What Tears Us Apart

Chapter 12



December 14, 2007, Kibera—Leda

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, LEDA finished helping Mary in the kitchen, one ear open, waiting for the kids to come home from school.

Even still, the banging on the front door made her jump.

She rushed out to see the boys tumble in on Ita as excited as she’d ever seen them—a tangle of smiles and exclamations, predominantly the phrase movie night. They’d taken to the expression Wednesday and had said it at least a thousand times since, a rallying cry.

“Movie night!” Ntimi shouted in lieu of hello. “Movie night, Leda!”

“Movie night, Ntimi, and how was school?”

“Good. Good,” he said, tugging at her arm. “Go!”

“Okay, okay,” Leda laughed. “Food first.”

Mary appeared as if on cue, wiping sweat from her brow, Walter at her heels. She carried a bundle—cloth wrapped around the chapati they’d made. Leda was already obsessed with chapati, a buttery cross between a pancake and a tortilla. Much better movie food than popcorn. Mary handed the bundle over to Leda.

“You sure you don’t want to come?” Leda tried one more time.

Mary shook her head and smiled. She waved her hand at the boys and said something in Swahili that made them laugh.

Then all the boys looked up at Leda at once, as if to say Let’s get a move on, lady.

“Okay, boys, let’s go!”

The first steps into Kibera were as jolting as ever, but Leda found she was starting to get used to a few things, like how to walk without looking down the whole time, ergo not running into anybody, and how to breathe through her mouth so she didn’t feel locked in a Porta Potty.

In the dwindling afternoon sun, Leda watched the vegetable stands glow on the side of the road. She listened to the rise and fall of gossip, the belting music or radio behind every door, and the chickens competing in squawkiness.

But most of all, Leda relished the chatter of the boys. They told her about their day, in halting English that was already improving. Ntimi showed her a coin he’d found, kept a long time, that he wanted to use for movie snacks. Leda tried to picture what that would be. She told Ntimi about popcorn and he laughed, like it was a punch line. Even funnier than snowfalls, which she’d told him about the day before.

And then, not too far at all, they arrived. Not that Leda understood that right away. They’d stopped in front of a mud-stick little house just like every other. It had a metal roof, a bent metal door, and no windows. It was marginally bigger than the house next to it, maybe twelve feet by twelve feet.

“Here!” Ita said.

People were filing in. A couple. Three male friends, laughing. Everyone that spotted Leda stopped mid-sentence to stare.

Inside was so dark, Leda’s heart revved as her feet skidded to a stop. Ntimi and Michael piled up at her back. Synchronized, they each took one of her hands, wove around her, and led the way.

She sat where they instructed, in the middle of a long wooden bench. While the boys divided themselves evenly on either side of her, she checked to see where Ita would sit. She caught him looking at her and blushed. Both their eyes flittered away, but her heart leapt when he shimmied past the boys and squeezed in next to her.

The room was packed, and Ita pressed up against her. The temperature soared from all the chattering, wiggly bodies bumping together. It made Leda think of a video she’d seen of jiggling atoms in a molecule. But as the hot flesh of Ita’s forearm came to rest conspicuously against hers, she found herself thinking of very different videos she’d come across online.

Leda had the urge to pinch herself, both to distract herself from the warmth spreading through her lap, and also from the overwhelming novelty of the moment. As her eyes adjusted, she could see ten long benches, like pews in a church, scrunched together so closely she had to slide her knees under the bench in front of her to fit. By peering left and right through the jostling people, Leda could make out a TV on a stand at the front of the room, not more than 30 inches, and a rickety DVD player.

The movie tonight was Enchanted. A new movie in the States, it had to be pirated. Leda thought it hilarious—Patrick Dempsey bringing his fairy-tale good hair to Kibera.

Ntimi beside her couldn’t sit still any more than a jumping bean. He jabbered endlessly to Michael, who was listening, but looking around like a Secret Service agent at the same time. Leda smiled, seeing their personalities shine even in the dark.

Ita was unusually quiet. Was he self-conscious to be out with her? Apprehensive? Or simply as hyperaware of the intimacy between their forearms as she was?

