Golden Boy (13 page)

Once during the night I wake up not because of movement, but because we're not moving. At first I think it's just another station, but there are no lights outside my window and, as the time stretches on and we're still not moving, I begin to think it might be something else.

Alasiri!
I think.
Alasiri has caught up to me and has found a way to stop the train.
My heart starts to hammer in my chest.

I look around and see that a few other people are awake around me, including the old man I spoke to earlier.

“Bwana,”
I whisper at him so as not to wake his wife. He looks up at me. “Why have we stopped?”

The old man gives a dry laugh.

“They say there is something wrong with the engine.” His voice is thin and reedy, like his body. “We will be here until the mechanic can fix it.”

Something wrong with the engine.
Visions flash through my head. Alasiri, unhooking key parts of the train and then laughing madly as the train engineers try to fix it. Alasiri, using the distraction of the engine to slowly prowl up and down the train, staring into the faces of the sleeping passengers, looking for me. I swivel in my seat and look up and down the compartment I'm in. Other than a few other passengers woken up by our unscheduled stop, no one else is moving around. I swallow against the dryness in my mouth.

“How long will it take to fix the engine?” I ask.

“Who knows, boy? Who knows.”

We lapse into silence again and the old man dozes back off, but I hunch in my seat, straining to hear the sound of a compartment door opening, frantically trying to think what I'll do if I hear it. Would the people around me protect me or hand me over? Should I hide in the train or run outside? It's black as a cave outside and I have no idea where I am, whether we're in the middle of a wilderness or near a city or town. The windows reflect my face back to me, pale and tense.

It takes hours for them to fix the engine, but I do not go back to sleep.

By the time the train finally lurches forward again, the first streaks of pink are coloring the sky outside the window and my eyes are grainy and heavy-lidded with exhaustion.

The next day seems even longer than the first, and the train ride doesn't feel like an adventure anymore. I'm uncomfortable and tired. I have no more exciting snacks. I hear the people around me complain that our delay last night is making the train run especially late this trip. It doesn't look like we will get to Dar es Salaam until tomorrow morning.

I sigh and prepare myself for another uncomfortable night.

It's only after my second sunrise breakfast on the train that my spirits begin to improve. Partly, this is because I got to eat again and I always enjoy eating, and partly it's because people start to double-check their bags and talk loudly about what their plans are once they get off the train. All of this is medicine for my bad mood because it makes me realize that I'm finally getting close to the end of my journey.

But as I listen to everyone talk about their plans in the city, I realize with a jolt that I have none. Should I try to get a job? Should I beg? Should I even stay in Dar es Salaam, or should I just keep running out into the surrounding countryside?

I have a headache from frowning while I think, but I still haven't come up with any good answers when the train begins to slow down, moving cautiously between concrete homes and warehouses.

The sun is completely up by the time we're pulling into the station. I see people, animals, and cars clogging the city streets. Children and stray dogs run alongside us for no reason other than the joy of the chase. Dar es Salaam is bigger than Mwanza, which is frightening, but it's also better than Mwanza, because here, Auntie said, they have not killed any albinos.

With a final lurch, the train pulls into the station, the doors open, and I'm out.

My feet land on the slanted concrete of the Dar es Salaam station platform, and for a moment I stand there stunned, looking around, squinting in the early morning light, letting the people from the train stream around me like a herd of goats going around a tree. It's much bigger than the other stations we've passed, complete with a high wrought iron fence to keep people from the street off the platform and an enormous corrugated tin roof to keep the sun off the people waiting for the train. It has all the size of the Kirumba fish market without the salty-sack smell.

Now what?
the voice in my head asks me.

I have no good response. When I was running from Alasiri, I had no thought beyond getting out of Mwanza. When I was hiding in the city, I had no thought beyond getting on the train. When I was on the train, I had no thought other than getting to Dar es Salaam. Now I'm here, and I seem to have no thoughts at all.

Instead of sulking and sleeping and eating chocolate, you should have worked harder at figuring out what to do when you got here!
I yell at myself. But yelling now does me no good. I'm stuck here, with not much money left, no place to go, no one I know to take me in, and a lingering worry that Auntie may be wrong and the people here will also want me dead.

