Golden Boy (22 page)

“Then again,” I go on, “now that he knows where you live, he could come back anytime. It would be easy for him to find out you have an albino boy living with you. We haven't made any secret of that for a while.”

“Then we mustn't leave you here alone, either.”

I pause, not sure how to say what I know I have to say.

“
Bwana,
I don't think I can stay here with you very much longer. I mean . . . I want to, but I don't think I should. Especially if he has his knife.” I sigh and then finish. “If I stay here, neither of us is safe.”

“You should call your family,” Kweli growls, but without much force. I've been putting him off for so long that I don't think he really expects me to say yes anymore.

“That won't help,” I say. “Besides, why worry them? I'll call them when Alasiri isn't a danger to me anymore.”

“Let me think more about the problem.” Kweli sighs. “There must be some way we can keep you safe.”

I doubt I'll ever be safe. But it makes me feel warm inside that, even when given the best reasons in the world, Kweli has not chosen to send me away.

“Perhaps,
Bwana,
” I say. “Perhaps.”

For the rest of the day, every time I hear the slightest noise from the street, I feel all the old fear wash up inside me like an electric tide, but this time I refuse to let it close over me.
You need to stop this,
I tell myself sternly, and I force myself to practice being calm, even as I count the things around me that could be used as weapons if I have to fight for my life.

The
ugali
pan is heavy and hot.

A statue could be thrown or used as a club.

The lit firewood could burn and bruise.

The day passes slowly, since Kweli is too tired to work. He sits at his workbench quietly, working on a small project. He finished “Justice” weeks ago, and it was instantly bought by a judge for his office. However, now he's not working on the next big statue he started, “Resentment.” I'm slightly curious to know what it is he's working on, but I don't go over to see.

Since Kweli doesn't have any chores for me, I make good progress on my statue. The wood is hard, but I don't take any shortcuts to make it easier to carve. Instead, I use all the nervous energy I'm feeling and go about carving it the slow way, waiting to make sure that Kweli is completely better before I discuss my crazy idea with him.

I struggle with my carving, using the muscles in my arms and shoulders to pull off the extra wood. The shape of a young woman lifts up out of the branch. My knuckles ache as I force detail into the hard wood. She balances a tall jug of water on her head. The material of her
khanga
curves, showing she's walking. I rub my eyes. They have to be clear for me to finish her. She turns around slightly as she walks, reaching one arm behind her, as if she's waiting for a small boy to catch up.

As evening falls, I finish my statue. Asu smiles back up at me from my hands.

I look up and see that Kweli is putting a pot of water on the fire for
ugali
and realize that he must be done, too. I walk over to the fire to help him prepare the dinner.

“Oh, hello, Habo,” says Kweli. “How was your day?”

I'm proud of how my statue turned out, because the wood was so difficult to work with, but I don't want it to seem like I'm bragging, so I just say, “I worked on a statue all day,
Bwana,
like you did. It's done now.”

“Ahhh,” says Kweli, nodding in understanding. “Yes, it can sometimes be like that. The whole world fades away and there is nothing but you and the dream you're putting into the wood.”

I smile. That's a nice way to put it.

“Ndiyo.”
I stir the cornmeal, slapping it against the sides of the pot, waiting for the
ugali
to get to the right consistency. “It was like that.”

Kweli sniffs the air appreciatively. “It smells like the
ugali
is done, too.”

For a few minutes the final clatter of getting the bowls and serving out the stiff cooked cornmeal wedges and vegetables is enough to claim our attention. But once we've settled down with our bowls, Kweli asks to feel the statue I've carved. I get up and fetch it for him.

“Go ahead and eat,” he says, and takes it from me.

As Kweli runs his fingers over my statue, seeing it, I pinch off pieces of the cornmeal and chew them slowly, giving him time to think.

Finally Kweli looks up and asks, “What have you carved?”

I know better than to say it's my sister. That would've been my answer when I was only a boy carving things in easy wood. But Kweli has given me ebony to work with, and he said that I had the heart of a sculptor.

“It's ‘Love,'
Bwana.
”

“It's very simple.”

I am not sure if that's an insult or a compliment, so I just explain the best I can.

“When you're small, small things are big. Asu always showed me that I mattered to her as much as the rest of my family. Waiting for me to catch up when she walked to and from the river told me that I was just as good as my other brothers.” I shrug even though he can't see me. “She always loved me.”

“It's quite good,” he says, handing her back to me. “The next time I go to the market, I'll see if I can sell it.” I snap my head up and look at him. Kweli has never offered to sell one of my pieces before. A deep feeling of pride swells inside my chest. And yet, for some reason, I hesitate to say yes. I run my hand over Asu's carved face.

