Theft

by N. S. Köenings

  “Don’t play with me, my love,” he whispered. He reached out to stroke her ear. She flinched. “Do you see a game here? Do you?” That’s when Masoud began to cry. Then, not whispering any longer, said, “How can you ask me such a thing? No decent woman, no good woman at all, could make me treat my wives so poorly.” Regret will be your grandchild, Zulfa thought. I’m asking you no more than you are asking me. The next cloth, aburst with onions and square windows, said: Don’t stink up the street with what you’re cooking in your kitchen.

  Masoud stayed away for several days, and Zulfa thought she’d won. In the mornings after breakfast, when she’d done the dishes for Habiba and walked into the sun and windy air, the Fancy Store looked lovely to her. My shop, she thought. He can’t take it away. We had a business proposition. Now he’ll leave me be. She thought perhaps that after all her travels, if she ever did come back, she might feel generous about Masoud. She might even, she thought kindly, take him as a lover.

  Zulfa was so happy with herself that she organized a sale. She tore a cardboard flap from the lid of an old box that had held men’s plain shirts and trousers, and wrote, in Speedo ink: “Sale! Bei poa! Half-price kanga cloths! 25% off enameled pots and pans. 10% off talcum! Sandalwood! or Rose!” Then she settled down to wait.

  Mafunda couldn’t read, but she knew a sale sign when she saw one; she sent Zulfa travelers from the bus stand. “There’s a sale at Zulfa’s shop!” she’d say, with every bowl of uji that went out. “Kangas! Teacups! Cheap!” Zulfa could hear her all the way inside the Fancy Store, and she felt warmly towards her. For all the work Mafunda does, she thought, someone ought to pay her. She might give Mafunda a commission, when the accounts were nicely done.

  Women from the neighborhood arrived. Nazir’s mother bought two kangas and a cooking pot. Bi Faida came and purchased powder. Women from nearby villages came into town to look—they couldn’t have afforded uji, even, but they liked to know exactly who in town possessed more money than she showed, and to see things changing hands. Babu Issa joked: he hoped his wife was far off in the rice fields so she wouldn’t learn about it. When Mafunda had sold off all her porridge, she came down to take a look. Zulfa made Mafunda such a price on a new bucket that she went away with two. The buzz around the Fancy Store was so substantial that Babu Issa moved his bench and kettle far across the road, so his customers could watch in comfort. He confidently sent a boy to get him more kashata.

  When Habiba came out of the house and finally made it to the counter, Zulfa thought her mother was going to buy a set of plates. She even said, “Here, Ma, don’t worry, you just tell me what you want,” and made as if to nudge a stack of china dishes to the side so no one else would stake a claim.

  But Habiba hadn’t come for shopping. She was there on serious business. “Zulfa. I have words to say to you.” She said this through her teeth, and Zulfa could see her mother was afraid. Throat tight, Zulfa smiled bravely at the crowd and told the customers she would return. “But don’t get tired, don’t give up,” she said. “We’ll work something out!” Then she slipped out of the shop and met her mother behind the Fancy Store container. “What’s wrong?” she asked Habiba, thinking Mzee Abeid was ill, or that somebody had died. “Ma, just tell me.”

  “Your babu came to see me,” said Habiba, shivering in the breeze. Your babu, Zulfa thought. She didn’t like the sound of that. In front of the container, the sun had made things white and warm, but back here, in the shadows, Zulfa, too, felt cold. Babu never went to see Habiba. He never went to visit anyone. Babu’s house was like his palace. People went to him, not the other way around. “He did?”

  “Babu came to see me, and he couldn’t wait until your dad got home. He says that if you have anything to do with this he’ll be very, very mad.” Habiba pressed a hand on Zulfa’s forearm and squeezed it softly, though her voice was hard. Zulfa couldn’t look at her. Her stomach’s pliant walls fell in; her chest’s high roof gave way. She thought she knew already exactly what it was. It can’t be, she thought. Tell me it’s not true. It was.

