Hiding in Plain Sight

16

Something goes wrong with the alarm, which insofar as anyone can tell has gone off for no reason, since no one set it when they turned in for the night. Bella is the first to emerge from her room. Then Salif comes out into the hallway too. “What the hell?” he says. They stand there, Salif in his pajamas, Bella in her robe thrown over a gown she suddenly realizes is missing the top button, listening to the alarm without talking and without the slightest sign of panic. Then, just as mysteriously as it started, it goes off.

Bella says, “What was all that about?”

Salif waits a beat, as if to be sure the alarm is really off, and then he gives a “Search me” shrug of his shoulders.

“Well, what do we do now?” says Bella.

“You want me to go downstairs and check?” Salif looks furtively around and cranes his neck over the top of the banister. “See if there is someone else in the house apart from us?”

Bella says, “Of course there is someone else besides us in this house. There is Dahaba.”

“Nothing wakes her,” says Salif. He picks up the phone and calls out to the cubicle to the right of the gate outside, where the watchmen jabber away in the daytime and sleep at night even though they are supposed to be awake and on guard. When no one answers, Salif says, “I always wonder if there is any point in hiring night guards. They never answer the phone because they are too busy snoring.”

However, as if to prove him wrong, down the stairway they see the moving shadow of a man in uniform outside the front door, and before either of them speaks, they see him waving up to them and then hear his loud banging on the door. Salif goes halfway down the staircase to ascertain that it is one of the night guards, even though he has no intention of opening the door and letting him in. He knows the man by face and name, and they wave to each other. Relieved, Salif rejoins Bella, who tells him, “Go now, check your sister’s room, please, and see if she is asleep, despite so much seismic racket.”

He pushes open the door and vanishes for a few seconds, then reemerges to say, “Why don’t you believe me, Auntie? She is asleep, her head under her pillow.”

“I was hard to awaken too when I was young.”

“She reads till very late. That’s why she can’t wake up.”

“Maybe she finds it difficult to sleep, as I did. I used to read or draw figurines, faces of humans, or animals. I fought with our mum when she came in and turned the lights off.”

Salif stares away in the distance, as if in discomfort. Maybe he doesn’t like her to compare her younger self to Dahaba, Bella thinks.

It’s the sudden silence of the house once the alarm is off that wakes Dahaba, who, rubbing her eyes red, joins them, asking what has happened. Bella and Salif look amused, and Bella says, “Not to worry.” Dahaba and Salif are thirsty and want water to drink, and Bella wants to have tea, so they gather in the kitchen.

Bella asks them about their conversations with their mother the previous day, and Salif tells her about Valerie’s plans to found a trust. Bella knows that Valerie hasn’t the wherewithal to fund a trust, or even to set one up, without Bella’s tacit approval and backing, but knowing that Valerie’s ploy is no real threat, she is sorry that it has backfired on her. How, Bella wonders, can she give the children and their mother a chance to arrive at a rapprochement?

Instantly it comes to her: How about inviting Valerie and Padmini along on an outing to Lake Naivasha today? They’ll stop to have a picnic by the lake, and if there is time, they’ll venture farther up the Rift Valley. Even better if the children are the ones who invite them.

Dahaba is enthused about the plan, but she insists that Salif make the call, not her. After all, it’s Salif who was so rude to Valerie when she called him at their friends’.

“I will do it with pleasure, Auntie,” says Salif, “first thing in the morning.”

It is after three in the morning when they retreat upstairs, and still later when Bella leaves two presents wrapped in pretty paper outside of their bedroom doors. Then she too goes back to bed.

—

The alarm goes off again a couple of hours later, coinciding with the muezzin’s call to prayer. As before, Bella is the first to come out of her bedroom, and once again she is joined by Salif, who, cursing, comes to her aid and turns it off.

Bella says, “We need to have the alarm serviced.”

“I’ll see to that, Auntie.”

“Don’t alarms put the fear of the Almighty into you?”

“No, because I know how to disarm ours.”

