Who Will Catch Us As We Fall (31 page)

Buzzing with excitement from Steven's invitation, Jai interrupted, ‘I was born in Nairobi. I've lived here my whole life.' He turned toward the man who had spoken but was met with the back of a head. ‘I'm just as Kenyan as you are.'

‘You may speak Swahili fluently and have a Kenyan friend,' Ivy swept her hand toward Michael, her cheery disposition gone, ‘but we all know what kind of Kenyan you really are.'

‘Which is what?'

‘A member of the elite group who are so out of touch with being Kenyan, it's ridiculous. You probably live in Karen or Runda and went to British private school – the kind all rich kids go to. The kind of Kenyan who doesn't know what it's like to take a
matatu
until you grow up and decide to be wild with your friends and take one to town, just to see what it would feel like.'

Such accusations failed to anger him, though they always pinched slightly. ‘Since when does one's social standing determine their Kenyanness? Are you saying that someone who lives in Kibera or Mathare slums is more Kenyan than you, simply because you belong to a middle-class family?'

Another man came quickly to Ivy's defense. ‘Let me tell you, there is no such thing as an Indian Kenyan. Kenya is a
black
country, even if you have lived here your whole life, you aren't Kenyan. We should have kicked you out back in the seventies, like they did in Uganda.'

Steven held up his hand. ‘I've made my decision.'

‘If he's helping you with the protest, I won't come,' said the man.

‘Neither will I.' Ivy crossed her arms, her ultimatum heavy in the air.

Though he was ready to argue his point further, Jai sat back and said, ‘I'll be glad to help.'

‘We haven't discussed it yet,' Michael said to him.

‘You aren't joined at the hip,' Steven said to him. ‘Come if you want, or don't.'

‘I have to show them they're wrong about me,' Jai told Michael in a low voice.

‘This guy is using you for your skin color,' Michael warned him. ‘He'll get more exposure, people will take notice. He thinks the media will listen to you because you have a fancy accent and an expensive education. He's using your differences to his advantage, so how is that any better than these guys here?' When Jai refused to answer, Michael slid out from his chair. ‘I won't help.' They looked at each other for a long moment and when Jai didn't make a move to stand up, Michael turned and strode out of the lecture hall.

They watched him leave, the door swinging in his absence, and Steven looked out at the sullen faces in front of him. ‘Anyone else want to follow? Or are you going to respect my decision?'

When no one spoke, rustling uncomfortably in their seats, Steven nodded firmly at Jai. ‘Good. Let's get to work.'

Betty paused at the gated entrance to Victoria Courts, clutching a small bag of clothes and wondering what she was doing there. She didn't even know Esther Kipligat, couldn't be certain that it was her cousin. She remembered the name, the skin blackened by scars from a bout of chicken pox. She had been ten years old when Esther's family had come to visit them upcountry, in Busia.

Betty hadn't thought about that small town in Kenya's Western Province in over five years and was uncertain of the truth of the vivid image that came to her mind. It held the essence of a border town, aggressive, trade-driven, dirty and bustling with bicycle taxis that were the main mode of transportation. She remembered how she would straddle the metal platform just below the cyclist's seat, wrapping her head in a scarf to protect her hair; the way she knew everyone on her work route and would have her hand up in a permanent wave.

All this reminiscing brought up the memory of a particular incident when Esther had come to visit. They were sitting outside the salon her mother used to work at, soaked in the scent of peroxide and watching the large, cylindrical tankers line up on the highway, waiting to cross into Uganda.

‘What if we jumped on one?' Esther had said to her. ‘If we go right now and climb one of those ladders? We could cross the border without anyone noticing. Our parents would look for us for a little while but then they would give up. It would be like we never existed.'

Betty had thought her cousin so strange then, frail and spirit-like, talking about disappearing. So she perhaps wasn't that surprised when Esther's husband had appeared on the Kohlis' doorstep asking for help. What she wasn't sure about was why he had come looking for her.

