The White Masai

by Corinne Hofmann

  When we turn up in the office that afternoon Lketinga’s identity card really is there, all he has to do is add his fingerprint. Then it’s off to the civil registration office. The official there examines my passport and the certificate that I am single. From time to time he uses Swahili to ask Lketinga questions that he obviously doesn’t understand. This makes him nervous. I dare to ask when we can now get married and give the names of the two witnesses. The official says we’ll have to speak directly to the District Officer because he’s the only man who can carry out the ceremony.

  We sit down in the queue of people waiting to talk to this important man. It’s two hours before we get to see him: an enormous man seated at a stylish modern table. I put out papers on the table and tell him we want a date for our wedding. He leafs through my passport and asks me why I want to marry a Masai and where we’re going to live. I’m so nervous that I find it hard to speak in proper sentences. ‘Because I love him and we’re going to build a house in Barsaloi’. His gaze wanders back and forth between Lketinga and me, and eventually he tells us to come back in two days’ time at two p.m. with the witnesses. We thank him happily and leave.

  All of a sudden everything seems to be happening more normally than I could ever have dreamed. Lketinga buys miraa and settles down with a beer in the boarding house. I advise him against it, but he reckons he needs it. At about nine o’clock there’s a knock on the door, and our companion is standing there, chewing miraa also. We talk over everything again but the longer the evening goes on the more Lketinga gets restless. He’s not sure if this is the right thing to do. He doesn’t know anybody who’s got married in a registry office. This time I’m glad that the other bloke can explain it all to him. Lketinga just nods. Here’s hoping he sticks it out for the next two days. Visits to government offices don’t agree with him.

  The next day I go looking for Jutta and Sophia. Sophia lives in the grand style in a two-storey house with electric lighting, running water and even a fridge. They’re both delighted about the wedding and promise to turn up at the registry office the next day at two. Sophia lends me a pretty hairclip and a smart blouse. We buy two nice new kangas for Lketinga. Everything is ready.

  On the morning of our wedding, however, I start getting nervous. By midday our witnesses still haven’t turned up and don’t even know that their presence is needed in two hours’ time. We have to find two others. There’s always Jomo, and under the circumstances I don’t mind as long as we can find a second. In despair I ask the boarding house landlady, who’s delighted to agree. At two o’clock we’re standing in front of the office. Sophia and Jutta are there, with cameras even. We sit on the bench and wait with everyone else. The mood is somewhat tense, and Jutta keeps teasing me. Truth to tell I had imagined the minutes leading up to my wedding as somewhat jollier.

  After half an hour we still haven’t been called. People go in and out, and one of them in particular strikes me because I notice he has been in three times. Time’s getting on, and Lketinga’s getting worried. He’s afraid there’ll be something wrong with his papers and he’ll be put in jail. I try my best to reassure him, but because of the miraa he hasn’t slept. ‘Hakuna matata, we’re in Africa, pole, pole,’ says Jutta, as the door suddenly opens, and Lketinga and I are called in. The witnesses have to wait outside. Now even I’m getting butterflies.

  The District Officer is once again behind his great baronial desk, and sitting at the long table in front of him are two other men, one of them the one I had noticed going in and out. They introduce themselves as plainclothes police and demand to see my passport and Lketinga’s identity card.

  My heart is beating like thunder. What is going on? They inundate me with questions, and I’m terrified that I’m not understanding their bureaucratic English properly. How long have I been living in the Samburu District? How did I get to know Lketinga? And when? What are we doing for a living? What is my profession? How do we communicate? And so on, and so on. Endless questions.

  Lketinga keeps asking what we’re talking about, but I can’t explain that to him here: not in the way we’re used to communicating. At the question whether of not I’ve been married before I finally erupt. Angrily I tell them that my birth certificate and my passport both show the same name and that I even have a certificate from the local authority in Switzerland written in English. One of them says this cannot be accepted unless it is confirmed by the embassy in Nairobi. ‘But there’s my passport!’ I insist furiously. But it doesn’t do any good. The officer says that might be a forgery too. Now I’m beyond myself with anger. The District Officer asks Lketinga if he already has a Samburu wife, and he answers truthfully, ‘No.’ But the Officer wants to know how he can prove it. Everybody in Barsaloi knows it, he says; ‘But we’re in Maralal,’ comes the answer. In which language do we think we can get married, then? I suggest in English with translation into Masai. The Officer gives a snide laugh and says he doesn’t have the time for special cases like that and in any case he doesn’t speak Masai. We should come back when we can both speak the same language, either English or Swahili, when I’ve had my papers stamped in Nairobi and Lketinga can bring a paper signed by the local chief to say he is unmarried.

