by M G Vassanji
There had been many uncles. There was Fateh, the short, fair shopkeeper with a nervous grin and a patch of white hair at the back of his head, who always brought sweets. Morani, the tall, stern, squeaky-voiced teacher, whose large and bobbing Adam’s apple was believed by boys to be a trapped almond seed. And others. He would watch them intently when they visited and they would toss a heller coin at him to make him go away, and his mother would shut the door with that look which gave the secret away when he was old enough to understand it. One of the last uncles was a Greek doctor, who became more or less regular and the others stopped coming. His mother then walked out with a little style, becoming a woman of substance. The Greek was an older man, long-faced and quiet, always in a suit. He came in the afternoon during siesta time when the town was quiet. Sometimes he would bring a bottle of soda. When he emerged from the house later, word of his presence would have spread and there would be women with children waiting outside with ailments to show. He was a kind man and listened to as many mothers as he could.
They lived in a Swahili section of town that had a lot of women and children and few men. His mother made the fried sweet vitumbua and the vermicelli tambi and the candy called gubiti — whatever suited her moods and needs — to sell to the neighbours. The boy was big and thickset, and the nickname Pipa, meaning “barrel,” described him so well that it became exclusively his. Boys teased him by running past and jeering “pip-pip-pip Pipa!”
One day, when he was fifteen, he threw a stone at the departing Greek and drew blood. His mother called him in and scolded him. He told her exactly what he thought of her, and, wounded by his insult, she struck him with a broom. He wrenched the object from her and pushed her back, sending her to the floor in surprise and fear. He was a burly youth with an angry glower for a world that did not want him.
If guilt, in subsequent months and years, came at all, it came not from his having raised a hand against his mother — that blow became the single act of violence that absolved her in his eyes, a punishment for her sin. Instead, he felt a vague sense of guilt at his inadequacy, at not being able to do anything with himself that would raise his mother and sister from degradation to Indian respectability.
Like many of the boys in Moshi, he made a few hellers carrying at the railway station, and like them became more adept and aggressive as he grew older, jostling and shouting and crowding around the two weekly trains on the Tanga-Moshi line. And like many a young man, one day he allowed a Tanga-bound train to take him in its third-class carriage to wherever it would. It was grey dusk when the train left the station, and for a long time he watched the grassland and mountains he was speeding past on wheels of iron, captive to the roaring rhythm of the fire-driven engine. And at dawn he woke up from a snooze to gaze in wonder at the dense vegetation, sandy soil, palm trees, women veiled in black buibui, men in kanzus and kofias: a different world. The languid, casual world of the coast, made more so by the early-morning hour at which he met it.
There was no mountain in sight, the heat was like a weight on the head, his language sounded halting and uncouth in this town where talking could be a profession, where the nuances of words were many and could be used to wound or caress, to litigate or to tease, to rebuke or to make a joke. But the town of Tanga was beautiful. There was the ocean you could walk up to or sit watching, as many did, looking away into the distance or at the ships or at the island across the harbour where prisoners were sent to be hanged. There were houses with verandahs and balconies, the white ones of stone near the water belonging to the Germans. And there were the gardens with shrubs and flowers, and the promenade along the shore where men and women walked in the afternoon, and on Sundays a band played.
He found a job as a sweeper in the big hotel called Kaiserhof on the promenade. The German ladies came for confections in the morning, in the afternoon the men came to drink beer. Like most others, he feared these people. He found them amazing, dressed in the brightest white, stiff and composed. The women looked clean and pure as angels, pink and fresh-eyed; and they left behind delightful odours of flowers and creams. He would clean under the tables and chairs after they had gone, sweeping away cigarette stubs and crumbs, scraps of paper. On rare but not impossible occasions they left something behind. Once he returned a wallet — not before removing one note from it, a modest one — and was rewarded.
