The bird guided her this way for some distance, and she felt the coolness of night approach. But she thought that her mother would be pleased with her for finding the sweetness, so she kept her eyes closed tightly and followed the song of the little bird.
Finally she heard a loud buzzing, which began to fill her ears with noise and her heart with dread. She opened her eyes and said, “This is a place of danger. You have tricked me.”
“There is no danger,” protested the little bird. “Simply do as I say, and we shall both get what we desire.”
So the little bird told the girl to gather a pile of stones. She did so. Then the bird told her to build a fire directly beneath where the bee’s nest hung, high on the branches of the whistling thorn tree. Fearfully, she gathered kindling, but the bees were too busy returning home for nightfall to molest her.
She found a discarded weaverbird’s nest and struck sparks into it from her little knife. Then she placed it among the kindling and lay on the earth, blowing into the pile of sticks until flames lapped their edges. Still the bees took no notice of her. Then the little bird told her, “Gather the moss from the stones by the stream and lay it upon the fire.” She did as she was bidden.
Immediately, thick gray smoke began to rise. The moment it curled up to the branches, the bees retreated inside, and the little bird shrieked excitedly, “Now! Throw the stones at the nest!”
The girl was afraid, for she knew the insects would attack her. And she was angry, for she knew she had been tricked. But she knew that she could not find her way home without the little bird to guide her. And still she craved the sweetness that the bird had promised.
So she threw the stones, and the third one struck the nest and it tumbled. It tumbled onto the fire, thick with smoke, and the bees poured out, and she began to run, but even as they alighted upon her, they crawled distractedly and did not sting, and she brushed them easily to the ground.
All around they crawled, confused and harmless. Amid the smoke, the little bird hopped and flapped gleefully, ripping away at the broken nest with her beak. As she widened the hole, rich, dark honey oozed from within. The girl approached and dipped a finger in, raising it to her mouth. She had never tasted such sweetness. Greedily she took more and sucked it, rolling it around her mouth, letting it slip warmly down her throat.
Though she could gorge like this for hours, time was against her. Soon it would be too dark to see. She had a calabash, and she tipped its water onto the soil and began to gather the honey within. As she did so, she looked down at the little bird beside her. It was not honey the bird sought: the girl saw that deeper still, the nest writhed with life. Tiny gray grubs teemed and pulsed blindly as the bird repeatedly plunged her beak into the mass, each time withdrawing it to pull her head back and pour more of the larvae down her throat. She gave a small cackle of joy before returning to the nest.
Repulsed, the girl drew away. Her calabash fell onto the smoldering fire. She pushed her way through the smoke, crunching over bodies of stupefied bees and stumbling blindly into the thornbushes all around.
28
FRIDAY, 28 DECEMBER 2007
He is woken by the storm, a proper Nairobi storm. The sort that comes in like a drunken husband, makes a lot of noise, wakes the kids, and throws the place around a bit, if only for form’s sake.
This time the fury is real. The thunderclap sounds as if it is directly overhead, the sky being ripped apart from the heavens all the way to the ground. Now the atmosphere vibrates and crackles with tension. The rain has yet to come. It is awaiting its cue, holding back until the wind has played its part.
In his groggy state, Mollel can make out that he’s lying on a cot in a tent of some kind. A fresh squall causes the fabric to bulge and rise, giving him the queasy sensation of being in a falling elevator. There is commotion beyond as voices fight to be heard against the storm. They’re attempting to lash down the tent before it capsizes. The steel poles groan and creak with the strain. Mollel attempts to rise, but weakness overcomes him. His head falls back onto the cot.
As his eyes slide, he takes in the scene around him. There’s a strip light hanging from the tent’s central pole by a short chain. It sways to and fro, casting fluorescent shadows over the faces of the people rushing about. The tent’s roof, a large expanse of white plasticized canvas, falls away from the ridgepole. Its height and shallow pitch suggest to Mollel that this is a large tent, of the type people might hire for a wedding or harambee.