“Clever boy,” she says, and she asks if he wants to join her for breakfast. He accepts, and she goes downstairs to get the meal started while he takes a shower and dresses. When he walks into the kitchen after his shower, Salif is carrying the wrapped present. She pretends not to notice it until he sits at the table and unwraps it and exclaims in delight. He walks over to the stove and gives her a hug and a kiss. “How could I have missed this?” he asks. He is effusive in his thanks, although he struggles to find the words with which to express his gratitude.

“You weren’t expecting it.”

“I must’ve been exhausted too.”

“Glad you like it.”

“Am I ready to roll?”

“You are.”

“Is there film in it?”

“Of course.”

“Is it color?”

“There is a roll of color film in it, but I also bought one that is black and white from Nakumatt when I went there for last night’s shop,” Bella says. “I prefer the traditional in most things, and the memory of holding my first camera, putting a roll of film in it, taking photos, and then developing them is indelible. There is something hauntingly beautiful about the process itself: the feel of the photo paper, the smell of the chemicals, the anticipation of the details that will be revealed. There is none of that with the immediacy of digital photography.”

Salif has already aimed the camera at her and begun to take his own pictures of her during this soliloquy, capturing the eyes she narrows as though she were focusing on an unreachably distant image. She is remembering a couple of lines from a Rilke poem — Rilke, who began to mean something to her when she visited the Castello di Duino near Trieste, where she spent three months after Hurdo’s burial in Toronto. Afterward, she’d learned sufficient German that, with the help of an Italian translation, she could read the master’s elegies to that beautiful place. In the poem titled “Turning-Point,” Rilke alludes to the fact that even looking has a boundary and that the world that is looked at so deeply wants to flourish in love, yearns to “do heart-work / on all the images imprisoned within you.”

Bella shakes herself out of her reverie. “You’d best call your mother now to see if she and Padmini will be able to join us today.”

Salif dials her, looking apprehensive, but from the change in his face it is obvious to Bella that her plan has worked. Salif has woken Valerie, but once she understands why he is calling, she accepts eagerly. She says they will be at the house as soon as they can dress and shower and arrange a taxi.

“Excellent,” says Bella. “Now what would you like for breakfast?”

“What are the choices?”

“I did a big shop,” she says. “Come, open the fridge.”

“Bacon, with bread and two eggs sunny side up if that is no problem,” he says, taking out the ketchup and closing the fridge.

“Why do you say, ‘If it is no problem’?”

“I thought you might disapprove, seeing that you were brought up in a Muslim household.”

“I got it for you and Dahaba,” she says.

“But you don’t eat it yourself?”

“Not because of religious reasons.”

“Why then?”

“Too salty and too fatty.”

“You know what Dad used to say?”

“Remind me.”

“He found the idea of eating pork abhorrent.”

“But not for religious reasons, right?”

“Same as you on that score.”

She places the bacon in the pan, overlapping the slices, and then puts some porridge for herself to simmer. She breaks the eggs into the pan and asks Salif to put the bread in the toaster. She doesn’t turn the eggs but leaves the yolks golden and runny, just as he’d asked. She stirs her porridge and turns the bacon with a practiced hand, making her meal and his almost at the same moment so they can eat together. “Bismillah,” she says, and he wishes her “Bon appétit!”

Barely has either of them taken a mouthful when Dahaba appears in the doorway, groggily focusing on the camera next to Salif’s plate.

“Why did you give it to him, Auntie?” she asks.

“Give what to whom?”

“The beautiful camera.”

Bella looks at Salif in a manner that makes it clear that she does not want him to rise to Dahaba’s provocation. Then she says to Dahaba, “First a good morning greeting, my darling.”

“Good morning, Auntie.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“I did, only I thought I heard a loud noise going off, and some people speaking in the landing above the staircase. But I was too exhausted to get up to see if any of it was real. Now it is the smell of frying bacon that has woken me. Can you make some for me, Auntie?”

“Of course, my darling,” says Bella, and she gets up and gives her niece a hug and a loving kiss.

Salif speaks up. “Why don’t you eat your porridge while it’s nice and hot, Auntie, and I’ll offer my bacon to Dahaba. I don’t mind waiting a few more minutes for my own.”

“Thanks, darling, but I’ll make her own,” Bella says. “What else would you like with your bacon?”

