Kirinyaga

by Mike Resnick

  “Do not be disappointed,” I said. “An idea can be new to you and old to someone else.”

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “Take these young men who have killed themselves.

  The idea of suicide is new to them, but they are not the first to think of it. We have all thought of killing ourselves at one time or another. What I must learn is not why they have finally thought of it, but why they have not rejected the thought, why it has become attractive to them.”

  “And then you will use your magic to make it unattractive?” asked Ndemi.

  “Yes.”

  “Will you boil poisonous serpents in a pot with the blood of a freshly killed zebra?” he asked eagerly.

  “You are a very bloodthirsty boy,” I said.

  “A thahu that can kill four young men requires powerful magic,” he replied.

  “Sometimes just a word or a sentence is all the magic one needs.”

  “But if you need more …”

  I sighed deeply. “If I need more, I will tell you what animals to slay for me.”

  He leaped to his feet, picked up his slender wooden spear, and made stabbing motions in the air. “I will become the most famous hunter ever!” he shouted happily. “My children and grandchildren will sing songs of praise to me, and the animals of the field will tremble at my approach!”

  “But before that happy day arrives,” I said, “there is still the water to be fetched and the firewood to be gathered.”

  “Yes, Koriba,” he said. He picked up my water gourds and began walking down the hill, and I could tell that in his imagination he was still confronting charging buffalos and hurling his spear straight and true to the mark.

  I gave Ndemi his morning lesson—the prayer for the dead seemed a proper topic—and then went down to the village to comfort Ngala's parents. His mother, Liswa, was inconsolable. He had been her firstborn, and it was all but impossible to get her to stop wailing the death chant long enough for me to express my sorrow.

  Kibanja, Ngala's father, stood off by himself, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “Why would he do such a thing, Koriba?” he asked as I approached him.

  “I do not know,” I answered.

  “He was the boldest of boys,” he continued. “Even you did not frighten him.” He stopped suddenly for fear that he had given offense.

  “He was very bold,” I agreed. “And bright.”

  “That is true,” agreed Kibanja. “Even when the other boys would lie up beneath the shade trees during the heat of the day, my Ngala was always rinding new games to play, new things to do.” He looked at me through tortured eyes. “And now my only son is dead, and I do not know why.”

  “I will find out,” I told him.

  “It is wrong, Koriba,” he continued. “It is against the nature of things. I was meant to die first, and then all that I own—my shamba, my cattle, my goats—everything would have been his.” He tried to hold back his tears, for although the Kikuyu are not as arrogant as the Maasai, our men do not like to display such emotions in public. But the tears came anyway, making moist paths down his dusty cheeks before falling onto the dirt. “He did not even live long enough to take a wife and present her with a son. All that he was has died with him. What sin did he commit to merit such a dreadful thahu? Why could it not have struck me down and let him live?”

  I remained with him a few more minutes, assured him that I would ask Ngai to welcome Ngala's spirit, and then I began walking to the colony of young men, which was about three kilometers beyond the village. It backed up to a dense forest, and was bordered to the south by the same river that wound through the village and broadened as it passed my hill.

  It was a small colony, composed of no more than twenty young men. As each had undergone the circumcision ritual and passed into manhood, he had moved out from his father's boma and taken up residence here with the other bachelors of the village. It was a transitional dwelling place, for eventually each member would marry and take over part of his family's shamba, to be replaced by the next group of young men.

  Most of the residents had gone to the village when they heard the death chants, but a few of them had remained behind to burn Ngala's hut and destroy the evil spirits within it. They greeted me gravely, as befitted the occasion, and asked me to utter the chant that would purify the ground so that they would not forever be required to avoid stepping on it.

  When I was done, I placed a charm at the very center of the ashes, and then the young men began drifting away—all but Mu-rumbi, who had been Ngala's closest friend.

  “What can you tell me about this, Murumbi?” I asked when we were finally alone.

  “He was a good friend,” he replied. “We spent many long days together. I will miss him.”

  “Do you know why he killed himself?”

  “He did not kill himself,” answered Murumbi. “He was killed by hyenas.”

  “To walk naked and unarmed among the hyenas is to kill oneself,” I said.

  Murumbi continued staring at the ashes. “It was a stupid way to die,” he said bitterly. “It solved nothing.”

  “What problem do you think he was trying to solve?” I asked.

  “He was very unhappy,” said Murumbi.

  “Were Keino and Njupo also unhappy?”

  He looked surprised. “You know?”

  “Am I not the mundumuguV I replied.

  “But you said nothing when they died.”

  “What do you think I should have said?” I asked.

  Murumbi shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know.” He paused. “No, there was nothing you could have said.”

  “What about you, Murumbi?” I said.

  “Me, Koriba?”

  “Are you unhappy?”

  “As you said, you are the mundumugu. Why ask questions to which you already know the answers?”

  “I would like to hear the answer from your own lips,” I replied.

  “Yes, I am unhappy”

  “And the other young men?” I continued. “Are they unhappy too?”

