The Mzungu Boy

by Meja Mwangi

  “Jimi,” I yelled and pointed. “There he goes. Look.”

  Jimi finally stopped digging and looked up. The jimis also turned to look. By the time they had an idea what I was talking about, the hare was a hundred yards away, bobbing and weaving and going like the wind. Jimi gave a yelp and bounded after him. The other dogs followed.

  The hare led us across the plain and straight into the thick forest along the Liki valley. With excited yelping, the dogs crashed into the woods after him.

  The forest was too dense for us to push our way through. We crawled on all fours and passed under the first line of thorny undergrowth. We crawled for a hundred yards before we were able to stand and survey our surroundings.

  “Can we rest a bit?” Nigel said, panting with the excitement.

  His shoes were killing him, he told me. I had never worn shoes myself, so I had no idea what he was going through. We sat on a dead log to rest. We heard the dogs run on and on. The sound of the chase faded until it died away altogether. The forest was all quiet around us.

  It took Nigel a while to get his breath. He had never gone on this sort of an expedition before, he told me. Where he came from, there was no running involved in hunting. The hunter sneaked up to a deer and shot him in the head before the deer knew he was there. There was no fun or excitement in it at all. Nothing was as much fun as this.

  The yelping of the dogs started again. We heard them change directions several times as the hare led them on a wild tour of the whole forest. They were miles away from us by now. The yelping gradually faded in the distance.

  “Have they caught him?” Nigel asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  They had never chased a hare that far or that long before. Maybe they discovered that they had been chasing their own echo all this time. It had happened before.

  We listened for a while. With the dogs now silent, the forest around us took on a cold, sinister air. The shadows were deepening and shifting as the sun went over the hills.

  I whistled for the dogs. The spooky silence weighed down on us.

  “There is nothing to be afraid of here,” I said, as much to myself as to Nigel. “I have been in the forest many times on my own.”

  “Really?”

  “With the jimis,” I told him.

  We sat and waited for the dogs to return. The shadows turned to darkness and the cold chill of the Liki crept up the valley and through the forest toward us.

  “It’s getting dark,” Nigel observed.

  It was time to go home.

  “What about the dogs?” he asked.

  “They know their way home,” I told him.

  He pulled on his shoes and we prepared to leave.

  Then we heard a sudden yelp from not far away. We froze. The terrified yelp was followed by a crashing sound much like the noise of a falling tree. The crashing noise, however, went on and on. Instead of fading away, the sound grew louder. The jimis joined in the chase, their yelping chorus echoing through the forest.

  When Nigel spoke, his voice trembled.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  I had no idea. He edged closer to me. I was quite frightened myself, but I dared not show it.

  We waited with bated breath, uncertain which way to run.

  The continuous crashing sound grew louder and louder. It swept like an angry storm through the forest. We clung to the log where we sat and listened as the dogs bayed and yelped after whatever it was that they were driving toward us. We were really scared now.

  With a deafening roar, the sound burst upon us — a shocking wave of blurry, black fury that knocked us off our log with the force of its passage. The thing barely glanced at us, its dilated nostrils spewing steaming breath, the terrifying red eyes burning with rage. Then it turned away, stepped back into the blackness and was gone.

  “Wow!” Nigel was totally amazed. “What was that?”

  “Buffalo,” I told him.

  He was shaking now, and I was breathless with fear.

  The dogs shot past us, running like the wind after the disappearing disaster. Nigel leaped to his feet and went after them. I ran after him. He blustered through the darkening forest, oblivious to the thorns and things that clutched at his clothes and tore at his hair.

  By the time I caught up with him, the chase was miles away from us and fading. I took his hand and ran in a different direction, led him away from the direction the dogs had taken.

  “Where are you going?” he yelled at me.

  “Home,” I yelled back.

  “Are we not going after them?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, still running with him.

  “What if they catch the buffalo?”

  “Jimis don’t catch buffalo,” I said. “Jimis can’t catch buffalo. Buffalo kills jimis. Buffalo kills people too.”

  “Why are they chasing him, then?” he asked.

  My guess was that the jimis had not actually seen their quarry yet. That they were chasing the fury and the thunder and had no idea what they were running after.

  We ran on. We cut across the forest at an angle to emerge from the valley as far away from the buffalo’s path as possible. We were out of breath when we climbed the last rise onto the grass plateau. Far away to the left we could hear the dogs in full cry after their prey. Only then did we stop running.

  Nigel was worried about the dogs. I told him to think of us instead. We were miles from home and it was getting dark.

  But he came from a land where dogs mattered more than people, it seemed.

  “Don’t worry about the jimis,” I told him. Jimis were survivors. I had never known of a jimi to be killed on a hunting expedition. On the other hand, I knew of scores of boys who had been seriously gored by a rampaging buffalo. But these facts did not interest Nigel.

  “How will they find their way home?” he asked.

