Golden Boy (17 page)

“Hmm.” Davu chews on the edge of her thumb, chipping the pink paint even further. There's a faraway look in her eyes. “I guess that's all right, then. I mean, it's good for you that you found somewhere to stay. And it's good for Great-Uncle not to be alone all the time. He won't let us help him very much, and Mother's always worried about him.” She focuses on me again, her gaze sharp. “How long are you going to stay here helping him?”

“Um . . .” Again I run up against the wall of not having a plan. “I don't know. I'm happy to stay here for as long as he'll keep me. I like helping him.” I gesture toward the wall. “Also, no one can see me in here. I feel safer that way.”

This comment is getting into dangerous territory, because it's pretty close to my telling her that I'm lying to her great-uncle about what I am. I know I should push further and ask her to keep my secret, but when I try, I can't. I sit there with my mouth open a little, waiting for the words that will clearly explain what I need from her, but they never arrive.

“You really need the wall to feel safe?” Davu asks, circling back around to our earlier topic. “I don't think that people here kill albinos the way they do in Mwanza.”

“You
think,
” I say. “I'm not about to trust my life just to a thought!”

Davu nods in agreement. “I guess I can understand that,” she says. “But really, I don't think I've ever heard of that here. People killing people because they're in a gang, yes. Or because they have a feud, or were doing something illegal. But I've never heard of anyone being killed here just because of the way they look.”

This is comforting, but it doesn't change my mind about wanting to keep the way I look a secret. I try to move the conversation into safer territory.

“Anyway, I like learning carving. Kweli is letting me carve, you know.”

“Ndiyo,”
she says, smiling again. “Remember? I saw your dog.”

We both laugh.

“Me,” says Davu, “I can't stand carving. Kweli keeps trying to teach me, but I don't have the patience for it.” She wiggles her fingers in front of her. “You spend all this time on a silly piece of wood, and then something goes wrong and the whole thing is ruined. No thank you.”

“It's not always impossible to fix,” I say. “I messed up a bit with my dog and I was able to make it work out.” I see Davu's look. “Not perfectly,” I add defensively, “but better than a complete failure.”

“Hmm,” says Davu, but I don't hear any judgment in her tone. I pull the pot off the fire and pour the tea. For a while we sip in silence. Then Davu says, “You know, I'm not sure why Great-Uncle is still willing to carve wood at all.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, because of how he went blind. You know.” She gestures vaguely.

“No, I don't.” This is interesting. “He's never told me how he went blind, just that he wasn't always blind.”

Davu looks at me sideways, as if measuring my worthiness for the story. Then, apparently coming to a decision, she leans forward.

“One day, when Great-Uncle was about our age, he and his friend Kebwe were out herding the goats together and they needed switches. Great-Uncle picked one up from the side of the path, but
Kebwe
reached out to an animal fence to grab a switch.”

She pauses, her eyebrows arched high to tell me this should mean something to me. I think over what she's said and figure out what it must be.

“Was it a
manyara
fence?”

Davu nods solemnly.

I know the
manyara
bush—every country child does. The sticks are lashed together for fencing to keep out wild animals. Though the sticks don't have spines and aren't particularly strong, no animal will cross them because of how poisonous the sap is. I had been warned away from the green wood of the
manyara
fences when they were fresh many times as a child.
Your eyes are bad enough,
Mother had said.
You don't need to hurt them further.
Because the sap, the poisonous sap, blinds.

I gasp. “Did they know the sticks were
manyara
?”

“Kebwe knew what he was taking, but he didn't think that it would be a problem since they were just herding goats. But then . . .” Davu drops her voice almost to a whisper. “Then the two boys started to play swords.”

She pauses again. I have to admit, Davu is a good storyteller. Her pauses and mysterious voice make me want to hear more.

“Go on!”

“So the two boys played. Great-Uncle's stick was dry and worked better as a sword. Kebwe's was still green. To make up for this, Kebwe struck harder, trying to win.” Davu waves her hands in front of her face, showing the frenzy of the fight. “Then Kebwe's stick snapped in two”—she freezes, miming the action of a stick snapping—“and the sap sprayed all over Great-Uncle's face.”

I'm holding my breath.

“And then he rubbed his eyes.” Her voice is no longer completely caught up in the story. Now she's looking around at the simple house, the meticulously tidy yard of a blind man, and her voice is sad.

“Oh no,” I say. Even though I know how the story must end, I still want it to end differently. I hate Kebwe, hate him without even knowing him. “That's awful.”

“
Ndiyo,
it is,” says Davu. Then she looks up at me and I don't know how to read her expression. “But do you know the funny thing about all this?”

“No. What?” I feel like she's trying to have two conversations with me, one with her words and one with her eyes. But I don't know what she's saying.

