Bingo's Run Page 19

  “But I am blind,” you cry. “Everything before me is just a ghost of mirrored light. So why give me a thread to walk on when I cannot see where I am going?”

  I tell you, that is Fate. You are blind to the path, the hills, the valleys. Fate is the footfall, not the step. Fate is the snake on the path, not your will against it. Fate is the fall, not the rising.

  Mrs. Steele’s mouth moved, but I did not hear what she said. Krazi Hari seemed to grow taller as she sank into the garbage. But the lunatic was not done yet.

  Woman! Your will is yours. As to your purpose? The fact that you are blind to it, that is Fate.

  Hin, Hin, Hin.

  fourteen cowries

  eight hens

  Hin.

  Krazi Hari’s voice silenced. In that silence, I imagined mad things. The lunatic, hair crazy, stood on top of all garbage as if the garbage mound was the world and Krazi Hari the king of knowledge. The flies, one after another, flew off the blue plastic. The show was over.

  Mrs. Steele had met her Master. It was time to go.

  Mrs. Steele still had Krazi Hari’s rolled-up newspaper in her hand. She put it down on the blue plastic and picked up the contract. She folded the last page of the contract to the front and said, “Master, can you please sign this for me?” She pulled a pen from her pocket and pushed the contract and the pen toward him. Krazi Hari took the pen as if it was a dagger and stabbed at the paper. Mrs. Steele smiled. “Thank you, Master,” she said. I liked that—she always finished her run. As if it was a dance, she picked up the rolled-up newspaper and handed it to the lunatic. He gave her back the contract. She waited, but Krazi Hari kept the pen. He had been reading all his life; perhaps now he would write.

  Mrs. Steele came toward me, smiling, holding her contract. Slo-George lifted me to standing and the three of us walked down the mound together. As I walked, I stepped on shards of red, rotting browns, dulled yellows, broken blacks, lost greens, deep blues, dull silvers, and molding purples. If life is color, so is death.

  The old tree watched a growth retard, his giant friend, and a well-dressed white woman walk from the garbage into a waiting Mercedes. The tree had seen the garbage grow and heard the lunatic scream many things. The tree knew that the world was a strange place, where the divine was called Krazi and the suffering cried, “It is God’s will.” The tree knew that one day it would see itself drown in man’s waste. The tree was there to watch man destroy himself and the tree he once planted. The tree gives shade even to the man who sits against it with his axe.

  Car doors slammed. My head spun from the stink. I tried to push from my head the thousand voices of Kibera and the lunatic’s words. Mrs. Steele sat beside me. Her eyes were green, the way they had been when we were at the swimming pool. She was very beautiful. “Bingo, are you feeling all right?” she asked. The car air-con helped. I started to feel better.

  I nodded. Her sharp red lips felt warm on my cheek. “Good,” she said, and I smiled at her.

  On my other cheek, I felt dough. Slo-George. He kissed me, too!

  The car had not moved yet.

  “So where is his studio?” Mrs. Steele said.

  I looked at her blankly. She clutched the contract.

  She said, “So where does Thomas Hunsa paint? Where are his paintings?”

  “Ah,” I said. “Tha’ further on.”

  Mrs. Steele leaned forward and screamed “Drive” at Mr. Alex. It was loud enough to make the dead live. The hat nodded, and the car inched away. The lunatic shrank from view, a flagpole without a flag. The brown DHL van followed behind us. The caretaker still sucked on his long white clay pipe, a thin smoke spiral connecting him, through the open window, to heaven.

  Chapter 54.

  On to Hastings

  Road by road, I told Mrs. Steele the way to Salome Road in Hastings. As we drove, slower than flesh rots, my head cleared and the banging inside stopped. Whatever direction I said, Mrs. Steele screamed it into Mr. Alex’s ear. We were a good team, and she was happier now, without her hooker shoes. Slo-George slept.

  Mrs. Steele was pleased with her lunatic. “Phenomenal,” she said. I was glad she had gotten her contract signed. Without the real Hunsa’s signature, Mrs. Steele had nothing. She could never sell his art without a proper contract—she had said so.

  When Mr. Alex turned right onto Salome Road, the brown DHL van was still behind us. Thomas Hunsa’s concrete blockhouse looked the same as always. Paint fumes and paintings spilled out. “Worth millions” buzzed into my head as if a fly had got in there. Children were sitting around Hunsa’s house as usual, painting with his leftover paint. One child had found a dead cat and was painting it blue.

