He looked at his watch. It looked small on his wrist. He was expecting the chief. Mr Howlands despised Jacobo because he was a savage. But he would use him. The very ability to set these people fighting among themselves instead of fighting with the white men gave him an amused satisfaction.
He sat down again and began to think of home – his home. He wondered what he would do with his son Stephen. He did not want to send him to that England, even though his wife was daily urging him to let them go till things were normal again. To submit to his wife was to listen to the voice of England. No. He would not give in to either Mau Mau or his wife. He would reduce everything to his will. That was the settlers’ way.
It was odd that he should think only of his wife and child Stephen. The truth was that his daughter did not quite exist for him. She had thwarted his will and desire and had gone to be a missionary. What did she want to be a missionary for? Even the attempt to explain on his daughter’s side had served only to exasperate him the more. She had given herself wholly to God and to His eternal service.
There was a knock at the door. Jacobo, gun in hand, came in. He removed his hat and folded it respectfully. There was a big grin which Howlands hated. He had known him for quite a long time. Jacobo had occasionally come to him for advice. Howlands had always given it while he talked of what he had done and what he would do with the land he had tamed. Howlands had in fact helped Jacobo to get permission to grow pyrethrum. In turn, Jacobo had helped him to recruit labour and gave him advice on how to get hard work from them. However, all this had been a part of the farm. Duty had now thrown them together and he could now see Jacobo in a new light.
‘Sit down, Jacobo.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’
‘What did you want to see me for?’
‘Well, Sir, it’s a long affair.’
‘Make it short.’
‘Yes, Sir. As I was telling you the other day, I keep an eye on everybody in the village. Now this man Ngotho, as you know, is a bad man. A very terrible man. He has taken many oaths.’ It looked as if Howlands was not attending so Jacobo paused for a while. Then he beamed. ‘You know he is the one who led the strike.’
‘I know,’ Howlands cut in. ‘What has he done?’
‘Well, as I was telling you, it is a long affair. You know this man has sons. These sons of his had been away from the village for quite a long time. I think they are bringing trouble in the village…I am very suspicious about Boro, the eldest son. Now this man, Sir, had been to war and I think, Sir, he was connected with the strike–’
‘Yes! yes! What have they done?’
‘I, well, Sir, nothing, but you see these people work in secret. I was just thinking that we should sort of remove them from the village…send them to one of the detention camps…Now, if we leave them alone, there’ll flare up big, big trouble in the village. Their detention would make it easier to keep an eye on this Ngotho because as I was telling you he may be the real leader of Mau Mau.’
‘All right. Just keep an eye on the sons. Arrest them for anything – curfew, tax, you know what.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Nothing, Sir.’
‘All right. You can go.’
‘Thank you, Sir, thank you. I think this Mau Mau will be beaten.’
Howlands did not answer.
‘Good-bye, Sir.’
‘All right,’ Howlands said roughly as he stood up as if to show the chief out.
Mr Howlands watched him go out. Then he banged the door and stood by the small window. He had never forgotten Ngotho.
Ngotho and his family sat in Nyokabi’s hut. These days people sat late only in families. Two were missing from the family group. Kamau was in the African market. He preferred staying and even sleeping there. He felt it safer that way. Boro was not in. He would probably be late. They sat in darkness. Lights had to be put out early. And they spoke in whispers, although they did not speak much. They had little to say except make irrelevant remarks here and a joke there at which nobody laughed. They knew the dark night would be long. Boro and Kori kept their beds in Njeri’s hut. Her hut was a few yards away from Nyokabi’s. Njeri and Kori waited for Boro to turn up but when he failed they rose up to go. Perhaps Boro would come later in the night or he could sleep wherever he was. Who would dare to go home on such a night, and there being curfew order for everyone to be in by six o’clock? They went out. No good night. The others remained. All of a sudden there was a shout that split the night–
‘Halt!’
Njoroge trembled. He would not go to the door where his father and mother stood looking at whatever was happening outside. He remained rooted to the seat. His father came back from the door and sat heavily on the stool he had quickly vacated when he had heard the order for Njeri, his wife, and Kori, his son, to stop. Nyokabi later came in. She lit the lantern and seeing the face of Ngotho put it out again. Silence reigned.
‘They have taken them away,’ Nyokabi sobbed.
Njoroge felt as if there were some invisible dark shapes in the hut.
At last Ngotho said, ‘Yeees…’ His voice was unsteady. He felt like crying, but the humiliation and pain he felt had a stunning effect. Was he a man any longer, he who had watched his wife and son taken away because of breaking the curfew without a word of protest? Was this cowardice? It was cowardice, cowardice of the worst sort. He stood up and rushed to the door like a madman. It was too late. He came back to his seat, a defeated man, a man who cursed himself for being a man with a lost manhood. He now knew that even that waiting had been a form of cowardice, putting off of action.
He now quietly said, ‘I know it is Jacobo.’
