Who Will Catch Us As We Fall (4 page)

He feels the sting of annoyance mingled with pity. ‘You just got here – be patient and give it some time. It might surprise you.'

When Kidha tells her what happened to the girl, Grace feels a little sorry for putting two teaspoons of sugar in her tea.

They are sitting outside on the low concrete partition just near the back door. It has an inbuilt sink that she uses during the day for washing and cutting vegetables or for wiping the dirt from Jai's shoes. He often comes back from his work trips upcountry with them encrusted in a solid layer of mud so that she has to pick away at them before using a garden pipe to hose them down.

In the mornings, however, she takes the two old mugs and plates that Mrs Kohli has set aside for her and brings them out with a thermos of tea and a full loaf of white bread. Sometimes, if she can manage without anyone noticing, she'll pocket the margarine tub. Then she and Kidha will sit under the cool shade, using it as a place to do some gossiping before Mrs Kohli returns from her meetings.

Grace pushes a large piece of bread into her mouth after generously layering it with Blue Band
margarine and slurps her sweet tea. The handle of the cup has broken off and she has to hold the hot ceramic, the heat stinging her palms.

‘How do you know this?' she asks Kidha in Kikamba,
the dialect of the Kamba tribe to which they both belong.

‘I hear them talking sometimes.' He strokes Luna's head with his toe. The dog looks up at him adoringly. ‘Pooja is always
ca-crying
about it.'

‘That's why she's so strange,' Grace muses. ‘This morning in my kitchen, she was
ja-jumping
around me like she'd seen a ghost.'

He throws a piece of bread to a whimpering Luna, who snatches it up mid-air and then bangs her tail down for some more. He tears off another piece but Grace stops him.

‘They didn't see it coming,' he tells her.

‘Yes, sad.' Grace chews down on the loaf. Feeling some pity for the dog, she gives Luna a dollop of margarine and watches as the animal flicks her tongue around it to get used to the texture. ‘But these things happen all the time to us. Why should it be something big when it happens to one of them?'

They hear footsteps and immediately fall silent. A new sound in the house, clicking of small heels, and the girl appears at the door. She stops when she sees them, hadn't expected anyone to be there. Kidha jumps down from the partition.

Leena glances from them to the dog, who is still chewing on the butter. ‘Can you please open the gate for me? I'm going out and I'll be back soon, if my mother asks.'

The old Nissan lurches forward. Stops. Turns off. Her skin dampens with a premature sweat and she shrugs off her cardigan. Despite the earliness of the morning, the sun has fully ascended, chasing away the clouds and filling the city with a lethargic stillness. She can't even roll down the window – Westlands is full of wandering, opportunistic street boys. She twists the key in the ignition, and is filled with a fleeting second of hope as the car gives a struggling whirr
but then falls quiet. She pounds her fist on the dashboard and it spits out dust, choking her. Eyes itching with dryness, she moans and lets her head fall onto the steering wheel. Car horns, a string of curse words, shaking fists – all directed at her and the old car that has decided to break down right in the middle of Westlands roundabout.

Further down the road, a policeman is supposed to be directing traffic coming through Waiyaki Way, a major highway, but instead he is leaning against a giant Samsung billboard as he speaks into his mobile phone. Eyes and ears that are blind and deaf to anything that cannot be milked for
kitu kidogo.

With no other option, Leena calls Jai and tells him where she is. After an hour spent in traffic, he has almost reached the office. He keeps his voice calm, tells her, ‘Don't get out of the car or let anyone in,' trying not to be angry, trying to understand. But he can't help but snap, ‘Why would you go for a drive during rush hour?'

Cars move around her, forming lanes between lanes, squeezing into minute spaces and bumping up onto curbs, forcing swarms of pedestrians out onto the road.
Matatus
are blasting reggae and gospel tunes from old, staticky radios and a man hangs out of the door of one, collecting up passengers. When he spots her, he shouts, ‘Hey, pretty
muhindi
,
let me give you a ride!'

She rests her head once more on the wheel, wondering what she has come back to.

