‘Would you like some tea, coffee or anything?’
‘I – I must go!’ Karanja stammered out his thoughts.
‘Sure you don’t want some coffee? Never mind Mrs Dickinson,’ she said, smiling, feeling indulgent, almost glad of a conspiracy.
‘All right,’ he said edging deeper into the seat with eyes longing for the door and the hedge beyond. Even now he had no courage to lean back and be comfortable. At the same time, he desperately wished one of the workers was present to see him entertained to coffee by a white woman, the wife of the Administrative Secretary.
In the kitchen, Margery played with pots and cups. Although she was still ashamed of the thrill, she would not let it go. She could only remember once before when she had experienced a similar flame. That was the day she danced with Dr Van Dyke at Githima hostel. This was soon after the Rira disaster. She was attracted, at the same time disgusted, by his drunken breath. When later in the evening he took her for a drive, she submitted to his power. She let him make love to her, and experienced, for the first time, the terrible beauty of a rebellion.
Waiting in the room, Karanja found his nervous unease replaced by a different desire. Should he ask her, he wondered. Maybe she would give him what he really wanted: to hear her contradict rumours that the Thompsons would be flying back to England. Many times Karanja had walked towards Thompson determined to ask him a direct question. Cold water lumped in his belly, his heart would thunder violently when he came near the whiteman. His determination always ended in the same way: he would salute John Thompson and then walk past as if his business lay further ahead. What Karanja feared more than the rumours was their possible confirmation. As long as he did not know the truth, he could interpret the story in the only way that gave him hope: the coming of black rule would not mean, could never mean the end of white power. Thompson as a DO and now as an Administrative Secretary, had always seemed to Karanja the invincible expression of that power. How, then, could Thompson go?
Margery came back with two cups of coffee.
‘Do you take sugar in your coffee?’
‘No,’ he said automatically, and knew, at the same time, he lacked the courage to ask her about the rumours. Karanja loathed coffee or tea without lots of sugar.
Margery sat opposite Karanja and crossed her legs. She put her cup on the arm of the chair. Karanja held his in both hands afraid of spilling a drop on the carpet. He winced every time he brought the cup near his lips and nostrils.
‘How many wives have you?’ she asked. This was her favourite question to Africans; it began the day she discovered her latest cook had three wives. Karanja started as if Margery had tickled a wound that had only healed at the surface. Mumbi.
‘I am not married.’
‘Not married? I thought you people— Are you going to buy a wife?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you a friend, a woman?’ She pursued, her curiosity mounting; her voice was timbred with warmth. Something in the quality of her voice touched Karanja. Would she understand? Would she?
‘I had a woman. I – I loved her,’ he said boldly. He closed his eyes and with sudden, huge effort, gulped down the bitter coffee.
‘Why didn’t you marry her? Is she dead or—’
‘She refused me,’ he said.
‘I am sorry,’ she said with feeling. Karanja remembered himself and where he was.
‘Can I go now, Memsahib? Any message for Bwana?’
She had forgotten why Karanja had come into the house. She re-read the note from her husband.
‘No, thank you very much,’ she said at the door.
It was almost twelve o’clock when Karanja left Thompson’s house. The wound that Margery had tickled smarted for a while. Then gradually he became exhilarated, he wished Mwaura had seen him at the house. He also wished that the houseboy had been present, for then news of his visit would have spread. As it was, he himself would have to do the telling: this would carry less weight and power. Being nearly time for lunch-break, he went straight to the eating-house at the African quarters, thinking about his visit and the bitter cup of coffee.
The eating-house was called Your Friend Unto Death, in short, Friend. The stony walls were covered with grease, a fertile ground for flies. They buzzed around the customers, jumped on top of the cups and plates and at times even made love on food brought on the table. Plastic roses in tins decorated each creaking table. The motto of the house was painted in capitals across the wall: COME UNTO ME ALL YE THAT ARE HUNGRY AND THIRSTY AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. On another part of the wall near the cashier’s desk hung a carefully framed poem.
