THE DUST THAT NEVER SETTLES    

The wind swirled, lashing Chicoe's face with thick tentacles of dust. He threw his arm across his eyes, cursing the dry season for invading this part of The Congo with such vengeance; for stripping the earth and sucking every drop of water from the sky until the clouds rained only dead soil, turning the whole city brown. The quivering walls of the downtown shops, the cracked face of the road: everything around Chicoe poked their eyes out of the brown. Blue smoke from traffic hung like serpents in the haze. Banana trees wilted, tumbled down.

Behind him, Chicoe heard the old woman moan.

"Ah mon Dieu," she said. "These ashes have bitten my eyes." She lay upon a pile of rags, curled in the shadows of a crumbling, cement lean-to, next to the spot on the road where Chicoe sold his merchandise. A small fire glowed next to her, and each burst of air rushing in off the street sent the ashes spiraling up in her face. She spat on the ground and wiped her tongue with the back of her hand. "How old are you?" she asked.

"Every day you ask me that," said Chicoe. "I am thirteen."

"That's because every day I have something to tell you: Go away."

Another blast of wind cut through the holes in Chicoe's shirt. He didn't know her name or anything about her. Since he had found this spot three weeks ago, she arrived each afternoon, usually carrying a few scraps of wood for her fire, and an old bundled up cloth containing some peanuts and dried fish.

She held up her arm. "You see these bones," she continued. "I cannot move. But you, what are you doing spending your life on these streets? Peddling your batteries and cigarettes and ten-penny gum? I see your eyes, boy, and they are bright and wide. But each day you stay here, they die and turn flat."

"I shall try, mamman," said Chicoe. "I shall try." Her thin, spider-like hands pulled a blanket to her chest. "Are you cold?" he asked her.

"No," she said. "I am just old."

Chicoe stared at his table of scattered goods: two packs of D batteries, a half a bag of Bic pens, boxes of Chiclets, six razor blades, a couple of cans of sardines, unwrapped bars of pink soap and two packs of Marlboro cigarettes, open at the top, because he sold the cigarettes one-by-one. Dust covered it all. He blew on his table, and the dust bit his eyes. Just like the old woman. Behind him, she groaned again.

She was right, of course, but what else could he do? Every day he told her he'd find some other way to live his life. He wanted to buy a camera. During the long hours Chicoe stood next to his table each day, the only other thing he thought of was learning how to take pictures, and maybe one day working for the shiny magazines sold at the news kiosks. But he needed money for that life, a lot of it, so it shimmered only as a far away goal, like a glint of steel lodged in the corner of a distant horizon. For the moment he was here. And that was that.

Chicoe rearranged his goods in neat piles and waited.The sun sat fat and low in the dead haze, telling him evening, and quitting time, was near. The large office buildings surrounding him would soon open their iron gates, and businessmen would scurry out in their clean, easy clothes—their white shirts, dark suits and colored ties. That was whom he now waited for: the white shirts. Chicoe needed them. He had sold almost nothing all day.

He tensed up when he saw the three youths cross the street. They ran in and out of traffic, laughing and shaking their fists as horns blared and cars skidded around them, until they leapt and landed on the sidewalk in front of Chicoe. One of the boys' kicked his table, sending a pile of soap tumbling to the ground.

"Jambo, Chicoe!" said the tallest boy.

"Jambo, Jambo Chicoe!" said the other two boys. They giggled like young girls.

Chicoe stooped down to pick up the pink bars of soap. He brushed dirt off each one and placed them back on his table. The three boys watched him. They always made him feel heavy, like he was moving underwater.

"Jambo Mamma na Chicoe!" said the tall boy to the old woman.

"She's not my mother," said Chicoe.

The tall boy looked down at Chicoe. "Sell much today?" He took a cigarette off the table and popped it in his mouth. "You look tired. And thin."

"Well, I'm not." Chicoe tried to avoid the tall boy's eyes. He hated his flat, ugly eyes.

"You going to come with us tonight, or not?"

This was the question Chicoe had been dreading. For the past week they had come every day and asked him the same thing. He straightened the pile of soap on his table.