  “There,” I said to Mrs. Steele, and pointed.

  Mrs. Steele yelled “Stop!” and the Mercedes obeyed.

  I smiled. Moving slowly is not always bad; on the drive from Kibera, I had worked out a plan.

  Chapter 55.

  Bingo’s Plan

  I got out of the car first. “Wait here,” I said to Mrs. Steele. “I’z make sure tha studio caretaker got clothes on.” I ran toward Hunsa’s house, but before I reached it there was an explosion. Bam! A giant woman burst out of the blockhouse next to Hunsa’s. She blasted open the iron gates and charged at the car. It was the rhino. She was mad terror. Rhino was clothed in brown and orange layers that flapped with each thud she made. Her hair was wrapped in a gold-and-pink turban; her eyes were wild and white. She screamed curses at me that I never heard before: “Ya scum get cholera!” “Have tha pox eat your eyes!” “Rat eat ya brain at night!” And there were others that cannot be written. She charged like a rhino on a safari poster, head down. Each step she took shook the earth. Each step made her giant back-end bounce. And when her back-end went up the rest of her went down.

  She screamed, “You’z tha little sheet who says tha artis’ motha is dead.”

  I wanted to scream, “No! I’z innocent!” but there was no point; she was onto me. Her breasts, like giant mallets, banged up and down with her screams. Forget Wolf and his empty smile; forget Dog, forget Peg Leg. Senior Father said there were six fears, but his fears were rubbish. No fear is greater than a rhino’s charge. “Oh, God!” I prayed. She screamed, “You piece of rat filth. You wake me up in tha middle of tha night an’ you say Thomas Hunsa motha is dead.” When her huge thighs wrapped in loose skin stamped the earth, even the Mercedes shook. She screamed, “How can you says a man’s motha is dead?”

  Dead-mother stories always work, but I did not tell this to the mallet-breasted rhino-riot. Hunsa had never once mentioned that his mother lived!

  Rhino shrieked, “You are a pig! I cook all night for tha artis’ ”—she pushed a hoof into the air—“and tha whole neighborhood cook for ’im. You are goat sheet. You’z a shameful sheep-arse hair. If I had my way, I would—”

  A thunder-loud grunt interrupted the mad beast. It was not a normal Slo-George grunt, which sounded like “Uuuh”; it sounded more like “Stu.” I thought Slo-George might be telling her to stop. Wrong! The rhino turned from me to Slo-George. Her mad breaths slowed. She still breathed through her pumping snout but spoke gently now, like a schoolgirl. “Stew, you ask? Yes, I made that stew.”

  Slo-George grunted again, a new grunt: “Bes’!” Slo-George said words when he wanted something!

  The rhino’s shoulders relaxed and she coughed almost like a lady. Her giant gleaming cook-pot eyes fluttered down. “You think my stew is tha best?” she said to Slo-George as if he was James Bond. The mad rhino looked down at me. “Now, that’s a gentleman,” she snorted. Rhino sprayed me with spit. She flickered her long eyelashes at Slo-George. Her smile was big enough to put my head in. “Well, sir,” she said to Slo-George, turning her head the way they do in hooker bars. “What brings you to Hastings?”

  Slo-George grinned. His mouth was almost as large as hers. His fat eyes opened wide. For the first time, I saw the color of Slo-George’s eyes: two pots of warm lamb, banana, and rice stew. But there wer
e flecks of red, too—hot spice. No words this time.

  “Call me Mille,” Rhino said to Slo-George.

  The runner finishes every run—you know that.

  I ran past the two mountains of love, under the HUNSA—MASTA HOUSE PAINTA sign and into the artist’s house. Hunsa stood in front of his yellow turtle, smoking. When he saw me, he glanced down at the bronze dish balanced on his orange armchair and joy filled his face. Tak! I had no white for him! I needed Hunsa’s thinking to be wet mud; I needed him to pretend to be the caretaker of the artist studio, but Mrs. Steele got there too quick. She had the contract rolled up in her hand.

  I said to Thomas Hunsa, loud and fierce, “This is Mrs. Steele, ya—she American art deala. She’z tha good frien’ with Gihilihili.”

  Thomas Hunsa shrank two feet. His eyes got wide. His fingers tightened on his bone-handled brush.

