by Unknown
Mr Malik had just begun explaining to Patel and A.B. how he had used the services of his shamba boy to help with the count, when Harry Khan walked into the bar.
12
Had the great god Ganesha himself walked into the barroom of the Asadi Club at that moment – four-armed, elephant-headed, broken-tusked and crowned with diamonds – Mr Malik could not have been more surprised. But there, all white and smiling, was Harry Khan. Thick white hair, a shirt almost as dazzling as his teeth, white trousers, white jacket and (yes, the man has no shame) white patent pumps. And on his arm, dressed in a very short red dress, a very pretty young woman.
The Asadi Club when first set up in 1903 was simply a club for Indians. Anyone from the subcontinent could apply for membership, regardless of race or religion – it said so in the club rules. In practice this meant that there were no women members, because whoever heard of a woman wanting to join a club? It was only after the embarrassment of what later became known as the ‘Ranamurka Affair’ of 1936 that the club rules were amended to deliberately exclude women. So things remained until the mid-seventies, when the new wave of feminism (somewhat delayed and diluted among the Asian community of Nairobi but nonetheless detectable) coincided with a decline in club membership. After much debate – and despite the threat of Jumbo Wickramasinghe to shoot the first female member to cross the threshold of the club, then shoot himself – women were allowed to join. But as no effort was made to attract them – how many women really want to play billiards and drink beer all night, and have you seen the Ladies loo? – immediate bloodshed was averted. Still, some thirty years later, almost the only time you saw women at the club was when wives and daughters turned up for the regular first-Sunday-of-the-month curry tiffin. On a weekday night – never.
All eyes turned to the young woman on Harry Khan’s arm. She was, as I’m sure you will have guessed, his cousin’s wife’s sister’s youngest daughter Elvira – the spoilt one, the pretty one, the unmarried-but-engaged one, who as soon as her fiancé had flown back to Dubai had immediately rung up Uncle Harry to see if he wanted to do something. After they’d done something he said he’d like a drink and she said she was bored with the stuffy old Hilton and that her brother Sanjay was bound to be at the club so why not go there for a drink instead. It would be a lark.
Her brother (the same Sanjay Bashu who had interjected from the bar not half an hour before and had since been dosing his disappointment after backing Patel to win the fart bet with liberal doses of J. Walker’s internal embrocation) assured her that he was happy to see her.
‘No, I mean really happy, Wee Wee. I mean that, I really do. Very, very happy.’
Harry moved towards the bar, leaving his pretty niece to remind her inebriated sibling in forceful whispers not to call her by that silly name any more and that if he did it one more time then she might be forced to recount a certain story about a certain pet hyrax. At a table by the bar he saw four men, three staring towards him, one staring pointedly away. He recognized only one of them.
‘Malik, great to see you again!’
There was nothing Mr Malik could do, nowhere he could go. He turned towards Harry Khan, gave a polite smile and took the hand that had been thrust towards him.
‘Ah, Harry.’
Patel, A.B. and the Tiger were impressed and intrigued. Impressed, because the girl, having apparently finished giving Sanjay Bashu a piece of her mind, was now sashaying towards them in a dress of a cut and lack of covering-power seldom seen in Nairobi, let alone the Asadi Club. And intrigued because this was the Harry Khan that Malik had been so interested in, was it?
‘Great place,’ said Harry, flashing his whitest smile. ‘Love it. This is where you hang out, eh Malik? Wondered why I hadn’t seen you at the Hilton. Have you met my niece? Elvira, meet my old friend Malik. We were at school together.’
More handshakes.
‘Hey, Malik, what was it we used to call you?’
‘Call me?’
‘Yeah, you know – at school.’
‘At school?’ Mr Malik felt the sweat break out cold on his brow. ‘I don’t remember. Let me introduce you to…’
‘Mack, that was it. No.’ Harry looked towards the ceiling for inspiration. ‘Damn. Never mind, it’ll come back to me. Who did you say your friends were?’
After further introductions were made, drinks ordered and a few questions answered about what had brought Harry here and how was his mother, Mr Patel turned with an innocent smile to Elvira.
