The Paper House (5 page)

Two church elders held back the crowds outside Mrs. Okella's house. Their clothes were blackened and torn and their faces shone with sweat. The burning walls of the house were crumpled in on each other. Sticking out from underneath was a table leg and a tangle of fabric.

“Cucu!” cried Safiyah.

A woman grabbed her shoulder. “Is that your house?”

“My cucu…” Safiyah sobbed.

“This child lives over there,” the woman called to the people who filled the narrow alley. “Her grandmother…”

“That's my house.” Safiyah pointed next door. Her wall of pictures was blistered and peeling. Ashes swirled in the air. “Where's Cucu?” Safiyah screamed, just as she had screamed the day she had found her mother in a heap in this very spot.

“I thought I had lost you.” Rasul's mother was beside Safiyah.

“Cucu!” wailed Safiyah as Mrs. Pakua held her tight.

Men scooped water from the ditches and hurried toward the house. Others kicked the rubble as the flames flickered through heaps of scorched wood and paper. Safiyah saw a woman tuck Mrs. Okella's blanket under her own shawl and hurry away.

“I have to go in,” screamed Safiyah. “I have to see my grandmother. She was visiting Mrs. Okella.”

“The house is empty,” said the man who was trying to keep people away.

All the noise and bustle seemed to fade away. “What do you mean?” Her voice sounded like it came from a long way away.

“Everyone on this side of the alley was sent away until the fire is put out.”

“Come with me, child,” said Mrs. Pakua.

“No. Let me see.” Safiyah rushed past the man. She raced over the littered ground, ignoring voices behind her and arms reaching out to stop her.

The curtain over her doorway was burned and ragged. But inside, the bed was tidily made. Her grandmother's knitting basket was safe on the shelf. The house smelled of smoke and an unnatural heat came through one wall.

Nothing was burned. But the house was empty.

Safiyah dashed outside again, right into Mrs. Pakua's arms. “Cucu's not there!”

Mrs. Pakua turned to one of the church elders. “Where have the neighbors gone?”

He pointed down the lane. “Everyone is at Zuma's bicycle shop until this street is safe.”

A woman hurried forward and whispered to the man.

His face was very serious as he turned back to Safiyah and Rasul's mother. “The news is not good.” He studied the thick black smoke rising from the burned house. “It seems we were not able to save Mrs. Okella.”

Safiyah pulled on Rasul's mother's hands. “What does he mean?” But she could read the answer in her eyes. Mrs. Okella was dead. “I must find Cucu.” Safiyah's scream spiraled into the air. “Where is my cucu?” The crowd moved aside to let her pass.

The alley was usually filled with shouts and laughter, with the sound of crying babies and barking dogs. But now Safiyah heard only the blood pounding in her ears as she ran to find the only person she had left in the world.

Chapter Eleven

Safiyah found her grandmother asleep on a crate, leaning against a cluttered counter at the back of the bicycle shop. It was very dark, and smelled of oil and sweat and tobacco smoke. “Cucu?”

Her grandmother opened her eyes slowly.

“Cucu!”

“There you are, my little one.” Cucu pulled Safiyah onto her lap. She patted Safiyah's back as she gulped and hiccupped. She stroked Safiyah's cheek as she groped for the words to tell her about Mrs. Okella.

“That poor, poor lady.” Cucu eased Safiyah aside. She pulled the little cloth bag that bulged with mancala stones from her pocket. “She was so happy to win this time.” She heaved herself to her feet. “Now you are here, we will go home.”

“I couldn't find you,” wailed Safiyah. She started shaking again. “I thought you were dead!”

Cucu pulled Safiyah back against her thin body. “After Mrs. Okella won her game, I came home. But you were gone. I came looking for you.” She patted her chest. “Mr. Zuma found me coughing and brought me here.” She looked around the crowded shop. Two babies slept on their mother's shoulders. A group of men smoked as they talked quietly together. A family sat against a wall without speaking. “We were both lost, for a little while,” said Cucu. She stood with one hand resting against the bench. Beads of sweat dotted her forehead and her lips were dry and cracked. She put a fist to her mouth and began coughing.

“You see?” Safiyah said to Mrs. Pakua, who had waited silently as Safiyah was reunited with her grandmother. The old worry about losing the only family she had left rose in Safiyah like a gust of wind.

“Perhaps you should rest a little longer.” Mrs. Pakua helped Cucu sit down. “I am Grace Pakua,” she told her. “You granddaughter's new friend.”

“I know of your family.” Cucu scrabbled in her pocket for her rag. She wiped her mouth. “I met Rasul the other day. Blade as he calls himself.”

“Rasul,” said Mrs. Pakua quietly and firmly. “His name is Rasul.”

Cucu struggled to stand. “Thank you for your help. But as you can see, my Saffy will take good care of her old cucu.”

“Perhaps you need more help than she can provide,” Mrs. Pakua said. She quickly added, “It may not yet be safe for you to return to your own home.”

“Cucu,” begged Safiyah. “You should go to the clinic. Your coughing…”

“It is nothing,” said Cucu.

