towards
him, where, chest tight andsteaming still, at last she heard little Tahir snore. While Sarie bent her knees on the other side of that room’s door so
Majid Ghulam would not be hindered by her stature, Agatha kept careful track of Tahir Majid’s slight, but yes, still, breathing.
Eventually she was so lulled by it that she, too, closed her eyes and slept.
When Sarie came to wake her, Agatha felt fresh. Sarie was no longer flushed. Her yellow hair was dark now, that peculiar shade
of green that wetness can bring on. She had just poured water on her face. Majid, who had brought the battered bowl, had watched
her, bent over by the window, tip the water out over her high cheeks with a beaten metal cup; he had wished that she were
standing naked there instead of in that horrible old dress, that he could watch the water trickle over that long body, of
which he was—too late to turn back now—already enamored.
“We have stayed enough,” Sarie said to Agatha, hurrying her up. “When we get to our home—” She paused, stroked her daughter’s
brown-shoe-polish hair. “When we get to our home, your father will no longer be there.” She meant that Gilbert would have
headed for the watering hole, would be telling stories at the Palm. But she was also right, of course, in quite another way.
Though she could not have said, exactly, with what eyes she was concerned, Sarie cast a furtive look behind her as she and
Agatha arrived at their own building on Mchanganyiko Street. She wondered if they had been noticed coming in, her with her
hair wet, heart drumming so loud, but thought,
Who can be there, looking?
Who would care, or know? Nonetheless, she shivered.
This should be said, and clearly: despite Gilbert’s now-and-then democratic dreams, the Turners were not rooted in Kikanga.
Apart from one or two acquaintances of Gilbert’s and the formidableHazel Towson—who thought Sarie should be serving on Committees and whose sporadic visits always soured the air (and were they
not overdue for one, any day now, any day at all?)—the Turners did not socialize, not of their own will. They did not lounge
on any stoops; nor did they have a balcony on which they might have become fixtures. But for awkward waving from the stairwell
or the courtyard on their way to somewhere else, they did not know their neighbors.
To her credit, Sarie was aware of one or two. The one she saw most often was an Arab from the islands, a Mr. Suleiman, old
but not infirm, who listened on occasion to the radio in his parlor, pale blue door ajar; he sometimes stood beside the broken
taxi—also blue, but brighter, like the sky—where he peered into the windows or fingered the sad chrome. There was also, now
and then, a Comorian lady who sold thumb-sized vials of scent from an old cane chair beneath the meager shade of a gray thorn
tree, where she muttered to herself and fanned her potent wares, and sometimes an assortment of small children, whose brave
Churchgoing parents, hardworking and pious, were rarely seen outside. If they saw her, these children sometimes ran towards
her and then away. (Here, Agatha was better. She traveled now and then in a very different world from the one her parents
knew. She kept mostly to herself, but she could sing those children’s names. Sarie, for her part, did not even know if they
knew who she was.) A wise person might ask: in the heart of Vunjamguu, in mixed and mad Kikanga, can such a state of things
not be the fruit of arduous labor, of an insistent and unnatural closing-of-the-eyes? For sure, for sure. Indeed. Bibi would
have howled and slapped her wobbly thighs. Nonetheless, on her return from Kudra House, Sarie had the feeling that something,
someone, saw. Perhaps, although Sarie didn’t know it, the watcher from the balcony only four blocks down had left an imprint
on the air, aneyeball-shake-and-shiver that had lingered in the breeze. Sarie felt
him, where, chest tight andsteaming still, at last she heard little Tahir snore. While Sarie bent her knees on the other side of that room’s door so
Majid Ghulam would not be hindered by her stature, Agatha kept careful track of Tahir Majid’s slight, but yes, still, breathing.
Eventually she was so lulled by it that she, too, closed her eyes and slept.
When Sarie came to wake her, Agatha felt fresh. Sarie was no longer flushed. Her yellow hair was dark now, that peculiar shade
of green that wetness can bring on. She had just poured water on her face. Majid, who had brought the battered bowl, had watched
her, bent over by the window, tip the water out over her high cheeks with a beaten metal cup; he had wished that she were
standing naked there instead of in that horrible old dress, that he could watch the water trickle over that long body, of
which he was—too late to turn back now—already enamored.
“We have stayed enough,” Sarie said to Agatha, hurrying her up. “When we get to our home—” She paused, stroked her daughter’s
brown-shoe-polish hair. “When we get to our home, your father will no longer be there.” She meant that Gilbert would have
headed for the watering hole, would be telling stories at the Palm. But she was also right, of course, in quite another way.
Though she could not have said, exactly, with what eyes she was concerned, Sarie cast a furtive look behind her as she and
Agatha arrived at their own building on Mchanganyiko Street. She wondered if they had been noticed coming in, her with her
hair wet, heart drumming so loud, but thought,
Who can be there, looking?
Who would care, or know? Nonetheless, she shivered.
This should be said, and clearly: despite Gilbert’s now-and-then democratic dreams, the Turners were not rooted in Kikanga.
Apart from one or two acquaintances of Gilbert’s and the formidableHazel Towson—who thought Sarie should be serving on Committees and whose sporadic visits always soured the air (and were they
not overdue for one, any day now, any day at all?)—the Turners did not socialize, not of their own will. They did not lounge
on any stoops; nor did they have a balcony on which they might have become fixtures. But for awkward waving from the stairwell
or the courtyard on their way to somewhere else, they did not know their neighbors.
To her credit, Sarie was aware of one or two. The one she saw most often was an Arab from the islands, a Mr. Suleiman, old
but not infirm, who listened on occasion to the radio in his parlor, pale blue door ajar; he sometimes stood beside the broken
taxi—also blue, but brighter, like the sky—where he peered into the windows or fingered the sad chrome. There was also, now
and then, a Comorian lady who sold thumb-sized vials of scent from an old cane chair beneath the meager shade of a gray thorn
tree, where she muttered to herself and fanned her potent wares, and sometimes an assortment of small children, whose brave
Churchgoing parents, hardworking and pious, were rarely seen outside. If they saw her, these children sometimes ran towards
her and then away. (Here, Agatha was better. She traveled now and then in a very different world from the one her parents
knew. She kept mostly to herself, but she could sing those children’s names. Sarie, for her part, did not even know if they
knew who she was.) A wise person might ask: in the heart of Vunjamguu, in mixed and mad Kikanga, can such a state of things
not be the fruit of arduous labor, of an insistent and unnatural closing-of-the-eyes? For sure, for sure. Indeed. Bibi would
have howled and slapped her wobbly thighs. Nonetheless, on her return from Kudra House, Sarie had the feeling that something,
someone, saw. Perhaps, although Sarie didn’t know it, the watcher from the balcony only four blocks down had left an imprint
on the air, aneyeball-shake-and-shiver that had lingered in the breeze. Sarie felt
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