The Snow Angel Read online

  She never got any further. Priscilla gave her a swipe that sent her flying across the kitchen. She cut her cheek on the sharp handle of the low fridge. The other children were walking in from school. The boy burst into tears. The girl stopped open-mouthed.

  ‘You ungrateful brat,’ screamed Priscilla. ‘After all we have done. We have taken you in when we didn’t even know you. You were nothing to us. Now you have a roof over your head, food on the table and in time we were planning to send you to the best school. And you repay us with threats. Usishindane na akushindao. You should beware of challenging one who is more powerful than you.’

  She stood over Makena. The knife she’d been using to trim the meat was still in her hand. Blood dripped from it.

  ‘Did you think you could come here and lead a complimentary existence? You have seen how we struggle. Did you expect free lodgings, free water, free electricity? On top of that, you demand that we serve you your own special VEGE-FARIAN meals. As if you are royalty! And all the while you are like a viper in our midst. I have sympathy that your parents are gone but you are not unique. There are ten thousand orphans in Kenya. Sometimes I wish you had been lost in the car crash with your mother and father.’

  For the first month after her parents had died, Makena had cried a river. She’d cried so hard and for so long that the river inside her dried up and left a hollow as arid and empty as the district in which she now lived. But at Priscilla’s words a single, horrified tear fell from her eye.

  She scrambled to her feet. ‘What are you talking about? They didn’t die in a crash. They died from Ebola.’

  Priscilla sprang backwards, knocking the plates off the counter. They shattered spectacularly. Spears of china stabbed Makena’s legs. Her aunt didn’t even turn to assess the damage. Her hand was over her mouth.

  ‘Ebola? Ebola! Edwin told me … I didn’t know … oh my. Oh no … and for the past three days you’ve been sneezing and coughing. You have brought this disease, this curse, into our home. You’ve been with my baby.’

  Makena edged away. Her entire body shook with fear and shock. ‘No. No, I just have a cold. I-I w-wasn’t there.’

  ‘Get out!’ screeched Priscilla. She ran and lifted the baby from his pram, then gathered her other weeping children to her like a mother hen. ‘GET AWAY FROM US AND NEVER COME BACK.’

  As Makena stumbled out into the yard, the door was locked and bolted behind her.

  THE WHITE LIE

  When Edwin returned from work, he found Makena hugging her knees on the grass verge outside the house, shivering uncontrollably. Her cheek was swollen and there was dried blood on it.

  ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘I fell.’

  At first he could not get a syllable more out of her, but with patience he gathered the gist of the story. An uncharacteristic fury came over him. He lifted Makena and put her in his truck, covering her with his jacket.

  ‘Stay here. Don’t move, no matter what.’

  The row that erupted was like nothing Makena had ever heard. She curled in a ball in the footwell of the truck, hands over her ears, but the battle cries of her relatives carried through the closed windows. Before crouching down, she’d seen people in nearby houses coming out on to the street.

  ‘Don’t blame Makena,’ Edwin begged at one point. ‘She is a child. I am the one who is in the wrong. I thought it was for the best. I worried that if I told you my brother and sister-in-law perished from this horrible disease you might not want her. It was a white lie.’

  If he believed that admitting guilt might pacify his wife, he was wrong. She raged with increasing hysteria about how his lie had endangered her, his children and her precious baby. For days, Makena had been sneezing and coughing up lethal germs around the house. Even now, the virus might be working its evil in their veins. He may as well have dug their graves.

  ‘You’re talking crazy,’ despaired Edwin. ‘Makena never went to Sierra Leone. She was not with my brother or his wife. How can she have Ebola?’

  ‘How do you know she never went? Were you with them? Do you have proof? The disease could have been lying hidden, like a sleeping spider, for months. How can I believe what you say ever again? How will I know if it is a white lie or a lie of another colour?’

  Edwin pleaded and cajoled. He would take Makena to the hospital for tests and bring Priscilla a health certificate if that would satisfy her. Surely there was some way he could make it up to her, some way that they could work things out so that Makena could still live with them. She was alone in the world. She had nowhere else to go.