  “Most of them are very happy,” said Murumbi, and I noticed just the slightest edge of contempt in his tone. “Why should they not be? They are men now. They spend their days in idle talk, and painting their faces and their bodies, and at nights they go to the village and drink pombe and dance. Soon some of them will marry and sire children and start shambas of their own, and someday they will sit in the Council of Elders.” He spat on the ground. “Indeed, there is no reason why they should not be happy, is there?”

  “None,” I agreed.

  He stared defiantly at me.

  “Perhaps you would like to tell me the reason for your unhappi-ness?” I suggested.

  “Are you not the mundumuguV he said caustically.

  “Whatever else I am, I am not your enemy.”

  He sighed deeply, and the tension seemed to drain from his body, to be replaced by resignation. “I know you are not, Koriba,” he said. “It is just that there are times when I feel like this entire world is my enemy.”

  “Why should that be?” I asked. “You have food to eat and pornbe to drink, you have a hut to keep you warm and dry, there are only Kikuyu here, you have undergone the circumcision ritual and are now a man, you live in a world of plenty … so why should you feel that such a world is your enemy?”

  He pointed to a black she-goat that was grazing placidly a few yards away.

  “Do you see that goat, Koriba?” he asked. “She accomplishes more with her life than I do with mine.”

  “Don't be silly,” I said.

  “I am being serious,” he replied. “Every day she provides milk for the village, once a year she produces a kid, and when she dies it will almost certainly be as a sacrifice to Ngai. She has a purpose to her life.”

  “So have we all.”

  He shook his head. “That is not so, Koriba.”

  “You are bored?” I asked.

  “If the journey through life can be likened to a jo
urney down a broad river, then I feel that I am adrift with no land in sight.”

  “But you have a destination in sight,” I said. “You will take a wife, and start a shamba. If you work hard, you will own many cattle and goats. You will raise many sons and daughters. What is wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” he said, “if I had anything to do with it. But my wife will raise my children and till my fields, and my sons will herd my animals, and my daughters will weave the fabric for my garments and help their mothers cook my food.” He paused. “And I … I will sit around with the other men, and discuss the weather, and drink pombe, and someday, if I live long enough, I will join the Council of Elders, and the only thing that will change is that I will now talk to my friends in Koinnage's boma instead of my own. And then one day I will die. That is the life I must look forward to, Koriba.”

  He kicked the ground with his foot, sending up little flurries of dust. “I will pretend that my life has more meaning than that of a she-goat,” he continued. “I will walk ahead of my wife while she carries the firewood, and I will tell myself that I am doing this to protect her from attack by the Maasai or the Wakamba. I will build my boma taller than a man's head and lay thorns across the top of it, and tell myself that this is to protect my cattle against the lion and the leopard, and I will try not to remember that there have never been any lions or leopards on Kirinyaga. I will never be without my spear, though I do nothing but lean on it when the sun is high in the sky, and I will tell myself that without it I could be torn to pieces by man or beast. All these things I will tell myself, Koriba … but I will know that I am lying.”

  “And Ngala and Keino and Njupo felt the same way?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did they kill themselves?” I asked. “It is written in our charter that anyone who wishes to leave Kirinyaga may do so. They need only have walked to that area known as Haven, and a Maintenance ship would have picked them up and taken them anywhere they wished to go.”

  “You still do not understand, do you?” he said.

  “No, I do not,” I admitted. “Enlighten me.”

  “Men have reached the stars, Koriba,” he said. “They have medicines and machines and weapons that are beyond our imagining. They live in cities that dwarf our village.” He paused again. “But here on Kirinyaga, we live the life that we lived before the Europeans came and brought the forerunners of such things with them. We live as the Kikuyu have always lived, as you say we were meant to live. How, then, can we go back to Kenya? What could we do? How would we feed and shelter ourselves? The Europeans changed us from Kikuyu into Kenyans once before, but it took many years and many generations. You and the others who created Kirinyaga meant no harm, you only did what you thought was right, but you have seen to it that I can never become a Kenyan. I am too old, and I am starting too far behind.”

  “What about the other young men of your colony?” I asked. “How do they feel?”

  “Most of them are content, as I said. And why shouldn't they be? The hardest work they were ever forced to do was to nurse at their mothers' breasts.” He looked into my eyes. “You have offered them a dream, and they have accepted it.”

  “And what is your dream, Murumbi?”

  He shrugged. “I have ceased to dream.”

  “I do not believe that,” I said. “Every man has a dream. What would it take to make you content?”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  “Let the Maasai come to Kirinyaga, or the Wakamba, or the Luo,” he said. “I was trained to be a warrior. Therefore, give me a reason to carry my spear, to walk unfettered ahead of my wife when her back is bent under her burden. Let us raid their shambas and carry off their women and their cattle, and let them try to do the same for us. Do not give us new land to farm when we are old enough; let us compete for it with the other tribes.”

  “What you are asking for is war,” I said.

  “No,” replied Murumbi. “What I am asking for is meaning. You mentioned my wife and children. I cannot afford the bride-price for a wife, nor will I be able to unless my father dies and leaves me his cattle, or asks me to move back to his shamba? He stared at me with reproachful eyes. “Don't you realize that the only result is to make me wish for his charity or his death? It is better far to steal women from the Maasai.”

