The driver asks her where she is going. “Kimathi Street,” she says, without a second thought. The price he names is far too much, but under the circumstances, she decides not to fuss about it. She gets in, remembering that Kimathi Street was named for a Kenyan warrior whose statue was unveiled there in 2007, the year she met HandsomeBoy Ngulu. She remembers with nostalgia the bar the two of them used to frequent, close to the Stanley Hotel.
Near the city center, the streets are too jammed for the taxi to proceed easily and she gets out. The sidewalks here are narrow and busy, and the shops fronting them appear to be Indian run, their customers nearly all African. She knows that a forest of eyes is trained on her, following her every move, taking in her jeans, her T-shirt, her upmarket sunglasses, her foreignness. She is used to Italian streets throwing up troublesome wet blankets in the shape of men wolf whistling at passing women. Here the local yokels ogle, their ceaseless staring bespeaking their desires. No harm in that, she thinks, only she wouldn’t want to be in their company alone in a room or a dark alley. But as it is daytime and the streets are full of people, Bella allows her sense of mischief to get the better of her.
“May I take a picture of you, please?” she calls to a man undressing her with his eyes.
“On condition we have a photo together,” the Ogler says.
And soon enough a crowd gathers as the Ogler poses. Others volunteer to be photographed. As Bella presses the button, now taking a photo of one person, now of a group, she rejoices in the charm of Africa, even as she knows that such a friendly crowd can just as quickly turn violent. Here one must be on one’s guard at all times, she knows.
When some of the men suggest that she lend them her camera for a minute or so, Bella extricates herself from the engulfing mob. But as she tries to move away, the Ogler insists that she keep her word. She is reluctant to let anyone else handle her camera so as a compromise she suggests that someone else use the Ogler’s iPhone to take a photo of the two of them standing side by side. That way he will have their picture together, she points out to him. And so the Ogler, his right hand mauling her side, poses with her as if he were the happiest man ever.
Finally, Bella decides enough is enough, as a number of other stragglers have gathered around her and are asking to have their photographs taken with her. Quitting the scene as fast as she is able, she enters a shop to buy a local SIM card and a hundred euros’ worth of airtime for the spare mobile phone she brought along from Rome. Another minute or so later, with a train of lollygaggers still in pursuit of her, she hails another taxi, gets in, and says, in the assured tone of a local, “Take me to Village Market, please.”
—
At the market, she finds a café and sits at a corner table, where she orders a latte and a croissant. While waiting for it, she eavesdrops on a young couple in their early twenties who look to be newly married and Somali — Bella judges this from the woman’s palms, henna decorated the way Somali women do. Debating whether Bella is Somali, Ethiopian, or Eritrean, the man insists that she is Somali and the woman maintains that she isn’t. As if to prove his point, he goes over to Bella’s table and asks in Somali if she would take a photograph of them using his iPhone. Bella obliges and at first takes a series of shots with the iPhone, and then, given their permission — in fact, urged by the woman — takes more with her camera, at one point suggesting that they stand outside with the city’s skyscrapers in the background. When the young woman says “Mahadsanid” in Somali to thank her, Bella answers, “Adaa mudan.”
As they return to their respective tables, the man says to his bride, “My sweet, I’ve won the bet, haven’t I?”
The woman introduces herself to Bella as Canab and her husband as Kaamil, and explains that the two bet on whether Bella was Somali or not. And they invite her to join them.
“But may I continue to take pictures of you?” she asks.
“Of course,” the woman agrees, delighted.
The couple is so excited to pose for her that it isn’t until the waiter brings Bella’s latte and croissant that the man asks what her name is and what has brought her to Nairobi.
She is in no hurry to answer, not yet having decided how much of her story she can bear to tell to total strangers lest she burst into tears in front of them. She takes a sip of her latte and has a bite of her croissant, and just as she is about to speak, a young man comes to their table to offer her a wood carving of no exceptional quality. “Cheap, cheap, cheap,” he says.
Canab, seeing Bella hesitate, says in Somali, “I know where you can get the best of this kind of wood carving, or better still, the best Zimbabwean stone sculptures.”
Bella turns to the young seller of the wood carving and, apologizing, says politely that she isn’t interested in buying his wares. The peddler is suddenly and inexplicably furious, and looks from Bella to Canab and back to Bella and asks, “Where are you from and what language are the three of you speaking? Arabic?”
“We are speaking Somali,” says Bella.
Whereupon the peddler begins to shout, his rage, insofar as Bella is concerned, coming out of nowhere. He says, “Y’know what? My goods are not from a flea pit, where you come from and where you rightly belong. Terrorists, the lot of you, who have no right to be here! Blowing up our malls, terrorizing our nation. Go back where you come from!”
The outburst is so violent that it draws a few uniformed security officers. Meanwhile, Bella and the couple get ready to leave, and gather their things. Canab pays the bill, leaving a generous tip under a saucer for the waiters. Kaamil offers to take Bella to the craft shop, but Bella is too unsettled by the volatile outburst, which makes her uneasy. She says good-bye to the couple, declining to exchange phone numbers and e-mail addresses. She hurries off, catches a taxi at the stand outside the mall, and returns to the hotel.
—
Back at the hotel, Bella finds a fax waiting for her at the reception desk. “Valerie,” it says, with a telephone number that has a Uganda exchange. Bella puts it in her pocket without reading the rest and walks up the stairs instead of taking the lift to her room. Inside, she starts to set up her local mobile phone by inserting the Kenyan SIM card. She is eager to reach her niece and nephew.
When there is no answer, she checks her e-mail messages and finds one from Catherine Kariuki waiting. The message reads, “Please accept our condolences for the tragic loss of Aar. We feel a deep sorrow. You are in our thoughts and our prayers.” The message explains that the Kariukis have taken the children to a nature reserve out of town, intending to return to Nairobi in time to meet her flight. Bella checks the date. Evidently, there has been some confusion over the timing of her arrival. No matter. She is relieved to learn the reason for her inability to reach the Kariukis or the children.
And now that she can make a call from her newly rejuvenated phone, she dials Salif’s number and then Dahaba’s number. When neither answers, she calls Mrs. Kariuki. Catherine answers on the second ring, and at once the two of them speak of their brutal shock and great loss, for which neither can find adequate words. Then there is a brief pause, when one or the other of them speaks Aar’s name and both are choked up with tears. Then Bella hears a man’s voice — it must be James — offering to pull over and give Salif and Dahaba a chance to speak to their aunt. But Catherine insists on having a word with Bella first.
“We thought we would meet your flight tomorrow.”