it!”
This was a sackful of borrowed salt, but Deo couldn’t help himself. “Oh, that would be so great!”
The text was written in English, but he could study the drawings and photographs. He took the book
back to the apartment of the Senegalese, where he stored it in his suitcase and visited it from time to
time.
He brought Sharon words he’d written down and asked her to translate them into French. One time he
was talking to her inside the rectory and asked her the meanings of some of the words he’d been hearing
in the park. He should have known better; there were other people around, including a priest.
“What does this word, ‘motherfucker,’ mean?”
Her face turned red. She whispered hastily, emphatically, “I’ll tell you later.”
Sometimes he wished he hadn’t asked for Sharon’s help. She decided to teach him to pronounce “are”
correctly. She kept making him repeat after her, as persistent and patient as she’d probably be when
helping a child. She handed him pages written in English. “Okay, now read this,” she’d say, just as if he
were in first grade.
Sharon was like the brother you fought with for your share of the blanket at night and thought you never
wanted to see again, you hated him so much, and then felt so glad to find in the morning lying on the
mat beside you. More to the point, she was like a mother, who couldn’t stop worrying about you, who
couldn’t help reminding you that you still needed her help, which was infuriating because in fact you
did.
They often went for walks. One day she told him, in her cheery, raspy voice, that she was going to show
him Central Park. He ended up sitting on a bench with her—she’d brought sandwiches for both of them
—and listening to her say, “Oh, look at that pretty bird” and “Look at these pretty flowers.” She was
trying to distract him, he knew, trying to cheer him up. At the same time, he was thinking: “I hate this
woman. This woman is crazy. I’m not five years old. I know what a bird is. Yes, I know that is a flower.
And I know Central Park better than you do. I sleep here.”
He would never let her in on such thoughts. And she must never know he slept in the park. When she
had asked him where he was living, as she was bound to do of course, he had told her he slept on the
floor of an apartment in Harlem. He gave her the address and phone number of the Senegalese clothing
factory. But he made the mistake of also telling her that he had seen a person killed in Harlem, right
outside his window. From then on, she gave him no peace. She was going to find him a safe place to
stay, if it killed both of them.
He disliked spending time with her inside the rectory, because invariably a parishioner or priest would
happen by and Sharon would say, “Oh, Father So-and-So, this is Deogratias,” and then he would have to
listen, half comprehending by now, as she told what she knew of his story, and often the third party
would say he’d heard about genocides over there in Africa and that terrible thing between Hutus and
Tutsis, and which was Deo, Hutu or Tutsi? Just hearing those terms made him start inwardly. He would
feel completely alert—that would be adrenaline. Often the aftermath was a throbbing headache.
Sharon decided he should write a brief account of his life, which could be used to help him with
potential benefactors. This struck him, forcefully, as a very bad idea.
It scared him to tell anyone he was a Tutsi. How much worse it would be to write down the fact on a
piece of paper with his name on it and tell what he had witnessed. Especially since by now she was
calling people all over New York, trying to get him help. God only knew how many people she was
calling. Just the calls she told him about included priests and official-sounding organizations, and even
—this was chilling—the Burundian consulate and the Burundian Mission to the United Nations. She
could end up talking to someone who could get more information about him and come and find him and
kill him. Or hurt relatives or friends in Burundi. If he wrote down his story, there was no telling who
would see the document.
He wanted to tell her: “Look, just do what you can to help me, don’t even talk to other people about
me.” But he couldn’t. She was so warm and generous, never neglecting to give him a hug before they
parted, and so sure that this document would help, that he decided to comply. But not entirely. He didn’t
use the real name of anyone in his family, he omitted many details and changed others, and he
completely altered the geography of his life. Mostly he wrote about what a good student he had been.
Sharon enlisted the services of an elderly priest, to refine her translation of Deo’s French and type up the
thing.
She was inflicting the Talking Head on him. And she was trying to borrow salt all over town. She
described some of her schemes. In English, they would have gone like this: There was a woman, a
friend, she was a little unstable, she drank a little too much, but Deo shouldn’t worry about that, but
anyway this woman had said Deo could do some work, like painting, around her apartment, which was a
very nice apartment, and of course the woman would like him and find a little spot in her apartment for
him to stay.
