Red Strangers

by Elspeth Huxley

  7

  JEHOSHOPHAT walked away rubbing his nose, his spirit burning with rage. Very well, he thought, this arrogant pig of a European has settled his own fate; he shall not be spared. He shall learn that the old days are over, that Europeans cannot treat an educated clerk as if he were a louse to be crushed between thumb and finger.

  That afternoon, when work was over, he called a meeting of all the young men under a big tree outside Karanja’s homestead, and said: “I have spoken to Marafu and I have found out that for a long time he has been deceiving you. He is a very bad man indeed, and he is making plans to seize all your crops and all your cattle for himself. You have seen that he is having a deep pit dug near the river. What has he told you this is for ?”

  “He says it is for cattle,” one man answered. “Cattle are to jump into it and be washed with a poison which kills ticks.”

  “And did he tell you that your cattle as well as his would have to jump into this pit?” Jehoshophat continued.

  “Yes, that is what he said,” his audience agreed.

  “Then you are a lot of ignorant fools to believe him!” Jehoshophat cried. “Your cattle will jump in, certainly, but do you think that they will emerge alive? Do you believe that the poison is only for ticks? Its purpose is to kill cattle ! Marafu will drive your cows into the pit, and there they will perish like ants crushed underfoot.”

  “But why does Marafu wish to do this?” a puzzled listener asked.

  “I see that you are more foolish even than I thought,” Jehoshophat exclaimed. “Do you not understand that this is part of the great plot to destroy our people ? The Europeans are stopping the circumcision of our girls so that they will become barren; and they are going to poison all our cattle so that we shall become poor and helpless against their strength !”

  There was an outburst of discussion at this, for while some believed him, others said loudly that he was making up the whole story, and that they had often seen cattle going through a dip.

  “If this is true, Jehoshophat,” one man asked, “how are we to stop him ?”

  “On the day when you circumcise your daughters,” Jehoshophat advised, “you must lock him and his wife into the store and set fire to it, so that they will be burnt. No one will know what has happened. The police will think that the fire came by accident, perhaps from a cigarette.”

  Karanja, who was listening carefully, said: “If you do this, Jehoshophat, will you stay here with us and yourself set alight to the store with a match ?”

  “I should like to do so,” Jehoshophat answered, “but I cannot, for my work here is finished. To-day I received a letter from Benson Makuna telling me to go to Nairobi on very important business. If you do what I have said I will tell Benson that everyone here is supporting him, and should receive a reward.”

  “Nowadays it appears that the warriors fight on one ridge and their leader on another, a long way behind,” Matu observed drily. “That was not so when I was a youth.” Several young men laughed at this remark.

  Jehoshophat raised his arm angrily above his head. “You are a lot of ignorant fools,” he exclaimed. “Can one fight with pen and paper in the same way as with spear and shield ? But if you cannot protect yourselves from the Europeans without me to lead you, very well. I will do so. You must follow me and carry out my orders.”

  The green bicycle was leaning against a tree. Jehoshophat leapt on to it and pedalled off along a path that wound down a slope between scattered acacia and olive trees towards Marafu’s house. His audience, surprised at this sudden turn of events, discussed the matter uncertainly, and a few set out on foot after their leader.

  “Ee—i!” Matu exclaimed, “this is indeed a strange army, led into battle by a hen that goes: clk-clk-clk-clk-clu-i-ik-clk!”

  Everyone laughed, and at that moment Jehoshophat turned his head to see if the young men were following. The bicycle swayed, wobbled, and bounded over a twist of the path like a doubling hare. Before its rider could regain control its front wheel crashed into a tree. Jehoshophat pitched forward against the trunk, fell in a heap and lay still, the buckled bicycle by his side.

  The crowd ran down the slope towards him, but when they reached his crumpled body they stood around in a frightened group, afraid to touch the motionless object at their feet. Karanja stepped forward and turned the body over. The head sagged limply on the shoulders; he could see that his circumcision-brother was dead. He dropped the body quickly. In the deep silence that fell the foot-rests of the bicycle whirred, slowed down, and gently ceased their revolutions.

  At last Matu broke the silence. “It is an act of God,” he said.

  The others, awestruck, backed away, exclaiming: “It is true, this cannot be due to anything but the intervention of God.”

  That night, after Jehoshophat’s burial, there was silence over Marafu’s farm. God had spoken, and no one dared to offer him defiance. No doubt it was the Christian God who had slain Jehoshophat, himself a Christian; it was perfectly clear that this God was on the side of the Europeans and against the circumcision of Kikuyu girls. It was clear also that he would strike down with death all those who opposed his wishes. The mambeleo was not danced again.

  CHAPTER VI

  The Goats Go

  I

  AFTER the circumcision trouble it became clear that evil spirits were gaining ascendancy in the land. One disaster followed another like vultures dropping out of the sky when an animal falls dead on the plain.

