The days of the examinations passed in a blur. We all recognised them as the climax of years of misery, not only because we recognised them as the threshold of whatever futures we desired for ourselves, but also because each of us hoped through them to state our worth and value. Everything conspired to seduce us into this absurd position. We were the heroes of the day, confronting the tests of life and intellect, grappling with an irrational enemy that sought at every turn to ambush and trick us. After each sitting, we set off from the examination hall in a body, like guerrillas returned from battle, wandering the streets and parading ourselves as the smiling survivors of the examiners’ wiles. We formed self-important discussion groups by the roadside: should the answer have been stalactites or stalagmites? Nobody laughed at us, although our teachers feigned amusement at our intensity. We all knew the prizes that had become available to those who had succeeded ahead of us.
Our reverence for the power of these things was by then a matter of habit. Rumours had started even before the examinations were finished that the results would never be released. The government was concerned that successful students would want to leave, and with so many people leaving already, a serious shortage of teachers and penpushers was developing. There were rumours that results would only be released to those who completed two years of a new National Service. In the throes of the examinations, my interest in these things was lively but detached. They were part of the heady atmosphere of intrigue and politics and revenge that independence had brought.
It was after the relief of the examinations had subsided, and the weeks of waiting turned into months, that the meaning of what we had been denied became clear. In small numbers at first, students were called to government ministries and offered clerical jobs at reduced salaries. Others were called to the Ministry of Education and offered teaching assistantships without salaries, only expenses and the promise of a scholarship abroad when the results became known. The rest of us were advised to join the army. I went to the Immigration Office to enquire after my passport. It was a way of passing the time. I joined the queue and shuffled for hours to the counter, where the officer would tell me, without needing to consult a file, that there was nothing yet.
My father often talked to me during the long months of waiting. It was as if coming home with him that night had lifted some of the burden of dissembling off him. He wrote the letter to my uncle, a long, whining appeal to the big man. He read it to me before he sent it, drawing my attention to this or that bit of cleverness. He read it with a flourish, giving it in voice and gesture the force that it lacked on paper. He reminded uncle Ahmed of his promise to my mother, your dear sister, that should she need the money from her share of the shop it would always be available. Now her son was ready to do honour to the family name, so could he please cough up? It was signed Your Brother.
Nearly four months passed before we received a reply. In that time it was dangerous to mention the subject of the letter in front of my father. It only brought on one of his rages. When a reply came it was vague and full of courteous address, inviting me to go to Nairobi for a holiday. This was enough for my father. He stopped cursing uncle Ahmed as a sin-eating miser and no longer prayed that God would bring down a plague of boils on the thief. He assumed that the matter was resolved. The money was more or less on the way. You can’t expect him to say yes I’ll give you the money. It wouldn’t be polite. This is enough. He suggested that we go out and celebrate.
Sometimes he joked about the night we had come home together, telling me in a whisper how drunk he had been although I had not noticed. He told me how tired he had been that night, because he had spent the evening doing naughty things which a young man should not need to have spelt out for him. I laughed, as was expected of me.
In the house I was now referred to sarcastically as the man going to Nairobi. My mother bought the odd thing from the door-to-door man because she thought it would be useful on the journey to Nairobi, or uncle Ahmed would like it as a present. Nobody mentioned the passport. Uncle Ahmed had fixed the holiday for June, two months after the arrival of his letter. I made daily visits to the Immigration Office, shuffled in the queue all day and received the same reply.
One evening, when I was beginning to despair of making the journey at all, Zakiya called me outside. She walked towards the shadows beyond the stand-pipe in the yard and waited for me there.
‘I can talk to somebody,’ she said. ‘About the passport . . . if you want me to.’ I could not see her face but heard the shame in her voice. I had not realised that things had come to such a pass. The question that leapt to my mouth was Who? but I managed to stop myself asking it.
‘No, it’s all right. They’ll give it to me in the end. I’ll just keep on going there until they give it to me . . . ’
She chuckled, but it was a sad, self-pitying sound. ‘You’re such a child sometimes,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have bothered asking you.’
‘Zakiya . . . ’
‘No, don’t start,’ she said sharply. ‘You wouldn’t even know what you were talking about. I’m seeing the man anyway . . . and I thought I would ask him for you. But if you don’t want me to . . . ’
We stood in silence for a long while. I did not know what to say to her. I think she was waiting for temptation to work on me, and I was trying to think of a way of not hurting her by my refusal. Not for a moment was I about to accept a favour from a brute who was already abusing my sister.
‘I was just trying to help,’ she said eventually.
I heard her swallow, trying not to cry. She had only just reached her seventeenth year. She strode back towards the house. I called to her but she ignored me.
The days dragged by slowly now. The rains had come and gone, and the dry season had returned. Weeds and bushes were everywhere in bloom, anxious to fulfil their purpose before the sun reduced them to ashes.
The old man brothel-keeper had bought himself a he-goat. He kept it tied up in the alleyway between our houses and rarely fed it. Demented with hunger and flies, it charged anything that moved within its compass. It had destroyed all the weeds within reach of its long rope, plants that for years had tenaciously clung to the walls. Sometimes, in sheer desperation, it ate mouthfuls of dirt.
The goat came to occupy an important place in our home. My mother wondered aloud whether the goat had been acquired to add variety to the orgies in the brothel. He sits there and watches the animal starving. What is he keeping it for? It can’t be for food. My grandmother gave up everything else and devoted her waking hours to watching the hated animal. She sat by her window, trying to beat down the goat’s stare with her will. My father, against whom the goat had developed an instinctive dislike, harangued it with abuse. Sometimes he marched down the dark alleyway clutching the kitchen knife, which he would brandish threateningly at the goat, swearing at it under his breath. The goat would be frantically trying to break its rope so it could charge him.