‘I don’t suppose you’re interested in birds, at all?’ And appearing to take her silence as assent, ‘You must get Malik here to tell you about his hadadas.’
Mr Malik was about to leap in with a statement firmly ornithological when Harry beat him to it.
‘Birds, sweetness,’ he said. ‘Big brown birds. I’ve been finding out a lot about birds this past weekend, you know.’
And Mr Malik’s annoyance at his friend Patel’s mischievous attempt to embarrass him was immediately replaced by another feeling altogether.
Birds? Where? With whom?
‘You guys met Rose Mbikwa?’ continued Harry. ‘What she doesn’t know about our feathered friends. Did you know you can see two hundred kinds of birds just in Nairobi? And boy, can she dance.’
Dance? Dance?
13
‘Dance?’ said Mr Malik. Rose Mbikwa – with Harry Khan?
‘Yeah, dance. Rock and roll. Man can that pussycat swing. You know that jukebox at the Hilton? One of the really old ones and music to match. Bill Haley, Little Richard, even the Big Bopper himself. Hey, maybe I should ask her to that dance here – what did you say it was called again, honey?’
‘You mean the Hunt Club Ball, Uncle Harry?’
‘Yeah, the Hunt Club Ball. Know where I can get a couple of tickets?’
‘You can’t.’ Mr Malik hadn’t meant to say it. The words just seemed to come out. ‘All gone, sold out. Anyway, you have to be a member.’
‘Member of what?’ said Mr Patel.
‘The club. Karen Club. So I’ve heard.’
‘Nonsense, old man,’ said Mr Patel. I’ve been to it myself.’
‘Ah… but they’re probably all allocated. Isn’t that right, Tiger?’
Though the Tiger had not the slightest idea what was going on he could not ignore the beseeching look on the face of his friend.
‘Er, yes, well, quite possibly. If you say so, Malik old chap.’
‘Oh don’t worry, Uncle. Sanjay will give you his. I’m sure he will if I ask him nicely.’
It seemed that Elvira’s brother Sanjay had already ordered four tickets and her fiancé had promised to come back from Dubai for the weekend to take her. There was nothing else for it.
‘Anyway,’ said Mr Malik, ‘you can’t ask Mrs Mbikwa.’
‘Why the hell not?’ said Harry.
‘You can’t,’ said Mr Malik, ‘because I have written her an invitation myself.’
It was Mr Patel who voiced the question that had simultaneously sprung into the heads of each person around the table.
‘You?’
Mr Malik nodded.
It was Mr Gopez who asked the next question.
‘What did she say?’
‘She…’ Mr Malik was almost going to say that she hadn’t replied. For nine days the invitation to Rose had been his secret alone, and for nine days a small flame of hope had burned in his heart. It was unlikely, but it was possible – just possible – that she would accept. All he had to do was get the tickets, then post the invitation. But now the secret was out the whole thing was revealed to him as what he feared it had been all along. It was a joke, a pathetic hopeless joke. And he, Malik, was a bigger joke. But despite the looks on the faces now before him, still that small flame was not quite extinguished. There was something inside him, something deep in his heart, that assured Mr Malik his invitation to Rose Mbikwa to accompany him to the Hunt Club Ball was not a joke at all. It was a sincere offer, it was a compliment h
onestly given, and no matter what anyone else might think Rose Mbikwa would know this.
‘I haven’t posted it yet.’
A moment’s silence was followed by a whoop from Harry Khan.
‘Haven’t posted it? What kind of invitation is that?’
‘I just haven’t… haven’t got round to it yet. It’s all ready, though. And I’ve ordered the tickets.’
‘Let me get this right,’ said Harry. ‘You haven’t got a ticket, and you haven’t sent the invitation.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Save your stamp, Malik. I’m phoning her right now.’
It was the Tiger who spoke.
‘Before any telephone calls are made or letters posted, gentlemen, a moment’s reflection might be appropriate.’
‘What’s to reflect?’ said Harry. ‘All’s fair in love and dancing – right, guys?’
