Dust (31 page)

“Good afternoon. If you could help me, please … I’m here to see Mr. Ali Dida Hada.” Wet palms, dry mouth. Clipped tones concealing the routine dread he felt whenever he met bureaucracy.

“ACP Ali Dida Hada,” the doodler corrects; he is sketching faces and geometric patterns, coloring them in.

“Yes.”

“No, his title is Assistant Commissioner of Police Ali Dida Hada. A very important man.”

Isaiah waits.

“You are who?” the scribbler asks. Not once has he looked at Isaiah.

“Isaiah William Bolton … from England.”

“Identification?”

Isaiah pulls out his passport.

The other policeman, who has been staring at him, reaches out and grasps it as if it is a dead rat. It dangles as he turns the pages.

“Bolton. Isaiah. Like the Prophet. What do you want?” he asks. Delicately handing over the document. “Why do you want ACP? He’s a busy man.”

“He knows about my missing father.”

“You filed a missing-persons report?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Uh … two years ago.”

“Reference number?”

Isaiah improvises. “Mr. Ali Dida Hada worked on the case.” Head throbbing, he wipes his hands on his jeans.

“ACP, ACP.” A patient correction. “Who’s your father?”

“Hugh Bolton.”

“Last seen?”

“Don’t know.” He lowers his head.

“Where?”

“Northern Kenya?”

“And Afande Dada?”

“Has been looking for him.”

“So he knows your father?”

And so it continues. Isaiah wonders if he should have called the British High Commission first. An hour and a half later, his mind numb and ringing, he is led to another office, and then two more, until, at last, he is clinging to the back of a chair in a semi-divided, airy, larger rectangular room packed with files, where two men are waiting for him from behind a lopsided circular table.

The older of the pair clears his throat. He is dark, almost dark violet, bespectacled, large-eyed, with a head too big for his tall body, and wrinkle lines on his forehead. He is full-lipped and droll-voiced.

Petrus Keah says, “Sit.”

Isaiah sits; his eyes move from one to the other. The other man is younger, shorter, with light-brown skin, gray-sprinkled short hair, trim sideburns, two scars on one side of his face, and a thin mustache; he moves with spare gestures. His pale-brown eyes study Isaiah.

A sense of guilt seeps into Isaiah as he sweats under the man’s scrutiny.

He escapes by staring at the older man.

“Are you Al Qaeda?” purrs Petrus Keah, adjusting his spectacles.

Isaiah goes mute. Sweat glistens on his forehead. Finally, he snaps, “I’m English.”

“A false premise upon which to claim innocence. There
are
many English Al Qaeda.”

“I look nothing like them,” Isaiah huffs.

Petrus leans over the table. “Ali, my brother, does this man even look English to you?”

Isaiah glimpses the small up-and-down movement on the bespectacled man’s lips, a glint in his eyes. He is being toyed with. He leans back.

Petrus cackles, “Funny, man.”

Ha-ha
. Isaiah scowls.

“What do you want?” Ali Dida Hada’s voice is inflectionless. He had buried his slow panic at this resurrection of his futile forty-year chase. When junior officers had called to tell him that a man named Isaiah Bolton had come to see him, he had ground his teeth and prepared to escape from the office when Petrus Keah burst in, lugging old files and, anticipating his intent, said, “Were you leaving?” The challenge overt.

Ali Dida Hada had sunk into his chair as Petrus settled next to him. They had watched the files on the table while an iciness grew between them as they waited for Isaiah Bolton to walk in.

Isaiah is saying, “My father, Hugh Bolton, vanished perhaps forty years ago. I understand you’ve pursued the matter for a while. He paused. “Just come from Wot Ogyek.” Isaiah frowns. “There’s evidence he
was
there.”

Ali Dida Hada’s chair creaks.

Isaiah continues, “His books, art, the house itself—his signature. He was there.” Isaiah pulls out the draft house sketches from inside his coat. He unfolds and spreads the paper out on the table. He points: “My father’s work.”

