Hour of the Red God

by Richard Crompton

  Mollel feels himself being impelled upward. The usher clips something to his shirt collar and slips a small, heavy box, about the size of a cigarette packet, into his pocket. —It’s a microphone, he says into Mollel’s ear. Don’t speak until you’re spoken to.

  —Brothers and sisters, booms the unseen voice. The healing is about to commence.

  The lights are blinding, and the heat of them brings a prickle of sweat to Mollel’s skin. The usher who gave him the microphone moves away, and a stockier, more powerful figure takes his place at Mollel’s side, grasping his shoulder forcefully.

  —Just keep walking, a voice urges Mollel in his ear. Don’t try anything.

  It is Benjamin. He has taken Mollel’s arm with his own good one—the other arm, injured in Kibera, hangs stiffly at his side. He holds him tightly. As they are brought up to Nalo, Mollel sees Wanjiku Nalo emerge from the shadows. She looks at him with a mixture of shock and anger.

  The elderly man is the first brought up to the pastor. Nalo places both hands on the feeble shoulders. The sickly frame is being supported on all sides. His eyes are now open.

  —What is your name, father? says Nalo.

  The microphone on his collar picks up a voice crackling like dry leaves and spreads it throughout the auditorium. It sounds like Odolo.

  —Well, mzee Odolo, Nalo says, what is your problem?

  —I’m sick, says the old man. I cannot walk. I cannot move. I do not have long left.

  Again, because his words are barely picked up by the microphone, Nalo repeats for the audience:

  —He’s sick, he cannot walk. He says his time has come. Well, your time may be near, old man, it is near for all of us, but it will not be today.

  Then he takes one of his mighty hands and places it on the old man’s forehead, across his eyes. —Lord Jesus, Nalo implores, this is your servant. This is your son. This good man is in need of your divine mercy. Please will you assist him, O Lord.

  The hall begins to reverberate again with voices. This time they aren’t speaking in tongues; they are raised in prayer. Looking down, Mollel can see the figures nearest to the stage fervently reciting their prayers, fists clenched or fingers clasped, entwined. He looks back at the elderly man. Nalo finishes his prayer, and powerfully, shockingly, with a plosive Bam! he pushes the old man’s head back.

  It’s obviously a practiced move. The ushers tip him simultaneously. The old man swoons backward in their arms while one usher places his feet underneath him. They then pivot him back to a standing position, and with a flourish, theatrically, they all step aside to reveal him there.

  Standing.

  The old man looks down at his legs in amazement. He looks up again, beaming. Tentatively, he lifts one foot, waves it, places it on the ground, does the same with the other leg. Then, in sheer joy, he shuffles a little jig. The audience cheers in throes of ecstasy. The old man raises a hand to acknowledge them, but wobbles, as though he might fall, and the ushers swiftly run forward to steady him. He is then assisted—to Mollel it looks as though he is carried—offstage.

  * * *

  Now it is Mollel’s turn to be brought forward. Benjamin grasps him tightly on one side. On the other he feels a new hand clutch his arm. It is Wanjiku. She looks into his eyes.

  —I need to talk to you … he begins. His own words boom out across the hall. Wanjiku glares at him. Her finger flies to her lips and then points down at the microphone on his collar. She shakes her head. —Not now, she whispers. After.

  She looks toward her husband. Nalo has come close. Mollel senses the ushers gathering behind him.

  Nalo looks him in the eyes, and a flash of recognition passes across his face. He looks askance at Wanjiku. She nods. Nalo frowns, looks out at the darkness, where the massed audience now waits, filled with anticipation of the next miracle. He seems momentarily at a loss. Then he composes himself and says to Mollel, —What is your name, my son?

  —Mollel, says Mollel.

  Nalo repeats, —Your name is Mollel. We welcome you, Mollel. What ails you, my brother?

  Benjamin and Wanjiku, each holding one of Mollel’s arms, thrust his hands forward, turning them upright. The heat of the spotlights makes his palms throb agonizingly, and Mollel grimaces.

  —Aah, booms Nalo. Your hands are badly burned.

