Chapter 8
Two Worlds
Amara kept her two lives in two different bags.
It was not a plan. It started as a convenience. The black backpack from home, scuffed at the corners, held her notebooks, her laptop charger, and a pencil case with a broken zip. It went to the library, to class, to the canteen, to Nathan's house in Wandegeya. The leather one, the tan one with the gold clasp, held a small mirror, a bottle of perfume, a pair of earrings, and a second phone charger. It went to Ntinda, to dinner, to the salon, and to Patrick's parties.
She switched between them in the back of boda bodas. She changed her shoes in toilets. She had learned to take off her lipstick in sixty seconds with a tissue and a bottle of water, and to put it back on in forty. She had learned which friends she could mention to whom. She kept a list in her head, and the list was getting longer every week.
By January of her second year, she needed the list to remember her own name.
"You look tired," Brenda said one night, looking up from her books.
"I'm fine."
"You were out until two."
"I told you. I was at my aunt's."
"The cousin."
"Yes."
"In Ntinda."
"Yes, Brenda."
Brenda said nothing. She turned a page. The light from the single bulb fell on her face, round and serious, and she kept her eyes on her book. But after a minute she said, very quietly, "I'm not stupid."
"I never said you were."
"I know. That's what I'm telling you." She turned another page, though Amara could see she was not reading it. "I will not ask again. I only want you to know that when you decide to tell me, I'll be here. And that I have already stopped believing the aunt."
Amara stood there with one shoe off. She could have said something. She could have laughed, or been angry, or sat down on the bed and told it all. The words were there, just behind her teeth.
"Goodnight," she said instead.
"Goodnight."
Brenda switched off the lamp. In the dark, Amara lay for a long time without sleeping. She heard her roommate whisper something that might have been a prayer, and she thought, I am losing her too.
The second semester began on the twelfth of January, and the fee, this time, came out of the account.
She had not meant to use it. She had told herself she would find another way. But there was no other way, only the date and the number and a woman at a window, and the account had been sitting there, quietly, growing. Mr. Kato topped it up on the first of each month. He called it a little for your needs. It was more than her mother had earned in a year.
She paid one million, nine hundred thousand shillings in a single transaction, in a bank in Wandegeya, without looking at the screen. The clerk stamped her receipt. She folded it in four and put it in her bag, and walked out into the sun feeling as though she had been sick.
The thing about it was that it was so easy. That was what she could not stand. The first time, she had cried in a bathroom. This time she stood in a queue and tapped a card.
She went straight to her room and took out the green exercise book.
She had not opened it since September. She sat on her bed and turned past old pages, her S6 budgets, her columns of bus fares, a drawing of a hen that Esther had added in the corner. Then she found a clean page, and drew three lines down it with a ruler.
What came in.
She wrote the date at the top, and began.
Fees, semester two, first year: 1,300,000. Mr. K.
She did not know what the apartment in Ntinda cost him. She guessed, and wrote it down with a question mark.
Rent, apartment, Ntinda, one year: 3,600,000 ?
Phone: 1,800,000.
Clothes, bags, shoes, estimated: 2,500,000.
Salon, restaurants, taxis, estimated: 2,000,000.
Fees, semester one, second year, paid from the account in September: 1,900,000.
Fees today: 1,900,000.
She stopped writing and looked at the page. It looked like any other page of accounts. Neat. Orderly. A little sad. She did the addition three times, because she kept getting different answers, and she finally got a figure: 13,000,000, approximately.
Thirteen million shillings.
She sat with the pen in her hand. In the column marked What went out she had nothing to write. It was blank. She had given nothing. She had only taken.
No. That was not true, and she knew it. She had given something. She did not know how to write it down. There was no column for it. Evenings. Honesty. Weekends. A person I used to be. She tried to put a figure on it and could not.
She wrote at the bottom, in small letters: What was left?
Then she put the book in the bottom of her bag, under her spare clothes, and zipped it shut, and did not look at it again for weeks.
In the third week of January, the two bags met.
