12

‘Now, tell me, are you the spark that lights a fire, or the spark that the fire throws out to die?’

By mid-afternoon that first day, I could tell I was going to love being out at The Diva’s, aka Kidane’s, farm. Our house in Nakuru was not really a farm — it was where we that were privileged enough not to need farm animals lived. On holidays, we would do what city families do and go visit our rural relatives in Limuru. We would bring all sorts of gifts, from mirrors to clothes, and they would slaughter a goat for us. An envelope would change hands, promises would be made that they would send the kids to spend a weekend and get back to their roots, learn how to speak proper Kikuyu, and then we would retreat back to Nakuru, where my mother, feeling inspired, would start a vegetable patch that inevitably went to weed.

Being out here, with the familiar pungent smell of cow dung permeating the air, the grass still soft from evaporated morning dew, was awakening a need to reconnect with Limuru and the relatives who over the years had become just somewhat familiar faces.

‘Mummy said we should not disturb you, but she always sleeps when she comes back,’ Tsage said, looking sad. The kids were now in my room as I unpacked.

‘Well, sometimes grownups work too hard and they need to rest,’ I said to him, but he looked at his sister.

‘Singing is not hard work — do you want us to sing you a song so you can see it’s not hard work at all, at all, at all?’ Selamawit asked, getting ready to belt out a tune.

‘No, no, I believe you. Maybe later? Later would be good,’ I said to escape.

‘Can we show you the farm now?’ she asked. I supposed this was the real reason they had come to see me.

So we went around the farm; one moment they would be pointing out in perfect English what we were looking at — chickens, cows and goats — and the next moment they would play jumping and skipping games that I did not know. We got done with the farm and went back to the house only to find that Kidane was still sleeping. But at some point, she must have gotten up, because someone had set out some marmalade and jam sandwiches, some milk and a Fanta, and so we snacked away.

‘Now is later. Can we sing now?’ Tsage asked.

I pretended to think about it as I sipped my Fanta and, of course, said yes. They danced and sang to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Did they have their mother’s talent? It was too early to tell.

It was time for me to be a journalist. While The Diva slept, I would walk around with the hope of seeing something that might be useful for my story. After all, she wanted to show, not tell.

The kids wanted to come with me; I agreed, thinking that they might be useful guides and could translate for me if need be. I packed the rest of the sandwiches in a brown paper bag I found in the kitchen, filled an empty juice bottle with water, and we strode off into the hilly great unknown.

The kids skipped ahead as I took in the view and wondered who The Diva really was. So far she had introduced me to her family, her house and farm and then napped. Peace and happiness, she seemed to have it here. But how can you sing the Tizita if you have everything? If blues musicians did not have loss, would they sing? Can you sing and be spiritual about the loss of something you have never known?

There was a sound that for years had bothered me from my days in Boston watching blues musicians. The sound of their wedding ring running against the frets — did that mean they were still married even as they sang about loss? Now I was thinking that one probably sings a truer song about loss when still in love — the anguish, the imagining that you will lose the love of your life. Otherwise, after the love is gone, the bitterness, anger and pain would choke the beauty out of the song — and it becomes longing for love once again.

We went down and up a hill, and I found myself thinking about the chanting old man. And, as if I had conjured him, there he was, still chanting. We walked over and stood close to him until he acknowledged us. He stretched his hand in greeting and introduced himself.

‘His name is Giriama Felleke. And you, who are you?’ Selamawit happily translated.

I told him my name. He wanted to know a little bit about my background, why I had an Italian name, telling the kids to tell me that even a fruit that falls down from a tree still has roots. I had to think fast which of my myths of origin would work best, and I went with the pilot who had landed his plane on a frozen river, and my mother, pregnant with me, giving me the name of the pilot who had saved both our lives — Manfredi.

‘They should have named you Tamru — it is a miracle, God’s will, that you are alive,’ he said with great empathy. ‘And your middle name, what does it mean?’

‘Thandi — it means spark.’

‘Now, tell me, are you the spark that lights a fire, or the spark that the fire throws out to die?’ he asked, looking pleased, like one who had been dying for a conversationalist and had now found one worth sparring with.

‘Well, either is fine by me — either the piece that gives greatness or the piece that comes from the whole — either way, I am fine,’ I answered, and he started laughing.

‘I am a journalist; I am doing a story on Kidane. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions now that we have sparked a conversation?’ I asked.

He laughed so hard I thought he would fall and roll down the hill. He whispered something to my able translators.

‘He would like something to drink. He has been here too long,’ Selamawit translated.

I gave him the water, but he shook his head to say no. I figured the kids would be okay. I ran all the way back to the house, thinking about my name and why it mattered that my parents had been in bed with the dictator.

