What Tears Us Apart

Chapter 24



December 27, 2007, Kibera—Leda

AFTER LEDA’S ILL-FATED announcement on Christmas Day, the bliss between her and Ita sputtered like a car running out of gas. He was as polite and kind as ever, but somehow that made the distance more pronounced. If falling in love meant turning a stranger into something as familiar as oatmeal, then falling out of love... Was it this? Watching Ita turn back into a stranger one hour at a time? Leda sensed him rewriting her, sketching a new image of her in his mind.

He asked her a few questions about the money, what Leda wanted do with it. But each time, his questions and her overeager answers wedged them further apart.

She didn’t understand what had happened, not really. Did he feel betrayed? Emasculated? Suddenly indebted? Or was it just that she had suddenly become a stranger, a rich foreigner, a mzungu, in his eyes?

He needed help for the orphanage. She wanted to help. Why did this have to become a mountain between them?

That morning, Ita and Mary had left for the voting station before Leda even emerged from her room.

The night before, she’d asked to go with him to the polls, but Ita had said no. “Optimism,” he’d said, “does not negate caution.” Plus, he needed her to watch the boys.

When Leda joined them, the boys were already eating breakfast. They were riled up as if it were Christmas morning—infused with frothy excitement. They must have caught it from Ita and Mary before they’d left.

Leda tried to feel excited, too. This could be the day nefarious leaders toppled, replaced by saviors. The day when life in Kibera got better.

But Leda couldn’t. She couldn’t rise above the unease caused by the rift between her and Ita.

As she played with the younger children, who understood neither English nor her butchered Swahili, Leda felt her anxiety increase. On safari, she and Ita had been a romantic fairy tale, reveling in their impossible love. But in Kibera, the vivid dreams they’d whispered in the dark became chalk drawings in the beating sun. Had she been honest, telling Ita she could live in Kibera? Although he might see her life in California as wasteful, idle or shallow, at least he could go to med school there. Follow his dream, because he had a goal. But what would she do there? Maybe staying in Kibera wasn’t ridiculous. Here, at least, she felt as though she had a purpose, as though she could help. Or at least she had felt that way. Did Ita even want her to return anymore as his benefactor, if it meant this unease between them—tiptoeing around their love like a shattered vase hastily glued?

Leda gathered all the boys in the courtyard and vowed to stop thinking about it. She would just have to talk things out with Ita that night. It would be fine.

For a few hours, they played Duck Duck Goose and Red Rover, Red Rover. Leda taught them how to patty-cake and they showed her how to use the wooden Bao board she’d been curious about. It was like a cross between checkers and backgammon, with dried seeds as playing pieces.

Afterward, Leda heated the lunch Mary had left for them—chapati and salted cassava with peas.

After the meal, and after all the dishes were done, Leda announced it was story time. She stuck to the simplest one—Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. The boys traced their fingers over the shiny pages, laughing at the little boy picking apples. They felt sorry for the wrinkled old man the boy becomes, with only a tree for a friend.

After they read it through three times, Leda could tell they were losing interest. Jomo was the first to get up and leave, ducking away without so much as a glance. Could he sense the shift that had happened, too? Would they all treat her like an outsider now?

Leda was continuing with the story—pointing out the apples and the trees, imagining her voice sounded boring and screechy—when there was a loud knock at the gate.

Her hands froze, clenching the book like a baseball bat, as the boys jumped up and dashed toward the sound.

“Wait!” she called out.

But overlapping her voice was another—Chege’s, coming from the gate. “Ita! Sasa?”

Michael grinned and unlocked the door before Leda could stop him. Her stomach twisted like a balloon animal, but with nothing funny about it. Every single thing about Chege made her uneasy.

She jumped up and scurried to the door, hoping to block his entrance. Chege stopped, surprised, and peered past her as he asked, “Where Ita at?”

“Voting with Mary,” she said, and instantly regretted adding the Mary part, as Chege’s snarl curled into a sickening smile.

“Just you? Alone?”

“Ita will be back soon,” she said, her hand resting on the door pointedly. “I’ll tell him to call you.” She tugged on the metal.

Chege chuckled as he reached in and put his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Nah, I just play here till he come back.”

Michael moved aside, allowing Chege to slip in. Leda looked at Michael in anger. Traitor.

She stood awkwardly in place as Chege strutted past her to the mat, pied piper to seven pairs of pitter-pattering feet. He wore jeans and a shiny red Fila athletic shirt. His dreads snaked down his back, loosely gathered by a red piece of cloth.

For a split second, like the first time she’d laid eyes on him, Leda was struck by an unwelcome thought: Chege could be handsome. Not at all like Ita, who was smooth and solid and chiseled. No, Chege was both jagged and lithe, his allure like that of a lizard or a snake.

As if he could feel her studying him, he turned and winked. It caught Leda so off guard, she turned away, pretending she’d heard a noise outside and needed to shut the gate, fast. Her cheeks burned with shame.

Ntimi noticed her hovering near the door. “Leda, play! Come here, play!”

Chege smiled, showing his teeth with the brown streaks. Ita told her it was from chewing miraa, a twig with an effect like cocaine. “Yes, Leda,” he purred. “Come play.”

Leda’s general nausea about him returned, and that was comforting somehow. She went and sat down next to Ntimi on the mat.

“What you boys reading today?” Chege picked up the book and ran his hand seductively over the shiny cover. He didn’t open it, Leda noticed. She wondered if he could read.