Keep everything locked
,
her mother would command whenever they were leaving the house. Pooja would twist in her seat and watch as Leena pushed the lock down before she started the car.
Never take any chances.
But Leena's skin is burning and the air in the car is riddled with layers of aged dust, making her cough, so she cracks open a window, slides it downward. She breathes in the air deeply, thick with smog but relieving nonetheless. Her eyes flicker shut as the cool air sweeps against her cheek.

‘
Huko! Huko!
' a childish voice shouts.

She hadn't noticed them before, sitting on the island in the center of the roundabout, their faces black from dirt and diesel fumes. Two boys who look to be about fifteen years old, barefoot and quick, race toward her.

A war of reflexes.

Leena reaches to roll up the window but he has done this many times and has already inserted his arm into the car, almost up to the elbow, before she can even begin to close it. Something drips into her lap, oily and wet. In his hand, he is clutching a plastic bottle full of liquid the color of light straw. She draws her knees together, trying to move as far away as possible. The stench of urine is overwhelming.

‘Give me the phone or I'll throw it on you.' Wild, throbbing eyes – a mind caught up in a crazed glue-haze. She recognizes the look and it scares her more than the human waste in his hand so she hands him the Blackberry. It's not his fault. His actions are a result of a highly addictive neurotoxin – shoe-repair glue. An escape for many boys just like him, he has probably been sniffing it all night.

The bottle moves a little closer. She squeals and twists further away. Cars keep moving by them; no one stops to help.

‘
Kwenda nyuma
!'
the boy shouts at his friend. ‘The back door better be unlocked,' he growls.

‘I'm not opening it.' Her stubbornness surprises her. She had expected to cry, scream, break down. She has been hoping for it for a long time. The liquid quivers above her.

‘I'll throw it in your face,' he threatens.

The policeman has finally noticed her, tucking his phone away and starting to run in their direction, shaking the baton in his hand. ‘
Weh
!' he shouts. ‘
We-weh
!'

The boy at her side yells at his companion to hurry. The door opens behind her – it must be broken because she is sure she locked it.

‘Hey! No!' She grapples with the hand stealing her new purse, which she has hidden under the seat. How many of her mother's rules has she broken today? No opening windows. No fighting back. Something salty hits the side of her cheek and the purse slips from her loosened grip. Her eyes are burning and a bitter sharpness cuts into her tongue, making it jerk unpleasantly. He has dropped the bottle into her lap, spilling the remainder of its contents onto her jeans. She pushes open the door just as the police officer reaches her and the boys sprint off, Blackberry and purse in hand.

She retches, tries to hold it in but it comes up anyway and she throws up beside the officer's shiny black
Bata
shoes, noting with some satisfaction that a few specks have settled on his trouser hem. He wipes it away casually with the back of his hand as if it is a daily occurrence.

Trying not to cry, or breathe in the smell, she kicks the bottle onto the street, a warm wetness gathering beneath the denim of her jeans and soaking into her skin. ‘I hate this place.'

The policeman pats her shoulder heavily. ‘You're lucky it's just some
chokora
piss,' he says to her. ‘The other day, some woman, she had battery acid thrown on her face for one hundred bob.' He draws back his lips, hisses in imagined pain. ‘
Eh-he!
I tell you. Skin all gone – no more eyes, no more nose, no more anything. Burned, burned,
kabisa
.' Smacking his hands together. ‘A shame for such a pretty face.' He leans down and sneers. From the left corner of his mouth a gold-plated tooth shines menacingly beneath the unremitting sunshine.

They make their way over the unpaved ground of the Parklands police station parking lot, an empty space littered with fast-food wrappers, the metal remains of cars that have been written off in accidents and a limping stray cat seeking shelter under one of the overgrown trees. Before they climb out of the car, Jai gives her his water bottle to wash her face. She scrubs hard, gargling and spitting, gratefully accepting the piece of gum he offers.

He looks at her as she opens the door. ‘One more thing.'

She turns into a spray of men's deodorant, breathing in the minty scent and coughing as it tickles the back of her throat.

