African Quilt : 24 Modern African Stories (9781101617441) (28 page)

“The day is not for sleeping,” the old man said quietly but firmly. He still wasn't looking at Zakeo. The boy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and blinked.

“Is that what they teach you at school?”

“Sekuru?”

The old man groaned in a way that told Zakeo what he thought of school.

The boy felt ashamed that he had hurt his grandfather. “I am sorry.”

The grandfather didn't answer or look at him. Some time later he said, “Why don't you go and play with the other boys of your own age?”

“Where?”

“At school. Anywhere. Teach them what you have learned.”

The boy looked away for some time. He felt deserted, the old man didn't want him around any more. Things began to blur in his eyes. He bit his lip and kept his head stiffly turned away from his grandfather.

“You can teach them all I have taught you. Huh?”

“I don't think they would listen to me,” the boy answered, still looking away, trying to control his voice.

“Why?”

“They never listen to me.”

“Why?”

“They—they—just don't.” He bit his lower lip harder but a big tear plopped down on his hand. He quickly wiped away the tear and then for a terrible second they wouldn't stop coming. He was ashamed in front of his grandfather. The old man, who had never seen any harm in boys crying, let him be.

When the boy had stopped crying he said, “Forget them.”

“Who?”

“Your friends.”

“They are not my friends. They are always laughing at me.”

“What about?”

“O, all sorts of silly things.”

“That doesn't tell me what sort of things.”

“O, O,
lots of things!
” The boy's face was contorted in an effort to contain himself. Then he couldn't stop himself, “They are always at me saying your father is your mother's horse. Your mother rides hyenas at night. Your mother is a witch. Your mother killed so-and-so's child. Your mother digs up graves at night and you all eat human flesh which she hunts for you.” He stopped. “O, lots of things I don't know!” The boy's whole body was tensed with violent hatred. The old man looked at him, amused.

“Do they really say that, now?”

“Yes and I know I could beat them all in a fight but the headmaster said we shouldn't fight and Father doesn't want me to fight either. But I know I can lick them all in a fight.”

The old man looked at the boy intensely for some time, his pipe in his hand; then he looked away to the side and spat out brown spittle. He returned the pipe to his mouth and said, “Forget them. They don't know a thing.” He then sighed and closed his eyes once more and settled a little deeper against the tree.

The boy looked at him for a long time and said, “I don't want to go to school,
Sekuru
.”

“Because of your friends?”

“They are not
my friends
!” He glared blackly at his grandfather, eyes flashing brilliantly and then, ashamed, confused, rose and walked a short distance away.

The old man looked at him from the corner of his eyes and saw him standing, looking away, body tensed, stiff and stubborn. He called out to him quietly, with gentleness, “Come back, Zakeo. Come and sit here by me.”

Later on the boy woke up from a deep sleep and asked the old man whether it was time yet for the traps. He had come out of sleep with a sudden startled movement as if he were a little strange animal that had been scared by hunting dogs.

“That must have been a very bad dream,” the old man said.

Zakeo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and blinked. He stared at the old man, then the sun which was very low in the west, painting everything with that ripe mango hue that always made him feel sad. Tall dark shadows were creeping eastward. He had that strange feeling that he had overslept into the next day. In his dream his mother had been shouting at him that he was late for school. A rather chilly wind was blowing across the desolate fields.

“Sit down here beside me and relax,” the old man said. “We will give the mice one more hour to return home from visiting their friends. Or to fool themselves that it's already night and begin hunting.”

Zakeo sat beside his grandfather and then he felt very relaxed.

“You see?” the old man said. “Sleep does you good when you are tired or worried. But otherwise don't trust sleeping during the day. When you get to my age you will learn to sleep without sleeping.”

“How is that?”

“Never mind. It just happens.”

Suddenly, sitting in silence with the old man didn't bother him any more.

“You can watch the shadows or the setting sun or the movement of the leaves in the wind—or the sudden agitation in the grass that tells you some little animal is moving in there. The day is for watching and listening and learning.”

He had got lost somewhere in his thoughts when the old man said, “Time for the traps.”

That evening the old man taught him how to gut the mice, burn off the fur in a low-burning flame, boil them till they were cooked and then arrange them in a flat open pan close to the fire to dry them so that they retained as little moisture as possible which made them firm but solidly pleasant on eating.

