What Tears Us Apart

Chapter 15



December 17, 2007, Nairobi—Leda

BY THE TIME the matatu screeched to a halt, and Ita gallantly took her hand to help her out, Leda’s mood floated like a bobber on a sunny lake. Yes, she’d just torn through a big strange city in a vehicle like a Pimp My Ride episode on steroids. But with Ita at her side, she felt both protected and free to be a little wild. It was as if with him, in his world, she could be a different person, a stronger, better one.

On the street, Leda looked up. Across from the hotel was another block-shaped, beige-colored structure, but this one had a pointed copper archway atop two altars bearing hieroglyphic-like carvings.

“The Kenyan National Assembly,” Ita said. “Parliament.”

Leda gazed in awe at the imposing building and its regal neighbors. Nairobi was an impressive city, teeming with bright hotels, green parks and regal architecture.

Ita stood beside her and looked, too. She could tell his gaze was more conflicted, but when he turned to her, his smile was there, just for her.

Their first semiofficial date had begun.

She smiled back. “Shall we?”

They strode toward the Intercontinental, a towering white structure with green awnings. Nine days after her arrival, Leda’s first night’s stay in the hotel seemed like a far-off dream. She drifted through the glass front doors, smiling at the doorman, Ita a step behind her. At the front desk, the receptionist confirmed Leda’s bag was there and asked if she would like a porter. When she saw Leda hesitate, she asked brightly, “Would you like to have lunch first?”

Leda turned to Ita, but he was busy ogling the surroundings. “We can have lunch here, if you’d like. There’s a beautiful Italian restaurant.” She remembered what she’d seen—formal dining with Renaissance paintings, heavy draperies and white linen. The look on his face told her it might be a bit much. The truth was she always felt uncomfortable at those types of places, too. Estella didn’t dine out, and Leda had more practice playing the part of the ramen-expert college student than the fancy heiress. “But I’d rather dine by the pool.”

“The Terrace Restaurant,” the woman at the front desk said. “They have a lovely buffet.”

Leda waited for Ita’s response. It took him another moment to figure out both the women were waiting on him.

“Yes,” he said.

Leda eyed Ita, getting a little nervous. He was suddenly edgier than usual. She turned to the woman. “Thank you. I’ll return after lunch for the bag.”

Leda led the way to the patio restaurant. It was warm outside, but not the stuffy, beat-down heat of Kibera. The Terrace was casual but elegant, with linen napkins and tablecloths and wooden chairs beneath cloth umbrellas. The turquoise pool provided a bright backdrop and misty coolness.

A host escorted them to a table made private by carefully manicured hedges. The young man pulled out Leda’s chair and, after she sat, took the crisp linen napkin and spread it in her lap. She took a sip of lemon water before she noticed Ita still standing, watching her in a daze. She suddenly felt silly seated and started to stand.

Ita laughed. He shook his head at himself and sat down. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just so—” he turned his eyes squarely to Leda “—beautiful.”

Leda blushed and ducked her head, but inside she was delighted and hungry with anticipation.

When their waiter appeared, they ordered beers and headed for the buffet. She noted Ita’s gasp. The buffet was an explosion of excess—a parade of fruit and flowers, twenty-plus lined-up platters, piles of sandwiches and pasta salads, flanked by stations of prime rib and rotisserie chicken. Leda chose her favorite things, added an extra spoonful of potato salad, and laughed when Ita overloaded his plate before he got halfway down the line.

When they took their seats, she stared at her plate like a Jenny Craig patron about to go AWOL. “I had no idea I was so starving,” she said, muffled by a mouthful of lemon-caper potato salad.

“I know what you mean.” Ita fit a huge slice of roast beef in his mouth and Leda wanted to kick herself for using the word starving so casually with him. She wished he could eat like a king every day for the rest of his life.

The beers arrived and from the first clink, Leda allowed herself to settle into the scene like a well-rehearsed play. Their conversation never clashed, never collided. Rather, it rose and fell like ripples on a pond. They hit every cue for wit and camaraderie.

They talked about their lives, about the boys, expressed their concerns and theories on Jomo’s silence. They agreed how much they wished all the children could be there with them. They made each other laugh, taking turns imitating what each of the boys’ reactions would be to the buffet.

Leda gushed how thankful she was for Ita’s kindness in hosting her. She admired with all her heart what he had accomplished at the orphanage, the haven he’d created.

Embarrassed, Ita mumbled something that she could only guess at by the look on his face and his body language.

“Did you say guilty?” she asked. That she couldn’t believe—not from him. “You’ve achieved impossible feats. The only thing that’s ever held you back is funding.” She felt her conviction about him solidify even as her own guilt bubbled. “You have nothing to be guilty about.”

His silence told her he’d heard the change in her voice, saw the look scurry across her face. In the blink of an eye, the tone of their afternoon changed.

“I’m the one who should feel guilty,” she whispered. “I should have done so much more with my blessings. With my life.”

He gazed at her, considering her words thoughtfully. “How did you get the scar?” he asked softly and only then did she realize she was stroking it. “A burn,” he guessed correctly. “From liquid, I would guess.”

