Who Will Catch Us As We Fall (47 page)

They both ignore the careless insinuation as she shifts closer to him, resting her head on the back of the booth so that he feels the quickness of her breath. In a small voice, she says, ‘I don't want anything to happen to you,' and then, his chest expands outward in delight when, right in front of all those watchful eyes, Leena leans forward and kisses him softly on the mouth.

The name has changed but everything else in the bar has remained the same. There is still the pervasive beer stink hanging in the air, though the floral chairs are faded now, lacking shine – much like Marlyn herself.

‘What are you doing here?' She approaches him wearily, perched at his old table.

The bar is the only point of contact between him and those men and he has come to dissuade them, to beg them to leave him alone. ‘I wanted a drink.' His next words surprise him with their truthfulness. ‘And to see you.'

A sigh – a glint of pleasure quickly hidden away. ‘One drink and then you must leave.'

But the whiskey is not helping today. If anything, it makes everything seem more dire. Sinking into a relaxed mood he is able to think more cleary, to understand better, what it is those men are asking of him.

Kibera slums is the constituency of the opposing electoral candidate. Jeffery knows that, on voting day, the line-up at that poll station will be over a kilometer long. People will wait all day, some up to twelve hours, to drop their ballots into the color-coded boxes, leaving with a sense of accomplishment, a shared hope. His hands tremble when he thinks of what he will be destroying, and David's words, that long-ago warning he never heeded, come back to him.
The line has to be drawn somewhere. If it wasn't, imagine all the things we could do to each other.

When he next looks up, wanting another drink, he sees Marlyn speaking to a young man. His back is turned to Jeffery but there is something familiar about the straight, drawn-back shoulders, the casual way he leans against the bar despite the urgency of the
conversation.

‘She's staying at different men's houses, going from place to place with no direction. You need to start thinking about your daughter's future. I can't do it all.'

Marlyn puts a placating hand on his upper arm. ‘You're right. I'll do better from now on.'

Jeffery feels sorry for her. Worry and age have overtaken her beauty completely. The impressive fullness of her hips has sunk into boniness; the shine has seeped from her skin. He remembers when it was lustrous with shea butter and sweet promises,
Mar-Lynne the mermaid
, all color and sensual brightness.

He is still watching her when the man turns, almost misses him. Their eyes catch – a spark of recognition and a slow grin from her companion, arrogant and superior. The man pushes open the door and leaves.

Jeffery calls Marlyn over. ‘Come here, now.'

She rushes to him with a full glass. ‘I'm sorry about what I said before. Here, have another drink.'

Waving away her apologies, he asks, ‘Who is that?'

‘It's nothing to be jealous of,' she teases, stroking his chest.

‘I'm being serious, Lynne.'

Her hand drops dully to her side. Black irises inky with disappointment. ‘He's my nephew.'

‘I've arrested him on several occasions.'

She laughs at this, a strong snort that shows off her large, pearl teeth. ‘You have the wrong boy.'

‘I've caught him for vandalism numerous times now.' Jeffery's mind is working fast, an idea forming and unforming as soon as he has a grasp of it.

‘It's impossible,' she protests, suddenly worried. She recognizes the tightening grip on her wrist, those lips pulled back in a snarl.

‘What's his name?' Twisting her arm until her lips go pale and dry.

She gives a sharp breath, the leaping hope of his impromptu return quickly gone. ‘Michael.'

Jeffery has been to this apartment building several times before, when he foolishly believed he was in love with Marlyn. He would watch as she was dropped at the gate, always as the sun was rising and always by a different man, stumbling over loose gravel in matchstick heels. How tempted he had been then to chase those cars and shoot the driver between the eyes, but all he had been able to muster was a growling grimace, undetectable in the busy night.

The building looks more rundown during the daytime – broken windows displayed like missing teeth, packed washing lines resembling a bazaar strung from one balcony to another. He is about to climb out of the car when he hears voices – as sunny as the day outside and in the sing-song manner reserved for new lovers.

