—Well, you can imagine what sort of effect that had in Kibera. Pretty soon we had the gangs come around. The Mungiki. Wanted to tithe our tithes. I said fine. You can have your payment. You know what would have happened if I’d said no?
—I can imagine.
—So I gave it to them. But, I said, on the condition that you come to service. That way you can see what’s going into the pot and know I’m not cheating you. So they started coming to service. And you know what? Some of them stayed. They stopped taking their commission and started helping out.
The door to the stage opens and Benjamin enters, followed by Wanjiku Nalo.
—In fact, continued Nalo, here is one of those young men now.
Benjamin glares at Mollel.
—I wondered if you were ex-Mungiki, Mollel says. The dreadlocks.
—Once, I believed that the only way to leave the Mungiki was with a police bullet in the head. Reverend Nalo gave me an alternative.
—Thank you, Benjamin, says Wanjiku Nalo. Tell Sophie we’ll be right out.
Benjamin leaves, and Wanjiku takes a seat on the sofa next to her husband. —What’s all this about? she asks.
—I was just wondering the same thing, says Nalo.
—I need to ask you some questions about Orpheus House, says Mollel. He has not been offered a seat and is still standing.
—On a Sunday? says Wanjiku. Officer, this is the busiest day of our week. Can’t you come by the office tomorrow?
—This is a murder inquiry.
That silences them.
—A young woman was found murdered in Uhuru Park on Saturday morning. We have reason to believe that her body may have been dumped in the storm drain at Orpheus House.
—How awful, says Wanjiku. But Officer, the place is shut up. Awaiting renovation. If someone’s illegally accessed the site, we can’t be held responsible.
—There’s a second line of inquiry, replies Mollel. The victim had recently come under the protection of a religious group, one that helps prostitutes get off the streets. That would be your organization, wouldn’t it?
—It could be, admits Wanjiku. There are a few charities doing similar work. Orpheus House is probably the best known. Can you tell us the poor girl’s name?
—We only know her as Lucy, says Mollel. A Maasai.
George Nalo glances at his wife. He pulls the towel from around his neck and wipes his corpulent face with it.
—Lucy, says Wanjiku quietly. Yes. She was one of our clients. So she’s dead?
—You don’t seem shocked at the idea.
—It’s very sad. But no, I am not shocked. Officer, you know the sort of life these girls lead. That’s what we’re trying to save them from. If they insist upon returning to the streets, there’s very little we can do for them.
—And that’s what Lucy did? She returned to the streets?
—I suppose she must have. She just vanished one night. Upped and left. A while ago. Just before we shut down the old building.
The greenroom door opens again and the woman with the headset looks in. She holds a fresh shirt, tie, and jacket on a hanger. —Reverend, you’re on in two!
Nalo rises to his feet and takes the clothing.
—This is where I must bid you adieu, Officer, he says, pulling off his shirt. I hope you find whoever did this vile act. We’ll pray for Lucy.
—I may need to speak to you again, says Mollel. And I need access to the building on Upper Hill—
—There’s no point bothering my husband with this, interjects Wanjiku. He’s just the spiritual guide. I’m the medical director of that project. I deal with the day-to-day side of things.
Nalo has hastily pulled on his new shirt and jacket. He stands still while Wanjiku ties his tie. She kisses him on the lips—tall as he is, she is almost the same height—and Nalo bursts through the door and heads back onto the stage, a wave of euphoric cheering greeting his return.
Then she turns to Mollel. —I have a meeting of the women’s caucus after the service, but I can take you to the project quickly. We should be able to find Lucy’s records. But I warn you: as far as patient confidentiality is concerned, I believe it applies just as much after death. You can have her contact information, but not her medical notes. If you want them, you’ll need a court order. And for that matter, the Upper Hill house is half demolished inside, and dangerous. The only way you’re getting in there is with a hard hat and a warrant.
As Mollel follows her out the door into the service corridor, he glances back at Benjamin the usher.
—The Lord watches over his errant lambs, he says to Mollel. May you not stray too far from the path.
Mollel wonders whether that is a blessing or a threat.
10
—This, says Wanjiku as they walk into a small building not far from the church, is Orpheus House. At least its present incarnation.
Mollel looks around the schoolroom. For there’s no disguising what it is: posters of cartoonish biblical scenes adorn the walls, and the desks and chairs stacked up against the whiteboard are almost laughably child-size. The rest of the room is partitioned, sectioned off by green medical screens.
—We’re conducting Sunday school in the open air until the new building is ready. Right now we don’t have any residential clients. We’re just offering a medical and counseling service.
Mollel thinks about the old abandoned house on Upper Hill, the childish surroundings of this converted schoolroom, and the bright white architect’s vision of the future Orpheus House. He remembers a snatch of catechism from his time with Chiku at the Catholic church: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He’s never understood the concept—frankly, he doubts anyone really does—but perhaps this has something to do with it: the way the old becomes renewed in pursuit of the ideal.
—Was Lucy a residential client? asks Mollel.
—Yes. Our last one, at the old place.
—How many others were there?
—Three or four at a time. They stayed between one week and six months. We’ve had dozens of women pass through.