Since man to man has been unjust,
Show me the man that I can trust.
I have trusted many to my sorrow,
So for credit, my friend, come tomorrow.
Friend was the only licensed eating-house at Githima.
There Karanja found Mwaura. It was not good to create enemies, Karanja always told himself after alienating any of the other workers.
‘I am sorry about the incident,’ Karanja quickly said, an affability that didn’t come off. ‘I hope you’ll take it as a little shauri between friends. You see, some people don’t understand that the work we do, you know, writing labels for all those books of science, requires concentration. If somebody flings the door open without warning, it upsets you and you ruin the letters. I tell you, if you knew that Librarian woman as well as I do – you think she separated from her husband for nothing – Waiter, two cups of tea, quick … Now, what news from Rung’ei?’
John Thompson – tall, a leathery skin that stuck to the bone – did not go to Nairobi, but remained at Githima during the lunch-hour going through the motions of working: that is, he would stand, go to the cabinet by the wall, pull out a file, and return to the table, his face weather-beaten into permanent abstraction, almost as if his mind dwelt on things far away and long ago. His thin hands and light eyes went through each file carefully before returning it to the cabinet. Once or twice he sat up and his finger played with a few creases crowded around the corner of his mouth.
In turn, Thompson contemplated the clean blotting-paper on the table, the pen and pencil rack, the ink-bottle, the white-washed office walls and the ceiling as if seeking a pattern that held the things in the room together: but his mind only hopped from one thought to another. He then took the day’s – Monday’s – issue of the East African Standard, the oldest daily in Kenya, and leaned back on the chair. Glancing through reports on Uhuru preparations for Thursday, Thompson winced with a vague sense of betrayal. He could not tell what it was in the paper which since internal self-government in June, caused this feeling – whether it was in the Uhuru news, which he already knew, or in the tone, a too-ready acceptance of things. Once he saw the picture of the Prime Minister on the front page: he could not look at it twice, but hurried on to the next page: afterwards he felt ashamed of this reaction, but he could not bring himself to look at it again. Thompson already knew the Duke of Edinburgh would deputize for the Queen. Any news of Uhuru always reminded him of this knowledge. No matter how he looked at it, Thompson was pinched by sadness at the knowledge that the Duke would sit to see the flag lowered, never to rise again on this side of Albion’s shore. This sadness was accentuated by his mind racing back to 1952 when the Queen, then a princess, visited Kenya. For a minute, Thompson forgot the newspaper and relived that moment when the young woman shook hands with him. He was then District Officer. He felt a thrill: his heart-beat had quickened as if a covenant had been made between him and her. Then, there, he would have done anything for her, would have stabbed himself to prove his readiness to carry out that mission which though unspoken seemed embodied in her person and smile. Recalling that rapture, Thompson involuntarily pushed away the paper and rose to his feet. There was a flicker in his eyes, a water glint. He walked towards the window muttering under his breath:
‘What the hell was it all about!’
The momentary excitemen
t died and a hardness settled in his belly. He leaned forward, his eyes vaguely surveying the scene: in front of him lay the low corrugated-iron roofs of the three laboratories – one for plant pathology and forestry, one for soil-physics and the other for soil-chemistry. To the left, hot-houses were scattered about in groups of two or three. He watched Dr Lynd, a plant pathologist at the station, cross the tarmac road; soon she disappeared behind the hot-houses; a few seconds later her dog, a brown bull-mastiff with black dewlaps, dashed from the laboratories and followed her. To the right, he could just see the library: a group of Africans lay on the grass below the eaves. Everything was so quiet, Thompson reflected, now looking from the green grass compound to the chemistry-block, the nearest laboratory. Test-tubes upon test-tubes were neatly arranged by the glass window. Would these things remain after Thursday? Perhaps for two months: and then – test-tubes and beakers would be broken or lie unwashed on the cement, the hot-houses and seed-beds strewn with wild plants and the outer bush which had been carefully hemmed, would gradually creep into a litter-filled compound.
