by Peter Kimani
“Why does everything have to be so difficult?”
“Didn’t I just say I will tell him? I mean, I introduced him to the family, he met the girl, and they seemed to like each other. What can one do other than wait?”
“Were it not for this music thing, which again you approved against my will, he wouldn’t be running around with all these girls.”
“He is not running around with any girls.”
“Didn’t you just say you suspect that he is? Or do you want to deny your own words before they dry on your lips?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Tell me, which respectable Indian boy plays music in this town? Eeeh? Tell me!”
“I see you have maneno. First it was about the news of the betrothal, then the running around with girls, now it’s the music . . .”
“I tell you, you are spoiling that boy, but will you listen? I wish his father were here.”
“Go on, go on! I can see what this is about. Now it’s about me spoiling the boy because his father isn’t here.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“You never cease to amaze me,” Babu said, shaking his head. “I’m the one who alerted you to this thing, so together we can monitor the young man, and now you—you—you just amaze me . . .”
* * *
Theirs was a most interesting union. “Wife,” Babu had said to Fatima upon her arrival in Nakuru, after being apart from each other for several years while Babu was working on the railroad, “we are in an arranged marriage, so we might as well make an arrangement that will work.”
Fatima had merely sighed.
“First off,” Babu started, “I swear I will never ask about that child of yours if you promise never to raise a word about the babies that you’ve heard attributed to me. Secondly, we shall have no obligation to touch one other, unless it is to apply medication or exchange greetings at family gatherings. And neither of us should be worried where one is going for some touch-touch.”
“Really?” Fatima asked.
“Yes, really,” Babu said briskly. “To ensure this rule is enforced to the letter, let’s bring that child of yours to lie between us, in that space called no-man’s-land, to make sure we don’t touch accidentally while we sleep. Finally, let’s agree that this child of yours shall become our child and he need not know about his story, provided he leaves my house at the age of eighteen. What say you?”
Fatima was silent for a while before she responded hesitantly. “You—you appear to have given this a bit of thought, so perhaps I should think it through first as well.”
“No need to think, wife, there is nothing to think about. All I need is a yes or no.”
“You may believe that,” Fatima quipped, “but it’s not that easy.”
“This is pretty easy, mboga kabisa, as the Waswahili like to say. Easy like munching a handful of vegetables. The only thing that might require a bit of thinking is where one shall go for touch-touch moments since that shall not be provided at home. But from the look of things, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding that.”
Fatima was silent.
“Is that a yes or no?”
Fatima said nothing.
“I shall take that for a female no, which could mean yes.”
“Babu Rajan Salim, are you out of your mind?”
“I thought you knew that already,” Babu responded as he rose to go.
* * *
So it was Mariam’s revelation about the Ndundori school that prompted Rajan to introduce her to Babu so early in their relationship. Rajan was elated that the first girl he would be taking home shared something with his grandfather.
Rocking in his swivel chair, cigar in hand, reading glasses on his forehead—held up by strands of hair that appeared bristly in the morning, curly in the afternoon, and soft in the evening—Babu spent most of his day on the veranda, which is where Rajan and Mariam found him.
Babu was now eighty-three years old, and the singular event that gave meaning to his life was rising early to prepare for what he called the “morning roll call.” Showered and smartly dressed in fresh khaki pants and shirt, Babu routinely rushed to the gate overlooking the main road to wait for the whistle from the ice-cream man hurtling down the road, pushing a cart of goodies.
Babu would salute him, “Afande!” raise his right hand, and return to the house smiling because, he said, he had been acknowledged as present in the workers’ register for the day. As little children, Rajan and his cousins Asha and Saida had participated in this morning ritual, competing to deliver Babu’s cane, reading glasses, and dentures as he basked in the sun. The patriarch’s playacting excited his brood, though when Rajan grew older he feared his grandfather was mildly unhinged. But as an adult, he fully understood this was Babu’s way of getting a little exercise while maintaining something to look forward to every morning. He was occasionally forgetful, which meant he would retell stories, but in general he was sound of mind.