—And your success rate?
—Pretty high. I can put you in touch with dozens of women who are now leading fulfilling lives in our community. You might even have seen some of them in church just now. Of course, there are always those, like Lucy, who fall by the wayside.
—How long was she with you?
—From memory, it was just a few weeks. But I’ll have to find the records. Excuse me.
Wanjiku opens the door to a closet. The door jangles. On its inner surface it is covered with cup hooks, on each hook a set of keys. A scrawl of marker pen above each hook seems to indicate the purpose of each set.
The floor and shelves of the closet are piled high with cardboard filing boxes, lids barely shut, overflowing with ledgers, files, and stacks of paper.
—We haven’t had a chance to sort out the paperwork yet. I think Lucy’s records should be in this box.
Wanjiku reaches up to the topmost box. Despite the fact that she’s probably an inch or two taller than he is—and, he guesses, just as strong—Mollel chivalrously steps forward. Wanjiku steps aside so that Mollel can get into the closet doorway. He takes the box. It’s heavy—he turns on his axis and looks for somewhere to put it down.
—Here, she says, pushing aside one of the medical screens.
He sees an examination table with steel stirrups spread wide; a trolley piled high with kidney dishes, clamps, swabs. He drops the box with a thump onto the table.
—I’m a gynecologist, says Wanjiku, sensing his surprise at the sudden appearance of this incongruous apparatus. The most important thing we can do for these women, even if we can’t persuade them to give up the business, is to take care of their health. We give them a checkup, a blood test. Talk to them about STDs.
She lifts the lid off the box and starts to sift through its contents.
—Ever see any cases of female circumcision? Mollel asks.
She turns to
him with a flash of anger. —Female genital mutilation, you mean! Don’t soften it by suggesting it’s merely ceremonial. Or some kind of cosmetic procedure. A clitoris is not a foreskin, you know. How’d you like to have the whole top of your penis cut off?
—I wouldn’t! Mollel says defensively. And honestly.
—Statistically, it’s on the decrease. The message seems to be getting through, especially among you Maasai. But it’s still common practice in many tribes. The worst cases I’ve seen are from some of the northern nomads. They don’t stop at a clitorectomy, you know. They can remove the whole labia. And there’s nothing subtle about the way they do it.
With the image of Lucy’s corpse in his mind, Mollel begins to feel queasy.
Wanjiku takes a set of stapled notes from the box. She glares at him with a fierce passion.
—You know why they do it, don’t you?
She’s drawn level with him, and Mollel is conscious of her physical presence: if a man squared up to him like this, he would be preparing for a fight. But this is a woman. A gray-haired doctor. A pastor’s wife.
He is utterly unnerved.
He answers, weakly,—Tradition?
—Tradition be damned! They do it for power. These pathetic men. Old men. You know full well, a Maasai can’t wed until he’s an elder. That’s well into his thirties. Then, when he’s rich, he can take another wife. He’s getting on by then. A third, if he’s successful enough. Probably in his sixties by now. These girls, they’re child brides. But they grow up. The old man can’t even satisfy one of them, let alone three. And all those young, virile, unmarried morans in the village. What to do? You cut off female sexuality at its source.
Mollel does not answer.
He knows it is true. It is all part of why he left. It is why Honey and Lucy and countless others left, and are leaving, and will leave.
But it’s hard for him to hear these words in the mouth of a Kikuyu.
To a Maasai, a Kikuyu is the ultimate sellout.
The two tribes once considered themselves cousins. The white man might class one Bantu, the other Nilotic—but the Kikuyu and the Maasai have always overlapped when it comes to territory, not to mention costume, mythology, and vocabulary.
Sometimes they fought—minor skirmishes to full-scale wars—but it was a rivalry based on respect. Time was, the only outsider it was acceptable for a Maasai to marry was a Kikuyu, and vice versa.
When the Kikuyu rose up against the white man, it seemed to be a replay of the Maasai wars against the invaders of the previous century. But then they won, and they renamed the country after their holy Kikuyu mountain. By this time, you never saw a Kikuyu in traditional dress. They seemed to prefer the ridiculous trousers and neckties of the foreigners.
Even though he married one—even though his son is half Kikuyu—even though he himself has long since rejected such tradition, it pains Mollel to hear a Kikuyu criticize the Maasai way of life. The Maasai might as well be invisible when it comes to government posts, civil servants, or—as Mollel well knows—the police. They may not be the great industrialists, the celebrities, the movers and shakers, but when the tourist board wants to attract visitors, who do they put on the billboards? If ever a picturesque African is needed for a pop video or fashion shoot, whose image do they use?
Tradition, unfortunately, cuts both ways.
Wanjiku Nalo is glaring at him as though he, personally, is responsible for centuries of gender oppression. She rips the cover sheet from the stack of notes.
—This is all I can give you without a court order. Full name, age, the dates of her stay.
—That’s enough to be going on with. One more thing. When Lucy came to you, had she been—was she already—mutilated?
—Medical confidentiality, Sergeant.
—And you’re still insisting on a warrant before you let me into the old Orpheus House?