Marlyn's nephew is standing with a woman at the main entrance, pressing her up against the door frame, his mouth caught up in her neck. She makes a move to leave and is pulled back – he kisses her again through her protesting laughter.

‘Do you really have to go?' he is asking.

‘It's getting late.'

‘Where did you tell her you were this time?'

The girl reaches up to smooth his brow, taking her time when she puts her mouth against his. ‘I'll see you tomorrow.'

When the boy finally releases her and she approaches the parking lot, Jeffery shrinks into his seat. As she comes closer, the world sharpens bizarrely. He knows that face. Though today the features are softer, touched by happiness, he remembers when they were seized with fear, recoiling with disgust. The small body stumbling up the stairs, full of fight. How still she had been when they had left, pink pajama shorts at her ankles.

Now she looks at Jeffery as she passes his car. He smiles, filled with wretchedness as she returns his grin jovially, jumping into her vehicle that is parked just beside his. After she has left he spends several seconds collecting his breath, watching the boy as he does so.

Michael remains at the doorway, his face and body arched in the direction she has gone. When he hears the policeman's footsteps, his smile fades fast.

‘Are you following me?'

‘We have to talk.'

‘I have nothing to say to you.' Michael retreats into the building, about to close the door.

In a voice that has not been used in a very long time, Jeffery says, ‘She's pretty, is she not, the Kohli girl?'

For the first time since he has known him, Jeffery catches fear on the boy's face. He grins, forces himself into the cool, cement shade of the building. ‘Perhaps we should go upstairs.'

Pooja is keeping a silent vigil over her daughter's comings and goings. She has trained her sharp ears to block out any sounds that are not the clip of high heels, the stuttered creak of a door hinge – Leena's noises as she navigates the darkness of the house, occasionally stumbling into a standing vase or tripping up the stairs. At these times, Pooja feels very far away from her daughter, as if a foreign house guest is tiptoeing about her home, politely secretive and preferring to keep out of everyone's way.

The exact knowledge of her daughter's whereabouts is beginning to accumulate in Pooja's mind, though she is not yet ready to face it fully. It has provided her comfort to believe her daughter's fibs about coffees with Kiran and late-afternoon shopping errands that turn into dinner and drinks with some old high-school friends – and Pooja has been careful not to ask too many questions, satisfied with the practiced information her daughter feeds her. But after what she heard at the temple today, the truth refuses to leave her alone, ticking mercilessly at the center of all her thoughts.

A woman had cornered her in the
langar
earlier, while Pooja had been busy with a pot simmering with eggplant curry, steaming her skin in the aroma of bay leaves and black seeds.

‘Is it true?' A whisper almost lost in all the commotion.

‘Is what true?' Pooja had been busy frowning down at her cooking, upset because the vegetable was too soft, falling apart at even the most experienced touch of her wooden spoon.

‘What everyone is saying about Leena.'

The broken eggplant forgotten, Pooja turned to the woman sharply, her breath caught at the base of her thin throat. ‘Who is saying what?'

The woman appeared uncomfortable but simultaneously pleased with the power she now had. ‘Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything.'

‘Just spit it out!' It came out as a desperate yelp, which Pooja gathered back quickly and rearranged into a more concerned murmur. ‘With things the way they are at the moment, we need to keep a close eye on our children,
na
?'

Nodding her consent, the woman leaned in so as to make sure no one overheard. ‘Someone saw her at Diamond Plaza a couple of weekends ago with a boy.'

A distressed ringing began between Pooja's ears. ‘So what? It was probably one of her old school friends.'

‘He was an African.'

The information was a quick bullet, halting everything around her, even the blood in her veins. She was certain the sound had carried above the steel clang of pots, whispering into people's ears, and she felt the pressure of their snide disapproval. It was so heavy that she dropped the spoon into the curry and mumbled, ‘I just remembered, I have to pick up Raj's blood-pressure medication from the chemist today…' and she hurried out, her
chuni
wrapped protectively over her face, tears stinging her cheeks.

