Hour of the Red God

by Richard Crompton

  It reminds him of a name—one of many—that the Maasai have for this city. Nakuso Intelon. It means festooned trees, and refers to the lights high on the skyline, visible from the plains for miles around.

  —Nothing to see, continues Sammy. They were doing it in the dark.

  —Oh, come on! protests Kiunga. We’re supposed to believe that two hundred soldiers paraded around here for an hour in the middle of the night in pitch darkness and complete silence? And yet a blind man observed it all? Sammy, had you been at the chang’aa by any chance?

  —I didn’t say they were soldiers, says Sammy. But they did have weapons.

  —Don’t tell me—they started taking potshots?

  Sammy sighs.

  —Tell us, says Mollel.

  —I heard them doing drills. You know, a whispered order, then lots of clanking of wood against wood.

  —They were fighting themselves, in the middle of the night, in the dark! Brilliant! says Wainaina. Guys, can we go home now? It’s so cold.

  —How do you know they didn’t have any lights? Mollel asks Sammy.

  —The engines were silent. You don’t leave the lights on for an hour without leaving the engine running. You get a flat battery on one of those old buses, you’re going to need a tow truck.

  —They might have had flashlights, says Kiunga.

  —Possibly. But I don’t think so. I heard a lot of whispering, a lot of orders given in low voices that I could not make out. But the only voice I heard out loud came from over here.

  He beckons them to follow him to the edge of the open space. A shin-high hedge runs along the path at this point, the boundary between the gardens and the car park.

  —I’ve walked into this myself a few times, admits Sammy. But then, as you keep reminding me, I am blind. You guys aren’t going to walk into it with a flashlight, are you?

  Mollel runs his flashlight along the low hedge. It’s made from bougainvillea, with evenly spaced posts between which barbed wire has been stretched for the plants to grow over. No more than a foot from the ground, but he certainly wouldn’t want to blunder into it in the dark.

  —So at one point I heard the men marching this way. Then there’s a yell of pain, and someone shouts halt! And then, some commotion. Now, even policemen aren’t dumb enough to march into barbed wire if they have any way of seeing where they’re going.

  Mollel continues along the hedge, barbed wire glinting in his flashlight beam below the green-and-purple foliage of the bougainvillea. He stops. Suddenly the hedge is disrupted, footprints in the earth before it. Large ones—a lot of them. He pushes the leaves away to look at the wire. After some searching, he finds a section with a shred of cloth on one of the barbs. He takes it off and examines it under his flashlight. It is thick dark-green material, with a dark black patch.

  —Blood, says Kiunga, echoing Mollel’s thoughts.

  Mollel shines the light on Sammy’s trousers. They’re gray. —Roll up your trouser legs, Sammy, he orders. The blind man does so: no sign of any injury.

  —There were four buses, you say? Mollel asks Sammy. He walks away from the bushes and toward the center of the car park. The others follow him, Kiunga leading Sammy by the arm.

  —Let me guess, Sammy, says Mollel—he is now some distance ahead of them—it sounded to you like they were parked about here. He walks farther. —And here. He walks farther still. —And here—and he’s now got so distant that he has to shout —and here?

  —Sounds about right, Sammy calls back.

  Mollel casts his beam down on the ground. He’s standing above a patch of oil. He strides seven even paces back toward the others, shines the beam down—a patch of oil. Seven more paces, a patch of oil. Seven more paces and he’s back with them. He shines the beam once more down at their feet. A patch of oil.

  —They even parked in formation, he says. Sammy’s right. Whoever these guys are, their transport may be clapped out, but they are disciplined.

  7

  SUNDAY, 23 DECEMBER 2007

  It is just turning midnight as Kiunga coaxes the Land Rover into Banda Street. Away from K Street—which never sleeps—the city center has an eerie feel at this time. Cats, never evident during the day, stalk the emptiness, turning their moonbeam eyes toward the oncoming car before scurrying into the darkness. Humans are still present, occasionally sleeping cocooned in doorways or, now and then, swaying intoxicated along the sidewalk.

