“How will I get there?” Charles asked.
“I will give you money for the train, and when you get to Nakuru, you will get off and find some way to contact them.”
Charles sat in stunned silence.
“You will find a way, and they will take you in. There is no other way,” his grandfather said.
A million objections surfaced in Charles’s mind, but he could see it was useless to argue. Grandfather Kaleli had made up his mind. For better or worse, Charles was about to strike out on his own. “When do I have to go?” he asked.
“In the morning I will walk with you to the train station.”
Charles nodded. He doubted he would ever see his grandfather again. And there would be no more school. No more lying down at night and waking up safe in the morning.
That night Charles hardly slept. He ran through all sorts of scenarios in his head, trying to imagine what would happen when he got off the train at Nakuru. Would there be someone who could tell him the way to his parents’ house? Would there be some kind merchants who might give him a few food scraps?
In the morning Kaleli hardly spoke. As they walked together the five miles to the train station, Charles thanked his grandfather for taking care of him and for all the wonderful stories of Africa he had told him. “I will never forget them or you as long as I live,” he told the old man.
Kaleli nodded and brushed the top of Charles’s head with his hand. “You’re not a big boy for eleven, but you are strong and determined. You will make a way. I know you will,” he said.
Chapter 3
“He’s a Waste”
All worries about what lay ahead were set aside when Charles saw the massive steam locomotive come around the bend and shudder to a halt in front of him. Steam hissed from beneath it, and black smoke billowed from the stack. It was the biggest machine Charles had ever seen, and he was about to ride on it!
Kaleli handed the conductor a ticket, and Charles climbed aboard the train. He found a seat by the window, next to man smoking a cigarette. Charles settled in for the thirty-mile journey to Nakuru. The locomotive hissed loudly, and the train jerked as it moved forward. Charles waved to his grandfather as the train gathered speed. Now he was entirely on his own. If anything happened to him, neither his grandfather nor his mother would come looking for him, since each would think he was with the other. Charles tried not to think about that.
Bush and fields passed by the window of the carriage. As he caught glimpses of gazelles and giraffes, Charles marveled at how different it was to travel by train than by bus. For one thing, the train was not as crowded as the bus. In addition, a cool breeze came in through the carriage window. Charles settled back into his seat and tried to relax, but he couldn’t. His mind was a tumultuous sea of worries about what would happen to him next and what he would do once he reached Nakuru. How would he find his family? What if his father had up and moved the family away overnight, as he had done before? Did he even want to see his father again?
The man in the seat next to Charles stood and pulled down a small suitcase from the overhead rack. As he opened it, Charles could see that it was packed with books and clothes. The man shuffled among them and pulled out a package of bread and muthura (goat sausage). Charles’s mouth watered as he watched the man eat. He knew that his grandfather had spent his last shilling on the train ticket and that there had been no money left over for food. Hunger pangs gnawed at Charles’s stomach. He wondered what it would be like to be important enough to carry his own suitcase with food and books and clothes inside it. When a woman came through the train selling hot tea, Charles shook his head, while the man next to him bought a cup for himself.
As the man drank his tea, more doubts and concerns surfaced in Charles’s mind. Charles had pinned all his hopes on doing well at school, but now, at eleven years of age, he felt that that was behind him. Would he ever go back to school? And if he didn’t, what kind of life would he have? If his father did not sober up and stop his violent ways, what hope was there for any of them? Still worse was the thought of not finding his family. If life had been harsh with them, he knew it would be even harsher if he was alone with no one at all to notice whether he lived or died.
Whenever the train hissed to a stop at a station along the way, women would crowd around outside the windows holding up fruit and bread for sale. Charles looked hungrily at the food.
At last, the train conductor walked through the carriage yelling, “Nakuru station! Nakuru station coming up!” This was the end of the journey for Charles. He stood and walked down the aisle. When the train jerked to a halt, he climbed down onto the station platform, where he stood feeling completely alone—alone in a sea of people. Everyone else seemed to have something to do. Men carried luggage through the station doors, and women followed along behind, holding their children’s hands.
Within minutes the train had loaded more passengers and luggage and moved on. The station platform was empty except for Charles. The sun beat down overhead. Charles remembered Kaleli telling him that Nakuru was right near the equator. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and went inside the station. A clerk sat behind a desk. “Excuse me. Do you know where Daudi and Rhoda Mulli live?” Charles asked him.
The clerk looked up and shook his head. “Never heard of them,” he said.
Charles walked back out into the sunlight. He had about five hours to find his family before night fell. He saw two men unloading barrels and asked them about his parents. The men simply shrugged. Charles kept walking and, as he made his way through town, asked people if they knew his parents.
For the first hour or so, Charles worked hard to buoy up his optimism. It was just a matter of time, he told himself, before someone recognized the names and could point him in the right direction to find his family. By the time he made it to the market, people were beginning to close their stalls for the day. Charles kept asking those he found in the market if they knew his parents. Some people refused to talk to him, mistaking him for a beggar, he supposed, while others listened politely but could offer little help.