‘I'm glad you've come.' The man approached the gate; he walked in short, wide steps, his dark brow already glinting in the heat. As if reading her mind, he said, ‘You're the only family Esther has here and she refuses to go upcountry to see her mother.'

‘I only have two days.' As she followed the man into the main building, which smelled of wet cement, Betty was suddenly glad that Mrs Kohli had refused to give her a week. They went up a single flight of red terracotta stairs and the man pushed open his door.

‘Esther!' The man jostled Betty through the door. ‘Your cousin is here.'

‘You're a police officer.' She was surprised, noticing his blue uniform – the black walkie-talkie attached to his belt, the calf-high army boots.

‘Yes.'

She had been terrified of him when he had come to see her – had thought him a thief – and found it amusing that he was part of the security force, but kept her smile to herself for he didn't look like a man who appreciated being laughed at.

‘If you haven't had breakfast, there is bread in the kitchen. I hope you aren't one of those relatives who thinks visiting someone's house must include eating all their food.' He glared at her. ‘Things cost money.'

‘I understand.'

After he had left, she sat alone in the quiet of the bright kitchen, drumming her fingers on the old table and keenly watching the half-eaten loaf of white bread that sat uncovered on the counter. There was a host of fruit flies swarming above it as they made their way to the blackened bananas, left to rot in the sunlight. It explained the smell, ripe and pungent like moist earth. She rose to open a window. Paused and listened for footsteps. She wondered if she should go up and check on her cousin. Instead, she broke off a piece of hard bread and sat back down.

Eventually, Esther came in dragging her feet. She wore a white nightgown and upon seeing her, Betty was sure the man had tricked her. This woman could not be the same girl she had met all those years ago. She was large, even larger than her husband, and walked with a slow sway, a raspy continuous breath escaping her throat.

‘Hello, Esther. Do you remember me? I'm your cousin, Betty.'

The woman didn't reply, moving toward the cupboards. She was too short to be able to look into the cabinet so she searched with her outstretched fingers, banging into jars and plates until she found what she was looking for, dragging it out with a satisfied ‘
Ah
.'

Picking up a glass from the sink, she came to sit beside Betty and placed the bottle of cheap whiskey between them. Without looking up, Esther asked, ‘
David ni wapi
?'

Shocked at the sight of the alcohol, Betty's first thought was to remove it from the table. ‘He's gone to work.'

The woman reached for the glass, poured a generous amount of the tepid, yellow liquid and, after a large gulp, she pulled her lips back. ‘
Aah
.' Finally registering Betty, she said, ‘
Wewe ni nani?
'

‘I'm Betty. Your cousin – I've come to visit,' she said, shouting, as if talking to a small child.

‘That man.' Esther sat straight, her large legs knocking into the table. ‘Where is he?'

‘I told you, he's gone to work.'

‘I hope he never comes back,' Esther whispered, sliding down low as if to hide under the table. She gestured for Betty to come closer. ‘Sometimes, he doesn't come home for days and I'm happy. But then, all of a sudden, he's here, demanding, ugly, reminding me of everything.' Her tone was airy, as if the words were too weighty, pressing down on her tongue and suffocating her. ‘He thinks I don't know what he did. He thinks he has me fooled but really, I'm the one who fooled him!' Esther forgot about her glass and picked up the bottle instead, wrapping her mouth around it, wincing at its hardness. ‘I'm the one who fooled him,' she repeated, rising.

Every movement she made was a laborious and painful process. She had to hold onto the table, press her weight down into her arms as she pushed herself up. ‘How else could I have afforded to stay in my house? Who would have taken me in after what happened to David?'

She started to sway out of the room.

Betty called after her, ‘I don't understand. What happened to your husband?'

Esther was near the sitting room now. She paused, bottle cradled between her breasts as she collapsed against the door frame. She stared blankly into the air as she suckled the whiskey. Then she said again, in the kind of hopeful voice that belonged to children and mad people, ‘
David ni wapi?
'

The day passed in such a way: intermittent waves of lucidity followed by longer, more bizarre moments of madness. Esther asked after David repeatedly, puffing about the house with the alcohol tucked under her arm.