Leda turned and pretended to look at the walls, keeping her arm squished insistently, sweatily against his. Soon she really did become fascinated by the construction. The criss-crossed frame was made of squiggly tree branches, holding the mud-stone mixture sandwiched between. The back wall was a T-frame of branches, but with burlap sacks strung taut across them. Leda guessed that was why you’d want your roof to overhang so much, because otherwise the rain might just wash this straight down the street into the gutter.

Just then a man came around to collect the fees. Leda had tucked away the money for all of them in the little pocket of her pants, so she could hand over the approximately four dollars fairly inconspicuously.

Still, the man took a second to understand it was for all of them, and Leda saw that Ita dipped his head.

No previews, just a jerky start and then, sure enough, Enchanted, with Patrick Dempsey’s wavy mane, played on the meager TV speakers. Everyone was immediately rapt, huddled together and craning for a better view. Leda yearned to know what they thought of the posh New York apartment on-screen, or the fancy clothes and city luxuries. What would they think if they knew she lived with similar privileges, half a world away? Would they rob her? Or just hate her for it?

Leda couldn’t see the movie, even if she kept weaving like a boxer for a keyhole peek, so she gave up. She snuggled in safely between her new favorite boys, and took in the experience. The smell was strong, but not so bad. It smelled like people, like people who cooked tomato stew and played soccer in the dusty street with their children and told stories by the light of palm-oil lamps.

The closest and best scent was Ita’s, his singular smell Leda could already pick out.

As the movie played on, people laughed and whispered and said who knew what about Patrick’s perfect hair and Amy Adams’s musical numbers. Leda didn’t understand any of the Swahili whispered around her, but she felt the buzz of the room make her arm hairs rise—the communal happiness of moviegoers everywhere.

When Ita moved his arm to the back of the bench behind her, almost an embrace, it sent butterflies fluttering down her spine.

She leaned back, snuggling into his arm, and smiled in the darkness.

* * *

When they returned home, Mary had just put Walter to bed. She tried to usher the boys off, too, laughing at their imitations of the actors. Ntimi held out his hand to Leda and then twirled her around in demonstration, more gallant than Gene Kelly. Leda laughed and laughed, spinning at the end of his little hand.

Off they went, finally, to be tucked in and off to dreamland, leaving Leda and Ita alone in the courtyard under the stars and the clouds in the sky.

“Thank you,” he said.

“My pleasure,” she answered, and realized how husky her voice sounded, especially saying that particular word.

Ita was a sight in the moonlight. His skin was smooth and flawless from his straight brow over his mountainous cheekbones. He must have scars somewhere for his face to be so perfect, Leda found herself thinking. Maybe she just wanted to do a body check.

But he took her silence for propriety, she realized too late. “Good night, Leda. Lala salama.”

Safe sleeping was the exact translation, she knew. What if she didn’t want to sleep safe that night? What if she wanted to be daring, dangerous?

Mary walked out into the courtyard, stopped when she saw the two of them, inches apart.

“Good night, Ita,” Leda said softly. “Sweet dreams.” Another thing she didn’t want to do that night—her dreams would be anything but sweet, she suspected. “Good night, Mary.”

Leda and Mary walked together the length of the courtyard, before Leda let herself into her little room. She didn’t need the lamp tonight; she’d learned her route to the bed, led by the moonlight that trickled in near the roof.

It felt as if it took her a million years to fall asleep, watching the metal roof as though it could rain down slumber and calm. Her body was on fire, and not just the itchy burns from the henna. She felt literally kindled from within. Alive. She kept searching for the right word, and while she did, she pictured Ita’s face. He was so firm, sure in everything he did. But ever kind about it, and patient.

With the children, he seemed to really want to understand each boy for who they were, not mold them to his wishes or change them from their essential natures. Only someone sure of who they were could be that way—secure enough to let others be themselves and love them for it. The way he’d been with Jomo the other day, the way he treated Mary, Leda—everything Ita did was sure-footed. And constant. Leda knew those boys could count on him for life, that his love would never flicker.

While cleaning his office the day before with Mary, stacked in between the medical journals from the clinic, Leda had found Ita’s notes—meticulously hand copied in block lettering. From library books or the internet, Leda didn’t know. But those notes showed a dogged dedication, a drive that was as magnetic as it was admirable.