With effort, he manages to raise himself onto his elbows. He’s aware of a bulkiness around his hands, and looking down, he sees that they’re wrapped in thick mitts of gauze bandage. But he feels no pain.
He looks to his right and sees a young man sleeping, or unconscious, in the cot next to him. He has a heavy bandage over his shaved head, an ominous dark patch insinuating through the weave. Two men rush up and grasp handles at the head and foot of the cot. With a groan, they lift the young man.
A dazzling pinpoint of red light bursts into Mollel’s face.
—Ah, you’re awake, says a voice from somewhere behind the light. Good. Do you think you can walk?
—I don’t know.
—Let’s try. We’ve got to get everyone out of here. Take this jacket. Your uniform’s in shreds. We’re going to get pretty wet outside, but it’s better than having the tent collapse on us.
Mollel takes the man’s arm as he pulls himself to his feet. Then he squeezes his bandaged hands through the sleeves of the dark green jacket. He recognizes the camouflage pattern and the insignia.
GSU.
—Bloody paranoia, the man mutters, as much to himself as to Mollel. Everyone knows you can’t start treating patients while the field hospital is being put up around you. But no, they said. They’ve recced the site, but we’d have to wait until voting was over to put up the tents. Well, this is what you get for it!
A stark white flash picks out the tent’s canvas and is followed, in less than a heartbeat, by a stomach-churning clash of thunder.
The man—he’s a medic, Mollel has decided—has put his arm around Mollel’s waist, and the two of them stagger unsteadily toward the exit. They push through a heavy canvas flap, and Mollel’s breath is taken away by a sudden blast of stinging rain.
—Can you make it on your own now? yells the medic. I’ve got to get the other patients out. Mollel nods. —Sawa sawa, the medic shouts. Head for those buses over there.
* * *
Mollel raises a bandaged hand. Now that the rain has started, it is remorseless, it runs down his face, distorting the blinding light of arc lamps and vehicle headlights. Men in uniform run around him on all sides. Many of them carry the same red-filtered flashlight as the medic used. Mollel bows his head and pushes toward the vehicles. His bare feet stumble on the rough gravel. The gravel kicks up a memory within him: in this dizzying, disorienting place he has an indefinable sense of location. But before he can pin it down, he feels a shove between the shoulders. A violent gust of wind sends him spinning, nearly toppling him from his feet.
The shouts and cries all around him intensify. Mollel has turned around, away from the lights, squinting into the wind and rain. Before him appears the ghostly white shape of the tent, illuminated in the arc lamps, rising lazily from the ground, a dozen or more GSU men struggling to hold it as it tips forward, crashes, crunches, and rolls to rest like a downed bird, flapping with futility against the side of a military truck.
The gust drops as suddenly as it arose, and the men scurry to detach the canvas from the frame before it picks up again. No longer blinded by the rain, Mollel sees other tents—still standing, these—trucks coming and going. Another roars past him now, and he catches a glimpse of rows of grim-looking GSU men in their green fatigues and crimson helmets serried in the back before they disappear in a cloud of diesel smoke. There is some sort of communications truck, bristling with aerials, and the buses: four big, old military buses, their windows steamed, parked in a neat row on the gra
vel ground.
* * *
—I know this place, Mollel says aloud, barely hearing his own words.
Everything beyond the lights is black. But back where the tent had been, he sees the raised ridge of a concrete drainage ditch. He lunges forward, almost breaking into a run despite his weakness and his bare feet. He goes past the cursing GSU men, over the flapping, exposed groundsheet, the neat hospital cots now exposed and overturned, to where the water gushes and bubbles in the ditch below, the torrent bursting forth from the pipe that leads all the way to Upper Hill, running swiftly and blackly at his feet.
He is in Uhuru Park.
He is at the spot where Lucy’s body had been found.
29
—Mollel? Are you Mollel?
He gasps with pain. He raises his hands. They feel as if they’re on fire.
