Blood & Milk (11 page)

I could have laughed at that. The worst my family did was throw me out for being gay. Damu’s family, on the other hand, would punish him with the most humiliating, unpleasant death imaginable. “No. Not as brave as you.”

“But you are.”

A solitary tear ran down my cheek. “But I’m not.”

He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine, and whether or not he knew my dreams would be bad that night, I can’t be sure. But he pulled me in close, covered me with our shukas, and held me so, so tight.

I was grateful, though it didn’t stop the nightmares.

The men in the alley outside the pub give us a beating. I remember seeing Jarrod’s head hit the pavement and taking a kick to the head, before my world goes dark. Someone calls the cops and I wake up in the ambulance. Jarrod doesn’t. He hasn’t woken up at all.

I’m sitting in the room with him, holding his hand, pleading with every God and deity to save him. I tell him I love him, I tell him I need him to live. Doesn’t he understand? I can’t do this without him. We are all we have. It’s just me and him―it’s only ever been me and him―and I can’t do life without him.

But I have to, they say. It doesn’t look good, they say. His next of kin have been called.

Then his parents turn up, running into the room like they actually care and kicking me out. “He’s the reason our boy’s in here,” Jarrod’s mother says with a teary sneer at me.

Detective Don Walmsley escorts me out. “You’re not family, son. You can’t stay,” he whispers. But then he sits with me… He was the one to find us. He hasn’t left us yet. He taps my thigh. “It’s okay, son. You’re not alone.”

But I am.

I’m in the hospital corridor alone. My left eye is swollen shut, stitches in the back of my head, my cheek cut, my lip split. I have two broken ribs, cuts and bruises everywhere.

Yet I’m numb to it all.

Jarrod lies in a hospital bed, intubated and bandaged. He has a punctured lung from a broken rib and massive head trauma.

Then my mother turns up. I don’t even look at her. I certainly have nothing to say. She sighs when she sees me. Not a relieved sound. More of an inconvenienced, unsaid I-told-you-so. She sits in the chair opposite me, and I stare at her until she looks away.

Then Jarrod’s parents come out crying. He’s gone, they say. It’s my fault, they say.

Detective Don Walmsley stands and defends me, saying the attackers have been caught, and it was in no way my fault.

They don’t believe him. My mother doesn’t either.

I don’t hear what they say after that. My mind is stuck, filled with a roaring white noise.

He is gone.

Jarrod’s gone.

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

It’s okay, son. You’re not alone.

But I am.

I really am.

* * * *

I woke up in complete darkness, feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. My body ached, my bones ached, and my heart… I hadn’t even realised the weight in my heart had lessened since I’d arrived here, until it was back in full force.

My dreams had always been vivid. But this one, well it was all too real. I recalled the first morning I woke up after Jarrod died, how I rolled over, waking slowly, and only remembering he was gone when his side of the bed was empty.

My ribs hurt, my face―my eye, my cheek, my jaw―was swollen and sore, the headache was skull-cracking, but nothing prepared me for the pain in my heart.

It was no different now.

It was as if no time had passed at all. It was as if someone had taken the knife of grief and ripped me from sternum to stomach all over again.

I sucked back a breath. My lungs felt like they were filled with concrete. My heart was squeezing, squeezing…

I was alone again.

It’s okay, son. You’re not alone.

But I was.

“Alé,” Damu whispered in my ear. “Alé. Wake, Alé.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell him I was already awake and this, me sobbing and unable to breathe, was real. Instead I turned in his arms and buried my face into his neck as I sobbed. “They killed him,” I said. “Jarrod died and I didn’t. They took him from me.”

He held me tighter and kissed the side of my head. “Shhh. I have you,” he murmured. “Not alone. You not alone.”

I closed my eyes, too exhausted to protest when sleep came for me again.

The next time I woke up, it was sunlight outside. Damu was making me uji, which meant he’d already gone to the river.

I sat up and immediately fell back onto the mattress. My head throbbed and my stomach roiled. “Ugh. What time is it?”