“Same as Salif’s, except I don’t like the yolks liquid. In the meantime, I’ll pop a slice of bread in the toaster if there is some to be had.” Dahaba makes as if she will do as she says, but she moves half-heartedly, as if hoping that someone else will beat her to it. She looks tired.

Salif makes a point of not looking in her direction as he dip slices of his bacon in ketchup and yolk. His habit of eating his bacon this way is part of family lore. Wendy could never abide it and thought it unrefined. “What are knives and forks for if not to be used, and why would anyone bother to place them on your table if you are going to end up behaving like some savage from Africa?” Bella can hear her saying.

Dahaba looks as if she can hardly bear the thought of waiting for her own breakfast, but in a little while it is ready, though Bella’s porridge is now cold. She puts a lump of butter in it and microwaves it until it is hot again, then eats it. When Bella gets up to make herself a macchiato, Dahaba asks, “What is your answer, Auntie? Do you have another camera like the one you’ve given to Salif or not?”

Salif can’t restrain himself anymore. With a touch of sarcasm, he says, “Yours is right outside your bedroom door, wrapped in the most beautiful wrapping paper.”

Dahaba abandons her breakfast and darts up and down the stairs with remarkable alacrity. Yet she unwraps the present with surprising delicacy, like someone removing a Band-Aid. Salif, impatient, offers to do the dishes before Valerie and Padmini arrive.

Bella says, “I’ll give you both a brief demo of the art of nondigital photography. I hope you will appreciate the cameras and look after them with great care. My hope is to train you to do your own printing here in this house, where there is plenty of space to set up a darkroom.”

Dahaba’s concentration falters as she fingers the knobs on the camera. This is the first time she has held such a camera, and it frustrates her that it doesn’t react to her touch the way the digital camera did. “What is the difference between digital and nondigital cameras, Auntie?” she says at last.

“Good question,” says Bella, pleased. This is as good a place to start as any. And she begins to speak, picking her way through a minefield of data and information that she knows won’t make much sense to novices such as Dahaba and Salif.

“Nondigital cameras differ from their analog predecessors in that they do not have film inside them, is that right, Auntie?” says Salif.

“What are analog predecessors?” Dahaba cries. “I have no idea what you two are talking about.” She pleads with them to use words she can make sense of. “Analog predecessors? I know what ‘predecessor’ is, but not what ‘analog’ means. Please.”

While Bella is thinking of a way to explain these concepts, Salif adds to Dahaba’s confusion. “In place of having black-and-white or color films in them, digital cameras save the images they capture on a digital memory card or cards, in addition to some form of internal chemical storage.”

Dahaba screams, “Stop showing off, you fool.”

Bella falls sadly silent, knowing that in this, as in so much else with these children, it is not going to be easy to negotiate the obstacles. She will need time to work out a course of action that will allow Salif and Dahaba to grow into who they wish to be — not into what she wants them to be.

—

Valerie and Padmini’s taxi drops them at the gate more than half an hour early. They are waiting to be let in. Bella suggests Dahaba put away the cameras while Salif goes and welcomes their guests. Dahaba seems to be torn between greeting her mother and partner and going upstairs to shower and get ready. Bella encourages her to do the latter, saying, “We don’t want to get a late start.”

Padmini enters, and she and Bella hug and exchange kisses on their cheeks. Bella observes that Padmini is a touch warmer than before. In fact, it occurs to her that the two of them have never been alone in a room before — and therefore have never had the pleasure (or displeasure) of exchanging their views on matters of common concern, namely Valerie and the children. Maybe the time has come to cultivate Padmini.

“How are things?” asks Bella. “It’s lovely to have you here. You and Valerie should come and spend more time with us. Chill out, play cards, watch movies together, and get to know one another. We would all enjoy it, especially the children.”

Something is making Padmini a tad uncomfortable. Bella entertains a suspicion that Padmini does not want Valerie to see them conversing or to overhear them. Bella cranes her neck, trying to see where Valerie is before she says anything. “Not to worry,” she says to Padmini. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk, you and I.”

Then in they come, Valerie and Salif. Valerie embraces Bella, and after exchanging cursory greetings, asks, “Where is my daughter?”

