Dance of the Jakaranda

by Peter Kimani

  “Yes?” Rajan returned, unsure of what he was supposed to say.

  “Sema!”

  What was all this about? Rajan wondered. He had been asked to speak up, but what about? After an awkward silence, he started explaining how he had been picked up at the train station and hustled into the Black Maria.

  “Do you know why you were arrested?” Inspector Hongo pursued.

  “No,” Rajan replied swiftly, hopeful that somebody sensible was starting to appreciate the ludicrous position he was in.

  “All right, come inside and tell me more.” The inspector motioned for him to enter through a half-door that swung open in both directions. “Mama, unaenda wapi?” he shouted at Mariam, inquiring where she was going as she followed Rajan through the swinging door.

  “We are together.”

  “Not unless you want to be arrested.”

  “Arrested?” Mariam and Rajan chorused.

  And that was it. A step through the swinging door made one an inmate and the other a free citizen.

  “If I were you, I’d be busy seeking ways of securing his release instead of depositing your bum there.” Inspector Hongo smiled, revealing sparkling white teeth and gums that resembled an overripe tomato.

  Mariam refused to leave, insisting she would sit and wait during Rajan’s interrogation.

  “Suit yourself . . . Should you change your mind, there is room for more. We provide free room and board.”

  Mariam kept quiet.

  Inside, Rajan’s interrogation by Inspector Hongo did not last more than five minutes. He refused to answer any of the questions.

  After several minutes of prodding, Inspector Hongo shut his big black book and announced: “Sawa, let’s see how far your silence will take you. Would you have shown this kind of madharau if you were dealing with a white or Indian policeman? I know you Indians. Always trying to undermine serikali ya Mwafrika. Had you cooperated, I would have charged you with vagrancy or some other misdemeanor and let you go. That’s what we have offered many Indians like you who have not applied for citizenship. The deadline for that came and went. Our very own father of the nation, Big Man, announced it, but since you are a strong-headed Indian who thinks the black man is nothing, including Big Man, you have chosen to disregard the instructions. Now let’s see where that gets you . . . You are taking the next flight to India!”

  * * *

  Inspector Hongo’s position wasn’t far off the official position. Any Indian who did not cooperate with the authorities by offering hefty bribes, and who had been confirmed not to have complied with the legal requirement to regularize their status as decreed by Big Man, was being deported to their country of origin. But after only a few hours in custody, it was clear to the police that this was no ordinary man they were dealing with. Once they knew the street protests were somehow connected to Rajan’s arrest, the police admitted this was what they called a hot potato. Too dangerous to handle. By nightfall of the second day of rioting, Big Man himself rang the station to inquire about the ka-muhindi who dared bring nyoko nyoko to the incoming serikali ya Mwafrika.

  A crisis meeting was held that night comprising the highest echelons of police and army departments. The mobs were still in the streets chanting Rajan’s name. Deportation was considered the best option. It was a time-tested strategy that had been deployed effectively through decades of colonial rule, and whose merit was still evident. Those who stood in the way of the railway construction had been removed from among their people and cast to the four directions of the wind. Me Katilili had been removed from the coast and domiciled in Kisii in the hinterland; the Talai leader of Kericho had been dispatched to Gwasi island in Nyanza; Waiyaki had been removed from Kikuyuland and was destined for Kamba land when he died. Later, when agitation for labor and political rights hit fever pitch, Harry Thuku would be consigned to Kismayo, on the border of Somalia; even Big Man himself had been dispatched to Kapenguria, in the northern frontier, away from his power base in central Kenya. Remove a man from his people and you have disabled him, for he draws his power from the people.

  Rajan’s deportation to India appeared ideal, but there was a question about his grandfather Babu’s origins. The man had left the Indian subcontinent a Punjabi national, but Punjab had been erased like pencil marks off the map and its territory shared out between India and Pakistan. It was unclear which territory would accept him.

