That was just before the Ironmongers retired to their home somewhere in England to wait for death, as some students rather ungraciously remarked, and a Cambridge Fraudsham came to the scene. Before we had any time to know him, he changed our lives. Fresh from the war, he already had firm notions how an African school had to be. Now, my boys, trousers are quite out of the question in the tropics. He sketched a profile of an imaginary thick-lipped African in a grey woollen suit, a sun-helmet, a white starched stiff collar and tie, and laughed contemptuously: Don’t emulate this man. There was to be no rice in our meals: the school did not want to turn out men who would want to live beyond their means. And no shoes, my boys, except on the day of worship: the school did not want to turn out black Europeans but true Africans who would not look down upon the innocence and simple ways of their ancestors. At the same time, we had to grow up strong in God and the Empire. It was the two that had rid the world of the menace of Hitler.
The strength to serve: sports, cross-country races, cold showers at five in the morning became compulsory. We saluted the British flag every morning and every evening to the martial sound from the bugles and drums of our school band. Then we would all march in orderly military lines to the chapel to raise choral voices to the Maker: Wash me, Redeemer, and I shall be whiter than snow. We would then pray for the continuation of an Empire that had defeated the satanic evil which had erupted in Europe to try the children of God.
Chui – who else? — led us in a strike. We wanted all our former rights restored: we would have nothing to do with khaki shorts and certainly not with mbuca and other wadudu-eaten beans, no matter the amount of proteins in the insects. And why should teams from European schools get glucose and orange squash after a game while our own teams only got plain water? Bring back Rev. Ironmonger, we shouted.
Today, now, I wonder what came over me. It was probably the emotion of the hour. But for those three days of defiant refusal to salute the British flag, I felt more than my usual average and I must have unnecessarily brought myself to the fore. Chui and I plus five others were expelled from Siriana. The rest returned to classes, after fierce-looking riot police with batons and tear gas and turai-shields came marching to the school. Fraudsham had played it tough and won . . .
Munira paused. His voice had become more and more faint with the progress of the narrative. But it retained the weight and power of a bitter inward gaze. He had not quite realized that a school incident in the early forties could be so alive, could still carry the pain of a fresh wound. Maybe the drink and Wanja’s presence had mellowed him. Maybe that or something else. He raised his face from the past of his days at school and looked at the grotesque shadow images on the wall. Wanja cleared her throat as if to say something, but she didn’t speak. Abdulla called out to Joseph to shut the counter. Munira continued.
‘Chui was later heard of in South Africa and then America. For me the whole episode was a lesson. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Mine was of soft material. Withdrawal into self . . . depersoning myself before a crowd demanding passionate commitment to a cause became, thenceforth, my way of life. Let me remain burrowed into the earth. Why should I dare? I say: Give me a classroom; give me a few attentive pupils and leave me alone!’
Abdulla started cursing Joseph and asking him why he had not yet brought more beer. Joseph quickly brought the beer. Abdulla shouted at him to clean and clear the table.
Joseph was about seven years old with bright eyes but a hardened, expressionless face. His presence was a kind of distraction and they all looked at him. Wanja noticed his untucked shirt; she was quick to see that as he cleaned and cleared the table he was avoiding turning his back to her. The table was big with a huge crack in the middle. He tried to lean across but he could not reach her side.
‘Bring the cloth,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you.’
‘Let him do it. He is a lazy mass of fat and idle bones.’
She took the cloth all the same and cleared the whole table. As he left the room she saw that his shorts were torn at the seat and she understood.
‘Is he at your school?’ she asked, turning to Munira.
‘No, no,’ Munira said quickly, as if he would absolve himself of the responsibility.
‘Why not?’
‘Ask Abdulla,’ he said, gulping down his drink.
‘Look at this leg: I can’t run round the shop on one leg. I’m not a magician.’
Unpleasant memories seemed to be interfering with an evening which had started so well.
‘Listen, Abdulla,’ Wanja said after minutes of silence. ‘I’ll be here for some time. Let him go to school. I will help in the shop. I’ve done this kind of work before. Now I must go. Mr Munira, I am scared that I might meet a hyena in the dark. Walk me to my grandmother’s place.’
Abdulla remained at the table and didn’t look up as the two said kwaheri and left. He called out to Joseph.
‘Go and shut the door. Bring me another beer and retire,’ he said in a softened voice and this time he did not curse him.
4 ~ Within a week she too had become of us, the new object of our gossip. She was Nyakinyua’s granddaughter, this we knew – she often helped the old woman in the daily chores about the house and in the fields – but she remained a mystery: how could a city woman so dirty her hands? How could she strap a tin of water to a head beautifully crowned with a mass of shiny black hair? And what had really brought her to the gates of Ilmorog village when the trend was for the youth to run away? We watched her comings and goings with mounting curiosity: for there was little else to do in the fields beyond breaking a few clods of the earth as we waited for the beans and maize to ripen so that we could start harvesting. She would go away, we all said.