The old man was highly gratified by all this. He sat by his window, looking out on the alleyway, watching the bleating, angry goat with patient interest. My grandmother took to collecting her own urine and storing it in a bucket under her bed. Once a day she took her bucket into the alleyway and hurled the pungent fluid at the goat. As a variation, she sometimes filled thick paper bags with urine and and threw them at the animal.
Neither hunger nor persecution diminished the goat’s ferocity. It charged whoever was mad enough to walk through the urinous alleyway. My father was the last to give up, feeling that a matter of manly pride was involved. At his moment of defeat, he claimed that he had seen the old man on his hands and knees between the goat’s legs. What were you doing there, you old pervert? Milking it? Children in the neighbourhood began to take an interest. My father became a figure of such ridicule that some of it began to rebound on Saida, who stayed at home to escape the teasing. Zakiya kept herself apart from all this, too caught up in her stews of passion, her reputation for promiscuity giving her now a kind of glamour. She was above an interest in a feud with a goat. The children brought the goat what food they could, and spent hours sitting watching it in its darkened shrine. My grandmother, her progress towards senility vastly accelerated, switched her malice to the children. She rushed out when they were well-settled and dispersed them with her bucket of potent water.
It was no longer possible to hide Zakiya’s activities from my father. He never spoke to Zakiya now, never looked at her. We feared for the day when he would lose restraint and assault her in one of his lunatic rages. It was as if some madness had got into her. She was unapproachable. Since I refused her offer of help she avoided me. She shut my mother up without mercy as soon as she started. As if afraid to pause, she hurled herself into squalid and open affairs with men of horrific reputation. She watched our family’s feud with the goat in awed disbelief.
I was bored. I was fed up with my daily journeys to the Immigration Office. I was tired of reading the same books and walking the same routes. The dreaded Ramadhan was approaching, with its daily hungers and slow daylight hours. When it came, the whole town ground to a drowsy pace, shops shut and people slept through as much of the day as they could, fighting hunger with oblivion. When night came, life started again with a kind of abandon and frenzy. We bloated ourselves with food we had spent the day dreaming about. People roamed the streets in search of excitement and stayed out until the early hours. Children played marathon games of hide-and-seek or cops-and-robbers. It was the time for long conversations, stretching far into the night, for endless card games, for courtship. It was the daylight hunger that made it a time of pain. God had intended the rigours of Ramadhan to teach us self-discipline, but instead tempers were on a short fuse during the day and excess followed self-denial every night.
I stayed away from the Immigration Office for the first few days of Ramadhan, while my body accustomed itself to going without food. When I reached the counter, the clerk smiled to see me again and shook his head.
‘I want to see the Immigration Officer,’ I said, and without waiting for a reply I lifted up the counter-flap and marched on. The clerk made no move to stop me. He leant against the counter watching me negotiate the desks as I wound towards the office. I knew exactly where it was, had seen the man come in and out countless times. I knocked on the door and entered. His name was Omar Shingo. At one time he had been a famous footballer, now he was better known for his debauches. I launched without preamble, without even looking at him, into an angry complaint. He tried to stop me once or twice: Who are you? Go back to the counter. Where do you think you are? I brushed him aside, and I would have hit him with something if he had tried to have me thrown out. As I focused on his smug, wasted face, I became convinced that he was the man Zakiya had in mind when she offered help.
‘Have a seat,’ he said at last, smiling in defeat.
‘I don’t want a seat. I want my passport. I’ve been coming here every day . . . ’
‘I know, I know,’ he said, raising a hand to silence me. ‘Tell me your name and I’ll get your file.’
I watched his face as I told him. He scribbled it down and went away. When he came back he was smiling. ‘I know your family,’ he said. ‘How’s your father these days? And the rest of your family?’ He signed the papers in front of me and told me to give the file back to the clerk on my way out. He could not resist gloating in the end. ‘Give my regards to everybody,’ he said. ‘And your sisters.’
It took another three weeks before the passport was ready, on the eve of Idd. The old man had his goat butchered for Idd and sent a leg round to my mother. While everybody celebrated with songs the end of Ramadhan and the arrival of the new year, I nursed the revival of my hopes as I leafed through my new passport. In the general joy of the day, Zakiya forgot herself enough to allow one of her lovers to drive her home. My father was at home, entertaining a distant relative from Tanga to a little halwa and coffee. When the guest left, and my father had seen him off to the bus stop, he came hurrying back to the house, in a terrible rage. My mother met him at the door and took upon her shoulders the brunt of his fury. I stood nearby, determined to intervene should he attempt to hit either of them. Zakiya sat in grandmother’s room, her eyes blank with despairing indifference, looking more abandoned than any tears or screams would have made her seem. In the hallway my father swore, solemnly, calling in the name of God that all should witness this act, that should his child Zakiya not mend her ways, he would – Wallahi Billahi – hurl her out in the streets to fend for herself.
My mother screamed at him, begging him to take his oath back, asking him if he knew that by that oath he had turned his daughter into a street whore. My father looked at her, his rage now turning into tears. We have done our best, he said.
The journey to Nairobi was beginning to seem very close. My mother tried to give me as much information as she could about uncle Ahmed. She told me about the journey. She thought herself an expert on this, having done the journey once. This was enough, for no one in the house had travelled more than thirty miles inland from the coast. She had alarming stories to tell. She told me of the discomfort of train travel, and of the drinking habits of train drivers. She told me of muggers and pickpockets who lurked at every street corner in Nairobi. She instructed me on the best way of greeting my uncle, and on what clothes would be appropriate for the cold climate there.
