‘That hat has a kind of magic in it, like Samson’s curls,’ Lettice reflected. ‘His self-assurance roosts in it, and can be taken on and off.’
‘Well, it is the uniform,’ Hereward said with understanding.
For a month or two we heard no more of the case, and then one day Kamau the mission-boy reappeared, looking much fatter, and pleased with himself, and wearing a new shirt.
‘I am not guilty,’ he said, using the English words, though stiffly, as if they were a bad fit.
‘Well, it is no affair of mine,’ Robin replied. The foundations of our stone house were being laid slowly, with the aid of Hereward’s Indian fundi, and his mind was full of the complications of building. Kamau said he would like to work for us, and that he was a clerk, who could look after stores and tickets. Robin doubted this, but signed him on for a very small wage in this capacity. Sammy shook his head afterwards, and said that nothing but harm would come of it.
‘Why did the D.C. return him?’ Sammy demanded rather crossly. ‘He said that he had killed the headman. And all the witnesses agreed.’
‘Perhaps the D.C. thought that they were all lying,’ Robin suggested. ‘As indeed they probably were.’
‘It is not a good thing,’ Sammy said firmly, without explaining why. He had, of course, become an ally of Kupanya’s, which was a great help to us, as we never went short of labour. I sometimes saw his young wife, Kupanya’s daughter, about her tasks near Sammy’s homestead, or on his shamba, which occupied the choicest part of our farm. She was called Wanjui, and was jaunty and attractive, with supple limbs as soft as new-moulded clay, and was scarcely more than fifteen years old. Now that she was married her head was shaven and she wore a beaded leather apron and a great many coils of wire, for Sammy was a rich man and could afford to keep her well. She went with his second wife (the senior was in Masailand) to hoe the shamba, or plant maize, or harvest millet, according to the season. So far as we could see she was gay and happy and, if she regretted Njombo, she showed no sign. Njombo was a younger and more dashing sort of man, but not nearly so rich.
Some months later, after the rains, Sammy reported to Tilly in a gloomy manner that Wanjui was sick, and asked her to provide medicine. After Tilly had visited Wanjui in the cavern of her hut, she sent for Maggy Nimmo. Mrs Nimmo always came under protest, saying that she was a nurse no longer, and had no equipment, and was always expected to do doctor’s work, but as a rule she did come, jogging over on a mule in a very long divided skirt.
‘It’s the usual story,’ she said to Tilly when she had looked at Wanjui. ‘A miss, and all sorts of dirty messes applied to make matters worse. How these women live at all is beyond me, mutilated as they are for a start. What can one do for the girl in that filthy dark hut with every sort of infection ? There’s only one chance, to get her into hospital.’
By now a branch line had reached Thika, and a train ran each way three times a week. This made us all feel very civilized. The train was not well equipped for sick people, and the five miles to Thika in an ox-cart or mule-buggy were still an obstacle, especially in the rains, when the two streams we had to cross engulfed their home-made bridges and turned into impassable torrents. Still, for eight or nine months of the year a sick person, if not too sick, could be got to Nairobi in six or seven hours with luck, provided that he fell ill on a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.
Tilly fixed up some blankets in the mule-buggy to make a bed. When everything was ready, Sammy appeared in the doorway looking sheepish and said that Wanjui had refused to go.
‘Then she must be taken,’ Tilly said.
Sammy shook his head. ‘Some relatives have come…there are two old women…they have their own medicines….’
Tilly was furious, but it was no good. Sammy himself would have sent her, but in this emergency the word of a husband carried little weight. The matter had been taken over by Kupanya’s family. Mrs Nimmo reported that two old crones were in possession of the hut and that a witch-doctor with a gourd full of spells was squatting outside, and a goat tethered near him ready for sacrifice.
‘That girl will die,’ she said, ‘if she doesn’t have proper treatment. If I had my way I’d take her in by force.’
