The Book of Secrets

by M G Vassanji

  The German and the missionary walked away together. And the men who had watched the spectacle said, This old Livingstone may dye his hair, but what a man of the people. Weh, Pipa, go home now, open your shop, Indian. You are a lucky man.

  When Pipa returned to Moshi it was January 1913, and, looking around, he knew this was no longer home. It had been twenty-two months since he left. But now he had the experience of a world inside him. What did this place amount to beside Tanga with its Kaiserhof, or Dar with its Government House, its monuments, its teeming streets, and visitors arriving daily from the ends of the earth? Where were the likes of Sheth Samji, who with a click of the fingers could command a community, to whom even the Germans paid respect? There was money in those places, opportunities to be grabbed, status to be bought. But he was here, in Moshi, and this was where he would start. The camel had opened his eyes, and he was home. And in the process of regaining his sight, he thought somewhat ruefully, he had almost lost his two hands.

  His mother shared rooms, now, in a ramshackle house. She looked older and heavier. Her hair was greying, her hands, her feet, looked coarse. She had let herself go. The Greek doctor had left town and she now cooked for an Indian man and did some housework for him. His sister, Zaynab, had gone away with a merchant.

  A sheet of torn tent canvas held up by poles was the first Pipa Store, selling cigarettes, matches, oil, tea, spices, and sugar.

  There was an influential man in town called Hamisi the Arab. He had come from up north, Sudan. A tall and fair-skinned man of good looks, he always wore khaki trousers and tunic, over which he had a fine white cotton kanzu, and on his balding head would be a white Swahili kofia embroidered with light brown. He ran a noisy Quran-reading school every afternoon in his home, from where the alif-beh-teh chants of the boys rang out into the street. Three of the boys were his own. He was friendly with the commandant, Bwana Rudolfu, and it was rumoured that either he spoke German or the commandant spoke Arabic, or both. On Thursday nights the Karimiya Sufi order met in open secret — not just anybody could go — on the second floor of a prominent local building to discuss hadiths and whisper holy syllables. Hamisi would take the commandant to these meetings. There were many things whispered about the Sufis, including the wisdom of not engaging in whispers about them. The young men among them were particularly fierce — they took to the streets in their kanzus on Friday afternoons, when they wore green fezzes on their heads.

  One day Hamisi stopped at Pipa’s shop and asked if the young man could get him some English pipe tobacco. He spoke in a gentle, kindly voice; his manner was unassuming. Pipa, quite taken aback at his presence, said, Yes, bwana, I will get it for you. Hamisi’s custom at Pipa’s became regular after that. He would stop to chat after buying his tobacco or matches or sugar — a serious man yet friendly, with a distracted smile.

  Pipa took pride in this friendship. It was a sign of his acceptance as a respectable even though young businessman of the town. With the benefit of this new patronage and its influence, his business increased. Every Friday Pipa sent a bag of dates to the Arab as a token of his appreciation. To demonstrate his newfound dignity he did not move into better accommodations — that would have been expensive and foolish — but instead enabled his mother to buy better clothes, to walk proudly in the streets; and he took her to the Shamsi mosque. As he had learned in Dar, you had to belong somewhere, have a people. Even Hamisi the Arab had inquired of him one day: “Who are your people?” And Pipa had had to hum and haw before saying, “The Shamsis.” After all, it was the Shamsis who had adopted him in Dar, taught him the tale of the blind camel and what could be learned from it. Hamisi had been satisfied. And so Pipa accepted, once more, this fraternity, whose network extended into towns small and large among the shopkeeper communities, each praying to the same God in the same fashion as their forefathers, scratching out an existence and future in Africa. Their chants and prayers sounded less foreign to him than to his mother, who dismissed all questions about her past, her origins, any people she might have had. They went regularly, every day, to the mosque at the edge of the Indian quarter, one half of a building owned by the local mukhi. It was a small community and it embraced them warmly. His previous reputation as a ruffian became an asset, because the mukhi in the town, Jaffer Bhai, lived in slight but real fear of assassins after the recent murder of a mukhi in a small coastal town.