“Kweli still keeps in touch with Kebwe. He's never once blamed Kebwe for making him go blind. He says it was an accident and no one should be condemned because of an accident.” She pauses, considering me solemnly. “You said you'd stay as long as Great-Uncle let you. I think, as long as you're nice, he'll let you stay as long as you want to.”

I don't know what to say. I pull my gaze away from Davu and look down. After a moment the playfulness is back in Davu's voice.

“Me, I would have beaten Kebwe up,” she says.

I have to laugh at that. “I bet, even blind, Kweli
could
have beaten him up. He's really good with that stick of his.” And this launches us into another story about Kweli and sticks, but in this one, Kweli wins.

By the time the sun has sunk to about a hand higher than the top of the wall, Davu is no longer staring at me like I'm some strange beast in a game park. I feel warm and happy about this, and it feels good to talk to someone my own age, even if that someone is a girl. I'm only hoping, as I help Davu pull out the ingredients for dinner, that the slim friendship we've developed is strong enough to survive what I'm about to ask.

“Davu . . .”

“Yes?”

I pause. I should have been rehearsing how to say this all afternoon, but instead I got distracted having fun. Now I can't put this off any longer. Just like when I stepped off the train into Dar es Salaam, I feel lost, anxious, overwhelmed. I'm kicking myself for not having thought about how to deal with this when I had the time. Nothing for it—I'll just have to make it up as I go.

“Kweli should be home soon.”

Davu looks up at the sky.
“Ndiyo,”
she says. “So? You're not going to tell me now that you really were an intruder all this time, are you?” Her voice is serious, but behind it her eyes are laughing at me. I take a deep breath.

“No . . . No, it's something else.”

She tips her head to the side. “What?”

“Well”—
here goes
—“because Kweli's blind he doesn't know I'm an albino . . . and, well, I was kind of hoping that you wouldn't tell him.”

For a moment Davu only looks at me, her face stony with disbelief. Her silence scares me. Before I know it, I'm racing on, filling the silence with too many words.

“You can't tell him, you just can't! I'm safe here. And Kweli may even be thinking about teaching me how to carve, but even if he never does, he's letting me stay here and he treats me like a normal person. But if he knew I was an albino, he'd throw me out for sure, and I don't know anyone else in the whole city, and I'd have to live on the streets. So please don't tell him. Davu?”

She's still looking at me, stunned.

“You mean you never told him?” she asks.

“No, and neither can you. Y-you don't even have to lie to him if you don't want to!” I'm starting to stammer. “Just don't go out of your way to tell him. It won't even come up in the conversation if you don't put it there. I swear, Kweli thinks I'm normal.”

“I don't think you know him as well as you think you do,” she finally says. “He probably
does
know you're different. And anyway, even if I did tell him, he wouldn't treat you any differently.”

This stupidity makes me mad, and before I can stop myself, I'm shouting at her.

“Oh, really? He would treat me just the same? Like you did when you saw me and asked
what
I was?” She looks away from my eyes when I say that, but I'm like a cart rolling down a steep hill with nothing to slow me down. “Like the kids in my village who never let me play with them? Like Alasiri and that
mganga
who decided I was a
thing
they needed to cut into pieces?” My face is hot, and I'm having trouble breathing. I hate myself, hate everyone. “My own mother has barely touched me in my entire life, and you think that this old man, this
stranger who I barely know,
is going to just say, ‘Oh, that's not a problem at all, please, come right this way, Mr. Albino, and share my house and my work'?
You're
the one who doesn't know what she's talking about!”

I turn away from her and stomp out into the courtyard. I stand there, taking big shuddering breaths until I feel calm enough to go in again and keep talking. But I don't get the chance to, because just then, I hear the protesting hinges of the front gate.

Kweli is home.

“Habo? Are you there? Come help me with this!” In comes Kweli, his walking stick in one hand and a black plastic bag in the other.

I can feel the danger of Davu looming behind me, but I move automatically to help him.

“Sawa!”
I say. “How was your day at the market?”

“About the usual,” he says, holding out the bag and turning toward the sound of my voice. “A few tourists shopping and gossip floating around like car exhaust.” He hands me the bag. “Here, look inside. I got something to go with dinner tonight.”

He sounds excited, and I peel apart the edges of the bag. There's a fish wrapped in newspaper at the bottom.

“Very nice,
Bwana,
” I say. “Very fresh.”

“I thought we'd have a coconut fish stew tonight with our
ugali
instead of just vegetables. They sold one of my statues at the shop today. Even after I took out the money to pay the bills, there was still some left over, so I decided we should have a feast.”

“One fish is not much of a feast, Great-Uncle,” says Davu by my elbow. She has snuck up on both of us. “It's lucky that you have me here to help you cook it.”

“Davu! What are you doing here?” A smile breaks out on Kweli's face and he reaches forward. Davu leans her cheek into his palm and lets his fingers play across her face. “It's wonderful to see you again! Is Chatha here, too?”

