Petals of Blood

  ‘We sat there and talked and watched the thabiri birds fly away with the sun. I knew her, of course, because my mother had lived as a squatter on her father’s other farm on the other side of the hill facing Limuru Town and the settled area.

  ‘She asked me why I didn’t go to school. I said I always wanted to, which was not quite true. She said she went to school at Kamandura. I there and then swore that I would go to school.

  ‘The following week I was daily at her father’s pyrethrum field picking the yellow daisies.

  ‘I was adept at it anyway, but now there was a new personal involvement in the job and my mother wondered what had come over me. I want to go to school, I said. I want to earn money to pay fees.

  ‘Sometimes she came to help me and she would tell me more stories about her school. She would also bring me ripe red plums and later juicy luscious pears.

  ‘Well, I earned enough money to pay for a term. When mother saw my determination, she offered to help with the rest.

  ‘She taught me what she knew, and I made quick progress. The teachers allowed me to skip a class or two so that within two years I was only a class behind her.

  ‘My mother was God-fearing, murmuring prayers at every opportunity. But she had never managed to make me pray or to know the meaning of prayer.

  ‘It was Mukami who taught me prayer. My first prayer – she had told me that God would do anything that one asked for – was on the road to school, under a cedar tree, a place we called Kamutarakwaini.

  ‘She was not with me that day. I think she was ill or something. Anyway, an emotion I had not previously experienced suddenly seized me: I bent my head, and shut my eyes, and I asked the Lord to cure her: and Lord, if it is true that you can do anything let me, let me, let Mukami be mine.

  ‘On weekends and during school vacations, I worked on her father’s farms, and again she would come and help me.

  ‘Oh, and we often waded through the green reeds in Manguo lake chasing away thabiri and collecting thabiri eggs.

  ‘And sometimes in the pyrethrum fields, or out by the lake, we wrestled. She would fall to the ground and I would fall atop of her and she would cry and I would get off and she would stand up and rub off dust or grass from her skirt, and then she would laugh atme saying: you coward. Then I would chase her, we would wrestle again, she would suddenly become limp and I would fell her to the ground and there was the strange song in my blood and she would cry and call me sinful and wicked. I would go away again and she would laugh at me and I hated her for all those things in me that I could not quite explain.

  ‘She went to Kanjeru High School, and I thought our worlds had parted. A year after, I followed and went to Siriana High School. The two schools, as you know, are next to one another, separated only by a valley between. There we continued meeting on Saturdays and we talked about our schools, our teacher, our homes, Uhuru and everything was good.

  ‘We saw one another during the school vacations – this time not too often – but once or twice in church.

  ‘It was during her fourth year and my third year in high school that I started noticing changes in her attitude. She was more irritable, it was as if she was angry at seeing me, and yet if I missed a meeting with her she would become even more angry. I could never do anything right and I thought, well, I thought it was because of exam fever.

  ‘One day during a school vacation she passed by our place, our hut in Kamiritho village, and told me, let’s go to church. We followed the same dusty road we used to follow as children going to primary school. We recalled many friends and incidents. There was that tall lanky fellow called Igogo: boys used to tease him to tears by calling him hawk, hawk. There was that daughter of Kimunya, reputedly one of the most beautiful women in all the land. We got into church: and were glad that Rev. Joshua Matenjwa, then the most popular preacher with the youth, was in the pulpit. All throughout she was very playful and where before she had been careful about being seen with me or any boy by her parents, this time she did not seem to care. After church we walked the tarmac road, through Ngenia, to Nguirubi. We lay on the grass and dreamed big dreams: of finishing school, going to University, getting married, children, and all that, even quarrelling about which should come first: a boy or a girl. She wanted a boy and I wanted a girl, we argued, and did not notice the time passing. We ran through Gitogothi, and near Mbira’s place she suddenly said: let’s do like we used to do when we were children: pick thabiri eggs from the lake. It was mad, it was crazy, dusk was coming, but really it was good. We waded through the water, birds flew in the sky, and the green reeds and the tall grass entangled our feet and slowed our progress to the centre. We picked some eggs as we went along.

