In the mid-1970s many things began to change. The President was assassinated in the early years of the decade and never got to watch the colour television service he had ordered for his subjects. The appointment of a new President did not at first diminish the arbitrary violence of the state, which had the assassins to deal with now, many of them former allies, in addition to the other enemies it had been busy persecuting for a while. There were show trials to be held, expulsions to be ordered and vengeful exiles and reluctant clemencies to be decreed. The new President, though, was a milder man, a former school teacher, a Master Boy Scout, and was reputed to be pious.
His government began to make gradual changes whose small humanity would sound paltry to those accustomed to living in more fortunate places. People were allowed to travel, to send and receive money (although mostly it was to receive) and those who had been expelled earlier were allowed to return. The government’s autocratic grip was loosened slightly by allowing citizens participation in local affairs. Elections were announced, campaign rallies were allowed, vociferous speeches and denunciations were made, although in the end the results of the ballot were not allowed to disrupt the proper order of things. New businesses opened, small in scale and sometimes cautious revivals of former enterprises, but more often they were the investments of those who had been plundering the state over the last few years: boutiques, coffee bars, travel agencies, hotels to cater for the tourist overflow from mainland package holidays.
In the atmosphere of change the new President brought about, Amir too found work with a travel agency, which added to the considerable glamour his singing career had already brought him. The job only paid a small salary and Saida said it would be mean to ask him to contribute to the household expenses. To keep the peace, I agreed. I could see, though, that the job was doing Amir good. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and black tie to work, together with a silver tie-pin showing an aeroplane ascending, and he took calls from the head office in Nairobi and sent cables to Addis Ababa and Hong Kong. People courted him to secure their travel arrangements, which so often seemed mysteriously vulnerable to the caprices of agents and officials. He came home with stories of the cock-up in Kigali that meant a twenty-four-hour delay for passengers en route to Brussels, or the flight to Cairo that only had seven passengers on board. I could see just how much pleasure it gave Amir to be able to say the names of the places people were travelling to, how the association with those places allowed him to patronise us with his sophistication.
The year you started government school Saida talked about looking for work too, because perhaps after two miscarriages it seemed a second child was not destined to come. You were at government school in the morning and Koran school in the afternoon, and only at home to have lunch and change out of one uniform into another. I went to the market for her and did all her errands. I have nothing more to do but cook and clean and sleep all day, she said. A friend had told her about a clerical post in the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs, and she decided to go and enquire.
In that year when you started government school, and where you turned out to be a gifted pupil from the first day, one of Amir’s new acquaintances in the world of travel opened a hotel for tourists in Shangani. It was called the Coral Reef Inn, and was funded by big international money, which people said was money laundering of gangster loot: drug money, kickbacks, prostitution, slave labour. Perhaps it was the same crowd of financiers who were turning so many places in Kenya into package-holiday ghettos for tourists from Europe. None of us knew the details of such arrangements. Someone upstairs took his commission and no nuisance questions were asked. The whole world was run like that, not just our little puddle of it.
Amir was appointed assistant manager in charge of social activities: arranging music and bands, hosting events, supervising the pool staff, organising spice tours to the countryside. It was a job made for him, he said when he told us about it, someone with personality and style. He was then twenty-five years old, a handsome and charming worldly young man, inclined to think of himself in glowing terms. This was just the beginning, he said, and filled the house with words and laughter. It seemed to me that he had been living off us for years, wearing down my affection with his conceited chatter. I wished the talk was more about finding a place of his own to rent, but I dare not say that, especially to Saida, who would glower at me and accuse me of meanness.
*
Baba was lying down on the bed towards the end of his account, and after a moment he turned away to face the wall. I heard the bitterness and weariness in his voice, and before long I guessed from his breathing that he had dozed off. I too was weary and stiff from sitting on the floor although I would have stayed there for as long as Baba wanted to talk. I switched off the light and stepped out of his room. Ali, the young man who served in the shop, slept in an alcove by the front door, and he let me out and locked up after me. I walked the silent streets back to Kiponda, keeping to the main roads and avoiding the gloomy shrouded alleyways.
10
THE SECOND NIGHT
I tried to sleep late into the morning but I was no longer used to long hours in bed. Sometimes I lay for hours waiting for the light so that I could get up. Even though I had been up so late the previous night, I heard the muadhin calling for the dawn prayers at four and was only able to doze intermittently after that, running images of the events Baba had told me about through my mind. Then quickly the noises in the tiny square in front of the house made any idea of sleep impossible. Three lanes opened into the square so it was a crossroads of a kind: the grocery shop opposite was open for business, the machines in the tailor’s shop downstairs were whirring, pedestrians sauntered by amidst shouted conversation and cyclists rang their bells and called out greetings as they wheeled past. It was not unpleasant and I could imagine how Mama would have loved it here, living in the midst of things.