  I flip my lid completely at this pantomime and scream at the Officer, why didn’t he tell us all this in the first place? Spiffily he declares that here he can decide when he tells people anything and if I don’t like it he can have me thrown out of the country tomorrow. That does it! ‘Come, darling,’ I say. ‘We go. They don’t want give the marriage.’ Furious and in tears, I storm out of the office with Lketinga behind me. Outside Jutta and Sophia are clicking with their cameras: they think it’s all over!

  In the meantime a crowd of about twenty people has gathered. I wish the earth would swallow me. ‘What’s wrong, Corinne? Lketinga, what’s the problem?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he says in confusion. I storm over to my Land Rover and race at full speed to the boarding house. I want to be alone. I throw myself on to the bed and burst into sobs that shake my whole body. ‘These goddamn pigs!’

  Sometime later Lketinga is sitting next to me, trying to calm me down. I know he can’t cope with tears, but I can’t help myself. Jutta pops her head in and brings me a local brandy. Reluctantly I force it down, and gradually the crying fit subsides. I feel exhausted and insensible. At some stage Jutta leaves. Lketinga drinks beer and chews his miraa.

  Later still, there’s a knock at the door. I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Lketinga opens the door, and the two plainclothes policemen come in. They apologize politely and offer their assistance. When I ignore them one, a Samburu, talks to Lketinga. When eventually I realize that all these bastards want is a load of money to let us get married I lose my rag again and shout at them to get out of the room: I will marry this man in Nairobi or wherever I have to and without any of their grubby help. They leave the room in embarrassment.

  Tomorrow we’ll go to Nairobi to get my form stamped and have my visa extended just in case. Now that I have my wedding application forms, that ought not to be a problem. Then we’ll have another three months in which to get the relevant paper from the local chief. It would be absurd that we can’t do it without bribery! Just as I’m getting ready to go to sleep the unlovable Jomo sticks his head in. Lketinga tells him our plan, and he says he should come with us because he assures us he knows Nairobi like the back of his hand. Because the road via Nyahururu is still in a bad state we decide to go via Wamba and Isiolo and take the public buses from there. But because of the upcoming festival we’ve only four or five days.

  It’s a new route for me, but everything goes to plan. It takes us five hours to get to Isiolo. I ask my way to the local Mission in the hope of being allowed to park the car there, which I am. If the car were just left on the street it wouldn’t be there long.

  As it’s another three to four hours to Nairobi we decide to spend the night here and set off first thing in the morning in order to get to the office in the afternoon. Bu
t now Jomo tells me he has no money left, leaving me no option but to pay for his room, food and drink. I do it with ill grace because I still can’t like him. In our room I fall into bed and am asleep before nightfall. The other two are drinking beer and nattering. I wake up with a thirst, and we have breakfast before boarding the bus for Nairobi. It takes an hour until it fills up, and we finally set off, arriving in Nairobi just before noon.

  First of all we track down the Swiss Embassy to get them to certify my certificate from the local council, but they say they don’t do that sort of thing and in any case, although I was born in Switzerland and have always considered the country home, because my father was German I have a German passport. Therefore, they say, I need to go to the German Embassy.

  I have my doubts that the Germans will deal with a Swiss document, but they insist that’s my only option. The German Embassy is in a different part of town, and we drag ourselves across bustling sticky Nairobi. The German Embassy is busy, and we have to queue. When I finally get to the front the official on duty shakes his head and tries to send me to the Swiss Embassy. When I tell him exasperatedly that we’ve just come from there, he lifts the telephone and calls them up. Shaking his head, he comes back and says he can’t see the point in any of it, but it will satisfy them in Maralal if there are as many stamps and signatures as possible on the piece of paper. I thank him and leave.