  A sympathetic groan goes up from the audience.

  Nalo places his palm on Mollel’s forehead. Mollel tries to pull his head back and away, but it is being thrust forward by one of the ushers behind him.

  —But your hands are not your only ill, are they, my brother? continues Nalo. I sense … I sense a great disquiet in your mind. Allow us to help you, my brother. Allow the Lord Jesus Christ to assist you. Allow the Prince of Peace to bring you some respite from that which is torturing you.

  The tumult in the hall is commencing again as the audience recognizes the prompt for them to break into spontaneous prayer. Mollel can hear it all around him, but he cannot move, cannot shift. He sees nothing but Nalo’s hand over his eyes.

  —Oh, Jesus, cries Nalo. Please, assist this poor, deluded brother. Please Jesus, bring an end to his suffering.

  As before: Bam!

  Mollel feels a sharp, jabbing pain in his arm.

  Nalo’s hand is removed from his eyes. Mollel looks down at his arm just in time to see Wanjiku Nalo pressing the plunger of a hypodermic syringe. He feels the pressure of the liquid entering his muscle, then feels the needle slide out as she removes it. He just has time to cast her a furious glance and open his mouth in protest before he is bundled forward.

  And then Mollel is borne in a dozen pairs of arms and lifted upright: he is presented to the audience, spotlight shining in his face. He blinks and screws up his face like a newborn.

  Absence of pain.

  That’s what he feels, and the deliverance is blissful.

  He hadn’t realized, until now, how much the pain had borne down upon him, constrained him. And now, held up by all these hands, he feels liberated.

  —Are you healed? roars Nalo.

  Mollel looks down at his hands. They are still raw. But now, instead of the heat from the spotlights searing him, his palms seem to merely glow and tingle as though warmed by the rising sun.

  —Speak, Mollel. You have the microphone. Tell the audience. By the power of prayer, are you healed?

  His eyes tell him his wounds are still livid. He knows that it is only the drug, whatever Wanjiku injected him with, that makes him feel this way. He looks at her, at Benjamin. They watch him anxiously. It would be the easiest thing in the world to denounce them now, to bring the whole edifice down around them.

  The room is silent. Thousands of eyes are trained eagerly upon him. The fiction of the Nalos, their fraud, and their power is now wholly in his command.

  George Nalo’s eyes probe his own. They burn into him like the spotlights. Mollel’s mouth is dry. He croaks, —Your wife …

  He hears his own voice, like a stir of leaves, reverberate around the hall. This is not the way he wants it. He puts his hand up to cover the bud of the microphone on his collar. Nalo leans forward, his head inches from Mollel’s mouth.

  —Your wife, whispers Mollel. This time only he and Nalo hear his words. —Your wife is a murderer. She killed Lucy.

  36

  The girl stumbled through the night. Her face and arms were scratched. She had lost her calabash and the honey, and her mother would be angry that she had not even picked the berries she was sent for. She did not care. She just wanted to get home.

  But she did not know the way home. The little bird had guided her with her eyes closed, and the country was unknown to her here.

  She sat down and started to cry. But even as she cried, she felt a tiny vibration in the folds of her shuka. She sought it out and in the pale moonlight saw that it was a bee. A solitary bee.

  It crawled out onto her arm, and she was too tired to even flick it away. She expected it to sting her. But it did not sting her. And she asked
it, “Little bee, I destroyed your home. Why do you not sting me?”

  “Why should I?” replied the bee. “My home is gone. My children are dead. Stinging you will not bring them back. But you have a mother, and she is missing you. I know this country well. I have gathered nectar from outside your door. Let me show you the way. Come.”

  And so the little bee flew off, and tired and hungry, the girl followed its buzz as she had followed the song of the bird.

  She followed the buzzing. Just as the bird had done before, the bee stopped and waited every time she stumbled or had to rest. The girl marveled at the generosity and patience of this tiny insect who had lost everything.

  After what seemed like an age, the bee said, “We are here.”

  The girl looked about her. She did not see her boma or her hut. She could not smell her mother’s cooking or hear the bleats of the flock.

