We had lit a bonfire outside the block of tin shacks where the boy had lived, and around which we had conducted our meetings. On that last day of our gatherings, the chang’aa had flown freely, and by the time the sun began to rise in the eastern sky, everyone had curled up in their long night-coats, sleeping. I rose from my comfortable wicker chair and walked to a bush to take a leak. As I settled back in my place and prepared to light a cigarette in the smouldering embers, Kaka, who slept next to me, stirred and opened his eyes.
“What time is it, cousin, do you know?”
I glanced at my cheap quartz clock. “Almost five. Ten minutes to. Why?”
“I was wondering if it was light enough to set off back to Kawangware. People should be up and about by now—those who need to report early for work.”
Glancing toward the east, I said, with repressed excitement, “You are right, Kaka. There should be people on the road by now. It should be safe enough to cross the valley. Do you want to go to bed?”
“Me?” said Kaka with a laugh. “Oh no, I can’t sleep right now. I need to chase money, bwana! I was thinking of opening the club earlier as I need to attend to some business at the bank in the afternoon.”
I had spent considerable time in Kaka’s company these past four days—gathering wood for the bonfire and assisting him with organizational tasks—and we had fallen into an easy comradeship.
“Well, if that’s the case, then why don’t we get on our way?” I said smoothly, glancing casually to my left. “Our business here is completed, and I might as well get a little sleep in my own bed before reporting for business.”
Kaka rose and stretched, yawning into his fist. “I wonder who else is ready to leave?” he said loudly, glancing around at the sleeping men. I glanced to my left, where Mbiko was curled tightly in his jacket, his chin tucked deep into the raised collar.
“Hey, Mbiko, let’s get on our way,” I said, shaking him softly. “It is dawn.” Mbiko grunted and rolled over, his eyes still tightly closed. I tried Papa, seated a little distance away, but he turned slightly in his chair and snored even louder.
“Oh, leave them,” said Kaka, reaching for my cigarette. “Let’s go. The two of us will be fine.” He checked his flashlight and machete, ensuring they were tucked in place inside his jacket, before setting off into the grey dawn in the direction of the valley, dragging at the stub of cigarette. I glanced casually around as I followed him, my heart going pit-a-pat in my chest with mounting excitement. I was certain that not a soul saw us leave.
Kaka walked briskly, and I had to hurry to keep up with him. We made our way into the valley toward Mau Mau Bridge. Twice I tripped and Kaka had to wait for me.
“You know, you should eat more carrots, cousin,” Kaka joked. “A man needs to have good eyesight, especially in the dark.”
As we began the climb toward Kawangware, after crossing Mau Mau Bridge, the grey dawn suddenly burst into life. We had just passed the Nissen hut—meant to serve as a police patrol post, but which had long been abandoned by cops on the night beat—when figures suddenly appeared like phantoms on the road ahead. A flashlight shone briefly before being switched off. Kaka stopped, tense, and I fell back as three figures emerged from either side of the road.
“He…” Kaka started to say, reaching into the folds of his jacket. I heard a sharp whizzing sound before a blow struck Kaka just above the ear, knocking him off his feet. Two of the figures grabbed him before he fell to the ground and dragged him into the Nissen hut. Kaka struggled against our efforts to restrain him; three of us lent our weight to keep him down. I felt the smooth handle of a hacksaw being slipped into my hand.
“Remember your lessons, kijana…25 He must look you in the eye as you do it,” whispered the coarse voice of Papa. “That is the only way it will be stronger. Now, don’t mess this up.”
Kaka summoned all the energy in his ox-like body and gave a mighty heave; two of us pinning him down were thrown into the wall of the tin hut. But, like canines that were drawn by the smell of blood, they bounced back and knocked him down before he could rise to his feet. A solid punch connected with Kaka’s solar plexus, causing the wind to rush out of him like a punctured balloon. It was only with Papa sitting squarely on his chest, Mbiko holding his thighs, and Babu pinning his shins that he was finally stilled. Someone produced a piece of cloth and Kaka was quickly gagged. His dark face was slick with sweat, his horrified eyes like white balls popping out of his skull. Poor Kaka—his goose was cooked.
