Golden Boy (10 page)

The moon coming through the window throws the kitchen into harsh lines of black and white. I try to block out the images of what happened here this morning, but it's difficult. I find that I'm standing still, shivering, reliving it scene by scene. I shake myself. Freezing like a terrified rabbit isn't a good way to escape; it's a good way to get caught. I force myself to move again.

After living in the house for weeks, I know all the places that Auntie hides the money that everyone brings in. There's the jar with the screw top under the sink that holds small money: coins and little bills for shopping at the market and paying vendors who come by the house. I reach under and pick it up. Then there's the bigger money, brought in by Asu and the older cousins; that's behind a loose wall board in the main room. This is more difficult to get to because my family is sleeping on mats spread all around the room between it and me, but I need it as well.

I slip in on soft feet and move through the sleeping forms. I hope they're all too exhausted from the stress of the day and cleaning up the broken furniture to wake up. Guilt coils in my stomach when I see that Asu has a deep furrow between her eyebrows and is tossing her head as if she's having nightmares. I tiptoe past her and make it to the far wall.

The next trick is prying the board up without making any noise. I grab the plank in both hands and begin levering it away slowly, oh so slowly. My injured arm screams at me, but the cut doesn't reopen so I don't listen to it. I twitch my muscles a centimeter at a time and wait for over a minute to let the wood relax into the new angle before moving it again. Sweat is pouring down the sides of my face and my muscles are burning by the time I have the board lifted high enough to reach a hand in and grasp the roll of shillings.

Slowly now,
I tell myself.
Don't just let it snap down like an idiot would. Lower it slowly, the same way you got it up.
My fingers are slick with sweat, but I manage to return the board to its place without a single squeak.

For a moment I just crouch there, trembling, clutching the money in my hands. I can't believe I'm stealing from my family. No good boy would ever do such a thing.

You're not a good boy,
the voice in my head reminds me.
You're nothing but a dirty
zeruzeru.
And if you don't get out of Mwanza as quick as you can with those shillings, you'll be a dead
zeruzeru. I get to my feet.

I was originally planning to take the biggest money from under Auntie's mattress as well—the money from her and Mother's factory paychecks—but my experience with the loose board makes me decide it's not worth it. Instead of attempting a third robbery, I creep back through the main room. I'll get some food and take all my sun clothes from their bundle in the corn cave. Then I'll get out of here.

A part of me wants to kick something “accidentally” so that everyone will wake up and see how brave I'm being and talk me out of leaving. But the moonlight shows me bright lines on Chui's face, like old snail tracks, and I don't know what to think about the fact that Chui cried for me, so I go on to the kitchen, as quiet as a ghost.

The corn has been restacked against the wall, although a few stray kernels in the corners of the kitchen show that the mess is not completely cleaned up yet. I pull at the sack on the end and, sure enough, they have even taken the trouble to re-create my corn cave. I don't know whether to feel touched that they hoped I'd come back or angry that they thought I'd crawl into a hiding place that didn't work the first time.

I get down on my hands and knees and scoot into the cave to grab my clothes roll. I'm coming out, my head and shoulders still inside, when a hand touches me.

I jump up in alarm, banging my shoulders and neck against the roof of the corn sack cave. I shove myself out, my heart hammering, and whirl around to see who's found me.

“Habo?”

I brace for an attack, my eyes darting in the darkness. Then I notice a small form huddled against the side of the nearest sack, shaking.

“Kito, you frightened me!” I whisper, hoping he'll take my cue and keep his voice down.

“Is it really you? You're not dead? Really not dead?” My prompting didn't do any good: His voice is a high squeak, getting louder by the second. I hear a rustling from the other room.

The little boy is terrified, and I don't want to make him scream, but I need to get him to be quiet. I reach out to him.

“Shh, Kito. It's me. I'm okay.” He tentatively takes my hand. I pull him into a hug. I tell myself it's just so that I can whisper in his ear and muffle his mouth against my chest, but it also feels good to hold someone.

“Shh,” I say again. “I got away, Kito, it's okay.”

