Blood & Milk (20 page)

Now he’s gone. It’s me against the world, alone. No Jarrod, no family. He was too young to be gone, and I was too young to have my heart ripped out of my chest.

All our friends are there, some stand with his family, some must have felt bad and come over to stand with me. They hug me, not knowing what to say… Not that it matters. There are no words that can fix this.

I’m still banged up, stitches and a cast on my arm, physical reminders of my failure to save him. I relish the pain of my injuries. I deserve them.

I say nothing. Even as they lower him into the ground, I say nothing. I want to scream and cry, but I can’t let the floodgates open. Because don’t they know? How could they not see? It wasn’t only him that died that day…

“Heath, wake up, baby,” Jarrod whispered.

It had been almost two years since I’d heard his voice. I’d yearned to hear it, I’d have given my life to hear him speak, just one more time. I started awake, my heart thundered in my chest. He was there, Jarrod was there, sitting on the dirt floor in front of me, in the darkened hut.

I was so confused, I couldn’t make sense of it.

“How are you here?”

He threw his head back and laughed, and my heart soared and broke at the same time. It was then I realised Damu’s arm was still around my waist, his lips at my ear.

“You always liked being the little spoon,” Jarrod said, his eyes smiling and warm.

“Jarrod,” I whispered. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t what he thought, it wasn’t what it looked like, but I couldn’t.

Because it was.

Jarrod chuckled, then said, “You came here to find him. It was always meant to be. He loves you, Heath. And you love him. Allow yourself to feel it.”

I tried to sit up but somehow couldn’t… “But I love you,” I reasoned.

“You always will,” he replied simply. “But you have a life to live yet, and it is with him.”

I didn’t understand. I’d waited two years to hear Jarrod’s voice, and he was telling me to love someone else. “What?”

“You need to leave here,” Jarrod said. There was a seriousness to his voice now. “Take him from here. He has saved you. Now you will save him.” Then Jarrod ran his fingers over my eyebrow and down my jaw. It wasn’t his touch as I remembered but something ethereal. “You need to wake up now,” he said sternly. “Heath! Wake up, wake up. Heath!” I could have sworn a hand on my shoulder shook me, but there was nothing there. I woke with a start, my heart hammering, and my dream so was real. The feeling of being watched was like needles into my skin, and I expected to find Jarrod sitting in front of us.

But it wasn’t.

It was Kijani.

The sky outside was darker than it had been in my dream, and I tried to distinguish what was a dream and what was real… First Jarrod’s funeral, then Jarrod sitting in the hut and talking to me and me
finally
hearing his voice, and now Kijani. I tried to blink myself awake…

Then Kijani, with the rage of hellfire in his eyes, reached over and grabbed Damu’s arm and dragged him out of the hut.

I was stunned, frozen with fear, and not really understanding what the fuck just happened. Kijani had grabbed Damu’s arm, the one draped over my waist, and literally dragged him over me, from his house.

Damu woke up of course, startled, but he only resisted until he realised who it was who had hold of him.

I scampered to the door, only to realise I still had no shorts on, and I became acutely aware of just how much Kijani had seen.

Two men, mostly naked, wrapped around each other in bed.

I fumbled to get my shorts on, my hands were shaking so badly, but I pulled them up and scampered out of the hut. I raced around the corner and saw a crowd had gathered in front of Kasisi’s house. Men stood in a circle, the women stood back, children hiding in their skirts. Damu was on the ground, his shuka barely covering his hips, and I ran towards him just as Kijani’s fist struck his face.

Kijani roared words of abomination and disgrace, and I flew between the men trying to protect Damu with my body. Kijani struck the side of my head, knocking me sideways, and I fell into the dirt.

There was no pain. I knew it would come later, but right now there was only fear. Fear and memories, because there in the dirt under the Tanzanian morning sky, my memories took me to that darkened alley beside the pub in Sydney… Of Jarrod on the ground, of him being punched and kicked, and even as they beat me, I couldn’t look away from the man I loved as they pummelled him… Only now it wasn’t Jarrod. It was Damu.

“Leave him alone!” I cried.

Kijani ignored me and struck Damu again. I knew there was no reasoning with Kijani. I couldn’t beg, plead, or stop him, so I looked around for the only man who could.

The Chief sat, as he always did, with his back against his house. He was watching, Kijani had, after all, brought Damu to him so he could witness. “Kasisi, please!” I scrambled to my knees, tears streamed down my face. “Tell him to stop. Please.”

Kasisi’s face remained neutral as he studied me for the longest moment, but he slowly raised his hand. Kijani stood back, his chest heaving and his eyes wild. A picture of pure rage.

Damu sagged into the dirt, his hands out, his head down. I couldn’t see his face, but I could see drops of blood as they spilled into the dirt. I scrambled on my hands and knees to him, needing to touch him, needing to protect him.

