Walking Home Read Online Free Page B

city. It is not a hole.”
    “I think she meant it was
like
a hole.” He laughed. “She said that once people go there, they never leave. They fall in and the hole is so deep that they cannot climb out again.”
    I could easily picture that—a hole so deep that you could never get out, so dark that you could hardly see the sky above. Sometimes it felt like we’d already fallen into one.
    We followed the beaten path up a little rise. Up ahead, the people disappeared as they dropped over the dip. I looked back over my shoulder. A curve cut off from view anybody else following behind. We were alone. It seemed so strange after spending all this time at a camp so crammed with people. You were never more than a few steps from other people, and evenwhen you closed your eyes you could still hear them, coughing or talking, laughing or sobbing, even breathing. There was even a smell of people.
    I slowed down slightly, hoping to hold on to the moment before we made the rise and saw the people ahead again. I even thought about stopping and letting Jomo and his sisters go ahead without me so I could be completely alone. Some part of me wanted to be alone, but another part craved the company of others. I was already living a life that was so much closer to being alone than anything I could have imagined. I realized I was relieved when we reached the crest of the hill and could see the other people once more.
    From the little rise we stood on, I could see the highway leading off in both directions until it curved and dipped out of sight. Even this early in the morning, the heat was building up and there were wavy lines rising up from the tarmac as the air wiggled and shimmied. There were people waiting by the road, their colorful clothing standing out against the red of the dust and dirt. Along the road there were a few vehicles moving. They were so far away—so small—that they looked like toys.
    “If you travel to the left, you will reach Nakuru,” Jomo said.
    I nodded. “We traveled through there to get here.”
    “And if you go to the right, you will reach Nairobi.My father will be coming back from that direction, and then we will all leave together.”
    I couldn’t help thinking how lucky they were. I could only wish that my father was coming to get us.

Chapter Three
    “T ime for bed, Jata,” my mother said.

    “But I am not tired!” she protested. “Can’t I just stay up with you a bit longer?”
    “I am not staying up. It is time for me to go to bed too.”
    “Can you tell me a story?” Jata asked.
    “I have told you every story I know dozens of times.”
    “Please,” my sister begged.
    “Only one, and only if it will help you get to sleep.”
    I was pleased. I was too old to ask for stories but still young enough to enjoy hearing them.
    “Which one do you want to hear?”
    “Can you tell us a new one?” I asked. “Something we haven’t heard?”
    “Are there any that I know that you do not know?” she asked.
    “How about a story from when you were a girl?” I suggested.
    “It was so long ago that they did not even have stories,” she said and laughed.
    “Your mother didn’t tell you stories?” Jata questioned.
    “She told me stories.”
    “Can we hear one of those? Can you tell us a Kamba story?” I asked.
    She nodded her head. “You know what ‘Kamba’ means, right?”
    “It means ‘people of the string,’ ” I said.
    “What does
that
mean?” asked Jata.
    “That is what I will explain. That will be the story.”
    I moved closer to the fire pit. The fire was almost out, but beneath the ash there were embers that still gave off warmth. I poked the ashes with a stick, and it sent up a puff of smoke and a gust of red and warmth. Both were good. The smoke chased away the mosquitoes, and the embers chased away the cold. I still found the smell of fire disturbing, but the other benefits outweighed the distress.
    “The Kamba people did not originally come from what we now call