Kirinyaga

by Mike Resnick

  “We wish to be alone.”

  The servants vanished as if they had been nothing but holograms.

  “Where is Susan?” I asked, for my daughter-in-law was nowhere to be seen.

  “We were at a party at the Cameroon ambassador's new home when the call came through that you had been arrested again,” he answered. “You broke up a very enjoyable bridge game. My guess is that she's in the tub or in bed, cursing your name.”

  I was about to mention that cursing my name to the god of the Europeans would not prove effective, but I decided that my son would not like to hear that at this moment, so I was silent. As I looked at my surroundings, I reflected that not only had all of Edward's belongings come from the Europeans, but that even his house had been taken from them, for it consisted of many rectangular rooms, and all Kikuyu knew—or should have known—that demons dwell in corners and the only proper shape for a home is round.

  Edward walked briskly to his desk, activated his computer and read his messages, and then turned to me.

  “There is another message from the government,” he announced. “They want to see you next Tuesday at noon.”

  “I have already told them I will not accept their money,” I said. “I have performed no service for them.”

  He put on his Lecture Face. “We are no longer a poor country,” he said. “We pride ourselves that none of our infirm or elderly go hungry.”

  “I will not go hungry, if the restaurants will stop trying to feed me unclean animals.”

  “The government is just making sure that you do not become a financial burden to me,” said Edward, refusing to let me change the subject.

  “You are my son,” I said. “I raised you and fed you and protected you when you were young. Now I am old and you will do the same for me. That is our tradition.”

  “Well, it is our government's tradition to provide a financial safety net to families who are supporting elderly members,” he said, and I could tell that the last trace of Kikuyu within him had vanished, that he was entirely a Kenyan.

  “You are a wealthy man,” I pointed out. “You do not need their money.”

  “I pay my taxes,” he said, lighting another smokeless cigarette to hide his defensiveness. “It would be foolish not to accept the benefits that accrue to us. You may live a very long time. We have every right to that money.”

  “It is dishonorable to accept what you do not need,” I replied. “Tell them to leave us alone.”

  He leaned back, half sitting on his desk. “They wouldn't, even if I asked them to.”

  “They must be Wakamba or Maasai,” I said, making no effort to hide my contempt.

  “They are Kenyans,” he answered. “Just as you and I are.”

  “Yes,” I said, suddenly feeling the weight of my years. “Yes, I must work very hard at remembering that.”

  “You will save me more trips to the police station if you can,” said my son.

  I nodded and went off to my room. He had supplied me with a bed and mattress, but after so many years of living in my hut on Kirinyaga, I found the bed uncomfortable, so every night I removed the blanket and placed it on the floor, then lay down and slept on it.

  But tonight sleep would not come, for I kept reliving the past two months in my mind. Everything I saw, everything I heard, made me remember why I had left Kenya in the first place, why I had fought so long and so hard to obtain Kirinyaga's charter.

  I rolled onto my side, propped my head on my hand, and looked out the window. Hundreds of stars were twinkling brightly in the clear, cloudless sky. I tried to imagine which of them was Kirinyaga. I had been the mundumugu—the witch doctor—who was charged with establishing our Kikuyu Utopia.

  “I served you more selflessly than any other,” I whispered, staring at a flickering, verdant star, “and you betrayed me. Worse, you have betrayed Ngai. Neither He nor I shall ever seek you out again.”

  I laid my head back down, turned away from the window, and closed my eyes, determined to look into the skies no more.

  In the morning, my son stopped by my room.

  “You have slept on the floor again,” he noted.

  “Have they passed a law against that now?” I demanded.

  He sighed deeply. “Sleep any way you want.”

  I stared at him. “You look very impressive …” I began.

  “Thank you.”

  “… in your European clothes,” I concluded.

  “I have ah important meeting with the Finance Minister today.” He looked at his timepiece. “In fact, I must leave now or I will be late.” He paused uneasily. “Have you considered what we spoke about yesterday?”

  “We spoke of many things,” I said.

  “I am referring to the Kikuyu retirement village.”

  “I have lived in a village,” I said. “And that is not one. It is a twenty-story tower of steel and glass, built to imprison the elderly.”

  “We have been through all this before,” said my son. “It would be a place for you to make new friends.”

  “I have a new friend,” I said. “I shall be visiting him this evening.”

  “Good!” he said. “Maybe he'll keep you out of trouble.”

  I arrived at the huge titanium-and-glass laboratory complex just before midnight. The night had turned cool, and a breeze was blowing gently from the south. The moon had passed behind a cloud, and it was difficult to find the side gate in the darkness. Eventually I did find it, though, and Kamau was waiting for me. He deactivated a small section of the electronic barrier long enough for me to step through.

  “fambo, mzee,” he said. Hello, wise old man.

  “fambo, mzee” I replied, for he was almost as old as I myself was. “I have come to see with my own eyes if you were telling the truth.”

  He nodded and turned, and I followed him between the tall, angular buildings that hovered over us, casting eerie shadows along the narrow walkways and channeling all the noises of the city in our direction. Our path was lined with Whistling Thorn and Yellow Fever trees, cloned from the few remaining specimens, rather than the usual introduced European shrubbery Here and there were ornamental displays of grasses from the vanished savannahs.

