Jakarta Missing (12 page)

“Who's that?”

“First guy in history to win the Olympic marathon twice—way before our time. For stamina, it's great to train in a high altitude like Ethiopia.” She sagged to the step beside Dakar. “Usually I do sprints—because of soccer. A long run feels like a treat.”

It took a while longer for Mom to stagger up. She grabbed the porch railing and pulled herself up, hand over hand, laughing and panting at the same time. “You've gotten too fast for me,” she said, collapsing beside Jakarta.

They sat without saying anything. Dakar could hear Mom still breathing hard, but not Jakarta. Jakarta's face was barely pink, and her breathing sounded even and sure. Their patch of sunshine was gone, and a light wind had blown up, but in the one stand of birch trees the treetops were like match tips, blazing yellow gold. “I'm going to sit here forever,” Dakar said.

“Why forever?” Mom asked.

“I don't know. It's a nice even number.”

Inside, the phone rang. “Dad'll get it,” Dakar said. She didn't want anyone to move. She wanted to reach out and put her arms around both of them. She could always say the wind was making her cold.

“Deborah?” Dad called.

“Coming.” Mom got up.

“Don't go,” Dakar wanted to say, but she didn't. She listened to the door sigh shut behind Mom.

After a few minutes Jakarta asked, “Has Mom been okay here?”

“She's been fine,” Dakar said. “Sometimes she's been really happy, in fact.”

“Did you guys visit her hometown?”

Dakar shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Well, it's a long drive, you know. We were getting settled. After that, Dad needed to spend three weeks in Minneapolis. Then school started. And maybe she was afraid to go by herself.”

“Afraid of what? The driving?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Dakar ran her finger along the rough porch floor. “The driving.” She didn't want to say the rest. Maybe afraid the North Dakota part of her heart had been frozen so long it couldn't thaw. Maybe afraid that if it did thaw, the ice would leave big holes for hoodies to crawl through. “After the bombing I was afraid that—” The door opened. Dakar stopped, assuming it was Mom coming back. But it was Dad.

“Mom's aunt Lily was in a car accident,” Dad said. “She's going to be fine, but they think she has a broken leg.”

“Who's Aunt Lily?” Jakarta asked.

“Grandma's sister. Your mom's going to go and help out.”

“That's lousy,” Jakarta said. “That's really lousy.” She scrambled up, pushed past Dad, and disappeared inside.

Dad gave a frustrated shrug. “Everything is going to be fine,” he said to Dakar. Then he disappeared, too.

Dakar sat on the porch and watched as the rain started. Soon a drizzle like the long, slow ripple of a jazz song was soaking the trees, putting out the matches one by one.

FROM DAKAR'S BOOK OF LISTS AND THOUGHTS

At Mombasa we were supposed to have such a glorious vacation. But when we went snorkeling, I panicked every time I had to put my face in the water. And while they were looking at coral gardens under the sea, I got two sea urchin prongs in my foot and also split my toe. So I spent the rest of the time limping around our hotel room.

I used to think it was just me. But now I can't remember if Mom had a glorious time or not.

T
he next morning it was still raining. Dakar dreamed that she had just told a story and the audience was applauding politely. She woke to the sound of the rain against the windowpane. The gentle clapping made her remember the little rains on a tin roof. A clattering of angry voices down the hall was more like the big rains on tin. She lay stiff and still, trying to hear the words. Wisps eked through. Jakarta was arguing with Dad about school. But they
never
argued with Dad.

The argument was still going on when Dakar went down to eat breakfast. “Mom's leaving tomorrow,” Jakarta was saying to Dad. “I need to spend a day with her. I need her to take me shopping.”

Dakar shot a look at Jakarta, but Jakarta stared down at her bowl.

“All right,” Dad finally said with exasperation. “But this is the only day you're going to miss. The sooner you get to school, the sooner you're going to make new friends and stop feeling so out of place.”

“The sooner the wildebeests will stomp me,” Jakarta muttered.

Dakar pushed away from the table and went back upstairs.

Mom was dressed and lying on top of the covers. She patted the side of the bed. “Off to school?”

“Yeah.” The bed squeaked as Dakar settled onto it. She reached out and stroked Mom's arm.

“Got an umbrella?”

“I think it stopped raining while I was eating breakfast.”

“It isn't quite the way we thought it would be, is it?” Mom said.

“Not at all.” Dakar blinked and bit her thumb. “Why isn't it?”

“Just those famous teenage mood swings, I guess.”

Mom murmured something else, but her voice was so soft that Dakar couldn't hear. A burst of shouting drifted up from downstairs. “I've never heard either Jakarta or Dad be this way before,” Dakar said.

“Your father hasn't spent much time in the same house as a teenage Jakarta before, either.” Mom pulled Dakar down for a kiss. “Okay, I don't like it, either. But it's nothing to worry about. You have a good day in school, all right?”

