‘What is your name?’ he asked, holding him by the shoulder.
‘Muriuki.’
‘Son of?’
‘Wambui.’
‘That’s your mother?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about your father?’
‘He works far away.’
‘Tell me: why don’t you like school?’
The boy was drawing marks on the ground with his right toe, head bent to one side, holding back laughter with difficulty.
‘I don’t know, I don’t know,’ he said, making as if to cry. Munira let him go after getting a promise that Muriuki would return and even bring the others. So they came back cautiously: they still thought him a bit odd and this time would not venture out of the closed walls.
She waited for Munira outside the school kei-apple hedge. He got off the metal horse. He stood aside, thinking she only wanted to pass. But she stood in the middle of the narrow track supporting herself against a twigged stick.
‘Where you come from: are there tarmac roads?’
‘Yes.’
‘And light that comes from wires on dry trees to make day out of night?’
‘Yes.’
‘Women in high heels?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oiled hair, singed goatskin smell?’
‘Yes.’
He looked at her furrowed face, at the light in her eyes. His own wandered past her, over the empty school, for it was after four o’clock, and he thought: what did she want?
‘They are beautiful and wise in the ways of the white man: is this not so?’
‘That they are: too wise, sometimes.’
‘Our young men and women have left us. The glittering metal has called them. They go, and the young women only return now and then to deposit the newborn with their grandmothers already aged with scratching this earth for a morsel of life. They say: there in the city there is room for only one . . . our employers, they don’t want babies about the tiny rooms in tiny yards. Have you ever heard of that? Unwanted children? The young men also. Some go and never return. Others sometimes come to see the wives they left behind, make them round-bellied, and quickly go away as if driven from Ilmorog by Uhere or Mutung’u. What should we call them? The new Uhere and Mutung’u generation: for was it not the same skin diseases and plagues that once in earlier times weakened our people in face of the Mzungu invasion? Tell me: what then brings you to a deserted homestead? Look at Abdulla. He came from over there and what did he bring us? A donkey. Now imagine, a donkey! What have you really come to fetch from our village? Is it the remaining children?’
He pondered this a few seconds. He plucked a ripened yellow kei-apple and crushed it between his fingers: isn’t there a safe corner in which to hide and do some work, plant a seed whose fruits one could see? The smell from the rotting fermenting kei-apple hit into his nostrils. He felt a sudden nausea, Lord deliver us from our past, and frantically fumbled in his pockets for a handkerchief to cover the sneeze. It was too late. A bit of mucus flew onto the woman’s furrowed face. She shrieked out, auuu-u, Nduri ici mutiuke muone, and fled in fright. He turned his face aside to hold back another sneeze. When a second later he looked to the path, he could not find a trace of her behind the kei-apple bush or anywhere. She had vanished.
Strange, mysterious, he muttered to himself. He got on his metal horse and slowly rode toward Abdulla’s shop.
Abdulla was also a newcomer to Ilmorog. He and little skinny Joseph had come into our midst in a donkey-cart full of an assortment of sufurias and plates and cheap blankets tightly packed into torn sisal sacks and dirty sheets knotted into temporary bags. This was going to be an eventful year, Njogu had exclaimed sarcastically on seeing the odd trio, and listening to their even more odd request: how in this desert place could anyone even think of rescuing the broken mud-walled shop that had once belonged to Dharamashah of Ilmorog legends? You can take the ghost . . . memories, curses and all . . . old Njogu had said, pointing to the building, whose roof and walls leaned to one side and looked indistinguishable from the dry weed and the red earth. We used to crowd his little shop and look curiously at his stumped leg and his miserable face and listen to his stream of curses at Joseph. Soon we were glad that at long last we had a place from which we could get salt and pepper. But we were rather alarmed at his donkey because it ate too much grass and drank too much water. Within a month Abdulla had added bar services to his supply of Jogoo Unga and pepper and salt. On a Friday or a Saturday the herdsmen from Ilmorog plains would descend on the store and drink and talk and sing about their cows and goats. They had a lot of money from the occasional sale of goats at Ruwa-ini Market, and they had no other use for it, carrying it hidden inside their red cloths in small tins hanging on strings from their necks. Afterward they would disappear for days or weeks before once again descending on Abdulla.