Into the silence, Kweli adds, “Even sculptors have to eat, Habo,” and I know he's right.

“Ndiyo. Asante sana
for being willing to sell my work with yours.”

“Karibu.”

We sit there in silence for a few moments while I mull over Kweli's offer, wondering, if I was somehow able to stay here, whether he might be willing to let me become his official apprentice, when Kweli clears his throat. I glance up and study his face. He seems embarrassed! I've never seen Kweli look anything but confident, sometimes even bossy.

“Yes,
Bwana
?” I manage, trying not to laugh.

“Hrm. Yes, well, I have a carving to show you, too.”

Now it's my turn to be surprised. I squint across the darkening yard. “Resentment” still hulks, unfinished, in the far darkness. This must be one of Kweli's little statues, maybe the one I saw him working on today.

“Sawa,”
I say.

“Here.” Kweli thrusts something toward me. I reach out reflexively and take it, feeling the weight of it before I can see its shape. It's the head and shoulders of a person, slightly longer than my hand, and I turn and hold it up to the fire to get a better look. For a moment, I don't realize what I'm seeing. And then I do.

When I was eight years old, I climbed the wild mango tree at the edge of the school yard. When I was more than twice my height off the ground, I fell and landed on my back. For a moment that seemed like forever I lay there, stunned, without the ability to pull air into my lungs. That feeling is the closest thing I've felt to how I feel now, looking at Kweli's statue.

Because his statue is me.

My eyes look out from either side of my nose; my mouth is open like I'm about to say something. My left ear is just a little lower than my right. It's the face that has stared at me from every puddle, car bumper, and windowpane my entire life.

But I am black.

Carved into
mpingo,
I can see the way I would look if I wasn't an albino. I've grown so used to the deep luster of Kweli's Makonde carvings that I had stopped noticing it as a color. But now I see. Put into blackwood, I'm like any other African boy. Holding my head in my hands, I understand that this is why Kweli had trouble understanding what I meant when I said I was an albino. Because, in his mind, this is what I look like.

I look at Kweli, who is still sitting on his stool stiffly, like he doesn't know what to do with his arms or knees.

“Asante,”
I whisper.

Kweli nods, not saying anything, and then gets up to put the dishes away.

I turn the statue over in my hands again. The boy stares back at me. There is nothing wrong with him. There is no reason he should have to hide, no reason he should be forced from his home.

I don't want to die. I won't be afraid anymore. I refuse to run.

I make my decision. Tomorrow morning, at first light, I'm going to go into the city and tell my story to the police and get Alasiri thrown into jail forever.

I get up and follow Kweli inside to tell him what I've decided to do.

I go to bed
convinced my decision is a good one. However, the longer I'm awake this morning, the more I question it. Who am I to walk up to a magistrate or a policeman? Will they even believe me? Or, like the police in Mwanza that did nothing about Charlie Ngeleja's murder, even if they do believe me, will they care?

I chew the inside of my cheek as I work. By the time we're heading out the door, I can taste blood.

“Ready?” asks Kweli. He had been delighted last night when I shared my plan with him.
Your safety is the most important thing,
he had said, over and over. He had even seemed slightly annoyed that he hadn't thought of it first, certain that the police could help us. That they would be willing to help us.

I'm not. The idea of going to the police terrifies me. The idea of meeting Alasiri again terrifies me. But the idea of losing Kweli, losing myself, terrifies me more than both of them combined.

“Ndiyo,”
I say. “Let's go.”

We walk down the street to the
dala-dala
stand, just like we've done many times before, but somehow now it feels different. It's not just knowing that I'm again going toward Alasiri in order to try to get away from him. It's also because I've seen the way Kweli sees me, and I can't quite shake that image. Could I learn to see myself that way, too?

We get onto the
dala-dala
going into the center of town.

“Where should we go?” I ask.

“We should go to the central police station,” Kweli answers. “I've never been there myself, but I think that will be the right place to go.”

“Why not our local station?”

“Well, this is a big problem. I think we should go to the biggest police station, don't you?”

“I suppose,” I say, feeling small.

I sit quietly beside him, watching the high walls and tall buildings whisk by my window. Soon the traffic is so bad, we're at a standstill.

“
Traffic is always bad in Dar es Salaam,”
Kweli tells me. I mumble agreement and keep staring out the window.

I'm unsure if going to the central police station is the best idea, but I resolve not to back down. This is finally my chance to tell the truth and have it matter.

A while later, the
dala-dala
driver tells us we've arrived at Sokoine Drive. We get down carefully.

“Well, Habo?” asks Kweli. “Do you see the police station?”

I look up and down the road. This place feels familiar to me, and for a moment I can't place why. Then I see the looming hulk of the train station and I remember. This is where I began my journey in Dar es Salaam. I take a deep breath.