My grandmother watched and listened with ill-concealed disapproval. Sometimes, unable to contain her irritation with the fuss that was being made of me, she would ask how I had done in the examinations. It was her mad way of mocking us for counting our chickens. Without the goat, her days were empty now.
My mother had no doubt that uncle Ahmed would provide the money. I told her that her share of the shop would not be enough to pay for the journey, that I would only get enough money from uncle Ahmed if I were able to touch his goodwill. She waved my caution aside. She convinced me in the end. It seems foolish now that I should have allowed this, but the cumulative effect of our fantasies had convinced all of us that we could not be wrong.
A new law was passed that month, formalising what was already the practice, that jobs and school places would be allocated in quotas, according to the racial distribution in the population. To facilitate this, all citizens were to register their race at a new Department of Population. They would be issued with an identity pass stating name, age, address and race. Failure to produce this pass on request would lead to immediate arrest.
Consternation spread among a people whose race had become more a state of mind than any identifiable characteristic. Refusal to answer questions about race had been an act of defiance against the British, an assertion of unity and nationhood. Refusal to answer the question now was against the law. When I went to register for my card, I gave a false name. It was a useless act of defiance, but we had not at that time realised the firmness with which the government intended to deal with the problem of its mixed community. It turned out that my small act of sabotage had the potential to cause me great difficulty. No official business could be conducted without a card. The thought of the danger I was running carrying a bogus pass spoiled many quiet moments.
On the last Sunday before I left for Nairobi I was forced to use the card. Every Sunday the entire population of the town was expected to volunteer for work on the new blocks of flats that were part of the government’s slum-clearance scheme. We had already successfully completed the new Party headquarters in this way. Hundreds of people turned up on the first Sunday, too afraid not to, and remembering the violence with which Youth Leaguers had ejected, people from homes and cafés and cinemas. That was for the Party Headquarters, a national priority. This campaign was obviously less urgent. The confusions of that first Sunday, and succceeding Sundays, allowed people to stay away without being noticed. In the end, the Party was forced to send out its cadres to root out the parasites from their homes, and drive them out to work for the nation.
The last Sunday before I left, Party militants carried out a house-to-house search. They took care to make no distinction over age or health. Old women and little children, tired menfolk and nursing mothers all volunteered for work. They strutted from house to house, banging on doors and screaming at the people who answered them, pushing and hitting the citizens to urge on them a national spirit. They also took the opportunity to check out identity cards. By the time they reached us, we were dressed and ready to go. My father had insisted that we should not stir until they forced us out. I answered the door to three men. They looked very quickly behind me – Get out. Get to work. – and one of them pushed me aside and entered the house, shouting, it seemed, at the top of his voice. Without thinking I took hold of his grimy collar and pulled him back. When he was level with me, I helped him farther out with a shove on his chest.
The three moved together. They stepped back. Their manner changed from righteous resolution to caution. They were dirty and muscular, and looked like the people you would find anywhere where such work was required, sanguine bums who would mug old ladies to slake a psychosis of wounded dignity. One of them reminded me of the sleeveless man I had seen at Sood’s. My father pushed me violently to one side.
‘He’s only a boy, only a boy!’ he appealed to them.
I was hauled farther into the house, by my grandmother I think. The three men were angry, shouting at my father. He was mumbling his apologies and bobbing his head. I was called out to face the three men. The ragged man I had pulled out was now ready to release his anger in a few well-aimed blows. He detached himself from the rest and strode to within inches of me, emboldened by the indignant chorus of his companions. I felt very calm, and would have thrown myself on him without any further provocation had there been the need. Down the street our activities were drawing attention. The old man, dressed to go out, was watching with palpable fear. The evil-smelling cadre pointed an angry finger up my nostril.
‘You’ll get into trouble,’ he shouted, spitting with anger. The other two added some obscenities and my father tried to interpose his body between the angry man and me. He was pushed angrily to one side. ‘You listen to me,’ said the man, still shaking and spitting with anger. ‘You get out there and get to work or we’ll deal with you. All of you, you scum. You think maybe you’re master here?’ All the three men grumbled at this liberty, bunching their fists and hissing through gritted teeth like melodramatic villains. I suppose they could have beaten me to death.
Up and down the street people had stopped to look and listen. I could see that this was making the three men nervous. Their fear was that they were about to be caught in a communal riot. There was no danger of that. We were too well-learned in the ways of submission, although this had not yet become fully clear to our tormentors.
‘Show me your cards,’ said the angry man. My father collected the cards and handed them over to the man. The three of them examined the dark photographs intently and then handed the cards back.
‘Don’t you want to check the names?’ I asked them, letting them know that I knew they could not read.
‘I’ll kill you,’ the man whispered angrily. He glanced round quickly at the crowd and swore. When they turned to go, insulting and abusing us as they went, they did not stop to knock on other houses down the street. The crowd cheered gleefully as they turned into the clearing. Some of the people started to go back to their houses. The old man shook his head and wagged a finger at me.
‘That was stupid,’ he said. ‘Now we’re all in trouble.’ He smiled and winked at me. My father patted me on the back. I was a hero. ‘You see what education does for these children. It makes them brave,’ said the man.
We all volunteered that day. My father thought it would be wise not to ask for any more trouble. All was confusion as usual at the site. Nobody approached to give us any work. We waited until the sun was too strong and then went back home.