Babu flashed a smile when he saw the two approach, but remained in his chair, the dimple under his chin showing. When Mariam extended a hand in greeting, he commented casually, “I see you have brought me a beautiful girl.” He did not release her hand immediately, so Mariam remained slouched at an awkward angle, their faces only inches apart. “What’s your name?” he asked tenderly.
“Mariam.”
“And the other one?”
“Mureni.”
“What’s your father’s name?”
“Baba! Can’t my guest be allowed to have a seat before being interrogated?” Rajan protested, playfully pulling Mariam away.
Babu did not relinquish his hold of her, and she pretended to cringe from the tussle.
“Mu-re-ni . . .” Babu said thoughtfully. “That’s a name from Maasailand, right?”
Mariam nodded.
“In that case, you should greet me properly,” Babu said, finally letting go of her hand.
Mariam dutifully bowed her head and Babu placed his open palm on it, as demanded by Maasai tradition, in which the youth defer to elders and receive blessings in return. Babu completed the ritual by lifting his shirt and issuing a sprinkling of spittle.
“Baba, Mariam is from Ndundori,” Rajan revealed with pride.
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” Rajan said before Mariam could answer. “She even knows the people who founded that school where I taught.”
“Really?” Babu enthused.
“Yes,” Rajan replied. “But that’s a story for another day.”
“Welcome home, mrembo,” Babu said as Mariam and Rajan made their way inside the house.
Rajan excitedly showed Mariam around, whispering as they went along so they wouldn’t disturb his grandmother who was napping. He took Mariam to his room and joked that it would be their wing of the house, where they would live as man and wife once they got married—to which Mariam giggled so loudly he feared she would wake Fatima. And Fatima did wake up, possibly because she had heard the giggles, or perhaps because her maternal instinct told there was another female in her territory.
“Rajaa! Rajaa! Mama akuita!” It was Kioko, the servant, announcing Fatima’s summon.
Rajan smiled at Mariam. She straightened her T-shirt, which was actually Rajan’s, and brushed her hair out of her face, asking him: “How am I?”
“Beautiful,” he assured.
Fatima was standing on the landing of the staircase waiting for the young couple. She was a short woman, the tangle of sari leaving a large space that exposed her uneven ribs. Her skin was slightly wrinkled and her hair had thinned in the middle so that the tufts that fell down her back were lopsided. It looked like the mane of a lion, and she could be as fierce as one. But when she smiled, twin dimples poked her cheeks, revealing a beautiful woman.
As Fatima turned to face Rajan and Mariam, however, her smile failed to light up her eyes. “What kind of host are you? You bring in a guest and go into hiding,” Fatima reprimanded as she adjusted he
r sari, her voice still heavy with sleep. “Did Kioko give your guest something to eat?”
“Yes, Mama,” Rajan confirmed cheerfully. “The guest is well fed.”
“Have you spoken with Baba?” Fatima pursued.
Rajan was familiar with the tenor of her voice. It was a cue that trouble was afoot. “I think so . . .” he said uncertainly. “We said hello when we arrived.” Babu was still basking outside, the silhouette of his lying form visible through the glass panel of the door.
“One doesn’t say just hello when he brings a guest home, you sit and talk,” Fatima said.
Rajan now understood that she was checking to see if Babu approved of his guest, because obviously she did not.
“Go on! Go on and talk to him!” Fatima said.
Rajan grudgingly returned to the veranda. Mariam remained standing in front of Fatima.
“Oh, please take a seat, my dear. Would you like something to drink?”
“No thanks,” she returned. “I have eaten my fill. Actually, what I need is a little sunshine. I have been indoors all—” Mariam checked herself just in time, before revealing what was classified information, as far as Rajan was concerned. It was true they hadn’t enjoyed much sunshine all week—because they had been hibernating in Era’s shack.
“Suit yourself,” Fatima said generously. “Go join the men if that’s what you like. I thought we would have a woman-to-woman chat . . .”
