At the crack of dawn I’m straight up and washing my puffy, tear-stained face. Then I go over to Priscilla’s. It’s not locked up, which means she must be there. I knock and call softly: ‘It’s me, Corinne, please open the door. I have a big problem.’ Still more than half-asleep Priscilla comes out and stares at me in shock. ‘Where is Lketinga?’ she asks. With immense difficulty I hold back my tears and tell her everything. She listens attentively while she’s getting dressed and tells me to wait while she goes to the Masai to find out what’s going on. Ten minutes later she’s back and says we’ll have to wait, he’s not there, didn’t sleep with them and must have run off into the bush. He’ll be back for sure and if not we’ll go and find him. ‘What would he be doing in the bush?’ I ask, confused. Probably the beer and the miraa were doing things to his head, says Priscilla. I should just wait a bit.
But he doesn’t turn up. I go back into our little house and wait. Then, at about ten a.m., two warriors turn up carrying a completely exhausted Lketinga. They drag him into the house and lay him down on the bed. I’m angry that I don’t understand any of what’s being said. He lies there apathetically staring at the ceiling. I speak to him, but he just looks through me as if he doesn’t recognize me. He’s sweating all over. I’m close to panic because I don’t understand what’s happening. The others don’t have a clue either: they found him in the bush under a tree and say he ran amok. That’s why he’s so exhausted. I ask Priscilla if I should fetch a doctor, but she says there’s only one here at Diani Beach and he won’t come out to the village. We’d have to go to him, and in the circumstances that’s out of the question.
Lketinga falls asleep again and has weird dreams about lions attacking him. He throws his arms about wildly, and the two warriors have to hold him down. It breaks my heart to look at him. What has happened to my brave, good-humoured Masai? I can’t stop myself crying, which annoys Priscilla: ‘That’s no good. You only cry when someone dies.’
It’s the middle of the afternoon before Lketinga comes to and stares at me, befuddled. I smile happily at him and say: ‘Hello, darling, you remember me?’ ‘Why not, Corinne?’ he answers weakly then looks over at Priscilla and asks what’s going on. They talk to one another, and he shakes his head and can hardly believe his ears. I stay with him while the others all go off to work. He’s hungry and has a stomach ache. When I ask if I should get some meat he says: ‘Oh yes, it’s okay.’ I hurry to the meat-stand and back. Lketinga’s still in bed, asleep again. An hour later, when the food is ready, I try to wake him. He opens his eyes and stares at me in confusion again. Who am I, what do I want with him? ‘I’m Corinne, your girlfriend,’ I reply. But he keeps asking me who I am. I don’t know what to do, and Priscilla hasn’t returned from selling her kangas on the beach. I tell him he should eat something, but he laughs scornfully. He’s not going to touch any of this so-called ‘food’; I’m obviously trying to poison him.
Now I can no longer hold back the tears. He looks at me and asks who’s died. To keep myself in check, I pray aloud. At last Priscilla comes back, and I bring her in straight away. She tries to talk to him too but doesn’t get any further. After a while she says: ‘He’s crazy!’ A lot of the morans, the warriors who come along the coast get Mombasa-madness, she says, and his is a bad case: maybe someone made him crazy. ‘What, how and who?’ I stammer, adding that I don’t believe in superstitious things. But Priscilla tells me that I’ve a lot to learn in Africa. ‘We have to help him,’ I implore her. ‘Okay!’ she says, she’ll send someone up to the north bank to get help. That’s the big centre for the coastal Masai, and their chief is acknowledged as the leader of all the warriors. He will have to decide what is to be done.
Around nine o’clock in the evening two warriors from the north bank come to see us. Although they aren’t very pleasant towards me, I’m pleased that something’s being done. They talk to Lketinga and massage his forehead with a pungent flower. When they talk to him he gives completely normal answers. I can hardly believe it. Before he was so confused, and now he’s talking calmly. I can’t understand a word and feel helpless and redundant. So to have something to do I make chai for everyone.
There is such trust between the three men that they are barely aware of my presence. Nonetheless they accept the tea gladly and I ask what the matter is. One of them speaks some English and tells me Lketinga is not well: he is sick in the head. He needs rest and space, which is why the three of them are going to go off and sleep out in the bush. Tomorrow they will take him to the north bank to see to things. ‘But why can’t he sleep here with me?’ I ask, flustered and unwilling to believe anybody anymore, even though he’s obviously feeling better. No, they say, my proximity now would be bad for his blood. Even Lketinga apparently agrees that, as he’s never been ill like this before, it must be to do with me. I’m shocked, but I’ve no choice other than to let him go with them.
