by Carl Hancock
Dorothy Daniels, who was looking after the boys, was aware of their growing distress. They were bewildered by the strange events taking place around them. Who were all these people? Why were they here? What were Mama and the new lady doing with their daddy? They wanted to cry because of the pain that they could not understand but knew they must not. They had been told that they must be brave, even Sam who looked up in wonder at the faces of the big people and saw that no one had told them to be brave.
Of everyone waiting and wondering only Rebecca Kamau could see through the confusion. Maria was a Luo elder in the Kericho district. The old Luo elders from the Kibera district who had asked Sonya to allow Simon to have his resting place in their little field did not know this. They, like the thousands who had come to say their personal farewells, believed that they were looking down on a shell. The spirit which was the true life force had been snatched away before its time. What they did not understand was that the spirit, too, had been damaged by the violence of its departure. Even in these last moments there was healing to be done.
Maria turned to face Simon. She closed her eyes tight and began her final task by shutting out the world around her. She soon lost a sense of human time and place. It was a common practice with her to raise the level of her vibrations when she needed to see beyond. The many hours she had spent in the surgery in the Daniels’ house were a preparation for these moments when full release would come. She was between worlds. Simon was waiting for her. The glow in his aura was bright, but in his eyes fear and pain were visible.
Her task was clear and her return was swift. She had been away for only a few seconds but time enough to have taken on a radiance from another place. Simon needed no more help.
Maria motioned for Rebecca to come and stand by her.
Then she began to sing quietly. The words were in Aramaic, first sung by Mary Magdalene when she was dressing the wounded body of her master lying dead in a borrowed grave. Rebecca did not know them, but the melody was familiar and she added her harmony as a counterpoint. The three women stood holding hands in a small triangle. They were turned away from Simon. When the song was finished Maria spoke to Sonya.
‘His spirit is at peace now. I know that for certain. The grieving will not stop on our side and that is natural, but the grief is for ourselves. We have forgotten how death truly is because we cannot believe. But our lives do not have to be a long cry of pain. For now it is time to say goodbye.’
The burial was over in less than five minutes. Barefooted young men stepped out of the shadows and with easy grace lifted Simon and lowered him into the coffin that was open and waiting at the bottom of the grave. When the sealing was finished, the family came with their roses and their scattering of earth. The grave would not be closed until after dark when the last of the long line of Kibera people paid their respects.
* * *
‘The boys need to get away from the city, Maria. Rebecca, do you think that Bertie will be willing to have us up on the farm, just for a day or two? He did say …’
‘Travel up to Rusinga with him. He’ll be going tonight. He hates being away from Ewan. You know that.’
‘I’ll speak to him later. He’s coming back to the house, I’m sure …’
The sound of a commotion came to them from the direction of the busy main road. There were angry men and women down there.
Chapter Eighteen
ince the early hours, Abel Rubai had been troubled by a dilemma. For an ordinary man who had played the crucial but distant part in the death of Simon Mboya, the decision would have been simple. ‘Man, you do not go within miles of that funeral.’ But this was no ordinary man and he suffered a powerful longing to be present when they lowered the corpse of that Luo meddler into the ground. One thought that stayed with him longer than most of those hundreds which ceaselessly whirled around in his mind pushing him first towards go and then back towards stay was a line he had read in a book many years before: ‘a murderer always visits the scene of his crime’.
‘But I’m no murderer and I don’t even know the scene where the unfortunate accident took place. For sure they didn’t do the job down there in that hellhole. Yes, I paid money and some fancy lawyer might come out with some smart idea about being an accessory blah, blah, blah! What did lawyers know about running a country, looking after the best interests of the wananchi? And those fools never did realise what was best for them. They think they have lost some kind of saint. Saint? That’s a joke. This one was a true Luo, pretending to be out for the people, using them for his own purposes, just like his Uncle Thomas before him.’
For an ordinary man the decision to go was left too late. It would not be possible to travel from his Karen home to the south side of Kibera and arrive in time for whatever they were getting up to in that god-forsaken dump, but for a Mister Big? A police car with a siren led a trio of his own reckless drivers and his little motorcade sped along the crowded roads, bullying its way through the afternoon traffic.
They were a half an hour late. Sally was just glad to hear that they had arrived so that she could open her eyes again without having to watch the risky overtaking and the near misses. What she saw surprised her. So many people were crowded onto the side of the road that they blocked the turn-off into Kibera South. The police car aggressively pushed its way into the crowd, expecting a path to open up through this human Red Sea. The driver managed fifty metres through the squashed masses. He didn’t care about the bumps and bruises, the torn clothes, the bleeding limbs he left in his wake. Then his luck ran out. A seventeen year old mother with a baby on her back and a two year old boy grasping her hand, lost her balance in her struggle to stay ahead of the vehicle mercilessly advancing on its crazy journey.
The boy rolled under the wheels. The screams and the angry shouts, the thumping of fists, the frantic efforts to get to the child changed the situation instantly. Locked inside their metal box, the hunters became hunted, wild-eyed in their terror, desperate to protect themselves. Out came the guns.