  “That is out of the question,” I said. “Kirinyaga was created for the Kikuyu, as was the original Kirinyaga in Kenya.”

  “I know that is what we believe, just as the Maasai believe that Ngai created Kilimanjaro for them,” said Murumbi. “But I have been thinking about it for many days, and do you know what I believe? I believe that the Kikuyu and Maasai were created for each other, for when we lived side by side in Kenya, each of us gave meaning and purpose to the other.”

  “That is because you are not aware of Kenya's history,” I said. “The Maasai came down from the north only a century before the Europeans. They are nomads, wanderers, who follow their herds from one grazing area to another. The Kikuyu are farmers, who have always lived beside the holy mountain. We lived side by side with the Maasai for only a handful of years.”

  “Then bring us the Wakamba, or the Luo, or the Europeans!” he said, trying to control his frustration. “You still don't understand what I am saying. It is not the Maasai I want, it is the challenge!”

  “And this is what Keino and Njupu and Nboka wanted?”

  “Yes.”

  “And will you kill yourself, as they did, should a challenge not materialize?”

  “I do not know. But I do not want to live a life filled with boredom.”

  “How many others in the colony of young men feel as you do?”

  “Right now?” asked Murumbi. “Only myself.” He paused and stared unblinking at me. “But there have been others before; there will be again.”

  “I do not doubt it,” I replied with a heavy sigh. “Now that I understand the nature of the problem, I will return to my boma and think about how best to solve it.”

  “This problem is beyond your ability to solve, mundumugu” said Murumbi, “for it is part of the society that you have fought so hard to preserve.”

  “No problem is incapable of solution,” I said.

  “This one is,” answered Murumbi with absolute conviction.

  I left him standing there by the ashes, not totally convinced that he was wrong.

  For three days I sat alone on my hill. I neither went into the village nor conferred with the Elders. When old Siboki needed more ointment for his pain, I sent Ndemi down the path with it, and when it was time to place new charms on the scarecrows, I instructed Ndemi to tend to the matter, for I was wrestling with a far more serious problem.

  In some cultures, I knew, suicide was an honorable way of dealing with certain problems, but the Kikuyu did not belong to such a culture.

  Furthermore, we had built a Utopia here, and to admit that suicides would occur from time to time meant that it was not a Utopia for all our people, which in turn meant that it was not a Utopia at all.

  But we had built our Utopia along the lines of a traditional Kikuyu society, that which existed in Kenya before the advent of the Europeans. It was the Europeans who forcefully introduced change into that society, not the Kikuyu, and therefore I could not allow Murumbi to change the way we lived, either.

  The most obvious answer was to encourage him—and others like him—to emigrate to Kenya, but this seemed out of the question. I myself had received higher degrees in both England and America, but the majority of Kikuyu on Kirinyaga had been those (considered fanatics by a Kenyan government that was glad to be rid of them) who had insisted on living in the traditional way prior to coming to Kirinyaga. This meant that not only could they not cope with the technology that permeated every layer of Kenyan society, but also that they did not even possess the tools to learn, for they could neither read nor write.

  So Murumbi, and those who would surely follow him, could not leave Kirinyaga for Kenya or
any other destination. That meant they must remain.

  If they remained, there were only three alternatives that I could see, all of them equally unpalatable.

  First, they could eventually give up in despair and kill themselves, as four of their young comrades had. This I could not permit.

  Second, they could eventually adjust to the life of ease and idleness that was the lot of the Kikuyu male, and come to enjoy and defend it as passionately as did the other men of the village. This I could not foresee.

  Third, I could take Murumbi's suggestion and open up the northern plains to the Maasai or the Wakamba, but this would make a mockery of all our efforts to establish Kirinyaga as a world for and of the Kikuyu. This I could not even consider, for I would not allow a war that would destroy our Utopia in order to create his.

  For three days and three nights I searched for another alternative.

  On the morning of the fourth day, I emerged from my hut, my blanket wrapped tightly about me to protect me from the cold morning air, and lit my fire.

  Ndemi was late, as usual. When he finally arrived, he was favoring his right foot, and explained that he had twisted it on his way up my hill—but I noticed, without surprise, that he limped on his left foot when he went off to fill my gourds with water.

  When he returned, I watched him as he went about his duties, collecting firewood and removing fallen leaves from my boma. I had chosen him to be my assistant, and my eventual successor, because he was the boldest and brightest of the village children. It was Ndemi who always thought of new games for the others to play, and he himself was always the leader. When I would walk among them, he was the first to demand that I tell them a parable, and the quickest to understand the hidden meaning in it.

  In short, he was a perfect candidate to commit suicide in a few more years, had I not averted that possibility by encouraging him to become my assistant.

  “Sit down, Ndemi,” I said as he finished collecting the last of the leaves and throwing them on the dying embers of my fire.

  He sat down next to me. “What will we study today, Koriba?” he asked.

  “Today we will just talk,” I said. His face fell, and I added, “I have a problem, and I am hoping that you will provide me with an answer to it.”