“No, Bwana, think about it! Do you remember the last thing he said? Alasiri told you that if you changed your mind, you should leave a message for him!” I’ve started to pace in front of the policeman’s desk as I talk. “You could leave a message, saying that you do want to do this and that he should bring the ivory to you in your home. But when he comes, there could be policemen hiding somewhere in the house and they could hear him tell you to carve it and then come out and see him with the ivory in his hands and they could arrest him.” I am breathless with excitement. “What do you think?”
There is a pause as both men consider my idea. Finally: “I suppose that could work,” says the man behind the desk.
I feel ready to jump up and down, shouting, but Kweli is shaking his head.
“If we do this thing for you,” Kweli says, “what protections can you give us?”
“What do you mean?” asks the policeman.
“Well,” says Kweli, “if we’re going to use my house as a trap, then this criminal will absolutely know for certain that it was us who turned him in. What if you don’t manage to capture him? Or what if he escapes? Or is released from prison? What will your department do to ensure our safety?”
“Hmmm.” The man behind the desk strokes the sides of his face, considering. “Well, yes, I think we could do quite a bit to guarantee your safety.” He ticks off the points on his fingers. “First, we’ll keep an officer assigned to your house until this man is captured. If he escapes, we’ll do the same. As for when he’s released from prison, well, I can guarantee you that, if we can catch him in the act of trafficking illegal ivory, that will not be for a very long time. Our government is very committed to cracking down on the killing of protected species.”
He says this with a smile, and though Kweli is nodding, I want to scream at the man. Why is he so proud of himself? He’s happy about cracking down on the killing of elephants, but he doesn’t care about the killing of people like me? Faintly I hear Kweli agreeing to the plan, but I am again sunk inside, angry and disappointed.
There is a flurry of paperwork that Kweli has to ask someone to read to us, and then we are outside the police station, on our way home to set a trap for a poacher.
23.
“I think,” says Kweli when we’re on the dala-dala headed for home, “that until we have a police detective safely hidden away in the house, you should stay with Chatha. If this man Alasiri comes back to my house to try to convince me again to work for him, I don’t want you to be there.”
I frown, not liking the thought of Kweli alone with Alasiri, but I eventually realize he’s right: Alasiri has no reason to harm Kweli, and he still has a strong reason to harm me.
“Sawa,” I say. “That makes sense.” I don’t really feel like talking, still angry at the officer.
Kweli lets me stew for a few minutes longer, and then, facing straight ahead, he asks quietly, “Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”
“All he cared about was the ivory!” I explode. “Well, what about me? What about my life? Doesn’t that matter to anybody?”
“Of course it does,” says Kweli. “It matters to you. It matters to me.”
His soft words make me feel bad for yelling. I heave a big sigh and face out the bus window again.
“I just hoped . . .” I say, more quietly this time. “I just wanted to have my story matter.” I struggle for the words to go with what I want to say. “I wanted to be able to see justice. I wanted . . . I don’t know what I wanted exactly.”
Kweli waits.
“I wanted . . .” I can hear the tears roughening my voice but I refuse to let them out. I will not shame myself in public. “I wanted to matter more than the ivory.” Kweli reaches over and pulls me into his chest. I swallow hard against the feelings crowding my throat. I expect Kweli to comfort me with hollow words, to tell me that I do matter more than ivory, of course I do, how could I even think that I didn’t. But he doesn’t.
Instead he says, “Ndiyo, of course you want that. You must never stop wanting that.” He takes a deep breath and hugs me a little tighter. “I’m sorry that you learned today that not everyone will agree this is true, but you must never stop wanting it to be. There are people who aren’t ready yet to see your worth, whole cities of them, whole countries of them, perhaps, but someday they will.”
“When?” I ask brokenly.
“I don’t know,” says Kweli. “Some of us already do. Some may never. The most important person to see it is you.”