As he watched the sun set over the now-empty marketplace, Charles had still not found his parents. He was unsure what to do and eventually retraced his steps to the train station, where he found a corner on the concrete platform to curl up. He heard light rain tapping on the corrugated metal roof as he slept fitfully through the night. He was up at dawn asking everyone—passersby, drivers of cars that stopped at intersections, shopkeepers, and marketeers—if they had heard of Daudi and Rhoda Mulli. No one had. It was as if his parents had disappeared from the face of the earth. He saw a boy, just a little bigger than him, pulling food scraps from a garbage can. So Charles checked the next can he came to, and the one after that, hoping to find food. He picked out a piece of meat crawling with maggots. He dropped it back in the can. He was not hungry enough to eat it, at least not yet. A woman with a fruit stand offered him a bruised banana. He took it gratefully and devoured it.
Charles slept another night at the train station. He wished he could get back on the train and return to his grandfather, but he knew he would not be welcome. Besides, he didn’t have a penny toward the price of a ticket. For better or for worse, Nakuru was now his home.
Charles realized that he was getting nowhere on his own and that he needed someone to help him in the search for his parents. He changed tactics, asking people if they knew somewhere he could go for help in finding his missing parents. Someone pointed to a police station.
Charles wasn’t sure whether this was a good idea. He had never talked to a policeman before, and the police had a reputation for being callous or even abusive toward children. Still, he understood that he had to do something before he became lost in the crowd, just another penniless kid begging on the street. He took a deep breath and entered the police station. An officer walked up to him and asked, “What do you want?” Charles was relieved. The man’s voice did not sound cruel. Charles told the officer that he was looking for his parents and that he thought they were working for a white farmer.
“You stay here,” the officer said after questioning Charles. “I will go and see if I can find out anything about them.”
Charles spent the longest five hours of his life waiting for the police officer to return. He tried not to think the worst, but old fears invaded his mind. What if he didn’t find his parents? What if they were dead? Or moved on? What if his father had killed his mother and gone into hiding? What then? He would be an eleven-year-old boy in a strange town with no one at all to rely on.
When the police officer returned, the smile on his face sent a wave of relief through Charles. “I have located them. Follow me,” he said.
Charles followed the officer out the door and across the street. They walked for a mile or so to the outskirts of town, where a long row of mud huts stood.
“That one,” the police officer said, pointing. “That’s where the Mullis live.”
After thanking the officer, Charles walked toward the hut. His stomach ached from hunger, and his nerves were on edge. He knocked on the door. No one answered. He knocked again. He heard footsteps. The door opened, and there stood his mother. She fell to her knees and embraced him. “How did you find us?” she asked. “How did you get here?”
Soon Charles’s brothers were crowded around the doorway. Rhoda told Charles that his father was in town looking for work and would not be home until late. The rest of the family ate a simple evening meal together around the oil lamp. Charles felt wonderful being with his mother and brothers again.
That night Charles lay on the floor of the hut with a thin blanket over him. His brothers’ bed had no room for him. As he lay there thinking about life, his joy at seeing his mother and brothers turned to anxiety. What would happen when his father came home? Or tomorrow when he wanted to eat breakfast with the others? Would there be enough food for them all?
As if on cue, Charles heard the door creak open, followed by his father’s faltering footsteps. He trembled as he felt his father’s presence towering over him. He waited for a punch, but instead he heard words. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in school. Your grandfather is responsible for you now, not me.”
“Kaleli sent me here. He said he can’t look after me anymore,” Charles whispered back.
“What? Why is that?” his father asked.
Charles did not answer. He didn’t really know why himself.
Daudi grunted. Charles remained tense until he heard him collapse onto his own bed.
That could have been a lot worse. At least he didn’t hit me, Charles thought as he tried to get back to sleep.
As the days passed, it became obvious to Charles that his father wanted him gone. And the cycle of abuse continued in the home. Getting back to school was constantly on Charles’s mind, and he asked his mother a few times if that would be possible. He felt guilty asking because none of his brothers were at school and the school fees were much more expensive in the city than in the rural villages.
It was Charles’s mother who broke the news to him that he would have to go back to her family in Kathithyamaa. She was hopeful that his grandmother would be able to take him in once more. Charles doubted it. If his grandmother would not take him in, Rhoda told Charles, she hoped that one of her brothers would take pity on him. They hadn’t proven to be supportive before, but perhaps if they were forced to take notice, one of them would rise to the occasion.
Once again Charles boarded a train. This time the train was taking him full circle back to Kathithyamaa, which he had left over two years before. As the train chugged away from Nakuru station, Charles hoped he was headed to a better life, but it was a distant hope. Not much had gone right for him in his life so far, and he couldn’t imagine things changing anytime soon. What would it be like, he wondered, to have someone—just one person—who really wanted me? This was a question he thought about for a long time on the train ride back to his mother’s village.
