by Frank Coates
He recalled promising Jelani Karura to see her to her door and to assure her mother that she’d come to no harm. Perhaps he was concerned that she know he’d been careful to arrange the girl’s safe return. Sam decided to introduce himself before leaving, and to see that Emerald was still coping after her trauma.
He returned to the cabin door and knocked, turning to study the garden as he waited. Hibiscus hedges broke the neatly trimmed lawn into squares, in the centre of which were frangipani islands.
At the sound of the door opening, he turned back.
‘Sam!’ she said.
‘Dana, how …?’ Sam looked from Dana to Emerald, who stood behind her. He suddenly remembered the resemblance he’d noticed at Grand Central.
Dana opened her mouth, but seemed unable to speak.
Emerald found her voice. ‘How do you two know each other?’
Sam and Dana exchanged glances. Dana was the first to speak. ‘It’s quite a story, which I’ll explain later. Right now, I want to speak to Sam. Why don’t you go to your room, darling? I’ll come by when it’s time for dinner.’
‘Come in, Sam,’ Dana said, stepping aside to let him pass once Emerald had left. She closed the door behind him and took a deep breath as he ran his eyes around the suite. He still looked good in a suit — he was tall and his wide shoulders tapered to narrow hips.
He turned back to her and smiled. ‘Dana. I can’t believe it’s you.’
‘It’s been a long time, Sam.’ She indicated the sofa. ‘Please, make yourself comfortable.’
He sat at one end, she sat at the other, leaning back on the pillow and crossing her legs. She thought she probably appeared more at ease than she felt. She was forearmed by the knowledge that Sam was somewhere in Kenya and there was always a chance they’d meet — she just didn’t know when. On the other hand, the normally unflappable Sam had no knowledge she was there and, as a consequence, seemed quite shaken.
She guessed that Jelani had somehow contrived to get him there. It was just as well. She would have found it difficult to summon the resolve to approach him. But she hadn’t prepared herself for what must be said; and she knew if she postponed telling him for too long, she would lose what little courage she had.
‘Sam, I’m glad you’re here, I —’
‘I’m glad too, Dana. I’ve often thought about you, wondering where you are; how your life has turned out. You look good, by the way.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled. ‘So do you.’
‘And that beautiful young woman is your daughter,’ he said. ‘My God. She has your eyes.’
‘And several of my bad habits, I’m afraid.’
‘I saw her in New York about a year ago. At Grand Central. She was with young Jelani Karura at the time. I’m curious, how do know —’
‘You were in New York at the same time as us?’
‘You were there too? We are plagued by coincidence, you and I.’
‘Hmm … I suspect this meeting isn’t as much of a coincidence as you might think.’
He raised an eyebrow. She remembered the expression and the memory made her heart ache. She wondered if he still used the toe of one shoe to prise off the other rather than untie the laces.
‘How do you know Jelani?’
It was an opening. She took a deep breath.
‘Sam, I have a terrible … admission to make.’ She had trouble meeting his gaze. ‘And I must ask that you say nothing until I’ve told it all.’ She looked at him again. ‘Can you agree?’
He nodded.
‘It’s been so long … so long. I can’t believe that we — who were once so very close — are now sitting here like second cousins.’ She reached a hand to him. ‘You seem so distant, Sam. Will you hold my hand?’
He smiled, and slid closer to take her hand in his.
‘That’s better.’ She tried to compose her thoughts. There was no easy way. ‘I have something to tell you. When I do, you will wonder why I kept it a secret, and then you will want to know why I waited so long to tell you. Let me answer the second question first. I am a coward, Sam. Try as I might, I’ve been unable to find the courage to do the decent thing. I’ve wanted to write to you for twenty years, but I was frightened. You see, I didn’t want you to think badly of me.
‘I often think about my time in Kenya. I’m not proud of some of the things I did here, but I have never regretted knowing you. We were so good together, Sam. I never met anyone else who — Maybe we’re only allocated so much passion to spend during one lifetime and when it’s gone, it’s gone. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I do feel that our time together spoiled me for others. You were enough for one lifetime. I never felt the same about anyone else.
‘So I didn’t want to spoil that wonderful connection we had. I deferred telling you year after year, hoping that it might become easier. It hasn’t. And now, leaving it for so long, I’ve made it worse than ever.
‘And now to the reason I kept this a secret from you. I have two children — a boy and a girl. My daughter’s father is my ex-husband, Edward, who you’ll no doubt remember. It’s more complicated than that, but that will do for the present.’
She paused, and cupped her other hand over his.
‘I’ve thought about how I would put all this in a letter, but as I’ve already said, it was too difficult. But the thing is — what I’ve wanted to tell you for all these years — is that you are the father of my son.’
She felt his hand tighten in hers, and when she lifted her eyes from his hand to his face she could see his mind was in a turmoil. Disbelief. Shock. Was there anger?
‘It was easier to avoid confessing until I met him last year.’ She could see from his expression that he hadn’t yet guessed his son’s identity. ‘You’ve met him, Sam. He has your features: he’s handsome and tall.’
The spark of awareness grew in his eyes.
‘Forgive me, Sam. He already knows you’re his father.’
