9.

Miisi arrives home from school but home is not home: it is the seminary. This does not make sense. Why did he go to the old school when there is a primary school attached to the seminary? He should not go to his old school. He will never do that again. He turns into the neat paved way of the seminary but the house where he lives with the priests is occupied by his father, who has a large family. This is not right. His father has no right to be at the seminary. The seminary is his and his European friends’. He points this out to Father John Mary, “Take me away from him. Take me to Ireland,” but the priest laughs at him. Miisi, now frantic, runs to the backyard but it is his old home. The roof is burned out but the walls are still standing. A crowd is milling around the door hole.

“Take that child away.”

Miisi’s arm is yanked. He is led away. But then he sees four policemen carry his mother out of the house. There is a rope around her neck. Her eyes, googly, stare at him. The policemen stand on the verandah and swing her body back and forth once, twice, on the third count they launch her into the courtyard. He hears her muffled thud. People scatter. The woman holding his hand lets go. Miisi runs back and sees one of the policemen pull out a whip. The policemen are dressed in the colonial uniform of starched khaki shorts and shirt with lots of pockets. They wear fez hats, black boots, and knee-high socks. The policeman lashes his mother’s body. Women scream. Men look away. Miisi shouts at the policeman to stop but instead says, “You’re wearing a safari suit,” as if the policemen are daft.

“Take that child away,” someone says because they don’t want him to see.

All the grown-ups descend on him with unnecessary force and carry him away. But the whip is still cracking. Women cry as if the whip is being used on their bodies. The men are useless. “Do something, can’t you hear Mother crying?” He catches snippets of whispers, “It’s the law . . . The police must lash . . .”

“They’ve put the rope around my mother’s neck so they can take her away,” Miisi cries but no one listens. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts not being listened to.

Now the policeman is dragging his mother’s body. Her corpse tries to crawl to keep up but it is too slow. It bothers him that his mother’s corpse does not fight. She allows herself to be dragged to the grave. All those people staring, no one tries to save her. Yet in the grave she stares up at Miisi pleadingly. He says, “You’ve done this to yourself, you wanted to die!”

To his horror, he spits into the grave.