On the night before I left, my mother prepared a feast. The rug was taken out of its sacks, beaten and spread out in the guest-room. With the chairs pushed back against the wall, there was just enough space for all of us to squeeze in. As they had done throughout the long wait for the journey, they spoke of it as a mere formality. All talk of caution was dismissed. My father took all reference to it as an attempt at making a joke. In their company I found it easy to forget my own doubts. In that profusion of rich food and high optimism, it seemed that nothing was beyond me. The last clear-sighted words of advice were delivered, warnings and threats were unambiguously detailed, and the help of God was solemnly requested. Zakiya did not say anything all evening, but she smiled at me every time I looked at her.
I was to leave early in the morning. My father had insisted on accompanying me to the station, and refused to allow anyone else to come. What’s the fuss? I’ll just walk with him on my way to work. You women always want to make a big thing out of nothing. I went to bed that night filled only with thoughts of departure. It was only because my mother came back to me in the middle of the night to say goodbye again that I realised I had not spared a thought for her. We talked for a short while before she left me again, saying she had only come to wish me well for the last time and I was not to worry about anything.
I found it hard to sleep. I became frantic with the thought that if I did not sleep I would wake up in the morning feeling tired. Old doubts returned to mock the optimism of the evening. Old fears of the journey came back to keep me awake until the early hours.
Frightened by all the stories I had heard, I had insisted on travelling second rather than third class. That way I would be sure of a reserved bunk. Travelling third was a knees-up affair on ribbed wooden benches, by all accounts. My compartment was empty when I got on. I stowed away my suitcase under one of the bottom bunks as I had been advised. The compartment was panelled with wood. The upholstery was a green, soft plastic, cool to the touch. The tiny fountain under the window was operated by a long, tapering lever. The miniature basin cupped under the curved reed of the fountain, glinted like a new coin. There were curtains above the window, gathered at the corners and held back by straps. I pulled up the window and pushed my head out, as I had seen people do in the pictures. My father came down the platform to stand underneath me.
‘What’s it like?’ he asked.
He had been amiable and pleasant, happy to talk. He reached up on tiptoe to try and see inside but he was not tall enough. I went out to the platform to say goodbye to him.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I don’t have much time. Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid . . . and come back to us. Do you understand? You must write and let me know. If there are any problems you write and let me know. Our hopes and good wishes go with you.’
He took my hand and squeezed it. I said goodbye, hoping he had finished. I wanted him to go before he embarrassed himself with absurd paternal emotions he did not feel. ‘Be a good son, as you’ve always been,’ he said, squeezing my hand again. His voice had become thicker, and I cringed as I saw him growing infatuated with his role. Suddenly he smiled, signalling that the performance no longer interested him. ‘Don’t come back with nothing,’ he said in a more familiar voice. ‘You do everything possible to persuade that thief to help you. We don’t want anything for ourselves, just to do our duty by our son. This is not a holiday. Do you understand? Don’t dishonour us, and don’t come back with nothing.’ He shook his head slightly as if he was not sure that I understood.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said cheerfully.
He turned and walked back up the platform towards the barrier. As I watched him hurry away, I restrained an impulse to laugh. It seemed wrong. When I went back to the compartment, there was a man sitting on the bunk opposite mine. He was a young man, his head bent over a book. He looked up as I entered and greeted me with a smile and a nod. I sat down on my bunk, leaning out of the window, watching the activity on the platform. I was glad that my travelling-companion was a young man. Soon the train began to hiss and blow in preparation for departure.
‘Do you have the time?’ The voice was very sure of itself. I turned to look at him and shake my head. I did not have a watch. He smiled, stood up and walked over to the window. His hair was cropped short, as if he was in the army or police. His face was lean and very black. He was built like an athlete. I glanced at the book he had left turned face down on the bunk: Mine Boy by Peter Abrahams.
‘Why aren’t we moving? It must be time now.’ He looked at me as he said this, and looked for a moment longer than he needed to, as if studying me. He introduced himself as Moses Mwinyi, leaning forward to shake hands. ‘How far are you going?’ he asked, sitting down again and glancing casually at his book before shutting it and laying it beside him.
‘Nairobi,’ I said, trying to match his casual manner and his broad smile.
‘So am I,’ he said with an expanded grin. He waited a moment longer, grinning and nodding his head encouragingly. Something was expected of me. I grinned and nodded too. His smile waned a little. ‘What are you called, man?’ he asked finally, gently.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, feeling stupid and discourteous. ‘My name is Hassan. Hassan Omar.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Hassan. Moses Mwinyi,’ he said for the second time. He leaned back with a proud smile. I wondered whether I should know the name. He sighed and glanced out of the window again, becoming impatient with the train. ‘Is this your home town?’ he asked.
I nodded. He drew breath sharply and shook his head with commiseration. ‘This place is dead,’ he said with exaggerated finality. ‘I’ve been here two days, and I don’t mind telling you, brother, I’ve seen enough. There’s nothing here but brothels and arse-fuckers. They should tear the place down and begin again. No offence, my friend.’
‘Where are you from?’ I asked.
‘Dar es Salaam,’ he said. ‘The City of Dreams!’
From everything I had heard about that city, he was welcome to it. I was not anxious to demonstrate my ignorance by saying so, though. For then I would have to admit that I had never been there. ‘I hear it’s a very dusty and ugly town,’ I said, unable to resist in the end. I was determined not to be intimidated by his confident smile and his athletic good looks.
‘Ugly!’ I could see he was not feigning the shock. ‘We have supermarkets and five-star hotels and night-clubs. What have you got here? You should go and see for yourself.’ The train hissed very loudly and jerked into action, lurching slowly past the platform. Moses glanced out of the window and grinned.
‘I’ve got to put out a fire,’ he said. ‘I think I saw a toilet down the corridor. Will you keep any eye on my bag? There are a lot of hungry people on this train.’
