Adrienne Benson - The Brightest Sun

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Now, with the baby beside her in her little mud-walled hut, she had no desire to speak. She wept with fatigue and terror as the dark women hunkered at her side, murmuring and running their rough fingers along her arms and across the new baby’s head.

“You must let her nurse,” the Maasai midwife said. She reached over and pulled Leona’s T-shirt up, freed her aching breast and clasped it firmly, rubbing the nipple on the baby’s new mouth.

“Now it’s empty, but the baby will bring the milk.”

Leona wanted to cringe at the unfamiliar fingers on her breast and at the mewling little thing next to her. The baby was blindly flailing, her mouth open hopefully, trying to burrow into Leona’s flesh like a chigger. Leona closed her eyes. She only wanted to sleep. The midwife grasped Leona’s breast again, flattened it in her hand and inserted it firmly into the baby’s mouth. Leona felt a strange sensation and opened her eyes. The baby was connected to her and its desperate little mouth was pulling on Leona’s flesh. A shudder of alarm rippled through her and she bit her lip against the scream she could feel rising in her mouth again. She couldn’t be a mother.

At first when Leona noticed her missing period, she was relieved. The task of finding enough privacy and water to wash herself—let alone driving all the way to Narok to buy supplies—was something she dreaded. When the bleeding didn’t appear, as it should have, Leona was happy. It was all the changes in diet and the syncing with the other women, she assumed. But then it didn’t come again, and again.

When it dawned on her that she was pregnant, it was like she’d been diagnosed with a fatal disease. Her thoughts obsessively circled back to it, again and again. She couldn’t concentrate on work and she couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, the tide of dread and distress washed through her. She spent hours flipping through the medical manual she’d brought with her in a desperate search for a remedy. The book offered no way to flush this thing out of her.

By the time she sought out the laiboni, the witch doctor and spiritual leader of the community, she hadn’t slept for nearly a week. The laiboni was a wizened elder who sucked his few remaining teeth when he saw Leona and never seemed to understand her halting Maa. As the village doctor, he had a special role here and knowledge of traditional medicines Leona was dying to include in her work. But he was a stubborn interviewee, and Leona suspected he was wary of her presence in the village. She’d been delicately trying to gain his trust, not asking too much of him yet, instead hoping that the other villagers would assure him of her intentions. Being too direct with the old man might cement his unfavorable opinion. But now Leona was desperate.

“Sopa,” she greeted him, ducking her head as a gesture of respect. He was sitting alone under an acacia tree just outside the village enclosure. He lethargically waved a bead-handled cow tail in front of his face to keep the flies from setting into his eyes. He murmured his own greeting back but said nothing else. Leona lowered herself to the ground in front of him and crossed her legs. She batted a few lazy flies away and tried to decide what to say. Her phrase book lay in her lap, and she flipped through it. Where were the words she needed?

“Hello, my friend.” A voice above Leona pulled her from the book. Simi stood above her, smiling. Simi was the third and youngest wife of the secular village leader’s son. She had been educated in the local school up to sixth grade, and was the only woman in the village who spoke English. Simi wasn’t absolutely fluent, but had enough for most basic conversations and, more important, had the curiosity and dedication to interpret Leona’s explanations and hand gestures. Simi had a sense of the things Leona needed to learn to live in the manyatta, and was never shy about teaching them. She’d been the one, early in Leona’s stay here, to grasp Leona’s hand and guide her outside the village to the shallow riverbed, dry now, and indicate that Leona should come to this spot when she needed to relieve herself. Simi helped Leona buy the few kitchen items she needed—the large pot, or suferia, for boiling water, the frying pan, the tins of sugar and tea—and taught Leona how to keep the embers in her fire pit alive all day. She was the one who Leona talked to like a friend. But Leona couldn’t bear to be honest now. Not about this. Especially not about this.

“Sopa, Simi,” Leona said. She used the Maa word for hello, even though Simi preferred speaking English whenever possible. “I am researching the doctor’s work today. Can you help translate?”

Simi hunkered and spoke quickly to the old man. He nodded and waved his cow tail faster.

“What do you want to know?”

Simi relayed Leona’s question without a blink. Leona was surprised. Maasai looked askance at premarital sex, and Leona knew her situation might cost her the relationships she’d built here.

“It’s for my book,” she assured Simi. And then she asked her to translate the detailed questions she had about the plant, where it was found and how much was used. Was it ingested or topical?

Later, when the old man stood up and shuffled home for tea, Simi turned to look at Leona. Leona tried to tell if Simi’s eyes held anger or sadness and, if so, for whom?

“You should have asked only me. I could tell you this information. Now it is possible that the others in the village will discover your secret.”

“Simi, it’s not for me,” Leona whispered, suddenly on the verge of exhausted tears. “It’s for the book.”

But Simi’s face was serious now, and she leaned close to Leona’s ear and whispered, “You have a baby...inside?”

Leona started as if her friend had slapped her. She looked down at Simi’s slim fingers resting on her arm. She glanced up at Simi’s face and then away again. What should she say? Knowing that Simi might disapprove or, worse, that she’d be reminded of her own pain made Leona frantic with embarrassment and anxiety.

“The man,” Simi whispered, her eyes serious and steady, “did he force you?”

Leona couldn’t stop the tears. Her eyes filled up and she used the heels of both hands to press into her eyes. “I’m sorry, Simi, I’m so sorry.”

Leona considered two things: it was not acceptable for unmarried women to have children out of wedlock and, because of that taboo, her status as a foreigner would be the only thing to prevent the community from banishing her. She thought of the precarious position Simi herself was in—married for three years with no children of her own. Would Simi’s desperation and the irony of the situation make her angry? That was a risk. Leona’s work here was going well, and she couldn’t bear the idea of leaving. She couldn’t bring herself to claim rape, but she could lie.

“My husband,” she said. It was not unusual for Maasai spouses to live apart.

“You never told me you had a husband,” Simi stated. Her voice was quiet, but Leona felt it like a warm current deep below cool water. Simi knew she wasn’t married. Simi knew this baby belonged to nobody, but she wouldn’t betray Leona’s secret.

“Your husband, he must be a strong man.” Simi smiled a small, sad smile. “He is living so far away in America, and still he can give you a baby!”

“Simi, I can’t have a baby.” Leona searched for a reason that Simi would understand, a lie to cover a truth that Simi would never really be able to understand. “My body is broken. It’s dangerous for me to deliver a child.” This was a reason a Maasai woman would see as reasonable. Not the other, not the choice Leona made to sleep with a stranger.

Later, after the village was quiet and dark and most families had settled around their fires in their little huts, Simi slipped through Leona’s door. She held a blue plastic bag filled with leaves.