Munira entered the place through the back door and sat on the edge of a creaking bench. It’s strange, he muttered to himself again, recalling the encounter with the old woman as he waited for Joseph to bring him a Tusker beer. No sooner had he started drinking than three strongly built but elderly folk joined him at the table. Muturi, Njuguna and Ruoro were prosperous peasants, and as such they were the wise men, the athamaki, of the farming community. They settled disputes not only between the various families but also between this community and that of the herdsmen of the plains. For more serious disputes and problems they went to the diviner, Mwathi wa Mugo. They greeted Munira and started talking about the weather.
‘Where you come from: is it as dry as this place?’
‘It is . . . well . . . it is always hot in January.’
‘It’s the same season of course – githemithu season.’
‘Is that the name of it?’
‘These children . . . You have too much of the Foreigner’s maneno maneno in your heads. Did you have a good gathano harvest in your place? Here it was poor and we don’t know if the grains of maize and beans can last us to the end of the njahi rains. That is, if the rains come . . .’
‘I am not really a farmer,’ Munira hastened to explain, all this talk of njahi, themithu, gathano and mwere, confusing him.
‘We know, we know . . . the hands of a Msomi are themselves a book. Don’t I see those town-people when they come to visit us? Hands untouched by soil, it’s as if they wear ngome.’
Njuguna’s ambition had always been one day to wear ngome on his fingers’ knuckles as a sign that he had said kwaheri to soiling his hands. He would then be like some of the mbari lords of his youth. Some of the famous houses had had so much wealth in cows and goats they would get ahois and hangers-on to work for them. The ahois and the ndungatas of course hoped to get a goat in payment and strike out on their own in the virgin common lands or unclaimed grassfields. Other heads of big houses and clans and mbari had had enough wives and sons to do the work or enough daughters to bring in more wealth. But such prosperity had always escaped Njuguna. The land seemed not to yield much and there was now no virgin soil to escape to as in those days before colonialism. His sons had gone away to European farms or to the big towns. Daughters he had none: and what use were they nowadays? Old Njogu, after all, had several and they had only brought him sorrow instead of goats. So, Njuguna, like the other peasants in all the huts scattered about Ilmorog Country, had to be contented with small acreage, poor implements and with his own small family labour. But he kept on hoping.
‘We did not get enough rains last mwere season,’ Muturi was explaining. ‘Now we look at the sun and the wind and the thungururi birds in the sky and we fear that it may not rain. Of course njahi rains are still two moons away . . . but these birds, we fear.’
Munira was not interested in farming. And this talk of possible droughts and rain he had heard since his childhood. Farmers always talked of being threatened by droughts, as if giving voice to their fears would keep out such calamities.
‘I am sure it will rain,’ he said, just to assure them that he was
interested. He tried to steer the conversation along different lines, and it was Abdulla who came to his rescue.
‘Do you think you can manage the school alone?’ Abdulla asked.
‘I hope that once Standard I and II classes start going I can get more teachers.’
‘Standard I and II, how?’
‘Well, Standard II in the mornings only. Standard I in the afternoons,’ he said.
‘You must be very dedicated,’ Abdulla said, and Munira did not know if it was said in sarcasm or in compliment. But he tried to answer it sincerely.
‘Some of us who had a schooling . . . we tended to leave the struggle for Uhuru to the ordinary people. We stood outside . . . the song I should say. But now, with independence, we have a chance to pay back . . . to show that we d . . . did not always choose to stand aside . . . That’s why . . . well . . . I chose transfer to this . . . to Ilmorog.’
‘I am not sure that some have not already started looking after their stomachs only,’ Abdulla said, and once again the tone made Munira slightly uncomfortable. It was as if Abdulla was already suspicious of, or else antagonistic to his . . . well . . . his rather missionary posture and fervour.
‘I can’t speak for everybody – but it seems that there is still enthusiasm and a belief that we can all do something to make our independence real . . .’ he said.
