Song of a Dry River

by Mike Resnick

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  Fictionwise Publications

  www.fictionwise.com

  Copyright (C)1991 Mike Resnick

  First published in Stalking the Wild Resnick, NESFA Press, 1991

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  I will tell you why Ngai is the most cunning and powerful god of all.

  Eons ago, when the Europeans were evil and their god decided to punish them, he caused it to rain for forty days and forty nights and covered the earth with water—and because of this, the Europeans think that their god is more powerful than Ngai, who sits on His golden throne atop Kirinyaga, which men now call Mount Kenya.

  Certainly it is no small accomplishment to cover the earth with water—but when the Kikuyu heard the story of Noah from the European missionaries, it did nothing to convince us that the god of the Europeans is more powerful than Ngai.

  Ngai knows that water is the source of all life, and so when He wishes to punish us, He does not cover our lands with it. Instead He inhales deeply, and sucks the moisture from the air and the soil. Our rivers dry up, our crops fail, and our cattle and goats die of thirst.

  The god of the Europeans may have created the flood—but it was Ngai who created the drought.

  Can there be any doubt why He is the god that we fear and worship?

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  We emigrated from Kenya to the terraformed world of Kirinyaga to create a Kikuyu Utopia, a society that mirrored the simple, pastoral life we led before our culture was corrupted by the coming of the Europeans—and for the most part we have been successful.

  Still, there are times when things seem to be coming apart, and it takes everything I can do in my capacity as the mundumugu—the witch doctor—to keep Kirinyaga functioning as it was meant to function.

  On the morning of the day that I brought the curse down upon my people, my youthful assistant, Ndemi, had overslept again and once more forgot to feed my chickens. Then I had to make the long trek to a neighboring village, where in direct contradition of my orders they had begun planting maize in an overused field which I had decreed must lay fallow until after the long rains. I explained once more that the land needed time to rest and regain its strength, but as I left I had the distinct feeling that I would be back again the next week or the next month, giving them the same lecture.

  On the way home, I had to settle a dispute between Ngona, who had diverted a small stream to irrigate his fields, and Kamaki, who claimed that his crops were suffering because the stream no longer carried enough water to his crops. This was the eleventh time someone had tried to divert the stream, and the eleventh time I had angrily explained that the water belonged to the entire village.

  Then Sabella, who was to pay me two fat, healthy goats for presiding at his son's wedding, delivered two animals that were so underfed and scrawny that they didn't even look like goats. Ordinarily I might not have lost my temper, but I was tired of people keeping their best animals and trying to pay me with cattle and goats that looked half-dead, so I threatened to anull the marriage unless he replaced them.

  Finally, Ndemi's mother told me that he was spending too much time studying to be a mundumugu, and that she needed him to tend his family's cattle, this in spite of the fact that he has three strong, healthy brothers.

  A number of the women stared at me in amusement as I walked through the village, as if they knew some secret of which I was ignorant, and by the time I reached the long, winding path that led to the hill where I lived, I was annoyed with all of my people. I craved only the solitude of my boma, and a gourd of pombe to wash away the dust of the day.

  When I heard the sound of a human voice singing on my hill, I assumed that it was Ndemi, carrying out his afternoon chores. But as I approached more closely, I realized that the voice was that of a woman.

  I shaded my eyes from the sun and peered ahead, and there, halfway up my hill, a wrinkled old woman was busily erecting a hut beneath an acacia tree, weaving the twigs and branches together to form the walls, and singing to herself. I blinked in surprise, for it is well known that no one else may live on the mundumugu's hill.

  The woman saw me and smiled. “Jambo, Koriba,” she greeted me as if nothing was amiss. “Is it not a beautiful day?”

  I saw now that she was Mumbi, the mother of Koinnage, who was the paramount chief of the village.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded as I approached her.

  “As you see, I am building a hut,” she said. “We are going to be neighbors, Koriba.”

  I shook my head. “I require no neighbors,” I said, pulling my blanket more tightly around my shoulders. “And you already have a hut on Koinnage's shamba.”

  “I no longer wish to live there,” said Mumbi.

  “You may not live on my hill,” I said. “The mundumugu lives alone.”

  “I have faced the doorway to the east,” she said, turning to the broad, sprawling savannah beyond the river and ignoring my statement. “That way the rays of the sun will bring warmth into it in the morning.”

  “This is not even a true Kikuyu hut,” I continued angrily. “A strong wind will blow it over, and it will protect you from neither the cold nor the hyenas.”

  “It will protect me from the sun and the rain,” she responded. “Next week, when I have more strength, I will fill in the walls with mud.”

  “Next week you will be living with Koinnage, where you belong,” I said.

  “I will not,” she said adamantly. “Before I would return to Koinnage's shamba, I would rather you left my withered old body out for the hyenas.”

  That can be arranged, I thought irritably, for I had seen enough foolishness for one day. But aloud I said: “Why do you feel this way, Mumbi? Does Koinnage no longer treat you with respect?”