I nod into his chest. This is exactly what I’ve been thinking about for the past few days. Kweli pushes me out to arm’s length and rummages around in his pockets. I sit back against the seat and huff out a deep breath to steady myself.
Kweli pulls a bill out of his pocket. “Think of it this way,” he says. “What’s this?”
“Money,” I say.
“It’s a piece of paper,” Kweli corrects. “What’s it worth?”
I squint at the bill. It’s orange, and I can vaguely make out a shape in the middle that might be a drawing of a lion.
“Two thousand shillings,” I say.
Kweli reaches into his pocket again and pulls out a scrap of paper. He holds it up beside the bill. “What’s this worth?”
“Nothing,” I say. “That’s just a piece of paper.”
“Really? Tell me: Why is this piece of paper”—he flutters the money in my face—“worth two thousand shillings, and this isn’t worth anything?”
It’s such a stupid question, it takes me a minute to come up with an answer.
“Well . . . no reason, really, I guess, but everyone knows that money is worth something. You could walk into any store and they would take it. It just is.”
“It’s worth something because everyone agrees it is worth something?”
“That’s right.”
“And otherwise it’s just a piece of paper?”
“I suppose.”
“Exactly,” he says, smiling at me. “Everything only has the value we give it.”
That’s a big thought. Kweli lets it sink in a minute.
“So you’re saying,” I think out loud, “that people like me aren’t valued right because we don’t look like normal people?”
“Often that’s true,” says Kweli. “It’s like you’re a piece of paper money no one has seen before. People look at your color, at your features, and they aren’t sure how to value you.”
I take a deep breath. “I like that,” I say. “A new piece of money.”
Kweli smiles. “As long as you know your worth, other people will catch on eventually. You’re a good person, Habo. A smart boy with a good heart. I’ve learned your worth. Davu and Chatha and the other artists in the market are learning it, too.”
He’s right. People here have treated me differently, but only when I stopped hiding in the shadows and let them really see me.
“Thank you, Bwana,” I say. “I’ll try to remember this.”
Kweli reaches out and squeezes my shoulder one more time. Then he gets up and asks the dala-dala driver to let us out one stop early.
We get off and Kweli turns his face toward the setting sun.
“Come on,” he says, feeling his way forward with his stick. “Let’s go to Chatha’s house.”
When we get to Chatha’s, I feel around the door frame for a bell. Kweli said that Chatha married well and has a fancy modern house, but I don’t find the button with my fingers and the afternoon shadows make it hard for me to see, so I give up and knock loudly.
“Hodi hodi!” I yell at the door. “Mama Chatha!”
Kweli smiles beside me. “I like the old ways better, too,” he whispers.
I hear footsteps inside the house, coming closer. The door cracks open and a suspicious eye appears in the crack.
“What do you want?” asks Dav
u. Then, seeing us, the eye widens with surprise. “Oh, Habo! Great-Uncle! It’s you.”
There’s a brief scraping sound as Davu unlatches the door and opens it for us. She’s wearing a pretty yellow and green khanga, and now she has a big smile on her face. Chatha comes up behind her.
“Hello, Uncle,” says Chatha. “Come in, come in.”
“Hello, Davu. Hello, Chatha,” Kweli echoes as we both shuffle into the hallway. “Habo and I have a favor to ask.”
After leading us to a large living room and giving us tea, Davu and Chatha listen with great interest to Kweli’s retelling of the past two days, and I have to tell the rest of my story to Chatha. They exclaim in alarm over Alasiri’s reappearance in my life, and applaud our decision to go to the police. Chatha is not at all pleased when she hears about my plan, however.
“You’re tempting this man into your house? Are you mad?” Chatha is waving her hands around in the air. Kweli isn’t benefiting from that display of her anger, but he can certainly hear the tone in her voice as she shouts at him.
“It’s a little risky, I admit,” concedes Kweli. “But getting him arrested on strong evidence is the best strategy to keep us both safe in the future.”
