What Tears Us Apart

Chapter 8



December 12, 2007, Kibera—Leda

IN HER DREAM, rats gnawed at her neck and Leda couldn’t fight them off because her wrists were pinned at her sides in red-hot handcuffs. The rat bites began to itch, itch and burn until she was yoked by a collar of fire.

She woke up panting, whimpering in the late-night—or early morning—darkness. Her hands flew to her neck but stopped short of touching her skin. Something was wrong, very wrong.

In the pitch black, she remembered the henna, Grace’s beautiful handiwork. On her arms and neck. That was the burn she felt—flowers on fire.

The itch was like nothing she’d ever experienced, but she was too scared to touch it. She swung her feet around to the edge of the table and fumbled her way to the lamp, the enflamed flowers strangling her breath away.

When the lamp wrapped its orange sphere around her, Leda looked at her hands. Blisters.

Oh, no.

She had to wash it off. Immediately.

Her mind started to race. How would she get to a hospital in the middle of the night? How would she survive the itching long enough not to scratch off all her skin? Would she be scarred? Flower scars to match her face. She felt tears gather in her eyes.

Ita. When they’d been at the clinic, the doctors had had every confidence in him.

Ita can save me.

In moments, Leda was up and sliding open the metal door, shuffling through the dust in her sandals.

She rapped on Ita’s door, restraining herself from banging.

There was an immediate response. He was up, standing on the other side.

“Who is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Leda, I—”

The door opened and Ita’s face appeared, lines of worry highlighted by the moonlight.

Leda didn’t say anything more, because she felt sure she would cry. She brandished her arms like a zombie and threw back her head so he could see.

“Does it burn?” he asked. “Itch?”

She nodded her head and tears again welled in her eyes.

“It’s okay, Leda. Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. I promise.”

Ita put his hand on her waist to steer her back through the courtyard, but she jerked away. She nodded her head that she would follow him toward the bathing area.

He led her into the bathing stall. He left for a moment and returned with a rag and a stool.

So blinding was the pain and the itching that it took all Leda’s effort not to scream into the night. With her eyes squeezed shut, she heard Ita dunk the rag in the tub of water. She felt him approach.

“Give me your hands,” he whispered.

She held out her flaming arms, imagining the Wicked Witch of the West hissing and bubbling, dissolving into a puddle.

Ita wrung the wet cloth over her wrists and a blessed gush of water rained down on her skin. The fire sprang back almost immediately, and she yearned for more seconds of bliss.

“Again,” she said. “What’s happening?”

“You’re allergic. We’ll wash you for comfort and then I have medicine.”

The next time he wet the towel, he blotted it gently over her skin, the coolness of the water and the pressure of his touch bringing precious seconds of release from the trauma. He moved to her neck, pressing the towel firmly against her hot skin.

“Will it scar?” Leda whispered.

She opened her eyes to see Ita’s face, gauge the truth. What she found was tenderness. She had the clear thought that he would never lie to her.

“What a beautiful scar to have,” he said. “Eternal flowers.”

“Frankenstein flowers.”

“Scars are not monstrous, they are very human. A testament to the design of the body and the strength of the soul. The boys have many scars—stamps of survival, of the audacity to survive in a place where no one wants you.” Ita looked suddenly far away. Then he came back. “I tell them since they earned so many badges so young, life will be very happy for them later.”

Leda’s face felt hot. “I would not tell them that.”

He touched her cheek to lift her chin, his thumb near her scarred jaw. She lifted her face out of his reach. His eyes flooded once again with tenderness. “Scars are a reminder that you are not your body, or the bad things that happen to it. You are your soul and your soul is always free to be happy and beautiful. You, Leda, are very beautiful, body and soul.”

Leda let herself linger in his gaze, cradled like a hot towel after a winter bath. The plush feeling was so foreign, she found herself savoring it like a new favorite food, until doubt wormed its way back in. She must have frowned, because Ita’s gaze changed to concern and he set about soaking the rag again.

After he had finished washing her skin and the painful itch had subsided, he led her out into the courtyard and back to her bedroom, where he moved to the far wall and rustled through a box. Leda didn’t know if she should close the door. She left it open. But as she watched his shoulders through his shirt, saw how the material stretched to contain them, she found herself imagining what he would look like without it, wondering where his scars were hidden.