  —She said she’d meet us up here, says Kiunga, drawing the car to a halt and getting out. Mollel descends too, and Kiunga locks up.

  —This is the time for night runners, he says.

  He’s whispering. The silence around them seems to demand it. Together, their footsteps echo along Banda Street. A flash of movement at the far end—gone before Mollel can make out what it is.

  Mollel has never seen a night runner, but he’s heard enough credible reports not to dismiss the idea as pure fantasy. Indeed, every so often one is caught and killed, usually in the villages. Of course, the night runner, once dead, returns to his or her form as a normal human, so there is no proving the stories of supernatural speed and strength. But what it does prove is that there are people who go about at night, usually naked. Whether truly possessed by a witch, merely mad, or simply up to no good, no one can say. What Mollel knows, though, is that there are enough malignant spirits of the criminal variety on the streets of Nairobi at this time of night to make the undercurrent of fear he’s feeling right now a perfectly healthy and rational response.

  * * *

  They’ve stopped by the mosque—the largest one in the center of the city and even more of a focal point by night than it is in the day. A series of floodlights from within the main dome and minaret pick out the high arched windows lit in aqueous green. With no illumination, though, at ground level, the effect seems merely to increase the darkness in the street.

  —Up here, says Kiunga, turning into a small alley that runs alongside the mosque, known, with typical Nairobi economy, as Mosque Alley.

  —She asked to meet here?

  —She said it was safe.

  * * *

  Safe for her, Mollel does not doubt. It is near enough to K Street for her to come on foot without crossing too much of town alone. And if she fears being seen talking to the police, it is certainly a good spot to avoid prying eyes.

  That’s if she’s genuine. Mollel’s fear, though, is a trap. And with the long, high wall of the mosque bounding one side of the alley and the facing wall equally blank and inaccessible, the two men would be easy prey if caught in the middle.

  —She said midnight?

  —It’s only a few minutes past.

  They get halfway down the alley and stop. On any day of the week this narrow lane is pretty busy. On a Friday afternoon it is thronged with the devout and the not so devout, the mosque-goers and the vendors of trinkets, Korans, and kufis. If you want to buy a plastic replica of the Ka’bah at Mecca, which tells the time and date and plays a series of tinny yet rousing recordings of Koranic verse, this is the place to come. If you want to buy a DVD entitled Al-Qaeda’s Greatest Hits from certain shady, bearded youths—before they are chased off by the mosque elders—this is the place to come. If you are penniless, homeless, hopeless—Muslim or Kaffir—and want to tap some reliable Sabbatarian charity, this is the place to come. But only on Friday afternoons.

  In these first few minutes of a Sunday morning, the alley is as silent as the grave. Perhaps it is the looming presence of the mosque itself that keeps away the street sleepers, the drug dealers, the junkies looking for a quiet place for a fix, or the hookers looking for a quiet place to take their clients for a knee trembler. Not even night runners would venture here. Or at least Mollel hopes they won’t.

  A distant, regular tapping echoes through the streets now. It becomes a clack-clack, a confident, purposeful stride. High heels, female footsteps. Mollel strains, listening, trying to discover an undercurrent to this high note: a hidden bass, a quiet drumming m
ale footbeat accompanying the more evident feminine percussion. But he does not hear any footsteps other than hers. It sounds as if she is alone.

  She rounds the corner at the head of the alleyway, and in the undersea green light reflected from the mosque, she is a silhouette.

  She walks toward them, never breaking her stride, feet falling determinedly one in front of the other, tapered ankles crossing each other’s path. Her long legs are bare, the skirt high, and her hips sway with the rhythm of her walk. Her shoulders are thrown back, and long, straight hair brushes her shoulders. Mollel is reminded of an impala, graceful, proud, powerful—and fragile.

  She draws close and finally is illuminated in the half-light before them. Unsmiling, challenging, she scrutinizes the two men before her.

  Mollel knows her.

