Still, the task of arranging the private visit fell on Machokali’s shoulders, and it was only after he completed the necessary arrangements and set the date for the leader’s departure that Machokali decided to go to Santamaria to meet with Tajirika to talk about Vinjinia. Machokali also had important information that he wanted to share with Tajirika in person before it came out in the press. Suspecting that Sikiokuu was spying on him, Machokali decided to forgo riding in his official Mercedes-Benz and hailed a taxi instead.
They met at the Mars Cafe for quieter privacy, the M5 having the run of five-star hotels. As it turned out, it was Tajirika who was most desperate to meet; no sooner had Machokali sat down than Tajirika began unburdening himself.
“My friend, I am glad you have come. I am sure that it is me they were after and not Vinjinia. What should I do? I did not know that Nyawlra was a member of this movement. I took her for an ordinary girl in search of work and I hired her. What should I do now to prove that I am still loyal to the Ruler? Here, I brought along something for you to see and edit as necessary. It is a press statement to announce that I am divorcing Vinjinia for consorting with dissidents…”
“Ssshh! Not so fast,” Machokali said, waving the statement away. “Tell me this: was Vinjinia at the ceremony or not?”
“How do I know? She might have been there in disguise.”
“But at the meeting you told me that you spoke to her on the phone?”
“That is true.”
“So how could she have been both at home and at the ceremony?”
“Markus, women are very complicated. Besides, these mobile phones are deceptive,” he added conveniently, forgetting that Vinjinia had refused to own one despite her husband’s entreaty to do so as a mark of being in tune with the times.
“Have you asked the workers or any of your children if she was at home?”
“Yes, and they all say that she was in all day. But how do I know if they are telling the truth? She may have bribed them to cover for her. Never trust a woman! I trusted Nyawira to my son owl”
“As to Nyawlra, later. Does Vinjinia know where the police took her?”
“She says no. She says that after they arrested her they blindfolded her, and after driving her in circles put her in a dark cell with dim light, and it was in this dark chamber that she was interrogated by people she could not see.”
“What did they ask her? I mean, what did they want to know?”
“They demanded that she tell them everything she knew about the Movement for the Voice of the People. There were questions about Nyawlra. How long had she known Nyawlra? How had they met? When did Nyawlra start working for Eldares Modern Construction and Beal Estate? Who actually offered her the job? They also wanted to know if there was a personal relationship between either Nyawlra and me or Nyawlra and you. Had you and Nyawlra ever met in or outside my office? Was she your girlfriend? Questions like that. Vinjinia says that she told them all she knew, which was very little, for she herself had not been a regular at the office, that she started working there only after I was stricken ill… You see now what I told you about women? Was it really necessary for her to bring up my illness?”
“Stop trembling and listen to me. Hold yourself together like a man. Everybody in the government knows that you were down with the flu. Everybody in Aburlria gets the flu. So that’s nothing to worry about. As for employing Nyawlra, anybody can make a similar mistake. A person may employ a thief, but it does not follow that he is himself a thief. Besides, a thief does not go about the streets shouting: I am a thief. The sins of the employed cannot be visited on the employer. Mark you, Nyawlra is an enemy of the State and if there is anything that you know that can lead to her arrest, tell me. Do you understand? To me first. When I am in the USA, I shall be calling you from time to time to find out what you have uncovered. But if I am nowhere to be found and you do have information on Nyawlra, then I suggest that you take it to the nearest police station, to that friend of yours-what was his name, Wonderful Tumbo? Yes, that would be wonderful. As for your wife, why do you want to divorce her when it appears she has done you no wrong?”
“Oh, thank you. So I am not in danger? You are not angry with me? The Buler is not angry with me?”
“Why would the Buler or I be angry with you?”
“Thank you! Thank you, my Minister!” Tajirika said as if the minister and the Buler were now one and the same.
Machokali was about to tell him to shut up, that he was a minister of the Buler only, but he held back. The more he talked with Tajirika, the more he felt depressed. He had never seen this side of him. No backbone, he thought, and wondered if it was worth telling him all he had wanted to tell him, like suggesting that Tajirika be his watchdog while he was away. He also considered withholding information about impending changes in the structure of the Marching to Heaven Building Committee. Then he thought that it was only fair that he should impart the news himself instead of Tajirika’s reading about it in the papers.
“I want you to listen very carefully. Even among us state ministers there is a fierce struggle for power and influence. Not every other minister loves me. Our birthday cake did not please everybody, not because they hated the idea of Marching to Heaven but because it did not originate with them. Some, and I think you know whom I mean-I don’t want to mention their names-resent the project so intensely that they would do anything to scuttle it. Failing that, they will do anything to put their stamp on the project. Now, I don’t want to beat about the bush. I want to tell you straight out that at long last they have managed to do so. Of course they wanted to push out all my allies, like you, from the Building Committee, but fortunately the Buler in his unfathomable wisdom refused their demands. Nevertheless, there will be a few changes that you should know about. For instance, you will now have a deputy”
“What? He will take over my job?” Tajirika asked, alarmed.
