The old man was highly gratified by all this. He sat by his window, looking out on the alleyway, watching the bleating, angry goat with patient interest. My grandmother took to collecting her own urine and storing it in a bucket under her bed. Once a day she took her bucket into the alleyway and hurled the pungent fluid at the goat. As a variation, she sometimes filled thick paper bags with urine and and threw them at the animal.
Neither hunger nor persecution diminished the goat’s ferocity. It charged whoever was mad enough to walk through the urinous alleyway. My father was the last to give up, feeling that a matter of manly pride was involved. At his moment of defeat, he claimed that he had seen the old man on his hands and knees between the goat’s legs. What were you doing there, you old pervert? Milking it? Children in the neighbourhood began to take an interest. My father became a figure of such ridicule that some of it began to rebound on Saida, who stayed at home to escape the teasing. Zakiya kept herself apart from all this, too caught up in her stews of passion, her reputation for promiscuity giving her now a kind of glamour. She was above an interest in a feud with a goat. The children brought the goat what food they could, and spent hours sitting watching it in its darkened shrine. My grandmother, her progress towards senility vastly accelerated, switched her malice to the children. She rushed out when they were well-settled and dispersed them with her bucket of potent water.
It was no longer possible to hide Zakiya’s activities from my father. He never spoke to Zakiya now, never looked at her. We feared for the day when he would lose restraint and assault her in one of his lunatic rages. It was as if some madness had got into her. She was unapproachable. Since I refused her offer of help she avoided me. She shut my mother up without mercy as soon as she started. As if afraid to pause, she hurled herself into squalid and open affairs with men of horrific reputation. She watched our family’s feud with the goat in awed disbelief.
I was bored. I was fed up with my daily journeys to the Immigration Office. I was tired of reading the same books and walking the same routes. The dreaded Ramadhan was approaching, with its daily hungers and slow daylight hours. When it came, the whole town ground to a drowsy pace, shops shut and people slept through as much of the day as they could, fighting hunger with oblivion. When night came, life started again with a kind of abandon and frenzy. We bloated ourselves with food we had spent the day dreaming about. People roamed the streets in search of excitement and stayed out until the early hours. Children played marathon games of hide-and-seek or cops-and-robbers. It was the time for long conversations, stretching far into the night, for endless card games, for courtship. It was the daylight hunger that made it a time of pain. God had intended the rigours of Ramadhan to teach us self-discipline, but instead tempers were on a short fuse during the day and excess followed self-denial every night.
I stayed away from the Immigration Office for the first few days of Ramadhan, while my body accustomed itself to going without food. When I reached the counter, the clerk smiled to see me again and shook his head.
‘I want to see the Immigration Officer,’ I said, and without waiting for a reply I lifted up the counter-flap and marched on. The clerk made no move to stop me. He leant against the counter watching me negotiate the desks as I wound towards the office. I knew exactly where it was, had seen the man come in and out countless times. I knocked on the door and entered. His name was Omar Shingo. At one time he had been a famous footballer, now he was better known for his debauches. I launched without preamble, without even looking at him, into an angry complaint. He tried to stop me once or twice: Who are you? Go back to the counter. Where do you think you are? I brushed him aside, and I would have hit him with something if he had tried to have me thrown out. As I focused on his smug, wasted face, I became convinced that he was the man Zakiya had in mind when she offered help.
‘Have a seat,’ he said at last, smiling in defeat.
‘I don’t want a seat. I want my passport. I’ve been coming here every day . . . ’
‘I know, I know,’ he said, raising a hand to silence me. ‘Tell me your name and I’ll get your file.’
I watched his face as I told him. He scribbled it down and went away. When he came back he was smiling. ‘I know your family,’ he said. ‘How’s your father these days? And the rest of your family?’ He signed the papers in front of me and told me to give the file back to the clerk on my way out. He could not resist gloating in the end. ‘Give my regards to everybody,’ he said. ‘And your sisters.’
It took another three weeks before the passport was ready, on the eve of Idd. The old man had his goat butchered for Idd and sent a leg round to my mother. While everybody celebrated with songs the end of Ramadhan and the arrival of the new year, I nursed the revival of my hopes as I leafed through my new passport. In the general joy of the day, Zakiya forgot herself enough to allow one of her lovers to drive her home. My father was at home, entertaining a distant relative from Tanga to a little halwa and coffee. When the guest left, and my father had seen him off to the bus stop, he came hurrying back to the house, in a terrible rage. My mother met him at the door and took upon her shoulders the brunt of his fury. I stood nearby, determined to intervene should he attempt to hit either of them. Zakiya sat in grandmother’s room, her eyes blank with despairing indifference, looking more abandoned than any tears or screams would have made her seem. In the hallway my father swore, solemnly, calling in the name of God that all should witness this act, that should his child Zakiya not mend her ways, he would – Wallahi Billahi – hurl her out in the streets to fend for herself.
My mother screamed at him, begging him to take his oath back, asking him if he knew that by that oath he had turned his daughter into a street whore. My father looked at her, his rage now turning into tears. We have done our best, he said.
