But Apondi soon shows up to ruin the fun. “Your mother says she is coming out to whip your backside if you don’t get out of the rain. Who do you think will take you to the hospital when you get malaria?”
Malaria comes from mosquito bites and not from the rain. But who wants to argue when there is the threat of Mama’s switch? So I slink indoors to find other things to do. You would think the rain has colluded with Mama because it doesn’t let up until dusk.
IT’S THE SAFARI RALLY SEASON. My favorite driver is a Kenyan man nicknamed the Flying Sikh. He always wears a turban and a smile.
Mose supports the Datsun team and Dado the Peugeot. Dado loves Peugeots.
Odush has no preference. He says the Safari Rally is kiddish. The stupid cut has filled his head with all manner of grown-up stuff, but it hasn’t given him new friends, so he still has to hang out with us.
“Why are you here, talking about the rally if it’s kids’ stuff? Why don’t you go find some place where you can do adult stuff?” I ask as we’re sitting around the Zephyr.
“Does this look like your living room?” Odush scowls.
IT IS THE LAST LEG of the rally. The leading cars are expected in Nairobi the day after tomorrow. Baba’s radio says the competing cars are in a place called Turkana, with a white guy in the lead. One of the Asians that Amin expelled from Uganda is hot on the white guy’s tail. The man is now a Kenyan citizen, and he’s the country’s best hope.
It begins to rain again. The rain’s patter against the iron roof drowns Baba’s radio. His attempts at increasing the volume do not help. The announcer’s voice is replaced by static. Baba switches off the radio.
SAVE FOR A light drizzle that petered out in the morning, the sky is clear and it promises to be a bright day. We are out by the old Zephyr.
“I think the Kenyan-Asian will win,” I say.
“The man is not even Kenyan,” Odush snaps. “Just because Amin sent him here doesn’t make him Kenyan.”
“So what makes one a Kenyan?”
“You need to be born here.”
“Deno was born in Jinja when our father was still working in Uganda. So you want to say he is not Kenyan?”
“That’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“You just shut your mouth,” Odush says, and I mimic him, because that’s what he always says when he loses an argument.
“Lumush, your mum’s calling you,” Apondi shouts out from the corner of the block.
“Coming,” I shout back, but I’m not really. Mama just wants to know where we are and what we are up to. It’s the reason she sends Apondi to spy on us.
Apondi doesn’t wait to see whether I’m following her. She adjusts her headscarf and disappears the way she came. I know she will tell Mama that we are behind the block, playing pata potea and causing trouble. She never tells Mama the truth.
Tapa tapa tapa tapa—I hear the sound of pati patis and I know it is Njish even before I turn around. She has a flower-patterned dress and a kiondo bag strapped over her shoulder. Her blue pati patis slap against the soles of her feet. She glowers at Odush, then turns and smiles at me as she hurries past.
Odush continues teasing me long after Njish is gone.
“I can still hear your heart beating from here,” Odush says and shoves his hand under his shirt to mimic a heartbeat.
“Shut up.”
We are still kidding around when I spot Njish hurrying back.
Odush steps forward to block her path. When she steps away from him, he swings right back into her path and again she sidesteps him.
Amused at his silly game, Njish plays along until he makes to grab her basket and that is when she slaps him hard on the cheek.
Odush stands there stunned. For a while he doesn’t move, as though he’s turned into a statue. When he explodes into action and goes for her, I lunge at him and knock him to the ground.
After that everything is fuzzy. I remember Odush rising in slow motion, a furious look on his face, and I hear Mose go, “Oh! Oh!” and I’m lashing out again and Odush is on the ground a second time and I have this urgent desire to flee.
Then Dado is between us and my vision clears.
Odush rises and walks away with his head lowered.
“IT’S TOO EARLY TO TELL who will win,” Odush mumbles. He hasn’t said much since yesterday’s incident. Still, I know he isn’t one to carry a grudge. I would love to tell him I’m sorry but I don’t know how to start. His lower lip is still red and swollen.
“You better move away from the road, so those rally cars don’t run you over,” I reach out and pull him back just to show there are no hard feelings.
His face lights up into a smile.
We hear a distant purr that builds up until it is a roar, before a spotlight beam flashes out through the heavy rain. A car leaps forward, its colored nose raised, as though it wants to fly up into the air. Its wheels screech against the asphalt as it does a side spin before straightening out, and then it is gone.
I only realize I am hugging Dado when he pushes me away.
Mose is screaming at the top of his voice, like the winning driver is his blood brother.
A few minutes later the second car, driven by a white guy, tears past and we clap and cheer until Dado reminds us that the guy is gunning to beat our man, and then we are jeering even though the car is long gone.
We are still waiting for the other rally cars when a white pickup truck shoots out from behind the roundabout. It slams into a lamppost, flips over, and rolls several times before landing in a ditch. We rush forward to help free the driver from the car’s cabin.
“Get away from the road,” a policeman shouts. “This rally makes people lose their heads. If you aren’t careful, another driver will run the lot of you over.”
Reluctantly, we move away.
