Golden Boy (9 page)

With a start I realize that he's much closer than he was before. I've let my nerves get the better of me and have frozen in place again. As he talked, he has closed the distance between us, and now he's only just a little farther than arm's length away. Instantly, I snap the stool out a little, shaking it at him, and take a few quick steps backward. My shoulders crash into the wall. No, not the wall. I can feel the latch handle bruising my ribs. I have managed to back up into the door.

Once, when I was
only five, I tried to get away with taking off my clothes in the middle of the day. I peeled off the long-sleeved layers Asu and Mother had put me in before they left to work in the maize fields and I ran down to the river. I flapped my arms up and down as I ran and let the breeze I made by running cool me. I got to the river and let my white, white toes sink into the dark mud of the riverbank. I smoothed the dirt up my ankles and wondered what I'd look like if my skin was the good color of the river mud instead of the color of cow bones. But my strange face peered up at me from the surface of the water until I dove in to make it scatter away.

All that afternoon I played in the sunny pools rather than the shaded ones. It felt wonderful. The water sparkled every time I splashed it into the air, and the sun fell over my bare shoulders like a warm blanket.

But that night, I was miserable. It was as if my skin had pulled in all the heat of the day and wouldn't let it go. I was bright red and had a terrible headache, and my skin was tight all over, like I was being pinched by the hot hands of an angry god.

At first both Mother and Asu gave me a terrible scolding because I had disobeyed them, but when Asu saw that I was in pain, she softened.

“You mustn't ever do this again, Habo,” she said. “The sun is jealous of you. If you go out, he'll burn you again. Stay inside where it's dark.” And Asu had held me and sung to me while she rubbed my skin with aloe and goat butter. Mother stood off to the side and told her if she missed a spot. Asu rubbed and sang, rubbed and sang, until I fell asleep. The heat from the burns dried the tears off my face, and in the morning there was nothing left but dry tracks down to my ears that crinkled when I moved.

As I stand here, facing Alasiri, that morning comes to me with such clarity that for a moment I am blinded by the sparkle of the river. There have been many times that my differences caused me pain. But I never thought that they would be the reason for my death. Now, with Alasiri staring down at me with a mad sheen in his eyes and a hunting knife in his hand, I know I'm going to die.

No! You're not going to die!
I yell at myself.
Think! Think of a way out of this!

But in order to reach behind me and unlatch the door, I'll have to let go of one side of the stool. If the stool slips, will I give him the chance he needs to stab me?

Noticing that I've finally hit something and can't retreat anymore, Alasiri moves. His grip on the knife tightens. His left arm darts out and grabs a leg of the stool. He yanks it forward, slashing over the top with the knife. I have only a second to make my choice, but I know that if I don't get out that door, I'm dead. So instead of letting go of the stool or pulling away from the blow as he expects me to, I shove forward, pushing the stool into his chest, blocking my face with my free arm. The move throws him off balance and he staggers.

I'm not ready for the burning agony that rips from my wrist to my elbow, but fear gives me the power to reel away from him, unlock the latch, and wrench the door open. Alasiri shoves clear of the stool and it clatters against the far wall, but I'm already out the door, pulling it closed after me. Then I turn and run with all my strength, ignoring the sun burning my skin and the blood dripping down my arm, downhill into Mwanza, toward people and away from the madman with the knife.

I spend the day darting through the crazy rock formations on the hillsides around Mwanza. I run for hours from one hiding place to another, making sure the people who see me go in are not the people who see me leave so that, even if Alasiri is trying to track me, no one can point him in a straight line.

At first I'm worried everyone who sees me will try to kill me, but most people just stare. This is probably because I'm all the wrong colors, but it might just be because I'm running. And bleeding. And crying. I don't spend long enough in any one place to find out. But I do force myself to slow down and stop crying.

I spend the first half of the day working my way farther and farther away from Auntie's house, and the second half working my way back, because I don't know where else to go. I make it as far as the edge of the fish market just down the street from Auntie's house by midafternoon.

By now I'm starting to burn and need a place to hide. As soon as there's a commotion in the market to cover my movements, I sneak under one of the boats that has been pulled up onshore and turned upside down. Here, in the shade of the boat and the relative safety of the market, surrounded by people who aren't looking for me, I wait for night to fall and try to figure out what to do.

I'm hungry and sweating, my legs are trembling from the effort of running after all the weeks I've spent with no exercise, and the pain along my arm is constant. In my first hiding spot, a lean-to full of goats pushed up against a pile of boulders, I ripped off one sleeve of my shirt and tied it over the cut, which was still bleeding everywhere. I've been afraid to look at it since.

I flop over and stare up at the curving wood above me, waiting for my heaving chest to settle into its usual rhythm, and try to think.
Can I go to the police?
It's a tempting thought, but I throw it away. Auntie said that the police did nothing when Charlie was killed. Who knows whether they'd be on my side or not. My stomach twists. Right now I feel like I can't trust anyone in this whole wretched district.

Another thought follows that one the way a stray cat slinks in between the fence rails, knowing it will be unwelcome. If even going to the police won't protect me, then I can't stay at Auntie's house any longer. For a while I just lie there and let the knowledge that I have to leave settle into my heart like a roof collapsing. Then I force myself to crawl out of the rubble and keep thinking.