After supper the old man told him a story in which the hero seemed to be always falling into one misfortune after another, but always getting out through his own resourcefulness only to fall into a much bigger misfortune—on and on without the possibility of a happily ever after. It seemed as if the old man could go on and on inventing more and more terrible situations for his hero and improvising solutions as he went on till the boy thought he would never hear the end of the story.

“The story had no ending,” the old man told him when he asked. He was feeling sleepy and he was afraid his mother would put a definite stop to his visits to the old man's place, even if it meant sending him out to some distant relative.

“Carry her these mice,” the old man said when Zakeo said good night and stood up to go. “I don't think she will beat you tonight. She loves mice,” he said with a little laugh.

But when he got home his mother threw the mice to the dog.

“What did I tell you?” she demanded of him, holding the oxhide strop.

Zakeo didn't answer. He was looking at his mother without blinking, ready to take the strop like Ndatofa, the hero in the old man's story. In the corner of his eye he saw his father working at his baskets, his eyes watering from the guttering smoking lamp he used to give him light. The crow's-feet round his eyes made him appear as if he were wincing from some invisible pain.

“Don't you answer when I am talking to you?” his mother said.

The boy kept quiet, sitting erect, looking at his mother. Then she made a sound which he couldn't understand, a sound which she always uttered from some unliving part of her when she was mad. She was blind with rage but the boy held in his screams right down there where he knew screams and sobs came from. He gritted his teeth and felt the scalding lashes cutting deep into his back, right down to where they met the screams, where they couldn't go any farther. And each time the strop cut into him and he didn't scream his mother seemed to get madder and madder. His father tried to intervene but he quickly returned to his basket-weaving when the strop cracked into
his
back twice in quick merciless succession. It was then that Zakeo almost let out a deafening howl. He closed his eyes so tightly that veins stood out in his face. He felt on fire.

“I could kill you—you—you!” He heard his mother scream and he waited, tensed, for the strop and then suddenly as if someone had told him, he knew it wasn't coming. He opened his eyes and saw that his mother had dropped the strop and was crying herself. She rushed at him and began to hug him.

“My Zakeo! My own son. What are you doing this to me for? Tell me. What wrong have I done to you, ha? O, I know! I know very well who is doing this to you. He never wanted your father to marry me!”

He let her hug him without moving but he didn't let her hugging and crying get as far as the strop lashes.
That
was his own place. He just stopped her hugs and tears before they got
there.
And when he had had enough, he removed her arms from round him and stood up. His mother looked at him, surprised, empty hands that should have contained his body becoming emptier with the expression on her face.

“Where are you going, Zakeo?” It was as if
he
had slapped her.

“Do you care?”

“Zakeo! I am
your
mother! Do you know that? No one here cares for you more than I do! Not
him
!” pointing at his father. “And
not
even him!”—indicating in the direction of his grandfather's hut.

“You don't know anything,” Zakeo said, without understanding what he meant by that but using it because he had heard it used of his classmates by the old man.

“You don't know anything.” He repeated it, becoming more and more convinced of its magical effect on his mother who gaped at him as if she was about to sneeze.

As he walked out he caught sight of his father who was working furiously at his baskets, his head almost touching his knees and his back bent double.

The old man was awake when Zakeo walked in.

“Put another log on the fire,” the old man said.

Zakeo quietly did so. His back ached but the heat had gone. He felt a little relaxedly cool.

“You didn't cry today.”

The boy didn't answer.

“But you will cry one day.”

The boy stopped raking the coals and looked at the old man, confused.

“You will cry one day and you will think your mother was right.”

“But—” The boy stopped, lost. The night had turned suddenly chilly, freaky weather for October. He had been too involved with something else to notice it when he walked the half mile between their place and the old man's. Now he felt it at his back and he shivered.

“Get into the blankets, you will catch a cold,” the old man said.

Zakeo took off his shirt and left the shorts on. He got into the blankets beside the old man, on the side away from the fire.

“One day you will want to cry but you won't be able to,” the old man said.

“Sekuru?”

“I said get into the blankets.”

The boy lay down on his left side, facing the wall, away from the old man and drew up his knees with his hands between them. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep on his back that night.

“Thirteen,” the old man said, shaking his head.

