Calvin Baker - Grace

“We need a boat to take us across the lake,” I explained.

The man looked at me, and it was clear he did not understand.

I pantomimed what I wanted until he grasped my meaning. He shook his head, though, making clear he would not take us anywhere, and did not want anything to do with us.

“Where can I find a boat?” I asked, scanning the horizon, then paddling the air with my hand. As I made the motion I saw him look suspiciously at the bandage around my shoulder, and wag his finger no. He was fearful and I tried to make him understand I did not need him to risk his neck for us, I just needed the boat.

Still he shook his head no, and began walking away. I pulled out the stack of notes from my wallet, which I held all out to him. It was a little more than a thousand dollars and, I would wager, more cash than he had ever seen in his life. Still he refused.

As I offered him the money Sylvie pointed to my shoulder and made him understand we needed to find a doctor. He looked at both of us, and nodded once, slowly, before leading us around to the back of the hut, where there was a dugout that did not look too unsafe.

“ Hii ni bei gani? ” I asked in Swahili. “How much does this cost?”

He panned his hand flat across the plane of the ground. He would not take money. I did not want to be in his debt, and thought it was stupid of him to refuse, and held out again the mixture of currencies, pushing them toward him. We stood staring at each other, neither of us yielding to the other’s way, but trying to figure each other out.

“It is of no use to him,” Sylvie shook her head, grasping his position. “They do not have money.”

“They do on the other side,” I said, refusing to believe he could not make use of it.

“Give him the gun.”

“No,” I said.

“He is giving us his boat.”

“I am trying to pay him.”

“He cannot use money here.”

“Somewhere he can.”

“How will he get there without his boat?”

“We may need the gun.”

“The boat is how he feeds his family.”

She pointed at my waistband, nodding to the pistol. He followed her gaze and nodded at it.

“It is a fair trade,” she said.

I took the gun reluctantly from where it was holstered snug against me, and slowly began handing it over, and I could see he saw what I thought, which was if I wanted to have the boat by force I could easily overpower him. But he had already given it to me and I felt guilty for my thoughts. I think he saw that, too, as I turned the barrel, and put the stock in his hand. He closed his fingers around it, feeling its metallic weight.

He turned it over several times, then nodded solemnly. I was not sure if he would use the gun, or barter it for something or bury it in the earth, but it was his now, and without it I felt immediately our vulnerability.

I was seized then by second doubts and fear, chagrined I had done the trade without further barter, and opened our pack, to offer him the camera instead. But Sylvie stopped me. It was the fair thing.

“We have the boat,” she said, seeing my worry. “That is all we need now.”

As we completed our transaction the little blue-black boy came out to the yard, trailed by a scrawny goat, so I saw how poor they were and did not feel so badly about the trade. The boy pulled at his father’s clothing, and said something in their language. The father nodded and asked in Swahili if we were hungry and wanted food.

“Yes,” Sylvie said. “ Ndio. ”

“We should find out what it is.”

“Poor, fatherless, motherless child. You cannot ask that.”

I asked what there was.

“ Ugali. ”

“ Ugali is very good food.” Sylvie beamed. “We would like some very much. Thank you. Tell him thank you, honey. Tell him thank you very much.”

“Thank you,” I said, nodding.

The blue-black man spoke to the blue-black boy and the child went to the house to tell his mother.

“I will go help,” Sylvie said. “Do you think that would be okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think it would be fine.”

She followed the boy inside the house as the man showed me how the boat was outfitted. He was proud of it, I saw, and I was glad then he had gotten a good price for himself. Afterward, he started to drag the boat toward the water, pulling it down a worn little path from the side of the house toward the lake. I attempted to help, but he pointed at my shoulder and solidly refused, as the boy returned, along with two smaller children, who giggled and were shy of me as we headed toward the water.

It was time to go, but I did not see Sylvie, and it was only when we reached the bank I saw she was already there waiting. It looked as though she had been crying, but I was not sure and did not say anything.

The sky was ablaze, red-golden by then, tearing through the final darkness as we loaded ourselves into the boat. The sun fired harder, rose-gold and copper over jeweled water, and the iron mountains in the distance were beginning to glow, as the fog draping the silent water slowly burned away. Soon it would be full light and beautiful, and fill all the people along the shore and all those out on the lake with the awe and wonder of how perfect and well loved they were, in the way certain mornings make you tremendous with the knowledge of just how beautiful life is, and how connected all life is — everything that has been alive and everything that ever will be alive — and how magnificent it would be to live forever.

Sylvie was holding the porridge, which was wrapped in a broad leaf, and still steaming in the morning chill as the heat rose from it. My shoulder was beating full of pain, so I knew I could not suffer it much longer, and was anxious to go.

Sylvie saw I was hurting and trying to hide it, and I knew she knew it. I smiled at her, and we thanked the blue-black man for the boat, and the blue-black woman for the food, and the blue-black children just for being, in a state of thankfulness.

It was our boat now, but for one piece of business. As he pushed us off into the water, the blue-black man paused and made a staccato chanting we were not expecting, which was a prayer and blessing, or at least I took it to be.

He shoved us from the shore then, pushing us out until the water came to his waist.

“I will row,” Sylvie said. “You need to rest.”

“No, it will go faster if we both do. At least until it becomes too difficult.”

“Do you remember the way?”

“I think so. Do you?”

“Yes.”

“We are safe now.”

There was a dull, brass sheen to the air at the horizon, and to the smooth white stones and pale birds all along the shore and the mountain’s blue iron still in the far distance, as Sylvie arranged herself facing the shore, and took the port scull. I faced the prow, with the other scull in my left arm, which when I swept the water did not aggravate the wound too much.

“You will tell me if it gets any worse,” she said. “You don’t have to be afraid to tell me.”

“I will be fine.”

“Do you promise me you will be fine? This time I really will not know where home is anymore without you.”

“We are headed north,” I told her. “The sun should always be at the right, and we will only be about eight and a half miles to the other side. If we stay on the hypotenuse it will only take three or four hours.”

“That is a long way, what with the bullet still inside of you.”

“It’s not far,” I said.

“If anything happens to you — just promise me you will not die.”

“I promise,” I said. “I will never die.”

“Don’t make me cry. We have to take care of each other, just as they do. It is what our lives are for. If you die we won’t be able to, and everything will be meaningless.”