I glanced outside to see if anyone had heard the crash. Confirming there was no one on the road I went to work. Squatting above Kaka, the mzee switched on a flashlight, and I gripped the handle of the tiny hacksaw firmly in my hand, forcing my eyes to meet Kaka’s.
I am still haunted by the sickening sound of the saw working its way through the quivering bone and the distant voice of Papa filling my head…
“Good… very good—just like a surgeon. A youthful hand for a youthful hand…just perfect! I always knew you were the strong one. Your other Papa, too. Turns out we were right. And you know what? You’ve just bought your ticket to succeed me as the next Papa when I retire. You have earned it, boy.”
After we had collected our gory trophy, we finally allowed Kaka to breathe his last, aided by a forceful machete blow. Soon after, a van that had been hidden in the path-side bushes backed up to the hut, its lights off. We loaded the body and clambered inside quickly, acutely conscious of the breaking dawn. As the van sped away, someone put a bottle of Borzoi to my lips. I never needed liquor so badly—before or since.
The body, discovered on Waiyaki Way just before Uthiru later that day, had been flattened by a twenty-four-wheeler cargo truck. The second funeral that week was somber, and all the Wambilangyas were in attendance. No one was fooled—their elders had evidently pieced together all the particulars of our crime, but we were not worried. This nighttime ambush was strictly an internal affair. No one was going to say a word, and any police investigations were guaranteed to hit a brick wall. Nonetheless, we were quite aware that this was not the end of the matter, and that we had only bought ourselves a little time. The Wambilangyas would bide their time before they made their own move. It was the custom.
* * *
15 Raw brown sugar made from crushed cane juice, predominately used in a brewery
16 Boiled or fried green bananas or plantains; a staple in Uganda
17 A twig grown in the Kenyan highlands that when chewed acts as a mild stimulant, particularly popular among the Somali community of northern Kenya and among urban youth
18 Swahili for “welcome, sir”
19 used clothes
20 Officer Commanding Station
21 A harsh gin popular in Uganda.
22 A home-made liquor popular in Kenya.
23 Swahili for “old man”
24 A shared public shuttle van/bus popular in Kenyan cities
25 Swahili for “young man”
Shikwe and Andati's Assignment
Shikwe walked slowly down the narrow path, swinging his load of millet from one shoulder to the other and chewing a thick stalk of brown sugarcane he had found by the stream. Andati followed close behind, carrying his own bundle of maize, which would be used to “clean” the mill after Shikwe had ground his millet. It was Andati’s turn to eat the upper end of the sugarcane, which had less sugar in it.
“Shikwe, I heard Mother saying that Uncle Mukolwe is coming tomorrow,” said Andati.
“Yeah, I heard it too,” said Shikwe, his brow creasing.
“I hope he doesn’t make it. Maybe the bus from Busia will stall or something.”
“Or the bridge will overflow and the bus will have to turn back to spend the night in Bungoma.”
The boys had never pretended affection for
their uncle. Indeed, they became visibly tense every time he stopped in after inspecting his business in Busia, en route to his home in Shianda. Uncle Mukolwe’s fingers seemed perpetually itching to slap or pinch someone for doing something wrong.
“I wonder why he has to stop by all the time,” Shikwe groused. “Can’t he just go on the rest of the way home?”
“Perhaps it is the prospect of having a chicken slaughtered for him,” said Andati with a cheeky laugh, wiping cane juice from his chin with the back of his hand. “If there is one thing that old man is fond of, it is chicken. He can finish a whole mountain of ugali if served with stewed chicken!”