In that second, Ali Dida Hada could have slapped his own face. Patterns and clues scattered in plain sight. So obvious he had missed them.
The books!
He had touched them. He could have asked a simple question—
Akai, how did you come to be in this house?
But there were houses like this everywhere. Homes taken from colonial-era owners. After the new owners moved in, old, misunderstood household goods—books, artwork, and cutlery—were left untouched to gather dust or quietly decompose with everything else. Nobody asked why or how. Ali Dida Hada scowls.

Petrus observes Ali Dida Hada’s fingers make erasing movements on the desk.

Ali Dida Hada, aware of Petrus’s stare, says, “Tea?” Ali Dida Hada pushes back from the table.

A gleam in Petrus’s eyes. Enigmas enthrall him.

He beams at Isaiah as Ali Dida Hada closes the door. “Isaiah Bolton, what can we do for you? We know a little bit about this case.”

Isaiah’s hands come together to shield his face. A release of dread knots in his stomach.

Petrus says, “Long time ago, we sent a man to look for your father.”

“Yes?”

“Following a phoned-in request from an interested anonymous person.”

“Yes?”

“We closed the case over two years ago.”

“Why?”

“The party concerned did not renew their interest.” The eight hundred pounds that were keeping the file warm had been cut off.

“Who?” Isaiah wonders.
Selene?
But wouldn’t she have known where to look at once? Isaiah murmurs, “All these years of searching—nothing?”

Petrus purses his lips. “Little.”

“Reports?”

“Annual updates.”

“Can I see them?”

“Property of state and client.”

Isaiah lowers his head. Who else would have been interested in finding Hugh?

There is a tingle in Petrus’s belly as he watches Isaiah—anticipation. He looks in the direction of Ali Dida Hada’s exit. Turning to Isaiah, he asks, “How can we help you?”

Isaiah leans over. “Someone knows something.”

“Names?”

“Old man Oganda … the daughter, Arabel …” He unfolds the newspaper cutting and points at Odidi’s picture in the obituary pages. “Moses invited me here. He said I’d find what I sought here. We were supposed to meet.”

“Ah!”

“I’ll pay.”

A sniff. “A bribe?”

“No.”

“What, then?” Petrus asks.

“Whatever it takes to dig out the truth.”

“Truth has a price.”

“I know.”

Petrus watches Isaiah. Truth, truth, everyone wants truth. Few want to look at it. He lifts his hand to the back of his neck, propping up his head. “Where’s Ali’s tea?”

From the corridor, the sound of utensils clattering on metal. A large woman in a polka-dot apron pushes open the door, wielding a large tray.

Petrus says, “Tea! But no Ali.” Petrus contrives a sigh. “He was chief investigating officer on your father’s case.”

“Yes?”

“Your presence has made him … er … emotional. Tea?”

“Wouldn’t mind. Black, a teaspoon of sugar.”

Rooftop view of the green city in the sun. Fewer trees every day. Dust devils on the plain, depleted animal species, their northern migration corridor being turned into a dense human settlement. Unspoken fears dart down too many alleyways and burp through the horns of far too many frustrated drivers. The post-election mood is unsettled. Accusations lurk, and there are any number of claimants who seek to be more sinned against than sinning. A mess.

Ali Dida Hada clenches and unclenches his fist. He taps his head with a knuckle. He is as tense as lightning-struck red cedar, struggling with syllables of thought. He had pursued the puzzle of Hugh Bolton for years, and as long as the money came from their anonymous client in England, the sums adjusted to inflation costs, he had been kept on the job. He had searched, but then he himself had got lost in the riddle. The best puzzle breaker of his graduating class. Then one mystery had taken hold of his will and talents. And in the end, he had lost a wife, a life, a plan, and he had not solved his only case.

After his stint in the northern lands, he was recalled to Nairobi to become a nonpracticing cryptanalyst with a high rank—assistant commissioner of police—exiled at a desk job with no defined duties. A grim smile. His achievements to date? Desert eulogist, with knowledge of water songs in seven northern-Kenyan languages, has-been chief of a thatch-roofed police post of three men at its peak. An unsolved case. A woman who owns his dreams, and a country he needs is disintegrating on him. He hunches over unbidden memories.

