When Edwin returned from work, he found Makena hugging her knees on the grass verge outside the house, shivering uncontrollably. Her cheek was swollen and there was dried blood on it.
‘Who did this to you?’
‘I fell.’
At first he could not get a syllable more out of her, but with patience he gathered the gist of the story. An uncharacteristic fury came over him. He lifted Makena and put her in his truck, covering her with his jacket.
‘Stay here. Don’t move, no matter what.’
The row that erupted was like nothing Makena had ever heard. She curled in a ball in the footwell of the truck, hands over her ears, but the battle cries of her relatives carried through the closed windows. Before crouching down, she’d seen people in nearby houses coming out on to the street.
‘Don’t blame Makena,’ Edwin begged at one point. ‘She is a child. I am the one who is in the wrong. I thought it was for the best. I worried that if I told you my brother and sister-in-law perished from this horrible disease you might not want her. It was a white lie.’
If he believed that admitting guilt might pacify his wife, he was wrong. She raged with increasing hysteria about how his lie had endangered her, his children and her precious baby. For days, Makena had been sneezing and coughing up lethal germs around the house. Even now, the virus might be working its evil in their veins. He may as well have dug their graves.
‘You’re talking crazy,’ despaired Edwin. ‘Makena never went to Sierra Leone. She was not with my brother or his wife. How can she have Ebola?’
‘How do you know she never went? Were you with them? Do you have proof? The disease could have been lying hidden, like a sleeping spider, for months. How can I believe what you say ever again? How will I know if it is a white lie or a lie of another colour?’
Edwin pleaded and cajoled. He would take Makena to the hospital for tests and bring Priscilla a health certificate if that would satisfy her. Surely there was some way he could make it up to her, some way that they could work things out so that Makena could still live with them. She was alone in the world. She had nowhere else to go.
Priscilla was immoveable. ‘She has her rich friends in Nairobi. It’s her or me.’
After that the house was quiet for a considerable time. When the truck door eventually opened, Edwin was stooped and grey, as if the youthful marrow had been drained from his bones. He helped Makena on to the seat and put her rucksack at her feet. For several minutes he didn’t seem to trust himself to speak.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘Priscilla is a fantastic woman but she is a lioness when it comes to our children. She is scared for them. People in this area, many are ignorant. They have their superstitions around Ebola. They have filled her with fear. You know yourself, this disease can kill in a few days. Some people believe that those who cannot be killed by the virus are cursed or are witches. Priscilla is worried that if our neighbours discover we have an Ebola survivor in our home, they will cast us out on to the street. I could lose my job. It’s nonsense because you were never with your parents in Sierra Leone but it is the way of this place.’
He said hesitantly: ‘Your friends in Nairobi, are they good people? Do they treat you well?’
Makena nodded. It was obvious what was coming.
‘Do you think they would … ?’
His hope hung in the air.
‘Yes, I’m sure they would keep me,’ answered Makena, because that’s what he wanted to hear. ‘If I could just get to Nairobi …’
The relief on his face almost made her cry again.
‘No problem. One of our drivers – a decent, trustworthy man – is going to Nairobi early tomorrow to collect some parts. I will ask him to take you to your friends and make sure you’re safe. It might be better for me to drop you at his house tonight. His wife will look after you and it will be easy for you to be ready at four a.m. Is there anything else I should fetch from inside for you? Do you have any other belongings?’
The rucksack was light against her leg. Makena thought of the stuffed suitcase she’d arrived with and shuddered at the memory of Priscilla and her daughter raking through her things. Some, she suspected, had been sold. She’d seen a girl at the store wearing the jeans and yellow Mount Kenya T-shirt Shani had bought for her. Makena’s own jeans had gone missing and she knew the T-shirt was hers because the first and only time she’d worn it she’d managed to get a tiny ink stain in the centre of the O.
‘There’s nothing I want.’
Her uncle started the engine. ‘Then let us proceed. In case you are hungry, I put some bread and two oranges in your bag.’
His sadness filled the cab like a mist. ‘You are going too soon, Makena. With you here, I saw every day my brother. The best of him is in you. Keep strong, niece. Remember – however long the night, the dawn will break.’