‘That’s the way to talk,’ said Muturi in compliment. ‘Those are good words.’
Munira now seized this chance to elaborate on the future prospects of the school and begged their co-operation. Kamuingi koyaga ndiri, he said, not believing it, but noting that the words impressed them. Later, after dusk, the three peasant farmers staggered back to their homes, but not before reporting their findings to Nyakinyua. They leaned a bit too heavily on their walking-sticks, eyes a little red, voices a little blurry: he is all right, they told the others who had gathered in Nyakinyua’s hut: he’s all right, they said, and looked at one another with knowing eyes.
He became one of us. The children sang a e i o u ĭ ŭ in loud voices. They also sang: Kamau wa Njoroge ena ndutu kuguru: and thought of their own jiggers eating their toes and scratched them against the floor in earnest. Some ran away from the school to whistle the true herdsman’s tune to their cattle or simply to climb up and down the miariki trees in the open fields. Others blubbered on for a week or so and they too rejoined the cattle trail. But this is the 1960s, not the 1860s, Munira reflected, a little disappointed.
Once more he ran about the ridge, caught up with a few and asked them to tell the others that he had called a School Assembly. Only five pupils turned up. He addressed them from the raised mud rostrum: ‘Listen, you have shown more than average diligence and even intelligence by attending this meeting. You are therefore promoted to the English beginners’ class. But you will need to get a teacher who can and will endure all this hostility and indifference of a people opposed to light and progress.’ He closed his first School Assembly by silently swearing never to come back to this God-forsaken place. His first conscious attempt to keep in step with the song seemed to have ended in yet another failure and defeat.
Spurs, stirrups, metal horseback, rider in a cloud of dust. Munira was aware of the many eyes that laughed at his failure behind the hedges. Nyakinyua, the old woman, stepped into the dusty track and shouted at him, at his retreating back. Further in the fields women mockingly sang to a gitiro tune of another horseman long ago, when Ilmorog was truly Ilmorog, and they chorused: Sons of Munoru we see; where now the stock of Ndemi?
He did not care. For a month they had made a fool of him. And even Abdulla, whose store and bar had become a daily refuge, would not help. ‘They are a bit suspicious of strangers and strange things. At first they did not like my donkey. They still don’t like it. And why? Because of the grass. Imagine that.’ He would turn to pour curses at Joseph before continuing, leaning toward Munira and assuming a conspiratorial voice: ‘Mwalimu, is it true that the old woman shat a mountain in your compound? A deed without a name. Ha! ha! Joseph, Gatutu Gaka, bring another beer for Mwalimu. But is it really true?’ And the crippled fellow would laugh at Munira’s discomfort.
The laughter, other memories, and now the road to Ruwa-ini, capital of Chiri District, did not improve Munira’s humour. The road was as treacherous as those hags and brats and cripples, he thought, riding through ruts and bumps and ditches.
The road had once been a railway line joining Ilmorog to Ruwa-ini. The line had carried wood and charcoal and wattle barks from Ilmorog forests to feed machines and men at Ruwa-ini. It had eaten the forests, and after accomplishing their task, the two rails were removed, and the ground became a road – a kind of a road – that now gave no evidence of its former exploiting glory.
He smiled once when he came to the tarmaced last stretch which zigzagged through coffee farms previously owned by whites. Even here there was no respite. He kept on diving into the bush to avoid the oncoming lorries whose drivers only laughed and made obscene gestures: let the cycle suckle the udder of the lorry.
The buildings of Ruwa-ini came to view and it suddenly occurred to him that he had not yet thought of an alternative. He remembered why he had earlier so readily chosen Ilmorog and all sounds of fury inside were replaced by the fear of going to work in Limuru against the shadow of his father’s success compared to his own failure, and so admitting to failure.
The thought suddenly made him stop. He got off the bicycle. He leaned on it and watched the scene over the hedge. Stretching for a mile or so outside Ruwa-ini was a golf course of neatly trimmed green lawn. Three Africans were laughing at a big-bellied fourth who kept on swinging the stick without hitting the ball. Caddy boys, in torn clothes, stood at a respectful distance weighed down by bags of golfsticks and white balls. Aah, this world, Munira roused himself and quickly rode his bicycle into Ruwa-ini.