  Masoud had left two wives. In the farthest village, he’d left the same amount of money he had spent when he’d taken the third wife (more like two lakhs, it turned out, just as people had suspected) and told her that he wouldn’t claim the kids, though he would pay for them to go to school. The Shanghai Stitcher stopped its humming for how sad its owner was. Next the red and orange Honda took him down to Hausemeki town. The neighbors had heard all the hard, unhappy sounds that come with unforeseen disaster. The little shop with its sharpening stones and baskets hadn’t opened in two days.

  “Where is Masoud now?” asked Zulfa, clutching at Habiba’s hands. He was, Habiba said, hiding out not far from Usilie. Not far, either, Zulfa thought, from Kassim Majid’s house. Was this the old man’s way of getting back at her? Racing to tell Babu so that she would get in trouble? “Listen. More than this,” Habiba said. She told Zulfa the worst. Masoud, Babu’s messenger had said, was gathering the strength to march right up to the original, to Husna, number one, and tell her he was through. “It’s a disgrace,” Habiba said, looming over Zulfa in the shade. A thick, cold heat seemed to emanate from her. Her mouth shook. She couldn’t look her daughter in the eye. “If Masoud is doing this for you,” she said, “if what Babu heard was true, I can’t even think how shameful it will be.”

  Zulfa thought she’d faint or vomit, right there in the shade, but Habiba’s handle on her daughter’s arm was strong. “You’re coming home with me.” Gracefully, so that nobody who saw them could have known how tightened all their muscles were, Habiba ferried Zulfa down the road and disappeared inside Mzee Abeid’s first house. Zulfa was so upset, and Habiba was in such a hurry, that they forgot the people at the counter, and Zulfa didn’t think to close the Fancy Store. There were other things to plan.

  For a long time they didn’t speak. Zulfa couldn’t eat. Habiba thanked the Lord out loud that Abeid was at the second wife’s, and that he was still so thrilled with her that nothing could dislodge him from her side. Habiba wished that she could smack her daughter hard across the face, but Zulfa hadn’t offered explanations, not a yes and not a no. She had only curled up on the bed and whimpered like a dog. Habiba closed the shutters on the windows that looked out into the street and bolted the front door.

  Zulfa watched Habiba eat in silence. Afterwards, Habiba went out behind the house to watch the rice fields moving in the sunlight. Her face was still, but she was thinking very hard. She came back into the kitchen just as Zulfa put the last glass dish away. “You’re going to pack a bag,” Habiba said. “And you’re going to go away.” Then Habiba slipped into her bedroom. Zulfa heard the door lock.

  In the front room, Zulfa opened up the shutters, just a crack, so she could see how things were going at the shop. Babu Issa’s coffee stand was back in its old place. The customers were gone. The shop’s doors were still ajar. She counted up the buckets that still hung from the awning and found that two were missing. Well, what could you expect? She thought about her cash box and tried hard to remember if she’d locked it before she’d gone out back with Habiba. And if it was still hidden in the empty crate beneath the gowns. She said a little prayer. She would have to wait till dark came to make certain. I hope so, she thought. I hope my reflexes were good.

  In the evening, Zulfa made Habiba water pancakes and brought out the bottle of clove honey Mzee Abeid liked to save up for himself. She made the tea as sweet as she could bear. They ate. Habiba told her daughter to wrap up the pancakes that remained and to make another thermosful of tea. Zulfa did as she was asked, then she snuck onto the road. There were people out. She kept close to the shadows. Someone had locked up the doors for her, and when she opened them she found the cash box in its place. She took a last look at the Fancy Store and plucked four gowns from the back wall, the best ones, stitched with bright, amazing birds.

  At home she found Habiba waiting. “Get ready, now,” she said. While Zulfa packed, Habiba went into he
r room and slept. At midnight, Zulfa woke her up. When Habiba stepped into the kitchen, she was holding a decidedly unstylish, old, enormous buibui gown she hadn’t worn in years. “Put this on,” she said. “We don’t want people knowing who you are.” Zulfa nodded. She went to find Aunt Khadija’s ninja veil, and wore it, so only her eyes showed. Habiba nodded. “Good. I’ll get mine, too,” she said. Zulfa was surprised. She wondered where Habiba had gotten such a modern thing, and why, but couldn’t bring herself to ask. My mother has her secrets, too, she thought. When Habiba reappeared, Zulfa was for a moment not quite certain who she was.