Chatha looks at me with narrowed eyes, and I imagine her weighing her uncle’s safety against my own. I glance away, embarrassed that, in my attempt to stay here, I’ve brought danger to Kweli.
“And,” continues Kweli, “this is the reason we’ve walked across town to see you. Until we have a policeman hiding at my house, I don’t want Habo to come back to the compound. Now that Alasiri knows where it is, he could return at any time. It was sheer luck that he didn’t see Habo the first time he came.”
“Of course he should stay here,” says Chatha definitively. I glance up, surprised. I didn’t think she liked me, but looking at her now I see no dislike, only a fierceness that is directed at protecting me. Chatha heaves herself to her feet and stands behind me, one meaty hand pressing onto each of my shoulders, holding me down as if I was going to run out into danger that very moment. Davu winks at me from across the table, grinning. I give her a shaky smile back. “Habo will stay here with us,” Chatha continues, “but I’m not about to let you go home alone with this crazed poacher-murderer on the loose!”
“Chatha, I have lived alone for many years and managed to survive all kinds of things you know nothing about.”
“Nonsense! You’re not spending tonight alone!” Chatha’s voice is climbing.
Davu winces, and I can see this turning into a classic Chatha-Kweli fight. I hurry to break in.
“Bwana!”
“What is it, Habo?” Kweli’s face is twisted into a scowl, his white eyebrows low over his sightless eyes.
“Please, Bwana. You brought me here to be safer. I need to know that you’ll be safe, too. Please let someone stay with you tonight.”
Stubbornness and fondness chase each other across Kweli’s face. Then he huffs out a loud breath and crosses his arms over his chest.
“Very well,” he grumbles.
Davu’s mouth drops open in surprise, and I feel Chatha’s hands go very still on my shoulders.
“Well,” Chatha says. Her voice is quiet again and a little shaky. “Well, good.”
“So?” asks Kweli. “Who’s the lucky winner? Who gets to spend the night with a cranky old blind man?”
I look around the room, unsure of who will be sent to keep him company. I’m clearly not allowed to, and Davu isn’t a better choice. Chatha removes the doubt by declaring, “My husband will go with you. I’ll feel better if you have another man around until the police show up. We’ll be safe enough here. Yes, my husband will stay with you tonight.”
Kweli gives Chatha a sly smile. “I knew, if I lived long enough, I’d finally find a use for that man!”
There is a split second of shocked silence, and then everyone bursts out laughing.
Covered by the noise, Chatha leans forward and whispers in my ear: “Asante sana, Habo.” She squeezes my shoulders to punctuate her words. I guess I can be a little useful even to Chatha.
“Karibu sana,” I whisper back.
Her hands smell like pepper and limes. The weight of them feels good.
Later that evening, after a shared dinner around a big dining room table and some time for Chatha’s husband to pack a bag for overnight, Kweli heads home, leaving me with Chatha, Davu, and Davu’s three younger brothers.
I can’t stop marveling at Davu’s house. It’s so grand: two stories tall, with big rooms, electricity, water taps in the bathrooms and kitchen, even an air-conditioning unit in Chatha’s bedroom. It’s by far the fanciest house I have ever been in. And, it turns out they don’t share it with any other families. After helping Davu wash the dishes with a slippery liquid detergent and stack them in a side rack to dry, we head into the living room to sit on couches and watch her color television.
“Why are you so quiet?” asks Davu.
In reality I’m thinking about how rich Davu and her family are and remembering the one-room, dirt-floored house I grew up in. I run my fingers along the seam of the pattern on the couch and shrug, not looking at her.
“Well, it’s annoying,” says Davu. “You should stop.”
She walks over to the TV and starts turning the dial to get different channels. I’m fascinated in spite of myself. I’ve seen TVs in shops and through the glass windows of wealthy houses before, but I’ve never actually known someone who’s owned one. I lean forward, watching the sound and color blink from one topic to another. There are funny moving drawings in very bright colors with squeaky voices, shows where people are winning prizes and money, shows with people sitting around talking, news, and—
“Wait!” I say, reaching out toward the TV. “What was that?”