The next morning they do indeed come back and have tea. Lketinga seems well, almost his old self, but the other two insist that he must come with them to the north bank. He laughs and agrees: ‘Now I’m okay!’ When I mention that tonight I have to go to Nairobi to get my visa extension he says ‘No problem. We’ll go to the north bank and then on together to Nairobi.’
When we get to the north bank there’s a lot of chattering and gossiping before we’re brought to the ‘Chief’s’ hut. He’s not as old as I had anticipated and greets us warmly, although he can’t see us because he’s blind. He talks patiently with Lketinga. I sit there and watch, not understanding a word. In any case I wouldn’t dare to interrupt the conversation. Time is getting short, however, and although I’m getting the night bus I need to get the ticket about three or four hours earlier if I want to get a place.
After an hour, the chief tells me I have to go without Lketinga because Nairobi would not be good for his condition and his sensitive disposition. They will look after him and I should come back as soon as possible. I agree because I would be completely useless if the same thing were to happen again in Nairobi. So I promise Lketinga that I’ll catch the bus back tomorrow night as long as everything goes okay. He looks very sad as I climb on board the bus, holding my hand and asking me if I really will come back. I reassure him and tell him not to worry, I’ll be back and we’ll see what to do then. If he is still not well, we’d find a doctor. He promises me he’ll wait and do everything possible to avoid a reoccurrence. The matatu leaves, and my heart sinks. As long as everything goes okay!
In Mombasa I get my ticket, but now have to wait five hours before the bus goes. Eight hours after that I arrive in Nairobi in the early morning. Once again I have to wait in the bus until just before seven, before getting out. I have a cup of tea and take a taxi to the Nyayo Building, the only way I know to find it. When I arrive the place is in chaos. Whites and blacks alike are pushing and shoving at the various windows. I suffer through all the forms that I have to fill in, all in English of course. Then I hand them all in and wait. Three whole hours pass before my name is called. I hope fervently that I get the necessary stamp. The woman at the window looks me up and down and asks why I want to stay another three months. As relaxed as I can, I answer: ‘Because I’ve seen nothing like enough of this magnificent country and I’ve got enough money to stay another three months.’ She opens my passport, flicks through it and then thumps down a huge stamp on the relevant page. I’ve got my visa: one step further! I pay the fee happily and leave the dreadful building. Right now I cannot imagine that I will eventually see so much of this building that I will hate it with a vengeance.
With a ticket for that night’s bus securely in my pocket I head off for something to eat. It’s still early afternoon, and I wander around Nairobi to stop myself falling asleep. I haven’t slept properly in more than thirty hours. In order not to get lost I restrict my wanderings to two streets. By seven o’clock it’s dark, and as the shops close the nightlife slowly begins in the bars. The figures on the streets become more sinister with every passing minute, and I decide not to linger there any longer. A bar is out of the question so I opt to pass the next two hours in a nearby McDonald’s.
Eventually I’m on the bus back to Mombasa. The driver is chewing miraa. He drives like a madman but gets us back in record time, arriving at just four in the morning. Once again I have to wait for the first matatu to the north bank. I can’t wait to see how Lketinga is.
Just before seven I’m already back in the Masai village. Everyone’s still asleep, and the teahouse isn’t open yet, so I wait outside it, as I don’t know which hut Lketinga is staying in. Around seven-thirty the teahouse owner arrives and opens up. I go in, sit down and wait for the day’s first cup of chai. He brings it to me then disappears back into the kitchen. Soon after a few warriors come in and sit down at other tables. The atmosphere is very quiet, suppressed, but I put that down to the fact that it’s still early morning.
After half an hour I can no longer contain myself and ask the owner if he knows where Lketinga is. He shakes his head and disappears again. But after another half hour he sits down at my table and tells me I should go back to the south bank and not wait around any longer. I stare at him in astonishment and ask: ‘Why?’ ‘He’s not here anymore,’ the man says. ‘He went home last night.’ My heart misses a beat. ‘Home to the south bank?’ I ask naively. ‘No, home to Samburu-Maralal.’
‘No, that’s not true!’ I shout, horrified. ‘He’s here. Tell me where!’ Two others come across from their table and try to calm me down. I beat back their hands, rage and shout at them in German: ‘You pack of lying pigs, you planned all this!’ Tears of anger run down my face, but I couldn’t care less.
I’m so furious that I’m ready to lay into any of them. They put him on the bus knowing that I’d be getting the very same bus in the opposite direction. We must have passed in the night. I can’t believe it. How mean could they get! As if these eight hours were all that mattered! More spectators have gathered, but I charge out of the place to get away from them. As far as I’m concerned they’re all the same. Sad and bitter, I set off back to the south bank.