This reminder makes me look quickly around at the people in the station. Is anyone taking too much of an interest in me? Not the people from the train who are streaming by. The ticket collectors? No; though their smart uniforms and guns make me nervous, they're glaring at everybody equally. The candy boys? Yes, they're staring and whispering, but kids have done that everywhere. The people leaning against the yellow wall with the timetable board, waiting for the next train? Maybe. Some of them are staring at me. Although I suppose by standing here, gawking, I'm making myself more obvious. Quickly, I start to walk along with the general flow heading into the station. This doesn't improve my mood, because the Dar es Salaam station's hallway is even darker than the Mwanza station's, and the minute I step from the open-sided platform into the long, dim exit corridor, I'm blind again.

There are few things quite so terrifying as the combination of being surrounded by strangers, not knowing where to go, and not being able to see. For a second I stay perfectly still. Then someone runs into me from behind and I have to move forward. I have no idea how to get out and I'm afraid to call attention to myself by asking for help, so I start to just put one foot in front of the other and hope my feet are taking me somewhere I want to go.

After bumping into more than a few people, bruising my shins on a low wooden railing, and stumbling over a piece of concrete flooring set higher than the others, I finally find myself out in the sunshine again. The light hurts my eyes, and the heat of the morning, held off before by the station roof, settles onto my shoulders like cinder blocks. The air here in Dar es Salaam is much hotter than in Arusha or even Mwanza, and thick with the shimmering fumes of cars. On instinct, I continue my stumbling walk forward, crossing the street and finding a sheltered doorway to stand in before I take a look around me. I shade my eyes and squint into my first view of the city.

Dar es Salaam is choking on cars and people. Taxis honk their horns, buses pull in and out of spaces that seem much too small for them, and people yell at one another to be heard above the traffic. The buildings soar: glass, bright paint, and advertisements that block out tall sections of sky. The streets smell like people cooking food that is not like the food I ate at home and echo with the sound of people speaking many languages. It is complete chaos, but it's a welcome sight. I imagine Alasiri stepping off the train, looking around for me, and not having any idea where, in all this noise and bustle, I might have gone.
Of course,
I remind myself dourly,
this is also a good place for you to disappear against your will.
My smile fades. Yes, it would be all too easy to kidnap me, right off this exact street corner, without anyone really noticing or being the wiser when I vanished.

So. Here I am. Now what do I do? The little voice in my head, so ready to chip in uselessly at all other times, is completely silent.

I suppose I could look for a guesthouse, but that would cost money, and I don't want to go throwing my money away until I find a way to make more. I could find a tree to sleep under, like we did in the Serengeti, but all the trees I see here are surrounded by concrete sidewalks. I wouldn't feel safe sleeping out in the open here in the middle of the city, but perhaps if I go outside it, just a little ways?

Without further thought, I hoist my belongings onto my head, pick a direction at random, and start walking up the busy street.

After just one
block I stop in the shade of a hospital. I pull my floppy hat out of my bag and put on an extra long-sleeved shirt, even though I don't want to. I'm hot and sticky already and it makes me stand out since everyone here seems to be in short sleeves. But I know that with the layers on I'll be able to walk through the morning without getting burnt.

If this is what the dry season is like here,
I think as I sweat,
I'd hate to see how hot the wet season is.

At noon, when the sun is at its most dangerous, I huddle on a shadowed stoop, eating the last of the dried fruit I took from Auntie's house. Funny how it looked like so much food when Kito and I were packing it, and now, just eight small meals later, it's gone.

The next time I want to eat I'll have to pay for it with money or work, which is a scary thought. I have a sudden bleak vision: No one will pay an albino to work; my stolen money dwindles away; I spend the rest of my life begging on the streets of Dar es Salaam, hungry, dirty, homeless, alone. In a way, these thoughts are almost worse than thinking of being murdered. At least if you're murdered, it's over. A street urchin can live miserably for a long time.

These thoughts aren't doing me any good. They're only making me depressed when I have to keep my wits about me.
You never know,
I remind myself.
People here may not have any problem giving you a job. Remember, they have albino MPs!
My inner urchin is not completely convinced by this little pep talk, but I pull myself onto my feet, turn my face up a new road at random, and start walking again.

Every time I start to come to a place that looks less than friendly, or I catch someone looking at me too intently, I change direction. I tell myself that it's impossible to be lost if you never knew where you were going to begin with and that it's good for me to confuse my tracks in case anyone tries to follow me, but these excuses give me very little comfort. I walk on, trying to fight the feeling that I'm wasting my time going in circles.

I'm hoping the crowds, traffic, and buildings will begin to thin out, but as the evening cools, I find that Dar es Salaam just goes on and on, no matter what direction I walk. I no longer have any sense of how far I've gone, but I see no end to the city.
No country tree for me tonight.
I'll have to start looking around for somewhere to sleep.

