What Tears Us Apart

Chapter 23



January 9, 2008, Topanga, CA—Leda

LEDA ARRIVES LATE to the doctor’s office.

But the look on the receptionist’s face, either from too much Botox or in response to Leda’s haggard appearance, says she’s forgiven. Or maybe, Leda realizes, the kindness is due to why she’s here. Donor testing.

“Have a seat, honey,” the receptionist says. “Dr. Gordon will be with you just as soon as he can.”

Leda feels as if she’s moving through a haze, as if she should put her hands out to clear the fog. The cumulative noise—the beeping, the incessant ringing of the phones, the loud typing, the rampant whispering—it all feels choreographed, overdone. Chipper. American.

She sits down to wait. Her mind’s swimming like a dunked feline. She hasn’t been able to drag herself from her bed for over a week. Her phone hasn’t rung once, despite her constantly, desperately, willing it to. She finally decided the only way to rise from the rumpled sheets was to promise herself not to think. Promise to avoid the wide swath of things tearing apart her mind—Estella’s cancer, today’s tests to see if it will fall to Leda to save her, the dreams that plague her, of fire and blood...

I’m thinking about it.

She snaps the rubber band on her wrist. She slipped it on this morning and anytime thoughts creep in, she snaps it, a psychological trick. A weapon. She has already snapped it seven times in the car ride over, twice since she’s entered the office. So far she doesn’t think the receptionist has noticed.

On the table in front of her are the usual assortment of women’s and men’s magazines, and a newspaper. Leda knows she should snap the rubber band, but she picks up the newspaper.

It’s not on the front page. She has to flip two pages to the World section, but there it is, from a bird’s-eye view.

The newspaper says that in the months preceding the December 27 presidential election, clashes in the western part of Kenya killed hundreds of people, although this was not as bad as previous election years. The article blames politicians for stoking ethnic tensions, saying anyone could have foreseen that a narrow victory for either candidate would mean mayhem and riots.

Leda looks up, the paper extended, open. Idiot. That’s what she was, an idiot. Acting like a love-struck teenager frolicking on a beach while a tidal wave rose offshore. The tsunami was there the whole time, steadily positioning itself to drown Kibera and everything contained within. She pictures the shops, the blur of faces, children running through the alleys. The orphans. Ntimi, beaming, ever the gentleman. Michael, the martyr. Walter with his chubby exuberance. And Jomo, his watchful eyes, just starting to come around to the idea that maybe the world wasn’t so horrible.

When all along, Jomo was right.

Leda’s eyes return to the newspaper.

At first, the article says, Raila Odinga was reported in the lead. People celebrated in splatters. But when the official election results were withheld, people got antsy.

Leda sucks in a shaky breath—she knows what’s coming next. What will the newspaper say? About December 30, the night Kibaki was hastily sworn in. The paper says Kibera went mad. Thwarted Luo men took to the streets, hell-bent on hunting Kibaki’s long-privileged Kikuyu. After, during the night and day Leda spent on a plane, government security forces flooded the slum, and live TV was cut. Police rounded up protesters and took the opportunity to kill dissidents and Mungiki gang leaders, too.

New Year’s Day, while Leda sat at Estella’s kitchen table, public accusations were made of mass killings by Kenyan government forces. The same day, a mob set fire to a church full of women and children. The next day, President Kibaki accused Odinga’s Luo protesters of “ethnic cleansing” as the death toll rose. Odinga followed with a Nairobi rally that police squashed with tear gas and water canyons. By the fourth, as Leda tossed in bed, the United Nations announced their estimate that the violence had uprooted 200,000 people.

And who would’ve thought this would happen, the newspaper muses, when December 27—voting day—was such a relatively peaceful event? Millions turned out, hopeful and in good spirits, Luo and Kikuyu neighbors side by side.

Leda’s eyes drift from the page. Voting day.

The day the little monsters came out to play.

“Leda Walbourne,” the nurse calls out.

Leda looks up.

“We’re ready for you,” the nurse says with a smile. “We need blood and urine samples, then Dr. Gordon will see you.”