  Priscilla was immoveable. ‘She has her rich friends in Nairobi. It’s her or me.’

  After that the house was quiet for a considerable time. When the truck door eventually opened, Edwin was stooped and grey, as if the youthful marrow had been drained from his bones. He helped Makena on to the seat and put her rucksack at her feet. For several minutes he didn’t seem to trust himself to speak.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘Priscilla is a fantastic woman but she is a lioness when it comes to our children. She is scared for them. People in this area, many are ignorant. They have their superstitions around Ebola. They have filled her with fear. You know yourself, this disease can kill in a few days. Some people believe that those who cannot be killed by the virus are cursed or are witches. Priscilla is worried that if our neighbours discover we have an Ebola survivor in our home, they will cast us out on to the street. I could lose my job. It’s nonsense because you were never with your parents in Sierra Leone but it is the way of this place.’

  He said hesitantly: ‘Your friends in Nairobi, are they good people? Do they treat you well?’

  Makena nodded. It was obvious what was coming.

  ‘Do you think they would … ?’

  His hope hung in the air.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure they would keep me,’ answered Makena, because that’s what he wanted to hear. ‘If I could just get to Nairobi …’

  The relief on his face almost made her cry again.

  ‘No problem. One of our drivers – a decent, trustworthy man – is going to Nairobi early tomorrow to collect some parts. I will ask him to take you to your friends and make sure you’re safe. It might be better for me to drop you at his house tonight. His wife will look after you and it will be easy for you to be ready at four a.m. Is there anything else I should fetch from inside for you? Do you have any other belongings?’

  The rucksack was light against her leg. Makena thought of the stuffed suitcase she’d arrived with and shuddered at the memory of Priscilla and her daughter raking through her things. Some, she suspected, had been sold. She’d seen a girl at the store wearing the jeans and yellow Mount Kenya T-shirt Shani had bought for her. Makena’s own jeans had gone missing and she knew the T-shirt was hers because the first and only time she’d worn it she’d managed to get a tiny ink stain in the centre of the O.

  ‘There’s nothing I want.’

  Her uncle started the engine. ‘Then let us proceed. In case you are hungry, I put some bread and two oranges in your bag.’

  His sadness filled the cab like a mist. ‘You are going too soon, Makena. With you here, I saw every day my brother. The best of him is in you. Keep strong, niece. Remember – however long the night, the dawn will break.’

  RUBBISH

  ‘Stop! Over there on the left. By the jacaranda tree.’

  For most of the four-hour journey to Nairobi, Makena had tried to doze. Her cheek still hurt but the swelling had gone down. The driver’s wife had iced it, muttering darkly about Priscilla. She hadn’t believed Makena’s tale about tripping over a step. She’d also brewed her something foul-tasting for her cold. Whatever it was had practically cured Makena overnight, but it had left her feeling as if her head was detached from her body. She had the sensation of gazing down on herself from a great height and seeing a thin, broken child slumped against the lorry door.

  Until a moment ago, her only plan had been to throw hersel
f on the mercy of the Tings. She was sure they wouldn’t turn her away. But as she roused herself from another miserable replay of the evening before, she realised that the driver was taking a shortcut down her old street. The home she’d last seen when she kissed Mama and Baba goodbye was zooming towards her. Makena’s heart, a dead thing in her chest, pulsed for the first time in months. She came to life with a suddenness that startled the driver.

  ‘Stop! Over there on the left. By the jacaranda tree.’

  The driver was confused. He pulled off the road to check his notebook. ‘This is not the address I was given by your uncle. We are nearly there. Another five or ten minutes, depending on traffic.’

  ‘You think I don’t know my own home?’ said Makena, guessing, correctly, that her uncle would have avoided saying much about her background or her hurried departure.

  ‘Sure, sure, you must know it. I also must be confident that you are safe. I promised Edwin. You are a young girl in a city of thieves and … Ah, ah! Usitoke! Don’t move. Let me find a better place to park.’

