—I need to report to Champions Primary School.
—If you wait a few minutes, we’ve got a group going in.
—Any trouble?
The GSU man’s only response is a hearty chuckle.
Kibera might be an informal settlement, but Kiberans vote. The local MP is the leader of the opposition—the slum his Luo power base in the capital. The threat—real or imagined—of an uprising from this massed humanity has often won him a place at the bargaining table.
The government has long practiced a policy of containment in all the country’s major slums. Why else are police dormitories and army camps always found adjacent to such areas? But this time they’re leaving nothing to chance. The GSU, in their green uniforms and crimson helmets, flow around the exterior like a troop of forest ants. Mollel spies a water-cannon truck and dozens of Administration Police Land Rovers, their green bodies and crimson roofs mirroring the uniforms of their occupants.
—We have a group reporting to Champions Primary? calls one of the uniformed men.
Mollel steps forward, as do a half dozen other regular police officers and a couple of nervous-looking officials, their breath steaming in the chilly morning air.
—Right. This polling station is in part of Kibera known as Half London.
There’s a humorless laugh from some of the other officers. Half London is a common name for any district that is fancy, lively, or exclusive. Nairobi’s slum dwellers have a good line in irony. Sometimes they can be almost literal, too: Mollel wonders how Kiunga is getting on in Mathare slum’s Kosovo.
—The ballots and boxes are already on-site, continues the GSU officer, as are plenty of your colleagues. There’s quite a queue already, waiting to get in, but no reports of any problems so far. Now, there is no vehicular access to this site. We have to walk in—and out. That’s why we’re going in groups. Do not step away from the group. Do not depart from our route. Do not enter any residence or building other than the polling station. Do not accept or buy any food or drink from locals. There are refreshments on-site, securely prepared. Watch your step—the ground is treacherous even when dry. Take a tip: don’t try to jump over things. The locals have a saying: the only thing worse than stepping in it is landing in it. And last, look out for flying toilets.
—Flying toilets? asks one of the election officials.
—Plastic bags, says the GSU man with a smile. Flung over the rooftops. I’ll leave you to imagine the contents.
A whistle blows, and they move off.
The crimson helmets part, and the group of officials enters the slum.
The first sight is a kiosk, a small hut selling Coca-Cola, chai and mandazi, clumps of sukuma, and strips of chewing gum. It is doing a good trade even at this early hour. Despite the public holiday for the election, there are still a large number of people bottled up on the Kibera side of the cordon, huddled against the cold, attempting to leave for work in the city. Many wear the clothing of domestic servants—blue overalls and gum boots for gardeners, green or pink pinafores on the maids. One man, incongruous in suit and tie, sees the oncoming party and shakes his fist.
—They’re not letting us out! he cries. No one said they could arrest all of Kibera! What is this, intimidation? Well, it won’t work!
—Shut up, growls the GSU man leading the way. You’ll get out in due course. Then, in an aside to Mollel, he adds,—That one’ll be going nowhere today if he carries on like that.
The street narrows swiftly, and Mollel finds himself straddling a trickle of water. The compacted trash underfoot has some give in it, spongy, the one-story houses around them are made from sticks and rusting iron sheets, ragged curtains in doorways, everywhere the smell of food, of smoke, the sound of babies crying and music playing and laughter. Chickens and children compete for space around the legs of women standing around the doorways. The place feels alive, organic. Mollel has a vision of himself and his colleagues as antibodies, invaders in a larger organism. That makes Nairobi the body—so which organ is Kibera? Dark, dense, condensing. Kibera is the liver.
* * *
—Look up there, says one of the policemen. Mollel sees a group of five or six men standing on a tin-roofed shack atop a small rise, silhouetted against the dawning light. He clearly sees their long, matted dreadlocks.
—Mungiki, says the policeman.
As they see the oncoming party, one of the dreadlocked men produces a blue flag, which carries the ruling party’s emblem, and waves it. They jeer and whoop as Mollel and the others pass.
—Is he mad? They’ll get ripped to shreds! It was only a few days ago that some kid got lynched for wearing a pro-government T-shirt here. He didn’t even know what the logo meant.
—But the GSU weren’t here a few days ago, says Mollel.
—What’s that supposed to mean? demands the GSU man.
—Everyone knows there are no Mungiki in Kibera. If they’re here, they must have got through your lines somehow. Word has it that they’re working for their Kikuyu brothers in the government. Trying to stir up trouble. I’ll bet that just on the other side of that rooftop is a GSU snatch squad, ready to take anyone who rises to the bait.
—You be careful what accusations you make, brother, says the GSU man.
As if on cue, a rain of missiles—empty bottles, stones, and detritus—flies over their heads, sending the dreadlocked men hopping off the rooftop like vultures. Mollel and the others duck their heads and wait until the volley dies down. A sound of hooting and cheering greets the disappearance from the rooftop.
—I hope for their sake there are none of your men on the other side of that house, says Mollel. I saw quite a few flying toilets among that lot.
