Four: Forodhani Night Market

Jimmy showed up the next night at the market, wearing nothing but a ragged old pair of trousers and a little cloth cap that had seen better days.

Gaila had left Nyota in charge and gone down the Garden to get them chocolate street pizza from a different stall. Nyota turned a set of wheels to press the juice out of sugarcane stalks, draining the juice into glass mugs to sell alongside their meals. The work was repetitive and soothing, and Nyota found herself humming the tunes her sister would sing while she did work like this.

"That is a beautiful song," a cheeky voice in a very strange accent said, and sure enough, Nyota turned to see Jimmy's sunburned face beaming at her.

"Gaila's not here," she said, continuing her work. "She'll be back in a minute."

"That doesn't mean I can't say hello to you," Jimmy said. He gestured at one of the mugs of sugarcane juice lined up on the table. "Can I have that?"

"Can you pay?"

"Gaila usually just gets me to pay in charm," he smiled at her again.

Nyota raised an eyebrow at him.

"Fine," he said, and pulled a five-shilling coin out from under his hat. He placed it on the table.

"Asante, " Nyota said, smiling despite herself. She put the coin in the pouch they had made for their money, and helped herself to a mug of the sugarcane juice.

"Hey," he said, holding out his glass. "Cheers."

She looked at him quizzically until he clinked his glass against hers. "It's a toast," he said. "To Uhura and her beautiful singing voice," he clinked their glasses again.

"Oh," Nyota said, and shrugged. She clinked her glass against his this time. "Maisha marefu." She sat on the bench and looked at him for a moment while they both took a drink of the sugarcane juice. "I heard you stole a boat," she said, finally.

Jimmy choked a little on his juice. He wiped it off his chest and grinned, glancing around himself. "Yeah...I guess you heard that from Gaila?"

Nyota nodded, and Jimmy came to sit next to her on the bench. She slid away from him.

"Well if she trusts you, I trust you, I guess," Jimmy said. "What's it to you, anyway?"

Nyota flicked a mosquito away. She wasn't entirely sure she could trust Jimmy yet. There was the fact that he was foreign, from a place she had never even heard of, that he was a man like Nero, that he was white-skinned like Nero – a million other reasons she wanted to use as an excuse not to have anything to do with him.

But there was also something about him that seemed harmless. He looked like a beat-up old beach dog that always tried to follow them home at night, one that responded when Gaila called him Bwana Mbwa - "mister dog". His open face, maybe, or his exuberance, made her want to smile and laugh with him and tell him everything about herself.

And Penda would have liked him.

"How did you do it?" she avoided his question, appealing to his ego.

"It's a long story," Jimmy grinned. "I've stolen a lot of boats, but they were small and crummy. So's this one, for that matter. We're trying to get back to America but we're going to need something bigger."

"How did you get away with that?" Nyota was incredulous.

"To be honest?" Jimmy laughed. "I don't know. It's kind of a miracle."

"Right," Nyota frowned – we should all have such miracles, she thought – but it was hard to hold a grudge against Jimmy. "Do you think... do you think you could take me back to the coast one day?"

"Sure, like Kilwa or somewhere?"

Nyota nodded. "I mean, I have things to do first. But later. Once I'm finished with that."

Jimmy nodded, draining his mug. "Yeah, if I don't have to pay for sugarcane juice anymore."

Nyota smiled, again, in spite of herself.

"Can you swim?" Jimmy asked.

Nyota looked up at him, suspicious. "No... why?" She was suddenly very conscious of the scars left across her wrists by the slavers' manacles.

Jimmy shrugged, and grinned at her again. "Well if you sail with me, there's a good chance you might drown. I mean, that's what Bones is always saying anyway."

They went out to see "Bones" and the boat after the market shut down. Gaila brought an extra chocolate pizza for Bones, and a mug of sugarcane juice. Well, Nyota brought them, Gaila held hands with Jimmy and skipped all the way there.

Jimmy's boat was anchored a few miles south of Stonetown. As the tide had gone out, it rested on the sand a few feet in the water. It was a smallish dhow, an innocuous little thing with a single lateen sail, which was currently bundled up.

Jimmy ran into the water, shouting "Bones!"

A man poked his head up over the hull of the boat. He was older than Jimmy, and dark-haired. He said, bluntly: "What."

Jimmy got up to the boat – he was waist-deep in water, and the hull of the boat came up to his shoulders. "Come down from there. I'm gonna teach the girls how to swim."