The whole manyatta was silent, everyone was watching. Even the cows and goats were quiet. I couldn’t hear anything but my pounding heart and the blood rushing through my ears.

Kijani pointed at us and spat in the dirt. My God, he was livid. He paced like a lion, opening and closing his fists, never taking his eyes off Damu. He bared his teeth at him. “
Il-mínoŋîn
!”

I’d never heard that word before, but by the reaction of everyone standing around―the gasps of shock and horror―I could guess what it meant.

I looked at Kasisi, my eyes pleading. “It’s not what you think,” I said lamely. I didn’t care if I lied. I’d deny everything. I’d tell them anything they wanted to hear, just to save Damu.

Kijani came back with his rungu, a wooden club weapon, and aimed it at Damu. “
Káɨ́bárbar
,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “I kill him.”

“No!” I cried, jumping to my feet. I stood between Kijani and Damu, my hands out. “No!” I turned to Kasisi. “I beg of you, no.”

Kasisi stood up and walked into the centre of the circle. Without taking his eyes off Damu, who was still kneeling on the ground with his head down, Kasisi raised his hand toward Kijani. “Enough.”

I sagged with relief, though I knew the danger wasn’t over. “Thank you.”

Kasisi eyed me with passive eyes. “Kneel.”

Fuck. I was quick to comply and went to my knees next to Damu. It felt like an execution, and I wondered if I’d read Kasisi wrong. I wondered if this was my last day on earth. I didn’t want to die, not today, not here in the dirt. But more than that, I didn’t want Damu to die either.

Damu finally sat back on his knees, and it was then I saw his face. His eyebrow was swollen and split, blood streamed down his chin. His cheek was cut, as was his lip, but it was his eyes that broke me.

He was defeated. He was resigned, and he was ashamed.

I shook my head, as an irrational anger seeped through my veins, and my head started to throb where I’d been struck. I took a deep breath and spoke as evenly as I could to Kasisi. “I have a request. A favour to ask, with respect.” I looked up to find I had everyone’s full attention. “I seek permission to leave, to go back to my people.”

Damu’s gaze shot to mine, but he schooled his reaction quickly.

Kasisi’s voice was calm and measured. “You not need permission.”

I lifted my chin. “I wish to take Damu with me.”

All eyes went to Kasisi, a few muttered wonderings went around the people, but it was only Kasisi’s permission I needed.

Kijani’s nostrils flared. “No. Damu stays here.”

I shook my head. “No. He is to come with me.”

Kijani’s anger was immediate. He lunged at me and shouted insults at me, his club turning over in his hand.

As scared as I was, I never flinched. I had to hold my nerve. Damu’s life and mine depended on it. “You don’t need Damu. You need money and cattle. I can give you that. I can give you money to buy cattle and goats.”

Kijani stopped and stared at me. I was now speaking a language he understood. It might have been a low blow―his first concern was for his people. He would do anything to keep them safe, to ensure they survived and thrived. And I was no different. Except my people was Damu.

He sneered at me. “You buy him like bride?”

I resisted the urge to grit my teeth. I let out as steady a breath as my anger and fear would allow. “Not bride. A trade. What price?”

Kasisi raised his talisman. “You offer this?”

“Yes.” I swallowed hard. “I give you money, and Damu and I can leave.”

I could feel Damu staring into the side of my head, but I didn’t dare look at him. I wasn’t exactly buying his freedom, I was buying
him
.

I felt sick to my stomach. And if I’d had food in my belly, I’m sure I’d have vomited. My eyes welled with tears, but I blinked them back and swallowed the bile in my throat.

Kasisi gave a pointed nod to Makumu and Mposi, the other senior elders, and they stood to the side and had a whispered conversation. While they discussed our fate, Kijani came to stand in front of us. He taunted us with the wooden club, without a word, letting it swing near our faces. I half expected him to lose patience with the discussions and just swing it at us anyway, though I doubted he’d ever defy his father. Well, I hoped he wouldn’t.

After what felt like forever, Kasisi turned to face us. Everyone waited, I didn’t even breathe, and Damu kept his head down. “You say money?” Kasisi asked me.

He wanted me to make an offer. Jesus fucking Christ. Was I bidding for a human life? My stomach rolled. “You can have all my money,” I told him. I wouldn’t put a dollar figure on it. I couldn’t.

“Get it and show us,” Kasisi said.

I didn’t want to leave Damu, but I had no choice. I got to my feet and raced to our hut. I grabbed my backpack and ran back to where Damu was still on his knees. It didn’t look like Kijani had touched him in the moments I was gone, but I glared at him anyway as I went back to my knees.

I ripped back the zipper and fumbled through the contents. There wasn’t much left in there now, hardly any of it recognisable as what I had come here with. I pulled out the waterproof insert and opened it. Ignoring my passport, I grabbed the folded wad of money.