Again Njoroge held on to a stool to keep himself steady. It was the first time that any member of his family had been caught by the new laws, although Boro, Kori, and Kamau had always had narrow escapes, especially during the police operations. What was now happening to his father and what would happen to Kori and Njeri?
‘Jacobo wants to ruin me. He wants to destroy this house. He will do it.’
It was a kind of defiant lamentation that was worse than a violent outburst of anger.
At that minute Boro entered. Again silence reigned till Boro broke it by asking what was wrong.
‘They have taken your mother and brother away,’ Ngotho said, his head still bowed.
‘They have taken my mother and brother away!’ Boro slowly repeated.
‘Yes. Curfew,’ Nyokabi said. She hastily stole a glance at Boro. She was glad that the hut was dark.
‘Curfew…Curfew…’ And then turning his voice to Ngotho, ‘And you again did nothing?’
Ngotho felt this like a pin pressed into his flesh. He was ready to accept everything, but not this.
‘Listen, my son.’
But Boro had gone out. Ngotho had nobody to whom he could explain. For a long time they were not to see Boro’s face.
Breaking the curfew order was not a very serious crime. It meant a fixed fine for everyone – young and old alike. But in this case when the money for the fine had been taken, only Njeri was released. Kori would be sent to a detention camp, without trial. Ngotho’s prophecy was materialising. But there in the homeguard post, the chief was disappointed because the one he was really after had not been caught. But he did not lose hope.
One day Njoroge went to school early. He knew that something had happened to Ngotho, who no longer looked anybody straight in the face; not even his wives. Njoroge was sure that if a child hit Ngotho, he would probably submit. He was no longer the man whose ability to keep home together had resounded from ridge to ridge. But Njoroge still believed in him and felt secure when Ngotho was near.
Ngotho’s home now was a place where stories were no longer told, a place where no young men and women from the village gathered.
Through all this, Njoroge was still sustained by his love for and belief in education and his own role when the time came. And the difficulties of home seemed to hav
e sharpened this appetite. Only education could make something out of this wreckage. He became more faithful to his studies. He would one day use all his learning to fight the white man, for he would continue the work that his father had started. When these moments caught him, he actually saw himself as a possible saviour of the whole God’s country. Just let him get learning. Let that time come when he…
When Njoroge reached school, he found the other boys in a state of excitement. A small crowd of boys had gathered around the wall of the church. They were reading a letter to the headmaster, fixed to the wall. Every boy who came rushed there shouting and then would come out of the crowd quiet with a changed expression. Njoroge made his way through the crowd. He read the letter. His vision vanished at once. The fear that had caught the whole group attacked him too. For a time there was tension in the atmosphere.
One boy said, ‘They have done the same in Nyeri.’
‘And Fort Hall.’
‘Yes. I must not come back to this school.’
The headmaster came. He was shown the letter. At first he smiled carelessly and reassuringly to the boys. But as he read the letter his lips fell. Gingerly, he took out a razor and removed it, holding it only at the edges. His hands betrayed him.
‘Has any of you touched it?’
‘Nobody, Sir,’ the headboy said.
‘Who came here the earliest?’
‘It is I, Sir.’ A small boy came out from the crowd.
‘Did you find the letter here?’
‘I did not, Sir. I did not look. It’s Kamau who saw it.’
‘Kamau, did you come after Njuguna?’
‘Yes, Sir. You see, Sir, I was going to put my panga against the wall. Then I looked up. I saw the letter. At first I did not–’
‘All right, Kamau. Njuguna, did you meet anybody on the way as you were coming to school?’
‘No, Sir.’
The question in the minds of most boys was: How had Kimathi come to their school? And that day there was an unusual air of gravity in the school.
In the evening, Njoroge related the whole incident to his mother.
‘The letter said that the head of the headmaster plus the heads of forty children would be cut off if the school did not instantly close down. It was signed with Kimathi’s name.’
‘My son, you’ll not go to that school anymore. Education is not life.’
Njoroge felt a hurt comfort.
‘I thought Mau Mau was on the side of the black people.’
‘Sh! Sh!’ Nyokabi cautioned him. ‘Don’t you mention that tonight. Walls have ears.’
But Kamau told him a different thing.
‘You’ll be foolish to leave school. The letter may not be genuine. Besides do you really think you’ll be safer at home? I tell you there’s no safety anywhere. There’s no hiding in this naked land.’
Njoroge did not leave school.
11
Conditions went from bad to worse. No one could tell when he might be arrested for breaking the curfew. You could not even move across the courtyard at night. Fires were put out early for fear that any light would attract the attention of those who might be lurking outside. It was said that some European soldiers were catching people at night, and having taken them to the forest would release them and ask them to find their way back home. But when their backs were turned they would be shot dead in cold blood. The next day this would be announced as a victory over Mau Mau.
The boys too lived in fear. They did not know when the school would be attacked. Most of them had not heeded the warning of the letter. Like Njoroge, they had continued going to school. Njoroge was now a big boy, almost a young man. The full force of the chaos that had come over the land was just beginning to be clear in his mind. All his brothers, except the lonely Kamau, were no longer at home. When the time for circumcision came, it was Kamau who met the cost. It was he who kept the home together, buying food and clothes and paying fees for Njoroge. But he rarely came to sleep at home.
