by Saul Dobney
Nurya released her husband and put the shotgun back on the counter. In the eerie silence she went to a cupboard and took a bucket and sloshed water across the floor before mopping up the blood.
In a daze, Marid walked outside holding Yanif by the hand and draped the long rope across the forecourt to indicate that the station was closed to the passing motorists. Then the three of them took the stairs by the side of the shop up to the apartment. Marid collapsed on the sofa and hugged his wife and son to him, smoothing over Yanif’s forehead.
Nurya began to weep.
They sat nestled in silence for nearly an hour before Marid reacted. He whistled and pursed his lips and picked up the telephone and dialled. At the other end Lucio, his old boss in charge of projects at the UN Development Program Centre in Nairobi answered and Marid explained what had happened.
“There’s not much I can suggest,” said Lucio when Marid finished. “They might come back. They might even be the Mungiki and you know what they do to people. I think it would be best to leave and head back to Nairobi, at least in the short term.”
“And the police?” asked Marid. “Shouldn't we go to the police?”
“You should tell them officially. And they might help. And they might not. This type of violence is not unknown in rural areas. And they probably have connections…” Lucio sighed. “Why don't you take couple of months back in Jaffa? Let things calm down.”
Marid shook his head. “We can’t go back. We’ve invested everything in this place. We can’t quit when we’ve just started.”
4. Jill's birthday
Dr Hill took a sip of beer and watched as a wisp of dandelion pappus floated into the courtyard of the Fort St George pub from the surrounding Midsummer Common meadow. Behind them he could hear the rhythmical call of “Stroke. Stroke,” as the rowing crews set out from the boathouses on the Cam behind the neighbouring Midsummer Restaurant.
“What’s in the wrapping paper?” asked his wife, Jill.
“It came through the post this morning,” Dr Hill replied. “Take a guess.”
“It’s not another Bible or Koran is it? Splattered with red ink and Post-it notes marking out where you’ve gone wrong?” She laughed. “What do you do with those? Put them in the bin?”
“I couldn’t do that. Molly takes the Bibles down to the chapel and gives them to the college chaplain. I don’t know what Nicholas does with them though. And the Korans go to the Mosque. Omar gets his mother to take them. He won’t go himself. Says it’s no place for an atheist apostate.”
“So what is in the wrapping paper?” Jill asked again, trying to sneak a peek.
Dr Hill undid the paper and lifted a small brass tube with a lens at each end out of the box. “It’s an aurascope,” he said, lifting the device and peering at her.
“A what?” asked Jill peering back through the tube at his eye. She stuck out her tongue at him and smiled.
Dr Hill laughed and cradled the tube in his hand. “An aurascope. You look through it at someone and it shows their aura. Red for anger. Yellow for sickness and so on.”
“Let me see.” Jill took the aurascope off her husband and held it up to her eye and pointed it at him. “Interesting. So what’s a blue aura? You’re all blue.”
“Calm and placid. I seem to remember. It’s written up in the booklet that came with it. Oh and it came with a letter. The letter was all full of mystical rubbish. ‘You will meet the One’, that sort of thing. And then it said that in order for me to know if I had found the One,” —Dr Hill put on a mocking tone for ‘the One’— “then the aurascope would tell me if he was real. Apparently divine creatures don’t have an aura.”
“It’s a joke isn’t it? It’s a nice object though. It looks very expensively made.” She weighed the aurascope up in her hand. “So how does it work Mr know-it-all physicist?”
Her husband grinned, his eyes glittering with amusement. “It’s quite simple,” he replied. “Just a few lenses and let chromatic aberration do the rest.”
Jill wrinkled her brow. “Explain,” she instructed.