  “He treats me with respect,” she admitted, trying to straighten her ancient body and placing a gnarled hand to the small of her back.

  “Koinnage has three wives,” I continued, slapping futilely at a pair of flies that circled my face. “If any of them have ignored you or treated you with disrespect, I will speak to them.”

  She snorted contemptuously. “Ha!”

  I paused and stared at a small herd of impala grazing on the savannah, trying to decide upon the best way to approach the subject. “Have you fought with them?”

  “I did not realize that the mornings were so cold on this hill,” she said, rubbing her wrinkled chin with a gnarled hand. “I will need more blankets.”

  “You did not answer my question,” I said.

  “And firewood,” she continued. “I will have to gather much firewood.”

  “I have heard enough,” I said firmly. “You must return to your home, Mmubi.”

  “I will not!” she said, laying a protective hand on the walls of her hut. “This will be my home.”

  “This is the mundumugu's hill. I will not permit you to live here.”

  “I am tired of people telling me what I am not permitted to do,” she said. Suddenly she pointed to a fish eagle that was lazily riding the thermals over the river. “Why should I not be as free as that bird? I will live here on this hill.”

  “Who else has told you what you cannot do?” I asked.

  “It is not important.”

  “It must be import
ant,” I said, “or you would not be here.”

  She stared at me for a moment, then shrugged. “Wambu has said I may not help her cook the meals, and Kibo no longer lets me grind the maize or brew the pombe.” She glared at me defiantly. “I am the mother of the paramount chief of the village! I will not be treated like a helpless baby.”

  “They are treating you as a respected elder,” I explained. “You no longer have to work. You have raised your family, and now you have reached the point where they will care for you.”

  “I do not want to be cared for!” she snapped. “All my life I have run my shamba, and I have run it well. I am not ready to stop.”

  “Did not your own mother stop when her husband died and she moved into her son's shamba?” I asked, slapping at my cheek as one of the flies finally settled on it.

  “My mother no longer had the strength to run her shamba,” said Mumbi defensively. “That is not the case with me.”

  “If you do not step aside, how are Koinnage's wives ever to learn to run his shamba?”

  “I will teach them,” replied Mumbi. “They still have much to learn. Wambu does not cook the banana mash as good as I do, and as for Kibo, well...” She shrugged her shoulders, to indicate that Koinnage's youngest wife was beyond redemption.

  “But Wambu is the mother of three sons and is soon to become a grandmother herself,” I noted. “If she is not ready to run her husband's shamba by now, then she never will be.”

  A satisfied smile crossed Mumbi's leathery face. “So you agree with me.”

  “You misunderstand me,” I said. “There comes a time when the old must make way for the young.”

  “You have not made way for anyone,” she said accusingly.

  “I am the mundumugu,” I answered. “It is not my physical strength that I offer to the village, but my wisdom, and wisdom is the province of age.”

  “And I offer my wisdom to my son's wives,” she said stubbornly.

  “It is not the same thing,” I said.

  “It is precisely the same thing,” she replied. “When we still lived in Kenya, I fought for Kirinyaga's charter as fiercely as you yourself did, Koriba. I came here in the same spaceship that brought you, and I helped clear the land and plant the fields. It is not fair that I should be cast aside now, just because I am old.”

  “You are not being cast aside,” I explained patiently. “You came here to live the traditional life of the Kikuyu, and it is our tradition to care for our elders. You shall never want for food, or for a roof over your head, or for care when you are sick.”

  “But I don't feel like an elder!” she protested. She pointed to her loom and her pots, which she had brought up the hill from the village. “I can still weave cloth and repair thatch and cook meals. I am not too old to grind the maize and carry the water calabashes. If I am no longer permitted to do these things for my family, than I shall live here on this hill and do them for myself.”

  “That is unacceptable,” I said. “You must return to your home.”

  “It is not mine any more,” she replied bitterly. “It is Wambu's.”

  I looked down at her stooped, wrinkled body. “It is the order of things that the old shall make way for the young,” I said once again.

  “Who will you make way for?” she asked bitterly.

  “I am training young Ndemi to become the next mundumugu,” I said. “When he is ready, I shall step aside.”

  “Who will decide when he is ready?”

  “I will.”

  “Then I should decide when Wambu is ready to run my son's shamba.”

  “What you should do is listen to your mundumugu,” I said. “Your shoulders are stooped and your back is bent from the burden of your years. The time has come to let your son's wives care for you.”

  Her jaw jutted out pugnaciously. “I will not let Wambu cook for me. I have always cooked for myself, ever since we lived beside the dry river in Kenya.” She paused again. “I was very happy then,” she added bitterly.

  “Perhaps you must learn how to be happy again,” I answered. “You have earned the right to rest, and to let others work for you. This should make you happy.”

  “But it doesn't.”

  “That is because you have lost sight of our purpose,” I said. “We left Kenya and came to Kirinyaga because we wished to retain our customs and traditions. If I permit you to ignore them, then I must let everyone ignore them, and then we will no longer be a Kikuyu Utopia, but merely a second Kenya.”

