by Carl Hancock
‘No, these two have to be gone.’
News that Sonya was on her way to the clinic brought out the crowds. Rhys turned off the city road onto the narrow dirt track that was the quickest way in. Sonya was amazed to see the silent mass waiting for them outside the surgery compound. Her initial reaction was a sense of embarrassment. Feeling so many eyes all fixed intently on her was a new and humbling experience. How to deal with it presented a problem. What would Simon have wanted from her? Did she give a simple wave, hurry into the clinic and get on with the day? She visualised her husband frowning and fluttering his eyelids in disapproval.
Unknown to her, there was help close by. So many shocked township dwellers wanted to be involved, partly to work out their anger, their grief, but more to express a deep, loving gratitude to a family who had sacrificed so much for them.
Twenty young men had set up a group that they named the Hospital Askaris. Their job was straightforward. On a morning when emotions would run high, they would make sure that the intensity of the passion would be kept within the bounds of dignity and respect. After craftsmen had repaired the damage from the night attack, mothers and daughters moved in to finish the job with their scrubbing and polishing.
Simon and Sonya Mboya had set up their clinic on the edge of this neglected part of the capital where everyone was welcome to receive first-class treatment free of charge. Nairobi City Council declared the project to be a dangerous hazard, on health grounds, and only bad publicity from The Nation and The Standard forced them to grant a licence for it to open for two days a week. Now thousands of poor people were grieving. A strong man who was willing to risk his life for them had paid the price. He had offended once too often. He had died because of his love for them. This was too much, but they would get used to even this painful loss. That was too often the way for the poor people of Africa.
The wildfire spread of the amazing news that there was to be a clinic that very day had come early. There was a crazy rumour that the widow herself was coming. But there she was, unmistakable with the untidy mass of wavy hair in that very strange colour. She and Welshman’s brother were already wearing their white coats. The young askaris had sorted the watchers from the patients. But she was coming and her husband was not yet even laid in the good red earth of Kenya!
The respectful silence changed quickly to an excited hubbub of chattering voices and, as emotions rose to bursting point, they found their expression in the special African way. One voice began it, calling out above all other sounds: ‘Simon Mboya, waahhh!’ In seconds it was the only sound, a rhythmic chant from a crowd of swaying, smiling, colourful dwellers of that deprived township, pouring out their love and thanks. On and on they sang as Sonya moved to stand close to them at the entrance to the compound. Her tears lifted the passions higher. Wailing and loud shouts, many of pain, some of anger, mingled with the chant until a single scream of unbearable pain ended it all.
In the silence, Sonya raised her arms and looked around. At that moment her wish would have been to be able to withdraw to some lonely, silent place, a garden where she could sit in peace and lose herself in the turmoil of her many confusions. But there was work to be done, and with Rhys’s arm across her shoulders, she turned back towards the surgery that she and Simon had planned and paid for.
At the foot of the steps to the door of the clinic stood two old men. Both were dressed in dark suits and trilby hats and each leaned heavily on a gnarled walking stick.
‘Memsahib, Bwana, our hearts are so heavy and yet there is joy that you have come to us.’
‘I am Isaac and this is my brother, Gideon. We are from Western.’
‘We were elders in a village on the shores of the big lake. We were fishermen.’
‘We are Luo. There is much honour for us to be with you today.’
‘Ah, thank you.’ Sonya understood why the men had made the effort to be there to greet her and Rhys. Two Luo men wanted to give thanks for one of their own in the traditional way.
Sonya only partially understood.
‘We want you to let us look after Doctor Simon.’
Sonya heard the words. Her senses had never been sharper, but she could not grasp a clear meaning. Did they want to stand guard over Simon while they waited for the funeral? Were they asking to look after the burial in the Luo tradition?
‘There has been much thinking and talking. Even Sister Dorcas and her nurses want to help.’
‘You mean that he should rest here? But how could …?’
‘See, just below us here, the field. The soil is good. We could plant trees and flowers. We have the people who could do this, craftsmen.’
