Free Malaika by van Heerling

MALAIKA
(Ma-lie-ca)
     
    The first time I saw her I was dazed but recovering from a hellish sleep of nightmares. Not sure if it was the scent of coffee lackadaisically meandering across the Serengeti that brought us to our serendipitous moment (do big cats drink coffee?), or if it was that she had told me she’d be here soon. I generally don’t have conversations with animals—other than the human kind. I suppose if the dialogue occurs while dreaming, you aren’t crazy, right?
    As far as how I came about to live just inside Kenya at the Tanzanian border overlooking the Serengeti, well, that is another lifetime dappled with hurt and a lost love elsewhere in the world—I won’t bore you with the details. I wanted to get as far away from that pain as I could. The ’geti is about as distant as I could travel. Funny, no matter how far one travels the past is just a moment, just a thought away.
    I will not taint this story with that past. This is a story of a more recent past, of a friendship—the most important friendship I’ve ever had.
    I live east of a village. I am the only white man for probably twenty miles or more. I suppose there could be a few around or many in town, but I haven’t seen any. This life can be hard to adapt to, especially when one is accustomed to the rote American life of excess for its own sake. Pressure. That is part of the reason why I left. No, this is a lie. It’s not why I left, but I promised I wouldn’t scar this story with my American past. There may be a trace of it betrayed here and there, but I will do my best to check such impulses.
    Where was I? Oh, yes—life is slower here; not in a dimwitted way, but in a take-a-deep-breath-and- live kind of way. Speaking of breaths, I promised that I wouldn’t start smoking again. But that was in my old life. I made a lot of promises then; this is now. I don’t smoke processed cigarettes—Western market contraband. No, my good friend Abasi is a tobacco farmer. Did I say he’s a good friend? He’s a great friend, genuine, forthright, and not afraid to smack the hell out of you when you need it, or deserve it. More often than not, I am the latter. Who would have known I’d have to travel halfway around the world to find a friend that wasn’t a sycophant. One of his virtues is that he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
    I teach Absko, his son, English in exchange for fresh tobacco, among other things. Truth told, I’d do it for free. He knows this. Sometimes I work the fields with him. Wielding a machete and tying bundles is unbearably taxing at times, but I try not to let it show on my face—though everyone knows—I’m not fooling anyone. One could say I’m paying for my deep-seated American complacency, I suppose.
    I must make one point very clear: I am not “anti-American way”. Far from it. This is, like I said, just a different way of life. It is nothing here to slaughter your own food, or dig your own latrine, or hear of children starving to death, despite Doctors Without Borders. Unsheltered is what I’m saying. Far from texting and iPods. I will one day go back. Maybe.

 
    The weight of my waking body sagged as my hand dangled off the beaten plastic armrest. My fingertips stuck to the lip of an American coffee cup, mostly because of the moisture clouded in my palm, rather than my grip. My God, she was quiet. Had I been her culinary eye’s desire, I definitely would have been it. For some reason I had the nostalgic disco beats of the seventies circling the air ducts of my mind. In hindsight perhaps this was a coping mechanism. It seemed that I had been through more in the last couple years than I cared to think about.
    My other hand gingerly held a loosely rolled cigarette—in the early mornings I am not as motivated as most of the workforce, no doubt readying themselves for their day’s toil.
    I rolled the tobacco up to my lip, my eyelids shut to the cresting sun over Kenyan mountains. The fiery smoke warmed my