The tall boy snorted. "Look at this junk you sell. You like these clothes I'm wearing? I know you do. Come with us tonight and I can show you how to get some."

The old woman groaned.

"You could even buy her a new blanket. Even in this heat, the old sow looks cold."

Chicoe counted the pink bars of soap.

"Why are you so quiet?" asked the tall boy. "You think you're too good for us or something?"

"No," whispered Chicoe.

The tall boy turned to the other two. "He thinks he's too good for us. Well, I'll tell you what, little boy. This is the last time I'll be nice to you. You don't come tonight, you start paying us to use this street. How do you like that, little Chicoe?"

Chicoe shot a glance up at the tall boy. "What are you talking about?"

"You heard me... do what you want, but when night falls, we'll be at the tool shop near the white school at the top of Water Hill. If I don't see you tonight, I will see you tomorrow. You can count on it."

One of the other boys grabbed a box of gum from the table. All three took off into the street, laughing. The cars beeped and swerved.

****

Chicoe squeezed his temples between his fingers. He had heard of old men who shined shoes or sold fruit having to pay people to use the streets, but he always thought he would be left alone. Well, he was alone, and that was the problem. He knew no one else in this city. For weeks after he first arrived, he had searched for a spot like this one, near the white shirts, and on most days he did fairly well, at least enough to eat and replace the items that he sold. Now the tall boy wanted to make him pay. Or go.

From a building across the road, a lone white woman emerged from iron gates. She wore a midnight blue skirt with patches of painted flowers. She had long, light hair and as she came toward him, heat rose in Chicoe's face, and his heart fluttered. She looked like someone he had once known. Long ago, but mon Dieu, maybe it is her. She would help me. I know she would help me.

The woman smiled. "Jambo! Habari?"

Chicoe stared at her bright blue eyes. He really thought it was her. He could not believe it.

She pointed to a box of gum. "How much? Combien? Parlez-vous Anglais?"

"Un peu. Fifty Francs," said Chicoe. "American?"

"Yes," she said and smiled as she opened her purse to take out her money. She pulled out a US one dollar bill. "Oh, je regrette. All I have are dollars. Is that ok? I'm on my way to the bank now." She held the dollar in front of Chicoe. "Ok? You can keep the change."

Chicoe took the money. He gave her the box of gum that was worth only a tenth of what she had given him and then finally blurted out what he had to know. "Kat-a-leen?" he asked her.

The woman looked confused. "What? Comment?"

"Your name. Kat-a-leen?" Please say yes.

The woman smiled and shook her head. "Sorry. Beth is my name."

"Not Kat-a-leen?"

The woman laughed. "Beth. Beh-tha."

Chicoe's stomach dropped to his knees. "Beh-tha" he repeated flatly. "Beh-tha."

"There you go. You got it!" she said. "Well, I have to go. Merci. Bye-bye!" She waved at him, then turned to leave.

"Bye-bye," said Chicoe, and watched her hair twirl as she disappeared along the sidewalk.

****

How could he have been so wrong? It had been many years since he last saw Kat-a-leen, but he never forgot her, and that woman had the same face.

He had only been as tall as his table when Kat-a-leen lived in his village: the American woman with the bright blue eyes who had come to help his people grow food. He had been so proud of his father when Kat-a-leen hired him to work for her. Chicoe saw his father now, his dark body standing behind Kat-a-leen's house, hanging her wet clothes on a vine. Chicoe sat on the ground next to him and breathed in the cool scent of the damp earth. Wet trees surrounded him. There was no dust. The adjoining yard was his own, and there he saw his mother wearing her favorite, slightly faded purple dress, bending over a fire, cooking fried fish, and the buttery scent of the palm oil drifted over to him. Kat-a-leen came home in the evening, and Chicoe ran to her. She put him on her lap, her long hair smelling like vanilla, and read him stories out of her big book of English words. He didn't understand them, but he loved them, because he loved her voice, soft as wet grass. Kat-a-leen held him close and showed him shiny magazines with pictures of strange machines and she threw him a rubber ball that he bounced off the dirt floor of her house. It flew all over the place and knocked her things to the ground, and his father came in and yelled at him to leave her things alone; but she grabbed him and tickled him and told him it was all right, it was ok, because he was her boy and she loved him and his father smiled and his mother smiled and everything was good.