‘Where is he? Where is he?' Her question filled the house, darkening it. ‘Soon at ten o'clock, they will call to tell me that he is dead. He will be hanging above the desk. I will start crying.' She looked at Betty, as if preparing her. ‘I won't stop.'

‘Esther, it's two o'clock now and your husband is fine.' Betty watched the clock on the wall, willing its thin, black hands to move faster. Already, she missed her small room at the Kohlis' residence; its concrete coolness in the middle of the green heat of the garden. In this empty house, which seemed even smaller with its erratic occupant, Betty missed her home and made up her mind that as soon as the police officer was back, she would leave and never return.

She made lunch for them with whatever ingredients she could find –
ugali
and some black-eyed beans – and because she didn't believe in wasting food, she used the over-ripe bananas to make
mtori
, though the recipe called for green ones.

After they had eaten, Betty tried to speak to Esther once more and when the woman reached for her whiskey, Betty pried it away. ‘I'll make us some tea.'

There was no milk, so Betty steeped the
Ketepa
tea leaves in a pot of boiling water before heaping three teaspoons of sugar in each cup and placing one in front of Esther. ‘It will make you feel better.'

They sipped for several minutes, pausing to blow on and then slurp the hot liquid.

‘What do you do all day?' asked Betty.

The tea and banana stew having soaked up some of Esther's alcohol, she spoke more steadily than she had all day. ‘I wait for David,' she said.

‘Don't you get bored? How can you afford not to work?'

‘David promised me my own hair salon a long time ago. I can weave braids like a mermaid.' A crooked smile turned into a scowl. ‘But he's gone now.'

Betty patted her hand in comfort. ‘He only went to the police station. He'll be back this evening.'

At that, Esther scoffed. ‘If you think that's David then David isn't who you think he is.' She looked away and continued her tiny sips. Betty was trying to work out what her cousin had meant when Esther said, ‘Do you remember when I came to visit you in Busia?'

A leap in Betty's throat; so the woman knew her after all. She was immediately overcome by a sense of comfort, a pooling of familial love in her belly. All day she had been planning to leave the house and now, she didn't want to move from the old chair.

‘I was thinking about that this morning,' Betty smiled.

‘And I told you I wanted to disappear.'

‘You did.'

Esther asked eagerly, ‘Do they still have those cargo trains?'

‘I haven't been back there in a long time.'

‘Perhaps I should visit again. If they're still there, I'll climb that ladder and strap myself to the very top. I will go far away from here.'

‘What about your husband?' Betty asked. ‘You can't just leave him.'

‘That man is a monster.' Esther scratched into the wood of the table with a fork left over from lunch. ‘Thanks to him I no longer have a place to call home.'

The man didn't come home that evening. Betty waited by the living room window all night, watching out for any indication of movement: a shadow, slight footsteps, a voice. Without alcohol in her system, Esther slept soundly and the whole house shrunk and rose in rhythm with her snores. It sealed itself up in loneliness, creaked and whimpered in the wind.

Betty must have fallen asleep in the chair only to be woken up at around four o'clock in the morning, disturbed by the thrashing of drums upstairs and the misty morning glaze upon her cheeks. She heard the sound of the door and quickly stood, straightening out her skirt and clearing her throat of sleep. The police officer was creeping in, hat to his chest. When he saw her, he jumped back like a startled elephant.

‘
Eh-he
, are you trying to kill me?'

‘You didn't come home last night,' Betty accused.

‘And you sound just like your cousin.' He brought his four fingers together at a point, moving them up and down against his thumb, indicating the motion of talking. ‘
Kelele, kelele
,' he mocked, going up the stairs, unbothered if he woke Esther. ‘I have to get a change of clothes. I won't be coming home again tonight.'

‘Who is David?' she called after him.

Having pondered over her lunchtime conversation with Esther, it became clear that David wasn't this man standing in front of her. This man was the monster Esther had referred to. And yet, Betty found it difficult to be afraid of him – as round and almost pretty as he was.