“Did you notice his shoe had come off? It always happens in a car accident,” Odush says as we watch from a distance.
The accident victim is seated on the grass and is bleeding from a gash on his forehead. He stares out into space as he waits for an ambulance. He has only one shoe on.
Back at the estate people are celebrating. They hop up and down and hug like they will share the top rally prize. I wonder how Amin now feels, after the man he expelled from Uganda has won the Safari Rally for Kenya.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
***
“YOU WOULD DIE FOR ME, Lumush, wouldn’t you?” Njish wants to know. She has her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes glued to a spot above my head, like there is another me floating there.
I’m next to Mama Nandwa’s kiosk, a packet of sugar in my right hand. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, trying to figure out what it is all about this time.
“You heard what I said, Lumumba,” Njish now addresses me by my full name like most grown-ups do. “Would you die for me?”
“Mmmm!” I say, though I don’t know what this dying business is all about. Bumbles wants me to die for our flag and country. Njish now needs me to die for her. Baba often says a true man must find something they are ready and willing to die for, but how many things can one man die for? How many times can someone even die?
Njish is waiting for an answer, so I nod. You know, when Njish looks at you with those big brown eyes, you can do nothing but agree with everything she says.
“Thanks for protecting me from that monster, Odush,” Njish says, and I realize that’s the reason for this talk about dying.
Hell! Does she have any idea how scared I was when I punched Odush? I could have lost an arm or a leg. Then I would be limping all over the place. Maybe I could have even died for real.
“Will you do something else for me, Lumush?”
“Yes,” I say, and I’m scared she is about to ask me to do something even worse than dying.
“Will you kiss me?” She leans so close I can feel her warm breath on my face.
I look around to see if there is anyone watching.
“No! It is because I have never done it before.”
“How will I know you care if you don’t kiss me? Now you go on and kiss me, Lumush,” she says and her dimpled cheek is right on my lips.
I kiss her quickly.
“You see, it is not that bad,” she laughs.
Long after she is gone I can still feel her soft cheek on my lips and the sweet scent of Patco sweets.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
***
APONDI TELLS MAMA THAT I visited the ghost house on Desai Street at night. She has been threatening to do so, but for one reason or the other, she hasn’t until today. But last night I told her she sounded like a crow when she sang. That must have really hurt her, because she takes her singing seriously and believes she has a wonderful voice.
“It’s a lie,” I protest to Mama.
But Mama believes Apondi, so she sends for a switch from the mapera tree behind our house. She makes me lie flat on my belly on the living room floor.
Baba tries to intervene. He asks me to assure them it will never happen again, but Mama is beyond listening.
“Someone has to do this, or one day your son will get himself killed,” Mama warns. “Lumumba, you know I love you and I’m doing this to make you a better person?” she brings the switch down hard on my bunched buttocks.
I nod in between tears.
“You know I feel pain when I see the tears in your eyes?”
I again nod, but each time the switch whizzes down, the only thing on my mind is how I am going to give Mose a black eye once this is over.
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT has no place in civilized society; at least that is what Bumbles says. That’s the reason we carry conduct cards in Hill School. Three demerits on your card and you are in for detention on Saturday. Three consecutive detentions and you are suspended. I guess three consecutive suspensions would have you expelled, but who knows? No one ever has had three consecutive suspensions. Maybe they’d just ask you to empty your locker and leave for good.
The first time I heard the term “corporal punishment” I asked Deno what it meant. He joked that it was when you got punished by a corporal.
I suspected Deno was kidding and so I asked Baba, who told me it was physical punishment, like when someone gets caned. Now I know that what Mama does to us with her switch is corporal punishment, which Bumbles says is primitive.
No one can best Mama in the corporal punishment business. She canes us out of love; at least that is what she says. Even when I’m writhing on her floor and my backside is on fire, she says she is the one in pain.
Me, I can do without her kind of love.
I have three demerits on my conduct card. The first was for lateness and the other two for insubordination. They are all from Bumbles. Three demerits equal detention, so I will be in school for half the day, on Saturday, raking leaves off the quad when I should be playing ball with Dado and the other guys.
Back at St. Josephs, a couple of strokes of the cane would have been sufficient. But this is Hill School, and Hill School does not do corporal punishment.
At St. Josephs, they caned you for everything, even though they never called it corporal punishment. You wrote out wrong answers for the weekly tests, you got caned; you made noise, you got caned; you arrived late, you got whacked right there at the gate. They would even cane you some more for not wincing in pain.
Me, I think they should have just allocated everyone a number of strokes in advance. Then we would save everyone the trouble by presenting ourselves each morning to receive our quota of caning before entering class.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
***
IT’S MWAKIO, a little bowlegged boy from Block 11, who sees the body first. He pauses, clutching the packet of milk his mother had sent him to buy to his side, sucking in the yellow snot dripping down his nose, before sprinting off as fast as his legs can allow. He can’t wait to tell his parents about the green lorry that has crashed into the ditch behind the slaughterhouse and the body of a boy lying in the road.
