The Book of Secrets

by M G Vassanji

  Does she know what to do? he thought. How much have the women told her? Tonight I’ll be the teacher, he thought, recalling an analogy given him earlier that evening. I’ll be the teacher, and teach by inflicting a little pain. This is how it has to be, how it always is. He felt magnanimous in his manly gentleness and consideration.

  Putting the lamp back in its place on a wall, he came to bed. He got into it, behind her, and gently, taking her forearms, pulled her down beside him, saying, “Come.”

  “I am your wife,” she told him as she went to him, in a mixture of yielding tenderness and anxiety.

  No longer was she a celestial being but a woman in his arms. The smell of halud and the taste of flesh. Under her frock she was obligingly ready, she had been told well. The first time he was all rage and she patience, and when his fury was spent he lay back satiated, waiting for renewed desire, which had to come. It did, and he entered her again, lasting longer, watching her face in the dim light and meeting her eyes so that this time it was a shared act. Then he lay back.

  And as he stared at the dark ceiling above him, slow waves of doubt lapped at his unwary brain. The deed was done, twice. Come morning he would show the soiled sheet, banner of his triumph — it had been easy … had it been too easy? And suddenly a crashing realization destroyed his composure — banner of his triumph or shame? Quickly he sat up. There was blood, but only a trickle.

  “What —?” she began, but in a moment he was out of bed. He looked at her, at the sheet, in revulsion. “So this was the trick!” he said loudly. And then he shouted “Jamali!” towards the door, his anger worked up. “So you thought you would cheat Pipa, you! Take your whore back, Jamali!”

  “Please —” the girl pleaded, and he pushed her away violently. She screamed as she fell on the floor.

  There came shouts from outside, urgent knocking. The door was flung open, Mariamu’s uncle, the mukhi, almost ran in.

  “What happened? Aré, what happened? But tell me, you, what happened?”

  Pipa, staggering like a drunk, swung at the mukhi.

  “You cheated me — you bastard — you gave me a —”

  Jamali pushed him into a chair, telling him for practical purposes not to be a fool and publicize his shame.

  Jamali had closed the door, but now there was pandemonium outside and suddenly it was flung open once more. Jamali went to close it but faced a crowd of people. Pipa came to stand behind him.

  Then Pipa saw the ADC push his way forward through the crowd and heard a voice in the darkness outside say: “It was the mzungu who deflowered the girl.” Pipa looked at the mukhi, then at the approaching Englishman, and heard the chuckles and murmurs in the background, and knew he had been cheated, robbed.

  Following that first night she had slept on the cold floor of pressed earth, until one night he told her to get up and helped her into bed. He had not touched her. He found it difficult, his heart heavy at the mere thought of it, his loins completely dead to it.

  He could reject her. It was in his bounds and the community would support him. She would fend for herself, become somebody’s woman, a prostitute … but even as he cast a glance at her beside him he saw a wife.

  They were two lonely people, he thought, as he watched her scrape the pans, helping herself after him. Two people with incomplete, lowly origins — orphans, really. They had to make it, together. Together, they were inviolable. They had respectability, were a family.

  They had not discussed that condition, the stigma that came between them at night like a wall. No one had denied his accusation, told him that sometimes these things happen, or that he was only imagining, was guilty of that greatest sin: doubt. No, they had not come to her rescue; not her mother, nor her uncle, the mukhi; and her stepfather had actually confirmed the accusation, it was Rashid’s voice that Pipa had heard outside accusing the ADC. And the girl said nothing.

  But in the next few days his pain began to lose its edge. He told himself the adult world was not as pure as a child might imagine, the adult world was a soiled one. He recalled his mother. He realized he could have kept his shame a secret between these four walls; but instead he had announced it from the rooftop.

  Her hair was dishevelled and she was in old clothes now; her bare feet gripped uncaringly at the rough floor. Some days ago she had been a bride. The jewellery, carefully accounted for, had been tied up in a kerchief and handed over, the clothes folded neatly, and put away. What remained was the ring, the nose stud, and one set of new clothes.