“No, no. You will remain the chairman of Marching to Heaven. Your deputy will only assist you.”
Tajirika looked relieved, as if he had expected news much worse.
“That is not a bad idea, you know,” Tajirika said. “I hold the chair and my deputy holds the pen. My clerk.”
“It will not be exactly like that,” Machokali, who had expected Tajirika to grow furious, tried to explain with a touch of annoyance. “Your deputy will not work for me but for my enemies. He will be the eyes of my enemies in my camp. So I want you to be very careful in what you do or say in his presence. I want you to note down what he does or says and on my return from the USA you will brief me. Of course just now the committee has very little work to do, and so in practice having a deputy means very little. Work will begin only after the Global Bank has released the funds. But if he tells you to do anything with him, or if he asks you to sign any document, don’t do it until I return from the USA, certainly not before you and I have at least talked on the phone.”
From the moment Tajirika realized that he was not on the Buler’s hit list and that he still retained his position as the chairman of Marching to Heaven, all his worries vanished. He wondered why Machokali was getting all worked up about this matter of a deputy. Isn’t a deputy a kind of glorified clerk, doing whatever the chairman wants him to do?
“It would have been better if I had been allowed to choose my clerk, give him a proper job interview, but I suppose it does not matter. Who is my deputy, anyway?” Tajirika asked.
“His name will be announced sometime this week in the official gazette, but I thought I should let you know so it does not come as a surprise. His name is John Kaniürü. Previously he was a senior youthwinger.”
“What, a youthwinger as my deputy?” Tajirika asked, now insulted. “What do these youthwingers know except… except… I don’t even know what they do. But on second thought, even this is okay. He will be my boy, running errands for me…”
“That is not all,” Machokali added, somewhat embarrassed by how naive his ally was proving to be. “There will also
be a Commission of Inquiry into the Queuing Mania. The commission will try to find out who started it and where, and how it came to be used against the State.”
“That’s easy-they don’t need a whole commission for that,” Tajirika said, standing up and pointing toward his office. “It all started over there, outside my building. Unfortunately,” he said, sitting down again, “it was when I was ill. But my secretary can tell them everything, for she was there the whole time.” Then he remembered who his secretary was and quickly sidestepped the issue.
“My wife, Vinjinia, was also there, and she can truly testify that the queuing started outside my offices. Why? Are people trying to claim credit?”
“It is not that,” Machokali tried to explain, and then suddenly he felt overwhelmed by the futility of his attempts to convey the gravity of the situation to Tajirika. How did I become involved with a fellow so thick that he has not the slightest sense of the traps in the way? “There is nothing to fear about this Commission of Inquiry. The most important thing is that you speak the truth as you know it. If you just speak the truth, all will end well.”
Tajirika agreed, but in his heart he knew that no commission on earth would make him talk about the money that came his way from those seeking lucrative contracts in the future. Even if it turned out that Vinjinia had spilled the beans, he would strenuously deny it, no matter the consequences.
“And who is the chairman of this Commission of Inquiry?”
“John Kaniürü.”
“The youthwinger?”
“Yes.”
Again, instead of being alarmed by this development, Tajirika quickly lost interest in the commission, his mind racing to the impending visit to the USA. An idea had just struck him. If he, Tajirika, were to join the delegation bound for the USA, he surely would have time and opportunity to talk directly with the Ruler. At the very least, he would be nearer to the source of power instead of wasting his time here with useless commissions and deputies, without work to do. He cleared his throat.
“Let me ask you, Mr. Minister, as the chairman of Marching to
Heaven, should I not be part of this delegation to the USA? And now that I have a deputy, it is not as if the chair will be left empty or become cold. My deputy Kaniürü will keep it warm till we come back from America.’’
“Oh, no! I want you to stay behind as my eyes and my ears.” Machokali said quickly and emphatically what he had been trying to hint at all along, but he did not want to dwell on it because doubts had crept in about the character of his friend. “I have to go back to my office. The Ruler might call at any time, and I do not want to see any newspaper headlines reporting that the Minister for Foreign Affairs is missing,” he said, trying to end their conversation on a light note.
Months later, in a torture chamber, swearing his innocence in the name of his ancestors, his children, God, anything that might give him temporary respite from needles in his fingers and cigarette burns on his body, Tajirika kept telling the police interrogators the same thing over and over again: “That was my last conversation with Machokali. I swear to God.”
Tajirika would break into tears and plead with his torturers: “I beg you to leave me alone. We said farewell to each other at the Mars Cafe, and I never saw him or talked to him again on the phone before they left for the USA. To speak the truth, I resented the fact that I was not included in the delegation and so I did not even bother to know the day and the hour they were going to leave.”