—We’ve gutted the place. It’s not safe. I’m not prepared to take liability.
—Fine, concedes Mollel. Well, there’s little chance of getting court time for a warrant until after Christmas. We’ll just have to leave it until then, if it proves necessary at all. Thank you for your time, Doctor. I’d better find my colleague. I’m sure he’s wondering where I’ve got to.
* * *
On the way out, Mollel feels the keys in his pocket. The ones he palmed when going to get the file box. The ones that had been hanging inside the closet door on the hook marked ORPHEUS HOUSE.
11
There was a time—not so long ago—when Nairobi stopped on a Sunday. Apart from churches, the only places that opened their doors were some of the Muslim businesses in areas such as Eastleigh. Now, Sunday is pretty much like a weekday, especially as far as the Mombasa Road traffic is concerned.
Mollel rolls down the window of the Land Rover and sighs. They are stuck by Nyayo Stadium, the low roadside trees providing some relief from the overhead sun but also creating a fresh danger: marabou storks. They love this stretch of highway and have colonized the trees here, feasting on the pickings dropped by the numerous hawkers who ply their trade through the stationary traffic. Four feet tall, with long, sharp beaks, they are totally fearless of humans, and they teeter among the crowds of waiting matatu passengers, pouncing on tidbits. When threatened, they spread their dirty gray wings and flap lazily into the trees above, whence their frequent and hefty bowel movements turn them into a menace for pedestrians and cars alike.
There is something about the marabou stork—en-tialoo in Mollel’s language—that reminds him of an ancient Maasai: skinny legs propping up a hunched body wrapped in a shabby shuka; scrawny neck emerging to a bald, mottled head. Even its movements are those of an old, dying man.
He realizes that he’s not thinking about marabou storks anymore. He’s recalling the time—one long, dry season—when he had been moving the family herd from the dry Kajiado plains up into the lush pastures of the highlands. The sky was darkening, and he had promised his mother and Lendeva that he would return to their temporary boma in time to protect the animals from the creatures of the night.
But the dogs would not return at his call, and investigating, he found them, whining anxiously, at the feet of an old man huddled in his shuka, sitting against a rock and watching the sun descend in the sky.
The old man’s hollow cheeks were covered with gray stubble, and his eyes were pale blue and cataract-ridden. He seemed impossibly frail and featherlight to the young Mollel, as though the slightest breath of wind would simply pick him up and carry him away.
He had come there to die.
It was the Maasai way, to die alone like this, and Mollel had wondered whether he might deftly retrace his steps and escape without disturbing the man. But he beckoned, and Mollel came closer. Neither spoke, but the old man raised a bony finger to the sheep and goats, and Mollel knew he must attend to them. He gathered them into a thicket and tied the largest ones there, and the youngsters huddled around for warmth. Then he cut a few thorn branches, placed them all around, and tied some of the goat’s bells to them, as warning, should a lion or leopard attempt to get close. Then he returned to the old man’s side.
He was dead. But he had wanted Mollel beside him so that the boy could guide his spirit into the night. So Mollel sat beside the stranger’s corpse, guarding it and his flock until the first rays of gold gave shadows to the trees of the landscape before them.
Long ago, Mollel had begun to conflate the memory of the old man with his few memories of his father. His father had been a vigorous man the last time Mollel saw him. But had he lived, he would now be old and frail. If his time had already come, Mollel hoped that he had someone to sit vigil beside him.
* * *
He is shaken from his dreamlike state by the beeping of Kiunga’s phone. Kiunga laughs. He had noticed that Mollel was dropping off.
—These police Land Rovers don’t have AC. Makes it hard to stay awake in traffic jams.
—It’s not that, says Mollel. I was just
thinking.
—I do my best thinking in traffic, says Kiunga. Which I suppose, given that I live in Nairobi, ought to make me some kind of genius.
He slips the car into neutral and puts on the hand brake so that he can rise up in his seat and reach into his trouser pocket for his mobile phone. He slides back into place and looks at the phone’s screen. Then he tut-tut-tuts.
—What is it?
—Take a look.
He hands Mollel the phone. Mollel looks at the message on the screen.
—My Kikuyu is too rusty. I can’t read it.
—You’re better off. It’s another one of those hate messages doing the rounds. Says the Luos are massing. If their man loses the election, they’re going to take Nairobi and kill any Kikuyu who stands in their way.
—Who’s it from?
—I don’t know. The number doesn’t show. They have a way of bypassing the sender ID.
Some cars move up ahead, and Kiunga starts the engine. He edges the Land Rover forward less than a car’s length and then stops, inches from the bumper of the vehicle in front. He kills the engine once more.
—You been getting a lot of these messages? asks Mollel.
—That’s the second today. Scroll through, you’ll see more.
Mollel looks through the message folder on Kiunga’s phone. He opens one from someone called Mandy. He reads it aloud, trying to decipher the text shorthand.
—See you L-eight-R big boy I M gonna …
—Give it here! says Kiunga, snatching the phone back. Not that one! That’s personal.
—Sorry, says Mollel. How come you’ve got all these messages and I haven’t?
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