The Present Moment
Page 11
And then came August, with the early morning stutter of guns through darkness. Then the daylight of vehicles swerving and skidding, some picked up and driven by clueless youngsters, some carrying armed men here and there, slouching and uncertain. Long lines of people passed, laden with goods looted from the town or from neighbours. Others were grumbling and empty-handed because they had been stopped near California flats and robbed in their turn, some losing what they had worked for as well as what they had stolen.
And then by evening, as the tide began to turn, young men running and hiding, leaving the roads strewn with boots, weapons, uniforms, sobbing, begging, threatening for civilian trousers, an identity card, a place to hide. Some of them drunk on unaccustomed spirits, all inflamed with fear and the poison of defeat, without having known what they fought for. And so the boy came, homing on the little shack, not seeing it the most dangerous of all places for him. And they came in the evening, those who had no need to put off their uniform, those who had not been defeated, and fought to avoid defeat, demanding to search, search, and as Bessie smiled and babbled the young man, in his vest and pants, stooped at the doorway and came out, hands high but too late, a shot ripped away his mouth and they left him there where Bessie wept and mumbled, and moved to flush out the next block.
There were many forlorn mothers in those days, some searching for their sons or not daring to search for fear of giving them away, standing in queues at the mortuary till warned of curfew time approaching, hunting for receipts for their household goods as homes were searched and boxes ripped open to find stolen goods, striving not to offend. More folk than usual took for a time to parading in the streets, mouthing pitiful words, raving of the past, attempting to forget their recent hurt. But Bessie sat sobbing and sobbing, her fire unfed, her little store of flour and sugar snatched away.
One day a policeman led her to the Refuge. It needed investigation, Matron said. There was a proper admission procedure. But by morning Bessie’s skinny hens had been eaten, her fence pulled down to build a fire to roast them. Curfew was over. Everything was back to normal. Anything less than normal had better be kept out of sight. Sponsors were found and Bessie stayed.
She submitted to being cleaned up, did not even (like most) reach out for her old dirty garments when she was given new. She ate what was set before her, learned the use of the bathroom, accompanied the others silently to church. A tendency to genuflect led people to think she might have been a Catholic once. She would gather up the smallest scraps of charcoal and present them to Priscilla, whom she seemed to look on as a leader. Priscilla nodded gravely each time and found a cardboard box to keep them in, until enough were accumulated for a ceremonial brewing of tea. And after a silent day, as soon as the light was put out Bessie would begin to weep.
‘My baby, my baby! I thought you would grow up to be a soldier and look after me. But they took you away, my baby – oooh, my baby.’
One day, when a new lot of Community Nurses came, Bessie, who had submitted silently to the girl’s examination, appearing not to understand her questions, suddenly spoke clearly in Swahili. The kitchen assistant, who had been helping bring in their equipment, was very surprised but careful not to interrupt.
‘Do you know about babies?’
‘Why, yes, a bit. We have not done our midwifery yet but we learn to work in the children’s clinic.’
‘They took away my baby,’ persisted Bessie. ‘Who can I ask to get my baby back? You see,’ she whispered, ‘most of these poor old women could not have babies. They are jealous. They don’t want me to get him back.’
Jane was puzzled, but she was a good enough nurse to recognise when somebody needed help.
‘That must have been long ago?’ she asked gently. ‘Where did you have your baby?’
‘I had him here, in Pumwani, at the Maternity, and I took him home from here. It was afterwards he got lost.’
‘Was he very little then?’
‘No, not little. He was a big boy. He helped me. He was in the Air Force, you understand.’
Jane’s face began to crumple, but Bessie was too absorbed to notice her distress.
‘But then he was not a baby, if he was in the Air Force. And it is no use asking at the Maternity if he was grown-up. Have you tried the Headquarters?’
‘How can I ask when it was they who took him away? They sent a truck and they picked him up like a baby, his arms and legs all bare, and they took him away. Where did they take him?’
‘Was he . . . was he able to walk, my mother?’
‘They picked him up like a baby and they took him away. Even they left the blood. In the Maternity they would wipe up the blood. . . . But why do you cry, my dear – Gertrude, is it? – did you lose a baby too?’
‘No, my mother, I am still a girl, I did not have a baby. I wish to God I had had a baby. And I am Jane – Gertrude is the tall one over there. I did not have a baby but I lost a – a friend. Do not ask them too much, my mother, it is over now. Remember the good things. What was his name?’
‘His name is Leonard, but his friends used to call him Lucky. Lucky Leonard. He was not your friend?’
The old woman was trembling. Jane wondered if she would be in trouble for upsetting her. But this was more important than taking temperatures and inspecting the bed.
‘No, he was not my friend. My friend was John and he was – taken away – too. But I am sure I met Lucky Leonard. We used to go for dances, you know. It all seems so far away.’
She covered her face in her arms.