From this sweeper’s job he moved on to pulling a rickshaw, rented from an Indian. It was around the Kaiserhof that he operated, especially at nights when the Germans went to drink and dance and there was greater chance of a fat tip or a wallet dropped (which as always he would return, minus a note). The only hazard was that a rough ride, an unexpected bump, could earn an awful oath or even a cuff.
The ships in the harbour were many; cranes like huge tame giraffes serviced them. Numerous visitors were brought to the shore, numerous others boarded. They came from all sorts of places — Mombasa, Bombay, Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam, Beira, Aden, Hamburg — some of which he had heard of before, others never; but all sounding wonderful and far. They did not fall into any recognizable arrangement in his head, and for many years they remained arbitrarily situated for him, until he had a son, who one day showed him the world, on a map.
Then, after eight months in Tanga, convinced by an old harbour hand that it was in Dar es Salaam that the real life of all the young men began, where his own fortunes surely lay, he bought passage on an outbound steamer and let it take him farther yet from home.
Dar es Salaam was all that he had been promised it would be. As he alighted from the ship onto one of the boats which rowed the passengers ashore, beautiful white buildings of stone lay ahead of him, and a motorcar drove along the paved promenade. He saw in the distance a lone dark figure of a man standing high above the ground, and realized with wonderment that it was a statue on a pedestal. Behind this calm government section, through which he passed nervously, was the bustling Indian bazaar, its streets filled with people, donkeys, horses, and even cows and goats. Here, surely, was opportunity; yet how was he to go about finding it? Who was he in this town, who knew him? As he was to find out, you had to be somebody. Of his savings, only a little remained, and certainly not enough to go back home the way he had come.
For a few months he did a number of odd jobs, beginning at the harbour, where porters were always in demand. He lived in Swahili quarters then, in the African sector. One day he was spotted, working for a butcher, by an Indian shopkeeper who gave him a job minding his store, which was near the Shamsi mosque in the Indian sector. On his employer’s recommendation he was given a place to sleep in a rest house up the street that catered to travellers and the homeless. Outside this hostel at night, the local shopkeepers ate roasted meat and maize and played cards. Pipa slept for a few days in a large room set aside for hopelessly depressed and demented men from the community. But when he’d been to the mosque — largely to pass some time, there being nothing else to do in the evenings — he was surprised to be rewarded with a bed amongst the more normal guests. People talked to him, asked him where he came from, realized he knew their language. They sent him to Sheth Samji, a respected rich merchant, who employed him.
Sheth Samji had a produce shop on Bagamoyo Road. Every day gunny sacks of husked, dried copra, from the coastal towns outside Dar, arrived at Sheth Samji’s. It was Pipa’s job first to weigh the copra as it arrived in the morning, then to take sackfuls to the back of the shop and throw chunks of it into the oil mill, and later to collect and skim the oil. Often in the afternoon he would sit before the blindfolded camel that drove the mill as it walked perpetually in circles — patient, doggedly persistent in the illusion that it had a destination — and he would feel a surge of pity for it. Where could the beast think it was going — did it see rewards at the end of its journey, did it hope to meet a mate, did it hope for happiness, children, old age? The journey would end for the day when Pipa removed the blindfold and untied the camel (whom he had named Bahdur, “Brave”). He would then skim the cru
d off the oil and pour it into cans and bottles and go out with a servant to sell it.
The moral of the camel’s story, a preacher at the mosque once said, for the benefit of all those young men who had taken shelter under the community’s wing, was that of a man who had lost his home, did not know where he was going. Pipa thought of home; wondered when he would save enough to be able to go back, and, if he did return, what he would do there. On the other hand, he could stay and settle in this town among this community that had adopted him.