Everything had been so good. He spent days in the field with his father, gathering pineapples and bananas in large sacks. He ran barefoot through the forest to the spot in the rocks where the sweet water fell. His father captured it in gourds, and together they returned to the village and cleaned Kat-a-leen's house and every day he waited for her to come home. She smiled like a young, skinny moon...

Kat-a-leen.

But then it all went away. Even now, he still didn't understand why. The day the Chief of his village came to speak to Chicoe, alone, when his father and mother were in the forest, that happened the day before it all went bad didn't it? The Chief asking questions about his father, about how much the white woman paid him, and where did Chicoe's new clothes come from, and how many chickens and goats did they have, and Chicoe just shrugged and said he didn't know, and then the next day he saw her for the last time, Kat-a-leen, tears covering her face, as his father walked ahead of him and the people of the village threw rocks. The rocks hit his father. On the head. On the back. But his father never turned around. Chicoe's mother was behind him, pushing him forward and telling him not to look back; but he did look back and saw Kat-a-leen being held by the Chief, his black arms tight like a belt around her waist as she screamed out "Don't make them go!" The people continued to throw rocks at his father and chanted "Thief! Thief! Go away from here!" His mother pushed him. He cried at his father's swollen back. Another rock landed in front of him, this one kicking dust up in his eyes; and the last thing he could remember before the forest swallowed them whole, was the burnt flesh on his father's back in the shape of a cross, and Kat-a-leen, her eyes wet, falling down...

After that, his bed became a coiled snake, found only in wandering roads. They drifted for years -- village to village, town to town, always hungry. Always looking for a new place to sleep. Chicoe's father never spoke another word to him until just before he died. Late at night, lying in mud in an alleyway behind a truck stop, his father pulled Chicoe close to his mouth, and with breath that smelled like water, told him that he was sorry. Chicoe didn't understand what he meant. They buried him in a field along the highway, and his mother took him by the hand and together they continued to wander until only two months ago, when she died as well. She came down with a fever and the night before she never woke up, she surprised Chicoe by handing him a small pile of money. "Take this," she said. "Move to the city. Go to school. And try to forget what we have done to you."

He didn't understand.

****

A car horn blared. Chicoe saw the street before him again. It was almost dark now; he had no idea how long he had been inside his head. The office buildings were empty. The white shirts had gone away. His day was done.

He took the items off his table and packed them carefully inside a trunk he had chained to the shelter. The old woman was asleep. The fire burned low and the ashes were white. Chicoe blew upon the ashes until they turned red and added a few scraps of wood. The old woman's blanket had slipped and Chicoe tucked it beneath her chin. He pried open one of her spider-like hands, and placed a coin in the center of her palm.

Then he stood up and walked toward Water Hill.

****

The hard ground beneath him pressed deep into his chest, and a breeze moved through the bushes where he hid. Thick darkness surrounded him.

"I can't see," Chicoe said to the tall boy, who crouched beside him.

"It's better," the tall boy whispered.

Footsteps scraped along the walkway. The tall boy tensed up. "Oh yes," he whispered. "Oh yes."

In a black flash, the other boys sprang from behind the bushes and left Chicoe lying frozen on the ground. He heard flesh hitting flesh, then a voice cried out.

"Chicoe!" yelled the tall boy, his coarse voice cutting through the air. "Chicoe! Come here!"

He stepped away from the bushes and someone threw a small sack in his hands, and he took it and followed the boys as they carried the body across the street. Their silhouettes crouched and curled as they disappeared behind the tool shop. The tall boy kicked open the door to a small shed.

One of the boys struck a match, lit a petrol lantern, and the room came alive with a yellow glow. Tools, big and small, were scattered everywhere, lying on tables and hanging on the walls. In his hands Chicoe held a red purse.

"How much is there?" asked the tall boy. "You can count right?"

"Of course," said Chicoe, his voice quivering.

"Well, how much is there!"

Chicoe spread the money across his fingers. "A lot!" he said. "There is a lot here!"