One day she disappeared. We were sure that she would not come back, despite the enigmatic smile on the old woman’s face whenever she was asked about it. It’s strange because we all talked as if we wanted her to stay away: but really we were all anxious that she should come back. This was clear on the people’s faces when after a week she returned in a white matatu Peugeot car loaded with her things. We surrounded the vehicle. It was the first time we had seen a real car stand by the door of any Ilmorog homestead and we felt that something was stirring on our ridge. We helped her unload. The driver was all the time cursing the road and saying that had he known, he would not have agreed to the deal. At least not for that kind of money. Why couldn’t they build even a track fit for a cattle wagon? We stood aside to let the car pass. We waved and waved until dust buried it in the distance. Then our interest was taken up by Wanja’s things, each item in turn becoming the centre of gossip and speculation: the Vono spring bed, the foam mattress, the utensils, especially the pressure stove which could heat water without the aid of charcoal or firewood. But it was the pressure lamp that later in the evening really captured our hearts and imaginations. Ilmorog star, we called it, and those who had travelled to beyond the boundary said it was very much like the town stars in Ruwa-ini or the city stars that hang from dry trees. She moved to a hut not far from Nyakinyua’s, and even a week later people still hung about the courtyard just to see her light the lamp. Still the question remained: why Ilmorog? Maybe now all our children will come back to us, for what’s a village without young blood? But for that night of her return we stayed wakeful outside her hut. Nyakinyua broke into Gitiro, for which she had once been famous in Ilmorog and beyond: she sang in a low voice in praise of Ndemi and his wives, long long ago. The other women chimed in at intervals with ululations. Soon we were all singing and dancing, children chasing one another in the shadows, the old men and women occasionally miming scenes from Ilmorog’s great past. It was really a festival before harvest-time a few months away, and the old only regretted that they had not prepared a little honey beer blessed by the saliva of Mwathi wa Mugo to welcome these promises of new beginnings.
The other women nodded their heads in appreciative understanding.
‘Nyakinyua has found a helper in earthing
up crops and later in harvesting,’ they said.
‘We even would follow her into the fields to see if she could really cultivate.’
The floral cloth over Ilmorog countryside was later replaced by green pods and maize cobs. The peasant farmers of Ilmorog now went into the fields to idly earth up crops that no longer needed the extra earth, or to merely pull out the odd weed. Thistles, marigolds and forget-me-nots would stick to their clothes, and they would now laugh and tell jokes and stories as they waited for the crops to ripen.
But their laughter concealed their new anxieties about a possible failure of the crops and the harvest. When a good crop was expected it was known through a rhythmic balanced alternation of rain and sunshine. A bad crop was preceded by sporadic rains or by a continuous heavy downpour which suddenly gave way to sunshine for the rest of the season. The latter was what had happened this year.
Indeed they could now see that the pods of beans and peas were short: the maize plants were thin and the cobs looked a little stunted.
Still they all waited for their ripeness and harvest believing that God was the Giver and also the one who took away.
*
Between Wanja and Munira there gradually grew an understanding without demands: nothing deep, nothing to wreck the heart. It was only, so he at first told himself, that her company gave him pleasure. For a time he felt reassured, protected even. She seemed to accept his constant attention with a playful gratitude. It was as if she would have been surprised if he had done otherwise. She often mentioned the coast, the white kanzus worn by men, the milky mnazi beer, the hairy coconut shells strewn along the Sunday beaches, the low cliffs at the water-edges of Kilindini harbour, and the wide blue waters with steamers from lands far away. She talked about the narrow Arab streets in old Mombasa town above which stood Fort Jesus — ‘It’s funny, imagine them calling it by the name of Jesus’ — and when Abdulla asked her if it was true that some Arabs could change themselves into women or cats she only laughed and asked him: but what kind of Mswahili are you to believe such things? Mswahili Mwislamu wa Bara, eh? She talked feelingly about all these things as if in every place she had been she had immersed herself in the life there: otherwise she rarely discussed her personal life, or talked about herself. Which of course Munira did not mind, for he was not one to want to tear the veils round another’s past. But he was not immune to her fatal glances and the boldness alternating with studied shyness which she bestowed on him and on Abdulla. He was, though he did not want to admit it, a little troubled by that waitingness on her face, by that pained curiosity and knowledge in her eyes. She was of course not bound to him, this he knew, and it accorded well with his spirit: he was scared of more than a casual link with another.
Still he felt that by telling his story, so frivolous, so childish, he had surrendered a part of himself to others and this he felt gave them power over him. He went to his classes with an eye to the end of the day so he could meet her at Abdulla’s place. A beer together . . . a laugh together . . . and in the course of the evening’s chatter he would carefully edge toward the night he told the Siriana story, circling round it without actually mentioning it: but their unresponsive faces did not tell him what they had really thought of his failure. She was always near and yet far, and he found that he was getting more and more pained that she talked to Abdulla with the same intimacy: perhaps, weighing him against Abdulla, she found him wanting? He started thinking about Abdulla: how had he lost his leg? Why had he come to Ilmorog? He was surprised how little he knew about Abdulla, about anybody.