  But Makena had the door open and was jumping down into the street. As she rounded the front of the lorry, a man in a suit exited her home.

  The lorry driver was in a panic. ‘Wait, child! I will accompany you across the road. First, let us go together while I find a place to—’

  ‘There’s no need.’ Makena waved to the man across the street as if he was a long-lost friend. He lifted a hand uncertainly.

  She looked back at the driver, leaning from his cab. ‘See. I’m expected. Thanks for the lift. You and your wife were so kind to me last night. Please thank her for the medicine. That’s some powerful muti.’

  The businessman met her at the gate. ‘Do I know you?’ he asked as the lorry growled into motion behind her. ‘Are you a friend of my daughter’s?’

  Makena couldn’t speak. She’d stepped on the spot where she’d last seen her parents and the past had sucked her into a vortex. Her father’s voice echoed in her head. ‘See you later, alligator.’

  She’d been laughing as she answered, ‘In a while, crocodile.’ She’d been carefree. She hadn’t known that ‘later’ might mean never again.

  Her knees buckled beneath her. She sat hard on the muddy pavement. The man threw down his briefcase and wrenched open the gate, yelling to someone to bring some water.

  ‘Are you ill? Shall I call a doctor or your family?’ He took a phone from his suit pocket. ‘Do you know your mama’s number?’

  Makena felt sick. She should never have come. ‘I-I used to live here. My family used to live in this house. Now they’re dead.’

  The man looked uncomfortable. He tucked his phone away. ‘We heard. I’m sorry for your loss. But what are you doing here?’

  His wife came rushing up with a bottle of water. Groomed and perfumed, she had the harried look of someone with a high-pressure job. Her husband muttered something and she gasped.

  ‘Can you deal with her?’ he said under his breath. ‘I’m late for a meeting.’ He drove away without waiting for a reply.

  The woman was nicer. She squatted in front of Makena and took her hand. ‘Would you like to come inside?’

  Makena shook her head violently.

  ‘Then what can I do to help you?’ She looked up and down the street. ‘Did someone bring you?’

  Makena wiped her eyes with her sleeve. ‘I left some things here. My mama’s friend, Shani, she told me that the landlord sold everything – all our furniture, our pots and dishes, our pic…’

  ‘Breathe. Take your time.’

  ‘He got rid of our p-pictures and everything to c-cover the rent. Shani saved some of my clothes. What I want to know is, do you have the items that were on my bedside table? They weren’t worth anything in money but they were special to me. They’re all I have left of my parents.’

  The woman became defensive. ‘Look, when we came here, the place was a mess. The landlord is a criminal. He took our deposit and then when we arrived with our possessions nothing had been cleaned. I found a box of junk in the small bedroom. No toys. Just sticks and dirt and a jar of water. It was disgusting. I threw it all away.’

  Makena let out a sob but no tears fell. She felt in that moment that she would never feel anything again. Nor would she have any reason to. Everything she had ever loved had been taken from her.

  ‘That wasn’t junk. It wasn’t disgusting. Those were precious things my baba gave me – a leopard stick, volcanic ash and melted snow.’

  The woman looked ready to weep herself. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry. I didn’t realise. This breaks my heart.’

  Then she brightened. ‘Hang on, I remember now. I did keep one thing.’

  Makena hadn’t wanted to see how her home had changed but her feet carried her to the open front door. When her parents had rented it, the house had been a cheerful space decorated with homemade cushions, batiks and worn but comfortable furniture. Teetering piles of pre-loved books bought by her mama with every spare shilling had doubled as coffee tables or homework desks. The radio was forever on. They’d danced to Pharrell Williams, clapping because they felt like happiness was the truth.

  The house was silent now. No books were in evidence. Everything in the ordered lounge was sleek and pricey. Everything matched. The life Makena had shared with her family had been erased.