It was often hard to tell the two boys apart, although the close observer might judge Andati to be slightly taller and leaner than his brother. Their faces were both dark and lit up in the same way when they laughed, their front teeth white and shiny against their black gums. The boys were always together. They shared a desk at the village school, slept on the same mat in the little boys’ hut next to the cattle pen, and wore the same clothes—oversize faded blue jinja shirts that hung to their knees, and unbuttoned epaulettes that bounced up and down. The boys’ shirt tails almost covered their identical khaki shorts, worn to a mesh at the seat.
“I wonder why Father insists on Uncle spending the night in our hut,” said Shikwe, stopping to poke his big toe at a tuft of dusty grass by the path-side where a lizard had just dashed for safety.
“You mean you don’t know why?” Andati asked, with a cheeky grin. “It is because he farts in his sleep, that’s why.”
Shikwe laughed until tears filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He always found Andati’s perspective amusing.
For a while the boys walked on in silence, shifting their loads from one shoulder to the other as they chewed the sugarcane. Their bare feet, wet from crossing the muddy stream, had started to dry in the hot afternoon sun, leaving grey muddy streaks caked upon their wiry legs. Flies buzzed around the welts their mother’s old razor had left on their clean-shaven scalps, the skin moist from the long climb. They followed a narrow path through the sugar fields, a route shorter than the main murram road.
“What is that smoke over there?” Shikwe asked, pointing in the distance to where a thick column of dark smoke rose slowly at the edge of the cane field.
“Must be someone burning their cane,” Andati answered, following his brother’s gaze.
“I wish it was close to our village.”
“Why?”
“I like the taste of burnt cane.”
“Ha! Not me,” said Andati. “I’d rather have fresh river cane any time.”
While the villagers assumed the boys to be brothers, Shikwe and Andati were not, in fact, related by blood. When the boys were both still very young, Andati had come to live with Shikwe’s family from his own village of Matungu. Andati’s father, apparently—or so their aunt had told them—had stepped on an abandoned trap while hunting in the bush. Although his companions had managed to extract his foot from the rusty jaws of the trap and carried him home, his foot had never healed, despite the herbal concoctions applied by the village herbalist. By the time they decided to take Andati’s father to the mission hospital in Mumias, the whole leg had become gangrenous and had to be amputated. This decision was of little use to Andati’s father, who, the day before the scheduled amputation, slipped into a coma and died in his sleep.
Andati’s mother, left on her own, had been unable to provide for Andati and his two sisters. The day her husband died, she took her pot to the well and never returned. Shikwe’s father, hearing of these unfolding events, brought Andati to live with them, while the boy’s two sisters went to live with an aunt in Mwitoti.
Shikwe and Andati knew that the latter’s mother had married again, to a man in the neighboring village, as his second wife. Her new husband, being wealthy, had opened a vegetable stall for her at the market in Mumias. Andati’s mother, Auma, had secretly visited her son, told him about her vegetable stall, and invited him to visit her there whenever they stopped in at their Uncle Abdulrahman’s butcher shop in Mumias. Andati had slipped away to visit his mother’s stall several times since; on the last visit she had given him a bundle of yams and simsim, which the boys shared as they walked back to the village.
The boys knew never to speak about these secret meetings, particularly in front of Shikwe’s father. They seldom talked of Andati’s mother when they were alone, either; her remarriage made them both a little uncomfortable.
“I wish Father sends us to Mumias soon,” said Andati. “The mangoes we saw last time must have ripened by now.” Guava and mango trees grew wild and lush in the old town cemetery, which the boys always passed on the way to their uncle’s shop.
“Maybe we should think of something to persuade him,” said Shikwe, his mouth watering at the thought of the juicy, sweet mangoes. “What about we cut the tether of the big bull so that he sends us for a replacement? It should be child’s play rubbing it against a rock so that it weakens and breaks.”
“That is a good idea,” Andati agreed.
“Well, let’s work on it tomorrow after school, then. I can almost taste those mangoes!”
A sizeable crowd of village children had gathered at the posho mill when the boys arrived. Shikwe poured his load of maize on the mesh tray vacated by a girl before him and started shifting it up and down with his hands. Andati, ambling over to the flour-encrusted mesh wire window, looked inside and grinned at the miller. The miller, snatching up a piece of maize cob, threw it playfully at Andati before resuming his work.