“I'm not sure,
Bwana.
Let's walk down the road a little and see if we can find it. The
dala-dala
driver said this was the right place.”

“Sawa,”
says Kweli, and puts his hand on my shoulder. I know it's only because we're in an unfamiliar place that he needs the extra guidance, but having Kweli need me makes me braver.

“Let's start this way.” I pick a direction at random and head down the street to our left. Within half a block, we've found it. The tall white building is labeled in big letters even I can see, and there are policemen standing around outside. There's no way to be confused about what it is. My palms begin to sweat.

You can do this,
I tell myself.

“
Bwana,
I think I've found it.”

“Excellent!” Kweli has none of my misgivings. “Let's go in and see who we can talk to about your story.”

I take a deep breath and lead Kweli toward the big painted doors. Walking through them, we step together into a shadowy, tiled entryway. There's a man in a khaki uniform sitting at a table to one side. He doesn't look up when we enter.

“Well?” prompts Kweli when I pause inside the door.

“There is a policeman at a table,” I tell him. My voice carries in the open space. I shuffle forward, Kweli still attached to my shoulder.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes?” The man sounds annoyed.

“I . . . I . . .”
Get a hold of yourself! Do it!
“I have some information about a criminal who's in the city right now,” I say.

The man gives me a long, cold stare and then runs his eyes over Kweli, too, taking in everything about us. Our inexpensive clothes. My white skin. Kweli's cane and unfocused eyes.

“What kind of information?” he asks.

“I—”

“We would really be more comfortable giving the information to a detective or a supervisor,” Kweli cuts in smoothly over me. “I don't want to talk about what we know in an entryway.”

The man glares at Kweli, but after a brief hesitation gets up from the table.

“One moment,” he says. I wait with Kweli, shuffling from one foot to the other, feeling braver by the minute. We haven't been thrown out on the street yet. A few minutes later, he comes back and says, “Follow me.”

The policeman leads us down a passageway with many doors in it. He stops at one about halfway down and opens it for us. There isn't much in the room. A fat, cranky-looking man sits behind a scarred metal desk with a computer and a small lamp on it. A bookshelf and a single chair are the only other furniture. Everywhere there are piles of paper. I think it's to make the man look busy rather than because he's actually busy. The top papers on the pile by the window are yellow and curling up at the edges from being in the sun so long.

“Here they are,” our policeman says to the man sitting behind the desk, then turns and walks away. He doesn't introduce the man, and I'm left wondering who it is we've just been led in to see. He must be a detective or a supervisor, though. His shoulder has three eight-pointed silver stars pinned on the khaki fabric. The policeman in the front hall only had one star.

“Well?” bellows the man. The buttons of his shirt strain across his belly when he talks. “Don't just stand there! Come in, sit down, and say what it is you have to say.”

At his brash manner all my confidence vanishes. I remember how no one cared about Charlie's murder and wonder why I thought it would make a difference for me to come here. I swallow and lead Kweli to the one chair in the room. I stand in front of the big man's desk, wiping my sweaty palms on the sides of my pants. There's a ripped map of the city on the wall by the window. I tell myself that the pinholes in it are all crimes this man has solved to give myself the courage to start talking.

“My name is Habo,” I say. I flick a glance up at the man, whose eyes keep floating over to his computer screen as he listens. I talk a little bit louder. “I would like to report a criminal who is in the city right now. His name is Alasiri. He tried to kill me when we lived in Mwanza.”

The man starts typing something on his computer. He talks to me sideways, over his shoulder.

“That's not my jurisdiction. That has to do with the police in Mwanza.”

“But . . .” I say, trailing off. Auntie said the police in Mwanza wouldn't do anything. I'm beginning to wonder whether this is true of all the police everywhere. Thankfully, Kweli comes to my rescue again.

“This man is not in Mwanza now,” Kweli says calmly. “He is here, in your jurisdiction. He was at my house yesterday.”

The man holds up a finger—
wait
—and keeps typing.

“One moment,” he mumbles.

For a few minutes, Kweli and I can do nothing but wait for the man to finish typing. In a way, I'm glad. It gives me a chance to think about what I can say to get this policeman to help us.

Yes, the crime I'm reporting happened in Mwanza, but I need to get rid of Alasiri
here.
I rack my brain, thinking of what I can say that will get him put in jail. Then it comes to me: Alasiri is also doing illegal things here in the city. I clear my throat. The man behind the desk looks up at me, annoyed. I don't wait for him to say anything, though, I just plunge forward.

“Alasiri is also doing illegal things here in Dar es Salaam. I met him when my family was crossing the Serengeti. I saw him take ivory tusks from an elephant there and then drive them to Mwanza province to sell. Yesterday he tried to get Kweli”—I wave a hand in his direction—“to carve tusks that he has brought into the city and plans to sell to China.”