‘Yes, well, we have all had our dances,’ said the old lady quietly. ‘I think your teacher is looking for you. Just try to find out for me if you can.’
‘Jane – Jane, haven’t you finished yet? We want to compare notes.’
‘Just coming, tutor, I’m sorry. The old lady had some questions, you see. . . .’
Gertrude was interviewing Priscilla and giving her a quick health check. She was a long-limbed, round-cheeked girl, just like Priscilla, who, at the same age, had loved games at school and taken a great pride in her own strength. She had hugged to herself the prospect of marriage when the dowry was first settled – she was already twenty-two, having returned to school, at Mrs Bateson’s urging, when standards five and six became available locally to girls. She had come to regard the processes of school and of a European house routine as natural – she had never lived in a village – and had never been circumcised. There was a church wedding in a modest white cotton dress and afterwards in the farm clerk’s house she and Evans had come together with a passion such as none of the grannies had ever hinted to her was possible. She had continued to work in the house – Jim was quite a baby then and Susan a couple of years older – but her thoughts were always straying back to the night. Her whole horizon was lighted up by her feeling for Evans. It amazed her afterwards that in those two years she had never conceived a child. Yet at the time she was so happy that she never yearned for a baby as other girls seemed to do if a year passed before they became pregnant. She made cloths and covers for the house. Both of them earned money. They were able to dress and eat well. . . .
She pulled herself together. Why open it all up again just because she had met a healthy girl who would soon be married, and she was hardly used to meeting young people any more? Gertrude was asking about the action of her bowels and making notes in a little book.
‘You seem very healthy,’ she said. ‘I am sure it is because you know the rules of health.’
‘Rules of health? I suppose so,’ answered Priscilla. ‘I had a good schooling as things went in my day, and I always worked in nice, clean houses. But when I was nearly sixty the doctor said I had to stop because of my heart, and I had nowhere to go, so, you see, they brought me here.’
‘You have no family?’
‘No, I never had any children.’
‘You are a widow, then?’
‘No, or rather perhaps not.’
‘It must be yes or no,’ said the gi
rl, smiling.
Priscilla felt very weak. She must not become a gossip. But the girl had a strange attraction for her.
‘I do not talk about it with these old ladies,’ she said stiffly in English, dredging up the words from the far past. ‘But my husband went away, you see. He went away to get more education.’
‘And did not come back?’
‘And never came back. He wrote to me twice.’
‘From America?’
‘No, not America. In those days we did not know much about America. He said there were chances in Uganda. But perhaps after that he went overseas. It is possible.’
‘That was long ago?’
‘Of course, long ago. I was a big strong girl like you then. It was about the time Mr Kenyatta came back from England after the war. We were all thinking about education. My husband had gone up to standard eight. He was a clerk on a farm. But he wanted more.’
‘Nearly forty years. . . . And you waited?’
‘Yes, I waited, I worked. I had a good employer,’ she was back in Swahili now. ‘I was kept comfortable.’
‘I don’t think I could do that. I am getting married soon to the brother of my friend – that one over there. But I don’t think I could bear it if he left me like that.’
‘I was married in church,’ Priscilla said primly. ‘It was a matter of duty. One does not ever discuss these things – please don’t. . . . But then,’ she added under her breath, half hoping the girl would not hear, ‘I loved him.’
‘Yes,’ replied Gertrude solemnly. ‘I understand. And I see that you do. The tutor is calling me now. Thank you for telling me. I’ll come and see you again and show you a picture of my Sam,’ she called over her shoulder, pledging the most precious thing she had, the cheap ring flashing on her left hand as she strode off to join the group comparing notes.
‘And I see that you do.’ I must be getting old and crazy, thought Priscilla. Bringing it all out like that. Or did I just want to stop her going on to the next questions – father killed; brother maimed; mother died; sister widowed. . . .
Was it really because there had been no baby? That was what most people thought afterwards. But at the time it hardly even struck her, they had been so sure of each other. It had come out of the blue.
‘I am not satisfied. I need to learn more. You also should one day get more education. There is a power in us that is not being used properly. In Uganda they say the standard is higher. I have to go. I know that I can get employment if I need to. Then I will send for you or come back for a holiday. You will be all right here.’
He gave his one month’s notice and left. The Batesons tried to persuade him to plan ahead, to travel with his wife, but he was so consumed with restlessness that she had to let him go.
The house had to go to the new clerk – the same who would resign after five years and then creep back with a panga in his hand – but they found a little room for her in the servants’ quarters, and she moved there with their bits of furniture and embroidered pillowcases. Anthea Bateson was born a few months later, so she had a baby – for a few years – to keep her busy after all.