No dinner, either,
my stomach reminds me. My stomach hurts, but I still don't really want to go up to someone to buy food. Although I've been walking all day, I can't stop looking over my shoulder, checking for Alasiri. I still feel too close to the train station to spend time in a shop, being noticed.

I push my fists into my belly to make it quit grumbling and start looking around for places to hide. It's dusk now, a good time of day because the sun is low and can't hurt me or show me clearly to strangers, and I'm wandering up the large, open expanse of a wide avenue called Bagamoyo Road. Though the houses are getting less fancy, even the poorest of them are made of cinder blocks and have zinc roofs instead of mud.

When I see a grassy square dotted with rounded pieces of rock, I think I've found the perfect place to spend the night: There's a tall hedge between it and the road, and it will be quiet and peaceful. The gate has a sign on it. I lean in close and sound out the letters one at a time:
Orthodox Cemetery.
I'd rather not sleep surrounded by other people's dead, but I still prefer it to sleeping out in the open and maybe ending up dead myself.

I swallow my doubts and head in, looking forward to a good rest. But it's not to be. I'm just settling myself in the corner of the wall, feeling safe and out of the way, when a couple walks in through the gate. They see me and yell, “Get out of here! Have you no respect for the dead?”

I run.

After I've run a block or two, I slow to a walk and look for somewhere else. Nowhere is as good as the cemetery, but I have no choice but to keep walking, looking. Finally, when it's almost too dark to see and the people on the road are getting scarier, I hear a rhythmic rushing sound.

There, off to the side of the road, is a wide sandy expanse with a vast stretch of dark water behind it, like Lake Victoria. It's off the road and there's some cover. It will do.

I clamber down onto the beach and look until I find a large palm tree that has blown over in a storm. I scoop the sand out from under it with my hands until there is a dent the length of my body. Then I crawl in and, tucked out of sight under the trunk, I fall asleep.

The next morning I wake up to find that damp sand has slithered its way into all my clothes, my hair, and my eyes. But I've made it through my first night in the big city safely, and that alone is reason to be glad. I look over the water, tinted red by the rising sun, and wonder at it. It's like Lake Victoria—stretching away so that you can't see any land on the other side—but this water is different. It moves up and down the beach in long, rolling waves, frothing white. I lick my lips and, tasting salt, realize I must be looking at the ocean.

For a few minutes I just sit there, taking it in. And then my stomach reminds me that, although the sea is pretty to look at, it's not something that I can either eat or drink. I get up, dust the sand off as well as I can, and climb up onto the sidewalk.

By late morning I'm sick of the never-ending city. By midafternoon I have gone beyond hungry to a place I've never been before, where my body moves mechanically and my mind has switched off. Without thinking, I walk through the hottest part of the day. When the pain of my developing sunburn snaps me out of my trance, I find shade and chew on some wild plants by the side of the road. They make me a little queasy, but after the sun has slackened I have the energy to keep going.

Each time I've reached for my money to buy food in some store, fear has pushed me past it. But by my second evening with no food, I'm ready to do something drastic. I turn down a house-lined street at random and decide to find myself some food any way I can.

I walk down the side street I've chosen. It has a mixture of houses. Some are small and others are larger with wrought iron grills over the windows. They are all leaking the wonderful smells and sounds of dinners being prepared. I stand, fists shoved into pockets, and look up and down the street, considering what to do. I
might
be able to walk up to any house and ask for traditional hospitality. Then again, I'm in a major city, which means I'm more likely to be turned away as a beggar. Worse, any of these homes could belong to
waganga
or some other poacher of people. In that case, I might be fed, but it would likely be my last meal. My stomach whines as I shift from foot to foot in indecision.

No, I decide, it's better not to take the risk of approaching someone's front door. Perhaps there's somewhere I can sneak in, take some food, and leave some money in its place. That way I won't be a beggar or a thief.

I look around at the houses with new eyes. Which one will suit my needs? Not the one I'm standing in front of right now; there are about twelve children inside, hopping around as their mother prepares their meal. For a moment I feel a twinge of loss, but I fight it off and keep walking. Having been a child waiting his turn to eat, I know that enough eyes will be on that pot to make it impossible for me to get near it. I push away memories of my family sitting around the fire pit, sharing dinner, and move on. The next yard has a dog, and then two more houses have either too many people or are dark. I'm beginning to think that my idea wasn't such a good one after all, and then I find it. The perfect house.