“Sekuru?”

“Sleep now. I must have been dreaming.”

Zakeo pulled the smoke-and-tobacco-smelling ancient blankets over his head.

“Who doesn't want to cry a good cry once in a while but there are just not enough tears to go round all of us?”

“Sekuru?”

“You still awake?”

“Yes.”

“You want to go to school?”

“No.”

“Go to sleep then.”

“I can't.”

“Why?”

“I just can't.”

“Try. It's good for you. Think of fishing.”

“Yes,
Sekuru.
”

“Or mouse-trapping.”

“And hunting?”

“Yes. Think all you like of hunting.”

“You will take me hunting some day, won't you,
Sekuru
?”

“Yes,” the old man said and then after some time, “When the moon becomes your mother's necklace.”

“You spoke,
Sekuru
?”

“I said yes.”

“Thank you,
Sekuru.
Thank you very much.”

“Thank you,
Sekuru,
thank you very much.” The old man mimicked the boy, shook his head sadly—knowing that the following day the boy would be going to school. Soon, he too was fast asleep, dreaming of that mountain which he had never been able to climb since he was a boy.

G
RACE
O
GOT

Grace Ogot was born in Kenya in 1930 and was educated at Ngiya and Butere Girls' High Schools. She trained as a nurse in Uganda and England, but also worked as a journalist and tutor before becoming one of the first women in Parliament and the only woman to serve as an assistant minister in the cabinet of President Daniel arap Moi. She was later a founding member of the Writers Association of Kenya. She was a prolific writer, who published several novels and two collections of short stories. Her first novel,
The Promised Land
(1966), is the powerful story of a family's decision to emigrate and its tragic consequences. She is well-known for her compelling stories of the challenges that women must overcome in a patriarchal society and often described village life. Among her many works are
The Graduate
(1980),
The Strange Bride
(1989), and
The Island of Tears
(1980). She died in 2010.

The Middle Door

(1976)

I
t was already 5:30 p.m., but my husband was nowhere to be seen. In sheer panic I called a taxi.

“You can't catch that train,” the taxi-driver said.

“Please try,” I pleaded. “I just must catch it, please!”

“As you like, madam.” The heavy slamming down of the receiver, and his voice, indicated that it did not matter to him either way. He would be paid whether I missed the train or caught it.

My heart raced—apprehension about my husband's safety, and the fear of missing the train made my eyes watery as Osanya and I rushed to the yard with the luggage to wait for the taxi. A thought came to me, “Cancel the journey—you cannot go on such a long journey without seeing your husband. How can you tell what has happened to him?” But before I could make up my mind the taxi zoomed in at breakneck speed, stopping just a few inches from my feet. The man flung both doors open. We jumped in without a word, my suitcase propped up beside me, and Osanya sitting with the driver in front.

We wriggled our way between the buses and the large cars, taking narrow chances at every roundabout. At the junction of Jamhuri Avenue and Uhuru Highway we only just missed two pedestrians who had expected the taxi to slow down. We swerved right, left, and then right again, to get out of the way of a Mercedes Benz which was coming at a high speed on the outer lane on the left-hand side. Its throaty hooter nearly blew us off the road. As they passed us, the driver, clad in starched uniform and a peaked hat, gave us a dirty and accusing look while a rotund figure in a black suit and wearing thick rimmed glasses sat in the middle of the back seat holding a strap. Dignity and power distorted what would have been, at first sight, a very handsome face. He eyed us much longer than his driver did, obviously feeling insulted that the rickety taxi did not move out of his way quickly enough.

I clung tight to the back seat. The driver swore under his breath, “Shenzi, we all pay for our licence.” Osanya muttered something about
“Bwana mkubwa”
but I did not comment. We took another risk at the next roundabout opposite the railway station and stopped the car at the “Staff Only” white lines.

The large clock at the entrance to the station read a minute or so to six o'clock. I rushed through the gate without even showing my ticket. Osanya and the taxi man were running behind me.

My left foot was still on the pavement when the whistle went, announcing the departure of the train. How the taxi-driver and Osanya got my luggage in my compartment, I do not know. I just managed to get the right foot on the train before it moved away. Perspiration ran down freely under my arm and then rolled down along my side. I dashed to the window in compartment D.

“Pesa, mama, pesa.”