She hid her eyes behind her hand. For the second time loving friends were upsetting the balance of the resolve that had brought her to the clinic determined to be with Simon’s special people on this day of endless sadness.
‘The land can be ours if you give your blessing.’
Sonya turned to Rhys for a reaction and received as a response a smile and the open palmed gesture that suggested that he could not help her beyond a single thought.
‘What would Simon want?’
The two Luo elders were scrutinising her intently, sensitive to every movement and gesture. Yet they seemed unaware of the extra turmoil they were creating in her mind. They were afraid that her long silence meant that she was rejecting them but finding it difficult to tell them.
‘Please, do not be offended, Doctor Sonya. Perhaps there are plans and we are too late. You know our custom of taking our loved ones back to the farms.’
‘Isaac, Gideon, there are no plans but very soon … Look, Doctor Rhys and I will see our patients and, if you are willing, we can talk again after that.’
‘We will wait on this bench. Gideon likes his small sleep in the morning.’
There were many patients to see. While she was taking care of her pregnant women, Rhys was kept alert by a bigger range of medical problems than he was used to treating in his city surgery. He was well-known for his sense of fun even in the most difficult situations. His funny stories and his humorous comments were the best dawa he had to offer.
Three hilarious hours of surgery passed quickly and when the last of her ladies left, Sonya, emotionally spent, lit a cigarette.
‘Sonya, what an example to your patients!’ Rhys grinned impishly. ‘Never seen you with a fag in your hand. Where’d you get it from?’
She puffed out the smoke, slowly through pursed lips. ‘Mmn, I did enjoy that!’ She stubbed the cigarette on the packet and put it back with its nineteen unused brothers.
‘Know something? I bought that packet on the day Simon and I met again in London. He took me to a cafe near the hospital. He bought the coffee and I pulled out the pack. The look on his face! “What are you going to do with those? You’re going to be a doctor. And one day you will have children.” And I’m going to hell and I won’t collect the two hundred pounds when I pass go!
‘That was the first time I heard him laugh. Heads turned and he waved amiably. I gave up the weed that afternoon. I kept the pack, always carried it in my bag.’
She closed her eyes and a contented smile played on her lips for several seconds. She wondered if Isaac and Gideon would be waiting outside.
They rose stiffly to their feet when they saw Sonya at the door. This time they had company, two men and a woman all much younger than themselves. Isaac struggled forward on his stick and reached out to grasp Sonya’s hands. His broad smile revealed an uneven set of teeth more brown than white.
‘We knew that you would let him come to this place.’
Her reply was a tearful nod and a happy shrug. ‘I decided nothing. The choice was made somewhere else. I am just the messenger. But introduce me.’
The slim woman, fashionably dressed, was Gideon’s grand-daughter, Rachel. She had a suggestion.
‘We have a small table and some chairs. You must be ready for some refreshment. We have coffee, sodas, some samosas.’
One of
the two men was a lawyer, the other a stonemason. All three were originally from the north-west.
‘The murder of Tom Mboya was before our time and now they have taken another of our great men. Simon’s uncle is buried on Rusinga Island. You know that.’
The young lawyer’s cultured voice reminded Sonya of someone. He noticed her puzzled look.
‘Miller. Perhaps you have met my uncle, another denizen of the courts, Paul.’
‘The politician.’
‘I’m yet another Tom. Dozens of them in our part of the world.’
Isaac was becoming impatient. ‘Doctor Sonya, we must make plans. Rachel, you are forgetting.’
‘No, Mzee, we are forgetting nothing, not the pain, not the courage of these two special people. But Bwana Simon is going to have the best. There is little time. We will waste none of it, I promise.’
* * *
The engine of a Land Cruiser was switched off. It was parked in a dusty hollow in the middle of Nairobi Park. Its five occupants had company. There must have been upwards of thirty buffalo encircling them, the furthest just twenty metres away. They, too, were not moving.
