The Foreign Service Journal, June 2005

J U N E 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R NA L 27 F O C U S O N F S F I C T I O N H ARMONY ’ S T OOTH a rmony Tukuka looks at the fiery horizon, behind the black billows of burning trash, and knows that she is late getting home. The other women at the well are still cackling among themselves as they finish their wash. Harmony tightens the kanga cloth that holds her toddler, Harry, to her back, and in one well-prac- ticed lunge, hoists the big plastic bucket of laundry onto the top of her head. Her strong brown legs carry her as swiftly and deftly as a goat as she makes her way down the muddy path from the water pump. Tributaries of gray water carry old tooth- paste caps, mango peels and a flip-flop down the hill from the well. She knows each rock and rivulet along the path: which stones wobble when you step on them, when to stay to the right of the path, and the precarious place next to Daniel’s house where you have to leap from one side of the path to the other, over the dirty stream. Daniel rarely goes out any- more. Everyone knows that since his wife left him, he stays home with the children, only venturing out to seek day work when the food gets low. The three older children spend each day running through the thick maze of shacks barefoot, looking for things to sell or steal. Daniel is sitting on a stool outside his shack. His youngest child is by his side, naked, his belly as big as a basketball. He has a vapid look in his eyes as he sucks vigorously on two of his fingers. Harmony rushes by them. Daniel is well known, and used to be a hard worker. Harmony has heard all the shameful talk about his wife. They call her a prostitute and a whore for leaving her hus- band and kids and running o ff with another man. Her neighbors say she is as good as dead to them, and they say even her own family won’t look at her. Harmony doesn’t know what to think, but she pities the poor sad-eyed man, too tall for his clothes, too poor even to buy shoes for his children, and the little boy, naked. They live in the sprawling cluster of shacks built onto the side of a hill beneath the main market road in the Hukumu neighborhood of Nairobi. Most of the homes a re made of nailed-together aluminum roofing sheets, though some have walls of unfolded cardboard boxes. The soggy, faded color on the walls declares “OMO, For Whiter Clothes!” or “Guin- ness, the Beer of Champ- ions.” Some owners have nailed blue plastic grocery H H ARMONY T UKUKA DOESN ’ T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT , BUT SHE KNOWS THAT HER HUSBAND I BORI HAS FINALLY GONE TOO FAR . B Y R ACHEL H ERR C INTRÓN