The bull-mastiff emerged from the other side of the chemistry-block, sniffing along the grass-surface. Then it stood and raised its head towards the library. Thompson tensed up: something was going to happen. He knew it and waited, unable to suppress that cold excitement. Suddenly the dog started barking as it bounded across the compound towards the group of Africans. A few of them screamed and scattered into different directions. One man could not run in time. The dog went for him. The man tried to edge his way out, but the dog fixed him to the wall. Suddenly he stooped, picked up a stone, and raised it in the air. The dog was now only a few feet away. Thompson waited for the thing he feared to happen. Just at that moment, Dr Lynd appeared on the scene and, as the dog was about to jump at the man, shouted something. Thompson’s breath came back first in a long-drawn wave, then in low quick waves, relieved and vaguely disappointed that nothing had happened.
He left the office and walked across the grass compound towards the library where a small crowd of Africans had gathered. Dr Lynd held her dog by the collar with the left hand and pointed an accusing finger at Karanja with the other.
‘I am ashamed of you, utterly ashamed of you,’ she said putting as much contempt as she could into her voice. Karanja looked at the ground; fear and anger were visible in his eyes; the sweat-drops had not yet dried on his face.
‘The dog – dog – come – Memsahib,’ he stammered.
‘I would never have thought this of you – throwing stones at my dog.’
‘No stones – I did not throw stones.’
‘The way you people lie—’ she said, looking round at the others. Then she turned to Karanja. ‘Didn’t I catch you holding a stone? I should have allowed him to get at you. Even now I’ve half a mind to let him—’
At this point John Thompson arrived at the scene. The Africans gave way, Dr Lynd stopped admonishing Karanja and smiled at Thompson. Karanja raised his head hopefully. The other Africans looked at Thompson and stopped murmuring and mumbling. The sudden silence and the many eyes unsettled Thompson. He remembered the detainees at Rira the day they went on strike. Now he sensed the same air of hostility. He must keep his dignity – to the last. But panic seized him. Without looking at anybody in particular, he said the first Swahili words that came into his mouth:
‘I’ll deal with this.’ And immediately he felt this was the wrong thing to have said – it smacked too much of an apology. The silence was broken. The men were now shouting and pointing at the dog: others made vague gestures in the air. Karanja watched Thompson with grateful eyes. Thompson quickly placed his arm on the woman’s shoulder and drew her away.
He led her through the narrow corridor that joined the library block and the administrative building, without knowing where he was going. Everything seemed a visitation from the past: Rira and the dog. Dr Lynd was talking all the time.
‘They are rude because Uhuru is coming – even the best of them is changing.’
He wanted to tell her about the dog but somehow found it difficult. He knew he ought to have done something. What if Karanja had been touched by the dog? As the Administrative Secretary, he was supposed to deal with staff–worker relations; and he had received a number of complaints about Dr Lynd’s dog from the secretary of the Kenya Civil Servants’ Union (Githima branch). They had now come into a big tree-nursery surrounded by a wire fence. They sat down on a grassy part. He wanted to tell her the truth – but he would have to tell her about his own paralysis – how he had stood fascinated by an anticipation of blood.
‘Actually, it was not the boy’s fault …’ he stared. ‘I saw the dog run towards them.’
Like many other Europeans in Kenya, Thompson had a thing about pets, especially dogs. A year ago he had taken Margery to Nairobi to see Annie Get Your Gun staged at the National Theatre by the City Players. He had never been to that theatre before – for nothing really ever happened there – he always went to the Donovan Maule Theatre Club. The road from Githima to Nairobi passed through the countryside. It was very dark. Suddenly the headlights caught a dog about to cross the road. Thompson could have braked, slowed down or horned. He had enough time and distance. But he held on the wheel. He did not want to kill the dog and yet he knew he was going to drive into it. He was glued to the seat – fearing the inevitable. Suddenly there was a scream. Thompson’s energy came back. He braked to a stop and opened the door and went out, taking a pocket torch. He went back a few yards; there was no dog anywhere. He looked on either side of the road but saw no sign of the dog – not even a trail of blood. Yet he had heard the thud and the scream. Back in the car, he found Margery quietly weeping. And to his surprise, he too was shaking and could not comfort her. ‘Perhaps it’s under the car,’ she said. He went out again and carefully peered under the car. There was nothing. He drove away sadly; it was as if he had murdered a man.
