The next day we move into the shop. It’s oppressively hot, and the flowers have vanished again – the goats have done a good job there. I arrange and rearrange the furniture, but I can’t get it to feel as cosy as inside the manyatta. But I have promised myself less effort and more regular meals, both of which I desperately need. When the shop closes my husband disappears off home to welcome his animals back, and I cook up a good stew with carrots, cabbage and turnips.
The first night we both sleep badly, even though we’re comfortable in the bed. There are continuous noises from the tin roof, and that keeps us awake. At seven a.m. there’s someone knocking at the door. Lketinga goes to see who it is and finds a boy looking for sugar. Out of his good nature he hands him a pound and closes the door again.
It’s much easier for me now to see to my morning toiletry needs: I have a basin to wash in, and the WC-hut is only one hundred and fifty feet away. Life has become a lot easier, if a lot less romantic.
The other thing is that when Lketinga is in the shop now I can go and have a lie down. While things are cooking I can also serve in the shop. For the first week it’s all wonderful. I’ve got a girl who goes and fetches water from the Mission for me. I have to pay, but on the other hand I no longer have to go down to the river. Also, the water is clear and clean. However, word soon gets around that we’re now living in the shop, and soon people are coming incessantly asking for drinking water. It’s customary in the manyattas to give people some, but now I’ve nearly used up my whole four gallons by lunchtime. There are forever warriors sitting on our bed waiting for Lketinga and to be offered tea and food. As long as the shop is full of food, he can hardly say we don’t have anything.
After such visits the living space is a tip: dirty pots or gnawed bones all over the floor, brown slime on the walls and my woollen blanket and the mattress covered in red-ochre from the warriors body paint. I have more than a few arguments with my husband because I feel I’m being exploited. Sometimes he agrees with me and sends them to his Mama’s, but at other times he turns against me and goes off with them. We’re going to have to find a way of fulfilling our duties of hospitality without being taken advantage of.
I’ve become friendly with the vet’s wife and get invited round for tea occasionally. I try to explain my problem to her, and to my astonishment she understands what I’m saying straightaway. She says it’s a custom of the manyatta people and that in ‘town’ the number of guests has had to be seriously restricted. There the laws of hospitality only apply to family members and very good friends and not just anyone who’s passing. That evening I pass this on to Lketinga, and he promises to follow suit.
During the next few weeks there are several marriages in the neighbourhood. Mostly it’s older men marrying their third or fourth wife: always young girls whose misery can be seen written on their faces. It’s not unusual for the age difference to be thirty years or more. The happiest girls are those who become a warrior’s first wife.
Our sugar goes quickly, not least because two hundredweight of sugar is part of the price paid for the bride, and several more pounds are needed for the celebration. Eventually we’re left one day with a shop full of maize meal but with no sugar. Two warriors who’re due to be married in a few days’ time are standing there with no idea what to do – even the Somalis have run out of sugar. Reluctantly I set out to Maralal, accompanied by the vet, which is pleasant at least. He wants to pick up his salary and come back with me. I get the sugar quickly and pick up the miraa I’ve promised Lketinga.
The vet is late, and it’s nearly four in the afternoon before he turns up. He suggests we take the jungle route, but I’m not happy with the idea, as I haven’t used it since the rain. But he reckons it should be dry now so we set off. There are lots of mud puddles, but that’s no problem with the four-wheel drive. At the ‘death drop’, however, it’s another story; the rain has washed away the earth to leave huge gullies. At the top we get out and walk down a bit to see how best we can manage it. Apart from one gully about a foot wide running right across the track, I see no real problem getting down, with a bit of luck.
We attempt it. I stick to the upper level, hoping not to slide into a gully where we might get stuck in sludge. We manage it and breathe a sigh of relief. At least it’s relatively stable over the rocks. The car bumps and grinds its way over the boulders. The worst is behind us, now there’s just sixty feet of scree.
Suddenly something underneath the car starts rattling. I keep going at first then stop because the sound has grown louder. We climb out, but there’s nothing obvious. I take a look under the vehicle and discover what’s wrong – on one side the springs are broken in all but two places, there’s practically no suspension left, and the broken bits are dragging along the ground, making the rattling.
Once more this car has let me down! I’m furious for allowing myself to be persuaded to come this way. The vet suggests we just continue as we are, but I rule that out. I try to work out what to do and fetch cables and pieces of wood out of the back. Then we bind everything up tight and shove the pieces of wood in between so that the cables don’t get worn through. I drive like that slowly as far as the first manyattas, where we unload four of the five sacks and store them in the first hut. The vet warns the people there not to open the sacks, and we drive carefully on towards Barsaloi. I’m so annoyed by this damn car that I give myself stomach cramps!
Happily we get to the shop without further ado. Lketinga immediately crawls under the car to see if what we told him is true. He doesn’t understand why we unloaded some of the sugar and lets me know that he’s not going to be around later. I make my way into the living room and lie down, dog-tired.
The next morning I go to find Father Giuliani to show him my car. Rather crossly he tells me he’s not running a car repair shop. He says he’d have to take half the car apart to weld the parts back together and he really doesn’t have the time. Before he can say anything else, I turn around and leave in disappointment, feeling let down and left alone by everybody. Without Giuliani’s help I’ll never get this car back to Maralal. Lketinga asks me what Giuliani said, and when I tell him that he can’t help us his only reply is that he always knew the man was no good. I can’t exactly agree: he’s saved our bacon more than once.