Kito starts to sob, and now I do use my shoulder to muffle his noise. Quickly, I scoop him up in my arms and carry him out onto the patio.

“Kito, Kito, shh. I'm not hurt.”
Much.
My arm still twinges with every move. Kito is blubbering.

“I thought you were dead! I ran and ran, and I found some neighbors, but only women, and you said ‘bring a man,' and so I ran all the way to the police station.” He gasps for breath. “But the police wouldn't believe me and I had to tell my story over and over, and then they called Mother from the factory and we all went home and everything was everywhere and there was blood! And you were gone! Gone! And—”

I cut him off. “Enough, Kito!” The boy is starting to wheeze from the effort of telling his story, and he's getting louder, too. “You did a good job. Do you hear me, Kito? You did the right thing. All the right things.
Asante.
”

Kito sniffles and burrows his head against my shoulder. I look out over his hair and scan: the street for danger, the houses for lights, the sky for signs of dawn. My ears strain for a sound that tells me I've been caught. After two minutes that feel like forty, I gently push him off. I link my fingers through his and hold our brown and white hands up to his face.

“Look,” I say, “we're a zebra.”

He breaks into a tear-streaked smile.

“Kito,” I continue, squeezing his fingers in mine, “I have to go.” His eyes widen in panic, but I can't let him get worked up about this. These final hours before dawn are the only thing between me and a guarantee of being caught. I have to go now. If I don't leave before the rest of the family wakes up, I'll never make it. Seeing Kito is hard enough. I'd never manage to go if Asu was asking me to stay, or Mother.

“Kito, I have to. The bad man will keep coming if I'm here. The only way to get him to leave you all alone is if I go away. Then the bad man won't come anymore.” I smile when I say these things. I don't want the boy having any more nightmares than he already will.

“Will the bad man chase you?” he asks.

A thorn of fear pierces my throat. For a moment I can't say anything. Then I swallow hard and keep talking. The fear scrapes all the way down, making my voice raw when I answer him.

“Of course not,” I say. “He'll hunt elephants again.”

Kito heaves a sigh of relief. Then his brow wrinkles up. “But where will you go? And when will you come home?”

I take a breath. “Kito, I have to go far away. I'm going to try to make it all the way to Dar es Salaam. I'll be safe there, and the bad man won't ever be able to find me. But that means I have to stay away.”

Kito starts to cry again.

Think like a five-year-old!
I scold myself.
Going away is as bad as dying to him.

“I'll call you on the phone!” The rash promise is out of my mouth before I can stop it.
Punguani!
my inner voice raves.
Idiot!
But Kito's face has relaxed again, and I don't dare take it back. “I'll call all the time,” I lie. “I'll call the phone in the store down the street, and when they answer it I'll say, ‘Hello, my name is Habo. I'm calling from Dar es Salaam. I need to speak to Kito, please.' And the shopkeeper will run all the way up the big hill, panting, wondering who is so important to be getting a phone call from the biggest city in all of Tanzania. And they'll be so surprised to see it's you! And you'll walk down to the shop and talk to me on the phone, and everyone will be so jealous of Kito, the boy who gets phone calls.”

“I'd like that,” he says.

“I know. But if I'm going to call you from the city, I have to get there first, don't I? So I'm going to get some food and then I'll be on my way. But remember,” I say, putting a finger on his pudgy little lips, “we can't make any noise at all.”

“Okay,” he says.

“And in the morning you shouldn't tell anyone you saw me, either,” I say, hoping against my better judgment that Kito will be able to keep my secret, at least until I'm too far away for them to catch up to me. “That way, when I call, it'll be a fun surprise for everyone.”

Half an hour later I'm again tiptoeing through the bushes on the far side of the street. But this time I have a pack of belongings and food balanced on my head, a fresh shirt, and money.

I'm on my way.

Once past
the house, I fade into the darkness, debating what I should do next. My first thought is to get away from people and find somewhere to hide, so instead of heading down into town I head up, into the wilder hillsides. The night air is cool and humid on my face, and at first while I climb I can hear the sounds of night in the city—faraway dance music and laughter, honking horns—but at the top there is no one to laugh, no music playing.