“Another time, certainly. I only crave a little heat from the sun.” And with that, Mariam turned away from Fatima and joined Babu and Rajan outside.
“So,” Babu said, sitting up and placing his feet on a low stool. “You told me you are from . . . Ndundori?”
“Yes, Ndundori and Laikipia,” Mariam replied.
“So you have two homes . . . ?”
“Baba, why are you giving my friend a hard time? Let her relax.”
“She is my friend now, and I’m at liberty to ask her anything,” Babu responded. “Isn’t that right, mrembo?”
She nodded, smiling.
“Go tell your mama to make us some tea,” Babu said to Rajan.
“We had tea already.”
“She didn’t make it; somebody else did it.”
“What does it matter?” Rajan challenged.
“On the first day you bring such a beautiful girl home, it is only right that your bibi makes you the tea.”
“Is that so?”
“That’s the way it should be,” Babu said.
The confluence of events that had placed Babu and Mariam together, an elderly Muslim man and a young woman—born sixty years apart—transcended any explanation other than fate intended to bring them together. But even with its cynicism, fate undercuts its own import by presenting a deceptive calm about very extraordinary events. In those fleeting moments, even as Rajan requested a fresh pot of tea and Mariam said her mother was Rehema Salim, whose mother was Seneiya, daughter of Chief Lonana—uttering what had remained unspoken for sixty years—the birds went on with their singing. One hummingbird even hurled its chalky dropping onto the veranda; military planes cut through the sky practicing for the independence celebrations that were only months away; a dry twig broke off a nearby muiri tree; a duck in the compound mounted a female, hissing upon climax to reveal its springy organ. Downstairs, Fatima pounded ginger with a wooden pestle; Kioko used to a piece of cardboard to fan the coal brazier, having lit it to prepare for the evening meal.
Although none of them were aware, the moment had come and gone, and the house of Babu Rajan Salim would never be the same again, pulled asunder by the mysterious young woman whose tongue cast spells on other humans. It was a power that Mariam was unaware of, and when she uttered those words, though innocent and well-intentioned, they felt to Babu like body blows. He cocked his head from his reclining seat, unsuccessfully tried to sit up straighter, then shot to his feet before remembering that he did not have his cane. He buckled upon his second attempt to flee from the scene. His glasses flew off his face and the dentures fell out of his mouth, while his shock of neat white hair stood up on his head as spiky as a porcupine’s. A loud bang was heard as his chair tipped over, Babu following suit. He crawled on all fours, making a guttural cry.
“The horn, the horn,” Babu wept. “Somebody blow the horn, the horn . . .”
Fatima moved unsteadily toward Rajan, trembling with fury, her double chin twitching like a hen about to lay an egg. “See what you have done, you foolish child?” she said in a savage whisper. “Brought a curse upon your own family. Now the spirit of the sea is upon us. Didn’t you know you were betrothed at birth?”
HOUSE OF SILENCE
5
Babu was barely a man when he set sail from India for Mombasa—a lanky teen, reed thin, and one of the forty adults and six children on the boat. They were aboard the MV Salama, destined for the British East Africa Protectorate. Eight of the men were the dhow’s crew led by Nahodha, the captain who had a pronounced limp in his right leg and spent most days sitting in solemn dignity, peering into the distance through his binoculars. The sight of his skullcap and the black protuberance of the binocular lens gave him the surreal look of a pouting rhino.
Of the nine men going to take up work in the protectorate, five were accompanied by their wives, including Babu. The rest were older women joining their husbands in the colony where they had been working as technicians and craftsmen for a year. At nineteen, Babu was the youngest among the craftsmen. With his spiky hair and high forehead, one could not look at him without smiling. During his childhood in Punjab, his peers had directed their attention to another part of his anatomy that they—that is, the little boys—found comical as they ran around naked. Girls wore tiny wraps but boys were allowed to roam around in the nude. It was good for their manhood, the mothers giggled. Set them free and let them grow to their full potential.
