Mists of the Serengeti(19)

We watched in silence as the balloons bobbed gently in the corner, as if touched by soft, invisible breaths—rising and falling.

“This was her. My sister.” I searched through my phone and showed Jack a picture of Mo. She was getting her hair braided. A comb was sticking out in the undone part of her hair. She looked so happy, sitting in the shade of a tree, on an upside-down plastic crate, wearing a turquoise dress and polka dot glasses. “We didn’t look much like each other.” Mo was the kind of person who sprang out at you in pictures and crowds. Your eyes just automatically picked her out.

“My daughter and I, we didn’t look much like each other either.”

I didn’t think he was going to share anything further, but then he seemed to changed his mind.

“This is her.” He pulled out his wallet and gave me a Polaroid of Lily.

She had honey-colored skin and was smiling into the camera with pure mischief in her eyes. Strands of flyaway hair were peeking out from under a sunflower hat—the one that Jack had given Scholastica. She looked different from Jack, but I could see him in the arch of her brows and the defiant turn of her chin. She would have broken rules and hearts, and loved every minute of it.

As we held the photos, side-by-side, I felt a sense of loss that goes with the disappearing of smiles, of vibrancy, of voices, and warmth, and choices. And yet there was a sweetness of having shared and known, of having loved, even though it seemed as fleeting as the flutter of a bird’s wings.

I handed Lily’s photo back, and stooped to retrieve something that had landed on the floor. It was another Polaroid, one of Jack, that had been stuck to the back of it. He looked like he’d been caught mid-speech, his skin over-exposed as if the flash had gone off right in his face. Perhaps that was why he seemed so different—his eyes so clear and startling, they captivated me. They had an iridescence that was not easily forgotten, like icy glaciers ringed by golden, summer light. They held no hint of the storm clouds that they did now. I’d pegged him for being around thirty, but he looked much younger in that photo.

“She took both of these,” said Jack, when I handed him back the second Polaroid. “We were driving to the mall that day.” He stroked the edge of Lily’s photo absently. “I told her to stop wasting film.” He slipped the prints back into his wallet and stared at the leather.

“I didn’t answer my sister’s call that day.” I hadn’t told anyone that, not even my parents. I had shared Mo’s final message, but not the fact that I’d ignored her call. I was too ashamed to, but somehow, I felt all right sharing it with Jack. “I was too busy signing papers for my new home.”

Jack remained silent. Maybe he was running over the same things I was: the what-if scenarios that you go through over and over again.

“Is that why you’re doing this?” he asked. “Taking on her unfinished business? Because you feel guilty?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We don’t always understand the things we do. We just do them and hope we’ll feel better.”

“I don’t know about feeling better.” Jack took a deep breath and straightened from the desk. “All I know is that when Scholastica handed me back Lily’s hat, I couldn’t shut her out. It was the way she looked at me—with no expectation, no judgment. I have no qualms saying no to you, or to Goma, or to anyone who asks anything of me, because I don’t owe anybody a damn thing, including explanations. But when that little girl looked at me, without asking, without speaking, something in me answered.”

Scholastica’s voice mingled with Goma’s in the kitchen as we stood in the library. It was probably what Kaburi Estate had sounded like when Lily was alive—a mix of young and old, with the hum of a distant tractor, and the muted conversations of the staff drifting in through the windows. The breeze picked up the scent of Jack’s skin—green coffee beans and soft earth. It was both light and dark, elusive yet rooted, just like the man. I could have gone on breathing the moment, but I had an odd sensation, like I was standing at the edge of something deep and vast, and needed to pull back.

“Is this Lily’s mother?” I walked over to one of the shelves and picked up a frame. It held a photo of Jack with a beautiful black woman. She had a swan’s neck, elegant and smooth, and the kind of face that needed no makeup to accentuate it. Her features radiated an intelligent confidence. Jack had his arm around her shoulder as she held a younger Lily up for the camera.

“Sarah.” Jack took the frame from my hands and gazed at it. “She wanted to take Lily to Disneyland, but I insisted she come here, like she does every year.”

He left the rest unspoken, but it was clear that Sarah blamed him for what had happened to their daughter. From the expression on his face, he didn’t begrudge her that, because he did too.

“Lily was our last link, the one thing that kept us connected. I haven’t spoken to Sarah since the funeral.” Jack carefully placed the frame back on the shelf.

He did that a lot. Every movement was concise and deliberate, like he was focusing on the things he could control, to keep from getting sucked into a dark, spinning void.

The shrill ring of a referee’s whistle came from the living room, where Bahati was watching a football match. It jarred the strange spell that seemed to have woven around Jack and me.

“I should get going,” said Jack. “I’m needed outside.” He slipped on his sunglasses and paused at the door. “We’ll leave for Baraka in the morning.”