Broken Memory Read Online Free Page A

the little window.
    Like many survivors of 1994, Emma found it hard getting through the month of April — a time when she was more deeply in the grip of her horrific memories.
    For Ndoli it was the same thing, she realized, and now he was better because April was long past.
    But something else was different, too. Something that she could not quite put her finger on.
    When Emma returned from the market the next day, Ndoli was stationed under the tree once again. She was surprised to see him wearing his school uniform. Usually he didn’t put it on until August or September after wandering restlessly for long months.
    She walked past him, was tempted to say something, hesitated, felt ridiculous. What could she say to him today? His uniform was from a world she knew nothing about.
    She turned away from the big tree and hurried into the house. As Mukecuru looked on, worried, she silently put her money on the table and retreated to the bedroom.

13.
    Emma didn’t see the schoolboy approach. She was sitting on the outskirts of the market putting together her little bags of fruit when he abruptly held out a crumpled old bill.
    She jumped, raised her eyes and saw Ndoli standing there silently, his arm stiff.
    She didn’t move either, but took her time and just looked at him. She saw each mark the blows had left nine years earlier. The hollow on the right side of his skull where his hair was shaved. The thick scar that cut across the caramel skin of his forehead and pointed toward his left eye. She was astonished again by his eyes, so red, his gaze clouded.
    Then she felt her stomach knot. Ndoli was beautiful.
    She suddenly realized the women were laughing behind her, though Ndoli didn’t seem to see them or hear them. His arm was still stretched out and he was looking at her, not even noticing the others.
    She remembered that he was there to buy something, and she thrust a little bag at him, brusque, just like him.
    They didn’t exchange a smile, not a word. The young boy simply stared at her and left, as if that was his thank-you. Emma watched his silhouette get smaller as he went down the road.
    â€œHey, little one. Did the guy with the dented head put a curse on you?”
    The market women laughed loudly again. Emma grabbed her bags, leapt to her feet and headed off, embarrassed. She felt as if she had been set up. She was mad at Ndoli. She had always shielded herself from these women by keeping to herself, keeping her face blank. Now, because of him, she had been exposed.
    Emma had grown up in a world of women. Her father died before she turned two. Her mother had talked about him a lot, though she never said how he died.
    That night, after meeting Ndoli and having to deal with those rude women, Emma managed to remember bits of her past. She did not see the face of her mother, but she could feel again the gentleness of those moments when her mother would talk about how fair, generous, strong and clever Emma’s father was — the perfect father who watched over his baby daughter while she slept.
    After that, Emma was able to leaf a little farther back through the family album. She didn’t know why this was happening now. Her memory seemed to have a mind of its own. Each time she retrieved another scrap, she could look on from a distance as some other part of her opened it up and examined it.
    The only man she remembered being close to was her grandfather, her mother’s father. She liked to remember the way the old man would sit in front of the house smoking his pipe — a piece of wood as scrubby as he was — that he would use to threaten anyone who made him angry.
    She also remembered the arguments between him and his second wife, the cruel, bossy woman he married after Emma’s grandmother died.
    She remembered one particularly fierce shouting match when she was a little girl. The old man usually let his wife have the last word just so she would leave him in peace,