Tom was remembering the maverick that had confronted him as he cleared the last of the vertical bog on his climb up the Great Mountain in a different age just months before. He had seen that individual off without much trouble. Then there was that time up in the Aberdares when, as a boy, he had stood in amazement watching a particularly stubborn one in a stand-off with a lion. The handsome cat had the high ground and he looked down on his opponent with a fierce glare and whipped his tail in a slow, rhythmic threat. Those jaws were ready to inflict some serious damage. Tom expected Buff to drop his head and slink off into the cover of the bush. Instead he raised his low-slung head to offer Mister Leo a good view of a broad ridge of craggy horn for his consideration. He was going nowhere. In the staring match the dour, heavy black mass of hard flesh outstayed the sleek, athletic fighting machine. Perhaps the lion did not feel lucky. Perhaps he could sniff something upwind. His tail slowed to a halt and a single sideways glance announced the end of the contest. He turned and marched stiffly away, his confidence undiminished.
Ted Manning had become an instant hero to Pembroke boys when they heard how he had saved his sister’s life by shoving her across the back seat of the car seconds before a huge head had been swung and a horn thrust through the roof of their car that was trawling ‘round these same plains. Kenya buffalo were never sociable to strangers. There were thirty of them just the other side of half a dozen thin panes of glass. They were full of curiosity about these strangers who had strayed into their patch. Tom was apprehensive.
Rebecca had begged him to turn back when they had unexpectedly come across the herd close to the track as they started down a steep drop in the plain. She had no fondness for any of the large beasts of her homeland. She was terrified of them and finding it hard to hide her fear from the boys. She would like to have shut her eyes tight and listened to the drone of the engine carrying her out of the park and back into the safety of the chaos of the streets of Nairobi. Tom knew he had made a big mistake by driving down the slope and that the only plan for them now was to wait until the buffalo decided to move on.
The boys’ complete attention was focused on the big friends who had come to say good morning. Sammy adored the sight of the black, muscular lumps. He wanted to roll down a window, to scratch a nose or pat a flank. Noah was not ready to take any risks on the day of his big football match.
‘No, Sammy. If one of those monster heads got stuck in the window here, we would have to take it home with us.’
‘Crazy, man! The man on the gate wouldn’t let us. That would be stealing. Daddy told us that stealing is very bad.’
‘Right, Mo. And, Sammy, where would we keep it when we got home?’
‘But, Noah, why do they all look so sad? When I have my friends over, we play a game or something.’
Rebecca tried to help out. ‘Perhaps they are hungry. Just this brown grass for their dinner.’
‘Do you think they want to eat us for their dinner?’
‘Sammy, they are vegetarians. You’ll learn about this stuff when you get to proper school.’
‘What’s a vegetan?’
‘No nyama choma. So, Sammy, they won’t eat you. Let’s just keep quiet here.’
Noah had a more serious worry. Time was moving on. He was hoping that Tom would manage to get them out of this animal prison and back to school, and soon. In his mind he kept on seeing pictures of the playing fields of Kenton with the pitches marked out and himself running the ball at the Banda goalie.
An hour passed before there was a sign of movement outside when one or two on the edge of the crowd turned away to graze on untrodden grass. Tom switched on and raced the engine. Sammy screamed in surprise and the company moved back a step, enough for Tom to make a steady, determined charge for the open road.
Rebecca was happy that they were on their way to the park exit. Their animal sightings were few and mostly with less intimidating creatures like dik-dik and gazelle. As they wound their way along the twisting, undulating trails, Tom talked to the boys of the days, not so long before, when those plains were dominated, ruled by the creatures.
‘When they built the railway from Mombasa to Nairobi the workers always had to be on watch to make sure they didn’t become a lion’s dinner.’
‘Why did the lions go away, Tom? I wish I could see one right now.’
‘Well, Sammy, I don’t think they wanted to go away. We humans can be very greedy. We take things that don’t belong to us.’
‘Like when Moses steals my toys and I don’t want him to.’