I liked him. He seemed so unconcerned about things. Everything was new to me, the landscape, the train. I had lived there all my life and had never even thought twice about these things. In the near distance were clumps of bushes and trees which cut off the horizon. I was surprised at how quickly we were in the countryside.
This was only the second time I had been away from home. The first had been a school trip to Chwaka, ten whole days by the sea, to study tidal patterns or something. Ten delicious days of half-cooked fish and soggy pancakes! The teachers had insisted we cook for ourselves. At night we sat on the veranda of the beach-house and sang sentimental love songs. We sat on night-long vigils by the cemetery, waiting for the ghosts that never turned up. Hockey on the beach . . . then somebody found a cave that smelt of leaf-mould and death. We found a cold pool in the depths of the cave, a shrine to an ancient water-god. We swam in it until the women came and threw stones at us for defiling their drinking water. It rained on the night before we left, and our thin mattresses were soaked and matted into gunny sacks. But what abandon in that run through the deluge past the cemetery to the sea! What delight to match the elemental rumpus with our own childish squeals and yells! Ten whole days by the sea.
The train swayed from side to side, hypnotic in its regularity, deafeningly noisy. A slight breeze blew in through the open window, ruffling the folds of the curtains held back by the straps. It looked hot outside.
We were expected to arrive in Nairobi the following morning. My mother had packed some food for me and I knew I had a sheet for the night. I checked that my passport was still in my bag. I sat back, and put my feet up on the opposite bunk, relishing my new freedom. There was a knock on the door, followed immediately by the entrance of a short, plump old man. He stared at my feet, then pointed a fat finger at them.
‘Off!’
He adjusted his cap, tugged at his tunic, squared his shoulders and asked for my ticket. There were no questions, no threats, no abuse. He patted his pockets and withdrew a pad. ‘Bedding?’ he asked. I shook my head. He wrote something down and put the pad away. ‘First time to Nairobi?’ he asked. I nodded. He looked slightly annoyed. I should have said something or smiled, but the words would not come. He yanked the door open and departed. I had not meant to be rude.
The seat was not as comfortable as it had at first seemed, clinging as it did to my moist back. I wanted to stretch my legs, have a look around but I did not want to leave Moses’ bag unguarded. I didn’t want to think about my uncle, not yet. When he intruded on my thoughts I pushed him back. Strangely, I was not at all afraid. Once the train was on the move I felt safe. The door opened again, slowly. Moses put his head round the door, then came in.
‘He’s gone,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a ticket, you see.’ He smiled at me, acknowledging my amazement. ‘I never buy a ticket. These collectors are so dumb you don’t need to. Twice a term I travel up and down, and not caught once. I’m a student at the University in Nairobi.’
He said this with his eyes lowered. I must have looked suitably impressed, for when he glanced up he smiled. ‘Reading Literature,’ he added, picking up his book and cradling it in interlocked hands. He put the book down beside him and glanced at me again. The glance gradually developed into a stare.
‘Don’t you say anything?’ he asked, frowning. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said, nonplussed by this direct assault.
‘As I was saying, I never pay.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said.
‘You say this is your first time? Phew! You’ve got a lot to see. Nairobi’s a great place. I really like it . . . and the University’s good. Except the food, of course. The mess they give us to eat is poison. Last year we went on strike. No more lectures until they fire the cook, or kill him. Yeah, we really went on strike.’
‘Successful?’ I asked, feeling a burden now to say something, to show interest.
‘Not at first,’ continued Moses, pleased with me. ‘At first they brought in security guards, big Luos with heavy sticks. But the students just went berserk, chasing the guards all over the campus, breaking into buildings, smashing cars. It’s true. So then they called in the army. I tell you, this Africa. We’re savages. They killed one student and sent the rest of us home. When we came back, they fired the cook. Why couldn’t they do that in the first place?’
‘Is the food better now?’
He laughed. ‘No, it’s still poison.’
‘Your studies . . . what about them? Are they going well?’
He brushed my question aside, making a face. ‘The city, that’s what Nairobi’s about. What a city!’
‘Better than Dar es Salaam?’
‘Eeh,’ he chuckled. ‘I only live in Dar, my people come from Kenya. Nairobi’s the best in Africa, you’ll see. Only you need to be a millionaire to enjoy it. And there are too many Indians.’
‘Do you have to do a lot of reading for the course?’ I asked, not wanting to hear another vengeful attack against Indians.
‘You don’t listen or what, eh? I’m telling you it’s the night life that’s the real life in Nairobi. You could start in the evening and you’d still be eating honey when morning comes. They have bodies in Nairobi that you won’t find anywhere in East Africa . . . black, white, Arab, Somali, Indian. The things they do . . . ’
He laughed, waiting for me to ask more questions. I must have looked disapproving. He looked suddenly serious and studious, picking his book up again. ‘But don’t think it’s all fun,’ he said admonishingly. ‘You have to work very hard at the University. We’re very lucky to be there. The future of our country’s in our hands.’
The train was slowing down. Moses stuck his head out of the window, despite the warning not to do so. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere,’ he announced as he turned back in. ‘Maybe the driver needs to go into the bushes. Shit, it’s hot.’
He sat down and gingerly picked up a corner of his shirt with the tips of his fingers and flapped it, fanning himself. He picked up his book and fanned himself with it.
‘Do you like Peter Abrahams?’ I asked.
‘Well, he’s not a bad writer,’ he said. ‘He’s too self-conscious, that’s the problem. He doesn’t write like an African. Do you know what this book reminds me of? Alan Paton. It has the same kind of liberal preaching, soft-nosed and confused. Do you know what I mean? There is no sense of identification with the mass of oppressed Africans.’