It happened at Shanice's birthday party. Shanice had rented a rooftop terrace in Kololo, with fairy lights and a DJ and a long table of cocktails with paper umbrellas. She had invited everyone she knew. "Everyone," she had said, "including your little book club, Amara. Bring Brenda. Bring Peace. Bring the boy with the socket."
"Nathan?"
"Of course, Nathan. You talk about him more than your own mother."
"I do not."
"You do." Shanice smiled at her slyly. "You say his name like it's a type of cake."
She had not meant to bring him. She had told herself she would not. But on Friday afternoon, in the canteen, Moses said, "I heard there is a party," and Nathan said, "What party?" and Moses said, "Shanice's, in Kololo. She sent me an invitation. Why does nobody tell you things?" and Nathan said, "Because I am not invited to things," and Moses said, "You are now. I'll take you."
Amara said nothing. She watched them argue, and she knew that she should say, Don't come, it's boring, or There's no space, or You'd hate it. The sentences lined up in her head like soldiers.
"You should come," she heard herself say.
Nathan looked at her. "Really?"
"It's fun. There's food."
"There's always food." He grinned. "Okay. I'll bring a clean shirt."
And so, on Saturday night, at nine o'clock, she walked onto a terrace in Kololo wearing a silver dress that Mr. Kato had bought her, with her hair in an elaborate twist and a glass in her hand, and found Patrick's arm around her waist.
She had not expected him to be there. She should have. It was Shanice's party, and he knew everyone. But she had arrived with Brenda and Peace, who stood on either side of her in their plain dresses, looking like two bewildered nuns in a nightclub. Patrick had come up behind her in the crowd. He kissed her cheek. He put his hand on her hip. He said in her ear, "You look unbelievable," in the voice he used when he wanted other people to hear.
"Pato, please."
"What? I can't compliment my girl?"
"I'm not..." She stopped. She felt Brenda's eyes on her, and Peace's. "We're friends."
"Of course we are." He laughed, easily, and let go. But he did not step back, and his hand lingered on the small of her back.
My girl.
She had never agreed to that. But she had never said no either, in six months of parties and taxis and expensive dinners, and a word you do not say begins, after a while, to be a word you have already said.
"Who is that?" said Peace, in a low voice.
"A friend of Shanice."
"He's holding you like he owns you."
"He's just being friendly."
"Hmm," said Peace, and took a glass of juice from a passing tray, and did not say anything else, and her silence was worse than words.
It was nearly ten when she saw Nathan.
He had come in with Moses, who was wearing a suit that was obviously borrowed and was very pleased about it. Nathan was in his one good shirt, white, a little too big at the shoulders, with the sleeves rolled to the elbow. He stood near the stairs holding a plastic cup and looking around with the air of a man who had walked into a foreign embassy.
She had a second, perhaps two seconds, to decide what to do.
She could go to him. She could take a step away from Patrick, cross the floor, and say Hi. She could introduce them. This is my friend Nathan, from class. Nathan, this is Pato, he's a friend of Shanice's. Everyone would shake hands. It would be fine. It would be ordinary.
Or she could do nothing.
She did nothing. She stood still, with Patrick's fingers around her glass, and watched Nathan scan the crowd. He found Shanice first, who flung her arms around him and pulled him toward the dance floor. Then he found Brenda, and smiled with relief, and went to her. They spoke for a minute. Brenda said something and pointed.
He turned. He looked across the terrace, through the fairy lights and the moving bodies and the smoke from the barbecue, and saw her.
She saw his face change.
It was not dramatic. He did not frown. He did not look angry. He only looked, for a long moment, with his head slightly tilted, like a man trying to read a sign in a language he almost understood. His eyes went to the silver dress. To her hair, to her mouth, to her lipstick, which was red. To Patrick's hand on her back.
Then he smiled.
It was a small, polite smile, and it hurt more than anything he could have said. He raised his plastic cup, a tiny toast across the room, and turned back to Brenda.
"Who's that?" Patrick said.
"A friend. From class."
"The phone guy?"
She stiffened. "How do you know that?"
"Shanice mentioned." He sipped his drink. "She says you spend a lot of time with him."
"We have a project."