“As light passes through a lens it bends. That’s how a magnifying glass works. But what people often don’t know is that light of different wavelengths bend differently, so each colour of light gets separated. Think of a prism that splits white light into a rainbow. Well this is true for lenses too. Normally you wouldn’t notice in a camera or a telescope, because manufacturers add coatings and correction lenses. These keep white light looking white – achromatic lenses they are called. But here, in this little tube, the division is deliberately emphasized so when you look at someone or something you get this aura of colours. The aura you see reflects the colours in the light coming into it. So I’m wearing a white shirt, which specifically has blue fluorescence to make it seem brighter. The aurascope splits white light and so gives me a blue aura.”
“That’s what I like about you physicists. An explanation for everything. An explanation that’s totally incomprehensible to any normal person.” Jill kissed him.
She picked up the scope and scanned around the courtyard and across the meadow. Towards Victoria Avenue, the small herd of town cows skipped out of the way as a waddle of men with cameras walked across the common towards the pub.
“What are the guys with the cameras doing? I don’t like their auras,” said Jill.
Dr Hill turned and looked behind him across the common. “Looks like a press pack on the hunt for someone. Some celebrity graduation or some coup for the May Balls perhaps, or something on at Midsummer Restaurant.” He nodded at the building next door.
The group of men arrived at the pub and clumped down on one of the benches a couple of tables away and dumped their bags and cameras on the table. One of them stayed standing and went into the bar while the others sat gossiping, occasionally glancing to the footbridge or along the tow-path by the river. A couple of the camera-men looked over to where Dr Hill and his wife were sitting and exchanged a few words with each other. One picked up his camera and took a few snaps.
Jill smiled at her husband. “Well that’s not going to sell many newspapers is it. D-list celebrity atheist sitting drinking a pint with his wife.”
Dr Hill smiled. “Or maybe ‘Messiah-hunter seeks inspiration in a pint glass’? One for their album I guess. Just in case some religious nutter comes and knocks me off.” He finished his beer and stood up. “Do you want another?”
Jill nodded and handed him her glass. “An orange juice. Just don’t get drunk and make a fool of yourself there are photographers watching.”
Dr Hill tussled his wife’s hair and took their two glasses into the pub for a refill.
When he came out a scruffy man with long white hair and an unkempt beard was hovering around Jill, his hand out, soliciting for money.
Dr Hill walked smartly back not worrying that a few slops of beer sloshed onto the courtyard in his haste. He put the glasses down on the table. “What are you doing? You’re hassling my wife. Get lost.”
The rough-looking man squared up to Dr Hill. He was in his middle age. His skin tanned brown with yellow stains in his moustache from the cigarettes he must smoke. His clothes were faded and grubby and there was a strong body smell mixed with the scent of alcohol and tobacco.
“Who d’ya fink you are tellin’ me t’get lost. It’s a free country. I can do what I like.” He waved his hands in Dr Hill's direction. “Bloody turists comin’ inta Cambridge like they own the place.”
Dr Hill tried to position himself between the man and his wife. Over at the other table, the photographers were taking an interest.
“I wuz born ere and this ‘ere is common land. So I can do what I like. You ge’ lost.”
“We’re not tourists,” said Dr Hill disgruntled by the suggestion, “and if you don’t leave we’ll get the landlord.”
The man squared up to Dr Hill and seeing the aggression in his face, Jill backed down the bench and started to get up to go into the pub for the landlord.
&nb
sp; “I’ve seen you befor’ ” said the man, breathing alcohol and tobacco fumes into Dr Hill’s nostrils.
Dr Hill turned his head away.
“You’re that bloke on the posters. What was it? Summit about God.”
“The Disappearing God – a talk, about why God doesn't exist,” said Dr Hill.
“Don’t exist. Don’t exist. I know God. Him and me is like that.” The man linked his two index fingers together and held them up. “An’ you can’t go dissing around with God an’ expect to ge’ away wiv it.” He stood and pressed himself against Dr Hill.
Feeling uncomfortable Dr Hill touched his hand against the man's chest to move him away.
“Hey you can’t do that. Shovin’ me,” said the man. He lunged at Dr Hill, lashing out an uncoordinated punch.
Dr Hill pushed back and the man staggered and fell full square on his backside on the floor.