‘Karura?’
She nodded, and gripped his hand tighter, trying to prevent his earlier good feelings for her from sliding away. She didn’t want to lose him again. Not with anger and resentment.
But he slowly slipped his hand from hers and, with great dignity, stood.
‘I need to leave now.’
‘Sam —’
‘No. I have to go.’
Over the next hour, back in his flat, Sam alternately sat on the bed or paced the confined space of his room. At first he raged in silent fury. Dana’s duplicity, her selfishness, her betrayal, infuriated him. How dare she keep such a secret for so long? Only when it suited her had she revealed the earth-shattering news to him. She’d cheated him of his son for all that time.
Coming, as it did, so soon after witnessing the viciousness of Lari, when his spirit had sunk so low, it was devastating.
Slowly the intensity and focus of his emotions changed from anger to sadness. He’d built and lost businesses; he’d found and abandoned relationships. What he didn’t know, and would never know, was how his life might have been if he’d known about his son.
The question left a numbing vacuum at his core — a sense of enormous loss. A parallel universe had been in existence for twenty years. Now knowing he had a son, the man he thought he was vanished. He was not a businessman, a politician, a loner. He was a father.
Suffused throughout this surge of emotions was Dana — a vision from his wild and intemperate past. As she’d talked, unfolding her secret, he had trouble concentrating on it. Memories intruded: vivid recollections of their impetuous love-making. He saw himself tearing her underwear away, pushing her to the wall of his flat in Muthaiga, and sinking into her as he smothered her with his mouth.
She’d changed little: a few lines and creases where once there were none, but she was still the vibrant and sexy woman from his past.
He slumped onto the bed, trying to imagine how Dana could be so cruel. He recalled her explanation about why she kept her secret. He could almost forgive her, given
the difficulties having a mixed-race child would have created. And he thought how much having her as his wife would have enormously complicated his life too.
Anger returned like a charging lion, demanding attention, roaring so loudly inside his head it erased all other thought. He stood and paced and pounded his fist into his palm until he felt suffocated.
At the open window he rested his hands on the sill. He was exhausted by the surge of emotion. A deep breath of the cool midnight air calmed him and, as he became more peaceful, his thoughts went to his son. He recalled his disillusionment after his good first impressions of him: not a bravely independent and conscientious worker but a Mau Mau sympathiser, perhaps even a full-fledged member of that brutal and misguided movement. He couldn’t imagine how any child of his blood could be part of such an evil cult.
He took another cleansing breath of air. The boy had always been impetuous; and there was no doubting his commitment to an independent Kenya. There were likely plenty of young men in The Movement who had joined with good — if warlike — intentions. Kikuyu men were warriors after all.
Dana said Jelani knew Sam was his father. Why hadn’t he declared himself? He might have been able to help him.
The problem stemmed from Dana not telling him about the boy. If she had, he could have found him, and steered him down the right path. Then he recalled that in those early years he’d been less than a model father, trading in smuggled gold and horseflesh. But if he knew he had a son, it all would have been different. They might have worked together, maybe built a farm.
He spent a restless night, with dreams where he and Jelani merged. Jelani was like an echo from a distant time; a different life. Even a distant land. A place where his genes and Jelani’s were formed. He felt his son’s love for Beth and the agony when he found her raped and murdered. He could feel his blood rise with Jelani’s as he swore to avenge her.
He awoke with a start, remembering what Emerald had said about Jelani: he’d stormed out of Lari intending to find Dedan Kimathi — the person responsible for his fiancée’s death. But Kimathi was a murderous tyrant, surrounded by psychopaths. His son probably knew where he was hiding and would be walking to his death.
He had to stop him, but he had no idea where Kimathi was hiding.
He only knew one man who might know, but Jomo Kenyatta was in gaol — a victim of Governor Baring’s State of Emergency — and under maximum security. Even if he could get permission to see him, Sam could think of no way to convince Kenyatta to give him the information he needed to save his son.
It took Sam two phone calls to find where Jomo Kenyatta was imprisoned. It was more difficult to arrange a special visitor’s pass as he was in solitary confinement, awaiting transfer to Lokitaung — a bleak outpost in the barren wilderness on Kenya’s northern border.
In spite of the complications, Sam had his visitor’s pass shortly after noon, and by three he was in the secure meeting area at the lock-up.
Kenyatta came from his cell, escorted by a policeman. He paused when he saw Sam sitting on the opposite side of the wide wooden table.
‘Wangira? What are you doing here?’
‘I need some information from you, Kenyatta.’
‘Well, well. The famous Sam Wangira, member of the white man’s Legislative Council, is asking help from a convicted Mau Mau sympathiser.’
‘I’m not here as a member of the Legislative Council. This is a personal matter. Between Kikuyu brothers.’
‘I see,’ he said, nodding. ‘Brothers, are we?’
‘I need to know where I can find Dedan Kimathi.’
Kenyatta’s chest-heaving laughter filled the small room. ‘You’re not the only one! When I’ve asked to see my lawyer, they tell me it’s not possible. And yet here you are, Sam Wangira, a Legco man, here to tell me jokes.’