  ‘In the middle of Manguo lake were two humps which were never covered by water no matter how much it rained, they always seemed to float above the water. Later I learnt that these were sides of a dam built by the young men of Kihiu Mwiri generation at the insistence of Mukoma wa Njiriri, then a chief, as a condition of his giving them licence for initiation. But . . . legend among us boys had it that they were the humps of two giant shark-like animals that used to dwell in the lake, and the reeds were supposed to be their puberty hair. On one of them we went and sat down. It was still. So still, and we watched the thabiri birds fly away following the sun. We counted the eggs. We had collected about ten. Between us. Then suddenly she broke into the stillness with a little piercing cry – uuu! and I saw that a leech had bitten her chin and was now sucking her blood. I pulled it off and blood flowed. I rubbed it and told her not to worry and she told me to stop it, she was not a child or something. I got angry and she got angry and I really wanted to slap her for calling me a big baby but she held my hand and we started wrestling. We wrestled one another and I was really very angry with her. I threw her to the ground and I fell on to her. I felt warm all over and blood coursed through every vein and artery of my being and she held me, dusk was over us and the world was still, so still in its gentle motion.

  ‘When later I awoke, I saw that night had descended and a small moon had appeared.

  ‘Mukami was sitting down. She had broken all the eggs and the shells scattered on the ground beside her.

  ‘“What have you done?” I asked. “Why did you do it?”

  ‘It was then that I saw that she was crying. I held her and told her not to worry, that nothing would happen to her, and that I would anyway marry her, should anything happen.

  ‘She looked up at me, sadly I imagined, and she said:

  ‘“It is not that. It is not that at all.”

  ‘“What’s wrong, then?” I asked, concerned, fearing I would never fathom her or any woman.

  ‘Her next question really shook me, so unexpected it was:

  ‘“Had you a brother who died or something?”

  ‘I always had vague feelings about my brother. I even had vague misty feelings that I might have seen him way, way back when I was a tiny child. But no, it could not be, and yet something must have happened because we moved from our place on her father’s farm and went to a village. The whole thing was mixed up in my mind. I once or twice asked my mother – I think I must have heard a whispering from our neighbours – but she waved off my questions and said something about his having gone to my father in the Rift Valley, and since I had also never seen my father I did not follow up her answer with more questions.

  ‘“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe . . . no, I don’t think so. I mean, the one I know went to the Rift Valley. But why do you ask?”

  ‘“You see, my father has discovered our love. He knows that you are the son of Mariamu. He says that your brother used to be a Mau Mau . . . and that it was he who must have led a gang into our home and who cut off his right ear after accusing him of helping white men or preaching against Mau Mau in church. Uhuru or not Uhuru, he would never forgive that indecency, and he would never let his daughter marry into such a family, so poor, and with such a history of crime. For a whole term he has been telling me to bre
ak it off. And now he has finally asked me to choose between him and you. I give you up or else I look for another father and another home.”

  ‘We waded back through cold water and the reeds, through the moon silence and the gloom. I took her to near her home and I went back to Kamiritho. I asked my mother about my brother.

  ‘“Please tell me the truth,” I told her.

  ‘“Nding’uri. He carried bullets for fighters and he was hanged. Don’t ask me any more. I am not a judge over the actions of men. We are all in the hands of God.”

  ‘Well, I never saw Mukami again.

  ‘Mukami, my life, later jumped off the quarry where I first met her. She died before they could get her to Aga Khan Hospital in Nairobi.’

  4 ~ The effect of this extraordinary confession on those present was great. The old woman remained staring in the same place. But her hand mechanically stirred the Theng’eta pot faster and faster. Wanja moved closer to him. Munira sighed, something between a cough and a choked cry. He then stood up and went out. He was unable to understand the hatred that had suddenly seized him. Mukami was his sister, the only one who had taken his side, and between his father and Karega he now did not know whom to blame. He stayed out until, slightly composed, he came back to find an even more eerie spectacle.

  Abdulla had grabbed Karega by the shoulders and was shaking him almost violently, all the time asking him, repeating the same same thing: ‘You, you, Nding’uri’s brother?’ And his tone was something like the cry of a strangled animal.