“You barst’d,” he shouted and he pressed himself off the floor and onto his feet.
The photographers on the table behind had become more interested and picked up their cameras, snapping away as they followed the action.
The man saw a pint of beer on the table opposite and before Dr Hill could react, he picked it up and threw the contents straight into Dr Hill’s face.
Dr Hill cursed as beer dripped from his hair and chin and splashed onto the floor. He shook himself down, wiping the liquid off his face and screwing up his eyes to stop them stinging. When he opened his eyes again, the rough man was wobbling off down the common away from the pub.
“James?” called his wife from behind him.
He turned to see Jill coming out of the pub entrance with the landlord.
“Oh James.” She laughed out loud and glanced towards the photographers. “You know that would one for the album.”
But the photographers had already lost interest and were scurrying to get to the entrance of the restaurant.
5. Police arrive
Marid and Nurya waited for two days for the police to arrive, but no-one came.
They re-opened the forecourt and tried to continue as if nothing had happened. Kenya was not known as an efficient country and as newcomers what should they expect? But on the third day, a dark blue police car pulled up. A small, weedy looking policeman clambered out of the car, rattling in an oversized uniform, a cigarette hanging from his lip. He walked to where Nurya and Marid were standing with Yanif.
“You the newcomers?” asked the policeman. He drew the last puff from the cigarette and flicked the butt away onto the tarmac. “You had a robbery. That correct?”
“Yes. Two men in a pick-up truck, they tried to rob the shop,” said Marid watching the policeman scanning around the service station.
“Is there anyone else here? Anyone in the yard or who lives in the apartment or works in the shop?” He craned his neck trying to survey the buildings, avoiding catching Marid’s eye.
Marid shook his head. “It’s just the three of us,” he said. “Look, the men came in a red truck. They must have been local.”
The policeman clicked his tongue. “They say you shot one. You have guns?”
“A shotgun and a pistol. Look I can show you what the robbers did if you like.”
“I need to see your guns. You bring them out.” He turned his back and scanned across the grasslands and then up and down the road.
“But we need your help,” pleaded Marid. “They could come back. Aren’t you going to offer us protection, a patrol, something?”
“Just bring the weapons out and I’ll tell you what we are going to do.”
Marid raised his eyebrows and looked at Nurya. She motioned to him that he should do as the policeman asked. Marid went into the shop.
Yanif watched the policemen intently from behind his mother's thigh. The policeman ignored him and started to chew his fingernails dallying by the gas pumps, avoiding Nurya and any thought of small talk.
After a few minutes, Marid emerged, the shotgun breeched across his arm, and the pistol they kept in the apartment above the shop in his hand.
“You want to check?” he said to the policeman. “They're all legal.”
The policeman flicked his fingers and Marid handed them over. The policeman scrutinised the guns. “This all of them?”
Marid nodded.
“They must come with me. That will be all,” he said.
He carried the weapons to the car and put them on the back seat.
“Wait. You’re supposed to be here to help us. You can’t leave us without protection,” said Marid, catching up with the policeman and grabbing his arm. “You’re supposed to be investigating the robbery. I have friends at the UN. I can report you. You have to help us.”
The policeman brushed off Marid’s hand. “You are forgetting who owns this land. This is Kenya. You have hurt your neighbours. I would take care. Things can go very bad.”
The policeman turned his back and stepped into the car slamming the door behind him.
Marid banged on the window, but the policeman started the engine and the car lurched away in a swirl of exhaust fumes.
Two days later Nurya was sitting on the old plastic chair in the empty forecourt in front of the shop with Yanif on her knee.
“What’s this Yanif?” Nurya asked as she pointed out a letter in the book she was holding.
Yanif was about to say something when the distant roar of an engine broke the tranquillity and a ball of dust rose above the scrub-land.
The noise grew louder, and a red pick-up truck appeared, jolting and bouncing through the potholes. A crowd of young men and teenage boys perched in the back, rocking to and fro with the motion.