This was impossible. Sammy now supported the old women, and Wanjui remained in her hut. They had managed things in this way for centuries, and in any case the journey would very likely have finished her off. Kamau came up and said that he wished to pray for Wanjui, but this could only be done in his hut, so he wanted leave for the rest of the day. Robin replied that he could pray just as well in the office, but Kamau said that God would not listen to him there, and they had a theological argument.
My own interest was centred on the goat marked down for sacrifice. It was all so unfair on the innocent goat that I resolved to see if I could rescue the animal. This had to be a single-handed, secret business, for I knew that Tilly would forbid the exploit as firmly as the Kikuyu would resist it. In fact I was not supposed to know what was going on at all, but as I was doing my lessons in the sitting-room where most of the discussion took place, the gist of the matter did not escape me.
After lunch, instead of resting on my bed as I was supposed to, I slipped out to Sammy’s compound, where I expected everything to be in a state of drama and activity. But it seemed to sleep as usual in the sun; a few small children played around in the dust, a woman sat in the shade of a hut making a basket out of creeper-twine, there was no sign of Sammy or the old crones. And where was the doomed goat? A little corkscrew path took off from the compound and vanished into a plantation of tall maize. I followed this through a green, rustling forest, and came to an uncultivated patch round a tree. In the shade of the tree several men were squatting, doing something that I could not see on the ground. I watched for some time without daring to move, lest they should be angry, lest I had stumbled on some secret rite. But there did not seem to be anything secret about it and the men did not look round, so I walked up to see what was going on.
I was too late to save the goat. Its inside had been silt open, some of its organs lay on the ground and it had been partially flayed – all sights to which I was well used, and did not find remarkable. The point was that the goat was still alive. A man held its jaws to stop it bleating, but for a moment I saw its eyes, and the feeble twitchings of its raw and broken legs. I then turned and ran all the way back. Tilly found me on the lawn scratching Twinkle’s back, a treatment of which she was very fond. She started to scold me for neglecting my rest, but noticed something wrong, and inquired whether I had been out without a hat, an error that was thought by everyone to result in instant death.
‘Nothing must ever happen to Twinkle,’ I said.
‘That would be a dull life,’ Tilly pointed out. ‘She’s getting big enough to look for a husband.’
‘Then we must get one for her.’
‘One duiker is quite enough,’ Tilly said firmly. She had been obliged to have all the flower-beds surrounded by wire netting, but Twinkle leapt over these and the beds had now become more like prisons than features of a garden, with barbed wire entanglements all over the place. Now and then Twinkle would butt people in the backside and then walk off unconcerned, as if contemptuous of the fuss they made. Tilly lived in the hope that the call of the wild would operate, but I was convinced that Twinkle was too fond of me to leave us for the bush.
‘Sooner or later’, Tilly added, ‘Twinkle really will have to go.’
‘No, no, whatever happens, nothing must hurt Twinkle.’
Tilly looked at me, and also at Twinkle, and said that she wished we had never kept her in the first place, but as it was, we would look after her. I was obsessed with the fear that Twinkle would be used for a sacrifice. She had become very bold, and walked in and out of the house with an imperious, self-confident air, picking her way like a queen. The Kikuyu said that she was very fat, and we ought to eat her. I knew that she was safe from being eaten by the Kikuyu, but not from being tortured and killed.
/>
When I had cut my hand on a broken bottle, Tilly had sealed over the gash with some stuff that glistened like transparent silk called Newskin. That evening, the world looked to me like a smooth coat of Newskin painted over a deep, throbbing wound. The surface shone like healthy flesh, but just below it everything was anguished and horrible. There was the innocent goat, its life agonizingly torn from its tissues, and there was Wanjui, who could have been saved and comforted, helpless in the hands of the old crones, dying in the darkness of the hut; our lives went on as usual, and we could do nothing to alleviate all this pain. Next morning Sammy, who had grown sullen and almost rude, said that Wanjui was dead. Later in the day I noticed smoke coming from his compound. She had died in the hut, which had therefore to be burnt down, while her body was taken out into the bush for the hyenas.
