I slammed the door to Room 349 so hard that the walls shook.
Then I ran across the room, lay on the bed, and cried. I had been ripped off before (mostly by hookers). I had lost money before (mostly to friends). But losing to Mrs. Steele crushed me. Unlike the sugarcane, the liquid that came out of me was not sweet but bitter.
Enough time had passed for the bitter to become sad when the door opened by itself. “Sir?” Charity called.
I rubbed my wet face against the sheet. I looked over at her. “Why ya not knock?” I shouted.
“Jambo, sir,” she said. “I wanted to see if you should need anything.”
“I need nothing,” I shot back.
Charity walked toward me. She tilted her head. “Sir, I was informed that there was a water leak in this room.”
I looked up at her from the bed. “Wha’?”
She went on, her tone mocking me. “Number one, the bathroom was flooded; number two, your so very important legal contract was soaked; number three, the sheet is wet through, and, number four, your face is wet. It is most obvious, sir. There must be a water leak.”
I was about to shout at her, but she threw a packet of light blue Walkers at me—Salt ’n Vinegar. The packet hit my head. I wanted her to leave right then, but instead I sat up, opened the crisps, and ate.
“So, how’s that very important legal contract going?” Charity said.
I shook my head, crunched, and swallowed. “Don’ even ask. Disasta!” Then I told her about Hunsa, the contract, and Mrs. Steele. I finished: “Tha’ paintin’s worth millions. Tha’ American try to scam me. She neva beat me. You see!”
Charity laughed. “Well, stick with it, sir. In Kikuyu we say, Munyaka wi mbere ya kajinga.” She did not know I understood, so she added, “Good fortune lies after the tripping block.”
I said, “Ya,” and ate another crisp. I said back, “Ciakorire wacu mugunda.”
She laughed. “Sir, I would not rely on God to make you rich. If being a successful businessman like you just needed some prayer, then everyone would pray and be successful.”
She had a point. I thought about the scrawny Jesus-lover-hag at St. Lazarus. She was as poor as rags, but she prayed a lot. “Ya, business is tough,” I said. Every year at seed time Senior Father would give me a handful of tiny two-leaf seed-yams to plant in an empty corner of the field. He said, “You make a trench like this.” I dug the soil with my hands like he showed me. He said, “You put tha seed this far after tha last one.” I used my knife to make a hole and planted the seed like he told me. He said, “Cover the seed with mud when you are done.” I did that, too. I did exactly what Senior Father said. “Remember,” he said, “every man is mud. No man is higher than another. Worm eat every man back to earth so that life can grow.” So I planted the tiny two-leaf plants one by one. After I planted each seed-yam, I said to it, “Goodbye, seed.” I covered it with mud and patted it down. Then I ran to the water jug, cupped water in my hands, and sprinkled it over the mud. I placed my lips on the mud and said, “Grow big.” After I had planted twenty seed-yams, I tasted the sharp red mud on my lips all night.
I licked my lips clean of the Salt ’n Vinegar crisps. Charity watched me, close-lipped and peaceful. For a second I thought she was the sun, I was the seed, and water had leaked onto my face from hands above. A slow drum began to beat inside me; it was from a deep place, a place nothing had lived in before, from an empty corner of my field.
Charity scrunched her mouth. “Sir, it is a funny thing,” she said.
“What?”
“The art dealer business.”
I ate a crisp. “Why that?”
“Well, sir, it is something the American art dealer lady just said. You see, just a short while ago I did turn-down service in there.”
“Ya?” I asked, casual.
She shook her head, “No, sir, it would be very wrong for me to say any more. I have told you far, far too much already.” I said, “Come on, Charity, you and me—we are frien’s.”
She looked at me. “We are?”
“Ya,” I said. “Go on, tell me. What the American say?”
“Well, it is strange,” Charity said, and tilted her head. “You being so sad and the art dealer lady, she is so happy. You see, I heard the art dealer lady say to her husband on the telephone, ‘I got him. The boy has no idea what those paintings are worth. Once I get those paintings I am going to dump him.’ ” Charity smiled and watched her words fill me. “Have an excellent night, sir,” she said, then turned and left.
Her husband. Charity had said “her husband.” All the words Mrs. Steele said to me by the pool about feeling bad about Mr. Steele, the divorce contract, the mirrors, and being alone. It was all garbage—all hustle!
I drank four vodkas from the little fridge in my room, but they did not help me at all. I put on the TV and watched football. Arsenal beat Liverpool 2–1. The loser gets nothing.