by Iman Verjee
His shock came up all at once, a massive roil, and he had to look away while he swallowed it down. David’s body, strung up by thick rope to a hook in the ceiling where an old lampshade used to hang, took a pendulous swing, the tips of his polished black shoes scraping the table eerily. Jeffery noticed that his shoelaces had come undone and he felt an urgency to retie them properly.
‘Get him down, mafalas!’ Jeffery scrambled to get up on the table. ‘What are you doing, staring like that? Get him down right now.’
He struggled to hoist himself up, had to pause to catch his breath and found that some men behind him were sniggering, shivering with silent mockery. ‘David, David!’ He grappled at the dead man’s shirt, the mud-flecked hems of his trousers, trying to release him but unable to figure out the first step in doing so, his mind was such a daze. ‘This is not what I wanted!’ he cried out before realizing he was giving away too much.
A few of the younger officers took Jeffery’s place, springing up onto the desk and using a knife to sever the rope around David’s thickened, bruised windpipe. He fell, a loud thundering crash, and six men came rushing forward to catch his limp body.
When he was taken from the station half an hour later, wrapped in a black polythene sheet in the back of an ambulance, the image of death lingered in Jeffery’s mind.
He believed he had seen the worst of it, witnessing his mother shrink and disappear into her own waste, but this was equally horrifying because though he had been angry with his friend, Jeffery was certain that he would also be lost without him. He put his head in his hands and made a tally: two deaths to his name.
This one was put down to suicide. Too much pressure, the police commissioner had said in front of a host of media. Frenzied, bloodthirsty animals who failed to grasp the dreadful reality of the situation. To them, David had always been dead, whereas Jeffery remembered the gravel rasp of his voice, the brown-stained smile, the softness that fell across his eyes every time someone mentioned his wife.
The commissioner was equally disillusioned. He glorified David as a shining example for all other police officers, adding credentials to his name – a fighter of crime, a patriot in love with his country; he would be sorely missed and had given the commissioner a lot to reflect upon regarding the living standards of the police force, who were the backbone of Kenyan society. And when Jeffery was named the new senior officer later on that very day, he couldn’t turn it down, reminding himself that if he did so, his friend’s death would have been in vain.
He refused to attend the funeral, instead heading in search of Marlyn after many months, stepping into the dim Westlands bar and, without waiting for her to finish her shift, took her to the Jacaranda Hotel. He was rough and angry with her, and when she cried out he put a hand over her mouth and nose, gripping his fingers tightly together.
‘His poor wife. What will she do now?’ Marlyn was pressing the sides of her cheeks lightly, where he had bruised her. He hadn’t responded but her question had given him an idea of how he could relieve himself of his guilt. After leaving her that night, he went to David’s house and walked in to find Esther packing.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Upcountry, to my family home. How can I stay here alone?’
She looked even smaller and more like his mother. He caught her by both arms and promised, ‘I’ll look after you.’ When she staggered back in confusion, he added, ‘It’s what David would have wanted.’
He left his house in Kibera and everything that was in it and took his final bus ride into the city a week later, where he moved straight into his friend’s South C home. He climbed into bed with his wife and claimed her and that was where, several months later, he was roused and frightened by the obese and greedy stranger smirking back at him from the unformed, shapeless reflection of the exposed windows.
27
Leena walked the empty corridor, turning the lights on as she went. The smooth marble tiles were cold so she raised herself on tiptoes and continued down the stairs. She never noticed how big the house was except for when she was alone in it, staring into the deserted, quiet rooms, some of which they used and a few of which always remained unoccupied.
There was a drawing room her mother had set up in the hopes of entertaining their new neighbors, complete with a colonial-style coffee table and an extravagant divan couch. The plush, ruby carpet blended with the dark, wood-paneled walls and the impressive bookcase, filled almost entirely with Raj’s old cricket trophies. The furniture here was now draped in white bedsheets because, as Pooja had come to discover, the neighbors in Runda minded their own business.
