Yvonne Owuor - Dust

A rushed, endless plunge.

Later, at the tip of the water, the woman called out to the man. Her voice was smooth, as if newborn. Her eyes contained the shine that marked those who emerge out of chasms. It took an eternity before he answered. Dripping water, he asked if this was the road that led to the place where journeys ended.

Twelve days later, in the northern reaches of Kenya, rain clouds withdraw. The earth gulps down and stores water for later. A congregation of birds chirp, a raucous choir in need of a sane conductor. Transient storm-rivers disappear as the Ewaso Nyiro starts its reluctant crawl back to old boundaries. Oryx gambol; giraffes browse on the extended banks of streams, among pockets of flowering shrubs of all hues, mostly peach, a desert supernova of frozen flame, fragile blossoms, frantic in bloom, as if they were angels relishing a temporary reprieve from celestial certainty. A golden finger-of-God stirs clouds.

A hundred kilometers away, a helicopter hovers. A Cajun-accented foreigner surveys the area. The Jacobses’ mission station is underwater. The helicopter drifts to where the house should have been and circles the area at least thirteen times before setting course again for Nairobi. It is assumed that the Jacobses, together with an elderly intelligence man, a local named Petrus Keah, were some of the many human, floral, and animal casualties of a sudden desert storm in Africa: Requiescant in pacem .

In this landscape, a dog and camel saunter ahead of two tall gray-haired, ebony-skinned elders, one of whom, bare-chested, traverses the land in shiny black shoes set off by red socks. The camel, separated by the storm from its herd, is a good-natured juvenile now renamed Kormamaddo II by his itinerant, self-styled new owners. The travelers approach Lake Ka’alakol, which glowers, unmoved by nature’s theatrics. One of the men, with his fedora and cane, is debonair in a tattered kind of way. He has to remind the other to “Move, move.” The shirtless one gawks at day and night skies. Two evenings ago, he swore he saw the amused face of Existence looking down on itself. The night before that, he heard the clamoring of wounded souls who had taken residence in his being. They had offered him a truce: the idea of peace if he would speak out their names. It was a deal. Afterward, and for the first time in a terrible and long while, he heard silence. “See those clouds,” he demands of his companion.

An exasperated snort. “So now I’m blind?”

“Look again, msee .”

“I’ve seen. For many years, I’ve seen. Move, move.”

“You never told me.”

A sigh.

Fourteen days later, under a pure blue sky, the travelers stumble upon a neighborhood made of neglected corrugated iron triangle-huts fringed by several giant-milkweed bushes with white-and-purple flowers in bloom. In the center of a field, a tattered red, black, green, and white flag quivers on a rusting pole. They stroll past it. Their camel scans the world in small increments, its mouth in the shape of an “O.”

The desert’s transitory rivers and lakes evaporate.

Within sight of what had been Wuoth Ogik, a spread-out acacia sprouts green life. In there, a colony of gossipy weavers admonish the world from nests hanging like grass fruits. Roaming winds there ambush a timeless, dense, solitary airstream heading toward the Indian Ocean and pass above a trader and his grizzled, turbaned friend slumbering on the remains of a guitar in one of the day shadows of Mount Kulal. The bluster of air currents flanking the country disturbs the quiet care of a graying midwife crouched in front of a long-limbed, panting woman who has just given birth to twins — a boy and a girl, who emerged with little arms entwined around each other. The winds blunder toward Nairobi and become the tail end of an evening storm, the suddenness of which startles a pilot whose packed plane carries a lofty man from Brazil with a jagged scar that traverses his right hand and disappears up his sleeve. The thundershower pivots, and inside of three minutes swamps a squalid, downtown bar behind River Road, where accordions belting a gritty mugithi compete with Fadhili Williams on tape who croons, Hakuna mwingine zaidi yako, ni wewe, ni wewe wa maisha, moyo wangu na mapenzi yangu nimekuwachia .…

This book has been breathed to life through the thoughts, words, and deeds of composite souls, creatures, and landscapes:

Thank you to the Wylie Agency and Sarah Chalfant, who sought, saw, and believed, and then turned the story’s delivery into a cause. Dear Jacqueline Ko, for putting up with random ramblings with such tenderness and strength. To my brilliant, patient editor Diana Coglianese at Knopf, who peered through convoluted word thickets and shone light upon scenes while humanely killing assorted “darlings,” thus infusing order into a long, long tale.

