‘How quick you’ve been!’ Nyokabi welcomed him.
‘You know men are always v-e-r-y quick,’ added Njeri in the same sarcastic tone. The two women usually stayed together to ‘hasten’ or ‘shorten’ the night. Ngotho was inwardly pleased. He knew that when they adopted that tone they meant to be friendly.
‘I went to the barber.’
‘As if we could not have used a razor blade to clear off your hair.’
‘Well, times are changing. As Bwana Howlands says–’
‘You want to be a modern white man.’
‘You are two troublesome women. Take this meat first.’
Nyokabi took her share, and Njeri hers.
‘Now it’s time for me to go and disturb the young people,’ said Njeri. All the sons of Ngotho with other young men and women from Mahua ridge were in Njeri’s hut. They usually went there to shorten the night. At such times Njeri would leave the young people and she would go to sit with Nyokabi. When they went to Nyokabi’s hut she too would do likewise, leave them, and go to visit Njeri. But some nights, the young people wanted to hear stories from Ngotho or from the women. At such times they all would be in the same place.
‘Tell Njoroge to come and show his new clothes to his father, Nyokabi told Njeri as the latter left.
Ngotho was proud that his son would start learning. When anybody now asked him whether he had taken any of his sons to school, he would proudly say, ‘Yes!’ It made him feel almost equal to Jacobo.
‘When is he beginning?’
‘On Monday.’
‘Does he like the idea?’
‘He looked happy.’
She was right. Njoroge’s heart had felt like bursting with happiness and gratitude when he had known that he, like Mwihaki, the daughter of Jacobo, would start learning how to read and write.
2
On Monday, Njoroge went to school. He did not quite know where it was. He had never gone there, though he knew the direction to it. Mwihaki took him and showed him the way. Mwihaki was a young girl. Njoroge had always admired her. Once some herd-boys had quarrelled with Mwihaki’s brothers. They had thrown stones and one had struck her. Then the boys had run away followed by her brothers. She had been left alone crying. Njoroge, who had been watching the scene from a distance, had approached and felt like soothing the weeping child. Now she, the more experienced, was taking him to school.
Mwihaki was a daughter of Jacobo. Jacobo owned the land on which Ngotho lived. Ngotho was a Muhoi. Njoroge had never come to understand how his father had become a Muhoi. Maybe a child did not know such matters. They were too deep for him. Jacobo had small boys and one big son and big daughter. The big daughter was a teacher. Her name was Lucia. Njoroge always thought Lucia a nice name. All his sisters had ugly names. Not like Lucia.
The other boys were rough. They laughed at him and made coarse jokes that shocked him. His former high regard of schoolboys was shaken. He thought that he would never like to make such jokes. Nyokabi, his mother, would be angry if he did.
One boy told him, ‘You are a Njuka.’
‘No! I am not a Nju-u-ka,’ he said.
‘What are you?’
‘I am Njoroge.’
They laughed heartily. He felt annoyed. Had he said anything funny?
Another boy commanded him, ‘Carry this bag. You’re a Njuka.’
He was going to take it. But Mwihaki came to his rescue.
‘He is my Njuka. You cannot touch him.’
Some laughed.
Others sneered.
‘Leave Mwihaki’s Njuka alone.’
‘He is Mwihaki’s boy.’
‘He’ll make a good husband. A Njuka to be a husband of Mwihaki.’
‘A Njuka is a Njuka. He must carry my bag for me.’
All this talk embarrassed and confused Njoroge. He did not know what to do.
Mwihaki was annoyed. She burst out, ‘Yes, he is my Njuka. Let any of you touch him.’
Silence followed. Njoroge was grateful. Apparently the boys feared her because her sister was a teacher and Mwihaki might report them.
The school looked a strange place. But fascinating. The church huge and hollow, attracted him. It looked haunted. He knew it was the House of God. But some boys shouted while they were in there. This too shocked him. He had been brought up to respect all holy places, like graveyards and the bush around fig trees.
The teacher wore a white blouse and a green skirt. Njoroge liked the white and green because it was like a blooming white flower on a green plant. Grass in this country was green in wet weather and flowers bloomed white all over the land, especially in Njahi season. Njoroge, however, feared her when two days later she beat a boy, whack! whack! (‘Bring the other hand’) whack! whack! whack! The stick broke into bits. Njoroge could almost feel the pain. It was as if it was being communicated to him without physical contact. The teacher looked ugly while she punished. Njoroge hated seeing anybody being thrashed and he was sorry for the boy. But he should not have bullied a Njuka. It was on that day that Njoroge learnt that Njuka was the name given to a newcomer.
Njoroge usually kept alone. And he always reached home earlier than the other boys of the village. He did not want to reach home in the dark. Bad boys walked slowly after school, for if they reached home early they would be asked to help in the evening chores. When they reached home they said, ‘Teacher Lucia (or Isaac) kept us late.’
But sometimes they were found out and they were beaten. Njoroge did not like being beaten.