Looking on from behind, Abel Rubai saw that he was trapped in a wedge of hundreds of very angry wananchi pressing hard against his cars. Lives were in serious danger here. In all four cars there were bodyguards. They were ruthless men, but he had stifled the initiative out of them. They would be waiting for his orders. As he buttoned his window down he took out his own pistol and let it be seen. The move gave him the few seconds respite he needed.
‘Back! Back! Get us out! Now! Now!’
Cars moving quickly in reverse caught out those who thought that the danger for them was passed. More screams of pain followed, and frantic shouting.
A single gunshot sent hundreds dropping for cover. Abel heard the breaking of glass, but in the pandemonium it took him a second to realise that it was in his car that a window had been shattered by the stray bullet.
‘Oh, no! No! No!’
Sally had taken the hit. Her eyes rolled back as she fell towards him. He fired his pistol into the roof of the car till he emptied the cartridge. He screamed at his driver.
‘There are doctors up there! Get to them, now! I don’t care how many of these bastards you drive over! Just get us there!’
‘But, Bwana, they cannot get out of the way. There will be deaths. Better we get out. It will be quicker. The people will help us. See, it is not a big distance. I promise! I promise! Look, Bwana, look!’
The police car in front of them could force its way no further into the crush of bodies struggling to climb the steep banks on either side of the narrow road. The windows were smashed and the four men inside ducked low, trying to ward off the blows coming from stones and sticks aimed at them from outside. It would not be long before they were dragged out.
There was blood on his suit, blood on the seat. As he pulled Sally ‘round, Abel saw the hole in the leather upholstery where the bullet had penetrated after it had passed through the flesh of Sally’s upper arm. He kissed the wound, thinking that this might help stop the flow. She opened he
r eyes and was surprised to see her husband biting her arm. She frowned and then chuckled.
‘Abel, what you up to? Look, you made my arm burn!’
As he pulled back, simultaneously she saw his bloodstained mouth and became fully aware of the searing pain of the wound.
‘My God, Abel, what has happened here?
She saw her arm shining red down to her fingertips and remembered the loud bang that had gone off somewhere in front of her. The shouting and the screaming around them were worse than ever. She was terrified. The Mercedes was stuck fast and the trickle of blood was forming a puddle on the seat beside her.
‘Please God, Abel, do not let me and the child die in this place.’
He let out a cry of frustration through clenched teeth. He turned to the open window and grasped the sill with both hands. He pushed hard into the bodies jammed outside. The narrowest of cracks opened up. Kneeling on the seat, he pushed and pulled with a frantic effort, shouting angrily as he did so. He ignored the cries and the screams of pain. At last, drenched with perspiration, Abel forced a gap wide enough to allow him to push one leg through. He managed to stand upright with one foot on the ground and one inside the car.
‘Move, damn you, move. My wife is in danger. See this blood on my face? Soon it will be your blood. I swear it.’
Sonya’s attention was divided. The ceremony was almost finished, but she kept glancing across to the place where the narrow track from the main road spilled out onto the open field. Why all the shouting? Why the gunshots? Her boys were upset and grabbed her hands tight.
When she saw a group of women burst through surrounding a girl with a child who was screaming in pain, she hurried towards them. She took the child in her arms. The little boy pressed his head into her shoulder and struck out at her face with his tiny fists.
Before she could search for the source of the pain, she was shocked to see Sally Rubai moving unsteadily towards her, supported on the arm of her husband. She closed her eyes in disbelief. Her grip tightened on the child and she pressed a kiss on his cheek.
When she looked again, she saw the blood soaked sleeve of Sally’s dress. She moved to put her free arm around the shoulders of her new patient and drew her away from her husband.
As she turned, Sonya’s eyes caught the gaze of Abel Rubai. There was no arrogance in his look. She noticed his body shudder momentarily, unaware that the involuntary movement was caused by the power and intensity of her own contemptuous glare. Angry words and curses would have been more welcome to him.
‘David, I need you.’
Her brother was happy to follow her towards the steps of the little clinic. She had never been an ordinary sister and now she was no ordinary widow. He released the boy from Sonya’s arms. The child had cried himself out and David waited for his sobs to subside.
‘Sally, we will soon have you fixed up.’
Abel expected to follow his wife into the wooden building. With the threat of danger gone, he was back to his confident self.
‘Mister Rubai, you will not be needed.’
He felt a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment at being turned away at the door, even more so when he saw the one delivering the slight.
‘So, the wash girl is now a nurse and giving out instructions. And may I ask what exactly you are needed for here?’
‘It will be better for your wife. And, no, I am not a nurse. I am a friend of the family.’
‘The Naivasha songbird, friend to the world. No friend of our family! Just get out of my sight!’
‘I saw the blood. You will disturb the work. Please …’
‘Just … go and sing a song somewhere. Look, you have an audience ready and waiting.’
‘If you will come away with me from the door.’
He snarled, pointing his finger towards her face to make himself clear. ‘Shut that lying mouth of yours. Know your place. I will do whatever I please.’
‘I am not afraid of you.’
‘What a brave little whore you are!’
