17

It was unusual for Furniver to visit the OM on successive days, but signs that the old boy’s health was uncertain had alarmed him. The Sportsman cigarettes were given only a token puff or two before being discarded; the cashew intake was dropping; and the gin and tonics becoming stronger, and increasing in frequency.

The evening began in the time-honoured manner, with the OM bellowing his order at Boniface: “The usual, please Mr Rugiru, and something for our guest.”

Then followed the OM reminiscing about pre-independence days, when he won a reputation as the toughest district officer in the country. But when Furniver encouraged him to comment on current events, the OM could not contain himself. Indeed, he was so angry that he nearly forgot to order a second gin and tonic for his guest.

“Sorry, old boy. Distracted. Been reading the bloody Overseas papers again.”

Despite his anger – or perhaps because of it – he still managed to imbue the word with the status of a capital letter, along with half a dozen others – such as Continent, Overseas, Abroad and Foreigners.

He tapped the offending article in The Guardian, a paper he claimed to dislike but read assiduously. “Know the enemy, what?” he would say to Furniver.

“Their Africa chap writes about the locals who were born after Kuwisha got independence. Says they are called the ‘born free’ generation.”

He took a long draught of his G and T and ordered another round.

“The bloody feckless generation, if you ask me. Just look about you . . . Don’t forget the lemon,” he called after Rugiru. “Make sure the glass is cold and don’t be stingy with the nuts . . .”

“Every time, without failing,” Boniface Rugiru complained to his deputy as he made up the order. The ambitious young man who had his eye on Rugiru’s job, said nothing, while Rugiru engaged in a jolly good moan.

“When did I forget he wants his glass chilled? Never. When do I forget that the gin must be kept in the freezer? Never. And the tonic must be near to freezing? Never. And the lemons – fresh every day from the garden. Never. And cashew nuts, do I ever give a stingy? Never.”

Rugiru emptied a packet of cashews into a large wooden bowl. “Never! That old man . . .”

He shook his head.

Boniface took the drinks to where the OM sat with Furniver.

From their table, they could see the trunk of a palm tree, stretching beyond the roof, illuminated by a light in the courtyard.

“Seventy years old and in its prime,” said the OM, who went on to point out that the rings on the bark indicated its age. “Apply much the same principle in Africa.”

“What d’you mean?”

“You must have seen it yourself,” said the OM. “Africa shows its age like the rings on a tree trunk.”

“Don’t get you,” said Furniver.

“Straightforward, really,” said the OM.

He adjusted his thin, lanky frame in his favourite wicker chair.

“Remember me telling you about back to the future? Days when there were more places to fly to in the region than there are today?”

Furniver nodded.

“Absolutely. Matter of fact, I was looking at the old East Africa guides from the ’50s, splendid collection in the library.”

The OM’s eyes lit up: “Morning at the Murchison, picnic at Pakwach, sandwiches in Sudan, that sort of thing . . . ending the day in a decent hotel. Those were the days, the good old bad old days, before independence.”

But more than travel destinations that were no longer on departure boards, and timetables long abandoned, were on the OM’s mind.

It turned out that over the weekend the former district commissioner had made a nostalgic drive back into his past, and it had been an uncomfortable experience.

“There are landmarks all around. Like rings on that palm tree. Saturday. Drove to my old office, near Somabula, down a potholed memory lane. Wished I hadn’t. You could date the decline. My office, barely standing. Rose garden? Might never have been there. Independence in ’63. Rot starts. Country club – now a drinking den. The last dairy farm, few miles on – closed. Patel’s shut down in ’66, when Indians lost their trading licences. Dam – used to sail there, provided water for the whole district – now silted up. Clinic – run out of drugs . . . all rings on Africa’s post-independence trunk.”

He sighed, paused for half a minute and recovered his strength with a sip of his gin and tonic.

“They claim that Kuwisha had 6 per cent growth last year. It’s no more than office-wallah thumb suck. Fact is, no way of telling, what with stats department so bloody useless. In my day we counted the number of new tin roofs. Do you know what? Last Saturday I drove for about four hours up-country, and not one new roof. Plenty of mobile cafés or whatever they call them, selling bloody phone cards. And you can watch Arsenal play Chelsea on satellite television. But new roofs? Not one. Six per cent growth? Bottom talk, that’s all it is – bottom talk.”

He insisted it was his round, and summoned Boniface Rugiru.

“Boniface! More firewater, please, and don’t be so stingy with the nuts. Another one for the road? No? Then excuse me, young man. I have to have a natter with Boniface . . .”

Rutere was not amused. “A stupid trick,” he called Ntoto’s fake collapse, “very stupid,” he said.

In a rare concession to Rutere, Ntoto reluctantly agreed. “It was very stupid,” he said. “I am sorry.”

Cyrus could hardly believe his ears. Titus Odhiambo Ntoto had said sorry! He decided to press home the chance to question his friend.

“Please, Ntoto,” he said. “What is happening? What is the plan for Guchu?”

Ntoto decided that it was time to tell Rutere – or at least to reveal part of the scheme.

“I have bought a job as a pump boy. That is the first thing to do.”

As Ntoto expected, it brought a scornful and sceptical reaction from his friend, who shook his head in disbelief.

“How”, he asked incredulously, “does becoming a pump boy help us to get revenge on Mayor Guchu? First you steal sugar, now you become a pump boy?” He shook his head, baffled.

Buying and selling a job for a day or so was far from unusual. The seller would value their job at, say, 100 ngwee a day, and would offer to “sell” it for 75 per cent of that rate. The purchaser would hope that by working hard, and earning tips, they could not only recover their outlay but make a small profit.