‘And they’re all gorahs!’ she had exclaimed, dismayed, a week after they had moved in. ‘You tricked me, Raj Kohli. What will I do now for company with only white people living here?’
‘There is a Punjabi family living three doors up.’ Raj tried to placate her. ‘Why don’t you go and disturb them?’
‘How much can I speak to one woman?’
‘You mean, how much gossip can one woman give you?’ her husband had teased back.
Despite her reservations, Pooja had visited the family anyway, had met Roopa Sharma, and to Raj’s relief, it was within this woman’s impeccably decorated, three-story house that Pooja found some of the comfort she was seeking.
That night, Leena lay down on the well-worn couch of their family room, looking through the French doors into the garden outside. It was dark and she couldn’t make out the shape of things, but heard the wide leaves of the banana trees scratching the glass, bothered by the rain that had just begun to fall.
It was rare that she was left at home by herself, but today her parents had a wedding to attend and Jai was staying late on campus at Nairobi University. She checked the clock on the wall, hoping that he would be home soon.
Every creak and rattle startled her, though she was comforted by the night guard’s footsteps patrolling the house at thirty-minute intervals. It reminded her of how she had felt those first few evenings here in Runda, surrounded by too much empty space. All the night sounds that had been so comforting in her old home had spread themselves out here, become bigger and louder and drove her deep into the cushions.
She recalled the first time they had pulled a left turn from the main road, into an emerald side street. How deathly silent it had been, stepping out of the car – disconcerting not to see other children playing in the driveway or hear the shouts of so many women; there was no sign of activity at the new house except for the bustling of insects in flower pots and the rustling leaves of the aging blue gum tree guarding the gate.
Though the house itself was new, it had been built in an old, colonial style – an attempt to recapture a time when life in Kenya had followed a slow and dreamy rhythm – and the flat, wide open garden stretching out behind it was a mosaic of green. Perfectly symmetrical, with a gambrel roof and curved eaves, she had instantly been drawn to the house and, when she stepped inside, sunlight had drowned her on all sides.
Jai had removed his socks and slid along the polished floor, while her mother floated trance-like from room to room. It was so different from the cramped apartment, holding promises of a life where lunches were a lazy, drawn-out affair, complete with pink gin fizzes and evenings that were reserved for high-society parties, where her guests would dance out on the patio until early morning.
‘This is not Happy Valley,’ her husband had reminded her. ‘Where people come to get drunk and swap wives.’
‘You take the fun out of everything,’ she had pouted, at which he had laughed and kissed her temple.
That day, they had eaten lunch in the garden. Pooja had spread an old tablecloth over the grass, beneath the low branches of a growing, white hibiscus tree and they ate egg sandwiches and drank cold juice from plastic cups.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ Pooja had mused, pulling in the air through her nostrils. ‘Remember this moment,’ she told her children, her thoughts wandering and serene. ‘Thi
s is what happiness feels like.’
Warmed by the sun, Leena had agreed with her, but then came the inky cover of night and she was alone for the first time in her life. She dreamt of Michael and Angela, saw them crossing the black garden and blending in amongst the flame trees – was certain she heard them slip through the French doors and creep up the stairs to come and stand over her bed. They were frowning and disappointed that she had not thought about them once that day. But then morning came and with it, brazen sunlight, and she had jumped eagerly from her bed to throw open the curtains. The garden was empty, with everything in its place, and she had felt silly and childish for having been so frightened.
‘It’s because you miss them,’ Jai had told her. ‘I dream about them too.’
But the dreams stayed only for a few days, though she never admitted it to her brother. Leena became so caught up in the excitement of her new life that she forgot to think of what she had left behind.