  Lketinga wants to know why nobody likes my papers. I can’t answer him, and he looks at me doubtfully. Now we head off to another part of town where the Nyayo Building is to renew my visa which runs out in ten days. My legs are like lead, but I am determined to get the visa in the one and a half hours we have left. In the Nyayo Building there are more forms to fill out. Now I’m actually grateful for our companion because my head’s spinning and I only understand every other question. Everyone stares at Lketinga so he has pulled his kanga down over his head. We wait until I am called. Time is ticking on, and we’ve already been sitting for more than an hour in this stifling hall. I can barely stand the stink of sweat from the crowds. The office will be closing in fifteen minutes, and coming back tomorrow means starting all over again.

  At long last my passport is held up. ‘Miss Hofmann!’ a stern woman’s voice calls out. I push my way to the counter. The woman looks at me and asks me if I want to marry an African. ‘Yes,’ I answer abruptly. ‘Where is your husband?’ I point towards Lketinga. The woman asks with amusement if I really want to marry a Masai? ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Why not?’ She disappears and comes back with two colleagues who also take a look at me and then at Lketinga, and all three of them laugh. I stand there proudly and refuse to let their disgusting attitude annoy me. Eventually the rubber stamp comes down on a page of my passport, and I have my visa. I say thank you and leave the building.

  Malaria

  The air outside is clammy and the exhaust fumes worse than I’ve ever noticed before. It’s four p.m., but all my paperwork is correct. I want to celebrate, but I’m too tired. We have to get back to the part of town where we can find somewhere to stay, but we’ve barely gone a few hundred yards when I feel faint and my legs threaten to fold beneath me. ‘Darling, help me,’ I call. ‘Corinne, what’s the problem?’ asks Lketinga. My head is spinning, I have to sit down, but there isn’t a restaurant nearby. I lean against a shop front and feel suddenly ill and incredibly thirsty. Lketinga gets cross because people are stopping to stare. He wants me to move but I can’t, not without help. They half carry me to the boarding house.

  All of a sudden I get agoraphobia. The people coming towards me are blurred and everything stinks. On every corner somebody is cooking fish, corncobs or meat. I feel sick. If I don’t get out of the street immediately I’m going to throw up. There’s a beer bar close by and we go in, but I want to lie down. At first they say it’s impossible, but when Jomo tells them I can’t move any further they take me to a room upstairs.

  It’s a typical let-by-the-hour hotel. The Kikuyu music is almost as loud in the room as it is downstairs in the bar. I collapse on the bed and suddenly feel dreadful. I make clear I’m about to be sick, and Lketinga lifts me and drags me to the toilet. But I don’t make it. We’re still in the corridor when the first geyser erupts out of my mouth, and when we reach the toilet it keeps coming until there’s nothing left to bring up but yellow bile. I stagger back to the bedroom on wobbly legs, embarrassed by my awfulness. I lie down on the bed feeling like I’m dying of thirst. Lketinga fetches me a Schweppes tonic water and I finish off the bottle in one gulp, then another and another. All of a sudden I’m freezing. It’s as if I’m sitting in a fridge, and it gets worse and worse; my teeth are chattering so hard my jaw hurts but I can’t stop. ‘Lketinga,’ I say, ‘I feel so cold, please give me blankets.’ Lketinga gives me the blanket, but it doesn’t do any good. Jomo goes back to the boarding house and fetches two more blankets. But even draped in the blankets I pull my stiff, shivering body up from the bed and demand tea, steaming hot tea. It seems like hours before it arrives, and then I’m shivering so badly I can hardly drink it. After just two or three sips my stomach starts churning again, but I have no strength to get out of the bed. Lketinga fetches me one of the basins from the shower rooms and I throw up what little I’ve drunk.