Refusing to let a rash move get me into trouble, I hide under a tree facing the house and examine it closely. It's a house out of place on this street of open yards: a walled compound. I climb the lower branches of the tree to get a better look inside. As long as there's no one too scary there, the high cinder block wall could actually help me: No one from the road will see what I'm doing.

I squint between the branches of the tree. The moving shadows of the leaves in the breeze make it hard to see well, but since they also make
me
hard to see, I'm not complaining. The house is set forward, with a large open space behind it cluttered with objects, surrounded by a beaten dirt yard. I can't tell what the shadowy objects are from this distance, but they're not moving, so none of them are dogs or children, that much is clear. The house is a little bigger than some of the others I've passed, so I won't be taking food from a poor person. Just beyond the house I see a small cooking fire, tended by a lone old man. The breeze suddenly changes directions, and the smells of a perfect dinner wash over me: cornmeal, peppers, meat. I sniff appreciatively. Even better, the old man is inattentive. With the light of the fire shining on his face, I can see from here that he's just staring off into nothing while he waits for his dinner.

A distracted old man with a gift for cooking. Perfect. If I can sneak up on him, I can take some food and be gone before he even notices I'm there. He's so absentminded, I bet he won't even notice the missing food. I bet he'll think the money he finds was just money he dropped one day. I laugh silently to myself as I picture his baffled face. And if I don't manage to sneak up on him, I can just throw the money at him, grab the food, and take off. I'm no athlete, but I still think I can outrun a skinny old man. I smile. Yes, this is perfect.
Silence, stomach,
I command.
I'm off to get you your dinner!

My stomach, obligingly, doesn't grumble even a little as I slink across the road in the deepening dusk. A quick look tells me that I haven't been seen by any of the neighbors. Then it's up a second tree and over the wall into the yard. My feet land with the tiniest of puffs in the dirt.

I'm surprised by how easy it is for me to cross the yard. For an old man living alone, he has the area swept so neatly that the dust lies in an unbroken sheet in all directions. Not so much as a twig to crack underfoot as I sneak over to the wall of the house and crouch down in its shadow.

Wrapped again in a double darkness of night and shadow, I feel invincible. I slide one foot in front of the other along the wall, making no more noise than a snake on sand. Bending forward slightly, I peer around the corner of the house. The old man is sitting between me and the fire with his back to me. I plaster myself to the side of the house and wait for him to do something. My breathing is as soft as moth wings. I wait.

After all the days spent running, it makes me feel powerful to be on the other side of the hunt, waiting for a sign to pounce. I'm hungry, though, and every minute of waiting is almost painful. My mouth is watering at the smells, and I have to push my fists into my belly again to keep it from grumbling and giving me away. If only the old man would
move
! In the entire time I've been watching him, he has sat in the same position, staring off into nothing. I wonder if he's in some sort of a trance. This thought makes me reconsider my plan. If he's a
mganga
in a trance, he could be really dangerous. I shuffle back a few steps and look in through the window where the moon is shining on his possessions. I see nothing in there that looks at all like medicine or magic. I breathe a sigh of relief and creep to the corner and peek around again. So he's only a batty old man, lost in thought. I'll simply have to wait him out.

Just when I'm beginning to think that I'm going to die of hunger, or old age, or both, before I get any dinner, the old man finally moves. He pushes himself slowly off the ground, dusts off his hands, and turns and walks into his house. For a moment I hesitate, confused by his actions. Why would he leave his dinner out in the yard without eating it? Then I realize he must have forgotten a spoon or a bowl or something and gone to get it.

I couldn't have created a more perfect opportunity. Reaching into my shirt, I pull out enough shilling notes to cover a homemade meal and ball them in my fist. I'll drop them on his stool by the fire, and then I'll grab his pot and leave it, empty, by his door tomorrow. A slow smile creeps across my face at my own daring, and I slink forward, ready to place the bills on the stool. I reach toward the pot, eager to eat.

And that's when a long, hard stick crashes over my shoulders. I fall down from the force of the blow, crying out in pain.

Whack!
The stick whistles through the air and I pull my arms up over my head to protect it.
Whack! Whack!

“Stop!” I shout.

“Stop?” barks a strong voice. “Stop? Why should I stop beating a thief?”

Whack!

“I'm not a thief!”

“Huh. A thief and a liar!”
Whack! Whack!

“No, really, I was going to pay for the dinner! Look! Look at the money in my hand!”

There's a pause in the beating. I peek up through the tangle of my arms and see the old man looming above me, his hands holding the stick high over his shoulder, his head tilted slightly to the side.