14
It is said that time heals, but for the Ruler time seemed to deepen the pain. Even with his imminent departure for the USA, he still squirmed with horror at the thought of what the women had done to him. He could not understand why they had taken up Rachael’s cause and, although he would never whisper it to anybody, that was what really hurt. They had intruded in his private business, something that no one had ever done before. Male authority at home was absolute, and this was the one belief shared by despots and democrats alike, colonialists and anticolonialists, men and women and leaders of all established faiths. How dare these women question that which was so clearly ordained in Heaven and on Earth? The most miserable beggar in Aburlria was now more secure as the king of his home than he as the husband of his home and country. How and when did they get to Rachael? he would ask himself time and again. His nerves tingled at a suspicion that kept on haunting him: had one of his beloved sons acted as the go-between for Rachael and the women? But which of the four sons would dare so heinous an act of filial disobedience and male betrayal? He recalled their faces and contemplated each in turn: now that of Rueben Kucera, now that of Samwel Moya, now that of Dickens Soi, now that of Richard Runyenje. But these faces only teased him into greater doubt.
His suspicion became so intolerable that he sought to still it by summoning his sons under the pretext that he wanted to see them before leaving for America. He opened the family council by telling them that in his absence they must keep their ears open for any intrigues among the armed forces. They should also keep an eye on the ministers who would be left behind, particularly Sikiokuu. He cautioned them against too much drinking, and, as a warning, he disclosed the reports that had reached him that one of them, the two-star general, once left part of his army uniform in a bar while pursuing a whore. The son so accused jumped to his feet in his own defense and told his father that those were tales of envy and malice from some sections of the M5. The Ruler seized on that denial to steer the conversation to the subject of Rachael, their protected mother. He asked them about their last visit to her; what subjects they and she had touched on; whether she had ever asked them to bear greetings to any of her friends and relatives. And had anybody ever approached them with messages, innocent greetings, even, for their mother? They seemed completely at a loss as to what he was talking about, since as it turned out none of them had recently talked to her in person or on the phone. Looking at their puzzled faces, noting the confusion in their voices, and comparing their reactions to what he had gleaned about his sons from M5 reports, the Ruler could tell that none of them would have done anything to jeopardize the privileges they now enjoyed. To prove that he was not singling out their mother for his fatherly concerns, he asked them about their wives and urged those not yet married to get on with the job of starting a family, while advising them to be careful with women because all women, be they mothers, wives, sisters, or daughters, were an enigma and not to be trusted. Never trust a woman, he told them bluntly, for woman is the source of all evil.
He was deep in his lecture when he was struck by an idea: how to strike back at Rachael and the women. For the first time since the day of shame, he felt jubilant-such is sweet vengeance. He told his sons about it immediately so that they would not inadvertently undermine his plan while he was away in America. For security reasons, he said, he would order that the electricity in Rachael’s home be disconnected in his absence. He warned them against visiting the area while he was away, that were they to do so and disaster befell them they would have nobody but themselves to blame. What he did not of course tell them was that he intended for Rachael to rely on wood and dry leaves for energy. The deprivation would teach her a lesson and force her to cut off all ties to the evil and shameless women. And even if no communication had yet taken place between Rachael and them, the Ruler wanted to make that impossible during his absence from the land.
Following the family conference, electricity to her farm prison was disconnected. Tongues started wagging. People who lived on hills adjoining Rachael’s prison farm and who had always been able to catch glimpses of the house at night despite the high walls started seeing a light moving about in absolute darkness, sometimes outside Rachael’s mansion, at other times inside, and because they could not see who carried it, they concluded that it was really Rachael’s ghost prowling, uttering curses, and the only reason they could not hear the exact words was because of the never-ending song amplified by loudspeakers at the four corners of the woman’s farm for all the world to hear.
I will become more diligent
In removing all evil from my heart
I will repent all my sins
Before my Lord comes back
The light that walked at night and the relentless song made them conclude that Rachael had long been dead and, as revenge, her ghost walked the night, cursing the Ruler and his plans for America…
15
“What will you do?” Kamltl asked Nyawlra after she had finished talking about the drama at Eldares.
“I want to live in the bush with you, at least for a few days.”
“But what if they should follow you here?”
“I fled in the dark. Nobody saw me slip out of Eldares. They don’t even know what I look like.”
“Kaniürü does. You and Kaniürü used to share the same bed, and you might have talked about the hills and forests as political hideouts.”
“When he and I were students at the University of Eldares,” Nyawlra explained, “my friends and I played guitar and talked a lot about neocolonialist politics in Aburlria and Africa. How many times did we go without sleep, analyzing the class structure of our society and the politics and history of Aburlria? Those were the days when the exploits of Yunity Mgeuzi-Bila-Shaka and Luminous Pen-Scream-Revolution, as we sometimes called his name in English, were the topics of the day among us students and youth. Although we did not know them personally, for they were then in exile, we read and talked about whatever they had said or written on revolution. Even the books they said they read, like Gorky’s Mother, became our reading list. Kaniürü was not outspoken on these matters, but he was always around and now and then he would put in a few dissenting words. When he failed in his arguments he would dub us starry-eyed idealists. More often than not he was simply there, a silent listener, a man without opinions. But I don’t remember us talking about forests and mountains and hideouts.”
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