A Grain of Wheat (39 page)

‘But you did not see his face, Wambui, you did not see him,’ Mumbi said in a heated voice. Then she lowered it and continued. ‘I mean the night before the meeting. When you sent me to see him – his face changed as with pain in the heart – I mean – his face was different as he told me about—’

‘What?’ Wambui and Warui asked together. This news seemed to have captured their interest.

‘About Kihika, my brother.’

‘You knew?’

‘Yes. He told me.’

‘Maybe you should have told us this before the meeting,’ Wambui said accusingly, and lost interest in the news.

‘I did not want anything to happen. I never knew that he would later come to the meeting.’

‘That’s true,’ Warui agreed and resumed his thoughts in a puzzled, almost disappointed voice. ‘I was deceived by his eyes. But I ask myself: Why did he do all that in the trench and in detention?’

Mumbi was the first to recover from this mood of introspection. She said:

‘I must go now. I’m sure the fire is ready at home. Perhaps we should not worry too much about the meeting … or … about Mugo. We have got to live.’

‘Yes, we have the village to build,’ Warui agreed.

‘And the market tomorrow, and the fields to dig and cultivate ready for the next season,’ observed Wambui, her eyes trying to see beyond the drizzle and the mist.

‘And children to look after,’ finished Mumbi as she stood up and took her rain-sack ready to leave. Then suddenly she turned round and looked at the two old people, as at aged wisdom which could tell youth the secrets of life and happiness.

‘Did any of you see General R. on the night of the meeting?’

Wambui looked up at her with startled fear in her eyes. Warui was the first to answer without turning his eyes from the rain.

‘I have not seen him since he spoke at the meeting.’

‘Neither have I,’ Wambui also said in a tone that rejected all responsibility in face of possible police inquiries.

Mumbi went out. Soon Warui followed her out, still muttering to himself: ‘Something went wrong. I was deceived by his eyes, those eyes. Maybe because I am old. I am losing my sight.’

Wambui sat on and watched the drizzle and the grey mist for a few minutes. Darkness was creeping into the hut. Wambui was lost in a solid consciousness of a terrible anti-climax to her activities in the fight for freedom. Perhaps we should not have tried him, she muttered. Then she shook herself, trying to bring her thoughts to the present. I must light the fire. First I must sweep the room. How dirt can so quickly collect in a clean hut! But she did not rise to do anything.

Wamumu was Gikonyo’s last detention camp. He was kept there for a year. The detainees in this camp worked on a new irrigation scheme on the Mweya plains in Embu. They were converting the dry plains into rice-growing fields. As he dug canals, Gikonyo often looked across the flat plains and saw the Mbere and Nyambeni hills that cut Embu from Ukambani. He knew the land beyond belonged to Wakamba. Yet Gikonyo always imagined home and Mumbi as lying behind these hills.

One clear morning he saw Kerinyaga; its snow-capped tops just touching the sky in the distant horizon moved him to tears. Not that he had a particular feeling for landscape. But the sight of the legendary mountain, its head thrust into the mist, somehow softened him in that way.

This experience now stood fresh in Gikonyo as he convalesced in Timoro hospital. The medicine-smell in the hospital reminded him of the marshy-decay along the Tana river. It was at Mweya, on the same day, that he again seriously thought of carving a stool from wood, a wedding gift to Mumbi. The idea gradually took concrete shape as he worked in the sun amidst the river-decay and the muddy earth. He would carve the stool from a Muiri stem, a hardwood that grew around Kerinyaga, and Nyandarwa hills. The seat would rest on three legs curved into three grim-faced figures, sweating under a weight. On the seat he would bead a pattern, representing a river and a canal. A jembe or a spade would lie beside the canal. For days afterwards, Gikonyo thought about the carving. The men’s faces kept on changing; he altered the position of their shoulders, their hands or heads. How could he work a river in beads? Shouldn’t he replace a jembe with a
panga? He puzzled over little details and this kept his mind and heart away from the physical drudgery. He hoped to work on the stool as soon as he left detention.