After three weeks he made his mother angry. It was the fault of Mwihaki. She had asked him to wait for her so they might go home together. After all, their homes were near each other. Besides, she said, she feared certain boys. Njoroge was pleased. Together they took the road home slowly, chatting. When they reached the top of the hill that was near their village, they sat there and began playing. It was sweet to play with a girl and especially if that girl came from a family higher up the social scale than one’s own. She looked more precious because rare. She was small and delicate. He soon forgot that the sun was sinking while he and Mwihaki competed in throwing stones to see who could throw the farthest. And that was the time his mother had come and seen them. Nyokabi had watched the sun slowly sink home without her son appearing. She had become worried about him and with an anxious heart had come to look for him. Njoroge was not beaten. But he knew too well that she was annoyed. She did not want her son to associate with a family of the rich because it would not be healthy for him.
Njoroge thought it all Mwihaki’s fault. And he thought her a bad girl and promised himself that he would not play with her anymore. Or even wait for her.
He came home one day and found his mother shelling some castor oil seeds from their pods. She often did this and when she accumulated enough after a number of months she sold them at the market.
‘Mother, let me help you.’
‘Go and do your schoolwork first.’
Nyokabi was proud of having a son in school. It made her soul happy and lighthearted whenever she saw him bending double over a slate or recounting to her what he had seen at school. She felt elated when she ordered her son to go and do some reading or some sums. It was to her the greatest reward she would get from her motherhood if she one day found her son writing letters, doing arithmetic, and speaking English. She tried to imagine what the Howlands woman must have felt to have a daughter and a son in school. She wanted to be the same. Or be like Juliana. Juliana was the wife of Jacobo and she must surely have felt proud to have a daughter who was a teacher and a son who would probably be flying to foreign parts soon. That was something. That was real life. It did not matter if anyone died poor provided he or she could one day say: ‘Look, I’ve a son as good and as well educated as any you can find in the land!’
You did not need to be educated to know this. Her mother’s instinct that yearned for something broader than that which could be had from her social circumstances and conditions saw this. That was why s
he had impressed on her husband Ngotho the need for one son to be learned. Her other son had died in the big war. It had hurt her much. Why should he have died in a white man’s war? She did not want to sacrifice what was hers to other people. If Njoroge could now get all the white man’s learning, would Ngotho even work for Howlands and especially as the wife was reputed to be a hard woman? Again, would they as a family continue living as Ahoi in another man’s land, a man who clearly resented their stay. A lot of motives had indeed combined into one desire, the desire to have a son who had acquired all the learning that there was. These days she even thought that if she had much money she would send her married daughters to school. All would then have a schooling that would at least enable them to speak English.
‘Mother, you must tell me all those stories again,’ he implored as he knelt down to help in spite of her rejection of his offer.
‘Hmmmm,’ she murmured as she blew some rubbish away from the seeds she had in her hands. She paused for a moment and smiled.
‘You cunning young man. Is that why you offered to help, eh?’
‘Mother, you must,’ he said earnestly.
‘Why must I?’ she asked carelessly as she resumed her work.
‘I was told to tell a story today. The story you told us about the Irimu came to mind. But when I stood in front of the class and all eyes were fixed on me, I was afraid.’ He paused. ‘I lost the story.’ He finished dramatically in a tragic tone as if such incidents rarely happened.
‘A man should never be afraid. You should have scratched your head for another story. You have many. Or do your elder Mother and myself waste our time telling you all those stories about the tribe?’
‘I tell you, Mother, I forgot all of them.’ He pleaded with such great vigour that Nyokabi was forced to laugh. Njoroge could be very serious about certain things.
But now he too laughed. He loved his mother so when she laughed. She had rich milk-white teeth, which time had done nothing to harm.
‘Ni wega, all right. I’ll tell you some in the evening…Oh, I forgot. Your mother wants you to run for your brother. Now do that at once.’
He went into the hut, threw down his slate, and then rushed out.
‘Njoroge! Njoroge!’
He came back.
‘Don’t you take off your school clothes?’
He felt ashamed. He should not have forgotten. He went back to the hut and took off the school clothes. He put on the old piece of calico. This too had been part of the contract. It was necessary to preserve the clothes intact for as long as possible.
The path he followed passed just below Mwihaki’s home. The houses were hidden by a big hedge of growing fir trees that surrounded the household. You could see the corrugated iron roof and the wooden walls of the imposing building through an opening or two in the hedge. Njoroge had been there, out in the courtyard, a number of times when he and others went to collect money for picking pyrethrum flowers for Jacobo. The place looked like a European’s house, and Njoroge was always overawed by the atmosphere around the whole compound. He had never been in the big building and he was always curious to know what the inside looked like.