Chapter 14
TROUBLES did not come singly to Sammy. Not long after this, a dreadful thing happened to his eldest son, a boy of circumcision age. Materials for blasting were kept under lock and key, and only Robin and Sammy were supposed to handle them. One day Robin noticed that some of the detonators had gone. Things were always being stolen, but not detonators, and he could only hope that some had been lost, and no one had liked to admit it. Sammy denied all knowledge of the missing articles, and after a while the interest died down.
One afternoon when everyone was dozing (even Tilly was indoors) we heard an explosion from the direction of Sammy’s huts and, after a pause, women’s cries and people shouting. Tilly hurried out, telling me to stay indoors, but I followed out of curiosity and saw a man and a woman bringing towards us, as it seemed, a pillar of glistening red, like raw meat. I darted back into the house and resumed the painting of flowers in a seedsman’s catalogue. Tilly was away a long time and looked dishevelled and exhausted when she came back, and her blouse had blood-stains on it. She wrote a note to Mrs Nimmo and sent a boy to fetch Robin, and then sat down and took up a neglected piece of embroidery, and cut short abruptly anything I said.
Sammy’s son had tried to beat out a detonator between two rocks, to make an ornament. One arm (as I learnt later) was hanging by a shred and his face was a red sponge of pulp. Somehow Tilly had managed to stem the bleeding until Mrs Nimmo arrived to make a more professional job, but of course it was a matter for a surgeon. This time there was no argument. The mangled boy was wrapped up and put in the buggy and driven to the Blue Posts, and Major Breeches, who owned a motor-car, took him to Nairobi, a journey of between two and three hours.
Sammy went to Nairobi about a week later and returned to report that the boy was alive but had lost an eye and an arm. An atmosphere that was not exactly sullen, but was not cheerful either, prevailed on the farm. Robin complained that people skimped their work even more than usual and no longer sang when they cleared bush or weeded. Several of the regular and, up till now, reliable Kikuyu disappeared. Sammy said vaguely that they were ill, or had sick relations. It was curious how pervasive such an atmosphere could be. The air was bright and sunny, rain came when it was needed, flowers bloomed, work progressed, and yet there was something oppressive and uneasy. Hereward said that it was all imagination and we needed a change. Fortunately, one was in sight; Ian Crawfurd had written to suggest that, when his latest journey in the north was over, he should take the Palmers, Tilly, and Robin on a game-shooting safari.
‘Get away from all this pettifogging detail for a bit,’ Hereward approved. ‘Good for Lettice, especially. Stop her moping.’
‘Is Lettice moping?’ Tilly asked. ‘I hadn’t noticed it.’
‘Difficult country for women,’ Hereward said vaguely. ‘The vertical rays of the sun.’ He had taken to riding over quite often to ask Tilly’s advice. Perhaps he found her cheerfulness and energy inspiriting. Tilly never moped, and disregarded the vertical rays of the sun.
Njombo had now been back at work for some time and he, too, shared the general malaise. Now that we had three ponies, his job was an important one, for they needed more attention than mules. He had a real talent for looking after them, and was intelligent, so he was one of the few individuals, apart from Sammy and Juma, whom we looked upon as a prop and stay.
It was therefore very disappointing when one day he disappeared without a word to anyone. When Robin made inquiries, he was told: ‘Perhaps Njombo is sick,’ but no one seemed to know, and Sammy simply shrugged his shoulders and said that Njombo was as foolish as a chicken, and that others could be found to do his work just as well.
This was untrue, and Sammy knew it. Although desertion, as it was called, among the labour was quite common, and could be dealt with through the District Commissioner, farmers did not as a rule pay much attention unless it was on a big scale, or connected with theft or some other crime. But on this occasion Robin was annoyed. Njombo had a position of trust, and had gone off without even leaving a message. Robin sent an urgent summons into the reserve, but nothing happened, so he rode up in a temper to see Kupanya. The chief received Robin with his usual bland courtesy and presented him with a chicken, which ruffled Robin further still, because he had forgotten to bring anything to give Kupanya in return.
‘I will send for this man,’ Kupanya said, when he had heard the complaint, ‘but it may be that he is sick.’
‘If he is sick then he should have treatment,’ Robin replied.