The journey to Nairobi was beginning to seem very close. My mother tried to give me as much information as she could about uncle Ahmed. She told me about the journey. She thought herself an expert on this, having done the journey once. This was enough, for no one in the house had travelled more than thirty miles inland from the coast. She had alarming stories to tell. She told me of the discomfort of train travel, and of the drinking habits of train drivers. She told me of muggers and pickpockets who lurked at every street corner in Nairobi. She instructed me on the best way of greeting my uncle, and on what clothes would be appropriate for the cold climate there.
My grandmother watched and listened with ill-concealed disapproval. Sometimes, unable to contain her irritation with the fuss that was being made of me, she would ask how I had done in the examinations. It was her mad way of mocking us for counting our chickens. Without the goat, her days were empty now.
My mother had no doubt that uncle Ahmed would provide the money. I told her that her share of the shop would not be enough to pay for the journey, that I would only get enough money from uncle Ahmed if I were able to touch his goodwill. She waved my caution aside. She convinced me in the end. It seems foolish now that I should have allowed this, but the cumulative effect of our fantasies had convinced all of us that we could not be wrong.
A new law was passed that month, formalising what was already the practice, that jobs and school places would be allocated in quotas, according to the racial distribution in the population. To facilitate this, all citizens were to register their race at a new Department of Population. They would be issued with an identity pass stating name, age, address and race. Failure to produce this pass on request would lead to immediate arrest.
Consternation spread among a people whose race had become more a state of mind than any identifiable characteristic. Refusal to answer questions about race had been an act of defiance against the British, an assertion of unity and nationhood. Refusal to answer the question now was against the law. When I went to register for my card, I gave a false name. It was a useless act of defiance, but we had not at that time realised the firmness with which the government intended to deal with the problem of its
mixed community. It turned out that my small act of sabotage had the potential to cause me great difficulty. No official business could be conducted without a card. The thought of the danger I was running carrying a bogus pass spoiled many quiet moments.
On the last Sunday before I left for Nairobi I was forced to use the card. Every Sunday the entire population of the town was expected to volunteer for work on the new blocks of flats that were part of the government’s slum-clearance scheme. We had already successfully completed the new Party headquarters in this way. Hundreds of people turned up on the first Sunday, too afraid not to, and remembering the violence with which Youth Leaguers had ejected, people from homes and cafés and cinemas. That was for the Party Headquarters, a national priority. This campaign was obviously less urgent. The confusions of that first Sunday, and succceeding Sundays, allowed people to stay away without being noticed. In the end, the Party was forced to send out its cadres to root out the parasites from their homes, and drive them out to work for the nation.
The last Sunday before I left, Party militants carried out a house-to-house search. They took care to make no distinction over age or health. Old women and little children, tired menfolk and nursing mothers all volunteered for work. They strutted from house to house, banging on doors and screaming at the people who answered them, pushing and hitting the citizens to urge on them a national spirit. They also took the opportunity to check out identity cards. By the time they reached us, we were dressed and ready to go. My father had insisted that we should not stir until they forced us out. I answered the door to three men. They looked very quickly behind me – Get out. Get to work. – and one of them pushed me aside and entered the house, shouting, it seemed, at the top of his voice. Without thinking I took hold of his grimy collar and pulled him back. When he was level with me, I helped him farther out with a shove on his chest.
The three moved together. They stepped back. Their manner changed from righteous resolution to caution. They were dirty and muscular, and looked like the people you would find anywhere where such work was required, sanguine bums who would mug old ladies to slake a psychosis of wounded dignity. One of them reminded me of the sleeveless man I had seen at Sood’s. My father pushed me violently to one side.
‘He’s only a boy, only a boy!’ he appealed to them.
I was hauled farther into the house, by my grandmother I think. The three men were angry, shouting at my father. He was mumbling his apologies and bobbing his head. I was called out to face the three men. The ragged man I had pulled out was now ready to release his anger in a few well-aimed blows. He detached himself from the rest and strode to within inches of me, emboldened by the indignant chorus of his companions. I felt very calm, and would have thrown myself on him without any further provocation had there been the need. Down the street our activities were drawing attention. The old man, dressed to go out, was watching with palpable fear. The evil-smelling cadre pointed an angry finger up my nostril.
‘You’ll get into trouble,’ he shouted, spitting with anger. The other two added some obscenities and my father tried to interpose his body between the angry man and me. He was pushed angrily to one side. ‘You listen to me,’ said the man, still shaking and spitting with anger. ‘You get out there and get to work or we’ll deal with you. All of you, you scum. You think maybe you’re master here?’ All the three men grumbled at this liberty, bunching their fists and hissing through gritted teeth like melodramatic villains. I suppose they could have beaten me to death.
Up and down the street people had stopped to look and listen. I could see that this was making the three men nervous. Their fear was that they were about to be caught in a communal riot. There was no danger of that. We were too well-learned in the ways of submission, although this had not yet become fully clear to our tormentors.