"A project." Patrick smiled, thin and sweet. "I'm sure it's very educational."
She did not answer. She stepped out from under his hand, said, "I need the toilet," and walked away through the crowd.
In the bathroom she locked the door and stood at the sink. The mirror was lit with small yellow bulbs, and in it she looked beautiful. She looked like a woman in an advert. Silver dress, red mouth, sleek hair. There was nothing wrong with her face at all.
She turned on the tap and held her wrists under the cold water, as her aunt had taught her to do when she felt faint.
He saw, she thought. He saw it all.
But what had he seen? A girl at a party. A dress. A man with his hand on her back. Nothing, really. Nothing he could name. He could not know about the apartment in Ntinda or the account or the thirteen million shillings.
He knows I lied, said a voice in her head. He knows you let him think you were somebody else.
She turned off the tap.
When she came back, he was gone.
Moses was still there, dancing badly with a girl in a yellow dress. Brenda stood at the edge of the terrace, alone, looking at the lights of the city. Peace sat in a chair with her arms folded and her glass untouched.
"Where's Nathan?" Amara asked.
"He left," Brenda said, without turning around.
"Why?"
"He said he had a headache."
"Did he say anything else?"
Brenda turned. Her face in the fairy lights was calm and sad. "He asked if you were okay."
"What did you say?"
"I said I didn't know." She took a step closer. "Amara. Who was that man?"
"I told you, he's a friend of Shanice."
"He was kissing your cheek."
"It's a greeting."
"It was not a greeting." Brenda was not shouting. She was not even angry. She was very quiet, and that was the frightening part. "I'm not going to say what I think. But I will tell you what Nathan thinks. He thinks you have another life. I can see it on his face. And he is too polite to ask."
"I don't have another life."
"Then who is the man in the black car?"
Amara went cold. "What black car?"
"The one that picks you up on Sundays. At the gate. I've seen it six times." Brenda's voice cracked a little. "I haven't said anything, because it's your business. But I pray for you every night. I want you to know that. Whatever it is. I pray."
"I don't need prayers," Amara said sharply.
It was a terrible thing to say. She watched it land. Brenda flinched, and her lips parted, and for a moment she looked about ten years old. Then she pulled her scarf closer around her shoulders and said, "Okay."
"Brenda. I didn't mean..."
"I know." She picked up her bag. "I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow."
She walked toward the stairs, small and straight, and disappeared.
Amara stood on the terrace in her silver dress with the city glittering around her and music beating in her chest, and thought, That is two.
Nathan did not message that night. Nor the next morning. On Sunday afternoon she lay on her bed looking at her phone, and the group chat was quiet, and his name sat at the bottom of her recent contacts, last seen yesterday, 10:42 p.m.
On Monday he appeared in the library at four, as usual, and nodded, and sat down. He was polite. He was cheerful. He asked how the party had been, and said he was sorry he had left early. "Headache," he said. "It was the music."
"It was loud."
"It was very loud." He opened his laptop. "Where were we? The login screen."
They worked for an hour. He did not look at her much. He was careful and kind, and when she made a joke he laughed in the right places. But the ease had gone out of it, the half-sentences, the silly arguments about sockets. In its place there was a slight stiffness, like a door that had been painted shut.
"Nathan."
"Hmm?"
"About Saturday."
"What about it?"
"Nothing." She swallowed. "Just that I... I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it."
"I enjoyed it." He looked at the screen. "It was a nice party."
"You left."
"I had a headache."
"Nathan."
He put down his pen and rubbed his eyes. For a moment she thought he would say it. Whatever it was, whatever had been sitting between them since the terrace, she thought it would come out in a sentence, and they would deal with it.
"You looked different," he said.
"Different how?"
"I don't know." He spoke slowly, picking the words. "Like you were wearing someone else's face. It was a beautiful face. But it wasn't yours."
She felt her cheeks burn. "That's a strange thing to say."
"I know. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it." He grimaced. "I'm bad at this. I overthink everything, and then it comes out wrong. Ignore me. It's none of my business who you spend your Saturday nights with."
"I wasn't..."
"I'm not asking."
"I know you're not."