  Naturally, the question of the young man’s marriage arose, was quickly taken up by the community, for which he was grateful. Moshi had no eligible girls except for the two daughters of the mukhi, both young, and anyway reserved for the prestige of larger towns. But mukhis have connections, too, and this one put his to use almost immediately.

  One Friday night Jaffer Bhai detained his congregation, as he was wont to do for special announcements. All those who could moved backwards or sideways to find a wall to rest their backs against. When it came time for the mukhi’s announcements, the men would crack jokes and the women would get impatient. The mukhi was known for his impractical schemes and a tendency to lecture.

  On this occasion, he stressed the great benefits for those living in the towns of Kilimanjaro to co-operate with each other. There were matters of trade, obviously, and employment of new or younger people and — he paused significantly — marriages and so on. As well, information could be exchanged regarding the methods of the governments on either side of the border. He announced a goodwill mission to Kikono, a new but growing town in the British area, whose own mukhi, Jamali, he knew to be a good man. He called for a delegation. Two men volunteered.

  “How about you?” Jaffer turned to Pipa. “Would you like to explore opportunities there?”

  The young man, not used to such niceties, blurted, “For how long? Is the town far?”

  But, as the jolly Jaffer Bhai later explained to Pipa, “You naïve oaf! The mission’s specially for you! There’s a girl I want to show you in Kikono.” Which was what the young man was waiting to hear.

  One July morning Jaffer and his three community brothers joined a group travelling to the Church Missionary Society station in Taveta. They spent the night at the border town and early the next morning set off for Kikono, arriving late in the afternoon of the following day. They were greeted like high dignitaries, escorted into town, and fed at a communal feast that had been prepared for their arrival.

  The next evening, after prayers had been said, and as the congregation sat around in the mosque, the local mukhi, Jamali, gave a long welcoming speech and stressed the need for co-operation among neighbouring towns in much the same way that Jaffer had done in Moshi. Pipa looked furtively towards the women’s section. Jaffer had told him to watch out for the girl but had not described her. Pipa met one or two hostile looks and turned away, yet he thought he had caught sight of her, the girl who had been selected for him by his elders. She had a narrow face and longish nose, looked a little lost, just as he imagined he himself did. But she was pretty, he liked her, and his heart was full of excitement and hope. Then all kinds of apprehensions crossed his mind — would she approve? would her family approve? what would they demand from him? He did not even know what the custom was — and what if she did not approve of him: there were not that many girls around.… Mombasa had been hinted as a possible source; there was a Swahili girl in Moshi, daughter of one of his mother’s friends.

  He yearned for the stability of a home, the embrace and warmth of a marriage bed; he hoped he would make a good father. Marriage put a successful end to youth: the religion proclaimed that, the community acknowledged that. With marriage you were finally accepted: the women came and talked to you, called you “bhai” — brother — and men treated you as one of them.

  Later that night, as the women danced a garba, the Kikono mukhi, Jamali, pointed out the girl and Jaffer Bhai’s eyes lighted up in satisfaction as if he would marry her himself.

  “Well? What do you say?” asked Jamali.

  “Well?” Jaffer Bhai turned to Pipa.

&n
bsp; “Well …” was all he could muster.

  The older men laughed. “He’s fallen. We’ll take the proposal.”

  Pipa was told that the girl’s name was Mariamu. She was Jamali’s niece, and the proposal, to the girl’s parents, was a formality. An engagement was confirmed in Jamali’s house, where sherbet was served to the small Moshi delegation.

  Pipa had, of course, not yet met the girl. Now at this ceremony his eyes met hers, briefly. There was hope in hers, an acceptance, perhaps a plea. His eyes lingered on her as she turned away. Had she found them sympathetic?

  Jaffer Bhai and Pipa with their two other townsmen went home after an excursion to Mombasa, where they bought goods to take with them to sell. Items of glass and perfumes were in great demand, and khangas of the newest fashions, inscribed with a current proverb or riddle, for which women fought and clamoured in the shops. And of course they took dried fruit and halva for presents. From Mombasa they took the ship to Tanga, thence a train to Moshi. Their profits would pay for their journey and more.

