As we approached, the rain washed over us in thick, diagonal sheets of gray. The wipers squeaked, double tempo, but it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.
“We’ll have to wait it out.” Jack pulled over and turned the car off.
Mother Nature was in full drama, knocking on the roof, the windowpanes, the doors, as if trying to smudge everything into a Monet masterpiece. It was a day of inescapable wetness.
Jack’s mood shifted, turning as somber as the sky. In the thunderous roar of the rain, I almost missed his words.
“She’s leaving me,” he said.
“Who’s leaving you?”
He kept his eyes fixed on his window, watching the droplets trail down the glass in fast, furious rivulets.
“Lily.” He pressed his palm to the pane, meeting the fading chocolate prints on the other side. “I’m losing the last of her.” If torment could be grasped, it would be in the pauses between his words. “My baby’s out there, under that big tree. I always watch over her. Every time it rains, I stand by her side. I think of her little body getting soaked by the rain and I can’t stand the idea of her being cold and alone. But today, I’m not there, and she’s leaving me. I’m losing my baby girl.”
He fell apart slowly, his walls crumbling brick by brick, as if the house he’d been living in was being swept away by a mudslide. When he cried, there was a rawness to it, an agony that spoke of denial, of an open wound that had gone untended. The sobs were stifled at first, like he was trying to hold his grief at bay. How deep he’d buried it, I didn’t know, but it washed over him in waves. He hunched over the steering wheel, his hands clasping and unclasping, as if searching for something to hold on to, to keep from getting sucked into the next surge of pain.
“Jack,” I said. But he was in his own world, lost to me.
It didn’t stop until he gave in to it, until he let himself drown in it, until his whole body shook as it ripped through his skin and bones. When he finally lifted his head, he was a picture of complete devastation.
I witnessed, for the first time, how someone can radiate pure strength from a place of pure pain. Sometimes the most heroic thing we can do is fight the battle within and just emerge on the other side. Because it’s not just one battle, one time. We do it over and over again, as long as we breathe, as long as we live.
Jack pressed his forehead to the windowpane, his breath steaming up the glass. Lily’s fingerprints were gone, washed away by the silver streams cascading down the sides of the valley. The thunderclouds had passed over us, and there was a watery sheen to the world. Everything was wet and slick and new. Rods of soft, luminous light shimmered in the puddles as a muted sun appeared through the haze.
“Remember when you told me that if I couldn’t speak to Lily, I should just listen?” said Jack.
“I didn’t realize you’d never truly let her go until just now—”
“I’m listening.” He pointed to the other side of the valley.
There, against the graphite horizon, a soft arc of colors hung suspended across the washed-out sky.
“A rainbow.”
“Lily loved rainbows. Everything was rainbow colored. Her tutu, key chain, socks, pencils . . .” He drifted off, as if rediscovering its beauty in the newborn light. “I told her to dance up a storm. And that’s exactly what she did. She got my attention. All this time I’ve been searching for her in the wrong places—in the rain, and in thunder, and lightning. And all this time . . . there she is, hiding in rainbows.”
We sat in silence, witnessing the miracle of sun and rain and color. Then Jack took a deep breath and started the car.
“See you on the other side, baby girl,” he said to the rainbow across the valley.
THE VILLAGE OF Maymosi was perched by a river, in a meadow strewn with baobab trees. Bare of leaves and fruit, they arched into the sky like masses of clawing roots, looking like they’d been planted upside-down.
Maymosi was much bigger than I had imagined, with a wide road lined with modest stalls. It was muddy from the rain, but that didn’t stop everyone from squelching around in their rubber flip-flops. Women with shaved heads picked through fruits and vegetables, bargaining loudly over the price. A butcher in a red baseball cap hung slabs of glistening goat meat, surrounded by an audience of hopeful dogs. Thin smoke rose out of charcoal burners as vendors brewed milk tea and fried mandazi bread for their customers.
We parked by the river and got out. Women sat on their haunches, washing clothes and hanging them to dry on thorn trees. Children lugged buckets of water home, leaving a trail of wet splashes behind them. Herders waited in line with donkeys and cattle for their turn at the stream.
“Bongo Flava! Bongo Flava! Come see!” A procession of kids banging on pots and pans surrounded us—beautiful children with their faces dusted gray from hearth ash.
“What’s Bongo Flava?” I asked them.
They looked at me like I’d grown two heads and started laughing.
“Music!” one of the girls explained. “You will like it.”
“Thanks, but I’m not here for that.” I tried to extract myself from the tangle of arms as they started dragging me along with them. “We are looking for Sumuni. Do you know Sumuni?”
“Yes! Come to Bongo Flava!”
I shot Jack a questioning look as they tugged me past him.
“We should check it out,” he said. “Looks like all the kids are heading there.” He pointed to the circle of kids already seated before a makeshift stage. It looked like a boxing ring, with a rope strung around on four wooden posts. The orchestra entered—three kids with handmade instruments. One of them had an upside-down gourd lodged in a bucket of water. A drum, I assumed. The other one held a shoebox with rubber bands wrapped around it. I couldn’t imagine what that was for. The last kid rattled two tin cans filled with stones to get everyone’s attention.