‘There is some truth in what you say, Mr Khan,’ said the Tiger. ‘But Malik does seem to have some claim to priority here.’
‘I don’t see what the problem is,’ said Mr Gopez. ‘Why can’t both of them invite her?’
‘Because, A.B., that would put the lady in a very tricky position. A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi, if you see what I mean. She can’t accept both invitations, but it might be upsetting to have to refuse one of them. I have had the honour to meet the lady in question. She is undoubtedly a woman of rare virtue and distinction. Which makes it even more important, I’m sure you agree, that her sensibilities are not put to the test of so thankless a choice.’
‘You mean neither of them should ask her?’
‘Not at all, A.B., not at all. One, but not both. As I see it – and I’m sure our friends would agree with me here – it is our duty as gentlemen to protect such a paragon of femininity from such a trial. And, dare I say it, our duty as members of the Asadi Club?’
‘Exactly what are you suggesting, Tiger?’
‘I am suggesting, A.B., that there must be a fair way of deciding who should have the honour of first invitation.’
‘Right on.’ Harry Khan was grinning from ear to ear. ‘So what’s it going to be – poker, billiards, arm-wrestling?’
‘Counting hadadas?’ said Patel, failing to stifle a giggle.
As a drowning man is said to clutch at a straw, from his maelstrom of embarrassment and confusion Mr Malik clutched at that word.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ he said.
‘What’s it?’ said Mr Gopez.
‘Birds.’
‘Birds?’ said the Tiger.
‘Oh, I see,’ said Mr Gopez. ‘A bit of augury you want is it, a bit of divination? Spread out the entrails and see what they say?’
‘No, a contest, a competition. Counting birds. Who can identify the most species of birds in… in a week, say.’
‘I think I see what you mean, Malik old chap,’ said Mr Patel. ‘If you win, you pop that invitation to the Hunt Club Ball into the postbox. If you lose, Khan over there gets to dial her number.’
‘This may indeed be the solution we have been seeking,’ said the Tiger. ‘But audi et alteram partem, don’t you know. We’d better find out what Khan here has to say.’
Harry Khan smiled a slow smile. Hell, this might even be more fun than Elvira.
‘Maybe you’ll see that red bishop this time, eh Malik? And oh, yeah, now I remember that name we used to call you. It wasn’t Mack – it was Jack. Right?’
Mr Malik winced.
‘OK, Jack, it’s a deal. Birds it is.’
‘There could be a slight problem here, Tiger,’ said Mr Patel. ‘One of the potential participants in this contest is not, as far as I know, a member of this club.’
‘Proposed,’ said Mr Malik.
‘Seconded,’ said A. B. Gopez in a somewhat louder voice.
‘Sign him up, Mr Patel,’ said the Tiger. ‘Sign him up.’
14
‘May I first say, fellow club members – and with a special welcome to our newest member – what a great honour it is for me to be called upon to facilitate in the matter of Malik versus Khan.’
The Tiger, having spent the remainder of the previous night consulting with said parties and the following morning at his chambers together with Mr Patel and Mr Gopez (the three of them having volunteered to form the ad hoc committee overseeing the contest), was about to announce the ‘rules of engagement’ to a packed Asadi Club. He took a document from his briefcase and placed it on the table before him.
‘But a posse ad esse – let us cut to the chase.’ Removing the pink ribbon from the several sheets of paper he cleared his throat. ‘It has been agreed by the two members now before us, Mr Malik and Mr Khan (hereafter known as the protagonists), that they will make a Wager. The winner of that Wager will have the privilege of asking Mrs Rose Mbikwa (hereafter known as the lady) to the Nairobi Hunt Club Ball of November the twenty-fifth coming. The losing party agrees to refrain from issuing such an invitation unless and until the lady in question gives a firm reply in the negative to the first invitation. Both parties also agree that between now and the moment when the Wager is settled, neither will initiate contact – personal, telephonic or epistolary, nor through any third person nor by any other means – with the aforementioned lady.’
The Tiger let his gaze wander over his assembled audience, then back to the document in his hand.