This is the version I never told anyone. My name was suggested by the dictator — an inside joke. It’s the name of the hotel where their affair started when he was the VP and my mother was coming up the party ranks. No, I was not the exdictator’s son, though I always did feel he favoured me. I was a reminder of simpler and perhaps happier times. Why had my father gone along with it? For the same reason as my mother — it made him part of a club, and, in his own way, he might have felt it was something he held over their heads.

How did I find out? The dictator’s sons had told my brother, who in turn had taken great delight in telling me. I had doubted it and looked up Manfredi Hotel, and there it was — a small boutique hotel in Rome. I asked my mother if she had ever stayed at a Manfredi Hotel in Rome. She said she had never been. But old passports do not lie. And neither do archived newspaper reports of official government visits to foreign countries. Everything — the lies and truth, or truths — was possible.

The Diva was still sleeping. I found a bottle of vodka that was clearly old, judging from the dust it had collected, and ran back to the old man. He motioned for us to sit down for a ceremony that only he knew. He poured libation after libation, taking a gulp of the vodka and spraying out a small fine mist. I had to get my questions in before he passed out.

‘Can you ask him if his thirst has been quenched?’ I asked my little translators.

‘Yes, I am very fortunate. I am ready,’ the answer came back.

‘The chanting, who is it for?’ I asked.

He hesitated. ‘The problem, some stories are not for young ears,’ he answered, and laughed.

I understood; my translators were too young, even if only transmitters. I took the bottle from him and had a good swig and gave it back to him.

‘Tell him, I am old enough for him to tell me the story without really telling it to you,’ I answered, thinking of the heavy Kenyan code that old people would use in our presence — ordinary words that, used in a certain way, had so many meanings that they must have had a code to decipher. They were the original deconstructionists and post-modernists; only, they had meaning.

‘Life is long, life is short. It’s longer for others and even shorter for others, and even a long life can be short. When people do not get along, we send our children to help settle the debate and some come back, and others trip, fall down and decide to stay. My boy went back to our neighbours to help settle a little disagreement. He was lucky to come back, but if you go somewhere to visit, sometimes that place makes you a different person….’ He paused as my translators intervened.

‘His son came back from the war with Eritrea. He was crazy — he blew his brains out right here,’ the sister explained as the brother made a gesture of holding a gun to his head. I looked at the old man, thinking he might be angry, but he smiled and lifted the bottle to his lips.

‘The young of today, we can’t get anything past them,’ he said and patted them on their heads. ‘But they also don’t know everything,’ he added.

Now that the children had broken our code, I felt reluctant to ask him about Kidane, but I risked it anyway, hoping he could launch both of us into deeper code.

‘The mysteries of the heart. To tell the truth is very difficult work; the truth is like hot lava going through the musician. Even if they try, it will still burn and leave them with scars. But it is also beautiful work,’ he said.

‘Sometimes my mother drinks too much and then fights with my father,’ the little girl once again injected her two cents into the translation. The old man laughed again. He must have understood English.

‘Perhaps we are saying too much?’ he asked rhetorically, but it was too late for him to stop. ‘Kidane sings for my son, to bring him back. Anytime I hear her sing, I can see my boy right in front of me, but each time, we are not the same after — and so I take a little medicine,’ he carried on.

This is what he is telling me, I think — Kidane and his son had been lovers, were probably going to get married, but he came back from the war traumatised. Her love could not save him from the ghosts of war that were calling him over. The landscape, this place, was not so full of happiness and peace after all.

‘The war between neighbours, between Eritrea and Ethiopia, what was it about?’ I asked him.

‘War between brothers never has a reason — the brothers of Pakistan and India, Bangladesh; the brothers of Britain and France; the brothers of Kenya and Somalia. We have been killing our brothers for too long,’ he explained, suddenly looking very close to breaking down.

I thanked him. He went back to his chanting, and we started our walk back.

‘You are the reporter writing about my mother, right?’ Selamawit asked.

‘Yes, he is. You know he is,’ Tsage answered for me.

‘You must be very special,’ she said.

‘Why?’ I asked in surprise.

‘We never meet any reporters,’ she answered.

‘It must be because your mother and father love you and want to protect you from being known to strangers. Imagine how difficult your life would be if everyone in Ethiopia and the whole world knew you…,’ I awkwardly tried to explain.

‘It would be very, very nice to be famous,’ the boy answered eagerly.

‘But how would you know if your friends loved you for who you are?’ I asked both of them. God! How many times had I asked myself that same question growing up?

‘I would not care at all. I would make them do what I want. Why would I care as long as they did what I wanted?’ Tsage reasoned.

He had a point there, I guess — it would be nice to be able to bend the world to your will.

‘OK, in that case, let me take a photo of the both of you, but I will ask your mother for permission to use it,’ I said, to close the subject.

I took the photo, knowing I would not use it, and they skipped and hopped ahead of me till we got back to the farm.