Dust
Authors: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Tags: #Fiction, #Sagas, #Cultural Heritage, #Literary
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2014 by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House Companies.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Paulines Publications Africa for permission to reprint an excerpt from “A Song of the Lion” from
The Gabra: Camel Nomads of Northern Kenya
by Paul Tablino (Nairobi: Paulines Publications, 1999). Reprinted by permission of Paulines Publications Africa.
Portions of this work previously appeared, in significantly different form, in the
Literary Review
(Winter 2009); in
Internazionale Magazine
(December 2010); and in
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern
(April 2011).
Owuor, Yvonne Adhiambo.
Dust / Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-307-96120-4
eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-96121-1
1. Kenya—Fiction. 2. Kenya—Social life and customs—Fiction. 3. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PR9381.9.098D87 2014
823′.92—dc23 2013027871
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Jacket design by Linda Huang
v3.1
First, this book is dedicated to you
,
La Caridad
.
Beautiful, beautiful, beloved Tom Diju Owuor
(Couldn’t you tarry
,
Just a little bit, Daddy?)
1936–2012
My dazzling, adored, life-hope-beauty-breathing mama
,
Mary Sero Owuor
For you my cherished siblings
,
Vivian Awiti, Caroline Alango, Genevieve Audi
,
Joanne Achieng, Alison Ojany, Chris Ganda, and Patrick Laja;
Joseph Alaro, François Delaroque, Rob de Vries
,
and John Primrose. The next generation angels
,
Karla, Angelina, Taya, Nyla
.
For those gone ahead, for the ones still to come
.
Thank you
“You will hear the voice of my memories
stronger than the voice of my death—that is, if death ever had a voice.”
—JUAN RULFO,
Pedro Páramo
Follow my tracks in the sand that lead
Beyond thought and space
.
—HAFEZ
Chon gi lala …
—LUO STORY BEGINNINGS
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
PROLOGUE
HE LEAPS OVER TWO FIRE-PAINTED BLOSSOMS RESTING ON THE
stark cracked city pavement. Roused, these unfurl into late-Christmas-season orange-and-black butterflies that flutter into the violet shade of a smog-encrusted roadside jacaranda tree. A thrum becomes a hum becomes thumping footsteps, and soon he is entangled in a thicket of jeers and tossed gray, black, and brown stones as he flees toward a still-distant night. It is said that in combat some soldiers shoot over their enemies’ heads in order to avoid killing them. Some don’t even fire at all. Moses Ebewesit Odidi Oganda’s fingers tremble on the trigger of an old, shiny AK-47. He hurls the gun away with an
“Urgh!”
The weapon spills across the road—a low-pitched, guttural noise.
From behind Odidi, a wail,
“Odi, man! Cover!”
Other chords of voices echo:
Hao!
There they are.
Waue!
Kill them.
Wezi!
Thieves.
Odidi runs.
Three weeks ago the rifle was in the hands of a minor Somali warlord turned Eastleigh-based vendor of off-season Turkish designer women’s wear. The ex-warlord had given Odidi the weapon as compensation for camel water songs, which Odidi had sung inside the trader’s shop
while he was picking up lacy feminine things for Justina, his girl. Odidi’s music caused wistful chirping sounds to come out of the refugee—lamentations for lost, happy pastoral yesterdays.
The taciturn man had approached Odidi. “You sing as if you know water,” he had said.
“I do,” Odidi answered.
“These were
our
old songs.… How did they find you?”
“A visiting man.”
“He has a name?”
Odidi paused.
That
name came with a torrent of buried history. A curt reply: “Ali Dida Hada.”
“Degodia,” concluded the warlord, naming a clan.
“No. No.” Odidi frowned at yellow, pink, black, and red panties and brassieres, his mind struggling. Then he said, “No! A stranger of too many lands.”
And faces
.
The trader leaned forward. “You know the song of Kormamaddo, the sky camel?”
Odidi had winked before whistling an overture. The man had pounced on nostalgia’s lyrics and belted them out. They had then ventured into and mangled other water songs.
“Desert ghost of yesteryear/Dredge the dunes/Draw sweet truth out.”
An hour later, as Odidi was paying half-price for Justina’s fripperies, the ex-warlord had muttered, “Wait.” He leaned down, hefted up a canvas-and-newspaper-wrapped, hard, four-part object and closed Odidi’s hand over it. “From my heart. Open it alone. God shield your songs and your wife.” He dabbed tears off his face, partly of relief because he had also offloaded a problem.
Now.
“Waue!”
The pursuing Nairobi mob howls.
Odidi runs.
Not feeling the ground. Soaring.
Swish, zip, pop, rattle
.
Bullets.
Grunt,
thud
. A man falls.
Ratatatata …
Screams.
Odidi runs.
Tears flood. Terror-rage-love fuse.
The fallen ones are his men.
Guilt. Fury. Sorrow.
“Urgh!”
The sound a captain makes when he falters and loses the team. Still, Odidi does not go for the pistol strapped to his chest. Odidi runs. Strength in his arms, his legs pistons, he sprints down Haile Selassie Avenue, jumps over prone, cowering citizens, pities them, the bullets aimed at him raining down upon them. He runs through the stench of decay, the perfume of earth hoping for rain, habits and dreams of Nairobi’s people: smoke, rot, trade, worry, residues of laughter, and overbrewed Ketepa tea. Odidi runs.
Incantation:
Justina! Justina!
Shelter of faith.
The mob screams,
“Hawa!”
Justina!
Faith into sorrow into longing:
I need to go home
.
“Waue!”
The answer.
Memory’s tricks. Odidi soars into the desiccated terrains of Wuoth Ogik, the home he had abandoned: his people reaching out for him, cowbells, bleating goats, sheep, and far mountains. He sees Kormamaddo, the grumpy family camel, dashing home from pasture. The sky of home, that endless dome. Flood tide in his blood.
I want to go home
. Odidi lifts his feet higher, trying to fly. Odidi runs.