Dar es Salaam was an important place. It was the residence of the German Governor. There were many Europeans, many officials, whom it was best to avoid. Visitors poured in from the harbour. Within minutes a street could be cleared to make way for a dignitary — on horse, in a motorcar or rickshaw, or even on foot. There were people — from the interior, mostly — who would go down on their knees in fear when a dignitary passed and humbly touch the ground with their heads lest they offend. In a place like this there were many rules and regulations, and a police force to see that they were obeyed. It mattered who you were, where you belonged: you were your tribe, caste, religion, community. Sheth Samji was a former mukhi and now a community elder. From his vantage point at the till in his store, he watched carefully the goings-on at the rest house across the way and near the mosque. Many a guest had been threatened with eviction and loss of job if observance, attendance in mosque, did not improve. There was rivalry among Indian communities, jealousy and enmity from the old country. Many a lonely young man had been compelled to change allegiance, many a willing young man duly rewarded with a bride and a business.
Whether he was of the Shamsi community or not, Pipa could not say with certainty. But like many others before him, he accepted the Shamsis, and the rewards that followed: a job and a place to stay; eminent men to vouch for him; and, if he wanted, a bride. So he could become the camel who at last stopped his endless journey and found a home.
But one day a strange thing happened that he would think of many years later as a call of fate. As he sat watching Bahdur the camel make its endless journey to nowhere, he heard the sound of a drum outside, apparently coming up the street, and a commotion of people. He went to look, peeping out through a side entrance. A noisy procession was approaching, accompanied as usual by boys and the town’s layabouts. A man in trousers and shirt was playing the instrument with a regular slow beat. When he reached the middle of the block, he broke into a smart tattoo and stopped, as did his followers all around him, and signalled with a nod to his partner, a man near him in kanzu, who made the announcement.
“Tunawataka wapagazi! Tunawataka wapagazi! Dar-Moro-Kilimanjaro, Dar-Moro-Kilimanjaro — andisheni, andisheni — O!”
A European expedition of missionaries, on a tour to inspect the interior, needed porters on the foot route north from Moro-goro to Kilimanjaro. The Dar-Moro train fare would be paid. A handsome daily wage was promised.
And Pipa, as twice before, succumbed to the temptation to take off, and signed up with the caravan. But this time, he told himself, he was going home. With the money he had saved, and the porter’s wages he would earn, he would start his own life in Moshi.
Leaving home had been easy, not so the return.
Three hundred men in single file snaked through the forest, singing, a seventy-pound load on each head and carrying in addition a spear, a machete, or a club. They would sing vigorously at first, then lapse into a low resonating chorus, responding to whomever happened to be leading. They were divided into companies of fifteen men, to eat and sleep together, under a leader. Four companies formed a larger company. The leader of all the porters was a man called Livingstone. They would wake up before dawn, wash, attend to nature, pack, and after breakfast, as a drumbeat sounded a signal, they would set off with the rallying song of “Funga safari, funga safari!” Let’s pack up and go, O let’s pack up and go! Who says so? Who says so? It is the mzungu who says so! The jungle would be still wet with dew, the air still cool, and the sun barely peeping through the trees.
This was work for only the most seasoned porters, as most of the men were. They spoke fondly of the days before the rails came, when they went on long safaris that took months, and the white man was completely dependent upon them. But to Pipa each day seemed endless. How far, how long? he asked each morning, even as others sang lustily away. He had to push himself to keep up, for to lag behind could be dangerous. By noon, however, even the strongest and most experienced of the men would be quiet, nearing the end of their strength. With hearts pounding, necks straining, backs running with sweat, and throats parched, the porters, in broken formation now, would approach the campsite, where the advance party of the six Europeans and a few chosen men had arrived. Cooking would begin among the companies, and it was not until two or three that they ate. Afterwards, the Europeans, sitting under a tree or beside a bush or a rock, would read from the Bible to a small gathering of the porters, as others attended to their own needs. Then gradually preparations for the evening meal would begin.
A dozen campfires would start, cooking meat, maize, cassava; around them men would be singing, shouting, playing bao or cards, smoking tobacco, telling stories and riddles, meeting to discuss the next day’s route. After the meal the drum would sound, and gradually the campsite turned quiet and there would remain only the sound of the night forest — the chorus of insects, the hoot of an owl, the roar or grunt of an animal — and the occasional dry cough of a watchman, the moan of a worn-out porter.