Leda saw no disgust, no pity, nothing but concern on Ita’s face. Where every other time in her life, she would have changed the subject, instead she confessed, “Boiling water. It tipped over on me from the stove.”

Ita reached out, slowly but surely, and his fingers caressed her face, halfway between a lover’s touch and a doctor’s assessment. “It wasn’t treated properly.”

Leda didn’t feel shame at his words. She felt his anger, and it only emboldened her. “I was eight. And I’d been left alone. For days.” She stopped. It was more than she’d meant to say.

He nodded. “You have spent much time alone.” His hand was still cupping her cheek.

For a moment, Leda melted into the warmth of his palm and the world disappeared. Yes, she thought, and his touch only made it that much more true. She could feel it—his compassion like a cocoon designed just for her, designed to help her grow and change and turn into something better, beautiful.

But as the moment lingered, the gushy feeling faded and her body tensed. Suddenly, she felt awkward and ridiculous hunched over in his palm. She glimpsed a patron staring, registered the clinking silverware around them and kids splashing in the pool. Her heart began to race. She had the budding desire to run. Ita’s skin was hot, too hot on hers. Like the cozy warmth of a radiator turning dangerous, and she jerked out of his touch.

She saw the tiny wince on his face and her heart sank into her lap. God, she was terrible at these things.

When she dared to look again, however, Ita’s distress had vanished, replaced with empathy. Gently, he asked, “Have you ever married, Leda? Do you have a boyfriend?”

Leda picked at the skin on her fingers. “Neither. Like I said, I’m not good at relationships.”

“Maybe they weren’t good with you.”

His face held a divine understanding. For a moment, she considered his words. “No, trust me, I’m a wrecking ball.”

“Not you,” he said. “Your little monsters.”

“Did you just call me a monster?” She smirked. But, come to think of it, that was a pretty accurate description of her behavior with men.

Ita didn’t smile. “No. The little monsters buried inside us. They’re not you. They swallow your regrets and bad memories so you can sleep at night. But sometimes they get out, take over and do terrible things.”

Leda’s skin prickled, feeling as if he could see right through her, see the memories she’d never told anyone about, ever, the nights she carved lines into her skin to prove she existed, prove she was alive. But it made her wonder, for someone to glimpse such ugliness—

“Then you, too, have been unlucky in love?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to—his eyes filled with flickering remembrances of his own ghosts. The longer he looked at her, the further away he swept, and Leda almost thought she understood, could glimpse a life of being let down, abandoned, ignored. That she understood all too well. “Kioni,” Ita said into the sky.

Leda watched his face contort as he uttered the name. Like the path of a tornado, guilt twisted his features, rained regret into his eyes. Before her, Ita’s face hardened into a mask she hardly recognized. A mask of darkness, chilling even in the heat.

Just then the waiter appeared above them. “Two more beers?”

“Yes,” they said in unison.

The laughter brought the bliss of levity rushing back. Ita peeled off his mask and tossed it aside. His smile toasted Leda along with the clink of a frosty glass.

Minutes later, they were back to funny stories and smiles, but the darkness had brought a fuzzy intimacy that still wrapped around Leda’s shoulders. She felt far closer to him now, closer maybe than she’d ever let herself get to anyone. She tentatively accepted it, but deep in her bones, she had to fight the flutter of panic, fight the feeling that the closeness would crush her.

“Excuse me,” she said suddenly, rising clumsily. “I have to use the ladies’ room.”

She teetered over hot coals all the way to the bathroom, past the diners and the food and the waiters. When she pushed open the door, she landed smack in front of a harshly lit mirror.

Her hair was a tangled mess, her face without makeup flushed and shiny. Her dusty clothes were rumpled beyond precedent.

But the overall impression of the vision Leda saw in the mirror amounted to something surprising.

She didn’t look like herself at all, not one bit. Tanned and tousled, she realized she looked instead like a contented, happy version of herself she’d never known.

How long until I ruin it? she asked the radiant woman in the mirror.

Scared of the answer, she pictured Ita’s face, calm and confident. She remembered him walking tall at the clinic, guiding the children through their homework at the orphanage. Everything he did was imbued with strength, goodness and purity of spirit.

Please, give me a little longer.


December 17, 2007, Nairobi—Ita

Watching Leda walk away, Ita was locked in an afterglow, the world like a masterpiece painting left to dry. Every cell in his body felt alive, bursting. He recalled accounts from drug users in the medical journals—the high that made them feel like the best version of themselves—smarter, funnier, the most dazzling person in the room.

With Leda, he felt that kind of euphoria, as if everything could be different, better. With her, as with the doctors at the clinic or his peers at the university, he felt infused with inspiration. But more than in the doctors or students, in Leda he’d found a kindred spirit. Unlike them, she looked at him as a true equal, as a friend. And, he thought, maybe as more. The electricity between them was intoxicating. This angel, sitting across from him in a beautiful sliver of a perfect day, wanted to know everything about him, understood so much, so many secret things, pieces he’d tucked away so long ago. Ita felt free to be alive, to be happy, to hope.