"Good." He picked up his pen again. "Then let's fix the login screen."
They did. They worked for another hour. When he left, he said, "See you tomorrow," in an easy voice, and she said, "See you." But she sat for a long time afterward in the empty library, staring at the dark screen of her laptop.
It's none of my business, he had said. And what she had heard was, I wish it were.
She did not know which of them she was more afraid of.
It was Mr. Kato she told first.
She told him on a Thursday, in the restaurant where they had eaten their first dinner, at a table by the window with a candle and a bottle of mineral water. She had chosen it carefully. A public place, she thought, would help her say it. A table between them would keep her steady.
"I need to stop," she said.
He did not move. He had been cutting a piece of fish. The knife stopped, hovering, and then he laid it down on the edge of his plate.
"Stop what?"
"This." She gestured, small and helpless. "The apartment. The account. I can't..."
"Are you in trouble?"
"No."
"Has someone said something?"
"No. It's not that." She twisted her napkin. "It's me. I can't do it any more. I thought I could. I told myself it was only until I graduated. But I'm becoming someone I don't recognise, and I..."
"Is it a boy?"
She looked up. His face was perfectly still. Behind the gold glasses his eyes were steady, unreadable, and there was no anger in them. Only a very tired attention.
"I don't know," she said honestly.
"But there is someone."
"There's a friend. A real friend. And I'm lying to him. Every day. And I hate it."
"I see." He nodded slowly, and picked up his water glass, and put it down again without drinking. The candle flickered. A waiter passed, and Mr. Kato lifted a finger to send him away. "I wondered. You've been different. Lighter, in some ways. I thought maybe you were happy."
"I'm not happy."
"No?"
"I'm... I don't know what I am."
He was silent for a while. Then he said, "Do you remember what I told you in the car? The first time?"
"You said you wouldn't leave your wife."
"I said I would never insult you by pretending." He smiled faintly. "I've kept to that. Haven't I?"
"Yes."
"I never forced you."
"No."
"I never promised something I couldn't give."
"No." Her voice shook. "You were kind. That's the problem. You were kind, and I let you pay for everything, and I told myself it was fair. But it wasn't. Was it?"
"Fair." He turned the word over. "I don't know, Amara. I'm not sure that anything between a man and a woman is fair. I've been married for eighteen years, and I still can't tell you what it is." He put both hands flat on the cloth. "But I'll tell you what I think. I think you are a good person who had a hard year, and made some choices, and now you want to unmake them. And I think that is your right. I won't stop you."
She stared at him. She had braced for anger. For sulking, for pleading, for threats. For all the things she had heard about from other girls, whispered in hostel corridors. This quiet acceptance undid her more than any of it.
"I'll pay it back," she said. "I have a book. I've written it all down. I'll pay every shilling."
"Don't."
"I will."
"You will insult me." He said it gently. "I gave it freely. You owe me nothing. If you try to pay it back, I will throw it into the lake."
"Mr. Kato."
"Ronald. Please. After all this, you may call me Ronald."
"Ronald." She tried the name. It sounded foreign. "I can't take it. It doesn't feel right."
"Then do what feels right. Give it to your mother. Give it to a church." He lifted one shoulder. "Only don't give it back to me. I'll feel I did something wrong. And I don't believe I did."
She was crying, though she had not noticed starting. He passed her a napkin. She dabbed at her face and he sat there and let her.
"There's one more thing," he said, after a while. "I'll say it once, and then I will never mention it again."
"What?"
"The world is not as kind as I am." He spoke softly, without drama. "I'm not boasting. I'm only telling you what I've seen. There are men in this city who will look at you, and see what I saw, and they will not be gentle. Some will be younger and more charming. They will promise things. And when you are tired of them, they will not smile and pay the bill." He paused. "Be careful. That is all."
She thought of Patrick, hand on her back, at the party. She said nothing.
"And if you ever need..." He stopped. "No. I won't say it. You'll know where I am."
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Eat your fish."
She laughed, wetly. She picked up her fork. They ate the rest of the dinner in near silence, and when he drove her back, he did not speak at all. At the hostel gate he put the car in park. She took out the key to the apartment, and the little silver fob with the number, and laid them on the dashboard.