‘There are doctors for white men and doctors for black men. It may be that he has come to consult a black man’s doctor.’
‘Then he is a fool,’ Robin retorted, unable through the limitations of the language to denounce superstition and quackery, as he would have wished. ‘Tell him to come back at once or I will bring a case against him before the D.C.’
Njombo did return about a week later, and received in silence the dressing-down from Robin which he no doubt expected, and did not assimilate. He had lost weight, and looked a sick man. His return only seemed to accelerate matters. Quite suddenly he shrank, his bones stuck out, his cheeks grew hollow and his skin dry, as if something had literally been drained out of him. Robin said he looked as if he had been attacked by vampires, and Tilly dosed him in vain with Epsom salts, cough mixture, cooking port, and quinine.
Once a month, Robin drove into Nairobi in the mule-buggy to fetch the wages, which came out in little sacks of rupees lying at his feet. Such a visit was now approaching, and it was decided to take Njombo to the hospital. As he would never give his consent, he was merely told to come with us in order to look after the mules. When we reached the native hospital Robin marched him in and he was virtually captured by the orderlies. His listlessness was now such that he showed little fight, although he rolled his eyes in his distress. Robin explained matters to a European doctor, who said that he would do his best.
‘But don’t think we’re sure to cure him,’ he added. ‘There are dozens of tropical diseases we haven’t even names for, let alone treatments.’
I missed Njombo, whose fondness for the ponies almost matched my own, but noticed that Kamau was trying to insinuate himself into an escort’s position. He discovered that I was collecting wild flowers and would appear with one in his hand and offer it to me hesitantly, perhaps thinking I was looking for a special kind. He was always delighted when I took it and thanked him, and pressed it in an old catalogue from the Army and Navy Stores. I was rather sorry for Kamau, no one seemed to like him, and Robin said he was a very bad clerk and almost certainly dishonest, and had sacked him several times. Kamau paid no attention and always turned up smiling in what he evidently hoped was an ingratiating manner, so he stayed on.
I told Kamau that Njombo had been taken to the hospital. He shook his head.
‘Njombo cannot get well.’
‘Yes, he can. The doctors will give him medicine.’
‘The medicine of doctors is not strong for Njombo.’
‘Njombo is like everyone else.’
‘But there are bad men, wizards….’ Kamau looked cold and hunched, as if against a wind. ‘Njombo was foolish to bring
harm to Sammy’s son.’
‘Sammy’s son was foolish, to hit that thing like a cartridge with a rock.’
‘It hurt no one else. People saw Njombo digging up the stone…. But these are bad things. When the bwana goes to Nairobi, I would like him to bring me a watch.’
Kamau was more interested than the other Kikuyu in what we did, wore, and possessed, and wished to copy us; Robin thought him a thief. He refused to say any more about Njombo, and no one else mentioned the name. It was as if Njombo was dead already, dead and forgotten. It was noticeable about the Kikuyu that when anyone was dead, the gap had to be closed immediately, no one spoke the name – like a rent that is quickly mended, to make the garment look as whole and serviceable as before.
And then one day Njombo reappeared, his legs like sticks, very frail and hunched like a sick chicken. It was a wonder that he had managed to walk from Thika. His skin looked grey. He carried a note which said: ‘I cannot do anything for this man. There is nothing wrong with him except that he has made up his mind to die.’
This was a blow, not merely to the hopes Tilly and Robin had entertained of Njombo’s recovery, but to their faith in European medicine, which they had believed fully a match for heathen superstition or toxicology. Tilly put him in her sick-bay and ordered Juma to feed him on beef tea. He had no will or life of his own, and refused the beef tea, and no member of his family came to nurse him. It was sad to see him, who had been so bold and smiling, reduced to this pitiable condition, like a blighted plant whose roots have rotted; and to be helpless to apply a remedy.
‘I don’t see how it can be poison,’ Tilly said, ‘because he eats nothing; the sickness must be in his mind. We must convince him that the spell, or curse, or whatever it is, is all imagination, and hasn’t really any power to hurt him.’