What if she’d grown up with Ita in her life? she wondered. Wouldn’t everything have been different? She felt safe with him. Safe from harm, yes, but more than that. Safe to be herself. Ita read her like a classic novel, willing to start at the beginning and work his way through. It made her feel like never before—special. And capable, like she could do big things, different things. Good things.

Leda smiled, snuggled into the scratchy blanket, and fell fast asleep.


December 14, 2007, Kibera—Ita

Ita lay in bed, his body buzzing as though plugged in at a charging station.

The buzzing seemed to chant Leda’s name. She was a sudden new star in the sky, everyone excited at its discovery. Anything she looked at—the children, Mary, the neighbors, the food—lit up like a sunrise. Like a rainbow after the storm. Hope. Leda was a second chance.

The things she knew about the world, the places she’d been. He’d never met anyone like her. She reminded Ita of what he’d dreamed of becoming as a child—educated, worldly, elegant.

When was the last time he’d felt these childlike stirrings of the heart? Ita had stored them away long ago, accepted the dogged responsibilities of manhood. But Leda was fascinating—she showed there was a different way to be, a way to be an adult and still leave room for wonder.

There was hurt there, buried deep, but joy, too—a combination that made her seem like a child Buddha.

But she was no child. She was very much a woman, Ita thought, and squirmed in his bed. He thought of the way they’d sat together in the movie theater. He’d felt the warm curves of her body when she’d leaned against his arm. He could still smell her perfume in the night air. He pictured her skin glowing in the flickering light.

Suddenly, his phone vibrated on his desk, making him jump. He snatched it up quickly to still the noise.

Chege.

Ita jabbed at the ignore button. No way was he coming down from his high. Whatever it was Chege wanted, it wouldn’t be good.

But after the phone buzzed three more times, the spell was already broken and Ita answered.

“Outside,” Chege said and hung up.

Ita crept across the courtyard to the door. He took a deep breath, stood where he could block the entrance, and slid open the metal as quietly as he could.

“Let me in,” Chege said, his fingers curling into the crack.

“Why?” Ita looked around—Chege was alone, the street empty.

“Ita,” Chege said, his voice like a roll of his eyes, as though he knew Ita would open the door and was simply making things difficult.

“No,” Ita said.

“Why?” Chege hissed. “Because of her?”

“Because I said no.”

Chege laughed. The tone of it flooded Ita with anger. He started to slide the door shut in Chege’s face.

“Okay, okay, just—” Chege bent over, peeling off his outer shirt. He took a gun from his waistband, wrapped it in the shirt. “I need you to hide this for me.”

“What did you do?”

Chege looked him hard in the face. “Nothing you haven’t seen me do before, brother.” He shoved the bundle through the gap and it fell to the ground.

“Things are different now,” Ita said.

“What’s different?” Chege sneered. “Me? You?”

“Everything. We are not children anymore. There are ways to survive and respect life at the same time.”

Chege kicked the bundle farther inside the orphanage. “Someone wins. Someone loses.” He looked at Ita’s hands by his sides, not picking up the gun. “Ita. We can argue philosophy later. The police coming for me.” When Ita didn’t budge, he added, “I have money. For your trouble.”

“You killed someone with this gun today?”

Chege was getting impatient. “Someone who deserved it.”

“Ah. For a good cause, then?”

“What your problem, eh? What I always tell you? This is life.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

Chege peered over Ita’s shoulder, smugness dawning on his face. “Ah. Now I see. This for her. You a holy man now, a good Christian, ’cause that white woman sleeping in your house. Or is it your bed she sleeping in? How white p-ssy feel?”

“Shut up.” Ita wedged himself in the doorway, intercepting Chege’s leer. “It’s not like that. She’s not like that.”

Chege shook his head. “Look at you. You think you in love with this woman.”

Warmth swirled in Ita’s stomach, wound tingling through his limbs. He couldn’t help himself, he felt the smile curl his lips like a happy snake in the sun. “Maybe.”

Chege was stunned, the teasing look wiped clean away. “No. You not loved a woman since—”

“Since a very long time ago. We were kids. Leda is different. She’s the kind of woman I always hoped existed. Smart, cultured, wise—”

“And you think you can a have a woman like that? For real?”

Ita met Chege’s mean gaze. “Maybe I can.”

“She’ll leave.”

“You leave, Chege.” Ita kicked the gun back through the crack. “Now.”