“Sleep,” Damu answered.

“I don’t feel well.”

He looked at me and frowned. “I tell others you sick. They worry. I make you… medicine?”

“Is it not ugali?”

He shook his head and stirred the pot. “You fever. Need this.”

I put my hand to my forehead. My skin was clammy and cold, but I felt hot.
Fever.
Great. Just what I need.

Damu scooted over to me and offered me the bowl. A sudden wave of nausea rolled through me and I put my hand up. “No.”

Damu nodded. “Yes. You must.”

“Sick.”

Damu lifted my head off the mattress and put the bowl to my lips, making me drink. It was warm and brewed like a tea, but it tasted of grass and piss. “Ugh. That’s awful,” I said, gagging as I tried to keep it down.

Damu smiled. “Sleep.”

That sounded like a great idea. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, the light outside had changed. Damu was there and when he saw me wake up, he forced more medicine down my throat and ordered me to sleep some more. I don’t know what the hell he put in that medicine, but I didn’t really have a choice. I closed my eyes and only woke again when it was getting dark.

I couldn’t tell if my body still ached. My mind was kind of foggy and Damu wiped a wet cloth across my forehead. “Medicine,” he said, and poured more of that ghastly tea down my throat.

The next thing I knew it was almost morning. The sky outside was the faintest of purples, which meant it was about five o’clock. Damu was asleep in front of me, on the dirt floor. He was curled into himself, no doubt cold. The fire was barely embers, and his heavier shuka was draped over me while my thinner skuka was all he had. He can’t have been comfortable, and he’d obviously spent the day watching over me, tending to me.

“Damu,” I roused him gently, quietly. “Come here.”

He stirred, barely. “Fever?”

“No. I’m better. Come sleep here.”

He sighed and half-asleep, crawled onto the mattress with me. I lifted his shuka and he settled in with me, though this time he was the little spoon. I’d no sooner covered him with the shuka than I felt the tension leave his body. He relaxed into me and I wrapped my arm around his waist. I was about to ask him if he was comfortable, but he was already asleep.

* * * *

I’d missed a whole day. Whether it was the illness that brought on my horrible dreams of Jarrod’s death or if it were the dreams that brought on the illness, I wasn’t sure.

But that medicine, whatever the hell was in it, worked. I was tempted to ask if I could have a dose every night before sleep, to keep my dreams at bay, but was pretty sure Damu wouldn’t allow it.

I woke up feeling pretty good, all things considered. But I was keen to get to the river to bathe, to wash away the sweat and stench that being sick left behind. Damu walked with me, as always, but he looked tired.

“Thank you for looking after me yesterday,” I said. “It means a lot to me that you would do that.”

Damu gave me a solitary nod. “Welcome.”

“What was in that medicine?” I asked. “I mean, it tasted unbelievably bad, but it fixed me.”

Damu chuckled. “It is tea from bark and roots. I get it for you from far valley.”

“You went all that way, just for me?”

It was kind of hard to tell, with the colour of his skin, but I’m sure he blushed. “Yes.”

“You should rest today, and I will do your chores.”

He smiled then. “No. I’m able.”

“I would do them for you. I would do your share, so Kijani won’t know.”

He chuckled quietly to himself. “Kijani gone back to eunoto.”

“Oh. He came back for just one day?” I wasn’t exactly sad to have missed seeing him yesterday. “Is everything okay?”

Damu smiled, his usual peaceful demeanour was back. “Yes.”

“Kijani stay for one night only. He was offered meat and milk, spent the night talking with Kasisi, and was gone again in the morning.” Damu talked proudly of his brother, and I tried to not let that bother me. “He be obligated to go back to eunoto, the boys who would be warriors. He waste no time in getting back there.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “What of the new woman? Is she okay?”

Damu nodded again. “She stay inside house for one moon.”

I had to think about that for a second. Maybe the lack of food was starting to take its toll. “She won’t come out for a whole month?”

“No.”

