at Ex-mas. Then she prayed for Fuunny Eyes, the name we had given to the young Japanese volunteer who unfailingly dropped shillings in our begging plate. She wore Masai tire sandals and ekarawa necklaces that held her neck like a noose, and never replied to our greetings or let her eyes meet ours. Mama prayed for our former landlord in the Kibera slums, who evicted us but hadn’t seized anything when we could not pay the rent. Now she asked God to bless Simba with many puppies. “Christ, you Ex-mas son, give Jigana a big, intelligent head in school!” she concluded.
“Have mercy on us,” I said.
“Holy Mary, Mama Ex-mas . . .”
“Pray for us.”
IT WAS DRIZZLING AGAIN when Naema returned with Baby. He was asleep. Naema’s jeans, mutumba loafers, and braided hair dribbled water, her big eyes red from crying. Usually she sauntered in singing a Brenda Fassie song, but tonight she plodded in deflated.
She handed the money over to Mama, who quickly banked it in her purse. She also gave Mama a packet of pasteurized milk. It was half full, and Naema explained that she’d had to buy it to keep Baby from crying. Mama nodded. The milk pack was soggy and looked as if it would disintegrate. Mama took it carefully in her hands, like one receiving a diploma. When Naema brought out a half-eaten turkey drumstick, Mama grabbed her ears, thinking that she had bought it with the money she’d earned begging. Naema quickly explained that her new boyfriend had given it to her. This boy was a big shot in the street gang that controlled our area, a dreaded figure. Maisha and I detested him, but he loved Naema like his own tongue.
Now Naema wriggled and fitted her lithe frame into the tangle on the floor and began to weep silently. Mama pulled the blanket from the others and covered the girl’s feet, which had become wrinkled in the rain.
“Maisha is moving out tomorrow,” Naema said. “Full time.”
Mama’s face froze. No matter how rootless and cheap street life might be, you could still be broken by departures. I went outside and lay on the row of empty paint containers we had lined up along the shop’s wall, hiding my face in the crook of my arm.
Guilt began to build in my gut. Maybe if I had joined a street gang, Maisha would not have wanted to leave. I wouldn’t have needed money for school fees, and perhaps there would have been peace between Maisha and my parents. But my anger was directed at the musungu men, for they were the visible faces of my sister’s temptation. I wished I were as powerful as Naema’s boyfriend or that I could recruit him. We could burn their Jaguar. We could tie them up and give them the beating of their lives and take away all their papers. We could strip those musungu naked, as I had seen Naema’s friend do to someone who had hurt a member of his gang. Or we could at least kill and eat that monkey or just cut off his mboro so he could never fuck anybody’s sister again. I removed my knife from my pocket and examined the blade carefully. The fact that it was very blunt and had dents did not worry me. I knew that if I stabbed with all my energy, I would draw blood.
After a while, my plans began to unravel. I realized that I would never be able to enlist Naema’s boyfriend. Naema herself would block the plan. In fact, until that night she had been taunting Maisha to move out, saying that if she were as old as Maisha she would have left home long ago. Besides, even if I fled to the Kibera slums, as soon as we touched the tourists, the police would come and arrest my parents and dismantle our shack. They would take away Maisha’s trunk and steal her treasures.
BABA STARTED AWAKE, AS if a loud noise had hit him.
“Is that Maisha?” he asked, closing his eyes again.
“No, Maisha is working,” Mama said. “My Maisha commands musungu and motorcars!” she said, her good mood returning.
“What? What musungu, tarling?” Baba asked, sitting up immediately, rubbing sleep and hunger from his eyes with the base of his palms.
“White tourists,” Mama said.
“Uh? They must to pay ma-dollar or euros. Me am family head. You hear me, woman?”
“Yes.”
“And no Honolulu business. What kind of motorcar were they driving?”
“Jaguar,” I answered. “With driver. Baba, we should not