Njoroge still had a father, a brother, and two mothers, and so he clung to his vision of boyhood. With only a year to go before his examination for entrance to a secondary school, he worked hard at his books and his lessons.
Njoroge had not met Mwihaki since she went to the boarding school for girls. This was not an accident. Even before the emergency he had tried to avoid her. How could he have met her when her father and his were enemies in public? He almost felt the pain she must have felt when she had heard that her father had been attacked. Although Njoroge could not bring himself to condemn his father, yet he felt guilty and wished Mwihaki had been his own sister and not the daughter of Jacobo. Their last happy moment, when they had stood holding hands before they went to hear all, still lingered in Njoroge’s mind. It hurt him. Throughout the emergency, the fact that her father was a chief and a leader of the homeguards had made him feel even more acutely the need for a total separation. Yet at times he hungered for her company, for her delicate brown hands and clear innocent eyes.
One Saturday, Njoroge followed the long and broad road to the African shops where Kamau worked. Njoroge was lonely and wanted to find companionship. He always admired the big, strong muscles of Kamau as he held the saw, or the hammer, or the smoothing plane. He looked sure as he hammered in a nail here and sawed a piece of wood there…Njoroge often wondered whether he himself could ever have been like this. This time Njoroge found Kamau not working. There was an uneasy calm over the whole town.
‘Is it well with you, brother?’
‘It’s just well! How is home?’
‘Everything in good condition. Why are you all so grave?’
Kamau looked at Njoroge.
‘Haven’t you heard that the barber and – and –? Six in all were taken from their houses three nights ago. They have been discovered dead in the forest.’
‘Dead!’
‘Yes!’
‘The barber dead? But he cut my hair only – Oh, dead?’
‘It’s a sad business. You know them all. One was Nganga.’
‘Nganga on whose land we have built?’
‘Yes!’
Njoroge remembered that Nganga’s wives had gone from one homeguard post to the next asking to be allowed to see their husband whom they said had been called from bed by a white man.
‘Who killed them really, the white men?’
‘Who can tell these days who kills who?’
‘Nganga really dead!’
‘Yes. And the barber.’
It was almost ridiculous to think that one would never see the six men again. Four of them had been some of the richest people and quite influential in all the land. Njoroge wondered if these were the Mau Mau. For only that could explain why the government people had slaughtered them in cold blood. Would his home be next? Boro was said to have gone to the forest. Njoroge shuddered to think about it.
Two days later. He was on his way home from the marketplace. He cut across the field as he did not want to follow the tarmac road. The deaths of the six men had created a kind of charged stillness in the village. Although there had been several deportations from the village and a few deaths, this was the first big direct blow by either Mau Mau or serikali to the village community. Njoroge could now remember the carpenter whom at childhood he detested and who had befriended them at the hour of their trouble with stronger affection than he had ever felt when the carpenter was alive.
‘Njoroge!’
He did not hear it and would have gone on except that now she was coming towards him. Mwihaki was tall, slim, with small pointed breasts. Her soft dark eyes looked burningly alive. The features of her face were now well defined while her glossy mass of deep black hair had been dressed in a peculiar manner, alien to the village. This immediately reminded Njoroge of Lucia, Mwihaki’s sister, who was now married with two children.
He himself was tall with rather rough, hardened features, which made him look more of an adult than he actually was. He had always had about him a certain wa
rm reserve that made him attractive and mysterious. At first he was shocked into a pleasant sensation and then later was embarrassed by the self-possession and assurance of this girl. How could she be Jacobo’s daughter?
‘I am sorry. I’d have passed you. You have changed much.’ That was how he rather hesitantly excused himself after the usual greetings.
‘Have I? You have changed too.’ Her voice was still soft. ‘Last week when I passed near your home I did not see you.’
Again he felt embarrassed. While he had for years been deliberately avoiding a meeting with her, she had at last taken the initiative to seek him out.
‘It’s a long time since we last met,’ he said.
‘Yes. And much has happened in between – much more than you and I could ever have dreamed of.’
‘Much has happened…’ he echoed her words. Then he asked, ‘How’s boarding school?’
‘Nice. There you are in a kind of cloister.’
‘And the country?’
‘Bad. Like here.’
He thought he would change the subject.
‘Well, I hope you’ll enjoy your holidays,’ he said, preparing to go. ‘I must go now. I must not delay you.’ She did not answer. Njoroge looked up at her.
‘I’m so lonely here,’ she at last said, with a frank, almost childishly hurt voice. ‘Everyone avoids me.’
His heart beat tom-tom. His sense of gallantry made him say, ‘Let’s meet on Sunday.’
‘Where?’
He paused to think of a suitable place.
‘In the church.’ That was where everyone went these troubled days.
‘No! Let’s go there together. It would be like the old days.’
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