But it was something that no self-respecting Mboya Boy would contemplate, let alone someone like Ntoto, who had a reputation for cold-eyed brutal thuggery. Rutere tried to learn more, but he was unsuccessful.

“Think, Rutere. You can work it out. You have all the information that I have given you.”

Rutere made the mistake of teasing his friend. He held his nose between finger and thumb, and wafted away the air in front with an open palm.

“Pump boys smell of petrol. It is a useless job.”

Ntoto hit back.

“And what is a good job for street boys?” he asked. “I expect you want to work as a waiter, serving coffee . . . I know, Rutere, you want to be a Java!”

Cyrus was outraged. Indeed, had the insult come from anyone else, he would be honour bound to challenge him to a fight. Java, indeed. He let rip, pointing out that it was him, the cleverest boy never to have gone to St Joseph’s School for boys, who had told Ntoto about Tom Odhiambo Mboya, the assassinated trade unionist they admired so much they named their football team after him.

To call Rutere a Java, even in jest, was intolerable.

Fortunately for both boys, Charity intervened.

“Noise! Stop that noise! This minute! You two stop making noise, right away.”

What was happening to those boys?

“Ntoto, what are you saying to Rutere?”

“He called me a bad name,” said Rutere. “A very bad name.”

After some patient coaxing by Charity, and a firm rejection of his request for a dough ball – “half, even” – as a reward for disclosing the name, Rutere finally agreed to tell Charity.

Rutere whispered in her ear.

“Phauw!” she exclaimed, “Phauw!”

The strong reaction gratified Rutere.

“Yes, mama, he called me a Java.”

Charity was mystified, but decided not to ask what a Java was. Instead she hoped that she could work it out for herself.

“Is this true, Ntoto? Did you call your friend Rutere this Java thing? A Java?”

Java made no sense to her, except as a source of coffee, and the name of a popular chain of coffee shops that catered not only to expatriates and tourists, but to a growing group of Kuwishans that appreciated the taste of properly roasted beans, and enjoyed the socially mobile, middle-class ambience of the cafés.

“He called me a Java,” repeated Rutere.

“Hah! But why should he call you this bad name?” asked Charity. “And why should I care that boys who steal sugar should call each other bad names?”

“But mama,” said Rutere, “it is a very bad thing he said. He said I was behaving like a mzungu, that I wanted to become a mzungu, a black mzungu, and drink coffee in Javas.” Ntoto looked on, smirking.

Then she understood. Java was the derogatory term for a black man with aspirations to live as a white man. To be accused of being a Java was as offensive a charge as any in the boys’ vocabulary of abuse.

Furniver intervened.

“Did I hear someone say ‘coffee’ . . . ?”

He listened patiently to Rutere’s version of the insult, leaning towards the boy so as to hear him better. Like Charity, his response was involuntary, his head recoiling.

“Phauw!”

Ntoto’s breath was truly awful.

Rutere accepted Ntoto’s apology.

“It is duck’s water off my back,” said Cyrus magnanimously.

The two trotted off.

“Phauw,” said Furniver. “That Rutere boy! His breath is really appalling. Could kill pigeons at six paces.”

“Tell me, Ntoto,” Rutere persisted. “Why you have bought this pump boy job? I may be clever, but I don’t understand.”

Ntoto relented.

“It is the only way,” he replied, “that I can get close to Guchu. And you know, Rutere, that if you are not part of a big man, you cannot get a job. A pump boy, even, comes from the same tribe as the owner of the petrol station. Or the owner is his relative. Or the owner is doing a big man, like Guchu, a favour.”

“That is correct,” said Rutere.

“So think, Rutere. Think!”

Cyrus ran his fingers through his curls, and was briefly distracted by the discovery of a nit that had been proving especially irritating. He cracked it between his fingernails, and flicked the remains away.

“The pump boy is circumcised,” continued Ntoto. “I myself saw this when swimming in the Malubuzi River during the floods last year.”

Rutere remembered the event, which had triggered a long and sometimes heated debate about differences between the circumcised and the uncircumcised communities. The one side argued that it shouldn’t affect ability or potential; the other side believed that the operation marked a gulf between the two groups that could never be bridged.

Rutere, still not any the wiser, asked Ntoto to continue.

“Well . . .” said Ntoto. “The owner is a Luya man, and Luya men are never circumcised. This means that the pump boy, who is circumcised, got his job because his relative is an important man, who, in the language of Kuwisha, must surely drive a big desk, and wanted a favour from the owner. And the big man who fills his car at the station, right full to top, same day every week, is our old friend Mr Guchu . . .”

It was slowly becoming clearer to Rutere what his friend had in mind. As he digested the information and its implications, his eyes opened wide in appreciation of Ntoto’s sheer cunning, mixed with fear at the retaliation they risked from the mayor. He looked at his friend with renewed respect. He had one final question but it could wait.

“Well, Mr Mudenge . . .”

The flour trick had not worked, Charity complained the next morning, as Mudenge sipped his breakfast glass of mango juice.

“There is no doubt,” said Mudenge, “these thieves are very clever. But there is no question, Mrs Mupanga, that if I don’t succeed your money will be returned. I have one more trick, but it is the very best muti that I will be using. Let us see what happens.”

He rubbed the corner of his eye, resisting the temptation to take it out and give it a good wipe with his handkerchief. Mudenge had lost his left eye when still in his teens, the result of a chip of granite that had flown off the stone he had been preparing for the foundations of the family house. The injured eye had been replaced by a glass one, which Mudenge every now and then took out from the socket, polished with his handkerchief, and slipped back.

“Rest assured, Mrs Mupanga, no results, no pay.”