  He had not left the house since that first night and was himself dirty and smelly, dressed only in singlet and a kikoi cloth round his waist. Only she had walked out a few times on errands, once bringing kitchen things from her mother. This evening, he now told her as she took the dishes away, they would go out to the mosque.

  Let curious spiteful eyes follow them, for how long? He would show them who was cleverer, smarter.

  On their way to the mosque, a chattering of boys and girls followed them, a youthful jeer sounded from across the road. As they entered, the singing chorus halted, letting the single lead voice continue the hymn. Curious, silent faces watched them. As Pipa walked up to the mukhi, joined hands in traditional deference to the office, the mukhi gave loud blessings, joyfully, kindly, as if prompting the rest of the congregation to show similar kindness and acceptance. The girl, now a married woman, was received with respect on the women’s side and was given the chance to lead the second prayer. They ate at the mukhi’s, where Mariamu’s mother, Kulsa, was also present, and Rashid, her stepfather, conspicuously absent.

  That night she looked desirable in bed, ripe and fragrant as a Lamu mango. They lay side by side but he did not touch her, cursing the fate that was now his frozen heart, his inert loins. And yet she was his wife. He would take her to his home in Moshi, on the German side, where his mother was and he had a thriving shop, friends and benefactors.

  The following morning he began preparations for the journey. There was a trunk to obtain for Mariamu, and his own had to be repaired. There was the account to settle with Jamali. Porters to arrange. The mukhi’s wife, Khanoum, came and spent the afternoon with Mariamu. Kulsa, her mother, came in the evening and bade a tearful farewell. All being well, the couple could depart early the next morning.

  But all was not well. By the end of that day the town was abuzz with rumours of war. The next day war with Germany and its colony to the south was confirmed by the ADC, the border could not be crossed, and Pipa was an enemy national.

  10

  For many people this Great War, the war of the Europeans, was a great riddle composed of many smaller riddles; it came unasked for, undeclared in their midst. For those not involved in combat, it also became a game — one of observation and commentary, of cunning and survival. In Kikono and other towns of the Tsavo, caught in the midst of the mischief of the mzungus, the telling of the war was often the telling of riddles.

  The first riddle (how the war was announced):

  — A great cloud of dust moves quietly down the Taveta Road, leaves much destruction behind.

  — A swarm of locusts?

  — No!

  — Na-ni? What then?

  — It has many legs.

  — Why didn’t you say so? Jongoo? Millipedes?

  — Not at all.

  — Na-ni? What then?

  — Some tongues are mute.

  — Ah! Your own tongue is not!

  — Comes in peace, goes in peace.

  And so on.

  From the Mission on the hill one afternoon they saw the cloud of dust move slowly and painfully down the dirt tracks through thorn and bush. Mrs. Bailey watched it a while with her binoculars, then gave a sniff. “Mules. Ox wagons — two,” she announced to her companion, Miss Elliott. They did not think much of it until a few hours later.

  The caravan, belonging to two European families, struck camp on the other side of the red hillock where the road entered Kikono. They had with them thirty tired port
ers, who brought a good day’s business to the town and were treated accordingly. The travellers were on their way west from Voi, the stop was going to be a short one. Baruti’s tea shack reopened and dispensed its potent “gunpowder” tea, bottles of water and soda were fetched. The Indians sold khanga cloth and mirrors and perfumes that would fetch better prices across the border. The Europeans themselves stayed close to their wagons, where they awaited their African porters, but were happy to receive vendors. Then the last of the little caravan disappeared behind the bushes on the long road to Moshi, and when the dust had settled, the air in Kikono remained heavy with rumour and news of war. A war is on, kuna vita, they heard from the stores, from the vendors, from Baruti the teamaker. But where, this vita, and who is fighting it? In Ulaya, between the Germans and the British. You did not have to be told why that distant war was important here. The European visitors of a few hours ago were on their way from British to German East Africa.