“No,” says Davu, leaning away and taking the fish from my unprotesting fingers. “Mother stayed home. She had some extra work to do, but today was a day off school, so she said I should come over and see how you were getting on.”

“Well, isn't that nice. My own niece sending someone else to do her dirty work!”

Davu laughs lightly when he says this, but I thought his tone was a little bitter.

“I assume you've met Habo?” Kweli says.

I look at Davu and our eyes catch.
Please, please, please,
I beg with my eyes. She glances away. No promises.

“Yes, I have. We spent most of the day here together. We cleaned up a bit. Really, Great-Uncle, you should keep the place more tidy!”

This, of course, is another joke, since not so much as a blade of grass dares to grow sideways in all of Kweli's compound. He laughs.

“Well then, that's settled! Come inside, you two, and let's eat! With three of us to share it, the fish will really be a feast!”

Davu takes Kweli's hand and walks in with him, chatting about people they both know but who I have never heard of. I want to run away, but I realize I have to do the opposite. If I hang back too far, then it'll be easy for the conversation to go in directions I don't want it to. Maybe if I'm there, I can steer the talk away from myself. I hurry to catch up.

Davu and I help Kweli prepare the stew, and I force myself to take part in their easy banter. I'm tense, and more than once my laugh is too loud, too grating, and there's an awkward pause afterward. But, miraculously, we get through the preparation, cooking, and eating of the fish without the color of my skin coming up once.

As we scrub out the dishes with ash afterward, Kweli finally says, “Well, Davu, it was wonderful to see you, but you should probably be getting home. Is it dark out yet?”

Davu and I look out the open door.

“
Ndiyo,
Great-Uncle.”

“Hmm. Then Habo should go with you for safety.”

“I . . . uh . . .” I interrupt, then realize I have nowhere to go with that sentence.
Come on! What would a normal boy complain about? Think!
I try again. “I don't know the way. And it's dark. What if I get lost?” My voice breaks at the end, and I hate myself for it. Kweli cocks his head toward me.

“It's not so far. Do you really think you won't be able to find your way through the city?”

“I don't know,” I mumble.

“Well, you're not used to cities, so I suppose I can understand that.” Kweli heaves himself to his feet from where he'd been sitting. “Come on, I'll go with you. That way you won't get lost, and maybe next time Davu comes to visit you'll remember the way by yourself.”

Trapped!
He's taken away my only rational reason for wanting to stay here. I can feel my terror mounting. Davu must have seen it, too, because she breaks into the conversation.

“Really, Great-Uncle, it's all right. I can find the way alone. I've done it plenty of times before. You and Habo should stay here and get some rest. It'll be late when you get home.”

I barely have time to feel a second's worth of hope.

“Don't be silly, girl!” Kweli waves a hand in her direction, dismissing her idea. “Of course we'll walk you home. Come on, get your things.”

Davu shoots me a quick look of what may have been apology, but I'm too busy panicking to notice.
What if we meet someone Kweli knows and they say something? What if Davu's mother is home and she says something? What if Kweli turns me out on the streets tonight, after it's already dark—where will I sleep? What if Alasiri's here and is waiting to kill me when Kweli throws me out?
I have no answers. In a moment the three of us are standing in front of the metal door and Kweli is turning the key in the lock to let us out. In another moment he and Davu have crossed the threshold into the darkened street beyond and are waiting for me to follow them.

My hat is completely unnecessary because of the darkness, but I pull it low over my face and tuck my hands into the ends of my long sleeves, trying to cover up as much of my white skin as possible. Then I take a deep breath and follow them into the shadowy street.

The metal door closes with a
clank!
behind me and I jump a little, even though I'm the one who closed it.

“The way to my niece's house isn't difficult, boy. Repeat after me: five blocks straight ahead, left for three, take a right, then two more streets.”

“Five blocks straight ahead, left for three, take a right, then two more streets,” I repeat dutifully, glancing up and down the street for suspicious people, poachers, or
waganga.

“Very good, let's go.” He holds out his free hand, the one that isn't holding his cane, to Davu. Davu takes Kweli's hand, and there is a brief pause where I can see her consider offering her other hand to me. I wait to see what she'll do. She doesn't. Instead, she puts it in her pocket.

I shrug as if it didn't matter to me one way or the other, but then I see that she has frozen awkwardly, emotions chasing themselves across her face too quickly for me to name them.

“Habo . . .” She trails off. Then, wordlessly, she pulls her hand out of her pocket. In it is my carving knife.

I should laugh. But there's something about knives that's really just not that funny to me right now. I look at her. She turns it in her hand and holds it out to me, hilt first.

“You should take this,” she says softly.

“What's that?” asks Kweli, confused at the delay.