She and Pooja spent the first few weeks rearranging the furniture, walking the garden and attempting to identify every tree and flower; they went shopping for new paintings to put up on bare walls, for the divan couch that had golden tassels and looked like something out of a fairy tale. They went from store to store, collecting previously unheard of items that now fit perfectly in their lives. Things such as laundry baskets and potpourri – Pooja even bought a wine rack in the shape of a curvy Maasai woman, made from minuscule beads, and a hand-blown glass vase that was like swirling seas of color.
In these shops, Leena would meet more gorahs than she had ever seen. French, German, British – all with the same polite disposition and indifferent attitudes. They didn’t stare or stop to make conversation the way she was used to, and though they smiled, it was brief and courteous.
She listened to them converse in magical accents, which she practiced in front of the mirror: ‘Isn’t that a lovely dress. Hello, Mrs Cow-Lee, have a nice day!’ raising her voice to a singing top note. She transported herself to the cobbled streets of London, as elegant and reserved as these women were in their loose blouses and pressed chinos, their sweatless skin, their clipped speech a refreshing change from the abrasive shouts of the women she remembered from the compound.
These Runda women never ate with their fingers or leaned down to twist her chin, commenting on her many flaws and how she must groom them if she ever wanted to find a husband.
‘Boring,’ Pooja had told her as they drove home from one such shop. ‘They’re plain and boring with no taste for life. Just straight, straight faces all the time.’
‘They mind their own business,’ Leena had argued.
‘It’s because they’re selfish, thinking of themselves only. We care about each other.’
Every time they would come home from one of these excursions, Pooja would park the car and lean over the backseat, reaching for every item and removing the price tags, careful to make sure that Betty, the new maid, never saw how much they were spending.
But Jai was different in the new house. Sullen and moody, he spent most of his time locked up in his room. When Leena knocked on his door to ask if she could join him or if he wanted to play with her in the garden, he told her that he was busy and snidely remarked that she should go shopping or meet her friends at the new cinema that had opened up only ten minutes away. He said these things to her with heavy distaste, scowling and turning back to his books, as if her new-found happiness was the greatest insult he had ever received.
Later that night, still on the sofa, Leena was startled awake by a noise. She jerked upright, disorientated and rubbing away her sleep in the two o’clock morning darkness. It took her a moment to realize that it was a woman shouting and her first instinct was to think that it was her mother, that they were being robbed. She perched, frozen, at the end of the couch.
When Jai entered the room, she was flooded with hot relief. ‘Who is that?’
‘I’m going to check.’
She followed him out to the gate with a hammering chest, where he stopped to speak in Swahili to the guard. Jai had become fluent after Raj had enrolled him in extra classes, and though Leena had begged to go with him, Pooja had refused, asking, ‘Why on earth would you need to speak Swahili?’
As the two of them stepped out of the vicinity of their gate, the voices grew louder and Leena now heard a man speaking over the frantic tones of the woman. She was trying to say something but he kept interrupting her with words that were like a sledge hammer, heavy and careless.
‘Go back in and go to bed,’ Pooja commanded when she saw her daughter emerge, but Leena ignored her because the scene gathering on the street was too intriguing.
A few of the other residents had come out of their houses, dressed in pajamas and wrapping their robes around them, peering up the hill toward the arguing shadows.
‘That’s the Sharma’s daughter,’ Pooja whispered loudly. ‘She’s on holiday from university in England.’
Leena heard the other neighbors snicker at Pooja when she said this, rolling their eyes at her nosy interest. When she turned back to the voices, she saw that the girl was clutching an armload of clothes, pleading, ‘Please don’t do this. I don’t have anywhere to go.’
‘You should have thought about that before you touched that—’ The man’s voice faltered before he spit out words, ripe with disgust. ‘That askari.’
Pooja’s astounded, delighted shock caused her to unashamedly exclaim, ‘Uh-reh!’ too loudly, so that Leena had to clap her hand over her mother’s mouth.
‘People can hear you, Ma,’ she hissed, looking apologetically at the German woman who lived opposite them, and who was now shaking her head.