  His concern for the dogs amazed me. So did his endless ignorance.

  “Dogs know their way home,” I said to him. “Dogs always find their way home.”

  When the buffalo stopped running and they finally realized their grave mistake, the jimis would be so surprised that they would get home before us, I assured him.

  Shortly afterwards we heard an angry bellow on the plains to our left. It was followed by a violent commotion. We heard angry grunts and the whining and screaming of terrified dogs.

  “Hear that?” I said. The buffalo had stopped running. The jimis would soon be on their way home.

  “What is he doing to them?” Nigel asked, listening to the terrible cries of the dogs.

  He was scattering the jimis all over the plain with his mighty horns. That was how an enraged buffalo dealt with impudent dogs — tossing jimis in the air with their horns and stomping on them as they hit the ground. Buffalo did not bite except when they were extremely angry. And I could tell by the sound the dogs made that this buffalo was extremely angry. A buffalo could demolish a village hut with one toss of his horns.

  I told Nigel everything I knew about buffalo as we hurried across the plain. The sun was going down over the Loldaiga hills and it was getting cold. We started running.

  Darkness descended as we made our way across the last stretch of forest before the Nanyuki river. Nigel was terrified. He bumped into me in his attempt to keep as close to me as possible, while I kept running into trees and things as I did not see too well in the dark.

  “It’s scary,” Nigel finally admitted.

  “Hold my hand,” I told him.

  When I had a good grip on his hand I said, “Now you lead and I will be with you. I can’t see in the dark.”

  “I can’t see in the dark either,” he told me.

  “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

  “Nothing,” he said.
“I can’t see in the dark. Only animals see in the dark. Cats and dogs and such creatures.”

  I had to think carefully before asking, “Why are your eyes so like a cat’s?”

  “My mother’s eyes are blue,” he told me. “My father’s are green. Like my grandfather’s.”

  “But Bwana Ruin can see in the dark,” I said. “Your grandfather can see in the dark.”

  “No, he can’t. His eyes are just like mine.”

  A great revelation. We stumbled on.

  “Can your grandfather see what I’m thinking?” I ventured.

  “No.”

  I had to be certain.

  “They say in the village that he can see into your head,” I told him. “See what people are thinking. Can he do that?”

  “He cannot. No one can do that.”

  “But can he see in your heart?” I asked next. “Can he know when you are telling a lie?”

  “No one can do that,” Nigel said impatiently. “He is like other people. He can only see with his eyes.”

  An even greater revelation. I could not wait to get back to the village and pass on this information. The boys would never believe me.

  Six

  ON SUNDAYS WE went to church. Our parents never did. But we went to church on Sunday. Lesson One made sure of that with his cane.

  “Lesson one!”

  Thwack! went the cane on the desk.

  “It does not matter that your parents are traditional,” he said to us Monday mornings. “You go to church on Sunday, every Sunday, in uniform and on…?”

  “Time,” we yelled.

  “Lesson one!”

  Thwack! went the cane again.

  “It does not matter that your parents are Protestants, Muslims or Catholic,” he told us. “You must go to church on Sunday, in uniform and on…?”

  “Time,” we yelled.

  Thwack!

  “It does not matter if your father is a chief, a rich man or a thief,” he told us. “You must go to church on Sunday in uniform and on…?”

  “Time,” we yelled until our ears rang.

  Thwack!

  So we went to church on Sundays. In the headmaster’s book there was no sin greater than missing church. The church was five miles from our village, but we went to church every Sunday, in uniform and on time.

  It was an old church, built by prison labor long before we were born. It was long and narrow and had a tall bell tower. The best boy in class was allowed to ring the bells for Easter Sunday. The church had stained-glass windows through which, when the light was right, one could see heaven, with the saints and the angels flying about. On the walls were pictures of saints and holy people.

  The church belonged to a tidy Italian priest called Father Mario. He was in charge of all the Catholic schools and was the shortest white man I had ever seen. He was also the most fearsome, after Bwana Ruin. He once beat up a teacher for being untidy in school.

  Before the service, Father Mario walked up and down the aisles where we stood — having respectfully surrendered our seats to the adults — and rapped his knuckles on every untidy head. He sent home anyone whose uniform was not fit to be in his church.

  As in the village, everything in the church went according to a hierarchy. Bwana Ruin and the white people sat in the front rows. Their benches had cushions to sit on and to kneel on, while everyone else sat and kneeled on the hard wood. Our teachers sat behind the white people, with no cushions to sit on or to kneel on. The rest sat where they could — men on the right and women on the left side of the church. Girls could sit with their mothers. Boys could not sit at all. Boys had no more rights here than they had in the village.

  No one ever complained. It seemed only natural that the white people, close cousins of the angels and the saints, should receive special privileges here as elsewhere in our lives.

  What we boys never understood was that our headmaster, whom we all knew to be God’s authority on earth, was not allowed to sit in the front row with other important people.