  “Don’t you think you should go to Kikono?” Jaffer Bhai said to Pipa.

  Three months had passed since the engagement, when it had been agreed that a wedding date would be suggested by the bride’s people, but there had been as yet no word from Kikono. Instead, they had heard once through the grapevine that the girl had been unwell.

  It was Friday night, the young man and his mother were guests at the mukhi’s. They sat with their host and his family outside the store, a lantern producing a dim glow around them and throwing flickering shadows on the ground. A girl sat at the open doorway.

  “Have you heard from them, then?” said Pipa in response to Jaffer’s question.

  “No. But you should use this occasion to go.”

  The occasion was the October “happiness” to celebrate the community’s founding in India.

  “Go and find out what the matter is. If the girl is sick you should know. If not, what is holding up the wedding?”

  “Will you come with me?” asked Pipa.

  “No,” Jaffer said. “I can’t. But be a man and go by yourself. Tell them you bring greetings and presents for the festival, and you’ve heard that the girl has been unwell. They’ll understand. And don’t come back without fixing the wedding date — remember, insist on it.”

  Pipa said he would go. He exchanged a glance with his mother, who had finally looked up. Without any real status in the community, she had no say in this matter.

  Hadn’t he picked a date only to be told that they, his spiritual guardians and worldly fathers, would tell him when? But Jaffer Bhai had forgotten all that. “You’d better take charge, friend. There are all sorts of young men looking for pretty wives who might beat you to it.”

  “There’s a group leaving tomorrow night for Taveta,” Jaffer said. “Go with them. And Hamisi has been asking about you — he has an errand for you. I told him you are a good boy, with a bride waiting under a mbuyu tree.”

  The following afternoon Hamisi the Arab came round to Pipa’s shop.

  “Ah Biba, how are you?”

  “Marhaba, marhaba, sheikh.”

  After placing his order, Hamisi said, “Your imam says you are travelling to the British side.”

  “Yes, bwana.”

  “Bwana Rudolfu has an errand for you. If you do it he’ll reward you.”

  Hamisi’s eyes met Pipa’s briefly. The implication of his message was clear. Bwana Rudolfu was the German commandant of Moshi. Pipa had no choice but to go and see him.

  The commandant was a short rotund man in khakis, with close-cropped hair and a light beard. He looked kindly and spoke softly, but you never judged a German by appearance.

  “Ah, Mohmet,” he said, standing up, putting his hands to his hips. “You are going to Kikono, I hear. An auspicious visit.”

  Pipa stood and muttered something.

  “I want you to do something for me, Mohmet.”

  “Yes, bwana.”

  “Listen. They have a good postal service there. I want you to post these letters in Kikono. From there to Voi to Mombasa — and, fut! — to the world. To India, to your homeland. Also, give this to Bwana Lenz by hand — in Mbuyuni. You will be paid for your trouble.”

  Pipa took the bag of letters that was given him. Why should the Germans trust him with important letters? The thought of emptying the sack in a bush somewhere — a latrine perhaps — occurred to him. But they’d find out and have the hide off him.

  On his way out he paused to look at the bundle of money Bwana Rudolfu had given him. They were used but crisp notes, like the ones he would pick up at the Kaiserhof in Tanga. These were not the smelly pieces of limp, moist paper that had seen tobacco boxes and armpits and bosoms and farmers’ hands and whatnot. As he fingered and counted the money, he could not believe the amount and wondered if there was a mistake. Forty rupees! He should check. He could have received the wrong bundle of notes. Perhaps the German was testing him. Ruefully he walked back and told the commandant, “Bwana. You made a mistake.” He showed the notes.

  “No, no.” The commandant raised a benevolent hand. “The government pays handsomely those whom it chooses. Go, now.”

  “Those letters,” Pipa told his wife ten months later, “are what got me into this trouble, why Fisi now has me in his clutches.”

  She was quiet.

  “One day you will tell me all about yourself,” he said.