“She is showering and changing,” says Bella.

“Was she late in waking up as usual?”

Bella says protectively, “She was up early.”

“And we all had breakfast together,” adds Salif.

Bella washes her hands and dries them and offers to make coffee or tea. Padmini opts for coffee and Valerie for tea with milk and sugar.

Salif, in the meantime, goes upstairs and discovers that his sister has decided not to bother with showering. She is in her bedroom wearing a pair of many-pocketed safari pants, but she has decided she isn’t happy with how they look or feel. She takes them off and puts on a pair of jeans, but they are too tight. She complains that it is all the eating they’ve been doing lately that has made her gain so much weight. Salif, still standing in the doorway, looks from the clothes on the bed to Dahaba and back. He urges her to get on with it. “We’re going on an outing, not on a photo shoot.”

But this only throws her into more of a muddle. She takes off the jeans and puts the safari pants back on. But now she can’t undo the knots in the laces of her tennis shoes. Salif also observes that she has on socks mismatched in both color and size.

“I’ll go ahead if you don’t mind,” he says.

“Give me another minute.”

Salif cannot figure out why she is so nervous, nor why she is fussing about what to wear, especially in a country where outdoor clothing is an all-year affair. He importunes her to get moving when he hears their mother shouting from downstairs. “Where are my darlings?”

Bella says, “What has become of you two?”

He goes downstairs to find everyone waiting. “Dahaba will be here pronto,” he says. But when she does ultimately join them, Dahaba is back in the jeans and has on a pair of sneakers different from the pair whose laces she must have failed to untangle. Salif fights back a fledgling grin forming around his lips at the memory of the many occasions when Dahaba couldn’t decide what to wear, what to eat, or whether she was a friend or foe to this or that person.

Valerie says, “Are we all set?”

Dahaba nods her head. “Yes, Mummy.”

“Auntie Padmini, who I understand has motion sickness, will sit in the front,” says Bella. “And I will drive.”

“And where is Mum going to sit?” asks Dahaba.

“In the back, between you and Salif.”

Valerie wraps herself around Dahaba, and the two of them walk ahead in the direction of Aar’s car. Salif hangs back to set the house alarm then locks up and hurries to join them. When they are all seated, Valerie, sandwiched between her son and daughter, whispers, “Are you okay?” to Dahaba. Dahaba says that she has an upset stomach. But when Valerie asks if she is well enough to come on the outing, Dahaba waves her away.

Salif attributes Dahaba’s discomfort to nerves and her lack of control over the seating arrangements, which have deprived her of the front seat. Well, if she wanted to be present when that matter was being decided, Salif thinks, then she should have made up her mind which pair of pants she wished to wear a little sooner.

Dahaba wants to know if the restaurant where they will have their lunch has been decided on.

“I prepared all kinds of finger food yesterday when you were with your friends,” Bella says. “We have drumsticks, salad, pita bread, and a couple of baguettes from that French bakery opposite the Nakumatt supermarket. Plus we have all manner of soft drinks and bottled water. I was thinking we’d have a picnic near Lake Naivasha.”

Dahaba says nothing, even though it is obvious from the expression on her face that she doesn’t like this either. Salif leans forward, as though he might reprimand her, but just then Bella turns on the engine, and he sits back. She adjusts her seat and programs the GPS, then voilà, bad-mannered Cawrala awakens, her voice gruff and impatient. “Out the gate, make a right.” No please and no sweet words from today’s grumpy guide.

At the exit, the guard opens the gate for them, smiling broadly, and then they are off on the eighty-seven-kilometer drive to Naivasha, much of it uphill.

“What would we do without GPS?” says Bella.

To everyone’s delighted surprise, Dahaba is soon her usual feisty self. “We’d rely more on maps, no problem. Years ago we read maps. There was even a time when maps didn’t exist, not the way they do in this day and age. Every generation finds its own answer to the questions life and its sidekicks pose. Now there is GPS. In a decade, there will be something else in its place.”

“And before city maps existed, what did people do to help them go places?” asks Bella, looking into the rearview mirror, her eyes meeting Dahaba’s.

