Secret Lives & Other Stories

by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

  ‘Tolerant! Tolerant! How long shall we continue being tolerant? Who could have been more tolerant than the Garstones? Who more kind? And to think of all the squatters they maintained!’

  ‘Well, it isn’t the squatters who …’

  ‘Who did? Who did?’

  ‘They should all be hanged!’ suggested Mrs Hardy. There was conviction in her voice.

  ‘And to think they were actually called from bed by their houseboy!’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Yes. It was their houseboy who knocked at their door and urgently asked them to open. Said some people were after him –’

  ‘Perhaps there –’

  ‘No! It was all planned. All a trick. As soon as the door was opened, the gang rushed in. It’s all in the paper.’

  Mrs Hill looked away rather guiltily. She had not read her paper.

  It was time for tea. She excused herself and went near the door and called out in a kind, shrill voice.

  ‘Njoroge! Njoroge!’

  Njoroge was her ‘houseboy’. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man nearing middle age. He had been in the Hills’ service for more than ten years. He wore green trousers, with a red cloth-band round the waist and a red fez on his head. He now appeared at the door and raised his eyebrows in inquiry – an action which with him accompanied the words, ‘Yes, Memsahib?’ or ‘Ndio, Bwana.’

  ‘Leta Chai.’

  ‘Ndio, Memsahib!’ and he vanished back after casting a quick glance round all the Memsahibs there assembled. The conversation which had been interrupted by Njoroge’s appearance was now resumed.

  ‘They look so innocent,’ said Mrs Hardy.

  ‘Yes. Quite the innocent flower but the serpent under it.’ Mrs Smiles was acquainted with Shakespeare.

  ‘Been with me for ten years or so. Very faithful. Likes me very much.’ Mrs Hill was defending her ‘boy’.

  ‘All the same I don’t like him. I don’t like his face.’

  ‘The same with me.’

  Tea was brought. They drank, still chatting about the death, the government’s policy, and the political demagogues who were undesirable elements in this otherwise beautiful country. But Mrs Hill maintained that these semi-illiterate demagogues who went to Britain and thought they had education did not know the true aspirations of their people. You could still win your ‘boys’ by being kind to them.

  Nevertheless, when Mrs Smiles and Mrs Hardy had gone, she brooded over that murder and the conversation. She felt uneasy and for the first time noticed that she lived a bit too far from any help in case of an attack. The knowledge that she had a pistol was a comfort.

  Supper was over. That ended Njoroge’s day. He stepped out of the light into the countless shadows and then vanished into the darkness. He was following the footpath from Mrs Hill’s house to the workers’ quarters down the hill. He tried to whistle to dispel the silence and loneliness that hung around him. He could not. Instead he heard a bird cry, sharp, shrill. Strange thing for a bird to cry at night.

  He stopped, stood stock-still. Below, he could perceive nothing. But behind him the immense silhouette of Memsahib’s house – large, imposing – could be seen. He looked back intently, angrily. In his anger, he suddenly thought he was growing old.

  ‘You. You. I’ve lived with you so long. And you’ve reduced me to this!’ Njoroge wanted to shout to the house all this and many other things that had long accumulated in his heart. The house would not respond. He felt foolish and moved on.

  Again the bird cried. Twice!

  ‘A warning to her,’ Njoroge thought. And again his whole soul rose in anger – anger against those with a white skin, those foreign elements that had displaced the true sons of the land from their God-given place. Had God not promised Gekoyo all this land, he and his children, forever and ever? Now the land had been taken away.

  He remembered his father, as he always did when these moments of anger and bitterness possessed him. He had died in the struggle – the struggle to rebuild the destroyed shrines. That was at the famous 1923 Nairobi Massacre when police fired on a people peacefully demonstrating for their rights. His father was among the people who died. Since then Njoroge had had to struggle for a living – seeking employment here and there on European farms. He had met many types – some harsh, some kind, but all dominating, giving him just what salary they thought fit for him. Then he had come to be employed by the Hills. It was a strange coincidence that he had come here. A big portion of the land now occupied by Mrs Hill was the land his father had shown him as belonging to the family. They had found the land occupied when his father and some of the others had temporarily retired to Muranga owing to famine. They had come back and Ng’o! the land was gone.