  The second option open to the police was to deport Rajan to Britain, just as they had deported Indians who arrived in the colony to build the railway. Such Indians and their dependents were considered British subjects and so were eligible to migrate under a special privilege accorded all the British subjects across the Commonwealth. The latter choice was deemed favorably from a security viewpoint. No one would accuse the new government of kicking Rajan out; it would be reported that he had simply opted to settle in Britain to pursue interests other than singing. In any case, there was evidence he had lost his regular base at the Jakaranda. Moving on to new lands was both sensible and practical.

  McDonald was roped into the discussions for three reasons: he was the owner of the Jakaranda, the epicenter of the protest; he was a retired army man; and thirdly, he had overseen the construction of the railway, the route through which Rajan’s lineage was traced.

  * * *

  McDonald had had a very troubling time since the torching of the Jakaranda. The image that recurred in his mind with disturbing persistence was the day the flamingos arrived in Nakuru. The birds kept circling in his mind, making hissing sounds in his ears so that doctors who watched over him administered tranquilizers one night. But he couldn’t seem to sleep.

  “I see darkness everywhere,” he kept mumbling, although the lights were on; or he’d wail that Nyundo had returned from the land of the dead to torment him.

  In the morning he had dark shadows under his eyes, while his visions of the night resurged: the arrival of the flamingos and the return of Nyundo. A psychiatrist was called in to verify his state of mind, and confirmed that the old man was not hallucinating. He confirmed that McDonald had encountered Nyundo in the flesh, and the darkness in his mind was an echo from history. The doctor also verified that McDonald was aware that the Jakaranda had been razed to the ground.

  “Doctor, I have been wondering if it was worth it at all,” the old man lamented. “All that I worked for for over ninety years is gone forever.”

  “It’s quite usual for us all to question our lives when we undergo traumatic experiences,” the doctor explained gently, but McDonald interjected swiftly: “I’m not talking about the material loss, doctor, I’m thinking about my own humiliation by . . . by . . . a man I hired as a porter and drummer. I almost had to—to plead for my life. I, a soldier decorated by the Queen of England . . .”

  “He did not threaten you, as I understood it.”

  “That’s what I find frustrating, doctor. He did not threaten me. He should have shot me, and I would have died fighting . . .”

  “He probably had a good reason for sparing your life,” the doctor reasoned. “Maybe he was returning the favor.”

  McDonald shook his head and sobbed: “This is why it hurts. Saved by a nobody because I am nobody.” So when he was wheeled into the room where government officials were mulling over their options to quell the uprising surrounding Rajan’s arrest, McDonald was already in a foul mood.

  When he was invited to address the meeting, McDonald made a short statement that confounded everyone: “I’d like to state up front that I shall recuse myself in this situation. I have known that young man all his life, so I cannot make an impartial decision about him.”

  There was a sudden hush in the room.

  “Moreover,” McDonald went on, “I have no more right than he does to live in this country.” He glanced around the room. “D-did I talk about the girl in his company? I-I know her as well.”

  * * *

  And so it was under the cover of darkness—on the third day of his incarceration—tha
t Rajan was ferreted out of his last police base, blindfolded, and rushed to the airport. Mariam, not knowing that he had been sneaked out of the building, dozed outside the interrogation room, waiting patiently. Neither she nor Rajan had any idea about the street protests organized in his support, nor even where he had been taken.

  In the one hour he was blindfolded, Rajan felt a certain comfort that he hadn’t experienced in a few days. He did not have to make any decisions. It had only been three days since he’d learned about his secret heritage, the birth of his illegitimate father, as well as Mariam’s suspect paternity. And his grandmother’s infidelity. He had felt burdened ever since, unsure what was safe to share and with whom. A boy had grown into a man overnight, and even as the Land Rover trundled through the potholed road heading to the airport, Rajan resolved he wouldn’t let his travails break him. He would endure it all. And if it required him to serve time, he was willing to. For, as Gathenji the butcher liked to say, prisons are not built for goats, but men.