He sits up stiffly. The whole bus smells of sweat and old blankets. He uses his two bandaged hands to pull the damp blanket off himself. He’s still wearing the GSU jacket.
Daylight. The sun is pouring through the windows of the bus. Beyond, the fresh green foliage of Uhuru Park, plumped by the rain, seems to burst with color and life under the brilliant clarity of a blue Nairobi morning sky.
—I’m Mollel.
—Someone’s here looking for you. How are the hands this morning?
He recognizes the voice as that of the medic who helped him from the tent the previous night.
—Sore.
—We’ll get you something for that. Your friend is outside.
* * *
The medic helps Mollel to his feet, and they pick their way out of the bus, stepping over the limbs and boots of GSU men sleeping or lolling in the seats on either side of the aisle.
Despite the pain in his hands and the stiffness of his body, Mollel can’t help smiling when he sees Kiunga’s broad grin. Kiunga offers his hand and assists Mollel down the last step.
—You would not believe the shida I’ve had trying to find you, he says. They told me the GSU had rescued you from a fire in Kibera, but no one would let me know where they’d taken you. I’ve been to all the hospitals in the city. Then, on the way back from Kenyatta, I drove past Uhuru Park. Saw the whole place cordoned off, crawling with GSU. I spent more than an hour trying to persuade them to let me in. Quite a change, huh, from a few days ago?
The medic—whom Mollel sees now properly for the first time, an anxious-looking man in a GSU uniform, wearing a white armband with a red cross on it—hands Mollel a couple of pills and a paper cup of water.
—Are you on any other medication? he asks.
—No, says Mollel. Kiunga casts him a doubtful look, but Mollel ignores him.
As he lifts the cup to his lips, Mollel becomes aware for the first time of a thirst almost as intense as his pain, and he drinks greedily after downing the pills.
—Those are all you’ll get from me, says the medic. You were only brought here by mistake in the first place. You’ll have to make your own way to the police infirmary.
—What is this place? asks Mollel.
—Forward command post, replies the medic. The GSU HQ in Ruaraka is too far away from town to be effective. So we’ve set up here. It’s the closest open space to Parliament and the Central Business District.
—You told me last night, says Mollel, that they didn’t want to set up this command post until the voting was over. That means they were expecting trouble? Anticipating accusations that the vote had been rigged?
—I don’t know anything about that, says the medic, shifting on his feet. You guys really need to get out of here now.
—Not until we’ve spoken to your OIC, says Kiunga.
—Be my guest. You’ll find him in the communications truck.
He disappears into the activity all around them.
—I noticed last night that a lot of these GSU men have been issued flashlights that have red filters over the lens, says Mollel.
—Army trick, replies Kiunga. Scatters the light, makes the beams less likely to be seen.
—And less effective, says Mollel. Remember the shred of fabric we found where someone had blundered into the barbed wire? The red filters covered the light well enough to ensure that the passing police patrol didn’t see the GSU last Friday night. But that’s probably also why they didn’t spot Lucy’s body.
—Now we know why they were here, says Kiunga. They were doing a recce for this camp. They had to do it under cover of darkness. The last thing the government wanted was to give the impression that they were preempting the protests. So it seems our little blind friend was right all along, eh, boss?
Mollel feels a wave of pain and dismay.
—Sammy!
—What, boss?
—Superglue Sammy. He was there, in Kibera. It was him I was trying to save. What happened to him?
Kiunga casts his eyes down.
—There was no one else brought out of the fire, boss. Only you.
* * *
In daylight, it’s easy to find Sammy’s den once more, now that they know where it is. Mollel is just a few feet away from Kiunga—all he needs to do is hop over the low barbed-wire fence and duck between a fan palm and an ornamental papyrus—but it feels strangely sheltered, cocooned from the hubbub in the park beyond.
Sammy’s blanket lies on the floor, and beside it, his treasured battery radio. Mollel picks it up. Awkwardly, with his bandaged hands, he manages to turn it on.