  I nodded at him. “Ya, Mrs. Steele, she know Police Chief Gihilihili. She has licens’ with him for all tha Masta’s paintin’s.”

  I watched Hunsa. Memory plus fear equaled terror. The bone handle trembled. The Master’s legs twitched. Before we got there, he had been happy in his house with his white, his paintings, and his smells. Now Hunsa looked at me. His eyes said, “Traita.” His mouth said, “Meejit, why you’z bring her here?”

  I answered, “I ha’ na choice—Gihilihili took me to Nyayo House. Then he torture me.”

  Mrs. Steele pretended to look confused, as if she had no clue what I meant.

  I said, “I tell tha American deala woman you tha special caretaka in charj of all tha paintin’s. Right, you tha caretaka, ya?”

  His eyes were shadows of shade. I said louder, to hammer the words in, “You jus’ tha caretaka. You in charge of tha paintin’s. Ya? You not the Masta. You not tha painta. You jus tha caretaka.”

  A light—a small one—lit his eyes. He started to nod; his long, knotted hair and his body followed. He said, “Ya, I’z jus’ the caretaker.”

  Mrs. Steele turned away and stared at the yellow turtle on the canvas—it seemed to be alive. She looked from the turtle to the Masta. Her eyes dropped to Hunsa’s bone-handled brush tipped in yellow. “You’re him,” she said, breathless. “You are the Masta.”

  “Na,” I said. “He jus’ tha—”

  Mrs. Steele interrupted. Her voice was loud and sharp. “Bingo, shut up! I know everything.”

  Chapter 56.

  What Mrs. Steele Knew

  “What ya know?” I said to Mrs. Steele.

  She said, “Bingo, now stop! I know what you planned to do. How you discovered the missing Masta and how you and Father Matthew planned to sell the paintings in America as soon as you got there. You are using me to import the pictures to the U.S. Then you are going to dump me like a piece of garbage. Bingo, I know that you and that priest just used me from the get-go.” Mrs. Steele glared at me.

  I looked at her as if she was on white (most whites are). Her face had turned from white to red. She said loudly, “Bingo, I know exactly what you planned with the priest. I know it all.”

  “What, you mad!” I shouted. Toxic Kibera garbage must have gone to her head. “You win tha contract,” I said. “I signed Mr. Goerlmann your lawyer’s contract propa legal.” My belly still hurt from my outing to Nyayo House. As if Mrs. Steele did not know what Gihilihili did to me!

  Mrs. Steele went on, “Then you got that guy on the garbage mound to pretend to be Thomas Hunsa.”

  I looked down at her filth-stained shoeless feet. That bit was true. But who would ever think that a lunatic who lived in trash could be worth millions!

  Mrs. Steele’s face crumpled in anger. “Bingo, do you not remember what I asked you only days ago at the art gallery? Have you forgotten already?” I shook my head, but she went on anyway. “Bingo, I asked you what sort of man you want to be. Is this really all that you want for yourself—to be a scamming thief, cheating your way through life?”

  Friends, hookers, stall vendors, and even little children have scammed me. But none like Mrs. Steele. I shouted at her, “You’z tha hustla. You’z tha cheat. You’z tha’ liar! I know what you’z tol’ to Mr. Steele in America. I know you said tha Masta’s paintin’s worth millions. I know you said that when you’z get tha paintin’s you’z dump me. Ya! Like I’z jus’ trash.”

  Mrs. Steele’s face looked as if it would explode. She opened her mouth but shut it. Her eyebrows closed together. “Bingo. I never said that.” Her voice went quiet. “What are you talking about? Who on earth told you that?”

  I thought of my Charity. “Frien’,” I said.

  “Bingo, what friend of yours could possibly have heard me speaking to Mr. Steele?”

  I paused. “The cleana,” I said. “She was in your room. She tell me everything.”

  Mrs. Steele cocked her head. “The cleaning girl told you she heard me tell Mr. Steele that the paintings are worth millions and that I would dump you?”

  I nodded. “Ya—she tell me everything.” Then I said it—I said what I had worked out. “That why ya pick me at St. Michael’s. You’z come to Nairobi because you’z know about Thomas Hunsa. Father Matthew tol’ you in Chicago and you come. You’z know the Masta’s paintin’s worth millions. Father Matthew tell you you have to get me to be your boy, because I’z the only one who know where Thomas Hunsa live. You come here for the paintin’s.” I hated her. “You neva come for me.”