I went to look for the toilet as soon as the train was on the move again. It was late in the morning, and the sun was now brazen enough to distort distances and shapes. In the distance I could see the shadow of hills. The land was dry and empty. The wind was building up, whirling angry puffs of reddish dust across the plain. On the other side of the train I could see the escarpments of the central plateau, purplish and hazy.
I squeezed into the side of the carriage to allow two girls to pass. They giggled as they sidled past, pretty Indian girls, brushing their buttocks against my leg. Daddy was just behind them so I pretended not to notice.
Later the train stopped at a small dusty station. Nobody got off the train, and it was still too hot for anybody to think of stepping out for a stroll. An old lady sat on her own on the platform, leaning against the domed, whitewashed station building. It seemed an unnecessarily elaborate building for such a small pointless stop on the way to Nairobi. Perhaps the station was part of somebody’s grandiose scheme which had not worked. Trussed-up live chickens were gathered round the old woman’s feet, their heads moving with sudden, speculative movements, as if they knew what they were hoping to see but had not yet caught sight of it.
I wanted to eat my food and wondered if Moses had any of his own. He seemed pleased by the offer that he should share mine. I spread out the bread and the chicken that my mother had packed for me.
We stopped at the station for about a quarter of an hour. As the train built up steam, preparing to pull out, the old lady gathered her wares, holding the chickens upside down by their trussed legs. No official of the railways had appeared in all the time we had been there. None appeared as we were leaving. Nobody had got off, and I had not seen anybody get on. It was a mysterious stop in the middle of nowhere, at a mysteriously elaborate station without a name-board. Moses looked puzzled when I mentioned it, then suggested that perhaps the train had stopped to rest.
Moses went away and came back a few minutes later with a bag of plums. He would not say where he had got them from. I suspect he stole them. He put the bag between us, among the remains of the chicken. He was talking and laughing about everything, enjoying himself. We drank water from the miniature fountain, bending down to suck at the spout.
‘This thing reminds me of my little brother pissing,’ he said. ‘Trickle, trickle.’
We reached the arid plateau in the early evening. There was not much to see. I was glad that I was just passing through this hostile land, and not part of it. We drew the curtains early and stretched out on the bunks. It turned out that Moses had no bedding of any kind, so I lent him a kikoi.
‘I like travelling light,’ he said, drawing the kikoi round him. ‘And I’m creating the opportunity for a kind fellow traveller to do a good deed. I’m hungry again.’
We went to bed without supper. I insisted that we should keep what was left of the bread for breakfast. I had not reckoned on sharing my food, although I did not mind doing so. I was glad of Moses’ company.
‘So what do you do with yourself when you’re not playing an explorer?’ he asked as we lay in the gentle swaying of the speeding train.
‘Nothing. I’ve just finished school.’
He grunted in the dark. ‘I know the time. Looking for prospects, hoping that somebody will smile kindly on you. I was lucky. I was the best student in my school so it was easy for me. I went straight to university. You know in my school I was the head prefect. Azania High School. I mean, that’s something.’ He sat up, leaning on one elbow and was silent for a while, contemplating his own greatness. ‘So it was easy for me. I’m doing Literature. I can take it or leave it, you know, this Literature. I did well in it at school, and I knew my teacher wanted me to do it. The headmaster thought it was a good idea too. Literature is life, he used to say. The stupid old shit. What did he know about life?’
‘Why did you do it then? Why didn’t you do what you wanted?’
‘All I wanted was a degree. I wanted a car, a fine house, chicken for dinner and some fancy women. I thought Literature would be easy.’ He peered at me, waiting. I nodded for him to continue. ‘And it is easy. It’s shit. All this humanities stuff is shit. All we have is African Art, African Literature, African History, African Culture and all that shit. And we can’t even make a screwdriver or a tin of talcum powder for ourselves. It’s technology we need. Now everything we use we have to get from Europe or America. They even give us money to buy these things. We have to learn to build our own factories, make our own motor cars, weave our own cotton . . . That’s the secret. Until then, all this stuff is shit.’
He was leaning forward, straining to emphasise his words. ‘Listen,’ he continued. ‘Maybe in order to grow we’ll just have to forget about African Art for a while.’ He smiled and shifted position. ‘I’m even prepared to forget about African people for a while. What’s the point of spending millions to build hospitals for some of these primitive tribals? When they get better you have to spend more millions to feed them. They don’t produce anything or do anything. I would shoot them. If it takes the murder of a few thousand savages to make ourselves strong, then so be it. It will be worth it for our children.’ He paused to see if I would object.
When I did not, he leaned farther forward, anxious to persuade. I guessed that this was a favourite thesis. ‘This talk of tradition and African this and African that is just more African Art. These people take us for fools. They don’t mean it, these champions of tradition. The only tradition they’re interested in is making their buttocks fat. What we need is a strong man with a vision, a Stalin. Instead we have these greasy chiefs who are only interested in dirty money and other people’s women. They talk about the dignity of the black man and then kick him in the teeth. They take us for fools.’ He sat up, his feet touching the floor. ‘They play on our greed, you see.’
‘Where will your sacrifices begin?’ I asked.
‘No, don’t joke. These people just don’t think. Look at the way they’re treating these Indians. It’s stupid. So what if they came here and made a lot of money? So what if they refused to become citizens? They have expertise. They have money. Let’s make use of them first, then we can throw the bastards out. We don’t throw the white man out. We’re too afraid of him. We want him to like us. African Art, African History . . . we plead with them to think of us as human beings. But the Indian we persecute and chase out. We’re behaving like children. It’s demoralising.’
