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By Root 673 0

as if repeating the well-traveled way to a tourist shrine. Thomas remembered the road when he saw it, little more than a twisting curb on a terraced hill. He parked amidst an array of vehicles: black bicycles with rusty fenders and wicker baskets, a Peugeot 504 with sheepskin seats, a white van that looked like a bakery truck. Beyond the vehicles was a circle of men, sitting casually on benches, like brothers or uncles sent out after a meal by the women in the kitchen. They moved aside for Thomas, his presence not remarkable, and continued their conversations without interruption, mostly in Kikuyu with bits of Swahili Thomas recognized and even phrases in English when only English would do. Methyl bromide. Irrigation systems. Sophia Loren. Most were mzees, old men, with dusty sports jackets plucked from Anglican jumble sales, though one tall African had on large gold-rimmed sunglasses and a beautifully cut suit with a Nehru collar. He hardly moved a muscle, his poise impressive. The scene reminded Thomas of a wake. From time to time, women brought out matoke and irio and sukimu wiki from the kitchen. Thomas declined the food but accepted a gourd of pombe, a beer of bananas and sugar he’d had before. Cool drafts of air drifted over the terraces, and in the distance, on another precipice, a waterfall fell silently. He was awed by the strangeness and the beauty of the scene, the colors rich and saturated. A man, appearing in the doorway of Ndegwa’s house, was escorted out by another of Ndegwa’s sisters. The woman looked at Thomas, but then ignored him in favor of the African with the exceptional poise. Thomas understood then that the men, like himself, were waiting for an audience with Ndegwa’s wife.

He was made to wait an hour and a half, but, curiously, he did not feel impatient. He thought of Linda, endless occupation, exhausting every detail of their short meeting in the market: the surprise on her face when she’d seen him, the manner in which she’d looked away when Regina had said the word migraine, the way her fingers had trembled. He drank several gourds of the pombe, and knew himself to be distinctly drunk, which felt inappropriate to the occasion. From time to time, one of the African mzees blew his nose onto the ground, a custom Thomas could not get used to, even after a year in the country. He tried to make a poem as he sat there, but could form only disembodied and alien images that he knew would never coalesce into a single entity. He needed very badly to piss, and asked, Wapi choo, of the mzee beside him. The man laughed at his Swahili and pointed to a small shack a hundred feet from the house. Thomas was not surprised to find a hole in a cement floor, the smell so foul he had to hold his breath. Glad for Regina’s sake that she hadn’t come with him.

When he returned to the bench that had numbed his butt, Ndegwa’s sister was waiting for him. His walk was surprisingly steady as he followed her into the darkened hut, and he was all but blinded by the sudden darkness after the sunlight. Ndegwa’s sister took the blinded man by the hand and led him to his seat. Thomas remembered the feel of the red vinyl before he could even see it.

He would not have recognized Ndegwa’s wife. A tall headdress of purple-and-gold kitenge cloth hid the contours of her hair and head. Her body was sheathed in a caftan of similar colors. Thomas was, however, reassured to see the red platforms poking beneath the dress, the rhinestone ring on her finger. She sat — he thought, regally — with a glass of water on a table in front of her, and as she spoke, she took small sips. She did not seem the distraught wife of a political martyr or even a forensic scientist who’d had to excuse herself because her breasts were too big. Rather, she held herself as one who had inherited too soon a mantle of power, like the teenage son of a dead king.

Thomas crossed his legs and folded his hands before him. He struggled to find appropriate words for the occasion. I’m sorry that your husband has been detained, he said. I’m hopeful that this will sort itself