  Mrs. Steele was quiet. Her face was like a map of Kibera, confusion everywhere. She looked down at me. Then she knelt and looked at me eye to eye. She shook her head. “No, Bingo, you are totally wrong. The cleaner could not possibly have heard me speak to Mr. Steele. I got divorced from him two years ago. I got the Chicago galleries in the divorce settlement; Mr. Steele and I have not spoken for more than a year. I used the money I got in the divorce to come to Nairobi. That money is paying for your adoption. I went to Father Matthew because I am single and none of the American adoption agencies will let me have a child.”

  Her voice went soft. “Bingo, I chose you because I think you are the most beautiful boy I could ever imagine being a mother to.”

  I felt my eyes get full. It must have been the paint fumes. I tried to put the pieces together. Perhaps it was my head that had been smashed into potholes from all the killing, smells, and screams. I had been scammed too much; I trusted no one except me. But, for that second, I believed Mrs. Steele the way I believed the mouth in my head.

  As I watched Mrs. Steele’s face, the anger melted away and her skin went soft. She said, “Bingo, it was the cleaner who told me that she heard you speaking to the priest. The cleaner told me she heard you say to the priest that the paintings are worth millions and that you were going to get them from me. The cleaner said you discovered that Hunsa was the lost Master of Africa.” I looked over her shoulder. A picture of a blue woman looked back at me. She knelt in a red field, digging in the soil with her hands. Lots of two-leaf seedlings were around her; each leaf was a lip. Mrs. Steele went on, “Bingo, the cleaner said that she heard you talking to Father Matthew about how you would sell all the Thomas Hunsa paintings in America and split the money with him. The cleaner told me that, once you sold the paintings for millions, you planned to dump me like garbage!”

  “You crazy!” I said.

  Mrs. Steele continued softly, “Bingo, it was the cleaner who told me you were trying to rip me off. She told me she heard everything you said on the phone to Father Matthew. She even told me about when your friend George stayed in your hotel room to plan it all with you.”

  Slo-George could not plan a fire in a riot!

  I spoke slowly. “Mrs. Steele, I neva call Fatha Matthew.”

  Charity was the Trickster! Now I understood why the vodka in my room tasted like water.

  Mrs. Steele looked at me for a long time and I looked back at her. Then she smiled. “I think the cleaner has played us.”

  “Tricksta,” I said. I tried to smile. I remembered how Charity kissed the tears off my face, the way she kissed
my crisp lips, how I wanted to be with just her in a field of yams, and how I wanted her forever. Trickster! It was as if the TV switched off and the inside of me went dark.

  Mrs. Steele said, “Trickster, indeed.”

  My head raced. Why did Charity do this to me? Was it just to mock me? Was it because I was going to America? Was it because I was a businessman? Maybe she did it the same way children kick a can—no reason, just something to do. I imagined that she laughed about me with her cleaner friend, Brick Ugly—both of them hysterical.

  Mrs. Steele read my head and opened her arms. “Bingo, come here,” she said.

  Some things are more important than hustle and scam. I took two steps across the Master’s dirt floor and Mrs. Steele wrapped her arms around me. Her dress was soft on my face and her lips were warm on my cheek. She smelled good, even though she had climbed over Krazi Hari’s garbage. Then she put her lips on my forehead and kissed me along the three cuts put there by Senior Father: kiss after kiss, line by line. Her heat entered me just as it had when I was a boy and Senior Father cut my mask onto my face. Mrs. Steele held me tight to her body. I wanted to be under her skin, to hide under her shawl for a bit; just until the world ended—just for a second of pure, perfect silence.

  “Bingo, I am sorry,” Mrs. Steele said.

  I did not know if she understood everything I felt, but she understood enough. Words ran so fast in my head that I could not catch them. I wanted to say “Sorry” back, but I could not. Mrs. Steele pushed me away and looked at me. Her eyes shone all the colors of the Masta’s paintings. “Charity got us,” she said.

  Mrs. Steele and me, our skins burst. The Evil of Want and the Evil of Missing emptied out of us—together. Who ever knew we went together, Mrs. Steele and me? Mrs. Steele saw in me what I wanted in her. I wanted a mother; she wanted a son. Mrs. Steele was not Mama, but she was close.