Just as she is about to clamber on board the bus to the terminal, hauling her cases, a man approaches her too close for comfort. A tall, thin European, with chiseled features and a tan, is eyeing her as if debating whether to speak to her or not. His brazen stare puts her off and she doesn’t bother to answer him when he says, “Will you have a drink with me if I were to ask you out? I’ll show you a fabulous time, the best you’ve ever had in the company of a man.”
For the first time, Bella wishes that she had allowed her sorrow to express itself, which might have discouraged such advances. Now she tries to cut him down with a look of bitter distaste that makes it obvious she wants nothing to do with him. She gets on the bus, retreating into the rear, where she stands next to the woman with the many-hued hair. The man gets on board as well, but he keeps his distance, contenting himself with glancing in her direction every now and then.
Immigration is a breeze. In fact, she has never seen a friendlier group of immigration officers. Chatty and apologetic for the difficult landing, they are quick to say “Welcome!” to every passenger who approaches. Nor does anyone bother to ask for the supposedly mandatory yellow fever certificate — this in an airport known for holding travelers for hours and extorting bribes from them.
And even though it takes a much longer time than usual for the luggage to be delivered to the cranky carousel, nobody complains. When Bella finally collects her other cases, she realizes that there is no need for her to rush; no one is meeting her. And so she heads toward the exit, dreading only mildly that the man who approached her earlier might make a further nuisance of himself, in which case she has decided to deal with him firmly and, if need be, crudely.
Bella pushes the loaded baggage trolley forward, feeling hot inside her black cotton shift. She walks slowly, her gait unsteady, her cheeks now wet with tears again, her sight blurred. She finds a bench to rest her exhausted bones on, sitting until the waves of nausea start to abate. She feels uncomfortable being so infirm in so public a place, but the familiarity of her surroundings relaxes her a little, even if there is no Aar to meet her or no taxi driver holding up a placard with her name. She lets herself sit and weep, not bothering to wipe away the tears. She asks herself why death, and why now? And why did death deprive her of her adored brother? Why has misfortune chosen to descend on her and her nephew and niece at a time when they are so ill prepared for loss?
A tall man standing nearby, a Masai from the looks of him, approaches. “Madam!” he says repeatedly, until she looks up. Once he has her full attention, he says, “Taxi,” as if this were her name. Gradually other men join them, and one of them takes her by the arm, another grabs hold of her bags, a third insists that she ride in his taxi because he will give her a bargain price. She looks from one to the other, clearly miffed. She focuses her hard stare on the man who is trying to dispossess her of her computer bag and who already has in the grip of his right hand one of the camera cases. She restrains herself from speaking, but her expression and body language indicate clearly that she wants him to give back her bags.
Then the man who approached first, the Masai — she takes in his torn ears and his sharpened teeth — tries to put the others to shame, accusing them of being a disgrace to their profession and their nation. Bella gives her face a quick wipe, as if the word “disgrace” is equally addressed to her. The mood changes, and nearly all of the taxi drivers step back, some of them moving on immediately and others mumbling their dissent and straggling away slowly, unhappy at being shut out. Bella beckons the Masai.
“Hotel 680, please.”
“Yes, madam. Please follow me!”
He pushes the unwieldy trolley with her pile of heavy cases in the direction of the exit, and Bella hurries to keep pace with him to the open-air parking lot. When he opens the back door of the taxi, she indicates that she wants to sit in the front.
Nairobi traffic is atrocious, disorderly, and murderously slow. It’s as if this city has a violent strain running in its veins. It’s an in-between place, with many different tendencies pulling its residents in diverse directions, and it seems fitting to Bella that it started as a railway depot at the turn of the last century. In slapdash fashion, it has grown into a “self-help city,” as an urban anthropologist has put it, in which the Africans must make do while European tourists are drawn by the promise of adventure and safari.
The taxi is Japanese-made and rickety, as if it could easily be pulled apart. It’s hot too, but Bella dares not roll down the window, even a little, on account of the black fumes and white smoke emitted by the malfunctioning trucks ahead of them, which pollute the air as well with venomous bellowing. Bella sits with her computer bag between her knees, pondering the world outside. She is not sure of the name of the poet, but there is a line that she has always appreciated for its balance and alliteration: “It is beautiful, it is mournful, it is monotonous.” To this she adds another line of her own composition: “There is glory in grief.”
With the traffic at a standstill, the driver starts a conversation. “Madam, to what name do you answer? My own name is David.”
Uncomfortable at giving the name by which she is known, Bella says, “Some of my friends call me Barni.”
“What does Barni mean in your language?” he says.
“Something to do with a baby born with a birthmark.”
“You were born bearing a birthmark?”
She improvises. “I was named after an ancestor.”
“What is your country of origin?”
Bella doesn’t fancy giving her life history to this stranger either, so she turns on the radio, which jabbers away in a language she does not comprehend.
David asks, “Do you understand this language?”
Several young men circulate among the cars with things to selclass="underline" fruit, combs, cell phone chargers, and shoelaces. People buy from them as they sit in traffic. Bella rolls down the window and prices several items just to engage these young men and women in conversation and avoid a further exchange with David.
“Barni, eh? That is a beautiful name,” David says.
In truth, she is rich in names. Her mother called her Isabella, but only when she was upset with her, lengthening the vowels and rolling her tongue over its syllables. Bella is the name by which she is known outside her immediate circle. Barni is her middle name, which affords those who are most intimate with her the chance to address her as BB.
The question is not what is in a name, but rather how many of them she can answer to. She thinks it is a useful thing to have an array of names, each presenting her with different possibilities. Well aware that people she encounters rarely forget meeting her, even if they did so fleetingly. Yet she sometimes delights in denying having met someone and, if challenged, asks if they remember her name — whereupon she insists that she is called by a different name. Outside the Horn of Africa, she prefers the use of her Somali name; inside the Somali-speaking region, she is Bella.
A blind man with a boy for a guide pushes his way toward the car. He is as determined to get her attention as the street hawkers, it seems. He recites a Muslim prayer, wishing her safe passage, and touches her elbow when she isn’t looking. She shrinks from the physical contact and rolls the window up again. Just then the traffic moves.
Presently, she spots a web in the corner of the floorboards, close to where her foot is resting, a web woven and then forsaken, and then she sees another, this one active, in which a bigger spider has recently trapped a tiny insect, which is now trying to wiggle its way out alive. Bella bends down and frees the insect, which shakes its whole body and then tenses, like a gymnast readying to somersault and hit the ground with his feet wide, balanced and firm. The spider goes in determined pursuit, and both vanish through a gaping hole in the floor of the car.