  They locked the house from the outside and took back roads all the way to Baharini, roads Zulfa hadn’t known existed. Habiba’s footsteps hummed and shuffled on ahead, steady, without doubt, even in the darkness. Not speaking, they walked and walked until Zulfa could no longer feel her legs. She thought Habiba’s feet must be made of iron nails.

  At dawn, finally at the seashore, the pair approached the harbor by the sandy paths. Habiba, tired now, let her big gown trail into the water; Zulfa hiked her own coat tight around her knees. At the boat, Habiba bought six sticks of skewered clams and two sacks of dried toss bread. She didn’t argue with the vendor, as she would have if she’d been going on this trip herself. She didn’t want to make a scene. “It isn’t fresh,” she said. “Just tell your aunt that there was nothing we could do.” She pressed the skewers and the sacks into Zulfa’s loaded arms. Then she put her daughter on the boat, heading for Mjimkuu. “Don’t talk to anyone,” she whispered. “When you get to the city, tell your aunt that she is doing me a favor. If anybody asks you, say it’s all right with your father.”

  Zulfa found a little corner on the lower deck, a corner full of wind. She lay down on her bag and kept her hands and feet concealed in the folds of her unstylish gown, so nobody could recognize her ankles, or her fingers curled in sleep. The air was soft and cold. She dozed.

  In Usilie, everyone was up. Babu Omari took his seat high on the hill, and it occurred to him for the first time that, just as he could see straight to Issa’s coffee stand, so Issa, if he squinted, could see him. He wondered why Zulfa wasn’t there yet and hoped she would come soon.

  Mafunda hadn’t brought her new buckets to work. She wasn’t sure, what with how suddenly the sale had stopped, whether it was smart to advertise that she had had a gift from Zulfa. And given her sharp ears, she’d already heard some rumbles rise from Hausemeki town. She left the pantaloons at home.

  Mzee Abeid stepped out of his second wife’s small house to get some water from the tank. Looking through the breadfruit trees up to the road, he saw Masoud Hamad getting off the Honda just in front of Husna’s place. That’s Masoud Hamad, he thought, taking care of all his wives. And he’s got his eye on Zulfa. It made Mzee Abeid feel proud. Habiba, who made it back a little before noon, lay down on her bed and didn’t know if she was going to laugh or cry when Abeid finally came home.

  When Zulfa woke, she couldn’t see Kudra Island anymore. She only saw a silver field of sea. If she turned her head the other way, she couldn’t see Mjimkuu. The boat rocked. She’d woken on the deepest part of that long channel. She was glad she’d sat outside. Surely in the cabins, everyone was moaning, and the thickening air was giving off a stink. Stewards scurried up and down the stairs dispensing light blue plastic bags. A few strong women from the inner decks stumbled out into the air, holding one another, hoping all that wind would blow their stomachs into place. A small girl not too far from Zulfa grew demurely sick in the black folds of her mother’s gown, and Zulfa smiled a little to herself because her own guts were so strong.

  A shapely man came out and leaned against the railing, just to Zulfa’s right. He was perhaps a little older than Masoud, but had the same neat look. His black beard was sharply trimmed. His long-sleeved shirt was pressed and buttoned tightly at the cuffs. A gold watch glittered at his wrist. He’s all right, thought Zulfa. The water doesn’t trouble him. The shapely man saw Zulfa, but only her eyes showed, and, as though her parts being hidden meant she would see less than other people, he didn’t seem to mind that she was not so far away. He shrugged. He plucked a tiny lemon from his pocket, turned to face the water, and gave the fruit a squeeze. The citrus smell would steady him. The shapely man tightly shut his eyes and took a sharp, hard breath. He was swaying with the waves; his strong knuckles turned white. Zulfa watched. The sea was harming him, a little.

  Zulfa felt the tang of that small lemon come to her on the wind. She decided that he was—almost—just as handsome as Masoud Hamad. And because she was at sea, it seemed safe to ask herself a soft thing: she wondered if Masoud Hamad was ever rendered sick by motion on his journeys to Mombasa. Yes. Perhaps when Masoud traveled, he took limes and lemons, too.