‘I'm sorry,' Jai says between bursts of laughter. ‘It's not funny, really it isn't…' And she gets out, slamming the door behind her.

The station is a giant prison cell, squat and square with metal barred doors and windows, peeling yellow-red-black stripes painted along the entire length of the structure. Large slabs of broken stone form the haphazard pathway over the muddy ground, lined with bright beds of hydrangea in an attempt to make the building look less run down.

The main room is startlingly bare, the only pieces of furniture being two plastic chairs and a desk in the far left corner. A bald light bulb hangs over the door, turned on despite the earliness of the morning. A chill sticks to the air, rising from the concrete floors.

She hears the clanging of metal and loud voices, muffled by the heavy door behind the counter. Sounds of a struggle, scuffling feet and low groans, but the policeman sitting behind the desk remains unbothered. He is thrown into gloom, writing in a giant logbook, and though he hears them approach he doesn't look up.
First rule of being in charge: make them wait.

Jai speaks in Kiswahili. ‘I want to report stolen property.'

The policeman puts down his pencil. He looks up at the two Asians standing before him: a young, casually dressed man and a girl who is hiding behind him.
These muhindi girls, either fearful or obnoxious, always needing a brother, father or boyfriend to talk for them.

‘You or her?' he asks, pointing. Today, he is feeling humorous.

‘Her.'

‘
Sawa
.
Let her talk then.' He shifts his bored expression to the girl, leaning forward to peer at her. ‘Hello, hi,' he calls out in a sing-song manner, waving his hand slightly.

When she steps around the boy, the police officer is unprepared for the shock. He wonders if they see it – the way it seizes the muscles of his face, tightening his stomach. Through the hum in his ears, he hears her say, ‘I lost my ID, purse and phone. They were stolen from my car.'

She has not recognized him and that slows the erratic pace of his heart, settling his insides slightly. The snap in her voice offends him, overtakes the twisting panic in his gut, and he takes his time before addressing her, picking up the pencil and drawing four precise columns – tiny lead flakes breaking over the blank page. Lazily, he takes a sip of water from his nearly empty cup and when he is finished, leans back and inhales deeply. ‘
Sawa
.
Tell me.'

‘My car broke down on Westlands roundabout and I had my phone, bag and ID stolen by two street children. And I had urine thrown at me!'

He chuckles. ‘
Chokoras
these days – so inventive. Lucky it wasn't—'

‘Battery acid, I know.'

His nostrils flare. ‘How long ago?'

‘This morning.'

He writes something down in a column; it doesn't matter what, no one checks. ‘What was stolen? One thing at a time, please.'

‘My phone.'

‘What type of phone?'

‘A Blackberry. Would you like the exact model?'

Jai's phone rings, interrupting them. ‘It's work,' he tells his sister. ‘I'll be right back.'

She is left alone with the police officer and again she hears the clanging of doors – jail cells, she realizes – and voices.

‘You said you lost your ID,' the policeman addresses her.

‘Yes.'

‘Do you have your passport with you?'

‘Of course not.' She clenches her cheeks. ‘I was just out for a drive – I don't carry my passport everywhere.'

He gives her a look.
Perhaps you should.
‘I need to verify your person,' he mutters, though he knows her name already, and then, because it is his nature now, he says, ‘unless you have another way.'

He waits for her to offer something else, the way they always do, these Indians. He had never known how easy it could be to bribe until he met one. No respect for money, no understanding of its value because they had so much of it.

‘What do you expect me to do?' She throws her hands up.

‘Come back with your passport and make sure you are quick, quick. In the afternoon, we are always busy.'

Behind the officer, the door bursts open. Leena steps back, slightly afraid, as a young man is pushed through by a second policeman holding a baton to his back. His wrists are handcuffed in front of him – hands cupped loosely against each other. His gaze falls upon the wet spot on her jeans, his eyes dark-lashed and laughing, strong, large teeth temporarily exposed.

He says to the cop behind the desk, ‘Reduced to threatening ladies now?'