I finally have the man's attention. He takes out a notepad and starts scribbling furiously.

“That,” he says, his shoulders rounding as he hunches over his desk, “is very interesting. Was he working alone when he went poaching in the national park?”

“No, there were three other men with him, but I didn't get their names.”

The man reaches into his desk drawer and takes out a sheaf of pictures. He pushes a handful across the desk to me.

“Were they any of these men?”

I have to hold the pictures up very close to my face in order to be sure. The big man curls his lip disgustedly when he sees this, but he doesn't say anything. I glance over at Kweli, remembering the statue he made for me last night.
You have no reason to be ashamed,
I remind myself.
Just do what you came here for.

I page through the photos slowly. Finally I pull a picture of a short man with a narrow, unpleasant face from the stack, put it on top, and hand all the pictures back to the policeman. I point.

“This one might have been there, but I'm not sure.”

The policeman scribbles down more information, copying the number printed on the bottom of the picture into his notebook. He's taking me very seriously now, and I feel my confidence pick up. After a moment he says, “Is there anything else?”

“Ndiyo.”
I swallow, determined to make it clear to him that Alasiri has done something far worse than kill elephants. “When I was living in Mwanza, Alasiri was contacted by a
mganga
who wanted to buy albino body parts. He came after me, broke into my auntie's home, and tried to kill me with a knife. I ran away, but he chased me . . .” I trail off because the man is no longer writing.

His eyes flicker to the corner of his desk. I see a small bundle sitting on the base of the desk lamp. It's wrapped in a piece of animal skin and tied with strips of red thread. I can't tell from here what animal the skin came from, but it's definitely a pouch of luck medicine. Seeing that my gaze has followed his, the policeman closes his meaty fist over the little pouch and pulls it into a desk drawer, out of sight.

My hands have started to sweat again. I look at the man, doing the best I can to focus on him as my eyes shake. He meets my eyes for a moment, then looks away.
He's ashamed,
I think. But knowing this doesn't make things better. I understand now why Auntie didn't think the police would do anything: If even the police believe in the magic of the
waganga,
or are afraid of it, then of course they won't do anything. This big man in front of me, this policeman who could do so much good, is afraid of the
waganga
just like I am.

I sigh.

He caps his pen. “Do you have anything else to say about the ivory?” he asks.

“No,” I say.

The man turns to Kweli. “And you,
Bwana
? Will you make a statement about this man Alasiri and what he asked you to do?”

“Of course,” says Kweli.

As Kweli describes his visit with Alasiri, I sink into myself, trying not to let my frustration pull me away from my main problem. Yes, this man cares more about ivory than my attempted murder, but if I want to keep my life as a carver here with Kweli, I need to find a way to get Alasiri thrown in prison. I decide not to leave until this sweaty, paunchy man assures me that this will happen.

“Habo?” Kweli's soft voice breaks into my thoughts.

“Yes,
Bwana
? I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention.”

“Habo, this man has asked me to describe Alasiri for the report. Could you do it?”

Now it makes sense to me why Alasiri went to so much trouble to try to convince Kweli to carve for him. A blind man could never betray him to the police. Using a fake name, he must have felt doubly safe coming to Kweli and laying out his whole plan. After all, what description of him could Kweli give? The sound of his voice?

I turn back to the policeman.

“
Ndiyo,
I can describe him for your report. Alasiri is tall; a little bit handsome. He has medium-dark skin and a long face, with clear brown eyes set wide apart. Yesterday when we saw him he had short hair, no beard, and was wearing a new dress shirt and a fancy gold watch.”

The man writes all this down.

“Thank you for your report, both of you. I will pass this description along to the police in Mikocheni, where you said he was staying, and the surrounding areas, and we'll see if we can catch him.”

“And when you do catch him, what will happen then?” Kweli asks.

“Well.” The man leans forward in his chair and scratches one ear. “We would bring him in, of course, and try to put him on trial, but—”

“But what?” I interrupt.

“Well, the testimony of a thirteen-year-old boy and a blind man . . . my apologies, but it might not be enough to convict him if he can afford a good lawyer.”

I'm not happy with this. I know that Alasiri has come into money from the clothes he was wearing. I can't have him know that Kweli and I turned him in and not go to jail. It would be like inviting him to our house to attack us.

An idea occurs to me.

For a moment, I hesitate, frightened by the perfect craziness of what I'm about to suggest. Then I think about my carvings, about the bust that Kweli carved of me, about Davu, my first real friend, about the artisans in the market who have quietly accepted me as one of their own, and I take a deep breath.

“What kind of evidence would you need to guarantee a conviction?” Kweli is asking.