When the water came on I switched on the pump to fill up the tank, then showered and washed some clothes. I went for a walk down to the sea and spent the rest of the morning reading. I was giving Baba time to himself. I didn’t know if he needed that time but I had sensed his bitterness as he fell silent in the early hours and I knew there were difficult things still to be said. Late in the afternoon I went round to the shop and found him sitting outside with Khamis, already dressed for an afternoon stroll. We walked through hectic streets at first until the crowds thinned towards the old prison and barracks.
‘I kept you up late last night,’ he said.
‘You fell asleep,’ I said, laughing at him.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I was tired of talking.’
We stopped at a café in Mkunazini for a cup of tea and listened in to the usual mad tales of the conspiracies and intrigues that seethed in the world and then headed off for a meal of Baba’s favourite café rubbish nearer his home. I knew that he would not resume talking until we were back in his room and I think there was a kind of preciousness in his self-discipline. He wanted the ceremony of it and he did not want me to be distracted, and after a while I got over my impatience and was content to wait. When we were back in his room, he continued talking into the second night.
*
Late one afternoon, there was a knock on the door. I was just recently home from work, had showered and was lying on the bed while Saida was ironing and telling me about her interview for a position at the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs. You were not yet home from Koran school, which you were still attending in the afternoons. The young man who knocked on the door held on to his bicycle with one hand while we shook hands. His eyes were bright with the news he had come to deliver to us.
‘I work at the Coral Reef,’ he said to me, which was the hotel where Amir worked at that time. The young man was thin and nervous, perhaps unwell. ‘Amir has been taken away,’ he said. ‘I saw it. A white Datsun with government plates. They came this afternoon.’
‘Taken away where?’ I asked him although I understood what he said. My pretence of not u
nderstanding was a way of putting off knowing, but also of wanting more details. ‘Wait,’ I said, reaching out to delay him as he made to mount his bicycle and leave. ‘What’s the hurry?’ I said. ‘Wait, don’t go yet. Who took him where?’
The young man hesitated and then shrugged, not believing that I did not understand what he had said. He glanced over my shoulder and then his eyes slid away. I guessed that Saida must have appeared behind me. Perhaps she had heard him say Amir’s name.
‘He says Amir has been taken away,’ I said, turning to see her standing behind me and still adjusting her kanga, lowering my voice as if conveying delicate information. ‘But he won’t say who has taken him. A white Datsun with government plates.’
The young man nodded, satisfied now that his message had been delivered. We all knew that a white Datsun with government plates meant the security service so why ask who had taken him? I was being ridiculous because of my anxiety, or in case there was a kinder explanation.
‘Is that all you can tell us?’ Saida asked. ‘Where did it happen? Can you tell us any more?’ The young man shook his head at so many pointless questions and mounted his bicycle. ‘Are you a friend of Amir?’ Saida asked him.
The young man said: ‘I work outside, in the garden. Two men came and spoke to him, and then they took him to the car. I think one of them was armed. He had his hand in his pocket, like this,’ he said, demonstrating the bulge in his pocket, his eyes bright again as he gave the details.
‘We thank you for coming to tell us,’ Saida said because she could see the young man was poised to cycle away. ‘Could you also tell us your name?’
‘Bakari,’ the young man said reluctantly.
After Bakari rode away, disappearing round the bend of the lane in an instant, Saida sat at the table in silence for a few moments and I sat opposite her, waiting. I was stunned by the news and confused about what to say or do. People were detained and released, or sometimes not, regularly over the years, but no one close to me had been taken before. Despite everything that had happened, no one had stood in front of me and threatened me with arrest. We had learnt to gratify the powerful with timorous obedience. Why arrest Amir? It is strange how you can deliberate even in times of danger, because I found myself putting this new event into everything I knew about him and trying to guess what he could have done to offend, as if there was time for careful calculation.
‘I was thinking about when they came for my father,’ Saida said in the end. ‘We knew they were arresting everyone who was important in the other party. It was the revolution. What could Amir have done to annoy these people?’
I shook my head to say I had no idea. ‘I thought there was something,’ I said in the end. ‘Some excitement was happening to him. Then I thought maybe it was the new hotel job, that he was excited about that. But I suppose he could be involved in something we don’t know about.’
‘What something?’ Saida said wearily. She did not like to hear one wrong word said about Amir. ‘You are always ready to believe the worst of him,’ she said.
I shook my head again because that was not true. ‘Don’t say that,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anything about these things. He could have got involved in politics. We don’t really know who his friends are or anything like that any more. Or he could have offended someone, they are very touchy, some of these powerful people.’
We talked for a while about what to do and decided that I would go to the hotel to see if I could find out any more. Usually I never went to places like that, hotels and bars and clubs. They were places for foreigners and those who wanted to be like them. At least it was like that then. Now there are so many places like that for the tourists and everybody goes everywhere. So when I said I would go and find out, I really had no idea how I would do that because those tourist hotels were unknown places to me. Bakari said he worked in the gardens, which meant he was a gardener or a labourer who cleaned up the grounds, someone who would be powerless and afraid of being found out as the bearer of such news. From the look of him, he probably needed the job too much to tell us more than he had already done. It was surprising enough that he had come to tell us. Perhaps Amir had done him a kindness and this was Bakari’s way of doing one himself.