  In his mind – but how could they know? – seethed memories of a childhood lived together with a friend, haunting the butcheries and tea shops in Limuru, scrambling for rotten bread thrown on the rubbish heaps from Manubhai’s bakery at Limuru; bitter, sweet, bitter dreams of an education he was never to have in colonial Kenya; crowded memories of the search for a decent job or trade: the years of toil at the shoe factory: the years of awakening, with more dreams of black David with only a sling, a spear and a stolen gun triumphing over white Goliath with his fat cheques and machine-guns; dreams of a total liberation so that a black man could lift high his head secure in his land, secure in his school, secure in his culture – all this and more . . . and below it all . . . the loss . . . the unavenged loss.

  He could not spill this out at once. He only asked: ‘You? You? Nding’uri’s brother?’

  They all waited to see what he would do next, waited for an explanation.

  Abdulla sat back on his stool and quickly swallowed one or two Theng’eta drops. Their puzzled eyes were now on him, for his dramatic act had temporarily taken them from Karega’s story. He seemed to be savouring the Theng’eta effect, then he looked at them all. He struck a fly buzzing near his right ear and then rested his eyes on Karega. Amid their silence of unuttered questions, he now started in a pathetic, chanting voice.

  ‘Millet, power of God!

  ‘Nding’uri, son of Mariamu. Nding’uri, my childhood. Nding’uri, the bravest of them all. Unwept, unavenged he lies somewhere in a common grave. In a mass grave. The unknown unsung soldier of Kenya’s freedom . . .’

  They all felt uncomfortable, embarrassed even.

  Then he shook himself, composed himself, and his voice was now slightly tired, neutral, almost without emotion.

  ‘Millet, power of God,’ he repeated.