“People traveled less,” says Dahaba. “They were less adventurous and stayed within confined areas that they were familiar with.”

Salif, presently finding his tongue, says, “Dad told me that Somalis are hardly the ideal tourists. You don’t find them exploring the flora and fauna of a new place and few of them set foot in a museum. They visit their relatives or friends, that’s all. If you have a Somali visiting you and you go to work in the morning, it is possible you will find him still sitting there in front of the TV when you return, waiting for you. It doesn’t occur to many of them to venture out on their own, to buy a metro ticket, and to experience life in the city to which they’ve come until you are there to be their guide and mentor.”

“You’re aware he was generalizing?” says Dahaba.

“Of course he was,” concedes Salif. And in the silence that follows, he points out the Muthaiga Country Club, Muthaiga Road, and Limuru Road, which will take them up the steep hill toward their destination. Everyone seems relaxed because the stop-and-go traffic they were anticipating has not materialized.

Only Salif seems unsurprised. “It’s a public holiday,” he informs them.

Bella asks, “In commemoration of what?”

“I forget which one, there are so many of them.”

Dahaba gives her two cents’ worth of theory. “One can’t remember what the holidays are for when one is not entirely in sync with the national psyche.”

“I don’t follow your meaning,” says Padmini.

Salif picks up where Dahaba has left off. “Somalis, even those who are to all intents and purposes Kenyans, do not feel part of this country. I saw a moving documentary on Al Jazeera the other evening, an original documentary put together and narrated by a Kenyan Somali, a well-respected journalist. He says that as a minority Kenyan Somalis feel politically disenfranchised, alienated from the country’s body politic.”

Padmini says, “Maybe it is Jomo Kenyatta Day.”

Valerie asks, “Must we talk politics?”

“This is not politics, Mum,” says Dahaba.

“If it is not politics, what is it?”

“It is the history of this country.”

“Reminds me of the conversation I’ve often heard whenever two Somalis meet and, like the Irish, can’t avoid talking politics — the Troubles, the massacre of year so-and-so, the IRA and who was in it and who wasn’t.”

“Know why the English talk less about politics?” asks Dahaba, speaking too loudly for everybody’s liking because she feels she has a valid point to contribute to the conversation.

Valerie turns to Dahaba, “Why, my darling?”

“Because you don’t need to talk much about politics when you have so much power you don’t know what to do with it.”

Although Bella is not displeased so far with the way the conversation has gone, she is also relieved that there have been no tantrums, no lost tempers. So far everybody has been making his or her point civilly. But like Valerie, Bella has had enough of this type of conversation. It’s one reason she does not always like socializing with Somalis; they talk politics incessantly, cutthroat clan politics. They live and breathe it, and they never agree on anything.

To get everyone’s attention, she makes the unilateral decision to turn off the GPS. There. Silence. Then she says to Salif, “What would you say are the major formations that the East African Rift has evolved into over many tens of millions of years? I know you did a class project on that.”

Valerie says, “Now that will interest me.”

Salif becomes self-conscious and stays silent for a second. He breathes in and then out as he thinks about the answer to the question. He says, “There is the rift known as the Gregory Rift, then there is the Western or Albertine Rift. The peoples that inhabit these formations are vastly different from one another and so are the flora and fauna, as are the great gatherings of wild and not-so-wild animals found on its grasslands, each with its own particularities. The variety of landscapes are astounding, from the Afar Depression, where the land is some five hundred feet below sea level, to snow-capped mountains that reach almost to seventeen thousand feet.”

Padmini asks, “How was the rift formed?”

“Volcanic eruptions gave it its form, the same kinds of eruptions that have shaped many of the world’s iconic volcanic regions.”

“Have you been to the Serengeti, to the Mountains of the Moon? Have you seen the volcanoes there that are still emitting heat and smoke?” asks Padmini.

“Dad took us to all those places,” Salif says.

“So you know a lot about the Rift Valley?”

Salif gives them a brief rundown of facts and figures, how the valley served generations of Ethiopians from the highlands and people from the wetlands of the Sudan; and how, during the British presence in this area of Kenya, the Masai people were pushed out of their lands into reserves, the entire landmass becoming royal property, given at will by the governor of the colony to white men to do with it what they pleased.