An aeroplane flew low over Ilmorog. Children streamed out of their classrooms and all strained their eyes and raised their voices to the sky, trying hard to follow the movement of the plane and also its shadow that so swiftly crossed over many fields, over Ilmorog ridges and into the plains. Abdulla’s donkey hee-hawed, frightened, and its voice jarred against the sound of the small plane. Peasants emerged from the fields of maize and grouped in twos or threes in the open paths to look at the aeroplane and gossip about it: what did it want with Ilmorog that it kept on coming back? Wanja walked across to the school and asked Munira the same question. What did it want? Munira did not know but he felt it good that she had come over to seek his opinion. Maybe sightseeing, he pronounced, as the plane now flew straight across and disappeared into the white-blue cloudy distance. It was the first time that she had called on him at school since their first encounter and as she now walked away, he watched, entranced by her slightly swaying buttocks. He felt irresistibly drawn toward her.
And then she started appearing to him in dreams: breasts would beat on breasts, body frames would become taut with unspoken desire, eyes would hold onto eyes as they both stood on Ilmorog hill, hideaway from school, away from Cambridge Fraudsham who had fumed, frowned and ground his teeth with anger because of the perfumed garden that was her body. They would start wrestling, but instead of falling on the ground they would tumble into fleecy clouds, waltzing in slow motion over Ilmorog hills and valleys, thighs to thighs, warm bloodpower surging for release and suddenly he could not hold himself. In the morning he saw dry pools on the bed and he felt immeasurable sadness. He was now in danger. What is happening to me, a spectator? he moaned. For a day or two he would hold himself stiff and aloof in her presence. He walked about Ilmorog hill in the twilight, puzzling out the meaning of this new emotion: where was his man’s courage? Was he to go through life trembling on the brink because he was afraid of the chaos in the abyss?
Not so many days after the plane visit, other men in khaki clothes came to Ilmorog in a Land Rover. They walked through the fields, pulling a chain on the ground, and planting red sticks. They were besieged by the whole community who wanted to know who they were and what they were doing trespassing on other people’s lands. But they were also fascinated by the men’s instruments of chains and theodolite and the telescope hanging from one of the men’s neck and through which he constantly peered. People argued that the telescope could see from where they were to the end of the world. Munira stood at a distance from the group. Wanja came over and stood by him but her eyes were on the officer-in-charge of the team. The officer walked to Munira and asked for water. Munira sent one of the children to the school to fetch water and glasses . . . Munira asked him: What was that all about?
‘I am an engineer,’ he said. ‘We are making a preliminary survey for a proposed road across Africa.’
‘To?’
‘Zaire, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco – all over Africa,’ he explained and went back to his workmates.
When Munira turned to Wanja he saw her hurrying away, almost running away as if she had been stung by a bee. Later at Abdulla’s place almost the whole countryside came to ask Munira what the man had talked about and whether it was the long promised waterway they had come to measure. But Wanja was not among them. Strange, he thought, as he tried to concentrate on the chatter and speculation.
‘I hope they will not take our lands away,’ Njuguna voiced their fear after Munira had talked about the road.
‘They would only take a small piece,’ Abdulla suggested, ‘and they would pay compensation.’
‘A lot of money and other lands,’ somebody else added.
‘And it is good to have a proper road. It will make our travel easy and we can send our goods to markets far away instead of giving it to these scorpions who visit us from the city,’ Njuguna now enthused over the prospect.
But in their hearts they did not believe that such things could be. Nderi wa Riera had after all promised water which never came.
Munira was puzzled about Wanja’s absence. Was she avoiding him? He now ached for her and he decided to force the issue.
The following night after the departure of the road team, he went to her place, determined that this time he would take the plunge. Pleading eyes, fingers warm with bold bloodness, aah, that this cup would soon be over. He called Hodi and stood at the door leaning on the frame of the hut, rubbing his stomach a little to
clear the bitter pool of frustration and disappointment. The light brilliantly lit Abdulla, seated quite comfortably on a stool, his body against the bedframe.
‘Mwalimu . . . come in . . . I am so happy,’ she called.
His heart sank even further as he sat down: the light seemed to emphasize the happy face of Abdulla beaming at him a smile welcoming him to his carefully hidden lair.
‘You should have brought us beer to celebrate this day,’ she continued, sitting next to Abdulla facing him.
‘How are you, Mwalimu?’ Abdulla asked. ‘I wish I had known you were coming over here. I would have waited for you. As it is, I had to beat all the evening dew by myself and I have only just arrived . . .’
‘I am fine . . .’ Munira said, suddenly feeling better at the news. ‘What are we celebrating?’
‘Guess.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Today Abdulla offered me a job. Do you think I should take it?’
‘What job?’
‘A barmaid. Imagine that. A barmaid in Ilmorog. Do you think I should take it?’
‘It depends on the work. But there are very few customers in Ilmorog.’
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