Anyway, I set off for the hotel to see if I could find out anything more from someone else. I had seen in films – I used to go to films a lot when I was younger, I told you – how unhappy guests always asked to see the manager, so perhaps I would have to do that if all else failed. I asked the man at the reception desk if he knew anything about what had happened to my brother Amir, and the man said he had no idea that anything had happened to him. I knew him by sight, this man. He had droopy eyes that made him conspicuous but I did not know his name. I told him we had received word that Amir was taken away by two men in a white Datsun. The man asked me who had told us that and I said it was something a neighbour said he had heard, a rumour. The neighbour came to ask if there was any more news, that was the first we heard of it. I did not mention Bakari’s name. The receptionist with droopy eyes said if that was so, then it was all news to him. He was not there when it happened and had nothing to add. It was then that I asked to see the manager and Droopy Eyes looked at me with interest, assessing if I perhaps knew someone important. He went into an office behind the reception counter and after a short delay I was shown into the manager’s office.
The manager was a stony-faced man in his thirties, a stranger from somewhere, with a trimmed moustache and a chin that came to a sharp point. He was one of those creamy-faced men who smell of perfume but whose eyes are like daggers and whose build and bearing betray them as thugs. He had the hardened stillness of a man capable of doing dirty work. He looked at me from under lowered eyebrows and shook hands while still seated. Then he pointed me to a chair. I understood from all this that I was to be intimidated by this trusty flunkey of corrupt money. Because even someone like me could tell that this unpleasant-looking man was not the one who cooked the books and signed the cheques. The manager said he knew nothing further about the incident except that two men in a government car took Amir away. They could have been friends of his who had come to pick him up for a picnic for all anyone knew. The manager was not there when it happened. He would wait for clarification from the authorities. In the meantime, he sincerely hoped that everything would be resolved happily. He was concerned for his employee, of course, but he was also anxious that the matter should have no detrimental effect on the business. If there was anything further he could do to help … After that, he stood up, shook hands with me, and showed me out of the office. From the reception area, which was now empty – Droopy Eyes had gone – I could see a section of the swimming pool and some European children splashing noisily in it, having fun in the sun. I don’t know why exactly, but even now after all this time that image revolts me.
On my way home I passed people I knew, and some of them had already heard. News of such events travelled quickly, then the rumours and the explanations began, and then slowly, after some days, information emerged from witnesses about the whereabouts of the poor man who had been arrested, and maybe even why. Sometimes it was only the rumours and the wild theories that accompanied them that people remembered. I disentangled myself from the curious questioning as politely as I could, after all I really knew nothing, but I was grateful that Amir’s arrest was so widely known. It was safer that way.
Saida was distraught when she heard there was no news. ‘You found out nothing,’ she said, making me feel useless and cowardly. She must have seen that her words hurt me because she reached out to touch my hand and called me habibi. ‘We don’t know who took him, or why, or where to,’ she said. ‘It’s unbearable, we can’t sit and do nothing. Isn’t there someone we know?’
That’s how it was, you see. Whenever some hardship came, people asked if there was anyone to go to, someone who would help them. That’s how it still is. I said that I would go and see if Yusuf would agree to help us find out something. You remember h
im? We were at school together and were very good friends when we were younger. As I cycled towards Yusuf’s father’s house, I debated if I should ring first. There was a shop on the way where I could stop and do that. Yusuf’s father was now a powerful man in the government, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Yusuf himself was also a junior official in the ministry. I would see him sometimes, driving by in his gleaming red Honda with his sunglasses on. It made me smile to see him drive by like someone on TV. He always gave me a wave if he caught sight of me, which made me think some of the old feeling between us was still there. When we ran into each other in town we still had time for greetings and conversation. The last time we met I had teased him about his diplomatic career and Yusuf said he was expecting a posting to Washington soon. He was playing up his position as a way of making a joke, of being sarcastic about his own importance, but that did not mean he was not important. All the children of the powerful were being groomed to be powerful too. That is what families do, if for no other reason than to ensure the security of their plunder. That’s how things are.
Yusuf lived in a wing of his father’s house, with his wife and child. Imagine how big that house would have to be to accommodate a grandee and his consort, and have wings large enough for his children and their families, and perhaps outhouses for their servants and their guard dogs, and garages for their cars. If I rang beforehand, it would perhaps turn out that the telephones were bugged, not to spy on the deputy minister but to protect him and his family from nuisance and insult, so that any such callers could be traced and punished for their discourtesy. And if they were bugged, Yusuf would have to be cautious and perhaps would try to get rid of me quickly if it turned out that I was asking indiscreet questions. Perhaps he would try to get rid of me anyway if I spoke to him on the phone, even if it were not bugged. Promise to help then do nothing. It would be easier to do that on the phone than to my face.
Gravel Heart Page 23