"No thanks," Bones said gruffly. He nodded at the women. "Miss Gaila," he said, in greeting. "And..."

"Uhura," Nyota replied herself. She hesitated wading into the water, but slowly walked up to the boat, letting the warm waves gently push at her chest. "Here, we brought you some dinner."

"Thank you, Miss," he said, taking the mug and the wrapped up street pizza. Up close she could see that he was white-skinned, like Jimmy, but had taken on a deep tan. He was dressed nicer than Jimmy as well, wearing a full white long-sleeved shirt with the ties done up, and clean breeches that went past his knees.

Gaila splashed into the water behind Jimmy, laughing. "I told you you'd like Bones!" she said, already whipping off her kangas and tossing them into the dhow. She was unashamed and unafraid to be naked around these men, which surprisingly made Nyota far more at ease.

"Here," Jimmy said, giving Nyota his hand. "Do you want to get in?" He helped her clamber up onto the hull off the dhow, and then peeled off his wet trousers and tossed them on top of Gaila's clothes.

The dhow was very small, much smaller than Nero's ship. It could only probably carry about nine or ten people, and clearly needed fewer than that to operate. But it was sturdier than Nyota had imagined, certainly sturdy enough to get across the Strait.

Bones held out an arm for Nyota to step down into the ship – there was a bench running along the edges of the hull, and she stepped down onto it and tucked her feet under herself, her skirt already soaked through with seawater.

"Thank you for the food," Bones said softly.

"You're welcome," Nyota said. He had a very kind, sad face and when he smiled at her, briefly, lop-sided, it made Nyota want to brush her cheek against her knees and smile. She wondered how such a man could end up hanging around someone like Jimmy.

Jimmy and Gaila splashed around in the water and squealed. It was very awkward, to be sitting up here quietly with this strange, reserved man while they flounced around down there.

"How did you get here?" Bones asked, just as Nyota was about to open her mouth and ask the same thing.

"Sorry?" she asked, startled.

"Here. To Zanzibar," he gestured vaguely. "It's just – you're friends with Gaila, and she certainly isn't from here."

Nyota hugged her knees again, and looked out at the stars. She hadn't told anyone that whole story, not even Gaila, although the star-girl probably pieced a lot together from how she found Nyota.

"It's okay," Bones said after she hesitated for so long. "Don't want to talk about it, huh? Seems there's a lot of folk here like that," he finished his mug of sugarcane juice and set it aside. He unwrapped his chocolate banana pizza and offered her a piece of it.

"What were you doing all on your own out here?" Nyota asked, taking a piece of the flat, fried pastry.

Bones gestured at a leather-bound notebook sitting next to him on the bench. "I was thinking of writing a letter, but I have to watch my ink. I don't know when I'm gonna be able to get into town and get more."

"Writing?"

Bones smiled ruefully, and showed Nyota his notebook, full of beautiful, curving lines. "It's mostly letters to my daughter, not that I'll be able to send them."

She studied his face, all the deep lines that got deeper when he said the word daughter, which was a word she hadn't heard before.

Gaila shrieked with laughter in the water. Bones nodded over the edge of the hull. "Do you want to join them?"

"I don't know..." Nyota shrugged. The thought of being in the water naked next to Jimmy made her skin crawl a little bit, no matter how much she was starting to like him.

"Come down with me," Bones said as he tucked his notebook under the seat. "Keep your clothes on. You gotta learn to swim, don't you?"

The water was warm and gentle as Nyota slowly lowered herself into it, letting go of the dhow. She walked next to Bones, picking across wet sand, deeper and deeper, until she had to grip onto his arm.

"Easy now," he said, putting a big hand on her waist, supporting her weight. He was still fully clothed, and so was she, the sea water pulling at the edges of her kangas. "First, we're just gonna try floating, okay? I'm right here beside you, so just lean back and sort of push your... push your chest up, all right?"

Nyota stifled a giggle as Bones stumbled over his words and pointedly looked away from her breasts, keeping his hands under her back. It was soothing, to drift in the water like this, looking up at countless twinkling stars, while the water lapped around her hair and ears.

She floundered a bit, and Bones caught her. She laughed again, steadying herself with her hands on his arms. "How long have you been here," she asked, "the two of you on your stolen boats?"

Bones shrugged. "About a year, give or take. Two years since we left America."

She watched him, kicking her feet gently in the water. "Have you ever heard of a star-man named Nero?" she asked, bluntly.

Bones nodded, not missing a beat. "Yes."