by Carl Hancock
‘Keep your voice down. His brothers are just down there.
Their mother’s not with them, so you’ve got that one wrong, George. Surprised you haven’t noticed since you’re so fond of her!’
‘Fond of …?’
‘The black nightingale! Look, dark glasses. Rebecca Kamau.’
George took a couple of steps onto the pitch so that he could check. ‘Damn right, Rosie! What’s she got to do with them, I wonder.’
Tom was too focused on the play to pick up what Rebecca had heard clearly. She realised that the painful solution was the sensible one. She must stay quiet until the match was all over and they could move away. If the rubbish kept coming, she would reconsider.
It was Noah himself who saved the day with a dream ending to the match and the tournament. One final sprint onto a pass from his pal, Andy, and this time a low shot dribbled past the outstretched leg of the Pembroke goalie. Ecstasy and tears.
‘I wish Daddy was here!’
It was not the black arms of Rebecca that embraced him in his moment of triumph but the familiar grasp of his mother who had her three sons locked together safe out of harm’s way.
‘Wow, boy! I saw that!’
Chapter Seventeen
hat same afternoon Llewellyn Daniels was released from hospital. He was a doctor, came from a family of doctors. There would be no risks there even though his shoulders and upper back were dark blue with the biggest bruise the ward sister had ever seen. Kate drove him to Cartref and the family was still at the buttered scones and tea when the hero arrived wearing his medal.
After a short stay when she shared in the celebrations and made sure that Rebecca and Tom were being looked after, Sonya went out into the garden to the surgery where Maria was still working. Before leaving the sitting room, she had a request.
‘Twenty minutes. Rebecca, Tom, I’ll be back and I need your help. Please, stay!’
Maria was alone, but there had been changes since Sonya had last been in that room. She was surprised by the perfume of orange blossom that might have come from a Naivasha grove at evening time and the coolness of an underground cave was a contrast to the warmth of the late afternoon she had just left behind.
Maria had moved her working platform so that she was now much closer to Simon’s head. Sonya stepped up onto the platform. She was startled by what she saw and, for a few terrifying seconds, might have believed that her husband had come back to life. The lower part of his body was draped in the white silk sheet, but the skin, where it was visible, was damp with what appeared to be beads of perspiration which made it seem that Simon was resting after a bout of exercise. The idea of a living person resting was strengthened by the blue pillow supporting his head. Over a chair down to her right was draped a surgeon’s green operating gown and, on top, neatly placed, a pair of Simon’s work spectacles.
‘Maria, what’s going on?’ Sonya’s voice was tremulous. ‘Simon is not alive and nothing anyone can do will change that!’ Irritation gave a sharp edge to her tone.
Maria took off her gloves and turned to look directly into Sonya’s eyes. It was the pleading gaze of someone who thought she was being misunderstood.
‘Sonya, you are right, this shell will never again carry in it the warmth of life. But I want him to look at peace in body as well as in spirit.’
‘Maria, please, forgive me. You have worked so hard. It’s just that …’ She could hold back the tears no longer. ‘He is so like the Simon I first met fifteen short years ago …’ She paused to gather herself. ‘I need you to help me more. You understand these things … Look! Simon has been taken from us and I want him to have a resting place where … Maria, I have made a promise to some people that, perhaps, the family will resent, dislike, hate even.’
‘Sonya, your heart speaks the truth that matters. Tomorrow, when you are ready, you will take him to this place. He is ready, he is anxious to be on his journey. Let me come with you. You will not notice me! I promise. So you see, he will be with other people who loved him desperately. He gave them hope and they will take care of him for us all. And we can be with him at any time.’
* * *
When she had finished, there was a shocked silence. For a time the only reaction to Sonya’s announcement came in the body language of the dozen family members and friends standing or sitting around in that comfortable room. Vibrations were doing the talking and Sonya thought that David and Dorothy were disturbed by what she wanted for Simon. They sat holding hands staring towards her but not at her. For them death and funerals were intensely personal, family affairs that should not be handed over to strangers. Dorothy was the first to break free.
