looked around the orphanage, at the concrete walls crumbling to the dirt floors, at the open doorways and one wooden door. Shyly, she followed him as he walked briskly to the left of the courtyard. First, he pointed at a closed door, crooked on its hinges. “My office,” he said, and walked on. Then he turned, with a wink Leda might have imagined, and said, “And my bedroom.” The next room was open and Ita stepped inside, waving her after.
Leda didn’t understand what she was seeing. A closet? Shoes lined the edges of the room, in a square around another huge woven mat. She lifted her foot to step forward, but Ita put his hand on her arm. It was warm and soft.
“This is where the children sleep. You may sleep here or—” Ita stepped out of the room “—with Mary.”
Mary had been the other name on the website, but hadn’t been linked to a picture. Leda’s stomach burned with curiosity. “Is Mary here now?”
“Who did you think was creating that delicious smell?” Ita ducked his head under a wooden beam and Leda followed him into the kitchen. A wood fireplace formed the rear of the room, and the rest of it, apart from smoke, was filled with pots and pans and plastic bowls towering off the ground.
Bent over a cauldron that hung above a fire was a sizable woman’s backside, wrapped taut in a patterned sarong, brighter than a bouquet of flowers. At Ita’s voice, the woman straightened and Leda saw she was old, though to guess her actual age would be tricky.
Leda felt relief gush through her, and she laughed at herself when she realized why. When she’d read the listing online, she had thought perhaps the man and woman mentioned were married or a couple. Now, she knew she’d been hoping that wasn’t the case.
Did women shake hands? Leda wasn’t sure, so she said, “Hujambo. Habari ya asubuhi,” the words piling up in her mouth like cotton balls.
Mary smiled kindly, her face wrinkling like a cozy bathrobe. “Karibu,” she said.
Welcome. Leda did feel welcome. She’d never had anyone make such a fuss over her presence, or anything she did, really. Except maybe Amadeus.
Next, Ita showed her where the toilet was—toilet being a very loose term. There were two stalls with two hanging sheets. When Ita pulled back the first sheet, Leda’s eyes traveled down to the square of concrete. In the middle was a piece of wood with a handle on it, and Leda could only guess that underneath was a hole. The second stall was exactly the same.
“Shower,” Ita said of the second stall.
When Leda remembered to breathe again, she met Ita’s eyes and saw that they gleamed with pride.
So Leda looked again and tried to see it through different eyes. She remembered how Samuel had said everyone paid to use a latrine and to bathe. This was a luxury. An achievement. He should be proud.
“Awesome!” Leda said, and knew immediately she’d overdone it.
But Ita laughed at her effort, not wounded in the least, and led her by the elbow to the other side of the orphanage.
The ease with which Ita touched her—it was unnerving. Even more distracting was how her skin felt under his fingers—tingly, pliant. Usually, she grew stiff under a stranger’s touch. In her fairly limited sexual experience, Leda had always felt clumsy at best, but more often raw and exposed. But as she walked with Ita, she had a lightning-flash vision of Ita’s warm hands on her skin. She bet it would be different with him—gentler, yet sexier, urgent.
Leda’s head shot up, her eyes darting to Ita as if he’d heard her thoughts. She felt the blood stampede her cheeks. She coughed to try and combat a full-on blush.
Ita paused before the back wall of the orphanage. He looked at her strangely, and she wondered if she was hurtling pheromones at him so hard he felt it. Get a grip, Leda.
“There is a room behind here. It is our medical room, our secret hospital.”
He must have known how strange that sounded. But at the same time, she noted the same pride as before that lifted his chin. “Are you a doctor?” she asked.
Ita smiled. But when his eyes moved to the door, his confidence faltered. “No. I study.” Now he looked embarrassed. “Not like you have studied. Impressive, your education.” Leda had sent him her résumé, as if applying for a job. Now she felt stupid about it. “I want to know all about it,” he said as he walked past the room.
On the other side of the orphanage, the back half was a three-walled room with a metal roof and another identical mat spread out. “This is for study, and for eating when the rains come.”
The next room had a sheet drawn tight across it. “Mary!” Ita called across the courtyard, followed by a question in Swahili that Leda couldn’t understand.
Mary’s answer boomeranged back and Ita gently tucked the sheet to one side. “Mary’s sleeping space,” Ita said, but respectfully, he didn’t enter.
Leda hesitated.
“It is okay. You may look,” Ita said.
Leda ducked her head inside. This room was much smaller. A mat still covered most of the dirt floor, but this time sported a narrow strip of foam and a folded sheet on one half.
When Leda poked her head back out, Ita watched her expectantly.
“It’s...” Leda wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear, and her head was starting to spin with the dawning realization that these were her accommodations for the month. “Great.”
“So you will stay with Mary,” Ita said, satisfied.
Leda looked out to where the children sat, playing quietly, waiting for their lunch. She put a hand out, feeling for the wall, something solid.
Ita’s voice was different when he spoke next, with an edge of self-consciousness that was new. “I’m sure where you live is very different.” He remained with the sheet in his hand and straightened. “The bed might help you become accustomed.”
Leda realized he meant the piece of foam in the little room, but she could no more imagine stretching out next to Mary and having any hopes of sleeping there for an entire month than she could imagine coping with any of it—the toilet, kitchen, the sheets for doors. She would be surrounded at all times. Forget hearing herself think, she wouldn’t even be able to feel herself breathe. As if in response, her breathing came quicker.
But then she remembered the morning—traipsing around after Samuel through the maze—all the jagged metal, the haggard faces, the roar and the stench, heaps of garbage, the images leaping out like rabid dogs.
Leda forced herself to breathe from her belly as she looked at her feet. She saw now where she and Ita had walked carefully around the perimeter of the courtyard. The dirt in the interior was swept clean. The children’s sandals were lined up like ducks around the mat. The concrete in the bathrooms was new, the sheets clean. She remembered the touch of Ita’s hand, felt the lingering calm he exuded. She was safe. Leda felt sure of it. Inside the orphanage, she was safe.
But Ita noted her silence and saw how she looked at her feet. “I have an idea.”
He walked back to the room he’d said was a hospital. He slid open the metal that looked like