But as the minutes passed, as her absence sank in, the glow receded and Ita peeked through the clearing fog at his surroundings. He saw the waiters clustered in a corner, whispering as though about him.

The luxuriousness of the restaurant, the marble and glass, the crisp white linen, the impossible blue of the pool—it imparted Ita with the prickly suspicion of a dreamer about to wake.

What could he possibly offer a woman like Leda? With her array of clothes and the house she’d described, the gilded life she’d rejoin in just two short weeks. What could he gain from this liaison but a broken heart? Ita glowered at his dirty fingernails. This lunch cost more than he’d spent on the children’s clothes for the year.

Inspecting the other diners, he felt ill at the injustice of the world. It was better if he didn’t see this, didn’t have to think about it. Didn’t have to imagine what he could do with one tenth of the money these tourists spent here on holiday. What he could give the orphans with that kind of money. What he could have given Chege—the chance at a better life, a better soul. And Kioni—

Kioni. With these rich people’s pocket money, he could have spared Kioni her suffering.

At the thought, Ita’s stomach lurched into his throat, threatening to reject the lunch he’d gulped down so happily, so greedily. How could he even think he deserved someone like Leda? Deserved to be happy?

He closed his eyes against the wave of self-loathing, but when he opened them, he noticed something—the dirt under his fingernails wasn’t dirt. It was paint. Black paint and some yellow and blue, from painting the murals.

Ita smiled in spite of himself, remembering Leda helping Ntimi with his elephant, coaxing Jomo into painting zebra stripes. It was easy to imagine how life would wilt when she left, lose luster and shine.

He took a sip of water and gave himself a talking-to. She was here for now, and he could enjoy it or not. He could let the little monsters play him for a shadow puppet, or he could savor these two weeks like the sun returning after a long, lonely storm.

And, besides, there was one thing he could offer Leda.


December 17, 2007, Nairobi—Leda

Leda returned to their table, feeling like a deflated balloon drifting across concrete.

But Ita looked more like a circus clown hopped-up on Red Bull. “You’re back. I have a surprise,” he said in a rush.

As she took her seat, she felt the tingle start back up in her stomach.

“Ready for it?” he asked.

“Ready,” she said.

“Come with me on safari.”

Birds took flight in her stomach. “Really? When? How?”

“I had hired a guide from another organization to lead the safari scheduled during your visit, so I could host you at the orphanage,” he said as he scooted forward and took her hand in his. The sudden warmth gave her a jolt. “I just called him and canceled his services.”

Leda took a quick, eager breath. “When do we go?”

“Tomorrow.”

She added her other hand on top of his, resisting the little urge to squirm out of his touch, and instead leaning into its warmth. Please, she told the little monsters who were stirring awake, please let me have this.

* * *

By the time the cab dropped them off at the edge of Kibera, they were like two hot kernels about to pop. Leda paid the cabbie, whom they’d opted for over a matatu to accommodate the luggage, while Ita hoisted her suitcase on his back as if it were a box of feathers. Then they hightailed it home. Excited chatter had been replaced by sly backward glances and licking of lips, as Ita led the way back to the orphanage.

He couldn’t get the door open fast enough for her. When he finally slung back the metal, she felt as if he was ripping off her blouse.

Sure enough, as soon as the suitcase was plopped inside and the gate closed behind them, he grabbed her by the waist with both hands and pulled her to him, their hungry hips slamming together. Leda gasped as he lifted both their shirts and smashed their naked stomachs together while his lips found hers again.

They kissed as if it was the end of the world, or the beginning, or as if the world didn’t exist and who the hell cared. They kissed like seals, hot, slippery skin sliding up and down until the friction made Leda want to scream. She arched her back and his hands dipped into her pants, gripping her ass so hard the pain sucked the breath out of her, but made her want it all the more.

In a flash, he yanked his right hand from the back of her pants, drove it down the front, into her panties. His fingers dove inside her with such wet force that her feet nearly lifted off the ground. She squealed, certain she would faint from the searing fullness. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders as she raked his neck with her nails. He growled into her mouth, plunged deeper and rubbed her harder and faster, making her swell under the pressure and rhythm.

She nearly drowned in his touch, her warm response gushing out from her panties, down the insides of her legs. Dizziness mounted inside her until her knees buckled, her head fell back, and she rode his fingers like a rocking horse, gyrating atop his thrusting while he kissed her neck and her chest. He bit her nipple through the fabric of her shirt. She made a noise she’d never heard herself make before, a low growl to match his as he—

“Ita!” A yell came through the door as banging sounded against the metal. The boys were home with Mary. Inches away.

Their eyes flew open. Reality turned on them like a searchlight.

Ita withdrew his fingers, moved them, soaking wet, to Leda’s waist until she found her footing. She swam in his hungry gaze.

“To be continued?” she whispered as the banging resumed.

Ita moved apart and adjusted his pants with a grin. Then he kissed her cheek, slowly, savoring. When he pulled back, his eyes stayed locked on hers. She felt as if they were living in a snow globe, as though she was the only woman in the world, the only woman Ita would ever look at, ever love.