‘The substance of the Wager is as follows,’ he continued. ‘That starting at noon tomorrow, Saturday October fourteenth, and finishing at noon on Saturday October twenty-first, each protagonist will make a list of all bird species he is able to identify at first hand. The protagonist able to identify the highest number of species during these seven days will be judged to have won the Wager. The result of the Wager will be decided by the ad hoc Committee of the Wager (hereafter referred to as the Committee), whose judgement will be final. The decision will be handed down as soon as possible after noon on the final day of the Wager, that is to say Saturday October twenty-first. Gentlemen, are you in agreement so far?’
A stiff nod from Mr Malik, a ‘You bet’ from Harry Khan; a murmur from the crowded bar.
‘In that case, the details of the Wager – which shall be binding on both protagonists – are as follows.
‘One: Bird species will be recognized according to the 1996 Official Checklist of the Birds of Africa. Subspecies are not eligible, even when described in more recent publications as full species.
‘Two: Birds must be alive and uninjured at time of identification.
‘Three: Birds must be in a state of nature, and in no way caged, tethered or otherwise confined.
‘Four: Identification must be visual. Identification by call, tracks, scats or pellets, nests or unattached feathers is not allowable.
‘Five: The use of bait, lures, tethered birds or pre-recorded sound to attract birds is strictly forbidden.
‘Six: Optical aids in the form of spectacles, binoculars, telescopes and other passive devices may be used at any time. Cameras (photographic or digital), video equipment (including night vision enhancers) or electronic equipment of any other sort are strictly forbidden.
‘Seven: All sightings must be within one day’s travel of the Asadi Club, and within the territorial boundaries of the Republic of Kenya, including riverine, lacustrine and offshore islands.
‘Eight: To help ensure compliance with the above rule, each protagonist will be required to attend the club between the hours of seven p.m. and eight p.m., and no later than eight p.m., on each of the days during which the procedure of the Wager takes place.
‘Nine: At this time on each day they will be required to inform a member of the Committee of any sightings of that day, who will add them to the Master List, which will be posted, together with a copy of this agreement, on the club noticeboard.
‘Ten: Both or either protagonist may appeal to the Committee during the period from seven p.m. to eight p.m. on any day during the procedure of the Wager, for rulings on either the substance of the Wager or t
he details of the Wager. The rulings of the Committee will be available to both of the protagonists and its judgement will be final.’
Tiger Singh looked up from the document.
‘Gentlemen, are you willing to abide by these details?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Malik.
‘Yep,’ said Harry Khan.
‘I have two more things to say. Firstly…’ and the Tiger surveyed the assembled crowd with his full magisterial authority, ‘that in accordance with established etiquette this matter is not to be discussed outside the club. Remember, all of you, that a lady is involved. Secondly, the Committee wishes to attach the following observation. In a case of this sort, strict enforcement of the rules is impossible. A fair result depends absolutely on the honesty and integrity of the protagonists, both as men of honour and as members of the Asadi Club.’
Tiger Singh looked each man in the eye. For once Harry Khan was not smiling.
‘Audentes fortuna juvat, gentlemen. May the best man win.’
All night long in his lonely bed Mr Malik was tossed about by restless waves of worry and regret. Oh foolish Malik. Oh rash and reckless Malik. What had inspired him to make such a challenge? How on earth could he hope to win? But he’d done it now, and honour demanded he try his damnedest. How many different birds were there in Kenya – more than a thousand, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t be able to travel far from the city – commitments were commitments. How many could you see around Nairobi – two hundred, three? Where should he go, what should he do? Why, oh why, had he written that invitation to Rose Mbikwa in the first place?
Harry Khan, after another night on the town with his obliging niece, slept well. He appeared late at the hotel breakfast room, though not too late to find a few other people still tucking into the buffet. He already had a plan. After his usual small omelette and coffee and croissant he would tootle over to the travel desk and get them to arrange a few one-day safaris. With the right guides he was sure to see plenty of birds. He deserved a holiday. Business could wait. This might be fun.