“You must keep some fire alive all the time,” she said quietly. “We let it burn, just a little, even at night. We must always have our own fire, miss.”
The white woman smiled. “You speak English! Thank God! I’ve been needing you!” Simi felt herself flush, and she knew the other women were watching. She thought she heard Loiyan sucking her teeth.
“Please,” the American said, “tell me your name. Mine is Leona.”
From that moment, Leona was always near Simi. “Help me, Simi,” Leona would say, and the questions that followed were endless and wide-ranging—from how many handfuls of tea to toss into boiling water for chai, to how a man selects a wife. Simi grew bolder in her English, and lost her shyness with Leona. She scolded Leona the time Leona forgot to dip her head when greeting an elder, and warned her never to walk far from the manyatta in the evenings, when the shadows grew long and the hyenas and leopards stirred from their dens. With Leona next to her at the river, washing their clothes together, Simi found Loiyan left her alone. It wasn’t enjoyable to tease Simi anymore when Simi had a friend to speak to in a language Loiyan couldn’t understand.
Simi came to understand that Leona’s life back in America was completely different from the life they all lived here. Leona showed them photos of enormously tall buildings, expanses of grass so green it almost hurt their eyes to see it.
“Where are the cattle?” Simi asked when she saw the grass. “They must be too fat to walk!”
The images were breathtaking—it was hard to imagine they were real. Leona explained to Simi that not only did America look vastly different from Loita, but that life there—everything from clothing to speech to thoughts themselves—were unlike those here. Simi knew that some of the other women, ones who had never gone to school and seen a photo in a book, didn’t understand how to grasp the images and ideas Leona introduced them to; their minds were so firmly here that they could not see things differently. Simi could, though. She’d read stories about people different from herself and knew that the Maasai way wasn’t the only way people lived. The images in the pictures and the stories Leona told were like dreams. They flickered in her mind and flashed against the reality she saw around her constantly, two worlds—one inside herself, and one outside, like hot flames that burned blue and orange and red all at the same time.
In the evenings, Leona would come to Simi’s house. Her Maa was improving. Often, they practiced together. Leona would look through her notebooks and ask Simi questions about things she’d seen that day, and note ages and names of the people in the village. In return, Leona would teach Simi American slang. Simi loved the feel in her mouth that the new words gave her, and took to peppering her Maa with “That’s cool!” and “For real?” Other nights they’d drink tea and just stare into the fire quietly. One night, after Leona had been in the manyatta for several weeks, she sat on a low stool next to Simi. Simi threaded beads onto a strip of leather for a bracelet. It was dark outside, and chilly. “You don’t have children,” Leona stated.
Simi was relaxed in Leona’s presence but this statement—vocalized so clearly and directly—shocked her. It was unexpected, too bold for Simi’s comfort. She started and spilled some tea in her lap. It was hot and it stung. Her eyes welled, and she glanced across the bright embers of the fire and saw Leona watching her. There was no malice in Leona’s face. Part of Simi wanted to bury the subject forever, but another part was desperate to talk about the pain, release it to someone else in a way she couldn’t with the other women. Leona’s face was clear, her eyes blank.
“How long have you been married?” Simi heard Leona’s question and shifted uncomfortably.
“Three years,” Simi answered.
“It’s a problem to be a wife without a child?” Leona was speaking as if she had her notebook and pen with her, but Simi saw she had neither.
Simi answered in English. To say the words in her language made them hurt more coming out. “We say that a woman who hasn’t given birth is like a wilderness. A woman or a man with children to remember them can never die. But a person like me? When I am gone, nobody will remember.”
“In America people can choose to have a baby or not,” Leona said. “But even so, there are people who want to but can’t. This is something that happens everywhere, Simi. Have you seen a doctor?”
Simi didn’t answer. She was tingling with discomfort now. There was no way to explain it all to Leona. Her pain was not something for an American notebook, something to be inscribed with a pen on paper. Simi’s bitter frustration about not having a child, and her fear of the repercussions, were not something she would ever let see the light of day. She tried to keep herself from even thinking of them. How could sharing the story in words even scratch the surface of Simi’s disappointment and terror at the way her own body betrayed her? She was grateful when, after a long silence, Leona smiled and said she was tired, and then stood up to leave.
* * *
With Leona in the manyatta, Simi’s daily life changed. Her ability to communicate was a link between the American and the others. She had a certain power she’d never felt before. Even the men saw it. They approached Simi carefully with their questions about Leona, and the conversations Leona had with the villagers all happened with Simi hunkered close by, interpreting for both parties, not just the words themselves, but the ideas and feelings behind them. For the first time since Simi understood the fact of her infertility, she felt her fear loosen. Leona was her anchor. Even with her bad luck, they couldn’t send her away while they needed her so much. They were grateful for Simi’s education now. There were educated men in the village who spoke English, but because Simi was a woman, she had easier access to Leona. A man couldn’t spend so much time with a woman who wasn’t his wife without eyebrows being raised.
Leona joined the women daily at the river, and the women taught her to bang her clothes against the rocks and rub the bar of White Star soap until it frothed. It made the hours of banging and rubbing and rinsing clothes go faster when Leona was there. Simi was sorry, in some deep way, that she wasn’t the only woman who could have a companionship with Leona. Leona was beginning to make friends with many of the other women, but she was grateful that Leona seemed happy here, content. She wanted Leona to stay for a long time.
“Simi,” Leona whispered one day when they were resting their soapy hands. “I think Loiyan is pregnant.”
It was something Simi knew already, but she glanced up at Loiyan, anyway. The folds of the other woman’s wraps strained a bit under the swell of her belly. Simi swallowed a hot ember of jealousy. Loiyan already had three children. Two of them boys.
“Isn’t it true that a childless wife can adopt a baby of another woman?” Leona was whispering her words, but also speaking in English, not Maa. The conversation, Simi understood, was one Leona wanted to keep secret.
“Yes,” Simi answered simply. The possibility had crossed her mind a thousand times. To be regarded a mother didn’t absolutely have to mean bearing your own child. “It happens often.” Leona opened her mouth to speak again, but Simi already understood the subtext of Leona’s question, and answered it before Leona could clarify.
“Unless the reason for the adoption is that the mother died, the women have to be as close as sisters.”
Later the thoughts of adoption—and the seeming impossibility of it—crowded Simi’s mind like the scuffling cattle in the paddock—pushing against each other and refusing to let her sleep. Her husband was rich with children. Loiyan’s three and seven from his first wife, Isina. Now another baby was coming, and still, she