There within his own hands was more money than he had ever known, more money than he ever imagined could be. He saw green American notes and the brown and orange money of his own country. His mind raced and he could not stand still. His heart thumped in his teeth. Until that moment he thought he had done the wrong thing by coming here, but now all the things he had ever wanted went spinning in his head: new clothes, a camera, even a blanket for the old woman! All his. He would have it. He would smash his chair and table, and the white shirts could all go to hell.

"How much Chicoe? How much?"

"One thousand, five hundred and fifty."

The tall boy rushed over and snatched the money from Chicoe, flipping the bills through his fingers. "What? My God! My God! We did it!" He threw the money in the air, and jumped up and down. "We're rich!"

The other two boys joined him, dancing and jumping around the shed. Chicoe moved backwards and stood next to the table by the door, his hand crawling across the cluttered surface as he watched the celebration unfold.

The tall boy came over and put his arm around Chicoe. "And now, for the real prize."

Chicoe saw their victim for the first time. She lay unconscious on an oil-stained mat. Her midnight blue skirt held painted flowers.

"Beh-tha," he whispered.

The boys pulled her skirt above her waist. Her small white underpants they slid off her feet. The tall boy led Chicoe toward the mat.

"Take her," he whispered in Chicoe's ear, his breath as dry as burnt wood.

Chicoe squirmed and tried to break free from the tall boy's thick arms. "No. I--"

The tall boy slapped him across the face. "DO IT!" He slapped Chicoe again, and then a knife appeared before Chicoe's face. It traced his eyes, each eye, and slowly slid down his chest toward his belt, where the tall boy slipped it underneath and cut free his pants. The tall boy pushed Chicoe to the floor, on top of the young woman, and the other boys pulled his pants down and white shirts and skinny moons and the pale lantern light came crashing down on Chicoe's young head.

The two boys giggled. The tall boy leaned over and pushed Chicoe's head into the woman's breasts. The cinnamon smell of her perfume leapt into the pool of tears welling in his eyes -- splashing, burning, stinging -- and his chest pounded like someone was trapped inside him, banging the walls to get out, until Chicoe threw his elbow into the tall boy's ribs, rolled over, thrust his hand in his pocket, grabbed the pair of scissors he had picked up off the table next to the door, and jammed them into the tall boy's throat. The tall boy's flat, ugly eyes rolled up in his head. Chicoe pulled them out and jammed the scissors again as deep as he could. Blood flew out of the boy's neck and sprayed the wall of the shed. The tall boy slumped to the ground.

The other two boys watched the tall boy twitch and bleed on the floor. Their eyes stretched wide and their mouths froze open, as if they had been stabbed themselves, until they turned and ran, disappearing into the omnivorous night. Chicoe heard one of them crying.

Chicoe wiped trails of salt water from his face, and climbed to his feet, pressing his hands upon his chest to force the spastic heaving slower, slower, slower. Soon the only sound in the shed was the gurgling of blood coming from the tall boy's neck. Money covered the floor of the shed like leaves stripped from a bush after a storm. Chicoe gathered all the bills, and the tall boy's eyes followed him as he moved around the shed.

After he filled his pockets with the money, Chicoe stood above the young woman. She moaned and for a moment her eyes fluttered as if they would open. Chicoe carefully put her clothes back on, and cleaned the blood from her hair. A police shed was only half a kilometer away, and he would leave a note telling them where to find her. He was sorry it had to be her, but he wasn't sure that even if he had known, he wouldn't have done the same thing again.

The tall boy gasped, then went still. Chicoe dragged his body from the shed, across the street, and dumped it back in the bushes where they had hidden earlier. The tall boy's dead eyes lay flat and open. Chicoe spat in them. Then he wrestled the scissors from the boy's neck and put them in his pocket. He would bury them later.

Hunger burned holes in his stomach as he walked through the quiet streets, heading back toward the cement lean-to. His plan was to give the old woman fifty dollars and the key to his trunk, and then wait for a cafe to open where he'd order a large breakfast of meat and eggs and sweet cakes and chocolate milk. After that, he would leave this city. He hated this dusty city. Eventually he would buy that camera, but he wasn't in any hurry. Chicoe wanted to wander for a while, and return to the place where he had buried his father. He needed to tell him that finally, at last, he understood

HOME