Nurya’s eyes filled with panic and she scooped Yanif into her arms and ran towards the shop.
Behind her, the truck stopped and the men and boys jumped down and sauntered across the forecourt, laughing and joshing.
“Hey mwanamke,” shouted one as Nurya reached the door of the shop. “How are you going to shoot us now?”
“Marid, Marid,” Nurya called into the yard.
“What is it?” came a voice from the back.
“Come quickly,” she shouted.
She entered the shop closed the door and turned the key in the lock. She put Yanif down and wedged the door shut with a trashcan. Yanif ran to the back, meeting his father at the cashier’s counter. Marid picked his son up and Nurya joined them, watching through the windows as the men approached.
Thwack. A stone hit the window and its noise reverberated through the empty shop.
Thwack. Thwack. More stones. Grey pock marks appeared on the reinforced glass. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The hail of stones against the windows and outside walls paused, and one of the boys tried to open the front-door. It held fast. The boy charged against it with his shoulder and when it still would not move he kicked at it in anger.
Thwack. The stones started again.
From the back of the shop came the sound of voices.
“The yard,” shouted Marid.
He ran to the back. Three of the boys had climbed over the fence and were heading to the rear door. Marid slammed it shut and threw the bolts across the locks. The door shuddered as a kick came from outside followed by the sound of curses. Then laughter and scrabbling. Something solid had been placed against the door. The noise outside went quiet and Marid unbolted the door and tried to open it but it was immovable, wedged shut.
He ran back into the shop and pulled Nurya down behind the counter. “Keep out of sight and keep quiet. Maybe they will go.”
Nurya stroked Yanif’s hair and held him tight to her. “It’s OK. Don’t be afraid. They’ll leave soon. It's just a joke that boys play.”
Thwack. The stones started again.
Yanif squeezed his mother’s hand as if he realised he was comforting her as much as she him. The three of them squatted together in the shadows behind the counter, trying to keep out of sight, waiting for the storm to pass.
For twenty minut
es the fusillade continued. Maybe all the gang wanted was to throw stones? Maybe they would get bored and leave?
Then the three of them watched through the window as the lump of grey concrete from Joe’s helicoptering swing hit the glass. The hole amplified the sound of the gang’s cheering outside. Yanif watched Adu stroll to the window and saw the flicker of flame as the bottle was lit. He saw the bottle fly into the shop, and the first light of fire when the bottle broke. It was Nurya who screamed.
The flames lit the store creating shadows that danced against the walls.
Marid grabbed a bottle of water and started to creep into the shop but before he could reach the fire a great thump of concrete shook the front door. He scuttled back to the counter, sheltering Nurya and Yanif in his arms.
More stones came. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The fire spread, trickling across the floor as it consumed the spirit from the bottle, climbing up the shelves, illuminating the darkness and thickening the air with the acrid smell of burnt plastic.
Nurya scanned the shop’s void. Then, in a stooped walk, she zig-zagged behind the shelves, past the burning plastic, to the front of the shop. At the door, she grabbed the fire extinguisher stationed by the entrance and hauled it back to the counter.
Marid took the extinguisher from her and pulled out the pin to release the trigger. He pointed the extinguisher at the fire and squeezed.
Nothing.
He shook the extinguisher and squeezed again.
Still nothing.
He shook it and listened, then cursed. “Empty. How could they leave it empty?”
Marid swore and hurled the extinguisher into the void. His anger made him wheeze and he coughed, inhaling the fumes.
For a few moments the three of them lay low listening to the crackle of the fire and the sound of the stones from outside. Perhaps it was a bad dream. Perhaps if they waited it would all disappear and they would be safe again.
“We have to get out,” whispered Marid. “Wait here.”
He scrambled to the back and shook the rear door. It stayed shut. He picked up a large screwdriver and tried to pry it open, levering at the hinges. He stood up and charged against the door, but still it did not budge. The exertion made him splutter forcing him to gasp for air from his stomach.