"Keep the phone," he said. "You need it."
"I'll bring the money for it."
"We'll argue about that another time." He looked straight ahead, at the road. "Goodbye, Amara."
"Goodbye."
She got out. She did not look back at the car until it had pulled away, and she saw the tail lights go red at the corner and vanish. Then she stood on the pavement with her empty hands, and she was surprised to find that she felt not relief, but grief. A small, strange one, for a man who had been kind to her, for the wrong reasons, and who had let her go without a fight.
One, she thought. One down.
She went upstairs. She sat on her bed. She thought she might feel clean. She felt only light, and a little sick, like someone who has put down a heavy bag and does not yet know where her arms belong.
The second one would not be so simple.
She waited three days before telling Patrick, because she was afraid. When she finally did, it was by phone, from the hostel balcony, at eight on a Sunday morning. She had rehearsed it. We should stop seeing each other. I'm sorry. It's not working.
There was a long silence on the line.
"Is this a joke?" Patrick said.
"No."
"You're serious."
"I'm sorry. I think it's better."
"Better for who?"
"For both of us."
"For both of us." He gave a short laugh. It was not the laugh she knew, the warm one. It was thin, and cold, and dry. "Amara. What do you think we've been doing for six months?"
"I thought... we were friends."
"Friends." The word came out with disgust. "I bought you a hundred and twenty thousand shillings of braids. I paid for the taxi to your cousin's wedding. I put money on your phone every week. You think I do that for friends?"
"I never asked you to."
"You never said no."
"I said no all the time!"
"You said it in a voice that meant yes." He was getting louder. "Come on. Don't play the innocent with me. I'm not stupid. I know what this is. It's the phone boy. Isn't it? The little techie, with his cracked laptop. You've found yourself a nice poor boy to feel good about."
"That's not..."
"I saw him at the party. Skinny, trying to look like he belonged. He couldn't even take his eyes off you. And you looked embarrassed. You looked embarrassed, Amara, in front of me." His voice dropped, soft and venomous. "Do you know how that felt?"
She was gripping the balcony rail so hard her knuckles hurt. Below her, in the lane, a woman was sweeping, and the broom made a regular dry sound on the concrete.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I really am. But it's over."
"It's not over until I say it's over."
"Pato."
"You think you can just walk away? After everything?" A pause. When he spoke again, he was calm, and the calm was worse. "Fine. Go. Be with your phone boy. I wish you luck. I hope he is a very rich man someday and buys you a nice dress."
"Goodbye, Patrick."
"I'll be seeing you around campus."
The line went dead.
She stood holding the phone. Her hand was shaking. After a while she put it in her pocket and went inside. Brenda was sitting up in bed, with her Bible, pretending to read.
"Everything okay?" she asked.
"Yes."
Brenda nodded, and said nothing else.
That was Sunday. On Monday, Amara walked up the hill to class and nothing happened. On Tuesday, nothing. On Wednesday, a small thing: a blue tick on one of her messages, and no reply. On Thursday, a notification. She almost did not look at it.
It was a story on Instagram. She did not follow Patrick. But Shanice, who did, had sent her the link with a single sad face.
The picture was of a rooftop at night, with a long table and a bottle in a bucket. Under it was a single line of text.
Some people forget who paid for the view. 🙂
Nothing more. No name. No tag.
Underneath, among forty-odd comments, one reply from an account she did not recognise. Who's it for? 👀
And Patrick's own answer, short and light.
Wait and see.
Amara sat for a long time on the edge of her bed with the phone in her lap. Outside the window a taxi hooted. Somebody was frying fish. She told herself it did not mean anything. He was angry, and men said things when they were angry. He would forget.
At nine that evening, her phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.
Tell the boy I said hi.
She did not need to be told who it was from.
She read it three times. Then she turned off the screen, and put the phone face down on the blanket, and lay back and stared at the ceiling, where a single crack ran like a dry river from one corner to the other, and listened to her own breathing until it grew steady.
It did not grow steady for a long time.