  “It is strange to see so much true African vegetation here in Kenya,” I remarked. “Since I have returned from Kirinyaga, my eyes have hungered for it.”

  “You have seen a whole world of it,” he replied with unconcealed envy

  “There is more to a world than greenery,” I said. “When all is said and done, there is little difference between Kirinyaga and Kenya. Both have turned their backs on Ngai.”

  Kamau came to a halt, and gestured around him at the looming metal and glass and concrete buildings that totally covered the cool swamps from which Nairobi took its name. “I do not know how you can prefer this to Kirinyaga.”

  “I did not say I preferred it,” I replied, suddenly aware that the ever-present noises of the city had been overshadowed by the droning hum of machines.

  “Then you do miss Kirinyaga.”

  “I miss what Kirinyaga might have been. As for these,” I said, indicating the immense structures, “they are just buildings.”

  “They are European buildings,” he said bitterly. “They were built by men who are no longer Kikuyu or Luo or Embu, but merely Kenyans. They are filled with corners.” He paused, and I thought, approvingly, How much you sound like me! No wonder you sought me out when I returned to Kenya. “Nairobi is home to eleven million people,” he continued. “It stinks of sewage. The air is so polluted there are days when you can actually see it. The people wear European clothes and worship the Europeans' god. How could you turn your back on Utopia for this?”

  I held up my hands. “I have only ten fingers.”

  He frowned. “I do not understand.”

  “Do you remember the story of the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dike?”

  Kamau shook his head and spat contemptuously on the ground. “I do not listen to European
stories.”

  “Perhaps you are wise not to,” I acknowledged. “At any rate, the dike of tradition with which I had surrounded Kirinyaga began to spring leaks. They were few and easily plugged at first, but as the society kept evolving and growing they became many, and soon I did not have enough fingers to plug them all.” I shrugged. “So I left before I was washed away.”

  “Have they another mundumugu to replace you?” he asked.

  “I am told that they have a doctor to cure the sick, and a Christian minister to tell them how to worship the god of the Europeans, and a computer to tell them how to react to any situation that might arise,” I said. “They no longer need a mundumugu?

  “Then Ngai has forsaken them,” he stated.

  “No,” I corrected him. “They have forsaken Ngai.”

  “I apologize, mundumugu” he said with deference. “You are right, of course.”

  He began walking again, and soon a strong, pungent odor came to my nostrils, a scent I had never encountered before, but which stirred some memory deep within my soul.

  “We are almost there,” said Kamau.

  I heard a low rumbling sound, not like a predator growling, but rather like a vast machine purring with power.

  “He is very nervous,” continued Kamau, speaking in a soft monotone. “Make no sudden movements. He has already tried to kill two of his daytime attendants.”

  And then we were there, just as the moon emerged from its cloud cover and shone down on the awesome creature that stood facing us.

  “He is magnificent!” I whispered.

  “A perfect replication,” agreed Kamau. “Height, ten feet eight inches at the shoulder, weight seven tons—and each tusk is exactly one hundred forty-eight pounds.”

  The huge animal stared at me through the flickering force field that surrounded it and tested the cool night breeze, striving to pick up my scent.

  “Remarkable!” I said.

  “You understand the cloning process, do you not?” asked Kamau.

  “I understand what cloning is,” I answered. “I know nothing of the exact process.”

  “In this case, they took some cells from his tusks, which have been on display in the museum for more than two centuries, created the proper nutrient solution, and this is the result: Ahmed of Marsabit, the only elephant ever protected by Presidential Decree, lives again.”

  “I read that he was always accompanied by two guards no matter where he roamed on Mount Marsabit,” I said. “Have they also ignored tradition? I see no one but you. Where is the other guard?”

  “There are no guards. The entire complex is protected by a sophisticated electronic security system.”

  “Are you not a guard?” I asked.

  He kept the shame from his voice, but he could not banish it from his face; even in the moonlight I could see it. “I am a paid companion.”

  “Of the elephant?”

  “Of Ahmed.”

  “I am sorry,” I said.

  “We cannot all be mundumugus” he answered. “When you are my age in a culture that worships youth, you take what is offered to you.”

  “True,” I said. I looked back at the elephant. “I wonder if he has any memories of his former life? Of the days when he was the greatest of all living creatures, and Mount Marsabit was his kingdom.”

  “He knows nothing of Marsabit,” answered Kamau. “But he knows something is wrong. He knows he was not born to spend his life in a tiny yard, surrounded by a glowing force field.” He paused. “Sometimes, late at night, he faces the north and lifts his trunk and cries out his loneliness and misery. To the technicians it is just an annoyance. Usually they tell me to feed him, as if food will assuage his sorrow. It is not even real food, but something they have concocted in their laboratories.”

  “He does not belong here,” I agreed.

  “I know,” said Kamau. “But then, neither do you, mzee. You should be back on Kirinyaga, living as the Kikuyu were meant to live.”

  I frowned. “No one on Kirinyaga is living as the Kikuyu were meant to live.” I sighed deeply. “I think perhaps the time for mundu-mugus is past.”