But by the age of four, Babu started wearing a longish shirt that served as shorts as well—his distended navel had become a plaything for other children. A boy had squeezed it during a fight, issuing a high-pitched squeak. Since then, the navel had become the subject of constant humiliation. Overnight, he became the boy with the whistling navel. Even tots without teeth knew about Babu, the singing-navel boy. So his mother provided him with the long shirt, but that cover-up attracted even more ridicule: We know what you are hiding, children sang. You got a gourd for a navel!
Worried that the navel business would turn into a permanent distraction, his parents enrolled him in a madrassa. There, they reasoned, every child wore a kanzu and Babu’s navel would be quickly forgotten.
At the new school, Babu kept to himself. His teacher was a disappointment; each morning he would assign which ayah and surah they were expected to memorize. He would then bury his face in the Koran while the boys studied. No one was allowed to even use the bathroom until they had memorized the assigned segments of the Koran. Babu resented this and gradually developed a dislike for authority in all its manifestations, particularly when affiliated with religion.
Babu never really got over his self-consciousness about his navel. So even as he and Karim sunbathed like giant lizards on the dhow’s deck, his belly was not exposed. Karim was twenty when the two met on the voyage to Mombasa. While Babu and Karim relaxed in the sunshine, they drifted off to the soothing voices of the women below. The older women spent their time chatting incessantly as they coaxed the kerosene stoves to boil water for rice or rolled out dough to make chapati or roti. Food was carefully rationed, as was drinking water. The trip was projected to last about three weeks, but, as most sailors liked to add, Inshallah, meaning they were submitting their journey to the will of God.
There was a feeling of camaraderie about the dhow. Women had broken into song when they set sail, as children played bano in the small spaces not occupied by the adults or the cargo; some of the men played cards while others read. Babu found himself at peace on the ship, and he would drift off to sleep counting stars while wondering what the futu
re held for him, excited to be starting a new life in a new land, with a new wife in tow.
Nature provided a response on their sixth day at sea. It started as just another ordinary day. The sun rose shimmering in the east; when the glints touched the ocean, they bounced off it, producing a golden hue. Babu inhaled deeply and brought his two hands to rest on his chest. “Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah!” he sang in appreciation of the beauty that abounded. Soon, everybody was up and about. A muscled crewman squatted to fetch liters of seawater for bathing. The women served tea and chapati for breakfast. Children ate the few remaining dates and hurled seeds at each other. The lateen mast was hoisted, flapping excitedly. They were on the move again, with Nahodha peering into the distance through his binoculars.
Babu and Karim were back up on the deck. Over the past few days, Babu had learned that he functioned best by going against the tide—sleeping when everybody else was awake, and staying up at night as everyone else slept. The main reason was that he couldn’t stand the blinding daytime light, and found the dark of the night comforting.
So, as had become his routine, Babu was drifting off to sleep underneath the warmth of the morning sun, listening to the women singing, the shouts from playing children, and the grunts from men playing cards nearby. But just as he’d fallen asleep, he woke with a start, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. He opened his eyes and blinked against the bright sun, catching sight of Nahodha as he skipped past the women and children with a look of panic on his face. The vessel had come to a halt. The mast was up but limp. Nahodha rushed over to the mast clutching something in his hands. They were dry leaves, which he crushed in his palms and hurled into the air. It was a common trick used to detect the direction of the wind. Even hunters on land used it. The dry leaves fell straight down on top of Nahodha’s head. Babu flashed his big grin and elbowed Karim, who laughed out loud. Nahodha’s head resembled a bird’s nest.
“What’s so funny?” Nahodha glared.
Karim sobered up, but Babu kept grinning.
On that day, the crew changed the masts from big to small, then back again, six times. The dhow traveled only a few hundred yards, the most remarkable movement being the sudden jerk when the vessel lurched forward and then halted with the violence of a drunk man skidding on mud. The women’s singing died down, their prattle as they cooked disappeared. Even the garrulous men who shared stories as they played cards now just groaned or sighed. Only the children played, but they resented the adult attention as nobody did anything but stare at them, and they happened to be in the way of everybody no matter which direction they ventured.