The result that time was both good and bad. Good because the woman paid him six dollars an hour, bad
because he went to her place and painted woodwork after twelve hours of delivering groceries. And the
woman didn’t seem to like him. He’d be painting away and without any warning she’d say in a rather
harsh tone of voice, “It’s time to stop. Now go.”
He was working there one evening when Sharon appeared, saying he had to stop work and come with
her right away. There was this nice old dentist she knew whom they were going to call on. Maybe he
would have a place for Deo to sleep.
He didn’t want to go. What had she said about him to this stranger? Deo told Sharon he was tired. She
said the dentist’s place wasn’t far away. This at least was true. The three of them sat in a tiny kitchen,
Sharon and the elderly man talking and talking in English, Deo trying to pay attention but losing more
and more ground. So he had no idea what was coming when the retired dentist leaned across the table,
reached out a quavery hand, and hooked Deo’s lower front teeth with an index finger.
Sharon translated. The old dentist said that Deo needed braces.
Deo felt a flash of anger. What else would he have to endure? What further insults? For the rest of the
time there, Deo kept his mouth shut tight. For the next several days, he was aware of trying not to smile
in public.
Of course, the dentist wasn’t about to take him in. But something promising came out of the encounter.
Sharon said she knew how he could get his teeth straightened for free, if he wanted them straightened—
at the New York University dental school. He wouldn’t mind, but dentistry was for later. The search for
a place continued.
She took him to see a nun who ran a boardinghouse of sorts. Sister Leontine. “She’s great,” Sharon said.
Sister Leontine had a place in Harlem, which she had turned into a refuge for homeless people just out
of prison. A basement place and packed with people. The sister probably was a great person, Deo
thought. And it was wonderful of Sharon to take him there. Sharon could live in this chaos happily
enough. She was a person who would just come shining and smiling into hell, he thought. But he didn’t
want to be in this place. He’d rather be alone. He’d rather sleep outside.
Fortunately, Sister Leontine said that Deo could stay but would have to sleep on the floor because all the
beds were taken. So he was able to decline the offer politely and still let Sharon know he was grateful.
Declining wasn’t always so easy. A wealthy friend of Sharon’s was having a birthday party in Central
Park, a real fête. Sharon’s friend had said she could bring Deo. It would be a wonderful party, Sharon
said, it would be good for him, he’d really enjoy himself.
Deo thought fast. He said he couldn’t go, he didn’t have a dress shirt or a tie or a jacket.
But Sharon said that was no problem. St. Thomas More collected old clothes for the poor. And a lot of
the clothes were very fine, she said, because this was a wealthy part of town. Sharon said something
about having gotten her own “start in clothes” this way. She took him down to the church basement and
rummaged cheerfully through a pile of big plastic bags and outfitted him.
How much energy the woman had! Deo wanted to ask her to stop trying so hard. But he hated the idea
of hurting her feelings, and the weariness surrounding him made it too hard for him to resist her. The
only way to keep her from doing too much was to avoid her, and he tried that, but then he would go back
to see her when he needed something. But this made him feel he was behaving like a spoiled child. The
only solution was to let her do as she pleased. As she sat with him and told him about yet another
possibility for housing, he would let his thoughts drift away. Eventually, she’d ask him in French, “Do
you understand?” Sometimes she’d have to repeat the question. “Quoi?” he would say, as if startled out
of sleep.
She seemed fretful, even at times a little discouraged by the search for a bed for him, but by now he
knew she wouldn’t quit. He thought, “She wants this more than I do.” How was this possible?
Summer had arrived. One day when they were out for a walk, Sharon said, as if she had suddenly
remembered, that she had a friend she called a brother. Chukwu. He came from Nigeria. He was a math
professor now, at North Carolina State University, but he had spent some tough times in New York.
Deo said that perhaps she should call this Chukwu, knowing she would anyway.