Lketinga and the boy serve in the shop, and I sleep all morning. I’m not very well. By midday the sugar is sold out, and it’s hard work preventing my husband from driving back in the faulty car to fetch the rest. In the early evening Giuliani sends his watchman to tell us to bring the car over to him. Relieved that he’s changed his mind, I send Lketinga up with the car while I’m cooking. At seven p.m. we close up the shop, but Lketinga isn’t back yet. Instead I’ve got two unknown warriors outside the front door. By the time he returns I’ve already eaten. He was back home with Mama looking after the animals. Laughing with pleasure, he brings me the first two eggs from my chicken, laid just yesterday. Now I can expand my menu. I make chai for the visitors and crawl exhausted under the mosquito net into bed.
The three of them eat, drink and gossip while I fall asleep. In the middle of the night I wake up bathed in sweat and thirsty. My husband isn’t next to me, and I don’t know where the torch is. So I crawl out under the blanket and the net to grope my way to the water canister when my foot bumps into something lying on the floor. Before I can think what it might be, I hear a grunt and exclaim in shock: ‘Darling?’ In the light of the torch, which I’ve managed to find, I make out three figures lying asleep on the floor. One of them is Lketinga. I climb over them carefully to get to the water canister. Back in bed my heart is still pounding. I can hardly get back to sleep with these strange men in the room. The next morning I’m freezing so much I won’t come out from under the blanket. Lketinga makes chai for everybody, and I’m glad to get something hot inside me. The three of them laugh at my nocturnal adventure.
Today the boy is in the shop on his own, because Lketinga and the two warriors have gone off to a ceremony, and I’m stopping in bed. At lunch Father Roberto drops in with the other four bags of sugar. I go into the shop to say thanks but find myself immediately feeling dizzy. I go and lie down again. I’m not happy leaving the boy on his own, but I’m too miserable to keep a watch over him. Half an hour after the arrival of the sugar there’s the usual chaos. I lie there in bed, unable to sleep with all the noise and talking. In the evening we close up, and I’m on my own.
Actually I’d have liked to go down to Mama, but I’m feeling cold again. I can’t be bothered to cook for myself and lie down beneath the mosquito net. There are still loads of the insects, and they’re as aggressive as ever. During the night I get shivering fits, and my teeth chatter so loud I imagine they can be heard in the next hut. Why doesn’t Lketinga come home? The night drags on and on. At one stage I’m shivering horribly, only to break out in a sweat moments later. I need the toilet but don’t dare go out. Out of necessity I pass water in an empty tin.
Early next morning there’s a knock on the door. I ask first who’s there, because I’m not about to start selling, and then I recognize the familiar voice of my darling. He realizes immediately that there’s something wrong, but I calm him down: I don’t want to pester them up at the Mission again.
Full of high spirits, Lketinga starts telling me about the wedding ceremony of some warrior and then that there’s going to be a Safari Rally passing through in two days’ time. He’s already seen a few cars. No doubt a few drivers will stop by to ask about the stretch as far as Wamba, he says. Somehow I doubt it, but despite how miserable I feel I let myself get carried away by his enthusiasm. Later on he goes to see how our car’s getting on, but it’s not finished yet.
At around two p.m. I hear an incredible roar, and when I get to the shop door all I can see is a cloud of dust. The first test driver has just shot by. Before long half Barsaloi is out on the streets. About half an hour later a second roars through and then a third. It’s a weird feeling to be here at the ends of the earth in a totally different time and suddenly grabbed by civilization like this. We wait and wait but that’s it for today. These were just the test cars. In two days’ time there’ll be thirty or more cars roaring past. It’s a pleasant interruption to our routine, even if I am mostly lying in bed with fever. Lketinga cooks for me, but I can’t even look at food without feeling ill.
On the day of the rally itself, I feel awful. I keep losing consciousness for short periods, and for hours now I’ve no longer been able to feel the child inside me. I’m seized by panic and cry when I tell this to my husband. He leaves the house in a state of shock to fetch Mama, who talks to me while feeling my stomach. There’s a grim look on her face, and I ask Lketinga in tears what’s wrong with the child, but he just sits there uselessly and only talks to Mama. Eventually he tells me his mother believes someone must have put an evil curse on me that keeps making me sick. Somebody wants to kill me and the baby!
They want to know which people I’ve spoken to in the shop recently, if the old Somalis were here, if one of the old men grabbed me or spat at me, or if anyone showed me a black tongue. The questions weigh me down, and I’m getting hysterical with fear. Only one thing’s going round in my head: my baby is dead!
Mama goes off, promising to come back with good medicine. I don’t know how long I lay there sobbing, but when I open my eyes I see six to eight old men and women gathered around me. Incessantly I hear ‘Enkai! Enkai!’ Each one of these old people rubs my stomach and murmurs something. I couldn’t care less. Mama holds a beaker to my lips containing a liquid I’m supposed to down in one. Whatever it is, it’s burning hot and so fiery that it shakes my whole body. At that very moment I feel something thrash and kick in my stomach and grab it in shock. Everything’s going round in circles. All I can see is these old faces, and I wish I were dead. My last thought is that my child had been alive, but now it’s surely dead. I call out: ‘You’ve killed my baby! Darling, they have now killed our baby.’ I feel my strength evaporate, and the will to live with it.
Once again ten or more hands are placed on my stomach, rubbing and pressing, there’s loud singing and praying and suddenly my stomach lifts a little, and I feel a little twitch inside. At first I hardly dare believe it, but then it happens again and again. The old folks seem to have felt it too, and their prayers grow softer. When I realize that my little baby is still alive, the will to live that I thought I’d lost flows back into me with new strength. ‘Darling, please go to Father Giuliani and tell him about me. I want to go to the hospital.’