  And he does not know her.

  And he knows her—or rather, he knows her face. It is the face of his mother and his sisters, the face of the girls of his village and of his youth.

  It is the face of the dead girl.

  It is a Maasai face. And now that the surprise has passed and he has more of a chance to make out the girl’s features, he sees that beyond the high cheeks, the almond eyes, the typically Maasai straight nose, she is not a person he knows.

  And yet, he knows her.

  * * *

  He might have anticipated this. The dead girl was Maasai, so she would naturally be friendly with another Maasai girl on the streets. They seem about the same age, too. Early twenties, he guesses. This girl is taller, and she does not have any tribal scarring on her cheeks. Her ears, too, are pierced only in the regular, non-Maasai way, to allow her to wear a pair of glinting earrings.

  —So, she says. You’re a Maasai too. I saw you watching from Nelly’s window. You looked like someone I could trust.

  —You can trust me, and my colleague here, says Mollel. Whatever you say to us is confidential. It does not get back to K Street. Or anywhere else.

  —Do you think you might know the dead girl? asks Kiunga.

  —I think so, she replies quietly. I think she may be my friend.

  * * *

  There is never a good time to visit the Nairobi city mortuary, but superstition and sentiment aside, the early hours of Sunday morning may be better than most. The visitor is spared the grieving families, women wailing and ululating; the hard-luck stories from smartly dressed, credible-looking beggars who need just a hundred bob to help repatriate their uncle’s body to Garissa (tomorrow it will be their grandmother, to Kisumu); the vendors of trinkets and charms, candles and rosaries; the coffin makers, with their trays of small-scale replicas—or, hardly bigger, the real, ready-made baby and child coffins in which they do a good trade on the spot.

  You are also spared the standing in queues; the standing in corridors; the standing around and about and wherever you can, squatting or sitting, and waiting and waiting and waiting; and returning once and again to the counter to try to get hold of someone—anyone—who will deal with your request.

  So, for all practical reasons, the mortuary is best visited at night. Yet even Mollel—to whom this place is grimly familiar—needs to suppress a shiver as they crunch over the gravel toward the main entrance.

  It’s a while before anyone answers the door. When he comes, it’s evident that the attendant has been sleeping. They watch him through the glass as he fumbles with the lock. His eyes are bleary and his cheeks creased. As he opens the door, the pungent, sour smell of home-brewed beer hits them. The attendant rubs his hand across his bristled, grizzled chin.

  —Visiting hours are over.

  Mollel shows him his card. —We’ve got an ID to do. Unknown female, found in Uhuru Park.

  —Can’t it wait until morning?

  —It is morning, says Mollel. Point us in the right direction, and you can go back to sleep.

  —Third along, says the attendant, indicating a door with a NO ENTRY sign before them.

  —You sure about that? asks Kiunga. We don’t want any surprises.

  —I’m sure.

  —Surprises? asks Mollel as he pushes open the heavy door. The immediate drop in temperature makes his skin prickle.

  —I pulled back a sheet once, expecting to see a bank robber, found half a dozen babies, says Kiunga in a low voice. All the ones collected from the city that week. It was someone’s idea of a joke.

  Mollel looks over at the girl. She has come in too, but stays in the reception area, seemingly tuned out of their conversation.

  —I’d better check it out first, before we show her.

  He enters the morgue alone, finding a light switch and flicking it on. The fluorescent strips stutter and ping into life.

  * * *

  The room is the same as it was nine years ago, when he came to find his wife. Except then it was overflowing, with the living and the dead.

  Days, he waited there. Nights, too. He used his policeman’s privilege to bypass the formalities, the crowd of desperate relatives forced to wait outside. He was among the first to see each new corpse as it was brought in from the rubble.

  He looked like one himself. The thick white concrete dust caked his clothes. His skin was a skin of ashes. Blood—some his own, most from others—streaked black against the white.

  After a day or so, someone told him to go get cleaned up. They gave him some clothes.