Wuoth Ogik, that desert house. He had examined it. Had wondered about it; its smallest details still materialized for him: soft pink of coral
stone—where was that from, and how did it get here? Blue patterns on intricate tiles around a dead fountain. What did they suggest? Who chose them? The house’s name: Wuoth Ogik. Why? The inhabitants.

One in particular.

She had demanded, “Herdsman, a poem.” Years later, he had asked Akai Lokorijom, “Hugh Bolton?” She answered, “Just a name.” “You never heard of Hugh Bolton?” he persisted. “I hear so many names.” She sighed. “People are looking for him.” She turned to him. “Why should it bother me?” Ali Dida Hada did not have an answer then.

Akai had disheveled his thoughts. She had mixed up his questions until driven by a yearning he had yet to name, in spite of Nyipir’s presence, Ali Dida Hada reached for Akai: “Moon flowers—yellow, on the mountain in Ileret.”

“So?” Akai lowered her gaze as she scratched her arms.

“I need to take you to see them.”

The moon was nearer to Wuoth Ogik than Ileret would ever be. Akai gave Ali Dida Hada a sideways look. Then she moved so that their bodies connected. He could breathe her, bite her skin.

“You?” she whispered.

“Who else?”

“Now?”

“It’s time.”

“What kind of moon lights up those flowers?”

Ali Dida Hada had bent his head till it barely touched Akai’s.

“The oldest one. It knows secrets of night.”

“I need a forgetting moon,” she whispered. “That’s the one I want.”

“I’ll find it,” he vowed.

But then she had turned from him, an abrupt move. Walked through Wuoth Ogik’s courtyard. Left him standing, aching, wanting. No goodbye. Doors and case closed.

During his training as a cryptanalyst, one of Ali Dida Hada’s instructors had warned the class about the temptations of fixation—how seeking answers to a puzzle in a quest could turn into an obsession that colored reason, confused questions, and confounded minds. Ali Dida Hada had laughed with the rest of the class.

Case closed.

On his Nairobi city rooftop, the sun sends light through wispy, polluted clouds.

Footsteps on narrow metal stairs. Ali Dida Hada turns. The door swings open with a creak.

Petrus. Isaiah at his heels.

Petrus booms, “Ali! Brother!” Ali Dida Hada winces. “Mr. Isaiah William
Bolton
wanted to meet you
and
our dear Arabel Ajany Oganda. He is moved by your attempts to find his father. Oh, look! A premature moon. It will be a cold night. Maybe rain.”

Isaiah looks up. Petrus and Ali Dida Hada glower at each other.

Isaiah says, “I’d like to reopen the case.”

Ali Dida Hada glances skyward. “I’m finished with it.”

Isaiah pulls out a sliver of canvas from his coat pocket.

Ali Dida Hada stiffens, vowing that if Isaiah offers money he will arrest him for a bribery attempt. Isaiah proffers the canvas: “Would this help? My father’s work. The woman?”

Ali Dida Hada takes the bookmark with two fingers, tilts it into the light. It takes him a minute to understand that he is seeing a pregnant, nude, wide-eyed Akai Lokorijom.

His mind goes blank.

A thick fog shifts.

Right there, he understands the nature of his own lunacy, why it will never leave him.

Just a name
, she had said.

He had believed her.

Petrus observes Ali Dida Hada. He knows Ali Dida Hada is unaware that tears are sliding down his face.

Within Ali Dida Hada a familiar sense of homelessness. Ceaseless unbelonging. In the 1960s, he had turned himself into a Kenyan, erasing a young man’s life forged in the Horn of Africa’s liberation wars. Being neither pro-nor anti-communist, he had walked away mid-battle from Eritrea through Ethiopia and into Kenya. Tucking himself at the end of livestock trains, he had watered and watched strangers’ camels and cows in exchange for water, meat, and, sometimes, shelter. He changed his name, he mimicked other people’s deeds, cadences, histories, and movement, until he was Ali Dida Hada. Almost a year later, he
had stumbled upon a Kenyan police-recruitment exercise. He was lithe and fit, his arithmetic skills were precise, and he outran everybody else. Two camel clans stood by him, creating for him a genealogy. He was recruited into the forces.