I’d separated all my cash when I’d first come to Africa, keeping stashes in different places, and this was all the cash I had left. My emergency fund that, as a tour organiser back in Sydney, I had spent years telling people to have. Sure, I had credit cards I presumed still worked, though after a year of being completely off the grid, I really had no way of knowing.

All the notes I had left equated to about one million Tanzanian shillings. It was more money than Kasisi had seen in his lifetime, and more than enough to buy a hundred fucking herds of cattle. But to me, it was about six hundred Australian dollars.

I was buying a human being for six hundred bucks.

I felt nauseous. And dizzy. And scared. But mostly I was fucking angry.

I handed the money over, and Kasisi snatched the notes with eyes as wide as his smile. There was much excitement around the people who stood in the circle and watched, like they’d all just won the lottery. Kasisi shushed them. “Leave us!” he demanded.

Kijani never moved, and when Kasisi nodded for him to leave as well, he put his knee into Damu’s shoulder, and when Damu put his hands instinctively out to stop his fall, Kijani stomped down Damu’s hand.

His right hand.

I heard the crunch of bones breaking, and Damu bit back a cry as he brought his hand back to his chest in obvious pain. Kijani simply walked away.

When I looked back up at Kasisi, he was no longer holding the money. I didn’t see who took it. I didn’t care. Everyone else was gone.

“You not dream of this,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “Like you not dream of the death of your brother.”

What?
Before I could reply, it dawned on me. “No, I didn’t see this coming. But you did.”

His eyes met mine, and I knew I was right. He’d seen this would happen.

“Why didn’t you send us away earlier?” I asked quietly. “You could have told us to leave yesterday, and this wouldn’t have happened.”

“When you come here, Alé, you not care if you die,” Kasisi said. “You want death. Now you want life.” He shrugged. “One cannot wander from path life has you walk. True for Damu also. Before this day Damu not leave for no reason.” He put his gnarled hand on Damu’s head. “This gentle son with two hearts. One heart for this land, one heart for another land. Now is free to go.”

I blinked. Then I blinked again. I was trying to make sense of it, but like trying to hold a fistful of sand, I couldn’t grasp it all.

Damu looked up at his father, his expression one of pain and such deep sadness. “
A-
i
s
i
ráí
.”

I’m so sorry.

Kasisi leaned in and whispered to Damu. “The wind has ears. To admit regret is to admit guilt. No let him hear you.”

Oh my God.
I got it now. Kasisi was protecting him. He knew this would happen, but it was the only way Damu could leave without his brother killing him.

Then Kasisi stood back and said, “Go.”

Picking up my backpack, I pulled Damu to his feet. He still cradled his right hand, but I quickly led him back to our hut. “Get everything you want to bring with you.”

Damu knelt in his darkened hut, his shoulders sagged. I put my hand gently to his face and lifted his chin. His eye was badly swollen, there were streaks of blood down his face, and his eyes were so full of sadness. “We have to leave.”

“Where I go?”

“Anywhere that isn’t here. You’re not safe here. Kijani wants you dead.” My heart broke at the look in his eyes. “We’ll work it out on the way. Please, Damu.”

He shook his head. “I do not know.”

I fell to my knees in front of him and rested my forehead against his. I couldn’t fight the tears any more. I simply let them fall. “You can’t stay here. It will mean your death.” I put my hand to my heart. “And that would mean mine.”

“You will stay with me?” he whispered.

“Always.”

He sobbed but quickly composed himself. “Okay.”

I looked around the small hut that had been my home for a year and Damu’s his whole life. “What will you need to bring?”

He patted the rungu still tucked into the waistband of his shuka, then reached over and grabbed his spear from where he’d put it down last night. Then he lifted up the corner of the thin mattress and grabbed something. He held his hand out to me, and on his palm was the small paper origami crane I had given him so many months ago. I had no idea he’d even kept it. I carefully slotted it between the pages of my notebook, trying not to dwell on the fact that for twenty four years of life, all he was taking with him was a disregarded rungu, some folded paper I’d given him six months ago and the spear he’d been given the night before.

The only gifts he’d ever received.

And right there in our humble hut, my heart shattered into a thousand pieces. But I refused to cry. I shoved our two bowls into my backpack and wrapped my shuka around my shoulders before bending over to fit through the door of the hut for the final time. Damu followed me, and as we stepped away, Amali grabbed Damu.

The woman who had more or less been the only mother he’d known pulled him against the wall where no one would see. Amali handed me a pouch of seeds and berries, then she looked up at Damu. “May Enkai guide your feet,” she whispered. She put her hand to his banged up face. “Wherever you go.” Then Amali looked at me with fierce eyes. “Keep him safe.”