—
Before I was even halfway up the steep ridge, I heard the ngoma. Drums set the air vibrating and rang through the ground under my feet as if something were tunnelling powerfully in every direction at once. Smoke rose in a coil above the ridge, then high-licking flames and cinders. Finally I was on level ground and could see the dancers, alive with movement, and the encompassing circle of those who watched, too young or too old to join in. At the centre of the beaten ring of earth, the fire danced, too, giving off a singed smell and painting a lustre on limbs and faces. The young women had smooth-shaved heads dressed with strings of beads. More beads swept in long looping chains over the tight leather strappings of their clothes. They weren’t much older than me, but they looked older dressed like this, and as if they knew something I didn’t, and possibly never would.
A few of the young men wore the long white skins of serval cats on leather thongs around their waists. When the skins swung under their buttocks, the dots and dashes of the animals’ coats shone as if alive, then flicked between their legs as they pitched forward and back with the steps. The tribal chief bent back his neck and made a screeching caw I felt everywhere. The men called out and the women responded, cry and mirroring cry, high and looping, filling the sky and slicing it open. Films of sweat caught the light and the vibrating skins of the drum. My breath quickened. My heart seemed to leave my body as the verses and refrains gathered speed like a great wheel. And just when the song reached its highest pitch, I looked across the blazing circle and saw Kibii.
We had always come to these ngomas together as children, staying late and walking back home through the forest afterwards, Kibii full of judgements about how the dancers could have been more graceful or more passionate. Now the two of us were rarely alone, and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been easy with one another. As the firelight painted shadows on him, I saw how much older and different he’d become. Instead of his usual shuka, he wore a finer one, knotted high on his left shoulder and gathered at his waist with a beaded belt. There were black and white bands of monkey fur around both his ankles, and at his throat hung the hollowed claw of a lion. He was angled away from me, and his profile was a prince’s, as it had always been, but with steelier edges. Finally he turned. His black eyes found mine over the licking flames, and my heart jumped. He was a moran now. That’s what had changed—he’d become a man.
I backed away from the circle, feeling hurt. We hadn’t been close for a long time, but I still couldn’t believe that Kibii could cross the most momentous threshold of his life without my hearing a whisper of it. I scanned the area for Buller, wanting to be gone as quickly as possible, but didn’t see him. I made off anyway, and had reached the edge of the ridge, readying myself for the steep descent, when I heard Kibii calling my name. The moon beamed down at the tangle of brushy plants and grasses that hid my feet from me. Even if I hurried, I knew he could easily catch me again—so I stayed.
“They say your father is leaving Njoro,” Kibii said when he’d reached me. “Is it true?”
I nodded. “For Cape Town.” I didn’t want to say anything about the money troubles. It was too shameful.
“There are plenty of good horses there, or so I have heard.”
“You’ve become a moran,” I said, wanting to talk of anything else. “You look very fine.” Moonlight showed the pride on his face, but there was something else, too. I realized he didn’t know how to be near me any more.
“What will you do now?” he asked.
“I don’t know, actually. I’ve had a marriage proposal.”
I thought he would be surprised or show some reaction, but he only shrugged as if to say of course, and then spoke a native phrase I’d heard before: A new thing is good, though it be a sore place.
“Are you ready for marriage?” I challenged him, not liking the authority and confidence in his voice. As if he’d already sorted out every piece of the puzzle that had made a muddle of my life.
He shrugged again—why not? “I will go into the world first. The ndito in my village aren’t meant for me.”
“The world is a big place. Do you know where you’ll go?”
“My father told me of many places he travelled to—north as far as Kitale, south to Arusha, and to the slopes of Donya Kenya. Perhaps I will begin by walking where he has walked.”
Arap Maina’s last steps had been very far from here. I suspected Kibii was thinking of that place, too, though he hadn’t named it. “Do you still mean to find the soldier who killed arap Maina?”