by Carl Hancock
‘Your mama went to the hospital today. A check-up on the new child. He is coming soon now.’
‘She asked me to go with her. I don’t like hospitals much.’
‘So I rescued you.’
‘Well, yes, except …’
‘That you don’t like funerals either.’
‘Not all the way up here and for someone I never even met.’
‘Okay, son, we’ll agree on a truce. I’ll just lay my head back and let the tyres eat up the miles. They are getting dinner prepared for when we arrive.’
He closed his eyes, but the hoped for doze into temporary oblivion did not come. Instead he felt the uncomfortable presence of someone he had thought he had rid himself of weeks before. ‘The good doctor’ were Shadrack’s words. Abel had no regrets. Simon Mboya would have been as big a threat to the stability of the state as his Uncle Tom before him, another Luo meddler. They were popular with some of the wananchi. Their careless tongues could blab all the nonsense they liked. Dreamers do not make sensible leaders.
At last, the lights of Nakuru gleamed in the distance. In twenty minutes he would be in State House, back in familiar territory.
After sending three cars straight on to Nairobi, he noticed that his driver, Obi, had a wide grin on his face as he sorted out the formalities with the guards on duty at the gatehouse.
‘Hey, boy, share the story. Me and Reuben here could do with a smile ourselves.’
‘Bwana, just thinking how lucky I am to be driving your car. This place is so … relaxing.’
‘So I made a smart decision to spend the night here? You approve.’
‘Bwana, any decision you make, I approve. But I get on well with the staff here and I like the garden.’
‘Given me an idea. Reuben, make yourself useful. Go inside and check on things. Treat it like a test, practice for the future. I’ll go for a stroll and have a chat with Mama Nature.’
Abel was not far into his walk along a wide path when he remembered that it would bring him to a wooden bench on a grassy mound at the top of the garden. Sitting there brought him a double bonus. The line of jasmine bushes that encircled the base of the mound gave off a scent that was made more intoxicating by the evening dew. The view was special, too. From there he could look down on lower ground that stretched out to the lake and beyond. There it was half a mile beyond the lights of the A104, a flat, glassy, irregular shape reflecting light from some, to him, invisible source. One of the askaris had once told him that on very still nights up there he had heard flamingos paddling noisily around the shallows eating their way through the night.
After half an hour in that place, the low moments of the day were already fading into insignificance for him. He was renewed and had returned to his confident best self.
Before supper he phoned Sally to check on her day.
‘Abel, in two weeks little Julius will be with us. He has been a very busy boy today. I have had to ask him to remember that his mama is not as young as she was. Makes no difference. This one will be his own bwana. Oh, sorry, I am forgetting. The funeral, how was it?’
‘Huh. It passed. What can one say? I suppose the one person I will remember will be Patrick’s mother. She reminded me of Mama. Caught me by surprise. I’m over it now.’
‘Pity.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘Oh nothing. You are such a strong person. Sometimes it is good to have some tears.’
‘But I did. You can ask Reuben. I think he was shocked.’
The pause on her side was brief. ‘Abel, I will be happy to have you home. Are you at the farm?’
‘No. Much closer. Reuben and I are, shall we say, trying out the facilities at State House in Nakuru. I think you know why. We will be home tomorrow.’
Next morning Abel decided that he would make a small diversion on the last leg of the journey back to Karen. His confidence was high and he was ready to negotiate the sale of a piece of land. He had failed to buy twice before, but circumstances had changed since those days. He felt lucky.
Alex McCall was standing at the end of the driveway that led up to South Lake Road. He had walked over there to have a panoramic view of the house and garden now that the site had been cleared. A dozen and more bodies were bent over or kneeling in the earth on this the first day of the new creation.
So firmly was he focused on the work going on in front of him that he did not hear the large black car gliding down the track behind him. A door closed and Alex swung ‘round. He was shocked to see the bulky figure of Abel Rubai sauntering towards him with a hand outstretched.
Alex restrained the reflex reaction to scream at the brass-necked intruder to get off his land. He ignored the proferred handshake. He found it more difficult not to launch himself at this smiling, arrogant, hateful lump of humanity. Rubai was in first.
‘McCall, I hear there’s a piece of land for sale here.’
‘Now which one of your bonehead acquaintances gave you that stupid idea?’
‘Is it just the farm or are the fields included?’
‘I would have thought that with all your money, you could have afforded a hearing aid! I hear there’s a doctor in New York who can fit you up with the newest piece of technology. If you hurry, you could be there by Christmas.’
Abel chuckled. ‘Hey, sarcasm doesn’t suit you, boy!’
‘Boy, is it? Would you like me to call you bwana, too? Look, let’s get this finished quickly so that you can be on your way to the next poor sucker on your list. Not a square inch of this place is for sale, especially to a person of, I’ll put it delicately, of dubious character. Now, please, shove off!’
Abel shifted awkwardly. The smile on his face was long gone. How was it that these McCalls knew the way to needle his family so easily? He would never be able to forget how the piggy face son had been bad news for Julius from they moment they crossed paths up in that European man’s school in Gilgil. What a fool he had been to send him there so that he could learn to act like a proper English gentleman.