“I need your help.”

“I said no.”

Chege didn’t respond for what seemed like an eternity, a look smeared across his face Ita didn’t recognize. Chege wouldn’t try to change Ita’s mind anymore, but there was something else, something gripping his mind and tongue.

Chege didn’t say it, whatever it was. He stuffed the gun back into his pants, put on the crinkled, baggy shirt and disappeared into the night.

Ita slid the door shut, and saw that his hands were shaking.

* * *

The next morning, Ita awoke feeling itchy and anxious. It was early; he didn’t hear anyone else awake. He got up, dressed quickly, shedding dark dreams and Chege’s words from the night before like snakeskin. Outside, he peeked at Leda’s door, but knew she’d still be fast asleep. The thought made him smile, imagining her in her pajamas.

In the kitchen, he startled Mary making tea.

“Good morning,” Ita said.

“Looks like you’re having a good morning,” Mary said and grinned into her pot of tea.

“Good morning!”

Ita and Mary both jumped a foot at Leda’s voice. They turned to see her freshly scrubbed and smiling, dressed in a pink T-shirt high-collared enough to cover the henna scabs.

How many clothes does she have? Ita wondered, but the truth was he couldn’t wait to see them all. Each item brought out a new light in her. Today she had a perfect flush on her cheeks—the color of lychees ripening at the market.

“Today we paint?” she asked excitedly.

He chuckled. “How about we eat breakfast first?”

“So practical.” She made an adorable tsk-tsk sound. “Okay, I’ll go wake the boys.”

“What?” Ita asked Mary once Leda had gone and Mary caught him watching her go. He tried his best to stop smiling like a neighborhood fool, but his lips had no intention of cooperating.

Mary shook her head and stirred the tea.

* * *

“We need to plan,” Ita insisted, but Leda wanted to just start painting. Ntimi, of course, was on her side.

“An elephant!” he shouted and pointed at a swath of wall.

“Yes!” Leda agreed. “Gray or purple?”

Ntimi laughed. “No purple elephant!”

“Are you sure?” She looked through the paint cans and took out green. “I think I saw a green one once. Maybe he was sick?” She pretended to vomit out of a pretend elephant trunk, making Ntimi laugh again.

She opened each can, and laid out brushes across each one.

“Wait,” Ita said, already imagining the chaos and the mess that was seconds from ensuing. “Are you sure—”

“Birds!” Leda picked up a brush and dipped it into the black paint. On the wall closest to her, she painted three lowercase Ms in quick succession.

The children collectively sucked in a breath and turned their wide eyes on Ita, waiting for him to erupt. He saw their big eyes like a row of vervet monkeys and laughed. This made their eyes grow even bigger.

“Paint!” Ita said. “Monkeys! Lions! Rainbows! The sun!” He looked at Leda and then he reached over to pluck up the brush from the orange can of paint. He walked beside her and painted an enormous orange circle between Leda’s birds. She clapped.

The boys sprang into motion at once, grabbing up the brushes and dashing off for their own piece of wall. Ita filled in his sun while Leda watched.

“Are you going to do the green elephant next?” she whispered close to his ear.

He felt the tingle go down his neck. “Anything you wish,” he said.

He heard her take a deep breath, sucking the warm air away from his neck. She stayed there, crouched behind him, watching him fill in the sun, one slow, even stroke at a time.

When the sun was finished, neither one of them moved. It was a pause Ita wanted to live in forever. When Ntimi shouted for Leda to come see his painting, Ita was sad to see the moment end. “Now I shall fix your birds,” he said.

“Hey!”

He took the paintbrush from her fingers, the black paint already drying in the sun.

“What kind of birds should they be, then, huh?”

“Sparrows,” he said.

“Leda!” Ntimi shouted. “Look!”

But Leda didn’t leave just yet. She nodded at Ita, seriousness smoothing out the scar along her chin. “In the States, sparrow tattoos signify freedom, but also coming home. Did you know sparrows mate for life? And in Egypt, sparrows signify dead souls living as stars.”

Ita watched the hairs on his arm stand up. How did she know these things that spoke to his soul?

“Hope,” Ita said. “For us, sparrows mean hope and dignity. And love—the love we all deserve, no matter who we are or where we are from.”