“Oh my God,” I gasped. The ten shilling note for the taxi-driver was still in my sweaty hand. The train was already moving, but the two men ran faster. I threw the ten shilling note at them. They caught it in the air, to the laughter of all. Now they waved and I waved back genuinely—to chase away the evil thought which nagged at me.

“All other passengers are seen off by their beloved ones, while all you have is a taxi-driver and a gardener.”

“Tell the Doctor to ring Kisumu, Osanya, eh—don't forget, or I will have nobody to meet me the other side.”

He said something which I did not hear. The train had gathered momentum and the gap between us widened. I waved till we took a bend and were out of sight.

We entered a tunnel and there was complete temporary darkness. I wondered now why I had decided to travel by train after six years! Suddenly we came out into the open, and the landscape facing Limuru was a magnificent sight. Here and there ridges rose high revealing rich red soil between the shrubs only to taper down gradually into a valley below. The rusty tin-roofed huts standing together marked out a small family homestead on the ridges, leaving the sloping land and the valley below for cultivation. Here and there smoke curled skywards where women were preparing the evening meal. As it was harvesting season, the aroma of the new maize on the cobs, being roasted by the boys on the open fires, filled the air, and sent saliva jetting out from our mouths.

Heavy footsteps at my door drew my attention from the beautiful scenery. My eyes rested on a woman carrying a huge
kikapu.
She was trying to push her way through my compartment door. Behind her a porter whose khaki uniform carried the letters E.A.R. & H. also entered the room carrying a big red cock and a three-foot bunch of unripe bananas. He dumped the bananas and the cock on the floor and, completely ignoring me, said to the woman, “I hope you will now feel comfortable.”

The cock, with legs tied and wings left free, flapped dangerously towards me. I moved my legs in haste to protect my new pair of stockings. The woman pulled the cock away. She then rearranged the
kikapu
and the bunch of bananas in the small space between us, and made herself comfortable next to me. She broke the silence.

“Misawa,”
she said.

“Misawa,”
I replied coldly.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To Kisumu,” I said half in a temper.

“Oh, we have the same destination,” she said politely.

The train rocked away, and my stomach churned. Anger welled up in me. Could this be true? I pay sh 128 for a firstclass compartment, only to land with that amount of luggage and a squawking cock on top of it. No, this could only be a big joke. I threw a side-glance at the newcomer. Her face was slightly turned towards the door, so that I could clearly see her without her knowing. She was perhaps younger than I. Her dark face was smooth and without any wrinkles or sordid makeup. Her dress with simple gathers, as was worn in the village, hung just below her knees. Her head-cloth was a bright multicolour print. She was fat, but was somewhat heavily built, revealing the comfortable life she led.

Many thoughts raced through my mind—“Tell her to move from here at once, this is a first class compartment. This is not your
place, not your place, not with a cock anyway. Tell her I paid sh 128 to be alone.”

But then I could not summon up enough courage. The words “independence,” “equal rights for all” were written everywhere I looked. Did equality mean inconvenience? Did freedom give licence for chickens to travel first class? I got really annoyed, yet I could not pull myself together to throw this woman out of my room. Then a thought came to me which cooled me down a little. I got out my writing case and sorted out the papers which I wanted to work on—and piled them between the woman and myself. Now I turned to the woman whose eyes were fixed on the papers, out of curiosity.

“I was thinking that perhaps they could get you a different compartment,” I told her.

“Why?” she asked politely. “There are two beds here.”

Her well-mannered attitude annoyed me. I was in for a quarrel. I wanted an excuse to have a row, an excuse to tell her what was in my mind. I cleared my throat and then said, “I write books you see, that's why I travel by train. I have urgent work here which I must finish tonight, so I shall be keeping all the lights on. You will not be able to sleep.” She hesitated, and I thought her temper was rising. But I was wrong. She eyed me from head to foot and then said:

“You write books for children, do you?”

“For everyone,” I said, wondering if she could tell the difference between children's and adults' books.

“That is very important,” she said in a matter-of-fact way.

I was furious with her. I was expecting her to be impressed and to say something like, “Oh you are so clever to be writing books.” But instead, she continued in her indifferent style, “Children of today need good books to read, they are no longer listening to their parents.”