The Europeans had separate tents. The chief among them, called Bwana Turner, was a big towering man with a fierce-looking curved moustache and fiery green eyes. He and the head porter, Livingstone, went back a long way, had travelled much together — from the coast up to Uganda several times before the railways were built. Livingstone was a short man with muscular limbs. The rumour among the men was that his hair was actually white — a sure sign that the days of the porter were numbered — but he blackened it using a concoction supplied by the chief bwana.
There were incidents on the way. Twice they were attacked by robbers; in each case the last man in the file had been speared, once fatally, and his load stolen. Once, caught between two steep cliffs, they were pelted with a rain of stones, which ceased only when Livingstone fired a few shots from his gun. Two snakebites were treated by one of the white men. A man was thrashed for insubordination. And a few porters deserted.
After twenty-nine days they entered Moshi.
“Hiyo mama, hiyo mama! …” Singing at the top of their voices like a triumphant army, Livingstone’s porters arrived in the town. “Hiyo mama, tuna rudi!” Here we return, Mother. And the town treated them royally for the money they would spend. Shops brightened up, fruit sellers opened up on the streets, coffee sellers came by clinking their cups. In the evening the hosts roasted meat and cassava and maize for the travellers, the air filled with smells of woodsmoke and sizzling fat, perfume and local brew, curry and dried fish.
On an open ground the missionaries had set up a tent, outside of which was placed a table, and here they paid off their porters. The men queued up and one at a time said their names before the chief bwana, who sat at the table and ticked them off against a list as Livingstone, sitting next to him, paid the money. With a final, farewell salute they then turned and went away.
It was early yet, after the farewells. The men had been given tea, and Pipa was on his way, thinking of how he would start his new life in Moshi. He walked jauntily through the idle, chatting groups of discharged porters, feeling confident, resourceful, and impatient to begin.
“Weh, Pipa! Fatso, what will you do?”
“I’ll open a shop, you mother’s cunt!”
The questioner ran after him and Pipa dodged.
The tent at which he had been paid was open, now only a folding chair stood outside it. Pipa took a quick peep inside, saw no one, passed by the chair and noticed a valise on it. Swiftly he looked around him, then swooped up the valise. But two steps on his way,
a voice, a very English voice, said loudly:
“Weh mwivi — you thief! Simama! Halt!”
He was pinned to the ground by Livingstone’s lieutenants, and it seemed a mountain of men fell upon him. The valise was extracted from his hands by someone and passed on towards its owner, who stood stiffly away from the crowd.
— What is it — what is it — nini?
— The bwana’s case.
— What’s in it?
— Kitabu! A book!
— Only a book!
— The same book in which Bwana Turner writes carefully every night by the light of a lamp.
In the rush of hands, somehow the book — a diary — had come out of the valise, which itself quickly found its way to its owner’s hands. The wondrous object, the book, lingered a while among the crowd until the last person had fingered it and taken a peep at the writing inside before delivering it respectfully with both hands to the missionary.
When Pipa got up he thought his back was broken. Why had those sons of dogs jumped on him? he wondered. What would these white bwanas give them? As if they’d never pinched a thing in their lives.
“Come here,” the missionary said sternly, holding the book and the valise under one arm. “What is your name?”
“Pipa, bwana.”
“Do you know the punishment for stealing?”
Khamsa-ishrin, the young man thought with dread, twenty-five strokes of the whip, pain and humiliation — the German punishment. Is this why I returned home?
“Mercy, bwana. I will not do it again …”
A German officer, having heard the ruckus, was approaching. Perhaps he had been fetched. All eyes turned towards him.
“Leave the boy to me, bwana,” said Livingstone quickly to his boss. “He is my responsibility.”
And Livingstone, pulling Pipa by the ear, took him aside and slapped him a few times on the face, saying, “You fool, you barbarian. Of which mother were you born … do you know the German could have your hands cut off!”