‘I said where will your sacrifices begin? Which tribals will you start with? When will it be the turn of the Indians? When will you move on to the Arabs, or the Somalis? And who will be your next scapegoat after that?’
‘Scapegoats! That’s the problem,’ he thundered. ‘That’s why we don’t do anything. We all see ourselves as victims, waiting our turn. Waiting for somebody to come from out there and give us a helping hand. We don’t do anything for ourselves. Who’ll be next? Well, we’ll be next . . . sooner or later. Unless we do something about it.’
‘Do what? Make sacrifices . . . of other people?’
He made me nervous. I had heard people say the same things before. I may even have said them myself, but never with such passion and conviction. We said many foolish things that were part of our frustration as we witnessed the plundering of our nations. Moses spoke as if he believed in what he was saying, but I doubted that he was doing more than we were.
‘We are victims,’ I said. ‘And maybe you’re right, that we sit and wait and do nothing. What would you have people do in the face of such violence? Sacrifices are made every day. Somebody or other is plucked out and sacrificed for the advancement of our nation. It provides all of us with a powerful hint of the might of our state. And we can all run around like frightened mice, whispering about conspiracies and slaughters. It’s a sport our masters provide for us.’
‘Sport!’ he said angrily. ‘What do you think we are? Savages? You’re making us sound like bloodthirsty natives out of a Tarzan movie.’
‘You’re the one who doesn’t mind killing tribals and Indians.’
‘If necessary,’ he shouted. ‘If we have to kill those who are holding us back or exploiting us, then I say let’s do it.’
I watched him leaning forward and huffing with the passion of his defence, and I realised that I was enjoying provoking him. ‘Shall we do it before or after you get your degree and your house and car?’ I asked him.
‘That’s unfair,’ he said, leaning back.
‘This is just high-sounding hate, Moses. You talk of killing as if it is a game. What kind of price is that to pay for progress?’
‘No price is too much,’ he said, waving a finger at me. ‘Until we do things for ourselves, and don’t have to go begging from these white people every day of the week, you can forget progress or justice or any of that business. And if it’s only a Stalin who can do that, then I say let’s have him.’
We had got nowhere, but he was watching me with a smile, secure in the invincibility of his argument. ‘I hope Stalin will still let you go whoring in night-clubs,’ I said.
He laughed, prepared to be generous now that he felt I had conceded to him. I lay down on my bunk. He switched the light off, still chuckling in the darkness as he settled himself down. I wondered what he would be doing in a few years’ time, whether he would have learnt the cynicism that would make the memory of such passion seem an absurd illusion. I heard him shuffling, reaching into his bag, and then turning the water on.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked. ‘Pissing in the basin?’
He laughed. ‘No, just going to squeeze some juices out. Do you want the soap?’
‘You’re masturbating,’ I said, part admiring, part amused.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, sighing and blowing, while his hand beat a lather out of the soap. ‘You’re throwing me off my stride, man. You want the soap or not?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t want the soap.’
I pulled the sheet over my head and closed my mind to the noise. I think I fell asleep at once. I woke up feeling cold, and instantly remembered with pleasure where I was. The sun was pouring in through the thin curtains but it was not yet warm enough to dispel the chill. Moses was still asleep, lying on his back. He looked vulnerable with his mouth half-open and with one arm cramped to his side. I dressed quietly so as not to disturb him. I knew we would be arriving in a few hours and I wanted to be ready. He had seen all this before but to me it was all new, and I did not want to miss anything. The corridor was still deserted, and I toyed with the thought that Moses and I were the only passengers on the train.
The toilet was occupied. I stood by the door to wait, but the gut-curdling eruptions on the other side of the door drove me farther away. I wondered whether I should go away and come back later, but the pressure on my bladder demanded more immediate attention. And what could the poor man emptying his gut in the closet do that was worse than the crusted squalor of the latrine holes at home?
The land we were travelling through seemed dark and fertile, on the verge of being lush. The hills were endlessly rolling towards the purple horizon. The train lurched heedlessly on, its indifference almost joyous and carefree, like a preoccupied runner waving to passers-by but intent on the happiness that lay ahead. The green hillsides were hunched contentedly, fecund and swollen with complacency. They were in every way unlike the overbearing oppression of the narrow streets of our town, with its aromas of past cruelties and entangled jealousies. It was no wonder that people had learnt to fight for this land, to murder and maim for it. Who would think to risk so much for a squalid, slippery alleyway?
Near at hand, the verges of the railway tracks were choked with tall grass that even in the limp chill of the morning light looked venomous and sharp.
The door of the toilet opened and a tall man staggered out. He seemed to have difficulty steadying himself. After his exertions, it was a wonder that he could walk at all. I waited until he had staggered away, then reluctantly approached the toilet. I took a deep breath, threw the door open and hurled myself in before my resolve weakened.
A man was lying on the floor, wedged between the pedestal and the partition wall, his knees pulled up and spread apart. I moved back and shut the door. It was nothing to do with me. I went in again. He seemed to be asleep. His breathing was laboured and heavy. His shirt was spattered with blood, but there was no sign of a wound. His arms were jammed by his side, as if they had been forced into the narrow space. His face was swollen and puffed with bruises. Gently, I kicked his foot. He groaned once, and then opened and closed his mouth without making another sound. It was nothing to do with me. I moved back and closed the door behind me.
I heard voices coming down the corridor. The tall man was coming back, followed by the ticket-collector. The official was shouting, pushing the tall, thin man ahead of him. When they reached the door, the tall man pushed me roughly to one side, and I saw that one side of his face was glossy with blood. He pointed at the door, waiting for the official to go in ahead of him. The ticket-collector had not had time to button up his tunic and chose to do this now. He had difficulty with the top button, but eventually he clipped that round the heavy folds of his neck.