Lying in hospital, Gikonyo was again possessed by a desire to carve the stool. He had been in Timoro for four days. For the last three days he thought of Mugo and the confession. Could he, Gikonyo, gather such courage to tell people about the steps on the pavement? At night he went over his life and his experiences in the seven detention camps. What precisely had all these years brought him? At every thought, he was pricked with guilt. Courage had failed him, he had confessed the oath in spite of vows to the contrary. What difference was there between him and Karanja or Mugo or those who had openly betrayed people and worked with the whiteman to save themselves? Mugo had the courage to face his guilt and lose everything. Gikonyo shuddered at the thought of losing everything. Every morning Mumbi and Wangari brought him food. At first he tried not to speak to Mumbi; he even found it painful to look at her. But after Mugo’s confession, he found himself trying to puzzle out Mumbi’s thoughts and feelings. What lay hidden behind her face? What did she think of Mugo and the confession? He increasingly longed to speak to her about Mugo and then about his own life in detention. What would she say about the steps that haunted him? Another thought also crept into his mind. He had never seen himself as father to Mumbi’s children. Now it crossed his mind: what would his child by Mumbi look like?

It was on the fifth day that he recalled Mweya and his desire to carve a stool. He stirred in the hospital bed, careful not to lie on the plastered arm. At first it was a small flicker, the sort he used to feel at the sight of wood. Then, as he thought about it, he became more and more excited and his hands itched to touch wood and a chisel. He would carve the stool now, after the hospital, before he resumed his business, or in-between the business hours. He worked the motif in detail. He changed the figures. He would now carve a thin man, with hard lines on the face, shoulders and head bent, supporting the weight. His right hand would stretch to link with that of a woman, also with hard lines on the face. The third figure would be that of a child on whose head or shoulders the other two hands of the man and woman
would meet. Into that image would he work the beads on the seat? A field needing clearance and cultivation? A jembe? A bean flower? He would settle this when the time came.

On the sixth day, Mumbi did not appear at the hospital. Gikonyo was hurt, and also surprised to find how much he had looked forward to the visit. All day he remained restless and wondered what had happened to her. Had she stopped coming altogether? Had she reacted against his obdurate silence? He anxiously waited for the dawn, the following morning. If she did not—

But she came, alone. Normally she and Wangari visited him together.

‘You did not come yesterday,’ he told her, accusingly. Mumbi sat on the bed and took her time before answering.

‘The child was ill,’ she said simply.

‘What – what is wrong with – him?’

‘Just a cold – or ‘flu.’

‘Did you take he – him to the dispensary?’

‘Yes!’ she said almost curtly. Gikonyo tried not to look at her. Mumbi appeared impatient and wanted to go.

‘When do you leave hospital?’ she asked.

‘In two days’ time.’ Now he turned to her and just caught her eyes. She was not looking at him. He was surprised to find that tiredness in her eyes. How long had she been like this? What had happened to her over the last few days?’

‘I am going now,’ she said. ‘I may not come tomorrow – or the next day.’ She started to put things in the bag determinedly. He wanted to say: don’t go. But he suddenly said: ‘Let us talk about the child.’

Mumbi, already on her feet, was surprised by these words. She sat down again and looked at him.

‘In here, at the hospital?’ she asked, without any excitement.

‘Now, yes.’

‘No, not today,’ she said, almost impatiently, as if she was now really aware of her independence. Gikonyo was surprised by the new firmness in her voice.

‘All right. When I leave the hospital,’ he said, and after an awkward
pause, added: ‘Will you go back to the house, light the fire, and see things don’t decay?’

She considered this for a while, her head turned aside. Then she looked at him, directly, in the eyes.

‘No, Gikonyo. People try to rub out things, but they cannot. Things are not so easy. What has passed between us is too much to be passed over in a sentence. We need to talk, to open our hearts to one another, examine them, and then together plan the future we want. But now, I must go, for the child is ill.’

‘Will you – will you come tomorrow?’ he asked, unable to hide his anxiety and fear. He knew, at once, that in future he would reckon with her feelings, her thoughts, her desires – a new Mumbi. Again she considered his question for a little while.

‘All right. Maybe I shall come,’ she said and took her leave. She walked away with determined steps, sad but almost sure. He watched her until she disappeared at the door. Then he sank back to bed. He thought about the wedding gift, a stool carved from Muiri wood. ‘I’ll change the woman’s figure. I shall carve a woman big – big with child.’