At that point, a forced smile crept to my lips. The lady obviously had assumed that I was employed by the government to write books on delinquency. That, of course, was an important aspect of nation-building, and one did not have to be clever to be able to do it.

Now she eyed me closely and said, “Don't worry about me, madam. Lights don't worry me once I have slept. But even if they did, in public transport one has to dispense with the comforts of one's own house.”

I looked at this woman unbelievingly. Our eyes met. Her eyes were soft and calm while mine were a flame of bewilderment. It was I who in the end had to look away. I could not stand the self-confidence of this simple village woman whose place with her crazy luggage was in the third class.

I took a piece of paper and started scribbling what I could not really follow. I could feel the woman's eyes on me. Eyes not full of hatred like mine, but eyes full of pity. She regarded me as a young woman who through luck or historical accident had managed to get education from the tax she paid. I had managed to marry some lucky man holding a big position in government where he sat on money and wielded undreamt-of power.

I felt her eyes accusing me. “Do you know who I am, you rich woman, eh? Where were you at the time when I and my kind nursed the wounded men during the struggle for independence? Where were you when we went without food and water? You, rich woman, when we carried the little food we could steal to feed our men, where were you? And what do you know about dying or sacrificing for a nation? Now you are proud because you are educated. You can write books. You have good clothes. Yes, you are very proud. But it is not my choice that I am the village woman, it is fate. It was just two weeks before our examination when the war broke out. The
Mzungu
seized our school and turned it into an army camp. That day we left the school and ran for our lives. The few girls they caught were tortured to death—we too were caught later. We were beaten and stripped naked before our families. We were tortured to reveal where our men were—but we would not give in. We looked at the soil our forefathers had fought for and weighed this against the reward the
Mzungu
would give us if we would betray our men, our own brothers and fathers. Ah, it was better and sweeter to die rather than hold hands with a
Mzungu,
a visitor who had now turned a ruler and a killer.

“For four years we knew nothing but hunger and death—and the smell of blood. Hope had gone. Schools and exams were soon forgotten, and sorrow quickly turned us into old women. The only thing we were longing for was the comfort and protection of a man which alone was capable of restoring the beauty of our womanhood which had been defiled by the white man. But men were rounded up daily and shot with big guns at night. We knew then that we would never know the worth of a man. The world was coming to an end.”

I felt her anger was mounting and she was asking me threateningly, “Why, then, rich woman, can't I also enjoy the comforts of the freedom which the black man fought for, the fight which turned us into old women at a tender age? Eh? Tell me . . . I see your long pink nails, your powdered face and your prickly false hairpiece. You look much younger than you really are. You write books too, that is good. But now you leave me alone, you rich woman. Write your books till morning. I will sleep, I will not complain of the bright lights.”

As I put my writing down and turned to admire the landscape, the woman's pitying eyes were still fixed on me. The sun was setting and the entire landscape was bathed in its delicate rays. At a sharp bend, the full length of the passenger train slid along the winding hills like a snake among rocks. My tricks had failed and short of creating a scene, the woman had no intention of moving.

At that point the gong went, very musically.

“What is that gong for?” my companion asked innocently.

“For food,” I said curtly.

“I see,” she said. Then silence.

The restaurant car was already full when I went for supper. Then I noticed the Ticket Examiner sitting at the snack bar on the left.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said humbly.

“Yes, madam.” He put down his knife and fork and got up.

“Sorry, sir, may I sit by you a minute while I wait for a table?”

“Sure, madam, and please sit down.”

He pulled the chair out for me. I thanked him, then sat down.

“Eh . . . I thoroughly enjoyed your last book about a man with four wives. My favourite chapter is where the man orders his wives to work together, cook together, as one family, and they swear before him that the first one to break the rule must go. It is a great book. It is . . . we men love it.”

He swallowed a mouthful of egg sandwich, and then faced me, half whispering like a person who is uncertain of his statement.

“Now your hand has been strengthened, my dear. The government has gone ahead and legalised polygamy. All women married to one man are to be equal in status. That combined with the sort of teamwork you advocate in your book—eh! For once, the men have a very fair deal! Just like it used to be during our grandmothers' days when polygamy was accepted as part of life, our heritage. In those days polygamy was a sign of dignity and wealth and the elder wife brought a girl of her own choice for her husband to marry. Eh!” He laughed loudly.