They are nearly there. Salif guides Bella to his favorite place. Bella finds a spot with a good view. They get out of the vehicle, and young men selling touristy merchandise surround them with frightening speed. Valerie and Dahaba snap pictures of each other, then of the spectacular scenery down below. And Salif describes from memory the various features — the huge rocks down in the valley smoothed by centuries of passing water; a body of water appearing miragelike in the distance; a forest of trees so green they appear turquoise; a volcanic crater rising from the depths of the water and resembling a tiny cave; and, of course, the beautiful islets, each unto itself.

Salif doesn’t go far from the vehicle. Bella observes that Valerie and Padmini admire the knickknacks, turning them this way and that, but neither one of them purchases anything, maybe because they have no extra cash to spare.

Dahaba wants a group photograph. Everyone obliges, and they stand side by side with the vista behind them.

When they get back into the car, they fall silent, as if in awe. The valley falls away on either side of the road, which is lined by the hardwood groves the farmers use to carve their plows.

Salif says, “There are many standout spots along the way, but none is as formidable as the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda, known to the ancient Greeks as the Mountains of the Moon, or those in the Serengeti savannah in Tanzania. And nothing is as hot or harsh as Lake Assal, in Djibouti. This is really a poor aspect of the rift’s uniqueness, even if it is breathtakingly impressive.”

“Did Aar become more religious in the last days of his life?” Bella blurts out the question unexpectedly, eliciting surprise from her listeners.

Valerie’s expression hardens, but Dahaba is venomous. “He did no such thing.”

Salif takes it easy. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I read it in a Canadian paper.”

“You’ve never told me this,” says Valerie.

“It doesn’t matter,” says Bella. “Let us drop it.”

Salif says, “I don’t think it is proper for you to say to drop it now. You’ve raised the issue and you said you saw mention of the claim that he became more Muslim toward the end of his life. Tell us what you meant so we understand.”

“His last words were words of prayer, it was reported,” Bella says. “Specifically, a verse from the Koran.”

“Well, he was culturally a Muslim,” says Salif.

“And very proud of it,” says Dahaba.

“But he wasn’t religious.”

“If anything,” Dahaba goes on, “he was spiritual.”

“He was decidedly secular,” says Bella.

“Spiritual and secular,” says Dahaba.

Salif says, “But he was respectful of other people’s faiths, just as he was of their way of life: Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and the lot. He was a good example to all who knew him.”

Valerie is not so much ill at ease — as she was when they were talking about politics — as irritated. “How could you say that when in all the years you and I knew him we never saw him enter a mosque and pray?”

Padmini says, “I was born and brought up a Hindu, but I seldom go to a temple to worship. Ought I to call myself secular?”

Bella stays out of it, saying nothing. She has lost interest in the discussion, which doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. And lest she miss the upcoming turn, she switches on the GPS. Again she has everyone’s full, undivided attention when she says, “Time to take a break. What say you?”

“Is this Naivasha?” Valerie asks.

“We are close to Lake Naivasha; it’s to the left,” says Salif, “about twenty minutes’ drive from here. Let us go there. You’ll like it.”

“I like the name Naivasha,” Padmini says.

“What do you like about it?” asks Dahaba.

“It has a Sanskrit feel to it.”

“In what way?”

“Like, I don’t know, on a par with ‘nirvana.’”

Dahaba says, “Cute.”

“What does it mean in the local language?” asks Padmini.

Salif replies, “The name of the lake is Anglo corrupted, which was typical of the Brits, savaging native names by anglicizing them. The Masai word the Brits bastardized is nai’posha, which means ‘rough waters’ or some such. Now everyone including Kenyans know it by its anglicized version.”

“Nirvana means ‘extinguish,’ as in extinguish the lantern, doesn’t it, Padmini?” asks Bella.

“I am not so sure, now that you’ve asked,” confesses Padmini. “But most likely you are right.”

“There is a likeness of sound,” says Dahaba.

“Not meaning,” says Salif.

Dahaba singsongs “Naivasha” with “nirvana,” and likes what she hears.