  Rajan was taken aback when his blindfold was removed and he found himself at the airport. Inspector Hongo had been right: he was taking the next available plane to India! What’s happening? he thought in panic.

  “Can someone tell me what’s going on?” he shouted at the policemen leading him away, each holding a wrist.

  One of them replied that he was being deported.

  “Why?”

  “Go ask your grandmother,” the other responded.

  Rajan snapped at the mention of Fatima. He tried to break free and tumbled down with one of the policemen. He kicked and clawed and bit and cried as exhaustion and the anguish of the past three days took their toll.

  The policemen regained control and pinned him down before calling for reinforcement. A medic arrived and sedated him. One of the two officers who were to accompany Rajan to Britain to execute his deportation order reported to the ticketing office of Her Majesty’s Air Service. He was directed to the immigration desk.

  “If it’s about Indians, sir, you need to start there,” said the female attendant in a nasal tone. “You have to be cleared first.”

  The policeman obliged and went where he had been directed. Another female, a young Englishwoman, flipped through a file before dumping it and picking up another one. And another. Her face creased.

  “Please give me a second, sir,” she said to the policeman, wandering off to another desk where her superior was seated. The policeman noticed the English attendant had a generous behind which contrasted nicely with her small waist. Those were the fruits of independence, he thought pleasantly. Only months earlier, he wouldn’t have even dreamed of coming to within an elbow of a white woman. And here he was. Who knows, perhaps he would ask her out next time he came to deport another Indian.

  The Englishwoman returned with a file. It was the file that McDonald had compiled about the status of each and every railway worker after the construction was completed in 1902. The woman sighed and smiled apologetically. “We have a problem,” she announced. “Your ward cannot be deported to England.”

  The past had finally caught up with the present to complicate the future. In that interlude, Rajan’s present—lulled by his drug-fueled stupor—and Babu’s past, drowned in hallucinatory reveries, had become one.

  “Our records show his grandfather severed his ties with Britain when he deserted work. His privileges were taken away. He did not complete his contract as required, so he is not eligible to migrate to England as a British subject from the former colony of Kenia. In short, your ward cannot acquire a privilege that his grandfather was deprived in 1901.” The woman paused and looked up.

  The policeman was staring at her bosom. He turned away in embarrassment.

  “There is another issue,” she went on. There was renewed attention from the policeman. “The man’s father is in England. Our records show he is a student, or has been a student for more than ten years. It is unlikely that he’s been a student this long. It is likely that he graduated but never regularized his status. Whatever the case, a student lacks legal merit to host a family, unless they are his dependents and he is able to prove he is able to support them.”

  “What happens in such instances?” the policeman asked, puzzled and disappointed. He had gloated to his colleagues that he would be the first in his village to ride in a plane. He had to salvage things or he’d end up returning to his village with his tail between his legs. “As it is, the young man has lost his Kenyan citizenship . . .”

  “This is unprecedented,” the Englishwoman conceded. “I shall refer the matter to my bosses if you want. They can explore if there are other legal remedies available to us. As I said, it is quite unusual for a man to lose three countries all at once. If Britain is out of bounds, Punjab has been dissolved, and he failed to apply for Kenyan citizenship, the man is basically stateless.”

  “I’m afraid you have to make a decision now,” the policeman said. “I received an order from above to deport him.”

  “I totally understand.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Look,” the policeman said, before dropping his voice, “Big Man himself has ordered it. And when I say Big Man, I mean the biggest man in the land.”

  “I totally understand,” the woman replied.

  “I don’t think you do!”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “If you do understand what I am saying, then you have to enforce this order now. Immediate deportation.”

  “I have given you the official position.”

  “What official position are you talking about? Who is more official than Big Man of Kenya?”

  “I’m only following the law.”