They dismiss him as a little liar and threaten to spank him for fibbing, but he insists it’s the truth. So they accompany him to the spot and find the lifeless body of a boy in a blue T-shirt lying across the road and a green Bedford lorry, its front wheels and cabin in the ditch, its rear wheels suspended in the air.
They check the boy’s pulse and confirm he is dead. There are blood smudges on the sides of the cabin door of the lorry.
Not long after, someone identifies the dead boy as Zgwembe.
Amimo the charcoal dealer says he heard tires screeching in the dead of the night, followed by a loud bang, then silence. “You can see from the skid marks that the driver braked hard before crashing into the ditch,” he concludes.
“The driver must have run away,” someone says.
“Whoever was driving the lorry must have been doing something illegal. Otherwise why not report the accident, if it was one?”
“Someone should hop in to find out what’s in the back,” Amimo says.
“No! You shouldn’t do that before the police arrive,” someone warns, and so people just mill around the scene.
“Who will go and find the boy’s father?” Apondi says, her voice hoarse with emotion. She unties her lesso wrapper and uses it to cover the body.
“The man is probably in his kiosk, high on the stuff he sells,” Amimo lets out a nervous laugh.
“Could it be Mwachuma’s lorry?” Dado whispers to me. He was one of the first people to get to the scene.
“It’s a Bedford and it’s green like his,” I say.
“Why don’t we slip over to Mwachuma’s yard and see if his lorry is still there?” Mose suggests.
“There will be enough time for that. For now let’s hang around and see what happens when the police arrive,” Dado says.
“Now you see why I suggested we give the photo and diary to the police. By now they would have arrested that thug, Mwachuma,” Odush mumbles.
This is something that is really bothering me. What if Mwachuma is responsible for Zgwembe’s death? What if we had handed over the photo and diary to the police as Odush had suggested? Maybe then they would have arrested Mwachuma, and Zgwembe would still be alive.
HOURS LATER, the police are yet to arrive.
Tumbo elbows through the mass of bodies that still mill around the Bedford lorry. He unbuttons his jacket, wipes the sweat off his face, and addresses those who have gathered around the lorry.
“The police have been notified and will soon be here. They will be able to find out who was driving the lorry and who owns it,” Tumbo says.
“Stop pretending you don’t know who the lorry belongs to,” Odush shouts.
Dado elbows him, but Odush ignores it.
“That lorry belongs to your one-eyed friend,” he shouts out.
Tumbo clears his throat to speak but his words are stuck in his throat. His mouth stays open for a while but no words come out. When he manages to speak his tone is threatening.
“You shouldn’t make such accusations. You could easily get in trouble. What do you know about anything anyway?”
“Is it Mwachuma’s lorry or not?” a voice calls out from the crowd, and it is none other than Apima. “I’ve heard talk of that old lorry roaring across the estate by night and doing all sorts of shady things. Yet Mwachuma parks it in that junkyard during the day and claims it can’t move.”
Tumbo’s eyes dart from side to side, and it is obvious he is hiding something.
I turn to find Apondi behind me.
“You and your friends will get everyone in trouble if you go involving yourself in what doesn’t concern you,” she warns. “Wait until I tell your mother how you are all busy sticking your noses in other people’s business. I’ll even fetch the switch that she will use to beat your backside raw.”
I’m about to tell her to go to hell when a police truck roars in and the crowd draws bac
k. When I turn around, Apondi is gone.
By the time the two policemen load Zgwembe’s body into the back of their truck, his father, Rasta, still has not arrived.
“Did anyone go for the poor boy’s father?” Apima asks.
“I looked for him in his kiosk, but the man is nowhere to be seen,” Amimo says as the police truck roars off.
I try to imagine Rasta learning of his son’s death long after it has happened. Though I know he didn’t take good care of Zgwembe, I’m sure he loved him like any father would love his son.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
***
TWO MEN STAND ON each side of Zgwembe’s grave. They carry shovels with long handles. The skinny one to the left has eyes set close together under a protruding forehead. The other is short, with a thick tuft of hair set on his small head. He pulls out a soiled handkerchief and mops the sweat from his brow.
Zgwembe’s father, Rasta, stands next to the coffin, a well-finished brown box with rounded edges and gold handles.
Apima gives a moving eulogy. She speaks of a young life, needlessly cut short.
Our Member of Parliament, Kilo Moja, speaks next. He pumps his hand in the air like he is addressing a political rally. He promises to ensure that those who ended Zgwembe’s innocent life will be punished. He lets everyone know that it was him who paid for the coffin and the other expenses. He asks everyone to again vote for him in the coming elections.
“What reason do we have to be proud of these shells we call our bodies?” the priest in a white robe asks. “From dust we are created, to dust we return,” he continues, and we bow our heads and nod in agreement.
“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he says, and we all echo, “Amen.”
A short woman in a black dress and a matching headscarf stands next to Zgwembe’s father. She covers her face and sobs. A girl in a red dress and huge earrings draws the woman close and consoles her. The two embrace, blow their noses, wipe their tears. The girl has a black-and-white framed photo. Its grainy image bears some resemblance to Zgwembe.
Playing a Dangerous Game Page 9