  “This is not my home,” she said.

  “No,” replied the bee. “It was mine.”

  And then the girl saw the remains of the fire and the bee’s nest upon it, broken and burned.

  And the bees that had survived, no longer stupid from the smoke, rose from where they had fallen upon the ground and, throbbing with rage, descended upon the girl.

  “Wait!” she called out. “It was not my fault! It was the bird!”

  But the bee that had brought her there replied, “Do you think it matters to us? The bird has flown. But you are here!”

  And the girl’s world went dark as the swarm clouded over the moon.

  * * *

  That was the point in the story when Mollel always pulled the coarse blankets over his head. Lendeva would laugh, and his mother would stroke him soothingly. He never understood, back then, why the story ended there.

  But now, remembering the story for the first time in more than three decades, he realized why. It felt as if the cover were being lifted from his head. The story wasn’t about the girl. It was about the bees.

  * * *

  His thoughts are interrupted by crashing cymbals and voices raised in song. How long he has lain there on the leather couch in the greenroom he does not know. But he is roused just in time to see George and Wanjiku Nalo enter, all smiles. He hastily lets his eyes fall shut—almost as rapidly as their smiles fall from their faces.

  —Don’t worry about him, says Benjamin. He’s out cold.

  Nalo says, —I thought your magic shot was supposed to perk them up, not knock them out.

  —It’s a mixture of adrenaline and opiates, replies Wanjiku. His file says he’s on antipsychotics. No way of predicting what effect that sort of mixture would have.

  So they had his police medical records. No surprise, really. Nairobi’s not a city to hold secrets long, especially in the face of people as rich as the Nalos and as resourceful as Benjamin.

  Still, if they believe him to be no threat, let them. He feels too weak for any confrontation. He’s content to let them think he’s unconscious and to see what he might learn.

  —That was damn foolish, what you did onstage, Wanjiku says. Giving him the chance to speak like that. Whatever possessed you? He’d seen the syringe. He could have denounced us in front of the whole congregation.

  —I knew he wouldn’t, says Nalo.

  —How could you possibly know that?

  Nalo gives a sigh. Mollel hears a chair being dragged from under the table, creaking under Nalo’s weight as he sits. —What a trial it is to have a wife of so little faith. You and your chemically enhanced miracles!

  —Without my enhancement this church would still be in a tin shack in Kibera!

  —And without me you’d still be performing backstreet abortions! growls Nalo. Do you think they come here to see Wanjiku Nalo? No. They come here to see George Nalo. And your assistance is not always required. I knew this Maasai would not denounce us, because I wasn’t healing his hands. I was seeing his soul.

  Wanjiku lets out a contemptuous snort, but Nalo continues: —I saw what was within him. A real, profound yearning for peace. But that was not all. I saw a fire.

  Wanjiku scoffs. —That’s hardly a revelation, with two burned hands.

  —I saw a fire, and someone lost within it.

  —Benjamin told you about the blind man. The one who died in Kibera.

  —No, says Benjamin. I didn’t.

  —It wasn’t a man, anyway, says Nalo thoughtfully. It wasn’t him. The sense of loss was much greater. It was a woman.

  —That just proves you read the papers, retorts Wanjiku. His wife was lost in the bombing, remember? That’s why he’s crazy.

  Nalo, quietly, says, —Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why I saw it. But I had the feeling I was seeing something else. Something not in the past. Something yet to come.

  —Your trouble, says Wanjiku bitterly, is that you believe your own hype. You’re just a loudmouth with a knack for reeling off scripture. Without me you’d be nothing.

  —Well, says Nalo, it looks like we’re going to find out, aren’t we?

  —What do you mean?

  —Why do you suppose he’s here?

  —He’s still investigating Lucy’s death, says Wanjiku.

  —No, says Nalo. He’s finished his investigations. He’s come to make an arrest.

  Eyes closed, Mollel can nevertheless feel the impact of Nalo’s words. Beside him, Benjamin shifts uneasily. And Wanjiku spits, —What do you mean?