  First there were two long years of drought, and then the locusts came. Cloud after cloud swept out of the sky and fell on the maize, leaving it a plundered forest of tattered stalks. Marafu lost the whole of the crop from his big shamba. His cattle were turned in to browse among the broken plants that remained. Karanja, who had employed fifty women and children to sow his land, saw his crop devoured before his eyes in two days. The locusts coincided with the third year of drought, and in Kikuyu a famine followed on the two disasters. The Serkali sent train-loads of grain from Mombasa to Tetu and Maranga to give to the people, and because of this no one died; but food was short and many hopes of wealth were shattered.

  The next season was little better, for the drought broke and the crops were drowned in rain. Much of it barely ripened; and when the time came to sell, the Indians would not offer more than half what they had paid the previous year.

  The following season was even worse. Locusts arrived in even hungrier hordes, and although there was a shortage of maize, the price everywhere dropped lower still. Karanja was very angry ; he was convinced that the Indians had joined together in a plot to defraud the Kikuyu. He decided that he must be given higher wages by Marafu to make up for the lower prices he was forced to accept from the Indians for his maize and potatoes. But when he explained this to his employer, Marafu said:

  “Karanja, I can see that you are a fool. How much do I pay you every month?”

  “Thirty shillings, bwana,” Karanja answered.

  “And three years ago, what was it then?”

  “Twenty shillings.”

  “Now think about my maize. Three years ago, what was the price?”

  “I was paid fourteen shillings for each bag of my crop.”

  “I also received that. And to-day?”

  “I do not know what you got, but I only received five shillings a bag. This is not a fair price at all. Why should the Indians pay one price one year, and another the next?”

  “I do not like it any better than you,” Marafu said. “And I do not think I understand it any better either. But the prices of all crops are very bad. How can I pay you higher wages when I myself receive so much less for my crops ? In fact, if this goes on much longer, I shall not be able to pay you at all.”

  Karanja smiled at this, and said: “All Europeans have so much wealth that it is not possible for them to become poor.”

  “It is very possible indeed,” Marafu replied.

  Things became worse instead of better. The locusts returned, filling the
air with their wings. Maize perished, and grass as well; cattle grew thin and even the goats, browsing on locust-denuded pastures, lost their fat. Food for men as well as for beasts fell short and the heads of families were forced to draw on their buried hoards of cash to buy grain from Indians. Yet, in spite of the shortage of food, the price fell even lower than before, until Indians would only offer three shillings for a full bag of maize.

  At the end of the season Marafu sent for Karanja and said : “Things have become so bad that I cannot cultivate this shamba any more. Each bag of maize that goes to the station costs more to grow than I receive for it in shillings. I have insufficient money to pay the men, and some will have to go. And if I cannot sell next year’s crop for a better price I shall have to go myself. I cannot pay you thirty shillings a month any longer. I will pay you twenty, but if you like you may seek work elsewhere.”

  Karanja thought for a little and then said: “No, I will stay, as I do not want to leave my shamba, and no doubt you will give me more money when you are able. But I do not understand why, if you have not got enough shillings, you cannot get more from the bank.”

  “Because the bank has not got any more to give me,” Marafu replied. “The shillings are finished.”

  2

  FOR the next year things were not at all to Karanja’s liking. Marafu grew irritable and the work was hard, for the cook and Karanja’s assistant were dismissed. The motor-car stood unused in its shed and people were obliged to walk to the station when they had shopping to do. Even the two horses disappeared. Marafu’s wife kept everything locked up and the houseboys were forced to buy all their own sugar and tea. The engine that made light for the house was Karanja’s special care, and he understood its insides as well as any European; but now Marafu himself replenished it with oil, and kept the tin locked in the store. So Karanja’s lamps went short, and the card games that were played every night in the houseboys’ quarters behind the kitchen had to be curtailed. Although the hut-tax remained the same it seemed to everyone as though the sum had been trebled, so much harder was it to pay. The only way to find the money was to work for Europeans, and for those who had shambas on European farms two full months’ wages must be set aside for the tax on a single wife.

  “Why does the Serkali not reduce our tax, since the Indians are paying so little for our maize?” Matu complained.

  “Do not ask me about the Serkali,” Marafu said. “It is not my affair. You are lucky that the tax remains the same. Mine are to be increased, and I have nothing at all to pay them with.”

  “Europeans do not have taxes,” Matu told him. “It is only we who pay.”

  “Europeans have very big taxes indeed,” replied Marafu angrily. “You have no idea how big; and all are food for the Serkali’s stomach.”

  “Everything goes to the D.C.’s,” Matu agreed.

  Marafu laughed. “And what do they do with so much money?” he asked.

  “They spend it on educating their children. We, who are poor, cannot pay to have them taught as European children are taught in schools.”

  “Well, what of it?” Marafu asked, “Although European children attend schools, very few of them learn wisdom.”

  3

  SOON afterwards Marafu called all the men on his land to a meeting in front of his house, and made an announcement.

  “The time has come,” he said, “when all the cattle grazing on this land must go. There is no longer room for your cattle and mine to share the same pasture. Your cows have been giving bad diseases to mine, who are English, and die very easily. And because I receive so little money for my crops, I must increase the number of my cows. Within three months you must send away your cattle, or you must sell them. Do you understand ?”