But he had once been in the kitchen. The kitchen was a separate building, a round, mud-walled, grass-thatched hut that was used for all the cooling. It was also where the servants slept. He had been to that kitchen on Christmas Day when many children who usually worked for Jacobo were invited for a party by Juliana. She was a fat woman, with a beautiful round face and haughty eyes. But she was kind with children and on that occasion she had bought much bread. How appetising it all looked as it lay on a tray nearby, forming a sharp-pointed gleaming white hill! Njoroge’s mouth had watered and he had a lot of difficulty in swallowing the saliva for fear of making some audible sound at the throat that would betray him to his hostess and her children. But the tragic part of the day’s proceedings came when they were all told to shut their eyes for grace. It was during grace that one child had made a funny sound which had at once made Njoroge giggle. But no sooner did he begin giggling than he was joined by another, who giggled even more loudly, till both of them now burst out in open laughter, which in turn caused the long grace to be cut short. The children were hungry. Juliana was annoyed and gave Njoroge and all the children there assembled a long lecture. If they (the unfortunate two) had been her own children who had misbehaved, she said quite clearly that they would have gone without a meal for two days. But her children would never have done such a thing. She had brought them up to value Ustaarabu and the rules of good manners. She had concluded her speech by saying that it was her considered opinion that all children should be brought up as she did hers. Because people, however, did not do this, she never liked her children to associate with primitive homes. Njoroge sensed that the way he had been brought up was being criticised. It was on that day that Njoroge had come to value Mwihaki, for after the lecture she had taken greater interest in him, perhaps to soothe his hurt feelings. All this was a long way back.
Before Njoroge went very far, he saw her coming along the same path but from the opposite direction. If he went on he would meet her. Suddenly he realised that he did not want to meet her while he had on that piece of calico which, when blown by the wind, left the lower part of his body without covering. For a time he was irresolute and hated himself for feeling as he did about the clothes he had on. Before he had started school, in fact even while he made that covenant with his mother, he would never have thought that he would ever be ashamed of the calico, the only dress he had ever known since birth.
He turned to the left and followed another path. All around him was the sloping pyrethrum field that belonged to Jacobo. Below, a forest. Further down still were the Indian and African shops. But only a few roofs could be seen. The land belonging to Mr Howlands was adjacent to one of the smaller, narrow ridges that could be seen on the right. That was where Ngotho, Njoroge’s father, worked. Njoroge always passed near there on his way to school.
He left the pyrethrum field, took another turn to join the route he had avoided, and then went into the next field. He could just see Nganga’s household. Nganga was the village carpenter. Kamau was apprenticed to him. Ngotho had to pay a huge fattened he-goat and a hundred and fifty shillings on top. Nganga was rich. He had land. Any man who had land was considered rich. If a man had plenty of money, many motor cars, but no land, he could never be counted as rich. A man who went with tattered clothes but had at least an acre of red earth was better off than the man with money. Nganga could afford three wives, although he was younger than Ngotho. He had not been to the first or indeed the second war. But he was said to be clever, although he was a little bit rough and not quite honest. Everybody in the village took a panga, a jembe, or a knife to him for the repair of their handles. He also repaired broken fences and made tables and beds of all sorts. And he could tell a story. This was considered a good thing for a man.
Njoroge had not reached the courtyard when he saw his brother coming. Kamau had just finished his duties. Njoroge was glad when he saw him for, although Kamau was older, they got on well.
‘Let’s go, brother,’ said Kamau as he pulled Njoroge by the hand. He looked gloomy.
‘Today, you’re late.’
‘It is this man!’
Njoroge thought that something was wrong. It was not often that his brother was so angry.
‘Is he not a good man?’
‘Good man! If I didn’t know that Father would be annoyed after paying all that money, I would stop coming here. I have now been with him for six months yet it was only yesterday that he first allowed me to handle a plane. He is always telling me, “Hold here! Hold there!” and always asking me to watch and note carefully. How can a man learn by watching without practice? Surely not by sweeping the yard and taking away the rubbish and carrying the tools for him. But if I touch something! And you know,’ and here Kamau spoke in disgust, ‘his youngest wife actually makes me hold her child just as if she was a European woman
and I her Ayah. Oh dear me! It is such a dirty little thing that keeps on howling and–!’
‘Why don’t you tell Father?’
‘You don’t know. Father would obviously take Nganga’s side, especially on the question of watching, because this is how people used to learn trades in the olden times. They don’t realise that things are changing!’
They kept silent for a while as they made their way home in the gathering gloom, the prelude to darkness. Then Njoroge, as if he had suddenly thought up a great question, asked, ‘But why does he treat you like that? He is a black man.’
‘Blackness is not all that makes a man,’ Kamau said bitterly. ‘There are some people, be they black or white, who don’t want others to rise above them. They want to be the source of all knowledge and share it piecemeal to others less endowed. That is what’s wrong with all these carpenters and men who have a certain knowledge. It is the same with rich people. A rich man does not want others to get rich because he wants to be the only man with wealth.’
‘Probably,’ Njoroge said, impressed. He had never heard Kamau speak so much at length.
‘…Some Europeans are better than Africans.’
Again Njoroge was impressed.
‘That’s why you at times hear Father say that he would rather work for a white man. A white man is a white man. But a black man trying to be a white man is bad and harsh.’
Njoroge could not quite follow Kamau. But he pitied his brother and vowed that he himself would not become a carpenter. The only good thing was education. He tried to change the subject.
Weep Not, Child Page 3