by Meja Mwangi
I knew pools where fish jumped all day. I knew hollows under the river banks and the roots of the mokoe trees where wild ducks laid their eggs. I knew caves too cold and dark for ghosts to hide in.
My best secret was the pool where the ducks hid their eggs. I dared not take any of my village friends to these places. I was afraid they would throw stones at the birds or steal their eggs.
I was never in a hurry to get home from school. My mother had an endless list of things to keep a boy busy. The list kept growing, and the only way I knew to keep away from it was to get home late.
“Kariuki,” she would say. “Go do this and that. And when you are back, do this and that. Then go down to the river to fetch some water. Then run behind Muturi’s hut and fetch me some spinach. Then…”
Before I got back from any of it she would be waiting for me to cut wood for her.
I walked slowly along the river bank, stopping every now and then to watch the red-billed hornbills that feasted on the seeds of the pondo trees. The forest was quiet and peaceful, the silence broken only by the sounds of the birds and the chatter of the monkeys in the trees.
When I came to the duck pool, I hid my bag by the footpath and slid down the steep bank to the river. Hopping from stone to stone, I came to a sheltered place under the bank. I sat down on a huge rock, dangled my bare feet in the still pool and waited.
If I was still enough, the ducks would come out of their hollows to swim in the pool and to catch insects for their young. Sometimes they would bring their newly hatched ducklings out for me to see.
No one could see me from the path above. Across the river the forest was thick, dark and quiet. It was so dark that crickets could not tell day from night and shrieked all day long.
I sat there for a long while. From time to time a leaf or a seed fell from the trees into the pool, sending beautiful rings eddying across the still water. Occasionally a fish rose to gobble up an insect and then sank back to the bottom of the pool. I knew from experience that they were very hard to catch.
Eventually my patience was rewarded. A family of ducks came floating downstream, moving with the current and letting the water carry them around the rocks and under the roots of the trees. They shot into the still pool and went round and round in the eddies without moving their feet until they reached the dark, quiet places where the water never moved.
There were ten of them — a mother, a father and eight ducklings with yellow bellies and pink feet and beaks. They swam around the pool picking insects and bits of leaves out of the water. The ducklings followed their mother wherever she went, picked at whatever she picked at. She behaved just like a mother hen. The only difference was that she could swim and lived in water.
They were not at all surprised to find me at their favorite pool. We had met many times before and they knew me.
A long green snake shot across the pool, swam very fast past the ducks and slithered into the undergrowth on the far bank. The ducks ignored the snake. I was not afraid either. It was a harmless river snake. I was only afraid of the poisonous puff-adder and the grass vipers.
In the trees above the pool, parrots feasted on the seeds of the pondo trees. A turaco flew down from the tree and went chattering down the river.
Suddenly the father duck squawked and took off downstream, closely followed by the mother duck and her ducklings. In a moment they were gone, ducking under the overhanging bush and out of sight.
I searched the river bank above and along the foot path for the cause of their alarm. Apart from the wind blowing in the trees and the river murmuring on the stones, the forest was quiet.
Then I heard it, the crack of a breaking twig deep in the shadows. I saw a slight movement where the sound had come from.
I peered across the river. For a long moment I saw nothing. Then I saw a dark shadow cross a spot of light. I couldn’t tell whether it was human or animal, so faint was the movement.
I sniffed the air. There was the unmistakable smell of wild buffalo in the air. This made me even more restless. A few weeks before his hunting rifle went missing, Bwana Ruin had shot a lone buffalo that had frightened the herdsmen and killed some dogs in the forest.
I would never forget the smell of buffalo.
I was so busy searching the shadows for buffalo that I did not see the men until they stepped out of the shadows onto the bank. There were two of them, big and bearded, wearing dark green greatcoats. One of them had a big hunting rifle like the one Bwana Ruin had lost, and the other one was armed with a spear and a club.
The one with the gun waved.
I waved back. They did not look like forest guards so I decided to go home. I stood up, fear gnawing at my courage.
“Are you from this farm?” the man asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you know Hari?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
The men looked at each other. The one with the gun beckoned.
“Come,” he said.
“What for?” I asked.
“I want to send you,” he said. “To Hari.”
He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat. I was quite scared now.
“No,” I said. “Don’t send me. I must go home now.”
“Wait!” he said.
But I could not wait any longer. I hopped back to the edge of the river and scrambled up the bank. There I came face to face with real terror. Barring my way to the top were three wild men who smelled like buffalo and carried spears and rungus. One of them had a long ugly scar on his cheek.
I dodged past them. The one with the scar caught me by the neck and lifted me off my feet. He shook me like a jimi shaking rabbits in its teeth.
When he put me down I had no more fight left. He held me by the neck until the other two had crossed the river.
“Why do you run?” asked the one with the rifle.
“I want to go home,” I wailed.