“The Giving Tree,” Ntimi said. “By Mr. Shel Siverstein.” He pronounced it perfectly. Leda smiled at him proudly.

Chege chuckled. “Yeah? What the trees giving us today? I thought you don’t need a giving tree anymore, now you got Leda. Ita’s angel. That what he think. You boys, too?”

Leda’s smile faltered.

He laughed. “Aw, come on. Let’s be friends, Leda.” He pulled up his shirt enough that she could see his stomach. She expected to see a weapon, a machete, but instead he took a flask from his waistband. “Share a drink with me. For voting day. You American girls like to drink.”

“No, thank you,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders and took a swig. With wet lips, he studied her. “You know changaa?”

She knew he meant the liquor. Slum moonshine, brewed illegally at great penalty. “No,” she said.

Chege’s face softened. “It not your fault, you pretty thing. You from the other side of the world.”

Leda felt heavy, like an anchor sinking to the bottom of the sea. She wished she could go hide in her little room. She felt exposed before Chege. Naked. But daring to look in his eyes, she was surprised at what she saw. Not the judgment she imagined, not at all. He looked at her with something like sympathy, understanding.

“Anyway,” he said. “That not your real problem, is it?” He took another swig from the flask. He closed his eyes as it went down and brushed sweat from his forehead. He looked tired, suddenly. Beaten down. When he opened his eyes, he stared straight ahead, not at Leda. “You no angel. Nobody is. Not after what the world done with us. Nobody an angel.” Now Chege looked over, extended the flask. “Except Ita.”

Leda didn’t say a word. The image of Ita’s face loomed between them, his eternally kind, patient face, loving her so innocently, so unconditionally, the same as he loved the orphans, same as he loved Chege. Not believing that anybody could be undeserving of his love—

When Leda’s eyes met Chege’s, she saw herself reflected in them. She reached out and took the flask.

The fluid that gushed down her throat was liquid fire—possibly gasoline—and she imagined it scarring her insides as it went. Not warming them, but harming them—rivers of burned tissue. She liked the feeling, liked the dull wave of fog that followed.

Chege watched her face as he took back the flask. But he didn’t say another word.

Instead, he seemed to relax. He turned away from her and started jabbering to the boys in Swahili. Leda sat weaving in place for a few moments, a balloon tied down in a breeze.

Chege smiled when Walter waddled over and sat in her lap. Leda kissed the top of the toddler’s furry head and gave him a squeeze. She felt so much better after the drink.

All of sudden, Chege drummed out a beat on his knees and right away the boys copied it. Ntimi thumped his knees next, faster, and ended with a loud puff of his cheeks. Everyone imitated, laughing. One by one, each boy took their turn, adding their own flourish, like a King Kong chest-beating or an arm flap accompanied by the squawk of a chicken. Ntimi’s second turn, he jumped up and did a little dance. This time, Leda popped up with Walter in her arms and approximated Ntimi’s wiggly jiggle. Everybody laughed appreciatively, Chege the loudest.

* * *

After playtime, the group stretched out on the mat to rest.

“Now I want to hear the book,” Chege said, sprawled out opposite Leda.

She hesitated shyly, but Chege pressed the book into her hands.

Ntimi scooted in. “I start,” he said, and opened the book on Leda’s knee.

Each of the boys found a way to participate in the story, pointing out an apple to Chege or the old man’s glasses or the carving on the tree. Leda applauded their efforts and their English. She was thrilled to feel the ease between her and the boys had returned—it made her feel drunk on contentedness. Or changaa?

Chege looked at Michael, sitting, watching as usual. “Is it teatime?” he asked. “Huh? Teatime, brother,” he said when Michael didn’t answer. “Take them.”

Michael looked at Leda and the intensity of it unnerved her, made her feel suddenly guilty somehow.

“Go on,” Chege urged and then rattled off a string of Swahili. The boys got up at once, Ntimi taking Walter, and headed for the kitchen.

“Hey—” Leda said, the word cottony in her mouth.

“I want to talk to you, Leda.”

The cozy feeling began to dissipate. “I should go help them.”

Chege laughed. “You think they need your help?”

Leda felt the sting, but dulled.

“Do you think Ita needs you now?” His voice turned soft again, low. “You want to help, I know.”

“Why is that so bad?” she asked, thinking of Ita, of the way he looked at her now—warily.

“What are you gonna do, Leda? Live here? Mother those little black boys?” He snorted, his dreads trembling. Then he got serious, looked her dead in the eye. “Or you plan to take him away? Save him from Kibera. From me.”

“We don’t know yet,” she said, trying to match his tone. But her voice wavered.

“Oh, Leda,” Chege growled. “Those things ain’t going to happen. This—” he gestured around the orphanage, but kept his eyes glued on hers “—is not your home. And you are right that Ita don’t belong here. But—”

He didn’t have to finish. As he reached inside his pants for the flask, she heard the rest in her head. But he doesn’t belong with you, either.

Chege leaned in closer, so Leda could smell him—smoky and earthy. “I did something,” he whispered, “that Ita will never forgive me for. Never. No matter what I do.”

She searched his eyes, expecting to see a monster, but all she saw was pain. Regret. Shame.

“And one day,” he said, “you will, too.”

Chege moved in slowly, put his forehead to hers, so that his dreads swung forward and made a tent of privacy. His hand gripped the back of her neck.

When his lips met hers, sensually, softly, deeply, Leda expected herself to recoil instantly.

But she didn’t. She let him kiss her.

He was right, she thought. Chege was right.