Yvonne Owuor - Dust

Then he had seen the gangly girl with the big Afro wig, limbs dangling, as skinny as a reed, wearing a sparkly red top and black tights. She was haranguing bouncers in a dark-timbred voice while threatening men twice her size with a squirrel-hair paintbrush that she had drawn out of her oversized black handbag as if it were a knife.

He strolled over. “Is there a problem?” he asked; his voice was growly.

One of the bouncers whirled on him and lifted a hand, which he stopped easily. The bouncer looked closely at him, “Shifta? You?”

Odidi raised a brow.

“Oh, man! No problem, man, you don’t remember me, man, you left and, man, after that, rugger mbovu! Oh, man! Oh, man, can I buy you a beer? Where did you go? Shifta!”

And Justina — that was her name — had swirled, and tilted her head.

“I like your voice,” she said.

Odidi smiled.

She reached for his shoulders and measured them with her hands. “Strong. Are you rich?” she asked.

“No.”

“Can you make money?”

“Yes.”

“Come dance with me.”

They had danced together until the pain of his illusions of Kenya numbed, and when the music ended, at dawn, Justina knew she would never leave Odidi behind.

A sobbing cough from Ajany.

“I fed him,” Justina says. “He was so hungry.”

Ajany looks back at her brother’s eyes on the wall. Eyes lift toward a wooden cupboard. She sees it. Odidi’s brown leather rugby ball. She knows it is the one with a squiggle in blue, some Springbok player’s signature. From the day at the university when he had received it, just before Ajany left, Odidi had carried it with him. It had rested on his pillow.

“Leave that,” shouts Justina.

Ajany has to jump to reach the ball. It bounces off her hand and onto the ground. She grabs it, clutches it to her body. Gnashing teeth. Suffocated keening. Now she tries to gather her shattered selves by putting together pieces of Odidi.

Nothing happens.

Clutching the ball, Ajany cries.

Nightfall.

“I’m going to work,” says Justina.

“Now?” Ajany sniffs.

“When?”

Ajany walks in the direction of the door and sits on the ground in front of it. She watches Justina.

“A prostitute’s child needs the same things other babies have,” Justina says. “Stay or go. I’ve got work to do. If you stay, inside that box are his clothes.”

“He lived here?”

“Those dogs could never find him.” Pride. “I protected him.”

Studying Justina, Ajany wonders, Why her? Why this place? Bitter taste. Ajany looks around. Flickering lights, stench of yesterday’s cabbage, brooding chicken, children playing football outside. Ceaseless noise. Why this?

Justina strips off her yellow muumuu, digs around for a loose-fitting black-lace spaghetti top. A quiet laugh. “Sometimes, Odi-Ebe used to dress up as an old woman to pass through police roadblocks. They never caught him.” She squeezes into skintight shiny red trousers. “This is our world. Odi’s world. Tomorrow, when you come back to look for Justina, you may find there was no Justina. Maybe there will even be no house.”

Justina retrieves platform wedges and weighs them in her hand. Her head bends. “He almost made it home.”

“What happened?”

Justina leans against the bed.

“Uhaini.”

Betrayal.

“Who?”

“A diseased dog we were paying. He’s gone now.”

“Gone?”

“Someone got him.”

“So this is normal?”

Justina’s head goes up. “What’s wrong? Your brother was a thief? So what? Ebe organized us, he organized everyone. We do — did — do everything for our men. Even die.” She wipes her eyes. Throws her hand up. “Go away. Odi-Ebe didn’t want you here. Go away.”

Ajany looks at the ball. Tosses it up, catches it. “How much?”

“What?”

Ajany stares, eyes clear. “For your time?”

Justina whistles. “What do you want me to do?”

“Talk.”

Justina ponders Ajany, lips curling. “Anything else?”

Ajany glares.

Justina says, “Money first.”

“How much?”

“Five thousand shillings, for the night.” Justina sticks out her lower lip.

Ajany pulls out the notes from inside her coat. “Here’s what I have, three thousand and fifty. I’ll bring the rest tomorrow.”

“Keep your stupid money.” Tears slither down Justina’s top.

“Take it.”

Justina hits Ajany’s hand; the money scatters.

“May I feel the baby again?”

“For the money?”

“For Odidi.”

Justina lowers her head.

Ajany places her hands over Justina’s belly.

Closes her eyes.

The baby kicks.

Odidi , Ajany calls with all her heart, Odidi .

She exhales.

This she can paint.

Today, filling in the name of loss.

The color is red.

It has a name.

Odi-Ebe , pronounced in the breathy voice of a pregnant woman named Justina. She could sketch hope living in a womb, the best portions of a brother’s life — shoes, football, a woman, and an unborn child.

Small things.

Justina touches Ajany’s hair, leaves her hand on her back. They cry. Outside, thunder rumbles; there is a scattering of rain on the tin shack. Two women crying while the beloved unborn and the now dead listen.

They sleep on opposite ends of the bed.

They are only able to speak of Odidi at dawn.

The small universe inside is apart from the outside world. It is a place with Odidi at its heart and his sister guzzles down what she learns from the woman who had known this part of his life. She hears something of this woman’s life too. Family from Mombasa, Nairobi railway workers, father a polygamous train driver in the last days of the steam engines, Justina growing up contented in the city with assorted brothers and sisters, then a series of misfortunes that devastated, decimated, and dispersed the family. Disease. Job loss. Death. Dropping out of school, where Justina had excelled in art and mathematics, to take care of her sick mother, who had been the youngest and later abandoned wife. Justina’s little joys: timing the Mombasa — Nairobi train as it chugged along the railroad close to her shack, running after it and listening for the sound of its loud horn.

Crows caw outside. Footsteps — life in a hurry. Somewhere a dog barks and then whines. Inside, endless cups of ginger tea, and mandazi , and then it is six-thirty in the evening and Justina is adjusting a blond wig, while disentangling yellow neck-length earrings from the hair.

Ajany says, “I’ll come with you.”

She looks Ajany up and down. Her lips curl. “You?”

“Odidi went.”

“Yah! He could dance.”

“I dance.”

“You?” Justina laughs.

“I’m going.”

“So I can look after you, yah?”

Ajany picks up her handbag. “I’m not asking.”

“ Haiya! But change those shagsmudo clothes. Haki , you can’t go dressed like that to shame me.”

That same night, under remote northern-land lights, a woman who has run away from home to outsprint death, shreds her clothes. She has traveled two hundred and fourteen kilometers to do this. She knows the enchantment of fire just as her daughter does. Red flames soar. Two drowsy goats sulk. Healing and insight. A spirit problem. A spirit solution requires a forfeit. A scapegoat. What is she willing to offer? Soul healing needs sacrifice. Given the extent of the problem — she agrees, death is a problem — to appease its hunger, something beloved and of blood must be offered. Something that will endure awfulness. “What could that be?” She thinks about it for a long time.