me in surprise.

  “Well, yes,” he says. “But I wasn’t there yesterday.” His eyebrows knot together angrily. “If you’re implying that I falsify my report, young man—”

  “No, no!” I say quickly. “That’s not it at all. What I mean is, what if we could get him to come back and you could be there watching?”

  “Now, Habo, wait a moment,” starts Kweli, holding up a hand toward me, but I’m too excited by my plan to slow down now.