  “This cannot be true,” he protested. “Who else can be the repository of our traditions, the interpreter of our laws?”

  “Our traditions are as dead as his? I said, gesturing toward Ahmed. Then I turned back to Kamau. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  “Certainly not, mundumugu”

  “I am glad you sought me out, and I have enjoyed our conversations since I returned to Kenya,” I told him. “But something puzzles me: since you feel so strongly about the Kikuyu, why did I not know you during our struggle to find a homeland? Why did you remain behind when we emigrated to Kirinyaga?”

  I could see him wrestling with himself to produce an answer. Finally the battle was over, and the old man seemed to shrink an inch or two.

  “I was terrified,” he admitted.

  “Of the spaceship?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then what frightened you?”

  Another internal struggle, and then an answer: “ You did, mzee?

  “Me?” I repeated, surprised.

  “You were always so sure of yourself,” he said. “Always such a perfect Kikuyu. You made me afraid that I wasn't good enough.”

  “That was ridiculous,” I said firmly.

  “Was it?” he countered. “My wife was a Catholic. My son and daughter bore Christian names. And I myself had grown used to European clothes and European conveniences.” He paused. “I was afraid if I went with you—and I wanted to; I have been cursing myself for my cowardice ever since—that soon I would complain about missing the technology and comfort I had left behind, and that you would banish me.” He would not meet my gaze, but stared at the ground. “I did not wish to become an outcast on the world that was the last hope of my people.”

  You are wiser than I suspected, I thought. Aloud I uttered a compassionate lie: “You would not have been an outcast.”

  “You are sure?”

  “I am sure,” I said, laying a comforting hand on his bony shoulder. “In fact, I wish you had been there to support me when the end came.”

  “What good would the support of an old man have been?”

  “You are not just any old man,” I answered. “The word of a descendant of Johnstone Kamau would have carried much weight among the Council of Elders.”

  “That was another reason I was afraid to come,” he replied, the words flowing a little more easily this time. “How could I live up to my name—for everyone knows that Johnstone Kamau became Jomo Kenyatta, the great Burning Spear of the Kikuyu. How could I possibly compare to such a man as that?”

  “You compare more favorably than you think,” I said reassuringly “I could have used the passion of your belief.”

  “Surely you had support from the people,” he said.

  I shook my head. “Even my own apprentice, whom I was preparing to succeed me, abandoned me; in fact, I believe he is at the university just down the road even as we speak. In the end, the people rejected the discipline of our traditions and the teachings of Ngai for the miracles and comforts of the Europeans. I suppose I should not be surprised, considering how many times it has happened here in Africa.” I looked thoughtfully at the elephant. “I am as much an anachronism as Ahmed. Time has forgotten us both.”

  “But Ngai has not.”

  “Ngai, too, my friend,” I said. “Our day has passed. There is no place left for us, not in Kenya, not on Kirinyaga, not anywhere.”

  Perhaps it was something in the tone of my voice, or perhaps in some mystic way Ahmed understood what I was saying. Whatever the reason, the elephant stepped forward to the edge of the force field and stared directly at me.

  “It is lucky we have the field for protection,” remarked Kamau.

  “He would not hurt me,” I said confidently.

  “He has hurt men whom he had less reason to attack.”

  “But not me,”
I said. “Lower the field to a height of five feet.”

  “But…”

  “Do as I say,” I ordered him.

  “Yes, mundumugu? he replied unhappily, going to a small control box and punching in a code.

  Suddenly the mild visual distortion vanished at eye level. I reached out a reassuring hand, and a moment later Ahmed ran the tip of his trunk gently across my face and body, then sighed deeply and stood there, swaying gently as he transferred his weight from one foot to the other.

  “I would not have believed it if I had not seen it!” said Kamau almost reverently

  “Are we not all Ngai's creations?” I said.

  “Even Ahmed?” asked Kamau.

  “Who do you think created him?”

  He shrugged again and did not answer.

  I remained for a few more minutes, watching the magnificent creature, while Kamau returned the force field to its former position. Then the night air became uncomfortably cold, as so often happened at this altitude, and I turned to Kamau.

  “I must leave now,” I said. “I thank you for inviting me here. I would not have believed this miracle had I not seen it with my own eyes.”

  “The scientists think it is their miracle,” he said.

  “You and I know better,” I replied.

  He frowned. “But why do you think Ngai has allowed Ahmed to live again, at this time and in this place?”

  I paused for a long moment, trying to formulate an answer, and found that I couldn't.

  “There was a time when I knew with absolute certainty why Ngai did what He did,” I said at last. “Now I am not so sure.”

  “What kind of talk is that from a mundumugu}” demanded Kamau.

  “It was not long ago that I would wake up to the song of birds,” I said as we left Ahmed's enclosure and walked to the side gate through which I had entered. “And I would look across the river that wound by my village on Kirinyaga and see impala and zebra grazing on the savannah. Now I wake up to the sound and smell of modern Nairobi and then I look out and see a featureless gray wall that separates my son's house from that of his neighbor.” I paused. “I think this must be my punishment for failing to bring Ngai's word to my people.”