  ‘Nding’uri, son of Mariamu. He had come early to my mother’s hut and together we drank the millet porridge she had cooked. In a day or two it would be his turn to enter the forest. I had not yet taken the batuni oath, but I was to join the fighters as soon as I had successfully undergone the ritual. After the porridge we went out into the yard, leaned against the mud-walls to capture the morning sunshine. There was the sun, there was no wind, but it was still cold. We took a turn around the one-acre shamba, aimlessly pulling out a weed here, a weed there, from among the peas and bean flowers. We threw stones at the pear tree in the middle of the shamba to see who would be the first to bring down a pear. But the game and even the fruit were a little tasteless. Later at ten we sauntered toward the Indian shopping centre. We passed by the house of Kimuchu wa Ndung’u, a wealthy supporter of Mau Mau who was later shot by the white people: we stopped by the house, it was newly built, a stone house, the only stone house owned by a black man in the area, and we asked ourselves: will there come a day when all Kenyans can afford such a decent house? Nding’uri said: That is why I am going to join Kimathi and Mathenge. At the Indian-owned shopping centre we were going to meet a man, our man, who had some shadowy conections with the colonial police and used to get bullets from them and in exchange, according to him, he would bring them juicy women. At least that was the story he had told us. His sister, anyway, was Nding’uri’s girl – they came from Ngecha – or Kabuku or somewhere in that direction – probably Wangigi – yes – I think it was Wangigi, but he was often to be found in Limuru. And indeed on one or two occasions he had sold us some bullets which we had promptly passed to our brothers in the forest according to our oath of unity. Today he was going to bring us some more and possibly a gun. Nding’uri, son of Mariamu. He was so excited about handling a gun. I knew it, I could see it on his face, although he tried to hide it. I joked about his prospects as a fighter. “Once upon a time, a warrior went to fight in enemy territory,” I was telling him. “He came back home and started describing the battle to his father . . . ‘And this enemy came toward me and hit me one in the ribs. I fell. Another came and his spear just missed my neck. Another threw his club and it hit me right on the nose . . .’” he went on and on and did not see that his father was getting angry. “My son, I did not send you there to be beaten and to enjoy defeat. Such stories . . . tell them to your mother.” We laughed. Suddenly he stopped in the middle of the road, and thrust his fingers shaped like a revolver, toward me. “Stop, halt, you drinkers of blood! Halt, come here! Lie down. Flat. Arms stretched. You, you, get those hands out of your pockets . . . Why do you oppress black people? Why do you take our land? Why do you take our sweat and ruin our women? Johnnie boys, red men, say your last prayers to your gods . . . No answer? Guilty . . . Trrro-Trrro-Trrroooo . . .” The pistol was now a machine gun in his eager hands, and he was actually sweating. It is all right, I told him, shaking him by the shoulder. He laughed, I laughed, uneasily. And now we recalled the night he and I had done it to the same girl in my grandmother’s hut, where goats and sheep were kept, way back in the past. I did it to her, standing her against the wall and she holding up her skirt. The goats and sheep were bleating, some stampeding. She was crying, not true crying, it was a mixture of sighing and whimpering and sucking in juices of inward pains and it was good. When it was Nding’uri’s turn, she protested a little, no ma Ngaikai inyui muri aganu-i, and then begged for a little rest. But Nding’uri would not hear of it and went straight at her. He found it difficult to enter her in that standing position and she tried to help him, not there, below, that’s too far down, there, and suddenly both fell to the ground, littered with dung and urine, but Nding’uri would not hold back. We recalled her words and laughed. She stood up, when it was all over, and angrily said: See, now, you have ruined my skirt and my calico, and ran out of the hut. We wondered if she, now a happily married mother of two, even remembered that night. Our talk somehow drifted to Nding’uri’s present woman. As I told you, she was our friend’s sister, in fact we had met him through her. At first he did not like their friendship, she told us, but Nding’uri and I dismissed this as the usual protective jealousy of a brother. And indeed he had later become friendly, he was really a talker, and it was he who had casually broached the possibility of his supplying us with “grains of maize”, as we called the deadly things. I told Nding’uri that he should have married the woman and he said it was all right, she had promised to wait for him until after the struggle, and in any case he wanted somebody for whom he would really be fighting. In this manner we soon reached the place, the back street next to a shop belonging to an Indian called Govnji-Ngunji. He was waiting
for us. We shook hands and each handshake was a passage of the grains. It was so smooth and easy and it lasted hardly a minute and he was gone. The gun, he forgot to give us the gun, I told Nding’uri, and he tried to follow him. But then we decided we had better wait until the evening or another day. Two men came, emerged from nowhere, and tapped us on the shoulders. Something cold and hot flushed in my stomach. I knew and I think Nding’uri knew that we had been betrayed. The rat, Nding’uri hissed between his teeth, and was jerked forward with a sudden kick. A police van was parked near a kei-apple hedge near the Indian shops. The two plain-clothes men were laughing and cracking jokes and calling us Field-Marshals and Generals. Torn-trousered Generals. I felt bitter at my own impotence and accepted their jibes in bitter silence. One searched me. Then he suddenly stopped and he looked puzzled. Where are the things? he shouted at me. I too was puzzled. Suddenly there was a shout of triumph from the one who was searching Nding’uri. We all looked in that direction. He was holding high the deadly things found in Nding’uri’s pockets. Then it occurred to me that my man had not searched the inner pocket of my jacket where I had put the grains. It was a split second. I didn’t think about it. The decision as it were decided itself. I only followed it, and made a desperate leap for freedom. They were stunned at first. Then they cocked their guns. I heard the sounds. But this was not really me: how could I be so cool inside? I mixed with Indian children and all the police could do was to shoot in the air and shout to the Indians to help. But the traders were probably frightened by the gunsmoke and the children probably thought it was a joke because they were shouting and clapping and hollering, hurry up, hurry up! which brought more of them into the streets, thus further complicating the issue and so sheltering me from harm. I went through the back lanes, onto the fields near Gwa-Karabu toward Rongai, the African shops. Now they shot at me. I fell. I rose. They shot again. I fell and rose, over ditches and hillocks, through fields of grass, through Rongai market-place, across the railway line and on to the workers’ quarters at Bata Factory. By this time, word had reached Bata. They hid me, passing me from door to door onto a secret path that led to the tea bush, to the forest and to friends.