“Why? Is that a custom?” I wasn’t judging, I was merely curious. “She came here for safety, is she okay?”

“She is. Amali take care of her.”

“Amali is a very good woman.”

Damu looked at me and a slow smile spread across his face. “She is very kind.” But then he said, “After
e-mʉ́ráta
a woman stay in house, not come out, for one moon. This way she heal.”

“What is e-mʉ́ráta?”

“Circumcision. On woman.”

I felt the blood drain from my face, and I stopped walking. “You what?” I had spent my time here learning their culture and lived by my motto of not judging them, no matter how fucked up things were. But
this
? This crossed a line. That being said, what was deemed barbaric to most of the world was a very significant part of their culture, and I couldn’t dismiss that. I shook my head, not knowing what to think. “That is…” I didn’t want to use the word wrong, because it was not my moral or ethical place to make such a statement that disrespected an entire race of people. So I went with, “…not good. Not good at all.”

Damu had stopped walking, now facing me. He put his hand up, a gesture of peace. “Many Maasai still do e-m
ú
ráta. Circumcision woman. As it has been done for many years. But no. Our tribe, the Isikirari people not do this. We do different. A ceremony for girls who become woman, but not circumcision. Ceremony the same, but girl gets a cut on her leg instead. Small cut on leg.” He lifted his foot off the ground and touched the inside of his thigh. “Here. But some choose old ways. They want circumcision done. Believe it is their right. Some believe not. Kasisi allows this girl choice. If girl from other Maasai tribe choose no circumcision, they be safe here.”

I let his words sink in. “You offer them refuge?”

“Kasisi offer them. Kijani bring girl here to be safe. Like Oni and Fajima, they not be born here. They come here, for choice not to be circumcised.”

Oni and Fajima were two women in the tribe, wives to Makumu. I let out a deep breath. “Okay then.”

Damu laughed. “This please you?”

“Yes. Having the choice is important. If the woman choose it, that’s fine. If they choose not to have it, then Kasisi respects that.” I couldn’t even explain the relief I felt. The Maasai people lived by customs centuries old, yet here was a feminist stronghold in a very patriarchal world. It made me happy.

Damu shook his head. “Not woman choice. Girl choice. She not be woman until ceremony.”

Aaaaaaand there it was. Back to the 1800s in one comment. Though, in reminding myself to look at the world through Maasai eyes, I was beginning to understand the dilemmas of the Maasai people. The very roots of their culture were at such odds with the world I came from.

We started walking again as I processed what I had learned, and as we neared the river bank, Damu put his hand out and stopped me. He nodded silently downriver, and when I followed his line of sight, I saw the reason for his smile.

Two giraffes were drinking from the river. Seeing these African creatures roaming wildly, up close and personal, would never not amaze me. Damu wasn’t too impressed―much like I’d imagine my reaction to seeing a kangaroo or koala―but I was floored. They were maybe a hundred metres away, with their long legs splayed out so they could drink the water.

“They’re beautiful,” I whispered. “Why are they here? I mean, why are we only seeing them now?”

“No rains mean river Mara dry up. Smaller water to drink from, easier for predator.”

“Makes sense.”

The giraffes noticed us, then, and scampered away, all legs and neck. I watched with a smile plastered on my face until they were gone from view and unfortunately missed Damu getting undressed. I only saw a quick glimpse of his arse before it disappeared under the water.

I quickly stripped and joined him. The cold water was heavenly: invigorating and cleansing, washing away the stench of illness. I dunked my head under and scrubbed at my scalp with my fingers. It wasn’t anything close to sanitary―it was a muddy river after all―but it was the best it got out here.

From all the creature comforts I’d left behind—toilet paper, hot showers, soap, and shaving cream—it was toothpaste I missed the most. I still had my toothbrush, but it wasn’t much use without toothpaste.

When we were out of the river and dressed, we walked a little further downriver to the
o’remiti
plant. Damu picked a few twigs and handed them to me. It was what the Maasai used to clean their teeth. “You trying to tell me my breath smells?”