  He stood naked in the sluice room, rinsing the blood and dust from his body. That’s where they cleaned the corpses, too. He had to dress hurriedly as another was brought in.

  —It’s not her, they said. We’re still pulling out the ones from the upper stories. If she was on the third floor, there’s no saying when they’ll find her. There’s no saying they’ll find her at all.

  * * *

  Now there is an orderly line of gurneys, about fifteen or so, with the first six covered. He goes to the third, takes the sheet in his hand, and gently, slowly, lifts it.

  It is the Maasai girl. She’s been laid out, stripped and washed, but the postmortem has not been performed yet. The body is battered. He sees that a gauze pad has been placed between the legs. He has no intention of removing it; he can wait for the results of the PM. Now his concern is with making her presentable. He walks down the line of trolleys and removes sheets from two of the empty ones. Then he folds the one draped across the dead girl so that it covers her up to her neck. He takes one sheet, folds it to a strip a few inches wide, and drapes it over her head like a nun’s wimple, framing her face. She looks placid now. Then he takes the third sheet and softly covers her face once more.

  * * *

  There was no such ceremony when Chiku was brought in. It was the fourth day: Mollel had been sleeping crouched against a wall. He had been dreaming of his baby son.

  Someone had roused him. We think this might be her.

  He’d known the body would be in a bad way. By that stage, they were taking the corpses out of the embassy with diggers. But he wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

  * * *

  That’s why he wants no shocks this time. He says no prayer as he diligently shrouds the figure laid out before him. It is a purely practical measure. He is a detective, and he wants there to be no distraction when the living girl meets the dead.

  He returns to the door and indicates to Kiunga that the body is ready for viewing.

  The girl crosses the boundary. She walks to Mollel, who leads her to the table. He looks at her to ask, Ready? She nods.

  The sheet is lifted. Kiunga’s eyes inevitably drop to the body; Mollel’s remain firmly on the girl. She winces in recognition.

  —Yes, she says, almost inaudibly. Yes, it’s Lucy.

  8

  —My name is Honey. Not my Maasai name, of course. That’s En’cecoroi e-intoi Kipuri. It was Lucy who christened me Honey. She told me that if you washed your forehead when you took your new name, you washed away your past. That’s what we were both trying to do. That’s how we both ended up in Nairobi.

  * * *

&n
bsp; They’re in the car, at the far end of the mortuary car park. Somehow it seems the best place to do this. Neither the harsh white interior nor the cold night air beyond is conducive to talk. The car, now, lights off, is intimate and secluded. The girl seems to feel close enough—and private enough—to open up.

  —My Maa is pretty rusty, Mollel admits. En’cecoroi—that’s a bird, isn’t it?

  —In English, it’s called honeyguide. Lucy told me that.

  Mollel recalls the bird: a drab little creature, but full of spirit. It does not fear humans, but leads them to bees’ nests in the hope of picking off the larvae for its chicks once the man has taken the honey.

  There was a story his mother used to tell. The story of the honeyguide—a tale that would have been as old as the Maasai people themselves. He could not remember the details, but he knew that it always made him sad.

  Honey would know the tale. She would have been told it every year, upon the anniversary of her en-teipa ceremony, when a baby is taken by its mother, fresh from her confinement, to the dwelling place of an animal whose spirit they hope will inhabit the newborn.

  Often it’s a lion’s den—deserted, of course—to imbue the child with courage. Or a buffalo’s scratching tree, for strength. The choice of the modest little bird signified a hope that the little girl would, in her turn, become a caring mother. And a resourceful one.

  Mollel can’t help wondering what her parents would think of her now.

  But it’s more important to find out about the victim.

  —Do you know Lucy’s Maasai name?

  —No. She was just Lucy. She said you need a street name that’s easy enough for a drunk to remember. She was full of good advice like that, when I first started.

  —So she’s the one who got you into prostitution? asks Kiunga, leaning over from the driver’s seat. Mollel, sitting next to her in the back, senses the girl bristling.