He looked towards the house. Obviously a lot of work had gone on there already. These stubborn fools were going to rebuild. That crowd was fixing the garden. How did these bastards manage to win out all the time? He could feel the control slipping, and fast. There were Africans over there kneeling in the deep soil and they were singing. He never noticed any singing from the workmen converting the bush into parkland on his Karen estate. The next stop in the logic of this painful train of thought was the memory of the lines of burnt corpses stretched out in lines on the lawns that used to be over there by that ruin of a farmhouse.
Abel’s breathing was heavy and his expression a scowl. Once again in his mind he was absolving himself from guilt, from accepting the fact that he was the motive force behind the death of forty-five young people. This is what can happen when invaders from up north come down to steal pieces of the sacred homeland. So the Rossi man went too far, but that was not his fault. And still these white bastards would not give the land back.
He must suffer the ordeal again. These people, this family from hell … but he would think about that later. The storm was passing. This stubborn farmer was staring at him. He must not lose face. Thank God he had left Reuben in the car. The boy would not have understood what was going on. And now he must create a smooth departure for himself. He signalled to Obi to turn the car around.
Abel masked his anger with a smile, a hint of a nod.
‘Bwana McCall, I am here with the best of intentions. You are in deep distress and I came to offer you a way out - the full value of the land and the buildings before these misfortunes struck. The offer will stand for a year from today.’
Alex was staring blankly over Rubai’s shoulder at the shiny black car being skillfully manoevred until its nose was pointing up the driveway towards the main road. Under his breath he whispered a single word.
‘Surreal!’
Everyone in that bare garden saw the meeting of the two men but could hear none of
the words exchanged. Maura and Rafaella moved close together as they watched a shocked and weary Alex plodding towards them. Maura broke the silence.
‘Coffee time, everyone. I’ll get the kettle going.’
One mug of sweet coffee and two Mcvitie’s chocolate biscuits later and Alex ended the wait.
‘Maura, if you hadn’t been so quick off the mark with the kettle, I would have been into a large straight whisky by now.’
‘What did he want, Dad?’
‘Tom, that generous man wanted to save us all the bother of working ourselves silly making Londiani an even better place than it was before he tried to wipe us out with his murderous ways.
‘Yeah, I know that’s putting it a bit strong for our first day back on the job. Perhaps I should pretend that we had no visitor out there, just a nasty stench of a bad memory.’
Stephen Kamau, Alex’s good friend, still on full pay for being chief foreman at a nonexistent flower farm, broke in gently.
‘No, Bwana, no use hiding away from trouble. Look Mister Danger straight in the eye. If you bury your head, you can’t even see who’s kicking your backside.’
‘Like some silly old ostrich.’
‘Well, Rollo, perhaps someone hasn’t been telling us the truth about those creatures. One time I took some of the older village boys on a cycle ride ‘round to the other side of the lake. There’s an ostrich farm over there and we had our picnic on some rocks close by. Young Stanley, he was only eight at the time, sat up close to the fence. He was there for an hour or more. Never took his eyes off those big birds.
‘Stanley, time to turn back now, unless you want to spend the night out in the bush. I heard that there’s a couple of old leopards got a place around here.’
‘Bwana Kamau, I don’t think that these birds are real ostriches. No, never saw one of them try to dig a hole and hide his head down inside. Ostriches? I do not think so!’
‘Stephen, your grandchildren are going to love having you come across to the house to tell them bedtime stories.’
‘Yes, bedtime stories. Perhaps I was wrong to speak like that. These kids are so clever and it wasn’t anything made up out of my head. Next day Stanley came up to me. “Bwana, if we had stayed longer. Maybe they only do it at night when nobody sees.” Coasties like me never grow up. Just can’t help ourselves sometimes. Anyway I don’t think Stanley will find any ostriches around Londiani.’
Maria was sitting next to Stephen on the veranda wall. She reached out to grasp his hand.
‘Stephen, you’re the most grown-up person I’ve ever met. And if Stanley had been here a few minutes ago he would have seen an ostrich going off in that big car.’
‘Hang on, Maria, why would he need to bury his head? He’s got nothing to be scared of.’
‘Wrong, Rollo. Men like him scent danger when it’s still a long way off. But be careful when the rat is cornered. And you know the best thing we can do? Plant this garden. Create the work so that there will be flowers and vegetables to look after in the fields over there. Start building the hospital. It will make him even more crazy.’
‘So he will send his thugs to get rid of a few more enemies, burn more kids he’s never heard of.’
‘He might do just that. But Stanley is right. We must not pretend. Hide and hope, hope that he will be blown away like any other bad stench. Of course, he is a monster, a murderer. I do not forget a single one of those young persons whose bodies were lying in this very place, burned to death. But Abel Rubai is also a coward. He has money and he has men ready to do his dirty work.’
Eddie was as distraught as his brother. He had just seen the man who had tried to wipe out his whole family arrogantly invade their farm and pretend to be a potential benefactor.
This man feared nothing.
‘Maria, there is only one sure way for us to be rid of him. We could have done that when he was here. Put one between the eyes.’