The first letter from Evans came from Jinja a month after he had left, saying he thought he had fixed a place in high school. He was working in the school office meanwhile and had enough money in reserve for the first year’s fees. Then after about three months came a letter without an address saying that the seminary offered everything to fulfil his ambition and he had now had his eyes opened to the claims of the true church. Of course a priest was not supposed to keep a wife but perhaps she also had mistaken her vocation. It would be better to keep apart for a while to test out the situation – perhaps at the end of a year they could discuss the matter. That was the last word she ever had. Evans’s father, Waitito, and his mother, Miriam, had heard nothing. No rumour of his return ever reached the district.
She moaned and rocked herself on the bed they had shared, prayed at first passionately for his return, then, more mildly, that his apostasy be forgiven, at length doggedly for strength to bear it. By the time the other blows fell and they moved to Nairobi she was over thirty and Kikuyuland full of widows and detention-widows. She buttoned herself into her uniform dresses, polite smiles, sensible shoes. The only thing that surprised her any more was to be told she had heart trouble. Did she really have a heart?
Wairimu watched Priscilla talking with the girl and wondered what it was all about. Mrs Njuguna, Priscilla was called, and spoke little about herself. She must have been a baby when Wairimu first went to Nairobi but a mature woman when the bad times came, the times she refused to talk about. Well, no Kikuyu had come unscathed through those years and very few were eager to talk about them. Look at me, Wairimu reproached herself, full of stories of Thuku and roadwork and terracing, but how much else is bottled up inside? All of us keep something back – even Sophia, for all her talk. Thirty of us, mostly withholding something we know about ourselves, some, like poor Bessie, withholding something we don’t know. The stories we learned when we were children were all about big people – braver, stronger, fiercer, cleverer, even wickeder, than anyone we knew. The ordinary people got passed off as hares or hyenas or birds. But if we knew the secrets of those little people, or the littleness of the big people – what they were afraid of, what they were mean over, what they wasted – then there would be the true story of our people. But it is easier to think in headlines. ‘Prince Charles goes to school’ was one the clerk had translated for her at the coffee: and then the small print on an inside page told how many ‘terrorists’ had been hanged.
After all, Wairimu decided, if she were young now she would not be a nurse. She would be a journalist. Why had she not thought of it before? She spread out a shaky hand, scarred with burns and prickles, and laughed. She had always found it an effort to scratch out a message on paper. Nowadays she could hardly hold the pencil to scrawl her name on the allowance form. And now she could only read the big print. Priscilla could read aloud well, using her glasses, and sometimes they got a visitor or a schoolgirl in to read the Swahili paper. As though, Nekesa pouted, it would ever have anything to do with them: the New Testament was all she wanted to hear. She had come to it late and couldn’t have enough of it. But even from these ragged readings, with old ladies jogging one another to see the pictures, or the younger ones, who knew their birthdays, wanting to hear their stars, Wairimu could see how it ought to be done.
‘Harry Thuku saved me from a life of shame. Amazing revelations of old Nairobi.’ (Well, partly saved me, anyway.)
‘The Thika tramway, a first-hand recollection.’
‘Freedom fighters or labour activists?’
There was a regular TV programme, Wazee Hukumbuka, Old People’s Memories. Why had they never called her? But a documentary film – if she had a granddaughter, it would be done.
She had stayed at Kabete till 1931, when things were very bad in the coffee. About then Sophia would have been having her first baby, Priscilla would be in elementary school, Nekesa was getting used to living at the quarry with the rough stepfather, Rahel would have been a big girl, learning the songs and starting to go with the bridal parties to bring home the evidences of virtue. Once you knew it, you could see them young, catch them out as girls by the turn of a head, the choice of a word. Even she must betray her history to the others by jerky movements and squared shoulders. The basket of coffee is not so heavy as the firewood or water. The plantation is not so steep as the home ridge and valley.
The plantation at Kabete was barely working. Prices for produce were low and overseas countries had mysteriously become so poor that, even so, they could not pay them. The Master’s family were living mostly on what they could grow in their kitchen garden. The car hardly left the garage. The Seychelloise sewing lady did not come any more. Then came the locusts. Wairimu had not yet learned about the plagues of Egypt, but when she did the locusts were the ones she understood first from her own experience. There would be others later.
The men knew what to do. They had already met the menace several times. First there had to be noise – people beating on tin cans, blowing whistles, shouting, all in the eerie darkness, instinctively feeling that the threat could be frightened away. Then you took sticks, sacks, lengths of rope – but no pangas, since in the mêlée you might easily find yourself swatting a friend or neighbour – and went on banging against the creatures as they weighted down the bushes and bent the lower branches of trees. But it was more to show willing than in the hope of being effective. For each one that fell to the ground and cracked like a cockroach under your feet, five more tangled with you in the air, and who could say how many flew on, surfeited, to the next battle area? Some of the workers wanted to set fires to suffocate the locusts with smoke, but the Master did not agree since he was afraid the fires might destroy more than the locusts. Wairimu was glad he refused: though she had not yet got to know the terror of fire, she saw no sense in leaping from one danger to another.