“Nothing, Great-Uncle,” says Davu quickly. “I just had something that belonged to Habo in my pocket. We can go now.”

I reach out and take the knife from her. The hilt is still warm from where it has spent the day nestled against her hip, and I wrap my fingers tightly around it.
What should I do with it?
Should I put it in my belt? My pocket? I flex my healing arm, remembering when I had to run away from Alasiri. A carving knife wouldn't have made a difference to the outcome of that day, but I lie to myself that it might have. I grip the knife in a solid hold and nod to Davu. We start walking.

We make it five blocks straight ahead, left for three, a right, and two more streets without incident. Even so, by the time we get to Davu's house, my palms are slippery with sweat and I'm having trouble making my breathing sound normal.

“Here we are,” says Davu, and points a little ways down the street toward a large concrete house with a low wall surrounding the yard. There must be multiple families living in it. I notice construction materials stacked against the back wall. They must be making it bigger, too, maybe to rent out more rooms.

“Lovely,” says Kweli. “I suppose I should stop in and say hello to your mother and the boys.”

Davu looks at me, at my barely contained anxiety, and then up the street at the clearly lit windows of her house. She winces slightly as she turns to Kweli.

“I don't think they're home yet, Great-Uncle. Perhaps next time?”

I let out a shuddering breath.
Thank you,
I mouth to her. But she refuses to meet my eyes.

“All right then, give her my love,” says Kweli.

“Good night,” says Davu.

“Good night, Davu. Thank you for visiting an old man,” says Kweli.

“Good night,” I mumble, but she has already turned away. She pauses at the door, not going in until we're out of sight.

“Well, that was a nice visit,” says Kweli. He holds out his now-free hand to me, like family. I have to move the knife to my other hand and wipe the sweat off my palm in order to take it. The weight of my lie to Kweli is even heavier than my dread.

“Ndiyo,”
I echo, hollowly. “A nice visit.”

“What did you think of Davu?” he asks, his cane swishing briskly over the sidewalk, his calloused hand holding mine with a surprisingly light touch. “A nice girl, isn't she?”

For a moment I struggle to put how I feel about Davu into words. Then I give up.

“Ndiyo,”
I agree. “A nice girl.”

My days fall into a pattern. Every day Kweli attacks a new stage of the large sculpture in the backyard and I run around like an ant, doing the housework, keeping his work area tidy, and hiding from the people passing by on the road outside our wall. Every evening Kweli asks me what I've learned. And every night, just as he is going to bed, Kweli hands me a new piece of wood and a carving assignment for the next day.

The dog and cat were the easiest. Since then, Kweli has assigned me snakes, fish, people, goats, and automobiles. He has given me different knives to work with and different kinds of wood. Sometimes the wood is soft and the knife is sharp and the carving comes out as easily as scooping
ugali
off the bottom of a pan. Sometimes the knife is dull, or strangely shaped, and I have to wrestle the figure out of the block in a way that leaves my knuckle joints sore all night. Sometimes the wood is dry and filled with imperfections and I have to change my plan five or six times to account for them. Sometimes I don't finish in just one day, but those are evenings when I have many things to say I learned, and Kweli has never yelled at me for it.

Davu comes by about once a week, but she has always made sure to leave during broad daylight to prevent me having to escort her home. Other than Davu, no one else has come to the door except for people trying to beg, and I haven't opened the gate for them, pretending no one was home, so no one else has seen me. Davu has still not promised to be silent—she keeps telling me I should tell Kweli myself—but since she hasn't said anything yet to him about my odd looks, I think I'm safe for the moment.

I've managed to stay hidden better than I'd hoped: Kweli has invited me to town with him every Wednesday and Friday, but has so far not forced me to go with him when I make up excuses not to go. My excuses are terrible. I have a headache; I feel sick; I need to stay and clean up a mess I made just to have a mess to stay home and clean up. Each time I lie to Kweli, my belly twists with guilt, but I tell myself that's better than watching his face twist into hatred when he finds out I'm a lying
zeruzeru.
Each time, Kweli pauses for a moment, his head tipped toward me as if waiting for me to replace the excuse with the truth. But when I let the silence stretch, he simply nods and goes without me. He knows something isn't right, but he doesn't push me to tell him what that something is.

What he does push me to do is contact my family. But I've managed not to do that, too. It's true that I think about them and my flight from Mwanza often, but these thoughts make me feel empty and angry. I don't want to walk out into the street to find Eshe and her phone and, even if I did, I don't know what I'd say to the people who couldn't protect me. Also, I'm hoping that as long as I don't have anyone else to rely on, Kweli won't send me away. I run my fingers along the thin scar on my forearm, pressing on it. It no longer hurts when I do this, but it helps to remind me why I can't get too comfortable, feel too safe. I throw myself into the daily work and my carvings and try to pretend that I never existed before arriving at the sculptor's house.