This isn't just about you,
I remind myself.
Kito nearly got killed today, too. If you stay there, you're a danger to the whole family.
This, after all, is the reason Auntie didn't want us in the first place. I look at my blood-soaked sleeve and wish we had listened to her then, poor as we were, and just turned right around and left. I brush the wetness off my face angrily.
It's not as if I liked it there anyway. Stupid corn cave.

If I'm not going to Auntie's, where am I going to go?
Enzi is in Arusha. For a moment I imagine I could go there and live with him. But this is an old dream, already worn shabby by reality. There was barely enough work for the normal boys in our old village, unless it was helping on a farm, which I can't do, and I'm tired of hiding in a house while everyone else works to feed me.
When does the coffee season end, anyway?
I try to remember, but can't. Enzi had said he would finish working the harvest and then follow us to Mwanza. I'm pretty sure they harvest coffee all the way through the dry season, but I can just imagine, with my luck, showing up at our little village looking for Enzi after he's already left. Alone, without a job, I would starve.

I stare up at the hull of the boat arching over me, despairing. Then, from a deep memory, come Auntie's words, urging Mother to take me away:
You should go to Dar es Salaam. There have been no albino killings there.

If they let albinos be ministers of parliament, then surely they would let an albino boy do other, smaller jobs. If I can get to Dar es Salaam, maybe I could make a life for myself. I try not to let the word
alone
echo too loudly as I think this.

Of course, the city is thousands of kilometers away. And I have no money.

Overwhelmed by everything, I curl into a tight ball in the point of the boat and fall asleep.

I wake to the sound of one of the few rainstorms of the dry season drumming on the wood over my head. I'm achy and famished. It's full dark, and I can't put off my decision any longer. I heave myself into a crouch and look out from under the boat. No one is on the beach that I can see. The market is deserted other than the ugly angular forms of the marabou storks, guarding the hills of dried fish. I briefly consider eating some of those fish, but under the glassy eyes of the storks, I can't quite make myself do it.

The noise of the rain on the high tin-and-plastic roof of the pavilion covers any noise I make as I drag myself out from under the warm wood and let the rain soak me. Crouching in the shallow water of the lake, I soak the ripped-sleeve bandage until the dried blood in it dissolves and I can peel it off. When I do, I'm surprised to see that the cut, though long and ugly and painful, is not deep at all. The knife must have only glanced along my arm. I rinse my forearm in the water and press lightly against the fragile scab that has already formed over the cut. As long as I'm careful not to open it up again, I think it'll be fine.

My shirt, however, is another story. Smelling like a rusty pipe, covered with dull brown bloodstains, and with one sleeve ripped off to make my makeshift bandage, it's not a shirt I can wear again. Not only will it not protect me from the sun, but I can't really hope to sneak out of Mwanza looking like a butcher's apprentice. I'll have to go to Auntie's house and get the rest of my clothes.

And while I'm at it, I'll get some food, too.

My bare white arm glows faintly in the darkness as I sneak through the fish pavilion, the hairs between my shoulders standing straight up. Fifty-pound sacks of dried fish are piled in neat columns four times the height of a man, some nearly as high as the roof. Usually this place is crowded with people shouting to be heard over their own noise. But when the rain shower ends as abruptly as it started, the rows between the stacks are filled with nothing but blackness and an eerie silence, broken irregularly by the harsh croak of the marabou storks. I slip between the columns, the dried corpses of thousands of tiny fish sifting under my feet.

Once out the other side of the pavilion, I duck from one boulder formation to another, hiding in the deep shadows of night as I work my way up the hill toward Auntie's house and trying not to splash my feet in the puddles left by the short storm. When I get close, I crouch in the thin bushes across the path and observe the house.

All the lights are on and I can see shapes moving about inside. My first impulse is to run straight into the warmly lit rooms. I imagine throwing myself into waiting arms and letting them squeeze the terror of the day out of me like juice from a lime. It's a tempting vision. What I wouldn't give to be warm and dry and feel safe and surrounded by family again. But no, I won't go searching for hugs and reassurances. I now know the feeling of safety is a lie. You can't win an argument with a hunting knife. If I went in, they might try to convince me otherwise, and I can't let them do that.

Instead, I watch for the glow of a lit cigarette, listen for an unusual rustle in the bushes. Anything that would indicate the presence of my hunter. I don't see anything, but even so I stay hidden, motionless for an hour, two hours, watching, waiting, and arguing with myself.

I need money, food, and fresh clothes from the house. I have to go inside. But I won't go in until everyone else is asleep. I will no longer be a coward, hiding behind women who take care of me. I will be a man and not put them in danger.

Besides, between the blood and the mess and Kito's story, they probably think I'm already dead. It would be cruel to come back to life only to leave again. If they think I'm dead then they won't follow me, won't miss me, won't be worried for me. I curl my head into my arms and wait for them to fall asleep.

Who knows?
says a poisonous little voice in my head.
Perhaps they're relieved.

Night in the city is filled with its own noises. The wind through the trees is like the sound of distant rain, and dogs bark at one another constantly. The sounds of car and truck engines echo off the sides of the buildings when they pass. Music, upbeat and happy, swells and fades as people drive by on the main road down the hill, leaving the silence behind them a little lonelier. It's hours after midnight by the time I creep across the road and around to the rear of the darkened house. The kitchen door with its destroyed lock swings open at my touch, and I sneak like a thief into the place I've been calling home for over three weeks. Just across the threshold I pause and listen. I hear even breathing from many mouths. This is good; I've waited long enough. Silently, I creep across the room.