‘Sonya darling, forgive me. This wouldn’t be my way. Grandma Daniels would have a fit if she could be here. Stuck in the past and calling it tradition. Good old Welsh ways. But my dada used to say that heaven is a place gushing with love. I think he would have approved. I’m surprising myself. What’s going on around here?’
‘Dot, losing Simon is like having my heart wrenched out of me. So what is this joy bubbling up inside me? It’s Simon’s way and it’s infectious. There are enough doctors in this room for us to understand that!’
‘I’ll second that!’ Welshman Daniels, fresh out of hospital was stiff and bent over from the heavy thumps inflicted on his back, pushed his arm into the air in triumph. ‘I haven’t been around here for the past couple of days. I’ve heard things and now I’m seeing them. It’s crazy, ridiculous. This isn’t normal human stuff. We aren’t tiptoeing around the house with long faces. Something big is going on, like some spirit is wandering around the place. It’s just right. And tomorrow …’
Rhys wanted his say. ‘I was with Sonya in Kibera this morning. Isaac, Gideon, Rachel and the others, fantastic people! We’re not handing him over. We’re sharing him.’
* * *
Karen is beautiful and peaceful. People who are lucky enough to live out there expect to enjoy a sense of control in their lives. Things do not get out of hand. So it was in one of the old established houses in that quiet place in the early afternoon of the following day. Family and close friends sat around a large table in the garden of Cartref. Some took lunch, some were happy just to sit quietly and prepare themselves. The little surgery was in sight at the end of a path bright with a border of flame trees. Inside Simon was waiting. The dead man dominated the thoughts of the living. There was grief and a realisation of the huge gap there was in their lives now that this dynamo for good had been silenced forever. But there would be a sensible farewell where each would have a part to play, from the youngest to the oldest.
It was time. The wooden gates of Cartref were opened and the orderly departure began. The last but one car to leave was the Land Cruiser from Londiani. Tom drove with Rebecca at his side and Sonya and the boys behind. The traffic thickened as soon as they joined the Ngong Road and they became part of the crowded afternoon. To other travellers they might have been on their way to do some late shopping in one of the city malls. It was only the rare driver who looked across at traffic lights and wondered why the women and children in the next car were dressed in black.
Tom was anxious to give his passengers a smooth ride and he was relieved when the turn-off to Kibera came in sight. He was surprised to notice that the verges on both sides of the approach road were crowded with empty parked cars. Oncoming traffic was held up to allow them to turn right. The steep banks of the narrow road that would bring them to the site of the clinic were crowded, too, this time with talkative groups of men, women and children who all stooped low to get a view of the latest arrivals.
At once for Sonya the misgivings began. Had she made a terrible mistake? There was a danger that this most sacred of moments would be swamped by outside forces. Would Dorothy’s cautions be justified? She had handed control over to good people, but would their loving intentions be strong enough to hold out against this hysteria of numbers? Too naive, too lacking in foresight, she would have to cope as best she could.
Tom drove on sedately at what he judged to be a proper, seemly speed. In the short run down from the crest of an incline to a prepared parking place near the clinic, everything, everything was transformed.
Doubts, anxieties melted away quicker than she could think. They were simply not there any more. The transformation had been created for her in a flash of light and colour. After the initial thrill of seeing the complete picture in an instant, she was able to look around her and take in the details.
A huge crowd was gathered on three sides of a green oval. Tom turned off the engine and through the open window came the hushed sound of thousands of voices. It reminded Sonya of the subdued whispers of a congregation gathered in the nave of All Saints Cathedral for a great mass. A strong sense of reverence made her linger inside the vehicle. She gathered her three boys around her and whispered. ‘See. All these good people are friends who have come to say goodbye to Daddy with us.’
‘So many. Do you know the names of every one of them?’