The car is going up a hill when a truck emitting a billow of black smoke struggles up the incline and passes them, and they all shut their windows quickly until they are clear of it. Then they open them again to the welcome fresh air of the valley and Bella continues.

Cawrala tells Bella to make a left, and she does.

Dahaba says, “I can see we are in Naivasha.”

This is not quite true, but it will do. They are at a spot where they have a good view of the lake, and up and over the bridge they imagine the presence of fresh water and plenty of birdlife, not to mention several escarpments.

Bella maneuvers the vehicle around potholes. They pass a low building that looks like a local watering hole, its walls festooned with ads publicizing guitar entertainment at night for its clientele. Farther down the hill, they pass several more bars. They are happy when the nefarious odor of beer is no longer in their nostrils.

About fifty meters from the lake, Bella parks the car. She stops the engine and gets out, happy they’ve made it all the way to this place without a quarrel. They disperse in silence in different directions, some wanting to pee, and others to enjoy the view, to stretch their legs and welcome the peaceful air into their lungs.

Dahaba hangs close to the car; she is hungry. Bella and Padmini spread out picnic mats on the uneven ground. Valerie opens the bottle of red wine she and Padmini have brought and pours a paper cupful for Padmini.

Valerie and Salif find two tree trunks close to each other and take their food and drinks and sit together. Dahaba joins them. She says, “Last time we came here, we were four. And Dad was with us. And we seemed happy. We took delight in one another’s joys and laughed at the same jokes. Then Mum left. And now Dad is murdered.”

Maybe because Valerie is no state of mind to hear any of this, she wants to walk away. But Salif, as if by coincidence, blocks her way and gently lays his hand on his mother’s elbow. After all, knowing Dahaba well, he senses that his sister has something heavy on her mind, a weight that she wishes to rid herself of right this instant. Valerie, having no choice, sits down and listens as though she were cornered.

Dahaba asks, “Why did you leave?”

“I wish I hadn’t,” Valerie says, weepily.

“Was Dad awful to live with, violent?”

“No, he was gentle, too gentle.”

“Was he seeing another woman?”

“No, I was the world to him.”

“Why did you leave then?”

Salif listens, saying nothing.

“One day I would like to know why,” says Dahaba.

And all Valerie can manage is “One day.” Then she resumes weeping, her head in her hands, as though she has just this minute received the news of Aar’s death.

Still Dahaba persists. “There must have been a reason, Mum.” She keeps insisting, and Valerie keeps weeping, neither of them able to move on.

Salif reflects on how much more he knows than his sister. One thing he knows is that his father was not the person making his mother miserable, even though Salif suspected that Aar felt she was a lost cause. Whenever Salif relives those terrible final days together, he remembers his father going about his business as if Valerie’s problems were not his concern. He recalls waking up in the wee hours of the night, his mother by herself in the kitchen, the lights off, the cap of the whiskey bottle on the table and the bottle three-quarters empty, the ashtray full of cigarette butts, the smell of the liquor heavy on her breath. And then there were those other bottles, the bottles that once contained the tablets she took morning, afternoon, and evening.

Salif doubted his father was unaware of the demons preying upon his wife. Maybe he couldn’t do anything to placate them.

“Did your father tell you why I left?” Valerie says at last.

“He always said to ask you,” Dahaba says.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness,” Valerie says, “and I am not asking you to forget what I did, which was foolish and selfish. But I love you, I truly love you.”

Meanwhile, Bella and Padmini converse in low voices, their faces turned away from each other. They fall silent when Salif approaches. Padmini suggests they pack the uneaten meal, get into the car, and leave.

Bella asks, “What is the rush?”

“We must return to the hotel,” Padmini explains. “We have to start packing up.”

Salif is unhappy about departing this instant, but he is a well-brought-up young man and he restrains himself. Bella acquiesces too and whispers to him, “An hour this way or three hours the other way won’t matter because we can come back to this very spot whenever we please, darling.”

He shrugs his shoulders and starts to pack up. When the car is loaded, Bella bangs the trunk closed and takes her seat. Padmini gets in front, seething visibly but not saying anything. They drive back to Nairobi, the mood darkened by the silence no one dares to break.