  ‘Do you see that fig tree? Remember that land is yours. Be patient. Watch these Europeans. They will go and then you can claim the land.’

  He was small then. After his father’s death, Njoroge had forgotten this injunction. But when he coincidentally came here and saw the tree, he remembered. He knew it all – all by heart. He knew where every boundary went through.

  Njoroge had never liked Mrs Hill. He had always resented her complacency in thinking she had done so much for the workers. He had worked with cruel types like Mrs Smiles and Mrs Hardy. But he always knew where he stood with such. But Mrs Hill! Her liberalism was almost smothering. Njoroge hated settlers. He hated above all what he thought was their hypocrisy and complacency. He knew that Mrs Hill was no exception. She was like all the others, only she loved paternalism. It convinced her she was better than the others. But she was worse. You did not know exactly where you stood with her.

  All of a sudden, Njoroge shouted, ‘I hate them! I hate them!’ Then a grim satisfaction came over him. Tonight, anyway, Mrs Hill would die – pay for her own smug liberalism, her paternalism and pay for all the sins of her settler race. It would be one settler less.

  He came to his own room. There was no smoke coming from all the other rooms belonging to the other workers. The lights had even gone out in many of them. Perhaps, some were already asleep or gone to the Native Reserve to drink beer. He lit the lantern and sat on the bed. It was a very small room. Sitting on the bed one could almost touch all the corners of the room if one stretched one’s arms wide. Yet it was here, here, that he with two wives and a number of children had to live, had in fact lived for more than five years. So crammed! Yet Mrs Hill thought that she had done enough by just having the houses built with brick.

  ‘Mzuri, sana, eh?’ (very good, eh?) she was very fond of asking. And whenever she had visitors she brought them to the edge of the hill and pointed at the houses.

  Again Njoroge smiled grimly to think how Mrs Hill would pay for all this self-congratulatory piety. He also knew that he had an axe to grind. He had to avenge the death of his father and strike a blow for the occupied family land. It was foresight on his part to have taken his wives and children back to the Reserve. They might else have been in the way and in any case he did not want to bring trouble to them should he be forced to run away after the act.

  The other Ihii (Freedom Boys) would come at any time now. He would lead them to the house. Treacherous – yes! But how necessary.

  The cry of the night bird, this time louder than ever, reached his ears. That was a bad omen. It always portended death – death for Mrs Hill. He thought of her. He remembered her. He had lived with Memsahib and Bwana for more than ten years. He knew that she had loved her husband. Of that he was sure. She almost died of grief when she had learnt of his death. In that moment her settlerism had been shorn off. In that naked moment, Njoroge had been able to pity her. Then the children! He had known them. He had seen them grow up like any other children. Almost like his own. They loved their parents, and Mrs Hill had always been so tender with them, so loving. He thought of them in England, wherever that was, fatherless and motherless.

  And then he realized, too suddenly, that he could not do it. He could not tell how, but Mrs Hill had suddenly crystallized int
o a woman, a wife, somebody like Njeri or Wambui, and above all, a mother. He could not kill a woman. He could not kill a mother. He hated himself for this change. He felt agitated. He tried hard to put himself in the other condition, his former self, and see her as just a settler. As a settler, it was easy. For Njoroge hated settlers and all Europeans. If only he could see her like this (as one among many white men or settlers) then he could do it. Without scruples. But he could not bring back the other self. Not now, anyway. He had never thought of her in these terms. Until today. And yet he knew she was the same, and would be the same tomorrow – a patronizing, complacent woman. It was then he knew that he was a divided man and perhaps would ever remain like that. For now it even seemed an impossible thing to snap just like that ten years of relationship, though to him they had been years of pain and shame. He prayed and wished there had never been injustices. Then there would never have been this rift – the rift between white and black. Then he would never have been put in this painful situation.