‘Well, how can you hang your panties out to dry and then blame people for looking?’ Pooja demanded to know, turning to their neighbor and calling out in a sing-song voice, ‘Isn’t that so, Mrs Schultz?’
‘His name is Patrick,’ the Sharma girl was saying.
‘I don’t care. Do you have any idea what people are going to say about you? About us?’ The man was tugging at his langar, the traditional Indian sarong tucked around his waist.
‘He’s a human being just like you and me and if people can’t understand that then I don’t care what they think.’
‘Good for her.’ Mrs Schultz glared at Pooja, who in turn muttered pointedly.
‘These gorahs. Really.’
‘So go and live with him then.’ The man threw a duffle bag at her. ‘Pack up your things and go.’
The Sharma girl unzipped the bag slowly, her head tilted up to her father. ‘I never meant to hurt you but I won’t apologize for it. In London, things like this happen all the time. It’s natural, baba – it’s not a sin.’
‘Do they also teach you to run around with a boy behind your family’s back? To have a relationship outside of marriage? Outside of your culture? We have our own rules here, our own traditions. Or don’t you remember them, have you become so corrupted?’
‘It’s not that simple.’
The man pointed in the direction of the main road. ‘Take your Queen Elizabeth ideas and leave. But when you come to your senses, don’t run back here. You don’t belong to this family any more.’
The girl panicked. ‘Just try to see my side of the story – I don’t want to leave you.’
‘And I don’t want to see you in this house ever again.’
‘You know how unsafe it is here at night-time. Where will I go?’
‘Go and live with Patrick.’ The voice was malicious in its power.
‘How can he speak to his daughter that way?’ asked a devastated Mrs Schultz.
‘He’s teaching her a lesson. She must know she cannot shame her family that way,’ Pooja told her neighbor.
Mrs Shultz’s pale, wrinkled face turned beet. ‘And how exactly did she do that, Mrs Cow-Li?’
‘Ko-Lee,’ Pooja corrected her, pursing her lips and saying, as if speaking to a child, ‘it’s Ko-Lee.’
Raj stood a little ahead of them
, a broad figure on the grass with his legs spread wide, hands tucked together behind him. He watched as the man strode back into his house, the Sharma girl collecting up her clothes, stifled sobs rising occasionally in the cold stillness. Pooja and Jai sneaked a shared look. I told you so, his mother’s eyes said and Pooja was glad she had taken early precautions to ensure that a similar thing would never happen to her daughter.
‘Show time is over,’ she announced, ushering Leena back into the house. ‘Chalo, let’s go to bed. Goodnight, Mrs Schultz!’
Before Leena stepped into the gate, she saw her father gesture Jai over. He said, ‘Go and get her. She’ll stay with us tonight.’
Pooja protested but Raj held his hand up to silence her, looking more somber than Leena could ever remember him being.
‘This isn’t a discussion,’ he said, watching as Jai picked up the girl’s bags and ushered her down the hill. Leena saw it then, the return of an old glint in Raj’s eye, the proud twisting of his lips, and had never been more envious of her brother.
‘That girl’s mother will never speak to me again!’ Pooja wailed from upstairs – ‘What have you done, Raj? Just like always, only thinking about yourself!’ – before her husband closed the bedroom door and made their voices disappear.
Jai and Leena sat opposite the young woman, her muscles jerking occasionally with a shiver, fists clutched between her knees.
‘Do you want some tea?’ Leena tried to be helpful.
The girl attempted a smile but instead her face contracted and her eyes became wet. ‘If you wouldn’t mind. I’m so sorry for all of this.’ Her words came out in bursts. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t taken me in.’
‘We couldn’t have let you stay out there.’
‘You must think I’m crazy.’ She accepted the tea from Leena gratefully, wrapping her long fingers around the cup to keep warm. ‘But I couldn’t take it any more.’