Yvonne Owuor - Dust

Inside the cattle boma , Ajany finds and touches a bedraggled being that is the shape and texture of an aged, twisted tree bark. Bloodshot eyes, his bare feet are now cracked. The late orange light shines on his face as he contemplates the empty cattle enclosure. He is dark. At close quarters, he seems wavy, not solid, his cloak of solitude forbidding. Ajany almost drops what she is carrying, and clamps down on her lips to stop from crying out.

“Baba,” she whispers.

Nyipir drops his stick and, with both arms, scrambles up and reaches out. He grabs hold of his daughter. She is alive and at home. “Ibiro.” You are here.

She is clinging to her father. How small he has become. The wind throws dust around and covers them both.

Nyipir remembers: “Flowers?”

“Yes,” she says. Then, “I found Odidi.”

Nyipir’s head snaps back.

Ajany unrolls Odidi’s office picture.

“Here.”

Nyipir receives the picture with both hands. He lifts the image to his face and presses it in, inhaling the imagination of his son’s presence for a long, long time.

Later.

Voice hoarse, Nyipir says, “He looks well.”

Ajany watches.

Nyipir says, “He looks well, see?”

“Baba,” Ajany starts, wanting to wail about treachery.

“Yes?” He turns, eyes bright.

Hesitation. She says, “I’m happy you’re here.”

Later.

She tells him a little about T. L. Associates Engineering — that Odidi had left a legacy with his work in water. She tells him that Odidi’s time with the gang came from heroic idealism. He had only been organizing the disenchanted youth to work for a different future for themselves. It is sad, she tells her father, that the stupid state did not have the capacity to grasp Odidi’s vision and had instead destroyed him.

A vaporlike drizzle.

A large drop spatters on Nyipir’s forehead. They both glance skyward. “Rain?” Nyipir whispers. Followed by a broken-up sound.

Ajany listens.

Nyipir says, “Should’ve told him.” His eyes dart from one end of the horizon to another.

“Said something.”

Ajany rubs her nose. She settles on the ground before curling up against her father’s shoulder. “Baba,” she says, “Odidi’s woman … she found me. She’s pregnant. His child. You’ll be a grandfather.”

As if the sun had all of a sudden popped into existence, everything is infused with fresh warmth and Nyipir’s explosive, “A child?”

Ajany begins to smile. “Yes.”

“New life?”

“Yes.”

“This unknown daughter, she has a name?”

“Justina.”

“Who is her father?”

“Didn’t ask.”

“Odidi’s child, nyara ?”

Ajany nods.

“Perhaps a son?” Nyipir huddles into his stained coat, cool tears at the edges of his eyes. But a laugh begins with a mouth twitch. When it emerges, the sound lights up Nyipir’s face from within.

Later.

Ajany says, “There’s another grave.”

Nyipir replies, “Yes.”

Silence.

Nyipir asks, “What news of Kenya?”

“A president. A prime minister.”

“Two?”

“Yes.”

“Together.” He snorts. “What do they call it?”

“Coalition.”

“Coalison.”

“Mhh.”

“The people?”

“Forgetting.”

Nyipir scratches his chest. “That Isaiah Bolton …”

“Yes?”

“He left Wuoth Ogik.”

“No.”

“He did.”

She says, “He’s here.” Pauses. “We came back together.”

Nyipir leans back before nodding. “Good.” Gripping Odidi’s picture, he wipes it. “Odidi looks well. Wuod Oganda! Shall we go to our guests?”

Ajany helps her father up.

They veer toward the edge of the boma . There, Nyipir uses his walking stick to point at different parts of the earth. He says, “Akai-ma came home.”

Ajany says nothing.

“At night. Here are her steps.” Nyipir’s voice is forcefully bland.

Ajany notes the livestock trails leading out of Wuoth Ogik as she bites down on her lips, bruising them. She stammers, “The red dance-ox?”

“It followed her,” her father says on a shuddering breath.

Ajany feels hot and then cold. Golden light in the darkening sky. Ajany shivers. The air is thick with the unexpected scent of rain. No one will say anything, lest eavesdropping malicious ghouls destroy the seeds of hope.

“If I had a ram, I would …” Nyipir starts. “Nothing remains.”

Salt in Ajany’s throat.

“Nothing, nyara , not even a lamb.”

Ali Dida Hada had stopped mid-approach, a gargling sound escaping him. Pain, both inner and outer, had convulsed his body and paled his lips: bewilderment, dread, too many battles, spiritual exhaustion. There was a time when he would have rejoiced at Nyipir’s vanquishing. Now all he wants to know is the name of the one lying beneath the new cairn. Was this why Nyipir had asked for him? To reveal to him the finale of their dangerous dance?

Nyipir sees Ali Dida Hada and straightens out his stained shirt. He rubs his face, pulls at his nostrils, and clears his throat.

Ali Dida Hada seizes Nyipir’s forearms. “The second grave?”

“Dead bones.”

“A name.”

Nyipir hears the fear in Ali Dida Hada’s trembling voice. The hand on his arm is strong, hot, and pinching. A perverse impulse: Akai , he could spit into Ali Dida Hada’s face, it is Akai Lokorijom , my wife .

“Who are you hoping it is?” he says. Half-lidded eyes.

Ali Dida Hada takes a deep breath. “Please, Nyipir.”

Nyipir asks, “Do you still believe in God, Ali?”

Ali Dida Hada squeezes Nyipir’s arms. He scrunches his face, pressing down grief.

Nyipir’s voice is so soft: “Are you a praying man?”

Ajany’s high cry, a warble, really, stops Nyipir’s mischief. He is truly tired of the maze of riddles. “It’s a man,” he tells Ali Dida Hada. Icy-toned: “Now let me go.”

Ali Dida Hada might have embraced Nyipir there and then and danced. He drops his hand, tries to conceal his relief as he asks, “He has a name?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it?”

“You know.”

Ali Dida Hada leans forward. A mild sense of defeat assails him. His words are clipped and odd-sounding. “Where did you find him?”

“The cave.” Nyipir uses his cane to point east. “There. That red one.”

“Manner of death?”

Silence.

“Cause of death?”

“No one has ever explained why death happens.”

“Time of death?”

Silence.

“You disturbed the scene.”

“I can take the bones back.”

“Bolton?”

Nyipir shuts his eyes, blood rushes beneath his skull.

It is time.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes. Bolton.”

Ajany, who has been chewing her lips, now jumps.

Ali Dida Hada stares at the ground.

The air is electric.

Silence.

Then, “Who’ll tell his son?” Ali Dida Hada asks.

Nyipir’s eyes are fixed at distances.

Ajany watches Nyipir.

Watches for the stone Nilote’s re-emergence. The sculptured man whose look revealed nothing, especially when confronted with the unknown. A visage relieved of emotion even when Akai leapt up to snarl at malevolent presences she alone glimpsed. The mobile ebony form who had twice returned to Wuoth Ogik to find Ali Dida Hada singing with his arms around a giggling Akai-ma, who had politely bowed at the pair of them before going to settle his livestock, whistling. This man was a tall, dark sentinel. Steel backed. Yet there, his hands, jagged with wounding; there, colors of damp fire lurking in his eyes. Here, his heart, a tower of secrets.