He studied me for a long moment. I was afraid he would order the other man to fling me into the river.
“Do you know who we are?”
“Let me go!”
“Don’t be afraid,” he told me. “We are your friends.”
They were not. They stole sheep and killed people. That was what everyone said. We were to report when we saw them.
“If you tell the soldiers about us they will come and kill us,” he said, “and you will not have friends in the forest anymore. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
There were more of them in the forest. I could not see them but I could smell them, and I heard them breathe.
“Bwana Ruin is a liar,” he told me. “All farmers are liars.”
It was something I had not thought about. I had been taught to believe that grownups didn’t lie.
“I want to send you,” the man told me.
Then, taking an envelope from his pocket, he said, “Take this to Hari. And don’t show it to anyone else.”
He folded it neatly and slipped it in the breast pocket of my shirt. He buttoned up the pocket himself, saying, “If you show it to anyone else I will know.”
“Then we will come and get you,” said the one with the scar. “And get your mother and your father. Get your brother and sister too.”
“I have no sisters.”
“We’ll get them too,” he said.
“I won’t show it to anyone,” I promised.
“And you must not tell anyone about us.”
“I won’t.”
“Not even your best friend.”
“Not even my best friend.”
The one with the scar exerted pressure on my neck. It was beginning to hurt.
“We’ll cut out your tongue,” he said. “How would you like that?”
“Not,” I said.
>
“Good,” said the one with the gun. “Don’t forget we are watching you.”
I lingered only long enough to find my school bag in the bush where I had hidden it. Then I did not stop running until I got out of the forest.
Three
THE RIVER ENTERED Bwana Ruin’s farm from the east, in a more or less direct course from the mountains to the grasslands in the west. The laborers’ village was the first thing it touched. Then, glancing right, the river flowed past Bwana Ruin’s vast orchards and carried on into the plain.
The village consisted of several dozen round mud and thatch huts flung over ten acres of banana trees and vegetable gardens. It was an old village, turned into a maze of winding footpaths among old huts, grain stores and broken latrines. Strangers easily got lost there. Bwana Ruin often promised to demolish it.
My mother’s hut was on the far side of the village, close to Bwana Ruin’s farmhouse, where he lived alone with his old wife.
I rushed home to find Hari and give him the letter from the people of the forest. As I came up to my mother’s hut, she came out with a bucket, thrust it in my hands and ordered me to go down to the river to fetch water.
“Where is Hari?” I asked her.
Hari was still at work, she told me. I had forgotten it was a working day and Hari would be at the dairy skimming Bwana Ruin’s milk.
“I have a letter for him,” I said.
“A letter? A letter from where?”
I hesitated.
“Give it to me,” she said. “I’ll give it to Hari when he comes home.”
“l can’t,” I said. “They said I must not talk to anyone about it.”
“Who said?” she asked.
“The people who gave it to me.”
“Which people?”
I thought about it. Surely “anyone” could not possibly include my own mother. After all, she gave them food when they came to our door at night.
“Give it to me,” she said. “I’ll keep it for him.”
“No,” I said, deciding to play it safe. “I’ll give it to him myself.”
“You go fetch the water,” she said, taking my school bag. “After that I want you to chop some firewood.”
That was the way it was. Chore after chore after chore. I preferred the peace and the solitude of the duck pool.
I took the bucket and ran behind the hut to the path that led to the river. If I ran fast enough I might be able to chop the wood and still catch Hari at the dairy.
The villagers fetched their domestic water a hundred yards down the river where the water was dammed with driftwood, forming a deep, dark pool. You stood on the stones by the edge of the pool and immersed your bucket or water gourds without getting your feet wet. Often women took their utensils to the river to wash, so the fish in the dam were well fed and very big. Bwana Ruin fished there for trout. When he was fishing we were not allowed to disturb him and were forced to go elsewhere for our water.
Bwana Ruin was not around. Instead a strange white boy was fishing. He was about my height and build and had hair the color of straw. He was dressed in gray shorts and a jacket and wore hard leather boots like Bwana Ruin’s and green knee-high socks.
“Hallo,” the boy called out cheerfully.
“Hallo,” I said, looking out for Bwana Ruin.
Bwana Ruin was nowhere about. The white boy was fishing with Bwana Ruin’s rod, which was twice as long as he was, and he had trouble keeping the line under control. Nevertheless, he had caught one big fish and two small ones, and he called me over to show them to me.
“Lovely, aren’t they?” he said proudly.
I had seen bigger catches by Bwana Ruin, but I nodded and said something friendly. Close up the boy was a little shorter than I was, and he had round, red cheeks. His eyes were bright.
“Not bad, is it?” he asked. “I bet you couldn’t catch anything as good.”
“No,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Nigel,” he said. “What’s yours?”
Just then he felt a nibble on the bait and forgot about me. He gripped the rod with both hands, nervously jerking it back and forth.