  N. S. Köenings spends most of her time thinking about love, accidents, evil, money, and the concept of “the nation.” Her writing is influenced by her work and childhood on three continents, the world’s many languages, and music. In addition to writing novels that she hopes are joyfully defiant, she is a toymaker and collage artist. She lives in Massachusetts.

  THEFT

  stories

  N. S. KÖENINGS

  Reading Group Guide

  A conversation with N. S. Köenings

  You spent part of your childhood in East Africa, the setting of your novel, The Blue Taxi. How did your experiences there inform your writing?

  I’ve spent a lot of my adult life in East Africa, too, and I do still go there. That area of the world is part of my contemporary experience—my actual, continued life. In the spring of 2008 I went to southern Tanzania for the first time, and I’m planning to go next to Mozambique. But Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, these countries and places in them are not at all weird or exotic to me. They’re just places, like wherever a person has grown up or worked or lived is an ordinary place. I can’t write, yet, about places I’ve never been or seen. And at the moment the fact is I’ve spent more of my life in East Africa than elsewhere, though at this point I’ve been in the United States for a rather long time, too. I’d love to go to Ireland, to Spain, Hungary, Japan. And I have a dream of spending time in Bangladesh and China. There’s so much going on! So many people to meet and get to know.

  What writers do you most admire?

  I learn something from everybody. And I learn as much about how to tell a story from listening to music and watching TV as I do from reading literature. From television—HBO serials, especially, like The Sopranos or Deadwood, but also animated series like South Park—I learn what keeps me glued to my seat even though I have chores to do, what keeps me worrying about a character while I’m at work and can’t tune in to see what they’re going to do, or (in the case of South Park and The Simpsons) how to generate a total atmosphere, with color, shape, and line. How do you do that with the written word?

  Music is also very, very important—I think sentences, paragraphs, chapters, ought to be like songs, with choruses and movement. Images that cycle back again and take you somewhere else. I listen to great storytelling musicians: Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Nick Cave, Harry Nilsson. Bob Dylan, of course. More recently Regina Spektor and Martha Wainwright, singers who know what to do with words and voice and really set a scene, take you somewhere with the sounds they make.

  I do read when I can, but honestly I think too much literature can ruin a writer’s mind. I heard that Neil Young never listens to other people’s music. And that seems right to me. You can lose your voice by letting in too many others. I did hear Ngugi wa Thiong’o speak not long ago. He’s wonderful and I’m looking forward to sitting down with his new book. I always reread Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s work, and Janet Frame is a big influence. I read a lot of British mysteries, too, for their insights on politics, race, class, the dangers of domesticity. Maybe more than anyone, Jean Genet, that gorgeous thief, has shown me that shamelessness and daring bring an undeniable, terrible beauty. I’m working on that, very much.

  You often write abo
ut people in vastly different social contexts. To what degree do you think those contexts shape your characters?

  Well, we all struggle with societal expectations, no matter who we are or where we grow up. Everybody does, whether they conform to those expectations or not. I’ve spent a lot of time in my life (wasted, more like) trying to belong in one setting or another, trying to “make sense” to other people. Trying to fit in is what most people are doing most of the time—and for some people it works. It hasn’t for me. And more recently I’ve started to think that social expectations actually prevent us from discovering who we might be if we were freer to explore. History and social norms! These give rise to prejudice and discrimination, too. You know, “women are like this,” “men are like that,” “people from this group are like this or like that.” Those ideas have had murderous, horrible effects in human history, have caused a lot of wars. As far as I can see, they’re poisonous, limiting. And even for people with a lot of imagination and courage it’s hard to step away from those categories completely.

  A lot of the characters in my stories don’t conform to social norms. Petra and Thérèse have a sexual relationship. Thérèse has a child and gives it up, continues to seek pleasure. Osman is transgendered. Zulfa doesn’t want to be a wife again. Habib likes to dress as a woman. Other characters really suffer because they do conform, or want to at all costs. Celeste wants the world “just so.” Gustave thinks he can collect and label experiences and people. Shama’s mother-in-law can’t hear anything but the conclusions she’s already jumped to. Ezra’s uncle is the only one who comes through transformed, because he’s forced to rely on someone he doesn’t like.