  What was he to do now? Would he betray the ‘Boys’? He sat there, irresolute, unable to decide on a course of action. If only he had not thought of her in human terms! That he hated settlers was quite clear in his mind. But to kill a mother of two seemed too painful a task for him to do in a free frame of mind.

  He went out.

  Darkness still covered him and he could see nothing clearly. The stars above seemed to be anxiously awaiting Njoroge’s decision. Then, as if their cold stare was compelling him, he began to walk, walk back to Mrs Hill’s house. He had decided to save her. Then probably he would go to the forest. There, he would forever fight with a freer conscience. That seemed excellent. It would also serve as a propitiation for his betrayal of the other ‘Boys’.

  There was no time to lose. It was already late and the ‘Boys’ might come any time. So he ran with one purpose – to save the woman. At the road he heard footsteps. He stepped into the bush and lay still. He was certain that those were the ‘Boys’. He waited breathlessly for the footsteps to die. Again he hated himself for this betrayal. But how could he fail to hearken to this other voice? He ran on when the footsteps had died. It was necessary to run, for if the ‘Boys’ discovered his betrayal he would surely meet death. But then he did not mind this. He only wanted to finish this other task first.

  At last, sweating and panting, he reached Mrs Hill’s house and knocked at the door, crying, ‘Memsahib! Memsahib!’

  Mrs Hill had not yet gone to bed. She had sat up, a multitude of thoughts crossing her mind. Ever since that afternoon’s conversation with the other women, she had felt more and more uneasy. When Njoroge went and she was left alone she had gone to her safe and taken out her pistol, with which she was now toying. It was better to be prepared. It was unfortunate that her husband had died. He might have kept her company.

  She sighed over and over again as she remembered her pioneering days. She and her husband and others had tamed the wilderness of this country and had developed a whole mass of unoccupied land. People like Njoroge now lived contented without a single worry about tribal wars. They had a lot to thank the Europeans for.

  Yes she did not like those politicians who came to corrupt the otherwise obedient and hard-working men, especially when treated kindly. She did not like this murder of the Garstones. No! She did not like it. And when she remembered the fact that she was really alone, she thought it might be better for her to move down to Nairobi or Kinangop and stay with friends a while. But what would she do with her boys? Leave them there? She wondered. She thought of Njoroge. A queer boy. Had he many wives? Had he a large family? It was surprising even to her to find that she had lived with him so long, yet had never thought of these things. This reflection shocked her a little. It was the first time she had ever thought of him as a man with a family. She had always seen him as a servant. Even now it seemed ridiculous to think of her houseboy as a father with a family. She sighed. This was an omission, something to be righted in future.

  And then she heard a knock on the front door and a voice calling out ‘Memsahib! Memsahib!’

  It was Njoroge’s voice. Her houseboy. Sweat broke out on her face. She could not even hear what the boy was saying for the circumstances of the Garstones’ death came to her. This was her end. The end of the road. So Njoroge had led them here! She trembled and felt weak.

  But suddenly, strength came back to her. She knew she was alone. She knew they would break in. No! She would die bravely. Holding her pistol more firmly in her hand, she opened the door and quickly fired. Then a nausea came over her. She had killed a man for the first time. She felt weak and fell down crying, ‘Come and kill me!’ She did not know that she had in fact killed her saviour.

  On the following day, it was all in the papers. That a single woman could fight a gang fifty strong was bravery unknown. And to think she had killed one too!

  Mrs Smiles and Mrs Hardy were especially profuse in their congratulations.

  ‘We told you they’re all bad.’

  ‘They are all bad,’ agreed Mrs Hardy. Mrs Hill kept quiet. The circumstances of Njoroge’s death worried her. The more she thought about it, the more of a puzzle it was to her. She gazed still into space. Then she let out a slow enigmatic sigh.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t know?’ Mrs Hardy asked.

  ‘Yes. That’s it. Inscrutable.’ Mrs Smiles was triumphant. ‘All of them should be whipped.’

  ‘All of them should be whipped,’ agreed Mrs Hardy.