Mzigo’s office was a specklessly clean affair with a tray for incoming mail, a tray for outgoing mail and one for miscellaneous mail plus numerous pens and pencils beside each of the three enormous inkwells. On the wall hung a map of Chiri District with the location of the various schools marked in with drawing-pins.
‘How goes your school?’ Mzigo asked and, swaying ever so slightly on the swivel chair, he glanced at the pin-dotted map.
‘You sent me to an empty school. No teachers.’
‘I thought you wanted a place of peace? A challenging place?’
‘No pupils even.’
‘I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with that school. No teacher wants to stay there. One year, two years, and they leave. If you should find a teacher, even UTs, we shall certainly employ them.’
‘But . . .’
‘I’ll shortly be coming there, I’ll shortly be coming round. Do you have good roads? You know these damned cars – a real nuisance, the true black man’s burden – believe me, Mr eeh, eeh — Munira – a bicycle is so much less trouble.’
He now glanced at Munira, his lips split into an ironic smile as if to say: You should have known – trying to escape . . . but then, thought Munira, how could Mzigo have known? And suddenly, remembering the lorries and the matatu drivers who had forced him into the bush on his way here, he saw great wit in Mzigo’s condescending compliment on bicycles. His inward rage gave way to laughter. He laughed until his ribs pained and he felt better, lighter inside. ‘You don’t believe me, eh?’ Mzigo was asking. Munira was now thinking of Abdulla, the cripple; Nyakinyua, the old woman; the children who preferred herding cattle and climbing up miariki trees to going to school. He contrasted their direct approach with this pomposity; their atmosphere of curiosity with the fear behind the faces that sat in the back corners of sleek Mercedes Benzes, behind the walls of the once for-Europeans-only mansions and private clubs; their sincerity with the bellies pregnant with malice and cunning that walked the length of a golf course negotiating business deals, and recalling Abdulla’s words he felt kindly toward Ilmorog.
Maybe he had not understood Nyakinyua, Abdu
lla, Njogu, Njuguna, Ruoro and all the others, he now reflected. He did not say a word about resigning or asking for a transfer. He collected chalk, exercise books and some writing paper.
‘Mr Mzigo, are you serious . . . do you mean what you said just now? That I could recruit UT help?’
‘Yes, Mr Munira, provided you bring them to me for formal appointment. I want to see that school grow. I would like to see all the classes going.’
He stayed the night at Furaha house in Ruwa-ini. The following day he crossed over into Kiambu District. He wanted to spend a day or two at his home in Limuru before pedalling back to Ilmorog.
He had until now practically lived all his life at Limuru. After leaving Siriana in 1946, he had taught in many schools around Limuru: Rironi, Kamandura, Tiekunu, Gatharaini and for the last six years or so at Manguo. Hence he felt his heart quicken at his return to a seat of his past. But it pained him that he still depended on his father for a place in which to set a home. He had always thought of striking out on his own but he had remained circling around his father’s property without at the same time being fully part of it. This was unlike his more successful brothers. The one following him had even gone to England and returned to a successful career with the banks. The other had just finished Makerere and was PRO with an oil company. Yet another was in Makerere doing medicine. The first two sisters had successfully completed their high schools: one was in England training as a nurse: the other was at Goddard College, Vermont, USA, taking a BA in Business Administration. One, Mukami, had recently died and he still felt deeply saddened at the memory because, although she was much younger than himself, yet he felt that she somehow sided with him, and did not look upon him as a failure. She was of a lively, rebellious spirit: Mukami had once or twice been beaten for joining the children of the squatters in stealing plums and pears from her father’s fruit farm. Often, even after she had been admitted to Kenya High School, she would, while on leave, join the gang of workers and she would help in picking pyrethrum flowers. Her mother would remonstrate her with: ‘They are paid to work!’ Her committing suicide – she had jumped off a quarry cliff overlooking Manguo Marshes – must have been her act of saying a final ‘No’ to a trying world.