As she left the house, Dakar tried to figure out why people were always telling her not to worry. There was plenty to worry about. When she got close to Melanie's house, she hesitated, but for some reason she didn't feel like stopping. Everything was such a jumble. “How's Jakarta?” Melanie would say again in her bright, eager voice. And what was Dakar going to say? She rushed on to school, not even stopping at her locker before she headed down the stairs.

“That poor child,” the cook said, shaking her head, when Dakar poured out the story. “That poor little lost child.” She clicked her tongue.

Dakar watched the cook's fingers pressing pizza dough into a tray. “What about me?” she said. “Why isn't anyone worrying about me?”

“Oh, yes,” the cook said. “You're a poor child, too. Too bad we've got to take the bitter with the sweet, Africa child. Did they tell you that in Africa?”

Like pomegranates. “I just don't think things should be bitter all the time.”

“Oh, my,” the cook said. “Life can be a dry and weary land where no water is. But I don't b'lieve things are bitter all the time.”

The kitchen was warm with the thick, yeasty smell of dough rising. “Here's one thing I will tell you,” the cook said. “You tell her to go to school—”

“Because she has to grab on to her education,” Dakar said.

“Because she has to grab on to her education. And you tell her to watch out for my son, Pharo, when she gets to school.”

Dakar was surprised. “You have a kid who goes to high school?”

The cook chuckled.

“You have a son named Pharaoh? Why didn't you give him a better name than that?”

The cook scooped tomato paste out of a can with her fingers. “When that boy was born, I called him Moses, but my husband never could tolerate that name. He said, ‘If he's Moses, he's in charge of freeing other people. But who's ever going to free this boy from the bondage?' My husband had come to study at the university, but now he was homesick and tired of people's attitudes. So we pushed and pulled that poor baby's name back and forth, back and forth. I called him Moses. My husband took to calling him Pharo, just to make me mad, I b'lieve.”

Dakar tried to imagine the cook sitting in a living room in this picket fence town, arguing with her husband.

“Well, the homesickness weighed on my husband and weighed on him. Finally he just quit school. He went back home. My heart was like wax then. It was melted within my breast. But all I said was, ‘Good. I can call my boy Moses without any complaints now.”

“Why didn't you go, too?” Dakar asked.

The cook slid the pizza on a pan. “Well, there was my vow not to put this body onto an airplane again. More so, I wanted my boy to grow up in a place where he could grab hold of an education. Still, I did fret. Finally, I opened my Bible and put my finger on the page to see if God would send me a message directly.”

Dakar nodded. She knew people who did that. A girl in Egypt said her grandfather used to do the same thing with the Koran.

“My finger fell on ‘God is the anchor of my soul.' That's a message, I said. My body is meant to stay put and not go flopping all around the world.”

Dakar shook her head dubiously. “I don't know. The Bible says God is light, too. Light flickers all around.”

“It doesn't go leaping from the candle,” the cook said. “So we stayed put. But we started getting the letters. It was always Pharo this and Pharo that. And one day when I called my little boy Moses, he said, ‘My name is Pharo.' And I thought, well, let him have what's left from his daddy.”

The bell rang. The cook pointed one doughy finger at the door.

“Okay,” Dakar said. “I'm going. And I'll tell Jakarta.”

Having something to tell Jakarta helped the day go faster. In math class Melanie tossed a note over when the teacher wasn't looking. “Where were you?” it said. “My cousin says everyone is
très
curious about Jakarta.”

Dakar had never passed a note in class before. “Sorry,” she scribbled. “Come over for supper. My mom won't care. At least
you
can meet Jakarta.” Her face itched as she waited for the right moment to toss the note back. Dakar, the former Good Kid, the former Follower, was now also a note tosser.

When they opened the door of the house, a hot, peppery smell rushed out—a smell of Maji. Dakar gave a luxurious sigh, feeling like a little kid.

“What is it?” Melanie asked. “What's that smell?”

“Come on,” Dakar said, heading for the kitchen. “You'll see.”

Mom looked up and swiped at her sweaty face. “You're Melanie,” she said. “I'm so glad you're here. We need lots and lots of onions chopped. Both of you can help.”

She looked great, Dakar thought with a
clunk
of relief, handing a knife to Melanie and grabbing one for herself. “How did you manage Maji food?”

“Jakarta smuggled the injera and the bere bere pepper out for a surprise. We're making the wat.”

“What wat?” Melanie laughed and sliced through the onion with an awkward chop.

Dakar made a face. “I've only heard that joke about fifty thousand times, you know.”

“Dakar,” Mom said, “I need to tell you—”

The door slammed. Suddenly Jakarta was there, all lighted up like a pumpkin. “Heaven,” she said. “I'm in heaven. I love it, love it, love it. Hey.” She grabbed the knife out of Melanie's hand. “What are you doing? You're chopping those onions waaaaay too thick.”

“This is Melanie,” Dakar said hastily. Good. That was over. “Come on,” she said to Melanie. “Let her do it since she's so thrilled to. The onions are making me cry, anyway.”