‘Solve one problem and create ten more. Listen. We are all country people here. Think of the story of the tall, strong tree, perhaps the biggest in the forest. One morning, a farmer comes along and finds the giant flat on the ground. When he saws across the trunk, he finds the inside is rotten. The preparation for that fall was going on long before it happened.’
Maria held the little audience spellbound. The beautiful Luo woman was on fire with passion. Her brothers, Paul and Barnabas, were both successful lawyers, but they would have been hard put to outshine her in the dynamic presentation of an argument. Like any competent lawyer, she had arguments to back up her case.
‘In a moment of weakness our rulers, two months ago, appointed Andrew Rafiki to investigate corruption and graft in the government. Unfortunately, Andrew, an honest man, took the job very seriously. Some of the power men discovered that he was wanting to look into their books. Last week, we read in The Nation that Andrew has fled the country. His life was in danger. But the evidence he collected is not lost, and when the time comes … The rot is inside the tree.’
‘Maria, what happened?’
‘What do you mean, Maura?’
‘Why aren’t you a lawyer, or an MP, or running some big thing in this country?’
‘What could be more important than helping to plant this new garden? And later I will be going to join Rebecca and Lydia over where the new hospital will be. And, Eddie, there is much rot gathering unnoticed in the heart of the big tree. Many, many policemen want to be part of the change … when the time comes. Ask Inspector Caroline.’
‘Yeah, but when?’
Maria smiled. Rollo and Eddie had known Maria for less time than the others having their extraordinarily long coffee break on that open veranda, and they still found her smile comforting and at the same time disturbing. When those dark eyes were focused on them, it was as if she was able to read their minds or at least work out in which direction their thoughts were moving.
‘The tree will fall sooner than we think. And it will not topple over in the darkness of the night. The axemen are sharpening their blades. They are in danger, more even than any of us.’
‘So there!’ Rollo nodded towards his mother and grandmother with an amused grin.
Chapter Twenty
hen the Mercedes reached the junction at the end of South Lake Road, Obi asked for instructions. ‘High or low, Boss?’
Abel considered the matter before surprising Reuben with his answer.
‘Mmn, go back through the town and up the Escarpment.’
‘But, Dad, that’s so much slower!’
‘Yeah, I know it, but today it suits me to go that way.’
Abel wanted to avoid the unpleasantness of passing the Italian church and close to the place where Patrick Uchome and his wife were killed. He could not know it, but taking the longer route was simply avoiding one distasteful experience to move into another before he even left the town.
‘Hell and damnation! Look over there. Obi, turn right, yes, in through that gate!’
‘Into this field with the big piles of earth?’
‘In case you haven’t noticed there are people there, too.’
‘Yes, I saw them when we drove in. You and the boy were talking.’
Bertie had driven Rebecca and Lydia across town to the site of the new hospital. The first plans had arrived from Debbie Miller in Boston and they wanted to make rough measurements on the site. Lydia and Bertie worked with the tape measure while Rebecca called out the numbers and made notes.
For the second time that morning Abel had the advantage of surprise on his side. Obi had parked just inside the gate and it was the crunch of feet on the gravelly surface that alerted the three busy surveyors to the presence of company.
A shocked Bertie dropped his end of the tape. The unexpected confrontation had him trembling. He was angry but desperate to hang on to his self-control. Abel smiled blandly, delighted to see his nemesis caught out and in a panic. Each one of this trio had caused him a lot of trouble in their different ways. And now this wild idea about
a hospital could be a source of more embarrassment to him personally and politically. No such building would be put up on this site or any other in the town without his say-so.
The stand-off was prolonged. For a few moments, isolated from each other in their reaction, Rebecca, Bertie and Lydia stared incredulous at the intruders. The melting feeling in the pit of their stomachs took away the will and the energy to speak out.
For Reuben, standing a step behind his father, this was a demonstration of the power of his father’s personality. His unexpected arrival was making these people rigid with fear. They were like naughty children caught out by their father in a prank and now scared of the consequences. He was wrong in his assumption.
Bertie made the first move. He picked up his end of the tape measure and wound it in slowly, all the while focusing his eyes on the smiling Abel. When the tape was all in, he walked resolutely towards his car that was parked twenty metres behind where the Rubais stood. He chose to pass much closer to the father and son than was necessary. Reuben thought that this mad white man was about to attack his father and Abel hoped that he would. The physical pain involved would be nothing compared to the benefits it would bring. Before nightfall Briggs would be back in a prison cell, this time in a Nairobi jail.
But Bertie passed on and climbed into his car.
Abel broke the silence with a stab of sarcasm.
‘Ladies, I think that building is over for the day. Your friend has taken the toys away.’
‘Mister Rubai, this is private property.’
This was the best reply that Rebecca could think of in her confused state.
To the accompaniment of Reuben’s guffaws, his father went on.
‘A house girl and a street girl playing at being civil engineers. And your friend there hiding from visitors in his car.’
‘He is not hiding from you. He is not afraid of you. He is afraid of himself.’
‘Very clever. I said that building is over for the day …’
‘But we are not building. The farmers say that the soil here is very rich, just right for growing macadamias. We are measuring out the beds.’