  “Whose law are you talking about? British or Indian or Kenyan law? Big Man of Kenya is the law . . . You wait and see! You just wait and see. You will know this is the new Kenya! A free country led by a black man. You think we are still a British colony? Be careful, you might take the same plane to Britain! Just wait and see . . .”

  The English attendant did not take the threat lightly. She had witnessed her former boss’s deportation after he had fought with a local businessman over a woman. A small tiff at the pub had led to very serious consequences. As it turned out, the businessman was the branch chairman of the new Jogoo political party. That meant the businessman had very deep ties with the local administration. The Englishman had gone out for lunch, leaving his jacket slung over his seat in the office, dentures and glasses on the table. The next they heard from the man—he was phoning from Jan Smuts International Airport in South Africa, where he had been deported.

  The Englishwoman did not want to risk such action against her. She rose from her seat to reveal her generous bum once more. Her finger pointed to a darkly lit passage close to the boarding area. “If you must deport him now, sir, I recommend you take him there. That’s what we call no-man’s-land.”

  The policeman wasn’t listening. He was watching the woman’s bosom. It appeared larger than he’d previously thought. He was thinking that if the bra was unhooked, the breasts would glide out like a roll of jelly. Those were the fruits of freedom, plentiful enough to feed the nation.

  Still distracted by the Englishwoman’s oozing sexuality, the cop absentmindedly deposited Rajan at the airport’s no-man’s-land. He was still in cuffs.

  * * *

  When Rajan regained partial consciousness, he tried to remember why he had been handcuffed and he couldn’t quite place it. The dim light and the long passage called to mind the first time he’d met Mariam on the staircase of the Jakaranda. He shut his eyes and imagined her soft kiss with the strong lavender flavor. He turned on his side and the clink of the cuffs on the floor echoed the high heels that Mariam wore on that first night. He lay there and let the memory of that first encounter smother his tired limbs, soothe away his private pains, some old, some new. As he drifted off to a fitful sleep, he remembered Fatima’s belated declaration that he had been betrothed at birth. He
smiled and wondered who the girl could have been; her story would forever remain one of what could have been: a stillbirth that could not survive the birth pains of the new nation. Then, out of the blue, he heard Abdia’s voice ring out, Leeeeeeiiiillllaaaaaa, as the girl’s pretty face filled the frame of his mind and he saw the trace of her taut breasts pushing through her thin blouse.

  * * *

  Babu slipped in and out of consciousness many times a day. After a brief hospitalization he was returned home, where a nurse watched over him around the clock. The doctor had recommended bed rest even though he had not suffered any fractures in his fall. He was considered mentally frail. Even when he was awake, he kept his eyes shut to avoid Fatima’s questions. He did not want to look back on the past—the discovery that he had taken his beloved grandson to a school associated with Reverend Turnbull. Babu had also bequeathed the school a large endowment to support poor children in the future. Of course, he still had no idea that Turnbull had left him a peace offering in the form of a quarter of his savings. Neither did Babu want to wake up to the fact that Rajan had been dating Mariam, the granddaughter of Seneiya, Chief Lonana’s daughter. That was all too traumatizing.

  Still, there was a persistent image that lingered from the past, and which he had tried to unravel without success over the last few days: the strange dream that had preceded the aborted pilgrimage to the Laikipia Escarpment, in which he had turned into a guinea fowl. The bird had black and white spots, and it had elicited different responses from workers from different races as it flew over Fort Jesus. Some thought it black, others thought it white. And while the guinea fowl in his dream was a flying bird, the regular guinea fowl lived on the earth. Babu wondered if the guinea fowl could be a metaphor for the Indians of the British East Africa Protectorate. They had arrived as British agents to toil on the rail; some, like him, had worked for the British. Yet most never embraced the African life, nor were they absorbed into the colonial culture. They had kept their space, retained their identity. But as Babu had learned during his days in the wilderness, the subtler prejudices of caste and religion had survived the Indians’ long sojourn across the Indian Ocean.