The miller’s old bicycle leaned against the shop pillar, its rusty mudguards held in place with twisted wire over patched tyres. The cracked leather saddle, perched at a tired angle, was shiny with constant use, and bare metal spokes stuck out where rubber pedals used to be.
Andati was tempted to seize the bike and take off down the village path. But the miller, wary of boys with similar intentions, had chained it securely to the shop pillar. The old Diamond padlock, Andati knew, could be easily coaxed open with a twisted length of wire.
Massive tractors trundled past the posho mill, hauling trailers bulging with cut cane, destined for the sugar factory in Mumias. Occasionally, a matatu puttered along the road, crammed full of goods and passengers. It paused long enough to disgorge a passenger or two at the bus stop, before roaring away, leaving a trail of dust and black diesel smoke in its wake. Up and down the lone street of the little market, villagers went about their business, haggling over a fowl or measuring out a tin of grain.
Andati rummaged in his bag and found a tightly knotted cloth bundle buried in the millet. Coaxing the knot loose with his teeth, Andati unwrapped the bundle and handed over the grubby coins to the mill owner, who dozed on his desk beside the weighing scale.
“That is millet, right?” asked the mill owner, waking from his drowsy slumber at the clink of coins. He peered with bloodshot eyes into Andati’s bag. Everyone knew the mill owner, a squat and surly man, favored the fiery chang’aa liqueur sold in the shack behind the mill. “Do you have the maize to clean the mill?”
“I am with him,” Andati piped up.
The ill-tempered mill owner dug one thick hand into the bulging patch pocket on his tunic and counted Shikwe’s grubby coins with the other, inspecting several that were nicked and twisted from the playing of poker. Visibly unhappy, he returned the fistful of coins to his pocket and ambled out the back entrance, a cheerless whistle playing on his thick lips.
The boys waited for Andati’s turn to grind his corn. The miller, a wiry little man named Sudi, who had a permanent squint from smoking cheap Rooster cigarettes, was beating the khaki chute attached to the flour spout, shaking out any remaining millet flour before pouring Shikwe’s maize in to “clean up” the mill.
“How would the two of you boys like to own a dog?” he asked suddenly, pulling on the stub of cigaret
te he was smoking.
“A dog?” asked Shikwe, perplexed. He knew that the miller liked to make fun, and was not sure if he was serious.
“Yes, a dog. You know about my old black bitch, don’t you?”
“Sure,” said Andati. “Isn’t that the skinny one with long nipples that hang down almost to the ground?”
“Ah! So you boys know the dog! Well, she gave birth to a sizeable litter recently, as you well know. And now I have so many puppies running all over the place, I just don’t know what to do with them. As you might know, the mill owner is one mean fellow who barely pays me enough to keep the shirt on my back. You know, I got an offer to go and work for some people who are opening a new mill in Ekero.”
“I know of the new mill,” said Shikwe. “I heard my father discussing it with someone the other day.”
“Is it?” said Sudi, looking interested.
“Yes, I heard them too,” said Andati. “All the villagers have been talking about the new mill.”
“Well, the new mill will have four imported brand new engines—a far cry from this noisy old wreck. The Ekero mill was financed by a number of merchants who want to dominate the milling business, not just in this area but in neighboring districts as well. And I cannot lie to you boys, I am itching to work there. I have heard that the Ekero mill will take orders from as far away as Kisumu! I tell you, it is just the place I’d like to be. And the owners of this new mill know that I will bring my customers with me,” Sudi confided. “Everyone here knows that I am the best miller, and that my customers would certainly follow me to the new place when word gets around that I have changed jobs.”
The miller took a long drag from his cigarette, a self-satisfied smile playing on his chapped lips. “But in the meantime, as I wait for the new mill to open, I still have to put food on the table. In short, boys, what I am saying is that I cannot feed all those puppies.”
Dog Meat Samosa Page 5