15

Business was booming at the Pass Port to Heaven Coffin Parlour. But for reasons which no-one could understand, not even the parlour’s owner, Philimon Buchema Ogata, there were fewer demands on his time between eight o’clock and ten o’clock in the morning. And the busiest part of the day was between four o’clock and five o’clock. That day was no exception, and Ogata was using the morning lull to study the obituaries page in the Kuwisha Times.

As Mlambo drew closer to Ogata’s place, he could hear a strange sound – a roll-call of the recently departed, recited by Ogata himself, while he marked with a pencil stub the best lines from the funeral announcements.

Every now and then, Ogata, a tall and thin man in his mid-forties, with an extraordinary bass voice, read an extract in a way that made the hairs on the back of Mlambo’s neck bristle.

“Edward Tambo: Now your journey is ended, heaven awaits. Oliver Mukuzi: No more tears, no more fear, Only trumpets, loud and clear.”

He repeated the sentiments with relish: “No more tears, no more fear, Only trumpets, loud and clear. Faith Gumede . . . Free at last, in the Almighty’s hands . . . Baby Grace, Called to Jesus . . . You see, Mlambo,” Ogata broke off, startling the boy, “all the departed are either living in America, or have relatives in America . . .”

Could he break into the US market, Ogata wondered, and if so, should he take on an extra worker?

On the one hand, the personal service that Ogata provided was at the heart of his success, and anything that reduced this might well drive customers away. To be measured for an Ogata coffin, Furniver had observed, was as important an experience as getting the tailor at Turnbull and Asser, in London’s Jermyn Street, to run up half a dozen of their hand-made Sea Island cotton shirts. In both cases, the clients expected personal attention.

On the other hand, although business was especially good, profit margins were narrow in what was a very competitive business. Ogata had scandalised some people when he first put his slogan into effect: “Try at home – before going Home”. The invitation to people to choose their coffin, and sleep in it for a night before making a final decision on purchase, not only got his business talked about; it had become a great success.

Mlambo shuffled closer, listening and watching, fascinated as Ogata continued with his litany. Every now and then the coffin-maker expressed respect for the dead, and condolences for the living.

And as Philimon Ogata made clear to his customers, in Kuwisha people did not die. Dogs died, yes; but people were not dogs. At worst they passed on. And as far as Ogata was concerned, very, very few of his customers did something so simple, as mundane as to “pass on”.

His customers deserved far better an introduction to the Life that was to come. So never did they die. Instead they were “Promoted to Glory”, or “Risen to the Lord”. That was only right and proper for these hard-working people who had been such devout servants of the Maker.

Ogata beckoned Mlambo to move closer, to cross the black stream of effluent that divided them.

“Lost a bit of weight, I see. Lose a bit more – it will be good for you. Score more goals.”

He wiped the sweat off his brow, and added: “But not too much! I don’t want you to become a customer yet.”

Ogata laughed.

The joke, such as it was, may have been in bad taste, but Mlambo was grateful for the humanity of the exchange. He had little doubt that news of his humiliation would have reached Kireba, and he appreciated the fact that Ogata had not called him Fatboy.

He came closer.

“Sit, boy, sit!” Ogata patted a bench alongside him.

Mlambo sat down, and then realising it was an upturned coffin, leapt up as if he had lowered his bottom onto the embers of a fire.

Kireba’s leading coffin-maker continued to read from the obituary pages: “And the dead were living, and the living were as dead, save those who had honoured the Lord; and so it will be on Judgment Day, when tears will cease, and joy will conquer pain. Revelation 9(vii).”

Ogata marked the passage in his battered Bible, marked “Gift of the Gideons”.

“Joy will conquer pain . . . now that,” he said appreciatively, “is good. I like that. Very much.”

Mlambo crossed himself. Just in case.

“There is good business in the USA,” Ogata returned to his theme.

“Every notice,” he explained, his pencil tapping the paper, repeatedly making his point, “has family in USA. Sons, brothers, sisters.”

He looked at Mlambo, who was now peering over Ogata’s shoulder. Should he confide in the boy? Why not?

“One day, I will make coffins for Kenyans in the USA. Plenty needed. Good business.”

Like most residents of Kireba, Ogata was an ambitious man.

He coughed, spat, and lit a cigarette.

“Mlambo, if you want to learn this business, you become my apprentice . . .”

Mlambo must have looked doubtful.

“And you get a free coffin,” promised Ogata.

“Guarantee?”

“Guarantee. Ask your gran,” replied Ogata.

Mlambo nodded.

She had been buried in an Ogata coffin. He had little doubt that had his gran had any complaints about the service provided, she would have let him know.

Just then a thin and wasted woman who looked 50 but was probably half that age appeared, and Ogata got up to greet her.

Mlambo joined in the greetings, and then left Ogata to his potential customer. He reflected, as he often did, on the wisdom of his old grandmother.

“Power and success do strange things to people,” she would say to anyone who would listen. And since she looked after Mlambo until he was nearly six, at which age he was judged ready to herd the family goats, he heard her say it more often than most.

“Power!” she would say to him as they sat round the lunchtime fire. “It affects the memory. People with power forget old friends. They lose their manners. They are rude to ordinary folk.

“But strangest of all, when they get power, they grow bigger; when they lose power, they go smaller.”

She would pull her old blanket around her narrow shoulders, clear her throat and expectorate, punctuating her words of wisdom with a gob of phlegm, directing it at an unfortunate lizard, and laughing if it found its mark.

The eyes of a lizard, Mlambo had noticed, and the eyes of his gran, had much in common. Both had a rheumy film over them, and both seemed to have 360-degree vision. She had laughed and laughed when a much younger Mlambo had asked whether she and the lizards were related – but she had not denied it.

“Listen to me, young man. What I tell you about power is true. True! I have seen it myself. When my sister’s daughter got a place in school, the girl thought she was very clever. And sure enough, she looked bigger. When she had to marry the boy who made her pregnant and left school, sure enough, she looked smaller. Even though she was with child.

“You, Mlambo, are big now, because you are the boy in charge of goats. This makes you bigger. But if you lose a goat, you will lose your job, and then you will get smaller. So be careful, young Mlambo. Look after your goats!”

Could it be that his gran’s warning about the loss of power was already coming true? Could it be that he, Ferdinand Mlambo, was becoming smaller? Perhaps he had Aids. The thought that he might be yet another victim of the ghastly plague made him feel sick in his stomach.

But it also encouraged him, and helped him as he drew up the plan for revenge – the plan that had begun when he pricked his thumb on the sharp end of one of the knitting needles.

As he later explained to Ntoto and Rutere: “It grew in my head, like a paw-paw grows from a pip.”

But first, he would seek the boys’ help. As he approached Harrods, he felt himself getting smaller, his shoulders sagging, his arms hanging limply at his side, and his feet dragging.

By the time he arrived at Harrods he had convinced himself that his gran’s warning was literally true.