* * *
The polling station is little more than a cement-block shell with a tin roof. The windows and the doors are mere openings in the walls, and a black-painted wall serves as a blackboard. There is no school furniture, books, or anything else: probably easier than having them stolen, supposes Mollel. Out back, though, there is the staple of the Kenyan workplace, a charcoal stove and a pair of sturdy women stirring a massive sufuria of chai. The rest of the party head toward them eagerly. In the otherwise empty room, a set of cardboard polling booths have been erected, and some officials sit at a trestle table with papers, ink, and stamps.
There is a sizable queue outside. Some of those waiting shuffle their feet, and as Mollel passes, he is asked the time anxiously. He feels that the inquirer is almost disappointed when he hears it is not yet seven. He is sure that there are many present who would like nothing more than the chance to make accusations of irregularities.
Farther down the line, he sees a familiar face. He is standing with one hand on the wall, the other hand holding a cane with a small plastic cup taped to the bottom.
—Where have you been, Sammy?
—Oh, hello, Sergeant. How are things? Guess I never expected to run into you here. How do you like Half London?
—Never mind that. You disappeared. I’ve been looking for you.
—Well, now you’ve found me. Eh, sounds like something’s happening. You wouldn’t want me to miss my chance of exercising my democratic right, would you, Sergeant?
Seven o’clock has arrived. The guards have started letting people into the school hall.
—I need to talk to you.
—Not here, hisses Sammy through a grin. He’s right: far too many curious eyes.
—Well, where? When?
—A few days’ time. When the elections are over and I can get back to the city center. I’ll see you then.
Mollel puts his arm around the blind man’s shoulder and digs his fingers in. —If you think I’m going to let you vanish again—
Sammy grimaces, then attempts to disguise it with a smile. —As a registered blind person, you know, I am allowed someone to assist me with my vote, he says through gritted teeth. I usually rely on the officials. But perhaps you’d care to be my helper?
* * *
It is
a good idea. After they’ve presented his ID and done some paperwork, Mollel escorts Sammy to a cardboard booth on the far side of the hall. He waits a moment for the booths on either side to be free; then he stands facing outward while Sammy goes into the box. Mollel shakes his head at the official who guides voters to the booths, a signal not to send anyone else to their section.
—What’s it all about, Sammy?
—Nothing, Sergeant, nothing. I told you everything I could that night.
—So why did you go? I thought someone had got to you.
—No, no, nothing like that. I just wanted a change of scene, you know. It was getting kind of crowded around the park.
—And gave up your pitch in town too? We looked for you for hours. Come off it!
—I swear to God!
—Look. We’re already taking too long about this. If you like, we can walk out of here arm in arm, and I can announce to the world that you’re kindly helping the police with our inquiries. How would that go down?
—Don’t do that, for God’s sake.
—Right. So let’s talk.
—You never told me it was the GSU in the park that night, Sammy says. If they wanted to keep it secret, I didn’t want to hang around waiting for them to hear from one of your guys that I was a witness.
—How did you find out it was GSU?
—Come on, Mollel, says Sammy. If it was police, you’d have known about it. Who does that leave? And if you worked out that it was them, why shouldn’t I?
—And that’s it?
—Not quite, says Sammy. He shuffles uneasily. —There is something else. Something I didn’t tell you. I was going to tell you soon, honest. But I thought that if I held out a little longer, there might be …
He rubs his thumb and forefinger together.
—Oh, there’ll be a reward all right, Sammy. The reward is, I don’t shout from the rooftops of Kibera that you’re nothing more than a police informant.
—Okay, okay. The blind man frowns. —It was probably nothing, anyway. But just before those buses turned up, I heard a row. A woman screaming. And another woman’s voice. I couldn’t hear what she was saying or who she was arguing with.
—And the woman shouting was different from the one screaming? Are you sure?
Sammy nods. —I have a good ear, he says.
—Could you identify the shouting voice if you heard it again?
—I’m sure I could.
—And this was before the buses came into the park, you say?
—Right before. It was them coming in that shut her up. But look, there’s nothing else. That’s all I know. Honest.
—It had better be, Sammy, says Mollel.
* * *
As they leave the polling station, Sammy holds up his ink-blotted pinkie for all to see.
—Thanks for your assistance, Officer!
—Will you be all right from here? I can’t really leave the polling station.
—Oh, yes. I know every inch of this place. Good thing about a slum: no cars to worry about. And if you put out your hand—he stretches his arm and places his fingers against a corrugated sheet—there’s always a familiar wall within reach.
Mollel watches the blind man go, cane tapping, the fingers of his free hand dancing over iron, cardboard, sticks, and plastic sheeting. So Sammy heard two women at the park that night. The screams must have come from Lucy. If the woman shouting was Wanjiku—and if Sammy could ID her—it might be enough to pin the murder on her. If a court was not convinced by the testimony of a prostitute, perhaps they’d take the word of a blind beggar.
He becomes aware of someone else watching, too, and looking down the line of waiting voters, he sees the black-clad figure of Benjamin, Nalo’s supposedly ex-Mungiki right-hand man. Benjamin gives him a smile and a sharp nod, then turns and walks away.
26
Three in the afternoon, and the time for Mollel and his shift colleagues to be relieved has come and gone.