  THE RETURN

  The road was long. Whenever he took a step forward, little clouds of dust rose, whirled angrily behind him, and then slowly settled again. But a thin train of dust was left in the air, moving like smoke. He walked on, however, unmindful of the dust and ground under his feet. Yet with every step he seemed more and more conscious of the hardness and apparent animosity of the road. Not that he looked down; on the contrary, he looked straight ahead as if he would, any time now, see a familiar object that would hail him as a friend and tell him that he was near home. But the road stretched on.

  He made quick, springing steps, his left hand dangling freely by the side of his once white coat, now torn and worn out. His right hand, bent at the elbow, held onto a string tied to a small bundle on his slightly drooping back. The bundle, well wrapped with a cotton cloth that had once been printed with red flowers now faded out, swung from side to side in harmony with the rhythm of his steps. The bundle held the bitterness and hardships of the years spent in detention camps. Now and then he looked at the sun on its homeward journey. Sometimes he darted quick side-glances at the small hedged strips of land which, with their sickly-looking crops, maize, beans, and peas, appeared much as everything else did – unfriendly. The whole country was dull and seemed weary. To Kamau, this was nothing new. He remembered that, even before the Mau Mau emergency, the over-tilled Gikuyu holdings wore haggard looks in contrast to the sprawling green fields in the settled area.

  A path branched to the left. He hesitated for a moment and then made up his mind. For the first time, his eyes brightened a little as he went along the path that would take him down the valley and then to the village. At last home was near and, with that realization, the faraway look of a weary traveller seemed to desert him for a while. The valley and the vegetation along it were in deep contrast to the surrounding country. For here green bush and trees thrived. This could only mean one thing: Honia river still flowed. He quickened his steps as if he could scarcely believe this to be true till he had actually set his eyes on the river. It was there; it still flowed. Honia, where so often he had taken a bathe, plunging stark naked into its cool living water, warmed his heart as he watched its serpentine movement round the rocks and heard its slight murmurs. A painful exhilaration passed all over him, and for a moment he longed for those days. He sighed. Perhaps the river would not recognize in his hardened features that same boy to whom the riverside world had meant everything. Yet as he approached Honia, he felt more akin to i
t than he had felt to anything else since his release.

  A group of women were drawing water. He was excited, for he could recognize one or two from his ridge. There was the middle-aged Wanjiku, whose deaf son had been killed by the Security Forces just before he himself was arrested. She had always been a darling of the village, having a smile for everyone and food for all. Would they receive him? Would they give him a ‘hero’s welcome’? He thought so. Had he not always been a favourite all along the Ridge? And had he not fought for the land? He wanted to run and shout: ‘Here I am. I have come back to you.’ But he desisted. He was a man.

  ‘Is it well with you?’ A few voices responded. The other women, with tired and worn features, looked at him mutely as if his greeting was of no consequence. Why! Had he been so long in the camp? His spirits were damped as he feebly asked: ‘Do you not remember me?’ Again they looked at him. They stared at him with cold, hard looks; like everything else, they seemed to be deliberately refusing to know or own him. It was Wanjiku who at last recognized him. But there was neither warmth nor enthusiasm in her voice as she said, ‘Oh, is it you, Kamau? We thought you—’ She did not continue. Only now he noticed something else – surprise? fear? He could not tell. He saw their quick glances dart at him and he knew for certain that a secret from which he was excluded bound them together.

  ‘Perhaps I am no longer one of them!’ he bitterly reflected. But they told him of the new village. The old village of scattered huts spread thinly over the Ridge was no more.

  He left them, feeling embittered and cheated. The old village had not even waited for him. And suddenly he felt a strong nostalgia for his old home, friends and surroundings. He thought of his father, mother and – and – he dared not think about her. But for all that, Muthoni, just as she had been in the old days, came back to his mind. His heart beat faster. He felt desire and a warmth thrilled through him. He quickened his step. He forgot the village women as he remembered his wife. He had stayed with her for a mere two weeks; then he had been swept away by the Colonial forces. Like many others, he had been hurriedly screened and then taken to detention without trial. And all that time he had thought of nothing but the village and his beautiful woman.