“Wait,” I said. “Let it swallow the bait.”
But he was so excited he hardly heard me. He yanked the rod. The hook shot out of the water without the fish, whipped dangerously over our heads and flew into the mokoe tree above us.
There it rested in the gnarled old branches.
“Oh, dear,” said the boy.
He tugged hard on the rod. The hook bit deeper into the tree and the line became hopelessly entangled in the branches. He yanked impatiently on the line. It was obvious that he had not done much fishing before today.
“Wait,” I told him. “You will break the line that way. Let me show you.”
He gave me the rod. I braced myself as I had seen Bwana Ruin do and tugged gently. I swung the rod this way and that, varying the pressure and direction. But the boy had made a complete mess of it by now and the hook was embedded in a branch fifteen feet above our heads.
There was only one way to get it down.
“Hold here.” I handed him back the rod. “I’ll climb the tree.”
“Good idea,” he said.
I spat into my palms and rubbed them together to make them stronger, the way men did before tackling impossible tasks. Then I hugged the tree trunk with my legs and arms and started to climb.
I had been climbing trees as long as I could remember and I had no difficulty at all getting to the branch where the hook was stuck. I released the line and threw the hook down. Then I looked around.
I had never been up this particular tree and was surprised at the view. I could see all the way over the orchards to Bwana Ruin’s house. Father was in the kitchen garden picking tomatoes. Mamsab Ruin sat on the veranda reading a book while Salt and Pepper, Bwana Ruin’s very fierce dogs, lay by the door sunning themselves. Outside the dairy, past Bwana Ruin’s house, a line of children waited to receive their daily ration of skimmed milk. Far out on the plains was the airstrip, the black-and-white wind sock moving lazily in the wind.
The tree I sat in was thick with hooks. There were dozens of beautifully feathered hooks, a tribute to Bwana Ruin’s impatience, and numerous crude ones made from safety pins, which the villagers lost when they went poaching at night. I decided to leave them all where they were until I could come back alone and fetch them. They would fetch me a good price from the village boys who were great fishermen, even though it was strictly forbidden.
The branch where I sat was heavy with fruit. I picked a few of the deep purple fruit and ate one. It was rough to the tongue but very sweet, so I decided to stay on the tree and have some more.
“What are you eating?” the white boy asked.
“Fruit,” I told him. “Have some.”
I threw him a few. He tasted one, spat it out and threw the rest into the river. Then he went back to fishing.
I was disappointed. I had expected the white boy to love the taste of wild fruit like any other boy. Then I remembered he had a whole orchard of exotic fruit to pick from.
I crawled farther on, eating my way along the branch overhanging the pool.
“Do you like to fish?” he asked me.
“Very much,” I said.
“Would you like to catch one?”
“No,” I told him. “Fishing is not allowed.”
Bwana Ruin mercilessly whipped any boy caught fishing in his river. The white boy could not understand how the river belonged to Bwana Ruin, so I explained it to him.
“This farm belongs to Bwana Ruin,” I told him. “Don’t you know that?”
He knew who owned the farm but not the river.
“The river also,” I told him. “Everything belongs to Bwana Ruin.
”
I told him how, just the week before, the forest guards had caught some boys fishing and handed them over to Bwana Ruin. Bwana Ruin had whipped the boys raw and threatened to fire their fathers.
My father would kill me if I ever lost him his job.
Where he came from, the white boy told me, the rivers were for everyone. Anyone could fish anywhere, anytime.
“Where do you come from?” I asked.
He told me he came from Yorkshire.
“Where is that?” I asked.
“England.”
I knew England. Everything we used was made in England. From the pencils and the rubbers we used in school to the hoes we used in the gardens. They were all made in England. The first English words I had learned to read were Made in England. But I had no idea where England was and suggested we might go fishing there one day.
Nigel laughed.
“We can’t. It’s a long way from here.”
“Farther than the Loldaiga hills?” I asked, pointing at the blue hills on the horizon.
“Farther,” he said.
“Farther than the place where the earth meets the sky?” I asked.
“Farther,” he said. “You can’t walk there.”
“How did you come here then?”
“I came by air,” he said. “I came in an airplane.”
“You have an airplane?”
I would not have been at all surprised if he had an airplane. To many of us village children, white people were strange creatures who were allowed many impossibilities. Many white farmers in Laikipia owned private planes and private airstrips. Bwana Ruin himself owned an airstrip, and sometimes white people came by plane to see him.
But no, the white boy had not come in his own airplane. He had come in an airliner. A big, big plane that belonged to the government.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“It’s in Nairobi,” he told me.
I knew Nairobi from my books in school, but it was the first time I had met someone who had ever been there. I felt foolish and ignorant in front of this white boy.
“Have you ever caught a warthog?” I asked.
“A warthog? What’s that?”