  It was not until the following day that the ADC, frantic for news, at last received it from Voi. The day-old Herald carried a one-inch-high headline in bold. It was August 6, 1914.

  WAR IN EUROPE

  Great Britain Declares War on Germany

  Yesterday afternoon a cable was received at Government House from the Colonial Office announcing that a state of war is now in existence between Great Britain and all its domains and Germany. The Governor Sir Henry Belfield has declared a state of emergency in the colony …

  A column analysed the recent problems in Europe, which had hitherto not merited more than an occasional short paragraph. The photograph under the headline showed a crowd of settlers gathered outside Nairobi House — a ragamuffin mounted corps of farmers waving their rifles. Leaving their wives and children to mind the farms, off they had galloped to the capital on horse and mule, ready to do their duty. A recruiting office was opened, irregular units were in existence, and men were already on their way “to the GEA, on the road to Taboray!” but actually to scout the border. Other men heard their call in the distant home country and were boarding trains bound for the coast, where a Union Castle boat was waiting. The DC’s message from Voi to his assistant in Kikono was more to the point. “War declared in Europe. Look out for raids from across the border. Await further instructions.”

  Corbin’s little kingdom at the mbuyu became a theatre of war, its fate now out of his control and in the hands of master puppeteers abroad. This outpost dominion, whose palace could not even boast a proper ceiling under the roof, where quinine was always an urgent priority, now had a role in the defence and machinations of Empire.

  He mustered his small force of police askaris and kept them on alert. He posted scouts under the command of the albino, Fum-fratti, several miles into the forest and hills, and alerted the towns-people to the possibility of evacuation. He interrogated travellers for news from Moshi and Tanga.

  The second riddle:

  A man clutching his wrap about him comes hurrying into town and sits on a box at Baruti’s tea shack. Evidently a farmer — uncouth, dirty. The others sitting there avert their gaze or move away. A kindly old Swahili smiles and says, “Why do you shake, old man?”

  “You piss under a tree and it pisses back.”

  “Ah, yes. That’s the way of the world.”

  “From the branches.”

  “Naam?”

  “It pisses from the branches.”

  “No doubt.”

  “A branch with many leaves leaps down and speeds away.”

  “Didn’t I say so? It happens.”

  “Gives you the fright of your life.”

  “No doubt. Bila shaka. What did you smoke? — some bhang?”

  “It has boots. And a gun, too.”

  Na-ni? What is it? They’ve all gathered around now, this sounds like no ordinary riddle. Call Fumfratti, says the old Swahili.

  He does so and the colourfully dressed albino approaches.

  “Lebeka!” Fumfratti replies.

  “Listen to this riddle.”

  “You piss under a tree and it pisses back — from the branches,” says the old farmer, fortified by Baruti’s gunpowder tea and grinning.

  Fumfratti listens, then speaks: “Idiots.” He takes the farmer by the hand and walks him up the hill to the ADC’s office.

  This, then, was the first real contact the town had with the war. The farmer, having gone behind some bushes to take a piss, happened to be looking upwards at a tree close by when he saw drops of liquid trickling down. He gave a start; there was not a cloud in the sky. It could have been an animal. Then he saw the vision — the branch leaping down, a figure with gun and boots making a dash for it.

  Every able-bodied man went with the ADC’s party to find this apparition — in uniform, as the witness now said — but the camouflaged soldier had of course disappeared. On the platform he had built using cross-planks laid over branches, they found a tin with remains of ugali and orange. In a bush nearby, the place where the farmer had relieved himself. It was probably trickling orange juice that he saw, although opinions varied.

  The ADC dispatched a runner to Voi with a report.

  This was a time to exercise the rhetorical flourish, allow the flight of imagination. And what better people to do it than the wazees — the elders — outside the Swahili mosque, or at Baruti’s tea shack, or over cards in the evening in the light of a coalfire, while cassava or maize or cashew was roasted and black coffee was passed around in the little cups. Whenever a group of people gathered under a tree, the chances were it was not only a game of bao or three-card monte they were watching but war commentary they were giving ear to.