Moses, embarrassed to be accused of stealing in front of Rebecca whom he was out to impress, was officious in his reply. ‘Sam, I don’t steal your toys, just borrow them when you are not using them. See!’
Rebecca, sensing that emotions were beginning to show signs of tension and fearful of where even small disagreements might lead, made a suggestion that everyone approved of. ‘I say that we find those picnic tables and have lunch.’
When they arrived half an hour early in the Kenton car park, most of the seven visiting schools were finishing their packed lunches in and around their coaches. Noah sat in the back of the Land Cruiser and stared out at the opposition. He felt weak in the belly area and his legs seemed to have turned to lead in two seconds flat. Some of those guys were big and they were fooling around, having a lot of laughs. Red shirts, maroon, green. Who were these people? Where did they come from? He knew where his Kenton teammates would be, but he did not fancy getting out of the car to go and join them. For sure, these strangers who were obviously proper players would start making fun as soon as they saw him in his Kenton shirt, trotting off on his skinny legs. Moses and Sam, taking their mood from their leader, shared his anxiety, wondering what he had seen out there to make him look so scared.
Tom and Rebecca interpreted what was happening with the boys in very different ways. She thought that the moment she had been dreading was about to arrive. The grief at their loss was breaking through. Noah looked bewildered and threatened, needing his mother. She began to search in her bag for Sonya’s mobile number. The clinic was only ten minutes away. Tom could get them there before the tears started.
Sixteen years before Tom had travelled down from Pembroke to Kenton to play in this same tournament. It was his first game in the maroon shirt and he was the youngest boy in the youngest team. Pembroke teams always expected to win and he was in with a crowd who were, he thought, every one of them looking forward to running out onto the pitch and enjoying themselves.
‘Noah, I was scared shitless.’ Sam broke out into peals of laughter at this new word. ‘Yes, I couldn’t eat my boiled eggs. Noah, you’ll be going up to the pavilion with the other teams. First thing I did was to run behind the bus and throw up into the hedge! I still remember the exact spot.’ Tom paused briefly. ‘I was scared. I would look a fool out there in front of
our supporters. I’d do something stupid and we’d lose the match.’
The transformation was swift and solid. Rebecca put away her mobile and took out her sunglasses.
‘What’s with the shades, Rebecca?’ Sam was laughing again, this time at his elder brother’s successful take on an American accent.
‘Just in case you dazzle me too much with … whatever you get up to out there!’
‘You’re famous, aren’t you? I’ve seen you on the tele.’ For sure, Noah was back to normal.
Close by someone blew hard on a whistle, which was a relief to Tom and Rebecca. Noah hopped smartly out of the car and followed the crowd of young footballers to their gathering point.
‘Wow, boys, your brother can shift!’
‘Daddy says he’s fast as a cheetah!’ Sam said in admiration.
Before she could allow herself another moment of panic, she was pleased to see Samuel race off. ‘Wait for me, Mo! I got a Mars bar in my pocket!’
The tournament went well for the Kenton under nines. They won through to the final where they were to meet Pembroke!
‘Just a minute, Ref, while I get my kit on! Someone’s got to show these Kenton guys who’s in charge!’
‘Thomas, big men are not allowed!’
‘Oh, Sam, how are Pembroke going to win without me?
Don’t forget Kenton have a cheetah playing for them!’
‘Not a real cheetah, silly!’
The cheetah had his best game when it counted most. The big crowd for the finals cheered the serious-faced player with the skinny legs. Only the Kenton supporters knew who he was and some of those were not sure whether he should even be on the pitch. Not far from Rebecca and Tom a couple of families weren’t hiding their feelings.
‘What kind of a woman is she? The kid’s father’s probably still up in a morgue in Kericho and she’s around here somewhere watching a bloody football match. I’ve always said that the Daniels family was weird.’
‘I wasn’t surprised to hear they’d got him. Death wish, a bit like his uncle. Fancied himself too much. Asking for it!’