You're alone,
I tell myself.
You can relax a bit.

But just as I think these things, my foot lands on something that squishes a little and twists my ankle under me. There is a screech in the blackness and I feel claws ripping at my ankles. I stumble and fall. A light, furry shape bounds over me, hissing and spitting. My heart gallops in my ears and I lie in the weeds for a minute, fighting down the waves of dread that make the edges of everything sharper.

It was just a cat,
I tell myself.
You just stepped on a sleeping cat, that's all, nothing to lose your mind over.
I pull myself into a crouch and look around for somewhere to hide. Surely all that racket will bring people running, and I don't want to be here when they arrive. I huddle under a bush and wait. And wait.

No one comes.

A terrible thought occurs to me: If it had been Alasiri I had bumped into and I was the one screaming, no one would have heard me, either. Though I feel more comfortable hiding far away from people, it's too easy to be killed here. I break into a sweat, even though the August night air is brisk, and turn around and head for the center of town.

I creep along the side roads until I get to Makongoro, the main road that leads from the airport to the center of town. I remember Asu telling me how she would take the purple
dala-dala
this way to work. I hurry along in the shadows and try not to think about Asu. Getting angry about what Alasiri said would just slow me down now.

As the night creeps closer and closer toward dawn, it becomes more and more difficult for me to move around unnoticed, but since my goal has changed from hiding to trying to be around people, I remind myself this is not a bad thing. Slowly, light fills the sky. I walk through the streets of the city, checking over my shoulder again and again to make sure Alasiri hasn't suddenly appeared behind me.

By now I'm near the center of town, but most people just stare for a bit and then go back to whatever they were doing, like yesterday, and I start to feel a little better.

See?
I tell the frightened animal in my mind.
Not everyone here is trying to kill you. You're going to be all right.

Have you forgotten Auntie's warnings?
the voice whines.
Have you forgotten that yesterday you were chased with a knife?

I'm hoping against hope to run into a bus or train station without having to ask where to find it. I'm walking quickly, not really paying attention to where I'm going, arguing with the voice, when a pack of young street boys, most not much bigger than Kito, start to follow me. I notice this when they start to clap their hands, calling out “Deal! Deal!”

I wonder whether they're saying this to get money.
Do they think I'm a white person?
I turn around to face them, to explain in Kiswahili that I'm Tanzanian, too, and I don't have any money to give them, when they start to chant.

“There goes a
zeruzeru,
” chants the first. The others keep up a steady chant of “Deal! Deal!” in the background. His friend joins in.

“If we kill him we'd be rich!”

“Deal! Deal!”

“What's he worth? What's he worth?”

“Oh, you know he's a deal!” the second boy finishes triumphantly, and the whole ratty pack of them start to circle me, laughing.

I run.

I don't run because I'm afraid of being killed by a bunch of unarmed five- and six-year-olds. I don't run because it is a smart way to go faster to somewhere I need to be. I run because Auntie's comment comes back to me—
Even the children know about it
—and I finally understand what she meant. Albinos are killed so often in Mwanza that the children chant about it in the streets.

I dodge around central Mwanza at a blind run. The children's jeers have faded behind me, but still I run until my lungs burn and my legs ache.

Finally, unable to run anymore, I duck behind an office building and crawl into the filthy shade between a row of large metal trash bins and the peeling concrete wall of the building. It smells terrible, but this stench in my nose is better than the sound of those children in my ears. I lean my head against the rusting metal and force myself to breathe normally again.

How am I going to get out of here?
The very air in this city rubs against me like a rough cloth against a sunburn, making me feel raw all over. I have to get away.

Walking feels too slow. If a group of five-year-olds can chase me, I would be caught by a group of men. I bang my forehead gently against the bin a few times to clear it. The metal is cold and slightly slick from the waste oil that has dribbled over the top.

Maybe I could just go live in the bush like a wild man.
The stupidity of that thought actually makes me laugh, a small, hollow sound. I'm not a nomad like the Maasai. My family were farmers. I'm used to living in a house, near a village, and having food close by. I could never survive on my own.