  Softly, Nalo says, —I know where I was last Friday night, Wanjiku. I was in front of two thousand people at a group baptism ceremony, right here. But where were you?

  Mollel hears movement and a sharp intake of breath. He raises his eyelids just enough to make out Nalo holding his wife’s wrists. She must have tried to slap him.

  —How dare you, she gasps. How could you?

  Benjamin has sprung to his feet, and he pushes Nalo aside.

  —Hurt her and I’ll kill you.

  —Relax, Mungiki man. Nalo laughs. —She’s the one trying to hit me.

  He withdraws his hands, and Benjamin tries to put his arms around Wanjiku, but she brushes him away.

  —You’d like her out of the way, wouldn’t you? says Benjamin. No more Orpheus House to get between you and the collection plate?

  —I must admit, Orpheus House has been a burden to me, sighs Nalo. Not financially, I don’t care about that. But what you do there …

  —You see? cries Benjamin to Wanjiku. He’s trying to set you up. He’ll turn against you, just like I always said he would.

  —He won’t do it, Benjamin. We’ve been married thirty years. He won’t betray me.

  —He betrays you every day, with his hookers and his hangers-on! How can you stand by him, after all you know? After he refused to stand by you?

  —Because he will stand by me, replies Wanjiku. You can’t understand it, Benjamin, and I don’t expect you to. But that’s the way it is.

  —Will he still stand by you when I tell him where you were on Friday night? Mollel’s going to wake up any minute, and he’s convinced you murdered Lucy. Will your husband stand by you when I tell Mollel you were with me—all night?

  * * *

  The silence in the room is broken by a strange panting sound. For a moment Mollel is at a loss to identify where it is coming from. Then he realizes it is George Nalo. He is laughing.

  —Dear Benjamin, he wheezes. Did you think I didn’t know about you two? It’s part of our arrangement, you know. She turns a blind eye to my indiscretions, and I tolerate hers. It’s not like you’re the first.

  —I’m so sorry, Benjamin, says Wanjiku quietly.

  There is the sudden clatter of a chair falling over, and Mollel instinctively opens his eyes. He is afraid that Benjamin might attack Nalo, or Wanjiku—or both. But he sees the young man coming directly toward him.

  —You’re awake, says Benjamin. Good.

  He bends over Mollel and roughly pulls him into an upright position. He looks deeply into Mollel’s eyes. As he does so, Mollel feels Benjamin�
�s hand go into his pocket as though he’s being frisked. It’s just for a moment, though, before Mollel is released once more.

  —Now you’re back with us, you can do what you came here to do. You can talk to these two about the death of Lucy. Make sure they tell you everything. I can’t say you’ll get the whole story. But it will make interesting listening.

  With that, he casts a final, contemptuous glare at George and Wanjiku Nalo and storms out of the room.

  * * *

  Wanjiku looks solicitously into Mollel’s eyes. —How are you feeling?

  He’s met the eyes of all three of them now. He arrived convinced that they’d conspired to murder Lucy. He no longer believes it. But he senses that he is close to the truth.

  —I feel fine, he says. A bit weak.

  —The drugs, she explains. You’ll recover soon. How much of that did you hear?

  —All of it.

  —Then there’s no point lying to you. Benjamin was right. He and I were together the night Lucy died. You can check at the hotel we were at. They—she casts her eyes down—they know us there.

  Mollel puts his hands on the edge of the sofa to pull himself forward. He winces. The pain, so blissfully absent since the injection onstage, is starting to return.

  —So much for your miracles, he says.

  Wanjiku sighs. —Define miracle, Mollel, she says. In a city like Nairobi, it’s a miracle that there’s an organization here that can get people to dig into their pockets to help others. You know how many people partake of our services in one way or another? Education, health, welfare? The government’s not looking after them, so someone has to. We’ve got children here who wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for George Nalo Ministries. And the money doesn’t come out of the air. A few miracles here and there are what keep the tithes rolling in. And besides, nobody’s really tricking anyone. The people we perform this on always feel better, even if it’s only temporary.

  —But it’s a fraud, says Mollel.

  —Is it? The Lord moves in mysterious ways.