  Lketinga doesn’t know what to do. He keeps asking me what’s wrong, but I haven’t a clue either. I’m scared. The shivering stops and I collapse like a jelly on the pillows. My whole body aches, and I’m as exhausted as if I’ve been running for my life for hours on end. Then I start getting hot and, within minutes, my whole body’s dripping with sweat. My hair’s sticking to my head, and I feel as if I’m burning up. Now all I want is cold cola, and once again I knock back the whole bottle. Then I need the toilet. Lketinga takes me and immediately diarrhoea seizes me. Even though Lketinga doesn’t know what to do, I’m glad he’s there. Back in bed I try to sleep. I can’t speak and doze on and off with the voices of the two men in my ears even though the noise from the bar downstairs is much louder.

  Then a new attack hits me. A chill runs through me, and within seconds I’m shivering again. I clutch the bed in panic and beg, ‘Darling, help me!’ Lketinga leans over me, covering me with his chest, but I keep shivering. Jomo, standing there, reckons I’ve got malaria and need to go into hospital. The word echoes in my head: malaria, malaria, malaria! In the space of a second I stop shivering and start sweating from every pore. The sheets are soaking. I’m thirsty, thirsty. I need something to drink. The boarding house landlady sticks her head in, and when she sees me I hear the words, ‘Mzungu, malaria, hospital!’ But I shake my head. I don’t want to go into a hospital here in Nairobi. I’ve heard such terrible stories, and then there’s Lketinga. He’s lost on his own in Nairobi.

  The landlady disappears and comes back with anti-malaria powder, which she mixes with water. I drink it and fall asleep. When I wake again it’s dark, and my head’s buzzing. I call for Lketinga, but nobody’s there. A few minutes later – or it might have been hours – Lketinga comes back into the room. He’d been downstairs in the bar. I smell the beer fumes, and once again my stomach turns. It’s one shivering fit after another the whole night long.

  When I wake in the morning I hear the two of them talking about the festival back home. Jomo comes over to the bed and asks me how I feel. Bad, I tell him. Can we go back today? he asks. Not me. I’m going to the toilet. My legs are shaking, and I can hardly stand. I ought to eat, I tell myself.

  Lketinga goes downstairs and comes back with a plate of lumps of meat. When I smell the food, however, my stomach, which has started to ache, goes into cramps. I throw up again almost immediately, but all that comes up is some yellow liquid, and the vomiting sets off the diarrhoea again. I’m sick as a dog and feel as if I’m on my last legs.

  On the evening of the second day I start falling asleep whenever the sweating starts and lose all sense of time. The endless noise is driving me so mad that I start crying and covering my ears. It’s all too much for Jomo, who announces he’s
off to see some relatives but will be back in three hours’ time. Lketinga gives him some of our cash which I resent but I don’t really care because it’s rapidly becoming clear that if I don’t do something I’ll never get out of Nairobi alive, and maybe not even out of this awful room.

  Lketinga goes off to get some vitamins and the local malaria medicine. I force the tablets down and every time I throw up force myself to take another one. It’s midnight by now, and Jomo still isn’t back. We worry about him because this part of Nairobi isn’t safe. Lketinga hardly sleeps for taking care of me.

  The medicine has done something to reduce my attacks, but I’m so weak I can barely raise an arm. Lketinga is in despair. He wants to find Jomo as quickly as possible, but it’s madness in this city that he doesn’t know. I plead with him to stay with me or I’ll be all alone. We have to get out of Nairobi as soon as possible. I’m swallowing vitamin tablets like sweets, and gradually my head’s clearing. If I don’t want to die here, I’ve got to summon the last reserves of my strength. I send my darling off to get fruit and bread for me, anything that doesn’t smell like cooked food, and force it down bit by bit. My cracked lips burn like mad when they touch the fruit but I need strength to get out of here. Jomo has left us in the lurch.

  The fear that Lketinga could completely lose the plot gives me strength. I try to wash in order to feel better. My darling carries me to the shower, and with a lot of effort I manage to clean myself. Then I insist on changing the three-day-old bed linen. While they’re changing it all I try to take a few paces. Out on the street I feel faint again, but I want to do it. We go about fifty yards but to me it seems like five miles. I have to go back; the stink on the street is torturing my stomach. Even so I’m proud at what I’ve managed and promise Lketinga that tomorrow we’ll leave Nairobi. But when I’m lying back in bed, I wish I were at home with my mother in Switzerland.