  The woman returned with a framed photograph. It had been dropped, but Makena didn’t care. Behind the splintered glass, that picture of her parents laughing on their wedding day was worth more to her than all the gold in Africa. She pressed its cool, sharp edges to her cut cheek and drew strength from her memories.

  ‘Thank you,’ was all she could manage.

  There was a break in the woman’s voice. ‘You’re welcome. I’m glad I kept it. It felt wrong to discard such a loving photograph.’

  She glanced at her watch and swallowed a curse. ‘I’m sorry but I must get to work. Who brought you here? Is somebody picking you up?’

  Makena gestured airily at the street. She didn’t want to lie but she didn’t want to be watched over either. ‘Any minute.’

  ‘Maybe I should stay with you. There are plenty of troublemakers about.’

  ‘Hakuna Matata. I’ve lived here most of my life. If anyone bothers me I’ll get one of the neighbours I know.’

  ‘You’re positive? Then I’ll go.’

  She took some Kenyan shillings from her purse and pressed them into Makena’s palm. ‘Here, have this. Get yourself an ice cream or sweets – anything to make you smile.’

  Out on the street, Makena tossed the frame into a bin and added the wedding photo to the plastic sleeve that held the precious picture of her father climbing the Ice Window. Both went into the pocket of her climbing trousers.

  She started walking. After the quiet of the north, Nairobi’s rush hour was worse than ever. It was as if the city was staging a brass band parade made up of ten thousand tone-deaf players. By the time Makena reached the Tings’ house, the elephant was not simply standing on her chest; it was trying to grind her into the dust.

  Makena was dreading the moment when Shani answered the door to discover that her ex-colleague’s daughter was her problem once again. She and Betty had enjoyed working together but had never been close. The only reason Makena had ended up with the Tings was because she and Li were friends and no one else could be found to look after her at such short notice.

  Shani had already had to deal with far more than she’d bargained for. If she and Mr Ting did take Makena in, it would lead to the kind of rows about money and space (or lack of it) that had happened with increasing frequency in the weeks before she’d departed to live with her relatives.

  There was also a risk that they would get the authorities involved. Well-meaning officials might take her into care or dispatch her back to Priscilla and Uncle Edwin.

  As Makena tried to summon the courage to approach the house, Shani emerged with the children. Li and Leo were neat and adorable in their school uniforms. Her friend sk
ipped to the car with a book.

  Makena ducked behind a tree. She waited until they’d driven away before moving on. They’d done all they could for her. Not for anything would she be a burden to them.

  She began to walk aimlessly, in a daze of pain and loneliness. Borne along on the current of jostling, sweaty workers and hawkers, she felt shielded; part of something bigger. At Priscilla’s house she’d been utterly alone, but in Nairobi there was safety in numbers. Cars, matatu taxis and bicycle owners could honk and rant as much as they liked but they couldn’t run her down if she was crossing a road with twenty other people.

  Everyone was going somewhere. She allowed herself to believe that she must be too. For a while she attached herself to a family, losing herself in a daydream where she still belonged. Eventually, the children started to stare and point. Trying to escape the pitying glare of their mother, Makena was almost crushed by a donkey cart.

  She found herself in a street market. The air was blue with smoking pans of biryani and chapatti; beef knotty with gristle, blackened cobs of makai. She ducked under clothes-rails, squeezed between green hills of pumpkin leaves and bowls of dewy mangoes.

  Emerging from beneath the plastic awnings and pink riot of Chinese toys, she noticed that thunderclouds were bearing down on Nairobi. Already they’d merged with a man-made cloud of oily black smoke rising from the distant slums. As far as Makena could tell, stuff was always burning in Kibera and Mathare. Warring gangs and slum dwellers experimenting with illegal electricity were the cause of many blazes. Fuelled by festering rubbish and crowded shanties assembled from planks, cardboard and rusting iron, fires could rage out of control for days.

  The police and fire service seldom ventured into Mathare Valley and never at all into its worst neighbourhood, Nigeria Ndogo. They didn’t dare.