‘You!’ he said, turning to me, and practising on me the splendour of his authority. ‘Are you anything to do with this? I’ll have you and the rest of them thrown out at the next station. Where do you think you are?’
‘I was just waiting to go in there,’ I protested, hearing and hating the frightened whine in my voice. ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’
‘Get out of here, then,’ said the tall man.
‘You shut up,’ said the official, wagging a warning finger at him. ‘That booze is still going round in your head, is it? Nobody asked you to give any orders. You’d better mind yourself, or I’ll have you locked up at the next station.’ He waited until the tall man had dropped his eyes in defeat before he turned to me. ‘You! Isn’t it enough to have grown men drinking themselves to sickness without having people hanging about, staring as if they have nothing better to do? Come on, get out of here.’
The noise had woken some people up, and as the faces made their dishevelled appearance from behind doors, the official turned to them for sympathy. I squeezed past him, and then past the tall man. He turned the injured side of his face away from me.
‘What’s going on up there?’ a man asked me as I made my way back.
‘I think somebody is hurt,’ I said.
He looked quickly up the corridor and then back at me, as if to make sure that I was not playing a cruel joke on him. He hurried away to see for himself. I found Moses still asleep. The ease of his slumber irritated me. It seemed callous and insensitive in the circumstances. I was tempted to shake him awake, but the thought of the demands his conversation would make dissuaded me. I would probably only get a robust and knowing summary of my naïvety. I shifted my eyes from him and tried to think of what lay ahead.
I had enough bread left for breakfast, although I would probably have to share it. I would have to take a taxi to my uncle’s house when we arrived. My father had written to him to tell him the date of my arrival, but I expected that he would be too busy or would forget. I knew very little about him. I had never met him, but in the months before my journey many of the stories I had heard as a child about him had been revived. I knew that he had made a lot of money selling cars, and that he had worked himself into a position of respect. My father said that he had made big money out of smuggling. I had no idea how true that was. I did not know how rich he was, and whether he could afford to lend or give me the money to study. My mother had told me as much as she could, so she said. I sensed that she was holding things back, and that what she told me was more the legend than the reality. She had spoken of his vile temper, his bear-like rages. I told her that I had had a lot of practice at those and would do my best not to provoke them. At other times she described him as generous to a fault. Yes, I could see that in the way that he had done nothing for his sister while she lived in poverty a few hundred miles away. I suspected that I was on a futile quest. Yet, he had invited me to go. Perhaps . . . No, it was silly to assume that a brother who would do nothing for his poverty-stricken sister – and good luck to him if that was how he wanted to live – would willingly part with thousands for her son.
Still, there was nothing to be lost but a little dignity. The worst that could occur would be to seem foolish. And here was the opportunity to travel and see the world, to breathe in a different air and sense freedom nuzzling the leash. Cross the swamps and sail down the Nile, all the way to Alexandria. Perhaps my arrival would shame the rich uncle into an orgy of generosity, reparation for his previous neglect. He will not fail to be impressed by my sagacity and my integrity, and at the very least will burn with bitter shame for his refusal to help such a paragon in his selfless search for even greater wisdom. For the moment it was enough to be on the move, to be in the running, to have escaped the suffocation of those narrow alleyways.
I went in search of another toilet. There were people in the corridors now, and the train was more crowded than when we started out. The compartment was empty when I returned, and I ate what was left of my bread before Moses came back. He returned wearing my kikoi, cleaning his teeth with a plastic brush. He bent over the basin for a few moments, spitting and scrubbing and washing his mouth out. He dried himself with a corner of my kikoi. He looked completely refreshed, happy to be alive. He rubbed his palms up and down his cheeks and smiled. I envied him. My smile felt pale and sickly compared to his.
‘Somebody’s hurt,’ he said, ripping the kikoi off without any inhibitions. ‘Some fucking drunk. Somebody beat him up good and stole his money. He was covered in blood. I tell you, there are some mean bastards around. I remember once in Nairobi . . . ’
He paused and I assumed he was marshalling his story together. He zipped up his trousers, stood undecided, then smiled and shook his head. ‘Too early for that sort of thing,’ he said. ‘We get something to eat first.’
‘I’ve eaten,’ I said, feeling ashamed.
I don’t think he believed me. He must have assumed I was too broke to afford breakfast. ‘On me,’ he said. ‘You know, we must arrange to meet in Nairobi. You must come and see me at the University. Just ask for Moses Mwinyi. We’ll go out some place, do some whoring. And I’ll show you some of my poems. Oh yes, does that surprise you?’ He stood by the door waiting for me.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I really don’t want anything.’
He shrugged, closed the door behind him and left me to pick up my kikoi off the floor. I examined it for marks of his previous night’s abuse but it seemed clean. There was little else to do but sit by the window and gaze at the hills. The tall brown grass was quivering gently in the wind, little waves of motion on the silent hills, silent now with a primeval patience. In the distance were scattered bushes of whistling thorn. The train had lost its joyous step, moving slowly, gruntingly on the final haul.
As we approached Nairobi, the Ngong hills were visible in the west. Moses pointed them out to me, and we laughed with pleasure at the sight of them. A plane, coming in to land, passed over our heads, throwing us into a flurry of dashes from one window to another.
‘It’s good to be back,’ Moses said, leaping back into the compartment. ‘You really must come and see me.’
He picked up his bag, explained that he would have to look sharp if he was to avoid being caught by the railway officials, and shook hands. I was sorry to see him go. He reminded me again that I must visit him at the University, smiled pleadingly and waved farewell.