“Found it.” He turned and caught Leda looking flustered. “Are you feverish? Please. Come sit. How do you feel? Dizzy?”

Yes, she wanted to say. But not from the henna. “I’m okay. I feel much better after—” your touch, she thought “—the water.”

She sat on the table. My bed, she thought.

“Where are your pajamas?” he asked, grinning. He motioned for her to hold out her arms again.

She had gone to bed in her clothes, not wanting to disturb the henna. “You think they’re funny?”

“I think they are enchanting,” he said, and laughed his rolling thunder laugh, though more quietly this time so as not to disturb the sleeping household.

The intimacy of his laugh gave Leda goose bumps. He noticed. “You sure you don’t feel a fever?”

“I feel—” she could think of a hundred words to insert next “—better.”

But it wasn’t long before the maddening itch of the blisters started to come back, with a fire of desire in her stomach to match her searing skin. She winced.

“The water’s relief is temporary, but this will help.” Ita unscrewed a tube of cream. As she watched in anticipation, he squeezed it onto his fingers. Her body stiffened and she averted her eyes.

Ita came close, so close that if she looked up, her nose would rest beneath his chin. He could kiss her forehead—

Leda let out a shuddery sigh and tilted her head back, letting the light spill over her. She shut her eyes. She felt him hover and the silence swelled between them. Her heartbeat grew so loud, surely Ita could hear it.

He stepped in closer still, and she could sense his desire like a dragon breathing in the corner. Leda was amazed that with blisters over her body and her scar spotlighted, he could want her.

To get his footing, he pressed against her legs.

Leda wanted it, she wanted nothing more than for him to touch her. But when he did, his fingers spreading the cream at the base of her throat, her body acted on its own, wilting under his touch.

He paused.

She opened her eyes, humiliated. But Ita’s gaze wasn’t offended or daunted. It was patient. Kind.

The coolness of the cream faded and the itching returned with a vengeance. The urge to scratch was a desperate hunger, matched in intensity only by another sudden desire. The desire to throw herself into his arms and press him to her, tight as her burning fingers would allow.

He saw it. Saw the hunger in her eyes, her soul’s desire winning over her body’s resistance. He reached behind him, took up the tube of cream. He spread the slippery white salve over each collarbone, down over her breastbone, delicately across the space above her breasts.

This time, Leda leaned into his touch.

He finished with her neck and chest, then moved on to her hands, lifting them gently from her sides and encircling both at once. He worked the cream over the backs of her hands and the tops of her fingers, until they were left holding hands. Warm, wet, slippery hands.

“There,” Ita said, his voice low in his throat. “Better?” he asked, as if to say May I?

Leda met his eyes, slow as the air was thick. She felt strong and sultry under his gaze, but it unsettled her too, on some primal level.

“I feel like—” Ita whispered.

She held her breath. She wanted to know how he felt, more than anything in the world.

“Like I won’t want you to leave.”

As soon as he said it, something happened. She tried to name it, to understand the change she saw on his face, felt in the air. But she couldn’t. Simply that something had shut off, like a faucet in another room. Leda knew the moment was passing, the words she could reply with shrinking. Shrinking to none.

Ita cleared his throat. He smiled, but it was ten degrees cooler than before. “Will you be able to sleep?”

She thought about it. She felt the warmth in her belly, the undulating heat between her thighs. No way would she be able to sleep. “Yes, of course. Thank you, doctor.”

Ease found its way back to his face. “I will give you a pill to help with the itching. But it will make you sleep heavy. You may miss breakfast,” he said with a wink.

She laughed. “You noticed I’m not much for mornings, huh?”

He laughed with her, then stepped away and walked back to the box of supplies. As he rustled through it for the medicine, he took his phone from his pocket. Leda heard it vibrate, saw its lit-up screen.

Ita’s head shot up toward the courtyard at the same moment Leda heard the knock at the front door.

“I’ll be right back,” he said and slipped out of the room, sliding the door shut after him.

She sat on the table and tried to think what to do with herself, with what had just happened, with the image of Ita’s hands sweeping over her skin.

She didn’t have long to sort it out before she heard voices outside. Ita’s voice was low, careful of the sleeping children. But the chuckle, the oily, snarling voice—that belonged to Chege. And it was coming closer.

Leda’s muscles tensed, her limbs curled into her body.