… with the worst violence reported in the Lang’ata district of the capital. Meanwhile, the count continues at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre. The media have been ejected from the scene, but shortly before the ban, one official observer, the businessman David Kingori, categorically denied accusations of vote rigging.
Mollel hears the familiar, condescending tones of David Kingori. Irresponsible forces, he is saying, were attempting to influence the outcome of the ballot before all the results were even counted. The reporter asks him about discrepancies in the count: pro-government wins that appeared to be higher even than the number of registered voters. Mollel can hear the smile in Kingori’s voice as he replies: That’s a matter for the electoral commissioner. All I can tell you is that I’ve been here at the count since the first boxes came in, and I’ve not seen anything suspicious.
* * *
Mollel turns off the radio angrily. He thinks of Sammy, optimistically queuing up to cast his vote in Kibera, and he nearly slams the radio into the bushes in disgust. But instead he folds the aerial and puts it into the gym bag Kiunga had given him. His colleague had raided his own wardrobe to bring Mollel a change of clothes, and Mollel is glad to see that although they are somewhat big for him, they’re sober and discreet, a white shirt and trousers, socks and shoes. And a belt, which will be needed if he’s going to be able to wear Kiunga’s trousers without having them fall down. He leaves the surgical gown and GSU jacket on the ground.
When he emerges from the bushes, Kiunga says, —I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to come out.
Mollel holds the belt between his bandaged hands.
—I need you to do this up for me.
With an embarrassed glance over his shoulder, Kiunga stands close to Mollel and hastily wraps the belt through the loops and pulls it tight. He stands back.
—Sorry about Sammy, boss, he says. But you know, you mustn’t feel guilty. You can’t save everybody. There aren’t many people who would have even tried.
Mollel feels the young man’s admiration like a burden. He feels the urge to confess: I didn’t go in there to try to save Sammy’s life. I was trying to save a witness. I was doing it for the case.
You can’t save everybody.
If only he knew, thought Mollel. If only they all knew that back then, in the rubble of the American embassy, he wasn’t trying to save everybody. He was only trying to save one person. He kept pulling the others out because they were getting in the way.
—You all right, boss?
—Sure. Co
me on, we have to speak to the guy in charge of this place.
—But you’re looking pretty bad. Do you want to see the doctor again?
—I feel fine.
—Boss, I’m worried about you. When the doctor gave you those pills, you said you weren’t on any other medication. Well, I know you are. You’ve tried to hide it, but I’ve noticed all the same. If you’re feeling ill, boss, we can always go to the police infirmary, try to get what you need there.
—I feel fine, snaps Mollel. And we’ve got work to do. Unless you think the case doesn’t matter anymore? Perhaps you think we should give up on it, just like everyone else?
—No, boss, says Kiunga.
* * *
—We need to speak to whoever’s in charge, says Mollel.
At the top of a set of aluminum steps, the rear door of the communications truck stands open. At the bottom of the steps, a GSU sergeant is picking his teeth.
—We’re police, adds Kiunga, showing his badge.
—I don’t care, replies the GSU man. Nenda huko.
Which is about as close as you can get in Swahili to fuck off.
—Okay, rafiki, keep cool, says Kiunga. We’re on a murder investigation.
—It doesn’t matter. The only people who get in here are GSU and the President himself.
—I bet you boys are quite fond of this place by now, aren’t you? It was you having a little midnight picnic party last Friday, wasn’t it?
—What do you know about that?
—So it was you?
—You shut your mouth, mtundu.
—We need to speak to your boss, Mollel says. It won’t take a minute.
—Lieutenant Kodhek hasn’t got a minute, Maasai. In case you hadn’t noticed, this country’s heading for civil war. And what are you laughing at?
—Ashiruma Kodhek? asks Kiunga with a grin. Shitkicker Kodhek? They made him lieutenant, did they?
—Has been for some time now, says the GSU man grudgingly.
—Tell him Collins Kiunga’s here. We were at Embakasi together. Go on!
Somehow the injunction works, and the sergeant flicks his toothpick, gets up, and lumbers into the back of the truck.
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