David Godwin, your wily pursuit of this story covered four continents. That this book is in existence is evidence of faith moving mountains. Thank you. Binyavanga Wainaina, for whip-wielding tough love, daring, friendship, relentless faith, and a space-to-breathe residency; Jackie Lebo, for ruthless, brilliant reviewing; Kate Haines, for scalpel-edged insight and story sense — thank you, dear ones. Thank you, RL Hooker, for the sense of colored-in spaces and gifted story-sight; James ole Kinyaga, for interpreting the book of landscape for me; and Olivier Lechien, for a thorough, hands-off review.

Soul gratitude to you, my Amazonian comadres —Maryanne Wachira, Ann Gakere, Sheila Ochugboju, Claudia Fontes (especially for the “Reconstruction of the portrait of Pablo Míguez” ), Saba Douglas-Hamilton, Caroline Ngayo, Deirdre Prins-Solani, Michelle Coffey, Shalini Gidoomal, Andrea Mogaka, Garnette Oluoch-Olunya, Marie Kruger, Nancy Karanja, Lucy Mulli, Beverly Singer, Doreen Strauhs, Ashminder Dhiawalla, Hildegaard Kiel.

Thank you, Marcel Martins Lacerda Diogo and Claudia (again!), for “Braziliana”; Langi Owuor, for “camel water poetry”; Jimmy Gitonga, for forensic imaginings; Amolo Ng’weno, David Coulsen, and TARA, for Northern Kenya experiences; the amazing staff at the National Museums of Kenya (Nairobi, Loiyangalani) and all those exceptional souls at the Kenya National Archives. To Chimamanda Adichie, Billy Kahora, Angela Wachuka, the Kwani Trust team. Annette Majanja, Parselelo Kantai, Keguro Macharia, Michael Cunningham-Reid, Dickson Wambari, and Michael “Kobole” Maina, my debt of gratitude.

To the many who fed my hopes and then unexpectedly crossed into unreachable realms — Mary Komen, Agnes Katama, Uncle Ben “Odidi” Winyo, Gichora Mwangi, Morris Odotte, Anthony Dzuya — supernal thank-yous.

Seed-planters: family, teachers, mentors. Daddy, irrepressible, eternal, dearly missed Tom Diju; Mummy, gorgeous great-souled story-woman, Mary Sero; long-suffering siblings who have survived some dangerous yarns, always love. Gilbert Kairo, life saver; Uncle Okoyo, who convinced a child that hares lisp and plot; Mrs. Saunders, who stuck five gold stars to a desperately shy student’s first poem; Margaret Odhiambo, who lit fires in darkness; Sr. Maureen, who tore open the essence within words; Ben Zulu and the ASDF, who demanded more from the stories Africa tells; Eugenio Ferrari, CM who asked, “The book?” Then prayed.

Nick Elam and the Caine Prize for African Writing family, thank you for the flame. Chris Merrill, Hugh Ferrer, Natasa Durovicova, Kelly Bedeian, and the 2005 IWP cohort — you salvaged story sense for me. I am indebted to the Lanaan Foundation for the treasured gift of time and place, and always to Beverly Singer and Jon Davis, for dragging open New Mexico’s doors for me, land of light-painted memory and enchanted friendship journeys; to all the students of the IAIA, for your beauty, inspiration, and the anvil of words; monks of the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, New Mexico: I needed the liturgy, the starkness, that silence. I needed your hearts and The Presence, thank you.