Ita and Chege stopped just outside the door, speaking in rapid, sloppy Swahili Leda couldn’t decipher one bit. It continued for several minutes, the back-and-forth, before she heard a pause and Chege say the word mzungu. That word she knew plain enough. White person. Her.

Ita hesitated, then answered quietly. Leda looked at the door. No lock, she thought as she heard Chege’s retort and Ita’s voice rise with his next words, an explanation, a shuffle, a protest—

Chege burst into the room, his thin face puffy, his eyes red and hazy. He was drunk, Leda could see it immediately—the look was the same on an affluent mother in a Malibu mansion or a gangster in Kibera.

And there was Leda, her blouse still pulled down to just above her breasts.

“Burned by the African paint, huh, mzungu?” Chege said with a sneer. He poked a crooked finger at Ita. “You pay the doctor?”

The burning returned in full force, like it was Chege spitting the fire onto her skin. “What?” Leda squeaked.

“Three days—you use the water, eat the food. Now Ita fix you.” At this he twisted his lips into a dirty smile. “You think it all free?”

Ita barked something at Chege, something Leda hoped meant Leave her the hell alone.

Chege shot back slimy words as though taunting Ita. The way Chege’s eyes traveled over her skin, Leda was glad she didn’t understand, but as he went on, his voice grew firmer, insisting.

She looked to Ita. He had a sickened, sheepish slope to his face.

He agrees, she realized.

Chege smirked at her.

She didn’t know what to say. On one hand, of course it made sense to reimburse Ita for medical supplies. Doctors don’t work for free. No one does. Especially here, where everything was so valuable and her money could mean so much. But logic couldn’t overcome the feelings coursing through her veins. Shame, yes, but also indignation. Leda straightened, tugging her blouse up onto her shoulders, the pain making her breath catch.

“Of course I’ll pay,” she hissed. She stepped down from the table and reached for her money belt. With her back to the men and her hands shaking like a pond in an earthquake, she took out way too much money. She spun back around and thrust the money into the air.

“Take it, Chege. You seem to be the bill collector.” She pursed her lips until Chege snatched the cash roughly from her fingers. “Now please get out of here, both of you.”

“Leda—”

She heard the regret in Ita’s voice, but she didn’t care. It was too late.

“Just go,” she said.

And as they left, Chege’s parting snicker echoed in the small room.

* * *

A long time later, once Leda had turned out the light, wrapped herself in a cloak of soured thoughts, and tossed and turned like a cement mixer, there came a knock at her door.

“Leda, are you okay?”

If I don’t answer, he will go away.

“Leda, may I come in? Just to check on your skin. Give you the medicine.”

“I’m asleep,” she answered, more awake than an owl at midnight.

“Please,” Ita said so clearly outside the door his lips must be pressed nearly into the frame.

Before she could think better of it, she said, “Come in.”

Ita slid open the door and moonlight slithered into the room at her feet.

He crossed the room with his head down and lifted a foil package of pills from the box of supplies. He pushed one through and held it out to Leda. “I apologize for my friend. You didn’t have to give any money.”

She took the pill, staring at him evenly. “Is he really your friend?”

Ita inhaled. It was a heavy sound, like a vacuum in a sandbox. In its rush, Leda noticed other sounds of the night, the distant clatter of the slum.

Finally he said, “Chege, I know like I know the sun and the rain—good, bad, always coming back. Does that make someone your friend?”

Yes...but... “No. You two are different.”

“Are we? We grew up together, without families. Chege taught me to survive.” Ita’s eyes darted away in the darkness. “I owe him more than you can imagine.”

When he said you, Leda knew he meant someone like you, and her skin bristled.

But he was right, she realized. She couldn’t imagine. She reviled the idea of depending on anyone, but wasn’t that because she’d had the luxury of never having to? Even if her heart suffered, her basic needs—shelter, food—were always secured.

She checked Ita’s face. His eyes were focused a million miles away. She looked around the tiny, dusty room. With Chege, maybe, money was about power, like in the U.S. But Ita wasn’t being greedy or mean. He was surviving, trying to give the boys a better life, a chance.

“Me and Chege,” Ita said suddenly, “we share the same story. The struggle to be good.”

“But you are good,” Leda said, eager to point out the success of the orphanage.

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m atoning.” He crossed to the door. “Good night, Leda.”