“What?” asks Davu.
“What was that? What was on the channel you just switched from?”
Davu clicks back and makes a face. “Politics? You want to watch a report on parliament?”
“Wait,” I mumble. “Leave it there for a minute.”
Davu makes a disgusted noise but leaves the TV on the channel I asked for. I’m leaning off the very edge of my seat, tense, eager.
“Really, Habo! This is so boring. Why are we watching this?”
“Just wait . . . There!”
I jump off the couch and touch my finger to the screen. The camera obediently zooms in on the member of parliament I was pointing to as it’s her turn to talk. And there she is, her face filling my screen: the lady albino MP that Auntie told me about.
“Oh!” is all I hear behind me from Davu, but I don’t turn around because I’m so absorbed in staring at this woman on TV, looking at her features, hearing her voice. She is wrapped in a tan and red khanga, with a head scarf of the same fabric. She’s wearing glasses. Her face looks like mine. Her eyes look like mine.
“Look,” I whisper to Davu. “Look.”
“She’s just like you,” murmurs Davu.
My heart explodes with happiness.
When Chatha comes downstairs, Davu pounces on her.
“Mama! Mama! We found a woman on TV, in the parliament, who’s just like Habo. Come see!” And she pulls her over to where we were both crouching on the floor with our faces close to the screen.
“Get away from there!” says Chatha crossly. “You’ll ruin your eyes.”
Too late, I think, but I obediently scuttle backward onto the couch.
“She’s not on right now,” I say to Chatha, “because someone else is talking. Oh, and there’s another one, too: a man. I just saw him when Davu was talking to you.”
“Mm-hmm,” says Chatha, and I’m afraid she’ll leave. For some reason it’s really important to me that everyone see them. And then the woman is on the screen again, and Chatha leans forward and squints at her. “Ndiyo,” she says. And my
heart soars.
Yes means this is real.
It’s too late to go anywhere that evening, but Chatha promises Davu and me, as she forces us to go to bed, that tomorrow she’ll take us to the National Central Library, where we can find out more about my MPs.
I lie on the soft bed in the room Chatha built for Kweli. It’s small and clean and has its own bathroom, and is so new it still smells like wet paint. I can understand why Kweli won’t give up his freedom, even for all this luxury, but tonight I’m happy to enjoy it in his place. I sigh, contentedly, and stare at the ceiling.
I am a Tanzanian, I think. I am an albino. I could work in parliament if I wanted to.
And with these happy thoughts chasing one another around in my head, I fall asleep.
24.
The next morning I’m awake at first light. I get up and use the shiny tiled bathroom with the hot and cold water taps on the sink, and then sit down in the kitchen to wait for everybody else to wake up. I’m alive with excitement. Today, Chatha promised, we’re going to the library to find out more. I have never in my life wanted so much to know more than I do.
I kick the leg of the kitchen table with my bare foot softly, impatient. I’m also slightly embarrassed, because when we go to the library it will become very clear to everyone that I’m no good at reading. But I want to know so badly that I hardly even care about this. I’ll blame my bad eyes, like always, and I’ll get someone to read the important things to me.
How will you know what’s important if you can’t read it? asks an ugly voice in my head, but I ignore it.
I’m saved from thinking any more by a commotion from upstairs. Within minutes Davu and her brothers come rampaging into the kitchen. The seven-year-old and Davu pour cold cereal into bowls for all of us. The two youngest, four-year-old twins, come running at me. They remind me of Kito and I hug them tightly. I had originally expected the children to be afraid of me, but like their parents, sister, and great-uncle, they treated me normally.
The cold cereal tastes strange to me. It’s very sweet and sits in a big puddle of milk. It doesn’t fill your insides the way hot porridge or ugali does. But I don’t want to complain. I eat the rich-people’s breakfast and wash out my bowl in the sink with the wet detergent again, like the others.
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