‘Well, Noah, I think if we checked the lists in the surgery, they would all be in there.’
‘Mama, it is like the football at Kenton. But why have they made that hole in the grass?’
The open grave bordered all ‘round by neatly laid mounds of red earth drew her gaze. It was a dramatic and chilling reminder of what was about to happen.
On the side of the oval close to her were more people, much less tightly packed. The smart clothes, the darker colours told the story. Friends, colleagues, local and national figures, embassy staff, Sonya took in their presence as she might a painting on the wall of a great house that she was visiting. It was there but she paid it little attention.
There were two figures who moved her with their silent, dignified stance. They were looking across at her from just inside the oval. Isaac and Gideon, the fishermen brothers from Western District, leaned on their gnarled sticks not because they needed the support but as a show of authority, like young subalterns holding their swords as a sign of order. Sonya and they exchanged private smiles.
Without a word the Luo brothers moved, one to the left and one to the right and turned inwards. Through the gap that was left two children stepped forward, side by side, the first of two long lines. They waited.
It was time. Tom slid from his seat and moved to open the door for Sonya and the boys. Every movement was slow and measured. In the great silence, every sound from that small focal point was loud enough to be heard from the distant corners - the noise of the door hinges as the door swung out, the striking of small feet as they touched the white gravel, the nervous clearing of the throat as Sonya prepared to whisper to her sons.
The boys looked about them in wide-eyed awe. They were grateful for the protection of the arms of Rebecca and their mother guiding them forward closer to the empty, grassy space. They were comforted by the gesture of the old men, two strangers who moved forward to grasp their cold hands and squeeze them and then nodded to them in a smile of welcome.
With graceful, rhythmic movements the line of children moved forward. They were each carrying a spray of white roses. They handed these over to older girls who set them down on the bank behind the grave to form the shape of a fish.
The farewell had begun. Family and close friends took their stand behind Sonya. A new sound, much louder, caught the attention. When the vehicle came into sight, it caused a surprise. Sitting bolt upright at the wheel and looking dignified, Sergeant Hosea Kabari of Western District had his wife, Maria, as his companion. She wore a black kikoi and matching headscarf. Those standing closest as the ancient Chevrolet passed by realised that they were watching the progress of the hearse carrying the body of Simon Mboya. The murmuring began and soon grew louder. Nobody in the mass of the gathering had expected the now famous doctor to be making his final earthly journey in such an ancient, humble wreck. Reaction was mixed. Casual observers who had come as indifferent spectators were already giving the show a low rating. What was this family thinking of? They were not short of money, so what point were they trying to make? Others, and they were a majority, who had been touched in some way by Simon Mboya’s work, were puzzled, even upset by what seemed a lack of respect.
This was going to be no ordinary funeral, so what lay in store for them in the next hour or two?
Sonya and the family were happy to share this most poignant of moments with anyone of goodwill, but their intention was far different from a simple wish to impress spectators, to let everyone see that their Simon was receiving a good send-off. Intimacy and privacy were their natural process. Simon was the sacred heart of everything that was taking place.
As arranged, Hosea brought his car to a halt close to the family group but out of the view of Noah, Moses and Sammy.
David and his three sons, with Alex and Tom McCall, stepped forward to move the platform bearing the body from the car to the trolley that had been wheeled across from the clinic. In a matter of seconds, Simon himself was being carried on the very machine that he had used so many times in his work to heal others. He was draped to the neck in a white linen sheet, under an afternoon sky that everyone but he could see, ruffled by the whisper of a breeze that everyone but he could feel.
There was no sign of a coffin. Even the most loving and loyal of the wananchi must bear their anxiety and wait. They were well aware that white folks, even after three or four generations of living their African lives, were liable to do strange things. Surely Doctor Sonya would not abandon her man to the earth unprotected against all the weevils and worms that were on the move down there.