  One favourite subject was (and remained for many years) the quality of the Germans’ African askaris: hard, tough as nails, disciplined. They were taught well by their masters. And these European masters of the terrible feldkompanies … not for nothing was the German called hand of blood, will of iron, fierce as a devil. Those who remember will tell, of the Rebellion of Bushiri bin Salim long ago and how it was crushed. And then the Maji Maji uprising of ten years ago. That too was crushed. There were more men hanging from the mango trees, eti, than mangoes. Compare the stern, cold-eyed Germans (a word here, a word there, all is understood) to these British settlers who had come to fight them — here they referred to a mounted corps that had recently passed through (in safari suits and funny hats, sitting on donkeys with their pots and pans rattling, servants behind them, arrogant as if they owned the land.) Even the legendary Abu Nawas could not have assembled such a crew. What were they arrogant for — eh, jamani — and they with their guns and police? Abusing people, enticing African boys to go with them as scouts and carriers — more likely to test the first German bullets. Eti, who is at war with whom? Did we say we were fighting? Have we enemies, jamani? Since when is the Chagga tribe our enemy? And if a Taita lives across the border — eti, where is this border? — is he my enemy, bwana?

  — You ask where is this border, eti, heeeh!

  — Do you know?

  — Nobody knows, my brother. See that mountain — the mountain knows. The British gave it to the Germans.

  — How?

  — They draw a line in the grass, then they rub it out and draw another one.

  — So one day you are on one side, the next day on the other. Like chickens.

  — Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk —

  — We are not chickens!

  — That’s exactly what we are. In Voi they started a little matata, a ruckus, to give the DC a little scare. The soldiers showed their rifles. Fired in the air and everyone ran. Like what? Like chickens into huts, into trees, under motorcars. Then they returned, scurried along to pick up spent bullets, even the old men — like what? Like chickens running after grain!

  — One day all their lines will be rubbed out.

  — Or their fingers cut. Some lines they draw are deep.

  And then the first casualty, the blood-tie to the conflict.

  Fumfratti’s scouts, a few
miles outside town, discovered what appeared to be bushes on the move, taking short hops. With a whoopee they gave these German askaris the chase. They did not have a single rifle among them, neither it seemed did the opponents. Just then a single shot rang out from behind them, bringing one of Fumfratti’s men down. They gave up the chase.

  But who had fired the shot? The albino, with golden flowing beard and hair, the yellow bandanna and cowboy hat, looked around. Cunningly he said, “First the bush moves, then an anthill smokes.” This became the third riddle of the war.

  With much ado the wounded man was carried to the town, while Fumfratti and another man stayed behind and crawled silently towards the large anthill. They came close to it, and then in a sudden move dashed against it, letting out shrieks that scared the man inside out of his wits. Then they pummelled him senseless.

  The captured soldier turned out to be a Yao tribesman from Nyasaland, the British colony south of German East Africa. He had served the British army in the 2nd Battalion of the King’s African Rifles, the KAR, near Voi, and then was discharged a few years before with the rest of the battalion in Zanzibar. The way back to Nyasaland was through the German colony. In one of the towns, a unit of the German Defence Force promptly recruited him and sent him on to Moshi. He and his men were the advance scouting party for a mounted patrol in the area. If Fumfratti and his gang had continued their game of tag a little longer — the prisoner had beat his forehead with his fist to punish his stupidity in firing too hastily — they would have run into the patrol, the real Germans on mules, who would have finished them off.

  So the war was no joke. It was upon them. The ADC sent the captive to Voi that same evening. The town was quiet, the talk subdued.

  As the first days of the war passed, rife with rumours and with isolated incidents to egg them on, the Indians in town began to panic with uncertainty: to go — abandoning all — or not. Every day the mukhi came to the ADC for advice, comfort, the latest news. To a man they had relatives in Moshi, Tanga, Dar es Salaam.