—I don’t mind how long they take, says one of the younger policemen, barely out of training. Just think of that lovely overtime!
Neither Mollel nor anyone else has a mind to tell him that this will fall under special provisions—the catchall clause that superiors always invoke to avoid paying out overtime.
—I don’t like it, says another policeman.
—It’s all gone peacefully so far.
It has. As the day warmed up, so did the attendance, and the police were required to start double queuing, snaking the line back and forth. Queuing is not a habit that comes naturally to the matatu-faring Nairobian, but this time the practice was adopted with grace and even good humor. Mollel was struck by how the dominant mood of the morning was enthusiasm, even optimism. This was opposition heartland, and the absence of any pro-government voice on this territory created a sense of inevitability, invincibility.
Kibera felt it was going to be heard.
Around lunchtime the relaxed atmosphere had been shattered by a disturbance. A middle-aged man, reeking of sour chang’aa, had staggered to the front of the queue and demanded to be allowed to vote. Those at the head of the line, who had been waiting patiently for over an hour, objected. The young policeman intervened. He pushed the man away from the line, and chang’aa and gravity did the rest. He went flying into the mud. Most of the people who saw it laughed and thought nothing more of it.
But soon the drunk returned with a handful of his buddies. He began to harangue the officials. He’d been prevented from voting, he said. It was because he was Luo, he insisted. The polls were rigged. There was no way this Kikuyu government was going to allow the other tribes to speak.
This time, the people in the queue did not laugh. They were no longer the same people who had seen the drunk try to break into the line. His accusations were met with dark murmuring and hostile glances at the officials.
It was Benjamin who defused the situation. He had been hanging around all day, talking to people in the line and passersby, always just out of Mollel’s earshot. As ex-Mungiki, he was certainly a Kikuyu, and in that sense was either brave or foolhardy to be in a place like this on a day like this one. But Nalo’s church drew a considerable constituency from Kibera; it was evident from the way many people greeted him that they knew Benjamin from there. Mollel wondered whether they would be so forgiving if they knew about his past, and then reflected, probably, yes. He had learned many times, from his own experience, that the capacity for forgiveness is greater among the poor than the rich.
Benjamin had approached the man, and Mollel saw the drunk’s anger dissipate as Benjamin first listened to his protest, then spoke with him quietly for a while.
Benjamin then came to Mollel, who was supervising the head of the voting queue. It was the first time they had spoken since meeting at Nalo’s church on Sunday.
—I need you to do something, said Benjamin.
—You need me to do something? How about you tell me what you’re even doing here today?
—I’m an official observer. Call it part of my pastoral duties. Ministering to our flock. And heading off trouble before it begins.
—Trouble, like a trashed apartment in Kitengela?
—You want to talk to me, fine. Let’s do that. But let’s do this first. There’s a lot more at stake here than you realize.
Mollel, against his will, found himself beginning to trust the man. There was something about his intensity that suggested he was genuine.
—What do you want?
—I want you to let our friend here—he pointed at the drunk—in at the front of the line. He’s to go into the voting hall, wait a few minutes, then walk out with his finger inked.
—What about voting?
Benjamin shook his head.
—Then why— Suddenly Mollel laughed. —I get it. That was what your little chat was about. He’s not even registered, is he?
Benjamin smiled. —He didn’t know he had to be.
—All that fuss about being denied his vote, and he wa
sn’t eligible anyway!
—True. But the thing is, he’s got a big mouth and a lot of drinking buddies.
—So you want to give him a face-saver. Better he boasts about skipping the queues than mouths off about being turned away.
—Exactly.
Mollel found himself feeling unexpected respect for Nalo’s young man.
* * *
That was a couple of hours ago. Mollel had done as Benjamin requested, and the situation had calmed. For the moment.
One of Mollel’s colleagues takes over from him at the main entrance to the polling station, and Mollel seizes the opportunity to walk around. The line is longer than ever, but—blame the afternoon heat or something else—the atmosphere is different.
There is a tension in the air. People lower their voices to talk to one another. Laughter and chatter have been replaced by quick, concerned glances. And another thing: seems like everyone who has a phone is using it, looking at screens, tapping out replies.
—Something’s wrong, he says, as much to himself as to anyone else, but a voice replies, —Yes.
It is Benjamin. —Seems like word is reaching here of what’s been going on at Old Kibera.
Old Kibera is one of the other polling stations in the district, half a mile or so away as the crow flies, but considerably farther through the narrow, mazelike passages. In the age of the mobile phone, however, even the crow seems sluggish compared with the spread of news by text message.
—What’s happened?
—People being turned away all day, by all accounts. Irregularities on the register. A big blank page where most of the letter O’s should be.
Old Kibera ward is more mixed than this one. If the vote is going to be gerrymandered, it would make more sense to do it there. But surely no one would be as blatant as to strike out all the names that begin with O—disenfranchising nearly all the Luos at one stroke?
—I’m just telling you what is being said, says Benjamin. The latest is, Raila himself turned up, half an hour ago, to cast his vote. He wasn’t allowed in.
Hour of the Red God Page 17