The voice that broke the awed silence was a familiar one. The haunting sense of loss and longing that was the very essence of Rebecca Kamau’s singing shocked a thousand hearts into deep numbness as the words of Simon’s favourite hymn came to them from the mouth of that beautiful woman. Two lines into ‘Amazing Grace’ and a crowd of diverse individuals became a chorus of full-throated African voices charged with their unique and ancient emotional power. By the time the song was ended, quiet, personal tears had been overwhelmed by the sounds of outbursts of sobbing and by loud calls for blessings and mercy from all parts of the congregation. The pain of saying goodbye was becoming unbearable.
At Sonya’s request, two Luo elders had prepared themselves to say the last words. The tall, slim figure of Paul Miller embraced Sonya and Simon’s three sons before going to be close to Simon himself. He bent over to touch his old friend’s forehead and reached down to plant a final kiss on his cheek.
When he drew himself up to speak, he had a face of stone. He was struggling to hold on to the white heat of his anger.
‘Friends, we should not be in this place today. Yes, we have come to honour a good man, a man who knew how to love. But it is wicked men who have brought us here, wicked men, our own people who have taken Simon Mboya from us. Why is it such people hate the light so much that they have a crazy longing to put it out? You do not need me to tell you that the darkness around us has suddenly become a little deeper.
‘You do not need me to tell you that Simon was not a sentimental, soft-headed man. He knew the risk he was taking. He knew all about the threats. He had a family, Sonya and his three wonderful sons, a family more precious to him than life itself. Simon also knew about loving strangers. When he saw brothers and sisters with a deep need, he had to answer it.
‘Above all things, I believe that what we are witnessing here is not failure, not failure!’ By now he was being accompanied by voices raised on every side.
‘Yes, brother, yes! You are speaking true things here!’
‘Sweet Lord Jesus, take our Simon into your bosom!’
‘Simon Mboya, we will never forget you!’
Paul saw that a full-blown frenzy might erupt at any moment. He paused and reached out to touch the hem of the linen sheet. When he began again, his voice was firm but soothing.
‘We must not keep Simon with us any longer. I say again that what has happened in these last days is not a fail
ure. One day soon we will all begin to understand that a triumph will arise from these ashes. Soon! That is a promise!’
Years before, in his first weeks as a medical student in Saint Mary’s Hospital, London, Simon had made friends with a group of young Christians. On Sundays they had done the rounds of places of worship, mainly in the Westminster area. Each Saturday night it had become a ritual for one of the group to buy a round of drinks at one of their pubs and be paid back by having the choice of church, temple, synagogue or whatever for Sunday morning. In his turn, Simon, a Methodist back home, had led his friends to Central Hall for good teaching and a warm welcome, and an unexpected meeting. Sonya Daniels, Kenya born of Welsh parents, followed the traditions of her old family and became a regular at the vibrant Sunday sessions in the crowded Methodist meeting place across the square from the great ancient abbey. So, for Simon, the ecclesiastical tour around Central London ended. And now the Christian wheel had turned back on itself.
The official farewell was delivered by Peter Andrews, a minister friend from those London days. After the reading of the triumphal proclamation of victory over death in the words of Saint Paul, those watching from far and near knew that the formalities were over. Surely Simon would be buried very soon. Then they would all return to their homes but never forget. The small green field on the southern edge of this township would be transformed into a garden of remembrance.
Two women stepped out of the gathering of mourners. They came together at the head of the platform where Simon lay, embraced and walked slowly and in step towards the opening in the ground. The Daniels men followed, heads bowed, and eased the trolley forward until its front wheels were cutting into the neat mound of red earth.
Gently and solemnly Sonya Mboya and Maria Kabari removed the linen sheet that had been Simon’s shroud. It was not the naked body of a man that the bystanders saw revealed but a doctor in his green operating robe and a face that wore those familiar steel-rimmed spectacles placed lovingly by Sonya on her husband’s nose. This time it was not only the mass who wondered why these women were getting in the way of the final laying to rest. The family and friends gathered close to the grave were anxious.