‘And I am not a whore. You have a bad tongue and you say foolish things.’
Before he could get out the direct threat that would get this nuisance to leave him in peace, Sally’s face appeared at an open window close by.
‘Abel, all this talk is upsetting things here. Please, go with the child. For my sake.’
The nostrils flared and there was a look of fury in his eyes but, without a word, he strode off, dialling on his mobile as he went. He was looking for a quiet place where he could speak, but so deep was his anger that he did not notice Tom McCall pass not two metres from him. With Maria Kabari he was hurrying towards a distressed Rebecca.
Chapter Nineteen
ebecca, please, I must speak to you. Perhaps you can help me. My name is Lydia. I am in danger.’
‘I remember. You were at the Muthaiga that night. You wore a beautiful, yellow dress.’
Four hours had passed since a trembling Rebecca had watched Abel Rubai walk away from the steps of the Mboya clinic in the Kibera township. The two patients had been treated successfully and been taken back to their widely different homes. Now the Daniels family and Sonya were following tradition. Well over two hundred friends and colleagues of the Mboya family had come together at Cartref to be present at the formal end to the farewell to Doctor Simon.
The outside lights were on and guests wandered around the garden or gathered in groups. They talked, ate and drank and talked again.
Rebecca remembered two things about Lydia from that night five months before. The striking colour of the dress had helped to make her stand out in that crowd of the smartest women in Nairobi society. But, in retrospect, more memorable was her recollection that it was Reuben who had brought her to the party. She remembered how attentive both Julius and his father had been to her when she was introduced. She herself had not been introduced, but she would not forget the wild flight of fancy that the sight of those introductions had created in her imagination. What if she and that pretty girl could have swapped places!
‘Lydia, I know a quiet place.’
They sat in the large, cool room and for a time nothing was said. Lydia was anxious about the best way to explain herself. Even in the dim light, it was easy for Rebecca to see the swelling around the eyes and the bruises on the left side of her face. Lydia answered her concern with a wan smile. And she had found her way into her story.
‘Yes, it was a man’s work. When your living comes from selling your body, you take risks, not only with the … clients. Many women have cruel words for me. ‘Whore’, ‘tart’, I hear those two a lot. The ones who are badly hurt scream louder. Then it’s ‘Scum, you have stolen my husband’, something like that, a bit less polite. Fortunately, for most of these poor men, their wives never find out.
‘Perhaps, Rebecca, you are wondering why I say all this to you. Perhaps you think that I should not speak these things to a … I was going to say ‘stranger’. But you are not a stranger to me. And I want you to know what I am.’
‘Lydia, this is a place of healing. There are so many doctors in the family here.’
‘I know the family. One time I lived in Kibera. I knew Doctor Simon. Doctor Sonya brought my sister’s little boy into the world at their clinic.’
‘We can try to help each other …’
‘Before something happens …’
The two beautiful Kenyan girls looked solemnly at each other. Rebecca was disturbed. She half suspected why but was not ready to search out the full reason.
‘Lydia, two days ago, I was in this … it was more than a room then, more than a place where doctors work, a kind of sanctuary. Simon was here. Maria was preparing him. I’m still confused, but I know that a special healing was happening. It gave me hope.’
‘Thank you.’ Lydia’s smile was relaxed, almost serene as though at least part of a burden had been lifted from her. ‘I am so happy that you have let me be with you. When I saw you all at Kibera this afternoon, I prayed to God that somehow �
�� He has answered me and protected me.’
Rebecca was surprised. ‘You were there?’
‘I do not live there now but have many relatives. Memsahib Sonya was holding my sister’s child in her arms. I was close to you all this afternoon. I saw many things. That is why I have come.’
She looked around the room and up into the shadowy beams of the ceiling as though something in these places would help her find the right words to go on.
‘I love the scent of orange blossom.’ She paused briefly, gathered herself and waded in.
‘I know the Rubai family, too. Reuben could have been my first customer. I was a skinny, stupid one back then. He helped me such a lot. I was at the engagement party, Rebecca. I still do not know why he invited me. I remember your green dress. You were so beautiful but so unhappy.
‘I did not realise at the time, but that was when the change began in my life. Reuben found out that I knew a lot of rich men. He was angry, even when I told him about the house on Ngong Road. My small brother, his chest, he needs a dry place. Thank God he never found out about my richest customer. He sent for me not long after that night.’
Rebecca’s stunned expression told her that she had understood.
‘A few weeks after the time at Muthaiga the big car stopped outside the house for the first time. Mama was in the garden. She rushed in: “Lydia, come quickly! A man is asking for you.
He is not a young man. He is wearing very shiny boots. He looks important”.’
‘It was a big black car.’
‘You are right, Rebecca, but …’
‘And he told you that a very important person wanted to speak to you.’
‘He took me to a farmhouse outside the city, dropped me off and drove away. The door to the house was open. I had met him at the engagement party. He said about four words to me then. Now he was very talkative. “Surprised to see me? I watched you that night. You are the only good thing that I can remember about that bad time. Anyway, my dear Lydia, I thought we might have a chat about things”.’