Yvonne Owuor - Dust

The next day, without her expecting it, Hugh left with Nyipir for his Northern Frontier District.

Selene listened to the clock tick. Brooded before the canvas with the impression of heat. The remaining dog sat close to her, shivering. The other older Labrador had died after a tangle with a poisonous snake. Today, everything Selene touched or thought seemed ready to crumble. She breathed. She walked. She gardened, planting herbs and hydrangeas, and turning the soil with her hands. Selene waited.

A month later, Hugh returned to Naivasha without Nyipir.

Deep in Selene’s womb, twisting anxiety.

He came with a new stillness that menaced her.

After dinner, Hugh sat brooding, oozing solitude.

Selene went to brush her teeth.

Turned when she sensed Hugh.

Found him staring at her.

Memorizing me .

Her lips trembled. Her skin tingled. He opened his mouth to say something. She pre-empted him. Rushed to lock her arms around him, pressed her body into his, cupping his face, seeking a return to familiar silences.

Bed.

A frenetic and furious slippery mating, in which his teeth bruised her nipples, they tore at each other again and again — clinging, clawing, marking — and, in the midst of the craving, sudden stillness. Hugh stroked her back, drawing lines with the back of his hand.

Later.

“Darling, my darling.”

Selene tensed.

Then.

“The home Hugh’s built is perfect for his dear darling thing,” he spoke into her neck. “What does she say?”

God, dear God, no . But Selene faked an animated laugh. “For me?” she said. “However will I thank you, sweetheart ?” Dread in her voice. She hunted for the pretense of joy.

“We’ll have to find a home for the dog,” Hugh said. “Or maybe let’s braise and eat him? Or stuff him so he’ll always be with us?”

Selene stopped breathing until Hugh poked her back and sniggered. “So solemn, my love?”

She yawned, murmured, and pretended to become drowsy.

Selene stayed awake all night, head pressed into the pillow to absorb streaming tears. Let us go back home , she wept to the country.

Two months later, on the eve of the day they were to set off, Hugh went to the nearby club for a drink. Selene wandered into his workspace. On the easel, a half-done art piece; on the table, rolled-up canvases. She reached for one of these and unwrapped it.

She dropped it.

A moan.

She retrieved it from the floor, body shaking. She stretched out the charcoal portrait of a fiery-eyed, long-limbed, crop-haired, full-lipped, dark-brown-skinned woman. Harsh lines, clear, old eyes. Hands sweating, she picked up another canvas. The same woman was stretched in a pose that might have been lewd if it were not for fine details — a beaded bracelet, intricately patterned stomach scars — which made the work an intimate ode to visceral femininity. Three small pieces, a triptych, making a medium-sized rectangular piece, made blood rush from Selene’s head, forced her to catch her breath, sit on the floor, and breathe hard. The woman, her belly rounded, pregnant, legs stretched out, watching the artist, the universal lover’s gaze, hand beneath her head, a half-smile.

Hugh used to mock portraiture— icon making for ghastly paper gods . Questions arrived and left. Inside no-thought, Selene restored Hugh’s art to its place. Left it at that.

The next day, she left with Hugh for a stark otherworldliness where the sky dominated everything. This is how the land crushes its refugees . Selene stared at broody mountains, the rockscape. Drought is profligate . She fanned her face. Sweated streams, struggled to breathe, visualized winter. They reached Kalacha. Everywhere she looked, there were camels and goats, cows and donkeys and sheep. Oryx, gerenuks, giraffes, elephants, gazelles, impalas, and snakes. Horses. Mules. Everywhere she looked, she craved verdant greenness. Organic green.

Hugh hugged her. “For you.” The house. Almost ready. A pink mouth made out of the land’s eclectic matter.

Selene thought, Not mine. Yours . She compressed her lips.

Hugh dangled a bunch of keys above her head.

She dragged out a smile, took them, and, with a quick step to the front door, inserted the wrong key into the lock. Unsteady fingers searched for the right one. The keys fell. Hugh picked them up. He unclenched her fist and placed the keys on her palm, closed her hand over them, and kissed each of her fingers.

Another kind of heat: Touch me , followed by an impulse to flee as only the preyed-upon can. Lifting her hand, Hugh inserted the right key into the lock. The door opened into a large, cool room where a gap in the wall brought air in and revealed a splendid view of the desert.

Selene sighed. Glazed stone tiles, plastered walls and floor, Ethiopian Orthodox icons. A green-robed Saint George accompanied by a glowering angel carrying a flaming sword — Hugh’s work. Etching in the wall. It read: Crux sancta sit mihi lux / Non draco sit mihi dux / Vade retro satana / Numquam suade mihi vana / Sunt mala quae libas / Ipse venena bibas . She remembered, “Let not the dragon be my guide / Get thee behind me, Satan.…” And gasped, “Hugh?”

Hugh’s lavish laughter. “No shetani s here.”

Aggrey Nyipir Oganda stood a few paces behind them.

Selene turned.

He looked at the floor.

She would wonder that his face had been distorted by pity.

If all houses had resident spirits, Selene knew the ones here regarded her as an invading entity. Her nails cut into her palms as she looked through the screen window into the landscape, its sleight-of-hand mounds over vast horizons. The winds slithered in through the doum palms. She slapped her arms, imagining insects.

A sensation.

She was being watched.

She turned to look.

The light’s sublime , Hugh was saying.

Inside, Selene wept.

But Kenya had given her the ability to wear the right face for the right time. To proceed as if nothing had happened, as if she had not been changed, was not being changed all the time.

That first night at Wuoth Ogik, the face of the painted woman haunted Selene’s sleep. Who is she? Mouthed in silence to a darkness that scared her. She clung to Hugh. Who is she? she thought as she got out of bed. Stepped into the library, strode around the room, counting footsteps. Eighty-two. She struggled to light a kerosene lamp, scorched the tips of her fingers as the lantern wick burned. She wandered downstairs and outside and found herself in a courtyard. She sat on the edge of the fountain, leaning back until the water’s coolness soaked her body. Very, very civilized fountain , she told the water. She listened to the murmur of spring water.

Wuoth Ogik: Journey’s End.

Sensation of being watched.

Then.

A movement, a strangled-off voice, scuffling.

A minute later, Aggrey the aide appeared carrying a calabash of water, which he offered her at once.

“Ni nini?” Selene gasped. What is it?

“ Paka tu , madam.” A cat.

The gourd smelled of use and sour milk. Selene took the vessel with both hands and sipped water. Who is she? she needed to ask. “Thank you. You may go now,” she said instead, handing over the gourd.

The aide bowed and left.

Who is she? The wind screeched among doum palms; Selene covered her ears. Enough . She dashed into the house — leaving the lantern behind, gulping down a scream.

Upstairs, she peeled off her wet gown, crawled naked into bed, and snuggled into Hugh. His large hands adjusted her body to his. He muttered in his sleep. Selene ignored the shadows that had entered the room with her.