And there, standing right in my way, is Father Fidele.
He startles me, and I take a step back. His approaching footsteps had been muffled by the rushing water. I feel the creek bank crumbling underfoot and he grabs my hand to keep me from falling back. “Careful!”
I start to thank him, but something in his eyes stops me. I don’t have time to scream before he’s pulling me close with the hand that is gripping my wrist. With his other hand he presses a cloth over my face. I start to fight, but stinging vapors hit my lungs, and everything goes bright and swirls and fades to nothing.
THIRTY-SIX
Good, now bring the cloth around on both sides so we can tie it in the middle,” Mama said.
We were outside our cottage, standing at the edge of the grass, Mama, Kiki, and me. It was warm and sunny, and all over the Greyhills’ yard I heard the familiar sounds of the staff at work. Maids chatting, the chop of the gardener’s panga cutting back weeds. A thump and the occasional sneeze as dust was beaten out of a carpet. They were preparing for a party.
Mama was needed in the house, so I had a job too. I was bent over at the waist, baby Kiki a squirmy warm mass on my back. Mama’s sure hands guided mine as we gathered the ends of the kanga cloth—one over my shoulder, one around my middle—and made Kiki snug against me. Today I would wear Kiki and take her with me wherever I went. Mama told me it was a big responsibility, but I was six and a half years old and ready for it.
“Can you make the knot?” she asked me.
I could. I made it too tight at first, but Mama helped me loosen it. Kiki made happy little baby noises to herself.
“Now stand slowly; make sure she isn’t going to slip.” Mama stepped back to observe.
I looked up at her, waiting for judgment. Those eyes saw everything. Every loose corner of the fabric, every stray hair come out of my braids, the scabs on both my knees from playing with Michael, my secondhand skirt already getting too short. She would find something wrong; she always managed to.
So I was surprised when she crouched at my level and kissed my forehead. “You are my good girl,” she said, and her smile was something rare and brilliant that I wanted to capture, to hold tight in my fist and reexamine later when I was alone. “Take care of your sister,” she said.
“I will,” I said.
And I did. Not just that day, but every day after.
? ? ?
A hand smacks me across the face. My head bobs back and forth. The sting is enough to draw me out of the darkness, but for a few seconds I still don’t know what’s going on. Someone is yelling at me, I realize.
“Tiny. Tiny Girl. Wake up.”
My eyes feel glued together. At first, when I get them open, I think there are several people before me, but then I understand I’m seeing double. I lift my head at the exact same moment freezing water hits my face, as sudden as a slap. I sputter and cough.
But it does the trick; I’m awake. I blink and look up. The figure steadies. He’s holding a bucket and grinning at me like a hyena.
Ketchup.
I try to get to my feet, but I’m held fast. My hands are bound behind me, and I realize, after a second or two of fuzzy thinking, that I’m tied to a chair. Once that’s cleared up, the pain in my wrists and ankles emerges where the bindings are. I’m in some sort of room with cloth walls. A tent. I hear birds singing; I think it’s morning. There’s another chair and a slept-in cot, but otherwise, except for the Goonda and me, the tent is empty. The ground underneath my feet is bare dirt covered in dead leaves.
Ketchup laughs. “You look like a chicken left out in the rain.”
I test my wrists. The ties are metal, maybe. From the feel of it, they’ve cut my skin already. “Where am I?” I mumble. My face is numb.
“Uh-uh, Tiny Girl,” Ketchup says, and comes close enough to grab my jaw and lift my face to his. “We’re asking the questions now.”
I can smell cheap home brew on his breath. His eyes are red and slightly unfocused.
I try to shake my head out of his grip, but the best I can do is give him a dirty look. Ketchup? Here? So I really hadn’t imagined him in the marketplace. I work up some saliva and spit it on his hand.
He calls me a name and slaps the spit onto my cheek. He pulls back to hit me harder, but just then the tent flap opens and a man walks in.
At first I don’t recognize him. But that’s just because he looks so out of place here. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him in the flesh. He seems a little older, his round face starting to sag, the hair above his ears going gray. He’s wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt and chinos, everything neatly pressed and spotless. More than anything, he looks like he just stepped off the golf course.
Ketchup hesitates, then lowers his hand. “Mr. Omoko. I was just coming for you, sir.”
“She’s awake,” the Goonda boss says. He’s talking to Ketchup, but looking at me.