He had relived the chilling scene the moment he saw the bull-mastiff run towards Karanja; the incident was still close to the skin as he tried to tell Dr Lynd what had happened – the difficulty lay in separating what had occurred outside his office on the grass – only tell her that – from what had gone on inside him.
To his surprise and extreme discomfort, he saw that she was weeping, and looked away: the dog was wandering among the young trees; it stopped beside a crowd of camphor trees, raised its hind leg and passed water.
‘I am sorry,’ Dr Lynd said, suppressing a sniff, holding a white handkerchief to her eyes. She was a grey-haired woman with falling flesh on her cheeks and under her eyes. She daily flitted about the compound – between the hot-houses, the laboratories and the seed-beds – a solitary being, like a ghost.
‘Don’t let it worry you,’ he said, his eyes vaguely following the dog.
‘I tried not to, but – but – I hate them. How can I help it? Every time I see them I remember – I remember—’
He fidgeted on the grass, felt his ridiculous position in relation to this woman from whom he wanted to get away now that the urge to tell her about the dog had faded. But Dr Lynd was in that mood – a sudden upsurge of pure holy self-pity – when one feels closer to another person, even to a stranger, and ready to confide in him one’s innermost dreads and burdens. So she told him about the incident that had plagued her life, had shamed her being. She had lived alone, at Muguga, in an old bungalow overgrown with bush on all sides to the roofs. She had loved the house, the solitude, the peace. It was during the Emergency. Many times the DO warned her to leave the lonely place and go to Githima or Nairobi where she would be sure of protection and security. She would not hear of it: the stories of women murdered in their remote farm-houses did not frighten her. She had come to Kenya to do a job not to play politics. She liked the country and the climate and so had decided to stay. She had never harmed anybody. True, she often scolded her houseboy but she also gave him presents, clothes, built him a little brick house at the back, and never worked him hard. He was a small Ki
kuyu man from Rung’ei who had apparently been a cook or something during World War II, but had been without a job for a long time before he came to her. Between the houseboy and the dog had developed a friendship which was very touching to see. There came one night, it was dark outside, when the boy called her to open the door rather urgently. On opening the door, two men rushed at her and dragged her back to the sitting-room, the houseboy following. They tied her hands and legs together and gagged her. She waited for them to kill her, for after the initial shock she had resigned herself to death. But what followed was no less cruel and barbaric than if they had killed her. Her dog had barked at the two men. But on seeing the houseboy it wagged its tail and held back its attack. But the houseboy hacked it to pieces. Blood splashed her clothes. She wished she could faint or die there and then. But that was the terrible part, she saw everything, was fully conscious … They took money and guns from the safe. Later two men were arrested and hanged; the houseboy was never caught. She had to buy and train another dog. She had never been able to outlive the heavy smell, the malicious mad eyes of those men – no – no, she would never forget it to her dying day.
Thompson looked at her, recoiling from her voice, from her body, from her presence. Both left the field, and took different paths, almost as if they were ashamed of their latest intimacy. He felt rather than knew the fear awakened in him. In the office, he tried to suppress the low rage of fear, but only thought of the dog. And he remembered the other dog as the headlight caught its eyes. What happened to it? What would have happened if the bull-mastiff had jumped on Karanja and torn his flesh? The hostility he saw in the men’s eyes as he approached them. The silence. Sudden. Like Rira. There the detainees had refused to speak. They sat down and refused to eat or drink. The obduracy was like iron. Their eyes followed him everywhere. The agony, lack of sleep, thinking of how to break the silence. And in the dark, he could see their eyes. In the men at the library, he had recognized the eyes, the same look.
A Grain of Wheat Page 6