Stop banging your head and think!
I sit back and wipe the sheen of oil and the flakes of rust off my forehead before they can fall into my eyes.

So. Fine. I must live in a village or a town or a city. But if I'm going to live somewhere with people, it will be far, far away from Mwanza. I refuse to live in this province. I refuse to die in this province.

I pull out the money I took from my family and count it. I have just under thirty thousand shillings. That seems like a lot of money. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember how much Auntie said Mother would need to save for the train. It was a really big number, but that was for four people. Now it's just me. I hold the money in front of me, brushing my face over the edges of the bills like they're a fan.
This should be enough to buy just one train ticket, shouldn't it?
I don't know how far it will take me, but at least it will get me away from here.

A bus might be cheaper, but I don't know if there is a bus all the way to Dar es Salaam, and I remember Auntie complaining that, because most of the going and coming in Mwanza happens by boat, the bus station is eleven kilometers outside of town, beyond the military barracks. It's a long way to walk if I'm not even sure it'll work. Plus, buses make a lot of stops. Riding a train would make it more difficult for Alasiri to catch up to me. I hope.

Also, if I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that I've always wanted to ride a train. I've been on a bus, but I've never been on a train. It might be fun.

Standing, I pick up my bundle of clothes and reknot the pack tightly. I push my hat down low over my eyebrows so that it's harder to see the color of my face and hair and balance the pack on top of my head. I fist my hands up into my sleeves, take a deep breath, and step out from behind the bin.

As I march down the street, I can feel the curious glances. No one says anything to me or tries to stop me, but I find myself hurrying nonetheless. I remind myself not to walk stiffly.
You're just a normal Mwanza boy,
I remind myself,
out running his morning errands. You are not a
zeruzeru.
You are not afraid. You are not in a hurry.
I repeat that over and over, hoping it changes how I seem to those around me, willing them to ignore me.

I need to ask someone where to go, but who? I look at the people around me as I walk, looking for someone to trust with my life. That man in the expensive suit? No, Alasiri told me it was the governor himself who wants my legs. I don't trust anyone rich enough to buy me.

That shopkeeper over there? The lady selling roasted ears of corn? No, she will stay in one place all day. If Alasiri looks for me, she would be too easy to ask. Not a shopkeeper, then.

A child? I shudder as I remember the street boys. No, not a child. They'd talk about seeing me all day long. I need someone too busy to take much notice of me who won't stay in this area for long. I stand for a moment on the street corner, frustrated, glaring into the murky early morning light and breathing in the gray dust and the diesel exhaust of every car and
dala-dala
passing me by, trying not to think about how good that woman's roasted corn smells and the fact that I haven't had any breakfast.

Finally, I see a young woman running to catch a
dala-dala
that she just misses. It pulls away from the corner, and she calls after it in frustration. She's perfect. She is late and annoyed and will not stay here long, but must wait for the next
dala-dala
so she has a few minutes to spare.

I walk up to her.

“Sabahani,”
I say. “Excuse me, could you please tell me where to find the train station?” I'm hoping she's too busy to really pay much attention to me, and she is. As she answers she keeps scanning the street beyond me, checking for the next
dala-dala.

“It's not far,” she says. “You go past Nyamagana Stadium. At the roundabout there you can walk off Kenyatta Road onto Station Road. Then you can't miss it.”

“Asante sana, Bibi,”
I say, relieved. I remember seeing Kenyatta Road as I ran in circles earlier. I'm fairly sure I can find my way there.

“Bibi?”
she asks, laughing, turning to me. “I'm too young yet for a boy your age to be calling me
bibi
!” She has a pretty laugh, but it fades as she actually looks at me for the first time. She sees my hunched shoulders, my tightly tied pack, my face. Her smile disappears entirely, as if it had never been.

“Ahh,” she says softly. “The train station.” Her eyes are sad. “
Ndiyo,
you should go. This is not a good city for you. Go to the train station, polite boy, go and be safe.”

We hold each other's gaze for an awkward moment, and then I look down, embarrassed, and turn away.

“Asante,”
I say again, because there is nothing else I can think of to say.