  “You told us that in a Utopia, everyone is happy,” she said. “Well, I am not happy, so something must be wrong with Kirinyaga.”

  “And running Koinnage's shamba will make it right?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But then Wambu and Kibo will be unhappy.”

  “Then perhaps there are no Utopias, and we must each be concerned with our own happiness,” said Mumbi.

  Why are old people so selfish and unfeeling? I wondered. Here I am, hot and thirsty and tired, and all she can do is complain about how unhappy she is.

  “Come with me,” I said. “We will go to the village together, and we will find a solution to your problem. You may not remain here.”

  She stared at me for a very long moment, then shrugged. “I will come with you, but we will not find a solution, and then I will return here to my new home.”

  The sun was low in the sky as we climbed down the hill and began walking along the winding path, and twilight had fallen by the time we reached the village and began walking by the various huts. A number of men and women had gathered at Koinnage's shamba, and most of them displayed the same amused expressions I had seen earlier in the day. As I approached Koinnage's boma, they followed me, eager to see what punishment I would mete out to Mumbi, as if her transgression and my anger were the highlight of their evening's entertainment.

  “Koinnage!” I said in a loud, firm voice.

  There was no response, and I called his name twice more before he finally emerged from his hut, a sheepish expression on his face.

  “Jambo, Koriba,” he said uneasily. “I did not know you were here.”

  I glared at him. “Did you also not know your mother was here?”

  “This is her shamba: where else would she be?” he asked innocently.

  “You know very well where she was,” I said, as the light of the evening fires cast flickering shadows on his face. “I advise you to think very carefully of the consequences before you lie to your mundumugu again.”

  He seemed to shrink into himself for a moment. Then he noticed all the villagers behind me.

  “What are they doing here?” he demanded. “Return to your bomas, all of you!”

  They backed away a few steps, but did not leave.

  Koinnage turned to Mumbi. “See how you shame me in front of my people? Why do you do this to me? Am I not the paramount chief?”

  “I would think that the paramount chief could control his mother,” I said sarcastically.

  “I have tried,” said Koinnage. “I do not know what has gotten into her.” He glared at Mumbi. “I order you once again to return to your hut.”

  “No,” said Mumbi.

  “But I am the chief!” he insisted, half furiously, half whining. “You must obey me.”

  Mumbi stared defiantly at him. “No,” she said again.

  He turned back to me. “You see how it is,” he said helplessly. “You are the mundumugu; you must order her to stay here.”

  “No one tells the mundumugu what he must do,” I said severely, for I already knew what Mumbi's response to my order would be. “Summon your wives.”

  He seemed relieved to be sent away, however briefly, and he went off to the cooking hut, returning a moment later with Wambu, Sumi and Kibo.

  “You all know that a problem exists,” I said. “Mumbi is so unhappy that she wishes to leave your shamba and live on my hill.”

  “It is a good idea,” said Kibo. “It is too crowded here.”

  “It
is a bad idea,” I replied firmly. “She must live with her family.”

  “No one is stopping her,” said Kibo petulantly.

  “She wants to take a more active part in the daily life of the shamba,” I continued. “Surely there is something she can do, so that the harmony of your shamba is preserved.”

  For a long moment no one spoke. Then Wambu, who is Koinnage's senior wife, stepped forward.

  “I am sorry you are so unhappy, my mother,” she said. “You may of course brew the pombe and weave the cloth.”

  “Those are my jobs!” protested Kibo.

  “We must show respect for our husband's mother,” said Wambu with smug smile.

  “Why do we not show her even more respect and let her supervise the cooking?” said Kibo.

  “I am Koinnage's senior wife,” said Wambu firmly. “I do the cooking.”

  “And I brew the pombe and weave the cloth,” said Kibo stubbornly.

  “And I pound the grain and fetch the water,” added Shumi. “You must find something else for her to do.”

  Mumbi turned to me. “I told you that it wouldn't work, Koriba,” she said. “I will gather the rest of my possessions and move into my new home.”

  “You will not,” I said. “You will remain with your family, as mothers have always remained with their families.”

  “I am not ready to be cast aside as my grandchildren cast aside their toys,” she replied.

  “And I am not ready to allow you to break with the traditions of the Kikuyu,” I said sternly. “You will stay here.”

  “I will not!” she replied, and I heard some of the villagers chuckling at this withered old lady who defied both her chief and her mundumugu.

  “Koinnage,” I said, directing him and his family inside the thorn fence of his boma, so that we might be further away from the onlookers, “she is your mother. Speak to her and convince her to remain here, before she forces me to take some action that you will all regret.”

  “Do not continue to shame me in the eyes of the village, my mother,” pleaded Koinnage. “You must remain in my shamba.”

  “I will not.”

  “You will!” said Koinnage heatedly, as the men and women of the village crowded closer to the boma's entrance.