“Cucu!” Safiyah's voice was so loud that the crowd of people filling Mr. Zuma's shop turned to stare.

Safiyah bent closer to her grandmother. “You are sick.” Her chin trembled as she searched for the right words. “If you get more sick…if you die, I will have no one.” Mrs. Pakua's warm hand on the back of her neck gave her the courage to go on. “I can't take care of everything.” She leaned against her grandmother. “Please, Cucu,” she begged. She tried to swallow the tears that rose in her throat. “I want you to be well so you can look after
me.
”

Tears ran down the long creases of her grandmother's face as she nodded slowly. “Of course you do, my child. Of course you do.” Cucu wiped her own face with her rag, then dabbed at Safiyah's tears. She looked closely at Safiyah, her eyes shimmering. She turned to Mrs. Pakua. “I would be very grateful for your help.”

Safiyah leaned against her grandmother and felt her thin arms hold her tight.

“Mr. Zuma will let you rest here a little longer, I am sure,” Rasul's mother said. “I will find someone to bring you tea. And as soon as I have seen what arrangements can be made for your care, I will return.”

For just a moment, in her brightly colored kitenge
,
Mrs. Pakua reminded Safiyah of her mother who, a long time ago and far from here, had stood in the doorway of their village house waiting for Safiyah to come home.

Rasul's mother lifted her hand and waved. “I won't be long,” she called. Then she was gone.

Chapter Twelve

For more than a week, Safiyah hardly left the clinic. It was a noisy and busy place. The nurses and doctors were kind. And tucked against Cucu's side at night, Safiyah was able to stop worrying so much about her grandmother. Once the nurses reassured her that Cucu would be treated for free, Safiyah relaxed, and enjoyed watching everything going on around them.

While her grandmother spent long hours sleeping, Safiyah studied the doctors hurrying between patients and discussing their care. She got to know many of the other families and played with small children who got bored sitting on their mother's laps. She fetched water and folded blankets. She cooled hot faces with damp cloths. She held basins of water while the nurses cleaned wounds.

When a doctor let her wear his stethoscope around her neck for a little while, she thought that perhaps she might grow up to work in a clinic.

Mrs. Pakua came to see Cucu every evening after work, and Chidi sometimes came on his way home from school. But he was soon sent away for getting in the way. When Safiyah asked if Rasul might come to visit, his mother simply said he was busy.

Each day Cucu's cough got a little better. She began to sleep less and soon there was no blood in the white bowl that Safiyah emptied each morning.

One afternoon her grandmother patted the blanket. “Come here.”

Safiyah cuddled up close.

“I've watched you,” said Cucu. “So helpful. Now can you do something for me?”

Safiyah jumped to her feet. “Shall I tidy your bed?”

“I am quite comfortable.” Cucu patted Safiyah's arm. “But I worry about our house.”

“Mrs. Pakua says everything is fine,” Safiyah told her grandmother.

“She is so kind. But you know what I miss?”

“Your mancala board?” suggested Safiyah.

When Cucu nodded, her face was sad. “I may have left it at Mrs. Okella's house. Or perhaps I took it home. I forget so much. Will you find it for me?”

“Your stones are here,” Safiyah told her. “Safe under the mattress.”

“I would like to know the board is safe too.” Cucu's eyes were brighter now and her cheeks were not as shadowy. But what if she got sick again while Safiyah was away on this errand?

As if she knew what Safiyah was thinking, Cucu said, “You don't have to worry about me, Saffy. And I know it's just a little thing, but my mancala board is all I have.”

Safiyah fingered her own bracelet.

“Can you do this for me?” asked Cucu.

First Safiyah filled her grandmother's cup at the tap. Cucu sipped and handed it back. Then Safiyah tucked the blanket tighter around her grandmother's thin legs. “Hurry now.” Cucu smiled. “I will be right here. Waiting for you.”

After one long look back, Safiyah pushed through the families crowded between the patients' beds and chatting on the porch. She stepped over children playing in the courtyard while more sick people sat in the shade, waiting to a see doctor.

It seemed so long since she had come here with Cucu. And in such a panic. For a moment Safiyah could not remember how to get home.

Then she heard the roar of a train in the distance. She saw the power lines that ran along the tracks. She followed them along the bank where boys played in the rubble and dogs fought over garbage. She passed the stall selling water bottles and roasted corn nuts.

Back on familiar streets, she hurried past the customers lined up at the water vendor. She waved to Mr. Zuma, who was turning a bicycle tire in a bucket of water.

A new shack of boards and iron sheets stood where Mrs. Okella's house had been. Two children played outside with a bucket while their mother chatted to an old man leaning on a stick.

Cucu's bench was just where it belonged, outside the house Safiyah shared with her grandmother. And behind it was the wall that Safiyah had last seen all smudged and blistered from the fire.

But now it was covered once again in bright pictures.

Chapter Thirteen

“How is your grandmother, child?” Safiyah's new neighbor asked as she tucked her hair into her scarf.