Now she sits in the sloping darkness of the kitchen and waits for her daughter to creep in. She hears the
cling
of the car keys hitting the countertop and asks, ‘Where were you?'

Leena jumps back with a surprised yelp. ‘You scared me, Ma.'
She looks flushed and pleased, her eyes jumping with a smile.

Pooja finds her happiness disrespectful and her voice turns hard. She sits facing the window, away from her daughter. ‘I want to know where you went and with whom. No lies this time.'

‘I told you, I met up with some friends.'

After playing along with the farce for so many days now, Pooja is tired. ‘It was Michael, wasn't it?' She speaks the name quickly – almost wanting her daughter not to hear it.

But to her dismay, Leena's shoulders collapse downward in relief. Grabbing her mother's hand, she says, ‘I wanted to tell you, Ma.
I really did.'

A barking laugh springs from Pooja's throat as she yanks her hand away, twisting her
chuni
around her palm. The objects in the kitchen begin to vibrate around her – infected by some manic energy – and try as she might, she cannot get them to quieten down.

‘Do you know someone saw you together at Diamond Plaza? Do you know that we have become the joke of the temple?' She doesn't realize she is shouting, her voice lost in her own panic. ‘You will not see that boy again.'

‘I don't have to listen to this,' Leena says, but her mother's fingers pinch her elbow tightly, keeping her rooted in place.

‘This is not just about you sneaking around any more – it concerns all of us. It's about our family's reputation.'

‘Tomorrow people will be talking about someone else.'

‘People will not forget this,' her mother warns. ‘And what happens when you learn that I am right? That no matter how much you like this boy now, such a relationship is not practical here. It won't last.' Pooja takes a shuddering breath. ‘This thing between you will inevitably fall apart and you won't be the only one who has to deal with the consequences.'

Leena shrinks against the darkness and when she speaks, her voice is hollow. ‘I think I'm falling in love with him.'

Pooja cannot bear to look at her daughter. Instead, she fixes her eyes on the cold, half-moon traveling in and out of the night clouds. She is soothed by its hard exterior, its unwavering shape.

‘Feelings are like visitors, Leena,' she says, drawing her
chuni
around her shoulders. ‘They never stay with us for long.'

The next time Michael opens his door, it is to a different Kohli.

He moves behind Jai to close the door, deliberating his next words. There is a specific reason why he has called his friend over but there are more important things to discuss first.

‘How come you never told me Leena was back?'

Jai's head gives a slight shake of regret. ‘I planned on it. I wanted to tell her about you too but when she got back from London, she was different. All jumpy and fragile – terrified of this place.'

‘I would never hurt her.'

After a moment, Jai speaks. ‘Ever since we were children, she always believed that I was the one who was protecting her, keeping her safe.' He thinks back to those moments when Michael had stood in front of his sister, guarding her body with his own; the way he had always so readily leaped to her defense, whether she had been right or wrong. ‘But we both know it wasn't me.'

‘I love her.'

‘I've known that for a very long time.'

In a rush of gratitude, Michael slumps down on the couch beside Jai. Once again, his stomach grows heavy with fear when he thinks of the policeman's visit. He cannot understand how or when things became so complicated, only that they did. He thinks of the cop striding out of the front door, pleased with himself and with what he had threatened Michael into.

‘I need your help,' he says and tells his friend everything.

There is something about the hush of that night, the unusual calmness, which takes them back to the first wall they painted on. Their earlier graffiti has long been covered up but they can still recall the fast excitement, the fear and determination as they worked – their breath twin fogs in the night.

It is a Wednesday evening and there is hardly a footfall around them so they take their time, lost in their own reflections, interrupted only by the occasional whisper. The villagers in Tana River Delta remain heavy in the forefront of their minds, a stinging reminder of how easy it is to dismiss lives in some parts of Kenya, treating people as pawns for political gain – training them to become systematic enemies so that neighbors raided each other's houses, teachers killed their students, the youth turned on their elders.