  There was a long silence, and everyone stared at the ground. Faces were expressionless, but innumerable thoughts darted about inside each head like bats disturbed in a cave. It was bad news, although not unexpected. The pastures were overcrowded and had been brown and almost worthless since the locusts came. But it was an abrupt reminder that the land on which they lived was not their own.

  “We understand,” they said at last.

  “There is another thing,” Marafu continued, “concerning goats. There are too many goats on this land. Can you not see that the grass is brown and short, and that on some hillsides there is no grass at all, but only earth? This is because of goats. They are making my land worthless, and in future their numbers must be reduced. In three months’ time I shall make a count. For each married woman I shall allow ten goats to be kept, no more.”

  There was a murmur of dismay. No one had expected such a disastrous announcement as this. Life without goats, for the elders, would be unthinkable; and ten goats to each wife was an absurd restriction. Matu, who had just taken delivery of a hundred and sixteen for the bride-price paid for a daughter, exclaimed:

  “Bwana, we cannot possibly agree to that! Where would our goats go? On the farms in that direction, and that, and that,”—he waved his arm—“there is no room for more; the pastures are full.”

  “Many people keep their goats with brothers or relatives in Kikuyu,” Marafu suggested. “I will give you a pass to take them there.”

  “My brother would not keep mine,” Matu said. “He is a chief, so rich that he does not know the number of his own.”

  “Then you must sell them,” Marafu said. “For all your cattle and goats you would get perhaps a thousand, two thousand shillings, and you would become a very rich man.”

  “But if I kept those shillings in my hut they would be stolen,” Matu objected, “and if I took them to the Post Office, how would I know what would become of them ?”

  “Everyone knows now that they are safe. Karanja will tell you, he keeps his money there.”

  “But what is the good of wealth that you cannot see ?” Matu persisted. “My eyes can feed upon my own goats; and at night I hear them breathing in the hut. The females give birth before me and I can see my wealth increase and spread as a small pool of water spreads out in the rains. Can one do this with shillings ? And do shillings have increase ?”

  “Shillings have increase,” Marafu said. “For every hundred that you leave in the Post Office for a year, you will receive three from the Serkali for nothing.”

  “Then I say that shillings are like barren females,” Matu retorted. “What sort of goats would they be, if out of every hundred, only three young were born in two seasons ?”

  “I cannot help it,” Marafu said. “Goats must eat, and if the grass is insufficient some of the goats must go. I will allow you to keep ten for each wife, so that if anyone falls ill you will be able to make a sacrifice. But as the strongest tree must die and a new one take its place, so must old customs be replaced by others. Nowadays the young men no longer use goats for sacrifice or purification, and sooner or later shillings must take their place as wealth.”

  The old men complained bitterly, but in the end most of them had to agree. They did not want to leave their shambas. A few were able to go back to the holdings of their own clans, taking their goats with them, and lay claim to the land that their mothers had cultivated. The majority shrugged their shoulders and said: “There is no firewood now at Kijabe or Kiambu; every bundle must be bought and paid for. There is not enough grazing there, either, for goats. Here we can at least get money for taxes by working for Marafu, who, while he is often tiresome, protects us from other Europeans and does not mind our brewing beer. If we went back we should have to spend a lot of money laying claim to our land, and very likely we should fail in the end. So we will stay with Marafu, and send away our goats.”

  That season Kaleo came home from school to be circumcised. The name of the circumcision-age was Kenyabus, after the big buses that came to Nairobi that year. Kaleo was very clever and had reached the highest standard of the Kijabe school; his teachers said that he could now go to the Alliance High School at Kabete, if his father would pay the fees. When Matu heard how much they were he was di
smayed, and protested it was quite impossible to pay so much. But Karanja said:

  “If you pay this, after four years Kaleo will become a teacher or a clerk, and then he will earn as much in one month as you must pay to the school in a year. He will live in a stone house like a European, and eat meat every day. When you are too old to work he will be able to give you money for your hut-tax, and to buy beer.”

  “But I have not got as many shillings as that,” Matu said.

  “In the first year you could sell one cow,” Karanja suggested, “and that would be enough for the fees. Another year you could sell fifteen goats.”

  “Ee-i, fifteen goats,” Matu exclaimed. “And nothing in return ? That is too much altogether!”

  Kaleo was very upset when he heard this, and would not eat. After the circumcision he spent much of his time with Roland the teacher. He refused to attend the youths’ dances, saying that they were wicked, and that no Christian was allowed to go. Besides, he said, it was indecent to wear only a length of calico, and no shorts. Every night he spoke to the Christian God with his face covered under his hands, and he complained of the smoke and the smell in his father’s thingira. “At school we sleep in a big house with open doors,” he said. “It is cold, but now I find this hut is too hot, and it is also dirty.” So he went to sleep in Roland’s house, which had doors and windows like a European’s.

  “He does not like the food that I give him any more,” Wanja said sadly. She was growing old and wrinkled and her limbs were stiff. Although Matu had sacrificed many goats, she did not get any better. “It would be best if you sold a cow and let him go back to this school. His heart is there; it is no longer with his father and mother. My son is like a European, and I do not know how to speak to him.”