Yvonne Owuor - Dust

Isaiah has been waiting.

He says, “We didn’t finish our conversation.”

“I did.”

“Apologize for spitting on me.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“You’re not.”

“I’ll call the police. They’ll talk to you.”

“Please do.”

“Where are you going?”

“Somewhere.”

“As I am.”

“Go away.”

“Or what? You’ll spit on me again?”

“Yes.”

They jostle past the reception.

“Bye, Jos,” says Ajany.

“Bye, Jos,” repeats Isaiah.

“Uh,” Jos replies.

The chilly evening air.

Ajany rubs her arms, adjusts her hold on her purse and envelope. They stand in the car park. Peter the taxi man sees Ajany, flashes his lights, and switches on the car engine. He says nothing when Ajany and Isaiah reach for the same door and cling to it.

“What do you want from me?” Ajany groans.

“My father,” says Isaiah.

She looks up at Isaiah. “I don’t know him.”

A sudden sheen in her eyes.

“So tell me about your mother.”

A shrug. “Go find her. Talk to her yourself.”

“Where is she?”

“Don’t know. Somewhere.”

“Liar.”

Ajany, her voice brittle, says, “My mother left the day we brought my brother home.”

Isaiah pulls open the car’s door.

“Twilight,” she tells the taxi man.

Inside the car, Isaiah asks, “You don’t know where your mother is?”

“No.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No.”

Isaiah exhales, tousling his hair.

Families are complicated organisms.

They reach the venue.

The bouncers glance at Ajany, swivel their heads at Isaiah, and glance back at Ajany. She winks back. Yesterday’s man in pink is today in vivid purple.

Ajany stops to waylay Justina.

“You can go in,” she tells Isaiah.

“No,” he says.

“You can’t keep this up.”

“I will.”

A quarter of an hour later, Justina approaches the main dance hall. She sees Ajany.

Justina says, “ Mavi ya kuku , you’re here to fight again?”

Ajany thrusts the envelope at her.

“What?”

“For you and the baby.”

Justina fingers it, glares at Ajany, pouting.

“Who’s this?” Her chin indicates Isaiah.

Ajany shrugs. “Ask him.”

“He’s with you?”

“No.”

“Yes,” answers Isaiah. He drapes a firm arm over Ajany’s shoulders.

She wriggles. An idea: “This is Odidi’s friend Bolton.”

“Oh. The mzungu he was meeting at Wuoth Ogik? Wasn’t he an old man?”

“Yes,” confirms Ajany.

Isaiah scowls. He grips her wrist.

Ajany tugs at her hand.

Justina is looking Isaiah up and down.

She asks Ajany, “Does he pay well?”

“You beat him up.” She pulls free. “Then he pays double.”

Justina’s eyes flutter, mocking Ajany as two fingers pluck Isaiah’s shirtsleeves. “I’ll beat you with chains, if you want.”

Isaiah lifts Justina’s fingers from off his shirt. “This woman and I”—he indicates Ajany—“sewn together.”

Ajany escapes.

Isaiah guffaws.

Justina joins him.

“You know Ebewesit … Odidi?”

“We wrote to each other. I’d have enjoyed meeting him.”

She nods. “England?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t look English.”

“What does English look like?”

Justina gestures to a part of the dance floor that is visible. There, five men of indifferent stature and shape gyrate in paroxysms of off-beat pain. One of them slides left to right and back. The music is determined to push them off the dance floor. It is also apparent that they are committed to staying on. Arms and bodies in motion, whirring like propellers ready for liftoff.

Isaiah watches the dancers. “Moses told me to come here. But then … uh …”

“Yes,” breathes Justina wistfully. “That sister calls him Odidi; me, I say Odi-Ebe; you say Moses. Many people. One person.”

Isaiah remembers the corpse.

“A true man.” Justina wipes her eyes. She makes a face. “Want to go in?” Isaiah scans the crowd, looking for Ajany.

“She’s inside,” says Justina, now amused. She inserts the envelope into her shoulder bag.

They step in and are swallowed by the warmth, noise, and rhythm.

Ajany is dancing. Justina watches Ajany as she has before. Finds Odidi’s stormy abandon in Ajany’s gestures, in her sinuous moves. Ajany is unconscious of her complete otherness. She is not of this place. Just like Odidi Ebewesit.

A vision, a feeling.

Justina takes three urgent steps toward it. Ajany must go. She’ll beg Ajany to leave before the rottenness creeps over and possesses her.

Her baby moves. I know , Justina soothes the child.

She turns to confide in Isaiah.

He stands frozen, his eyes fixed, mesmerized by this Ajany.

Justina scowls.

“You?” she prods.

Isaiah slips his hands into his pockets. He casts his eyes to the ground, lips pursed. A shudder.

One of the Twilight regulars bumps Justina’s shoulders. “Sa’a Jusi?” She gestures at Isaiah.

Justina sticks her tongue out, wraps her hand around Isaiah’s. “Dance with me?”

“No.”

“I need you.”

“You don’t.”

Justina giggles. “But you can’t dance with her,” pointing at Ajany.

“Why?”

“You are just a human being.”

“So?”

“They don’t really need us.”

“Who are they ?”

Justina starts to say something, but hugs her body instead. She would do anything to feel Odidi’s strong and securing arms around her, even for a minute. She wants to hear again his vow to keep her safe forever.

Isaiah says, “She’s human.”

The DJ changes the music.

“Keep telling yourself that. You dance?”

“Mhh.”

“Like that?”

Ajany is against the steel pole. Hearing melodies that had been played in Bahia, wanting to throw off the weight of her world and its realities, she dissolves like wax into the music, feels it become her body. Now she is simply Arabel, and the other side of the song is silence, and its roots are in eternity.

“No,” says Isaiah.

“Dance with me?” Justina asks.

“Yes,” Isaiah replies.

Ajany emerges from the vision in sound after the DJ mixes in some Hi-Life. She finds the present. She is outside the clubhouse, staring at a starry sky. She finds Kormamaddo the sky camel. Tears. She must return to Wuoth Ogik.

The taller bouncer asks, “Leaving, madam?”

Over-the-shoulder grin: from malaya to “madam” overnight. She peers at her phone, calls Peter the taxi man. “Need to go,” she says.

“I’m praying for you,” Peter reminds her.

He is worried about the state of her soul.

“Evening, Jos.”

“Morning, madam. Better today?”

Ajany winces. “What time is it?”

“3:30 a.m.”

“When do you sleep?”

“In the day.”

“I’m checking out, Jos.”

“Leaving?”

“Going home.”

“Now?”

Ajany nods.

“ Woyee! I’ll miss you.”

Ajany makes a face at him.

An hour later, Ajany has cleared her room, stuffed clothes, portraits, pictures, and art materials into two holdalls and three plastic bags, and left a large tip on the dresser. She pulls the door open — hinges squeak — and walks into a block of heat, Isaiah. In that moment they are alone. Nothing moves, not even breath. Not the night. A gush of fear, as if she might never find her way out. She takes a step back into the room. Isaiah follows. She propels herself forward, fighting to leave.

Isaiah had intended to be reasonable. To scold her for abandoning him at the club. Had meant to tell her he had paid Peter the taxi man to leave, that it was unfair of her to go without talking to him first. He had wanted to ask Ajany for one sensible conversation about Wuoth Ogik, finish things so they could return to their lives in peace.