  The Sunday I saw Nigel sitting up in front with his grandparents I was genuinely proud to be his friend. But when I tried to find out just how close he was to the saints, he had no idea what I was talking about.

  Was it true, I asked, that they were all close cousins of Jesus?

  “Don’t be foolish,” he said. “Where do you get such stupid ideas from?”

  “From school.”

  I must have frightened him sometimes with the level of my ignorance. But my head was filled with masses of information, gathered from the village boys and from everyone else with whom I had ever had contact, that I had to verify before I could have peace.

  Was it true that all mzungus were rich and had big farms and many cars? Was it true that they did not eat anything that was not sugared and sweet? Was it true that they could not lie and did not steal? Was it true that they did not bleed even if you cut them? Was it true that they were the only true people of God? Was it true that witchcraft could not kill them? Was it true that if they died they went straight to heaven?

  I had so many questions, they wore Nigel out.

  I learned later, from Father Mario no less, that we were all children of the same God. Not just the village boys, not just the village children, but all the children and all the people of all the world. Including Bwana Ruin and our schoolmaster, Lesson One.

  But that knowledge came later.

  In the meantime, Nigel fell madly in love with hunting. He wanted to go hunting every minute of every day. He came to the village three or four times a day and begged me to take him hunting. But it was the potato and bean harvesting season, and my mother kept a close rein on me.

  “I’m bored,” Nigel told me.

  He had no one to play with.

  “Go play with Salt and Pepper,” I said.

  But his grandfather’s dogs were tired of playing fetch. He wanted to go hunting again.

  “I must finish harvesting the beans,” I told him.

  He tried to help me finish the harvest quickly. He came by my house every chance he could and helped me with the harvest.

  He was not very good at it, but he was good company as I labored and made the work seem lighter. My mother grumbled about him trampling all over her beans, but she did not know what to do with him. She did not ask him to go away. I think she liked him a little, though she did not understand a word he said. We must have harvested a whole granary together that season.

  Nigel gave up his suits and started wearing khaki shorts and shirts. He took off his shoes when he was with me, and walked barefoot like me to see how it felt. I put on his shoes and walked in them to see how it felt.

  In the time it took to bring in the harvest, Nigel became a regular feature around my mother’s hut. The village children soon tired of following him about chanting bwana kidogo, little master. No one but me, it seemed, knew the white boy’s name. Everyone called him simply ka-mzungu, little white man.

  The day he ate ugali at my mother’s hut was a historical event in our village. Nigel liked it and asked how it was made.

  “With maize flour and water,” I told him.

  How did it harden? he wanted to know. It just hardened, I told him. Did she bake it in the oven? We had no oven to speak of.

  “It hardens by itself,” I told him.

  I don’t know how word got out that the little white man was eating ugali in Kariuki’s mother’s hut. It may have been the amazed jimis who passed it on to the village boys, who then brought along the whole village to see for themselves.

  There was a sudden uproar outside. We looked up to find the whole village there, come to see Nigel eat ugali. They crowded the doorway, looked through the window and peered through the cracks in the wall. It took a long time for each and every one of them t
o look and wonder. To finally agree that the little white man was indeed eating ugali.

  My mother was thoroughly embarrassed by their behavior. She tried in vain to drive them away.

  “Have you sugared it?” they asked her.

  “No,” she said.

  But they did not believe her.

  “We want to taste it,” they said.

  Whereupon, her patience finally exhausted, she slammed the window in their faces. She could not shut the door. We needed the light to see by.

  Nigel did not understand our language and wondered what was going on.

  “Why are they staring at me?” he asked.

  “You eat ugali.”

  “So do you.”

  “I am not mzungu,” I told him. “They have never seen a mzungu eat ugali before.”

  Mzungus did not eat ugali. They lived on sweets, cakes and chocolate. I knew this to be untrue, because Father brought the evidence home from Bwana Ruin’s kitchen from time to time. And Nigel had told me himself that he did not like chocolate.

  But that was the story around the village.

  “Do you like it?” I asked Nigel.

  He loved it, he told me. It did not taste much like anything he was used to, but he loved it. He asked Mother if he could have some more. She gave us some and pleaded with the crowd to go away and leave us alone to eat our lunch. Nigel was just a hungry boy, a human being like any of them.

  They refused to go away. They wanted to stand there and watch. So they remained. I began to enjoy the attention.

  Eventually, word got around to my father, as he prepared lunch in Bwana Ruin’s kitchen, that the white boy was eating ugali in his house. He dropped everything and came charging down to the village. He grabbed a huge chunk of firewood from the fireplace and charged at the crowd of spectators. In no time at all he had cleared the compound of all idle spectators and jimis. Then he stopped in the doorway, huffing and puffing like a rhinoceros and regarding me with eyes that burned with fury.

  “Kariuki,” he said. “I shall skin you today, I promise.”

  He was a man of few words indeed.