  She looked away, deferential, shy, quiet. To him she would always be a mystery.

  The morning after Pipa was visited by the Englishman Maynard and his two henchmen, the Swahili, called Shomari, came over.

  “Weh, Fatso, you are wanted.”

  “By whom?” Pipa asked sullenly.

  “You have forgotten aheady? By the one who chews bones.”

  “You have been conscripted, my friend,” said Shomari. “You are not free. Nobody is free in this war.” As they approached the ADC’s house, Fumfratti the albino was leaving it. He looked briefly at Pipa when they passed him, then strode off down the hill. Under the tree outside his house, Corbin was addressing the town businessmen. Pipa had already learned that the ADC was leaving town due to the war. Corbin was seated on a chair, using both hands to make a point, as his audience sat patiently on the ground listening.

  Maynard was sitting at the table in the main room of the ADC’s residence. In front of him were some papers, a pen, a box, and some keys. Close to the door stood an askari.

  “Bwana,” said Shomari.

  Maynard looked up. He had been reading a pamphlet that had appeared recently in town. “Ah … yes. The Indian from town. My post office.”

  “Tell me,” Maynard said to Pipa, “have you seen a paper — a gazeti — like this one before?”

  “Like this one — yes — my wife brought it from the mukhi’s house.”

  “Do you know what it says?”

  “ ‘The Imam of Istanbul says —’ ”

  “So you can read!”

  “No, bwana. My wife —”

  “She can read!”

  “No, bwana.”

  “No one can read, yet the whole town knows what this paper says.”

  The pamphlets had appeared that morning, bearing an anti-British message. But that was not Maynard’s main concern with Pipa.

  “Do you remember what you were told last night?” he said in a low, even voice.

  “Yes, bwana.”

  “Do you have any questions?”

  “No. But —”

  “Baas, then. You do as you were told, and everything will be all right. We are all required to play our part. Sawa sawa?”

  “Sawa sawa, bwana.”

  “And don’t open your mouth, or —”

  “The owl will hear you,” said Shomari, finishing his sentence.

  He was given ten rupees, made to sign for them, and dismissed.

  On his way out, as he stepped onto the verandah, he saw the ADC was now on his feet outside, bidding farewell to the bu
sinessmen. The mzungu was all dressed up that day, in sparkling white tunic, trousers, and sun helmet. As Pipa watched, a boy gave a present to the ADC, who bowed and shook hands. Pipa looked away, proceeding to leave, when he saw a chair beside the doorway, pulled back against the wall. On it lay a book.

  He could never tell how long he stood there looking at it, tempted by it. That whole moment could have been a dream, but he knew it wasn’t. The book was lying closed. Beside it was a pen. The cover was yellow with red and black print on it. It was where the ADC had left it before going to meet the delegation of businessmen waiting for him outside under the tree. That it was Bwana Corbin’s, Pipa had no doubt. It was the kind the old men, the wazees, called the book of secrets. He recalled the occasion before when, foolish and inexperienced, he had swiped a missionary’s valise that had contained a similar book. He heard clearly in his head that voice … halt! No, he turned away, he would not take the book.

  On his way home he met Mariamu and the mukhi’s wife, Khanoum, walking towards the ADC’s house.

  “Where were you?” Mariamu asked.

  “Oh,” he said, giving her a quick but mild look of reproach for putting him on the spot, “that mzungu Maynard was asking about the pamphlet — it’s come from the German side, Moshi. The sooner this war is over the better,” he muttered. “And where are you two off to?” he asked her.

  This time Mariamu was on the spot. She turned to Khanoum, who said, “Some of her things are still at Bwana Corbin’s house, from when she worked there.”

  “Yes, go then,” Pipa said, curbing the old anger erupting again at the thought of the mzungu with his wife. But, he thought approvingly, how like sisters the two women are, though one is an African and the other an Indian.

  Back in his shop, at the till, he could not help thinking of the ADC’s diary he had seen. If he had taken it he would have stolen something personal and mysterious — in an unreadable hand, a foreign tongue. But long before, he had been cured of stealing.