— Rise and shine, sleepyhead. It’s a beautiful morning.
Grinning at me. She stood in a wide doorway that opened onto bright sunlight, a reefer stuck in her mouth and a spatula in her hand. Her long hair was tousled, the wavy, reddish-brown tresses framing her face like a mane. She had on a loose white gown, under which her nipples were mauve circles, and through which sunlight filtered, showing her long pale legs and the shadow of her pubes.
— Morning, Leo, I said. Then I stretched; the pain in my stiffened muscles made me groan.
— Come sit on the terrace, the fresh air will do you good. I’m rustling up breakfast.
She turned and went through the doorway, and I followed. It led to a rooftop patio, and her kitchenette was there, built to one side. Leo stood in front of an open fridge, arm stretched out in blessing, fingers rummaging in the frost. A cat was sprawled on its side beside the fridge, its head turned to watch me with ginger eyes, its banded tail sweeping slowly across the floor. Leo swung the fridge door shut with a whump.
— Haai Sankara, he’s a friend, she said to the cat, and bent down to stroke his pricked ears. She straightened up, turned away, and Sankara eased to his feet, padded to the end of the patio, leapt lightly onto the wall, and dropped from sight.
I stood watching as Leo popped bread slices from the toaster, then sawed an orange in half and squeezed out juice. She brushed back hair strands from her forehead with her wrist, blew out weed smoke from the side of her mouth, and darted glances at me as she worked. Then I moved forward, to the wall of the patio, and looked down at Nairobi, stretched out under me in every direction. Judging by the nearest buildings, identical apartment blocks in a walled compound, Leo’s penthouse was eleven stories high.
Leo laid out breakfast on a wrought-iron table on the patio, poured steaming coffee into two cups (she drank nothing but Kenya AA, the best coffee in the world, she told me later), and then called me to eat. As I sat at the table, I asked:
— How did I get up here last night? I have no memory of climbing stairs.
Leo answered, straight-faced:
— I carried you up.
I was the same height as Leo, or maybe slightly shorter, but besides being a man, with bigger bones and a thicker build, I was black and she was white. So I laughed at her joke, and picked up the butter knife.
— I’m serious. I piggybacked you. You were snoring like a tuktuk. One hundred and eighty-seven steps to the top. Know what that is? Pure murder.
Her nipples were tender, she felt queer in the mornings from the life growing inside her, she was sure of the signs. Happy days, those days when we both were nervous with hope. We’d gone days without a fight, days of weaving dreams about motherhood and second chances, the childhood we never had. Then her period came. The fights started again.
After breakfast I told Leo I had to go, but she persuaded me to spend the day in her apartment. I didn’t take much convincing. She had a Jacuzzi, a comfortable four-poster bed, food and weed and lots to drink, and a Venus de Milo — shaped bottle of eucalyptus oil with which she planned to massage my tired muscles. The only problem was she also had plans for another night of clubbing, and I didn’t have a change of clothes. So she offered to take me shopping.
We drove to the supermarket in her official car, a tinted-glass Land Rover. She parked by the door of the butcher’s, right next to the medium-sized supermarket with an Indian nameplate. We got down, she beeped the car locked, and her mobile phone rang. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
— I have to answer this, babes. You go on ahead, take anything you want, it’s on me.
The last time we fought I had just told her I loved her. She said actions not words, and that if I did truly I would give her a baby, I would never leave her that way, not really.
— Love means coming back even when you can’t.
Then we quarreled.
I got my things and left.
First thing I noticed when I entered the supermarket was the checkout counter, three cash registers squatted on it, manned by a triad of Indian women, who by their ages could have been daughter, mother, and grandmother. I greeted them as I passed by. The daughter looked up and nodded, the mother turned her face aside, and the grandmother, her watery eyes magnified by spectacle lenses, stared fixedly at me. I picked up a shopping basket and turned into the nearest aisle.
A clutch of shoppers browsed through the supermarket, and the attendants, five that I counted — three women and two men, none of them Indian, all wearing yellow aprons — were busy assisting shoppers or stacking shelves or mopping the floor. I had come shopping for undershorts, T-shirts, socks, haberdashery. While searching for these items I found a few other needs: a toothbrush, a can of deodorant spray, a graphic novel of Othello, two bars of milk chocolate, one for me and one for Leo. Then I stopped in front of the pastry shelf, checking out the cookies. Overcome by choices, I decided to pass, took two steps, and changed my mind. Whirling around and starting forward, I almost bumped into the youngest of the cashiers, the daughter.
— Are you looking for something? she asked. You’ve been standing here for a while.
— As a matter of fact I am. I need some T-shirts and boxer shorts.
— Well, you won’t find those among the cakes. Please come this way.
She walked to the front of the store and called to a female attendant who was arranging milk cartons in a glass-front refrigerator, asked her to leave that alone and show me the clothes section.
— Assist him with any other thing he wants, she said as I was led away.
The attendant stuck to my side for the rest of my shopping. She watched as I selected three colors of Fruit of the Loom T-shirts, two sets of cotton boxers and an undershirt, some socks, and a pair of gray woollen gloves. I moved across to the pastry section, and she plodded after me, not bothering to turn away when I threw glances at her. My plan was to browse through until Leo arrived, but I felt so uncomfortable that I decided to pay and leave.
I walked to the checkout counter. The mother and daughter were attending to shoppers, but the grandmother was free. I halted in front of her and placed my basket on the counter.
— No, no, no, go that way, she said, shaking her head and pointing toward the other cashiers. So I picked up my basket and went to stand behind the shopper who was being attended to by the mother. While I waited my turn, a straw-haired man with sun-reddened, peeling skin, dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and faded canvas slipons, approached the grandmother and plonked down two packs of Marlboro, a six-pack of Coors Light, and a box of Durex Ribbed.
— Shikamoo, Mrs. Desai. Habari gani?
— Jambo, the grandmother answered with smile. Then she rang up the items and called out the total. While he counted out shillings, she bagged his purchases. You have a good day now, you hear, she said as she handed him the change.
The shopper in front of me picked up her bags and moved off. I stepped forward, set my basket on the counter, and drew out my wallet.
— Remove the items from the basket, the mother said, without looking at me. Then she beckoned to the next in line, a plump, mixed-race woman with an empty baby carrier strapped to her chest. The woman hurried forward, jostling me aside with her shopping trolley crammed full of baby things, and began unloading them onto the counter. The mother picked up a pack of Pampers from the woman’s pile, checked the price tag, and tapped the cash register keys.