As usual, the result was another hot trip through the city, this time to the office of a lawyer, named
James O’Malley. Evidently, Chukwu had told Sharon that Deo should see this man.
Deo wasn’t sure exactly why he needed a lawyer. He wasn’t a criminal. Something to do with
immigration, he gathered.
It was a fine-looking office. The lawyer called James, small and stylishly dressed, sat behind an
enormous desk. Deo could tell that Sharon was telling James his story. He caught words like “Burundi”
and “Rwanda” and “medical student.” Then Sharon told Deo that James would like to see his passport,
which Deo still always carried.
How did he come by a business visa? James asked through Sharon.
Deo told the whole story.
For a minute or two, James sat frowning down at the visa. Then he lifted his eyes and smiled and said
something that made Sharon smile. She translated: “James says he will take your case if you promise to
be his doctor.”
Deo felt elated. Was James saying that Deo was going back to medical school? Maybe he did need a
lawyer!
Chukwu had given Sharon another suggestion, which sounded altogether familiar, even depressing. She
only told him about it when it was a fait accompli. Deo had been invited to have dinner with people
named Nancy and Charlie Wolf. Old friends of Chukwu’s, and, as it happened, acquaintances of
Sharon’s. Nancy was an artist, Sharon said, Charlie a sociologist. They were very nice. And they had
invited Deo to dinner at their apartment. It was a subway ride away, downtown, in a place called SoHo.
Sharon had written down the address.
Deo looked at it. How to get out of this?
He had never been to that part of town, he said. “And how am I going to talk to them? What am I
supposed to say?” All this was true. She couldn’t deny it.
“I’ll go with you,” said Sharon.
Chapter FIVE
New York City,
1994
You rode up to the Wolfs’ place in a noisy old elevator, which opened into a room with large windows
on one end and hundreds of books on the walls. Deo thought, “Maybe I can ask for a book.” He didn’t
notice much else. He might have just awakened and found himself standing in front of these strangers,
shaking hands. Mrs. Wolf, Nancy, was blond and thin and rather tall. Her hands looked busy even when
they weren’t doing anything. She seemed to have a hard time standing still. She smiled and laughed a
lot, sometimes in a nervous-sounding way. But she spoke too fast for him to understand the words, and it
wasn’t long before he quit trying to catch up. But Mr. Wolf, Charlie, spoke to him very slowly. One
word at a time. And Charlie would gesture at things to make sure Deo understood. Something about him
seemed familiar and comforting. When Nancy interrupted him, Deo noticed, Charlie would stop
speaking at once, and if she excused herself, he would tell her to go on. The second or third time this
happened, Deo thought, “He’s like Lonjino.” There was gray in Charlie’s hair. He seemed completely
calm.
At the dinner table, which was just big enough for four, Deo tried to tell them some of his story. He was
sick of feeling silenced in these situations. He thought, “I’m just going to make noise.” These people
might think, “What the heck is he talking about?” But he didn’t care. As always, it felt dangerous to try
to describe the violence he had seen. Mainly he tried to tell them about cows and medical school. His
English kept failing him. Nancy looked more and more agitated as he talked. Suddenly, she said to him,
“Never mind talking. Just eat!”
For a while after that, he gave up on talking and tried to listen to the others. He was pretty sure that
Charlie spoke about working in Africa and even living and working along with Nancy in Nigeria. But
most of the conversation went on without him. Then he realized that Charlie was asking him a question,
enunciating the words carefully.
“What can we”—Charlie pointed at himself and at Nancy—“do to help?” He pointed at Deo. “You.”
Deo understood, and then again he didn’t. Did this man really want to give him help? What made him
think he could? Deo said he didn’t know.
Charlie asked the question again.
In broken English, feeling rather irritated, Deo asked if Charlie really wished to know.
Yes, said Charlie. Of course!
Well, Deo told him, there was only one thing. It was impossible. To go to school.
Charlie shook his head. Deo was wrong. “This is a country of second chances,” Charlie said very slowly.
Second chances? Deo said.
Many opportunities, said Charlie. Of course Deo could go back to school.