‘I’m not joking. It’s a matter of life and death. I must know.’
‘Your life, my death. Are you not aware that I have an appeal pending? And you ask me to admit to knowing the whereabouts of the most wanted man in Kenya? Don’t make me laugh, Wangira.’
Kenyatta stood to go.
Sam had nothing to offer — no way of buying the favour he needed. He and Kenyatta had been rivals all their lives and it appeared they would remain so. Kenyatta had no reason to help him.
Sam stood.
‘I’m a father, damn you, Kenyatta! Just like you.’
Kenyatta stared back to him. ‘What is that to me?’
‘And I’ve only just learned of my son,’ Sam said, his voice falling away. ‘I don’t want to lose him so soon.’
Kenyatta shook his head, and headed towards the door.
Sam wanted to leap the table and hold him by the throat until he told him what he needed to know. An old memory flashed into his mind. ‘You once predicted you’d be a leader one day,’ Sam said. ‘Well, congratulations, that much seems to be coming true. But you also said you owed me something for that time when I found you in the dry stream, surrounded by hyenas. Does Jomo Kenyatta keep the promises made by Johnstone Kamau?’
Kenyatta stopped. His shoulders dropped. He looked back at Sam, and studied him for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. ‘He does.’
‘There’s no need for this to go any further,’ Sam whispered, as Kenyatta resumed his seat.
Kenyatta’s smile was grim. ‘If it does, your congratulations are premature.’ He was silent for a long time. Sam could almost see his second thoughts.
‘I give you my word,’ he said, his heart pounding.
‘Kimathi’s in the Barako camp,’ Kenyatta said. ‘He’s the commander.’
‘What happened to General Kago?’
If Kenyatta was surprised by Sam’s knowledge of the Mau Mau hierarchy, he didn’t show it.
‘When all the Central Committee were arrested, the young ones — the illiterate hot heads in the forest — took over. I tell you, it’s the end of them. And good riddance. I will make my way without them.’
‘Barako! Did you say Barako?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘The Lincolns!’ Sam muttered as he leaped to his feet, toppling his chair.
‘What’s wrong with you, Wangira?’
‘What day is it? Is it the twenty-ninth?’
‘It’s the twenty-eighth. Are you mad?’
Sam banged on the door.
‘Guard!’ he called. ‘Guard! Get me out of here!’
CHAPTER 61
Jelani avoided the small village of Barako. He wanted no one to see him heading towards Mt Kinangop. His presence in such an isolated spot could only mean that he was going to the Mau Mau camp and, in Barako, The Movement had many supporters. Kimathi had introduced him to a few as he led him to the Mt Kinangop camp when General Kago was its commander.
He walked north through the almost trackless dense bush that clung to the lower ridges of Mt Kinangop until, in late afternoon, he entered one of the occasional clearings found throughout the Aberdares. It had been created by a large herd of browsing elephant. The trees within an area of some three or four acres had been torn down or stripped bare. As a boy he’d seen similar sites where, for reasons only known to the elephants, they found the area satisfactory in every regard and regularly returned to feast until the land was denuded. Such pockets of grassland had a beneficial effect on other grazers, and he disturbed a large number of impala and other antelope as he entered it.
It was growing dark and he was still an hour from Kimathi’s camp. He decided to wait until morning. He didn’t want to blunder into one of Kimathi’s lookouts in the dark — he needed the element of surprise if he was to be successful.
He spread the canvas sheeting he’d brought from the car under a tree at the edge of the clearing and pulled the revolver from its sheath. It had been in the boot of the union’s Ford since Chege Muthuri quit the movement. Jelani had forgotten about it until coldly planning this assault.
He checked the chambers. He’d never used a firearm in his life. Under the Emergen
cy, even the possession of such a weapon invoked a mandatory death sentence.
His courage wavered. To attempt to murder the leader of the Mau Mau in his own camp was suicide. Then he thought about Beth; and the anger that immediately arose made breathing a difficult task. But it gave him strength.
It was dark and treacherous on the Naivasha – Nairobi road. Sam threw the car into the corners and thrashed it along the straight stretches, arriving at the small bar that Collins Mutisa frequented just before eight. He was relieved to find his man sitting alone with a jar of spirits in front of him.
Sam pulled out the chair opposite and leaned across the table to him.
‘Mutisa,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I have to find the Barako camp.’
Mutisa blinked like an owl caught in the light. ‘Habari, bwana,’ he slurred. ‘Habari yako?’
‘Listen, I have to get to Barako urgently.’
‘Well … bwana, that is very very difficult.’
‘Damn it, Mutisa, sober up. I need you.’
He looked bewildered. ‘Sorry, bwana, just a few drinks, and …’ His voice trailed off into a mumble.
Sam reached across the table and took him by the scruff of his collar, shaking him so much that his head snapped back.
Mutisa’s eyes bulged.
It was useless; Sam gave up. He consoled himself with the thought that it was probably foolish to try to find his way in the forest at night. He’d have a few hours in the morning before the sun melted the fog, and the Lincoln bombers took off on their secret mission to bomb the Mau Mau’s Mt Kinangop camp, using coordinates that Sam himself had provided to General Erskine.