‘Show me your cards,’ said the angry man. My father collected the cards and handed them over to the man. The three of them examined the dark photographs intently and then handed the cards back.
‘Don’t you want to check the names?’ I asked them, letting them know that I knew they could not read.
‘I’ll kill you,’ the man whispered angrily. He glanced round quickly at the crowd and swore. When they turned to go, insulting and abusing us as they went, they did not stop to knock on other houses down the street. The crowd cheered gleefully as they turned into the clearing. Some of the people started to go back to their houses. The old man shook his head and wagged a finger at me.
‘That was stupid,’ he said. ‘Now we’re all in trouble.’ He smiled and winked at me. My father patted me on the back. I was a hero. ‘You see what education does for these children. It makes them brave,’ said the man.
We all volunteered that day. My father thought it would be wise not to ask for any more trouble. All was confusion as usual at the site. Nobody approached to give us any work. We waited until the sun was too strong and then went back home.
On the night before I left, my mother prepared a feast. The rug was taken out of its sacks, beaten and spread out in the guest-room. With the chairs pushed back against the wall, there was just enough space for all of us to squeeze in. As they had done throughout the long wait for the journey, they spoke of it as a mere formality. All talk of caution was dismissed. My father took all reference to it as an attempt at making a joke. In their company I found it easy to forget my own doubts. In that profusion of rich food and high optimism, it seemed that nothing was beyond me. The last clear-sighted words of advice were delivered, warnings and threats were unambiguously detailed, and the help of God was solemnly requested. Zakiya did not say anything all evening, but she smiled at me every time I looked at her.
I was to leave early in the morning. My father had insisted on accompanying me to the station, and refused to allow anyone else to come. What’s the fuss? I’ll just walk with him on my way to work. You women always want to make a big thing out of nothing. I went to bed that night filled only with thoughts of departure. It was only because my mother came back to me in the middle of the night to say goodbye again that I realised I had not spared a thought for her. We talked for a short while before she left me again, saying she had only come to wish me well for the last time and I was not to worry about anything.
I found it hard to sleep. I became frantic with the thought that if I did not sleep I would wake up in the morning feeling tired. Old doubts returned to mock the optimism of the evening. Old fears of the journey came back to keep me awake until the early hours.
Frightened by all the stories I had heard, I had insisted on travelling second rather than third class. That way I would be sure of a reserved bunk. Travelling third was a knees-up affair on ribbed wooden benches, by all accounts. My compartment was empty when I got on. I stowed away my suitcase under one of the bottom bunks as I had been advised. The compartment was panelled with wood. The upholstery was a green, soft plastic, cool to the touch. The tiny fountain under the window was operated by a long, tapering lever. The miniature basin cupped under the curved reed of the fountain, glinted like a new coin. There were curtains above the window, gathered at the corners and held back by straps. I pulled up the window and pushed my head out, as I had seen people do in the pictures. My father came down the platform to stand underneath me.
‘What’s it like?’ he asked.
He had been amiable and pleasant, happy to talk. He reached up on tiptoe to try and see inside but he was not tall enough. I went out to the platform to say goodbye to him.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I don’t have much time. Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid . . . and come back to us. Do you understand? You must write and let me know. If there are any problems you write and let me know. Our hopes and good wishes go with you.’
He took my hand and squeezed it. I said goodbye, hoping he had finished. I wanted him to go before he embarrassed himself with absurd paternal emotions he did not feel. ‘Be a good son, as you’ve always been,’ he said, squeezing my hand again. His voice had become th
icker, and I cringed as I saw him growing infatuated with his role. Suddenly he smiled, signalling that the performance no longer interested him. ‘Don’t come back with nothing,’ he said in a more familiar voice. ‘You do everything possible to persuade that thief to help you. We don’t want anything for ourselves, just to do our duty by our son. This is not a holiday. Do you understand? Don’t dishonour us, and don’t come back with nothing.’ He shook his head slightly as if he was not sure that I understood.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said cheerfully.
He turned and walked back up the platform towards the barrier. As I watched him hurry away, I restrained an impulse to laugh. It seemed wrong. When I went back to the compartment, there was a man sitting on the bunk opposite mine. He was a young man, his head bent over a book. He looked up as I entered and greeted me with a smile and a nod. I sat down on my bunk, leaning out of the window, watching the activity on the platform. I was glad that my travelling-companion was a young man. Soon the train began to hiss and blow in preparation for departure.
‘Do you have the time?’ The voice was very sure of itself. I turned to look at him and shake my head. I did not have a watch. He smiled, stood up and walked over to the window. His hair was cropped short, as if he was in the army or police. His face was lean and very black. He was built like an athlete. I glanced at the book he had left turned face down on the bunk: Mine Boy by Peter Abrahams.
‘Why aren’t we moving? It must be time now.’ He looked at me as he said this, and looked for a moment longer than he needed to, as if studying me. He introduced himself as Moses Mwinyi, leaning forward to shake hands. ‘How far are you going?’ he asked, sitting down again and glancing casually at his book before shutting it and laying it beside him.
Memory of Departure Page 7