Girl with the Golden Voice

by Carl Hancock

  Their passage along those washing lines was slowed by the long embraces that punctuated the gathering down and folding of the clothes. As he ran his hands along the lines of her firm shape, as he felt her breasts against his chest, he rejoiced in anticipation. He was glad that she had delayed their full meeting until they were married.

  The washing baskets were full and put away for sorting later. They were sitting on a flat rock by the lakeside when he told her. There was a brief silence before she said anything.

  ‘Tom, I think, perhaps, you ought to ask a few questions.’ She looked and sounded solemn.

  ‘You think it’s a good idea for me to try to be a candidate?’

  ‘Why do they want you? You have no experience and you are very young for this kind of work. Perhaps those are their reasons.’

  ‘But I’m white, ‘Becca, white! I know that shouldn’t be an issue, but can you imagine thousands of black people voting for me!’

  ‘I would. You’re right to think about the colour of your skin, but they would not care about that if they thought you would be honest with them. Tom, these people are desperate for real change. You have got to answer the party as if you are going to be a sure winner.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m just a farmer’s son who is happy to grow beautiful flowers for rich Europeans to put on their tables.’

  ‘And they want our picture for their election book. Wonderful!’

  ‘I thought you wanted a quiet life for us on the farm here.’

  ‘I do, Tom, but if someone asks to help clear some of the mess in this country, we can’t just shut ourselves away, mind our own business. This is our business.’

  ‘You’re the one who should be standing! You’re beautiful and they love you.’

  ‘I am a woman. They are not ready for that.’

  Tom looked away and, after a long time staring across the lake, sighed. ‘And I’m not ready for them,’ and, after another long pause, ‘I wish I hadn’t met them. It was just an accident really. They just happened to be in the Nairobi Club.’

  ‘Not an accident.’

  ‘But they’ve planted … disturbing thoughts.’

  ‘We are not meant to hide behind walls.’

  ‘Well, I’ve told them. It’s all right to let them use our picture? They want to put it on the cover of some book.’

  ‘They will have to take one first.’

  ‘Rebecca, it’s wonderful.’

  ‘What is wonderful?’

  ‘Listening to you talk like this. I’m just a boring, predictable Farmer Giles but you … I’m getting a terrible thought, right this minute. That you are far too good to be wasting your time marrying a git like me.’

  She laughed. ‘Git? What is this “git”?’

  ‘Prat, air-head, bozo, waste of space …’

  ‘Fiance, that’s a word I like. It has some romance about it. Betrothed, even better. I am hoping to settle some things about the wedding. What date …’

  ‘June seventeenth, Grandma’s birthday. You’re my present to her. She loves you and I’m bringing you into the family.’

  ‘That’s settled, then. How many guests?’

  ‘Hundreds. Not many from my side, but you’ve got dozens, the coast lot and the Somali family.’

  ‘Mama’s family? They won’t come. One of the family marrying a white man, it’s a disgrace.’

  ‘And Pastor Kamau will marry us.’

  ‘Silly! Papa is giving me away! That’s how you say it?’

  ‘Don’t know. Never been married before. But that’s enough planning for now. I’m hungry. What are the mamas cooking up for us tonight?’

  ‘Fish, I think. I’m going to the village to cook for Papa.’

  ‘But why can’t the girls …?’

  ‘Besides, Mr Briggs is coming over. I don’t think he enjoys himself when I am sitting at the table.’

  ‘But Bertie loves you!’

  ‘Yes, as long as I am bringing the plates, not eating from them!’

  ‘No, that’s not true. ‘Becca, what are we doing to ourselves here? This colour stuff. Why do we watch out for other people’s problems about that? Let them sort them out, if they have to. Perhaps you could invite me over tonight. I’ve had enough fish for a while.’

  ‘Soon, Thomas. Mama and Papa are not ready yet. The village, too, perhaps. It’s not an easy thing to have your little world turned upside down.’

  The last of the sun’s rays were angled sharply upwards behind the mass of the heights of Eburu. The headlights of Bertie’s car were moving towards them along the driveway. All his life Tom had found these few minutes of dusk to be the most magical part of the day. After a brief embrace, they separated. She moved around the edge of the veranda, a shadow melting into the evening. He ambled into the house and up the stairs to take his long-delayed bath.

  Chapter Eighteen

  iandazi had been open as a restaurant for just a few months. It was on Oserian land and the owners had spent a lot of the profits from their flower growing to create a luxury restaurant with a few rooms close by for an overnight stay. The centrepiece was the large European house built eighty years before, back in the days when the Happy Valley set were doing the rounds.

  It was set back off South Lake Road a few kilometres from Hell’s Gate park and hot springs. On this side of the road the hill sloped steadily all the way up to the A104 and the villages on the top of the Escarpment. Down here there was a small private school and pastureland with gallops for the horses of Maggie Forrest, one of the leading trainers in the country.

  The party was outdoors with fifteen tables set out formally at Rebecca’s request. She had insisted on footing half the bill. The radiant couple greeted the guests as they arrived. The sound of African songs for tourists played by three young men borrowed from the country club was soon relegated to background music by the animated chatter and the regular whoops of delight of new arrivals, especially first timers at Kiandazi when presented with this oasis of city sophistication out in what they would have described as wild bushland.

  Two surprise guests danced up the steps from the car park and threw their arms around Rebecca and Tom. Toni Wajiru explained. ‘We had five days before opening down in Florida. We couldn’t miss this party. We’ve got a car full of presents from the gang.’

  When Stephen Kamau said grace, Toni opened his eyes wide and whispered to his daughter, ‘Now we know where Rebecca got that voice!’

  Waiters were serving the second course when four expected guests appeared at the gate. Tom was quick to move to greet Paul Miller and Daniel Komar and their wives.

  ‘Misty over the top,’ was Daniel’s explanation. It was not the whole story.

  Peter Belengeri, who farmed on the other side of the lake, had landscaped the gardens. He had turned a flat grassy area in front of the original house into a long, wide plateau of lawn studded with acacia and jacaranda. He had brought in thousands of tons of earth to create a steep bank. Guests who stood on the edge to look out were inclined to linger to take in one of the best views in the Rift. The first focus was the lake, but the valley was wide here and the man-made pinpricks of light of Naivasha town were no match for the dense scattering of stars cast across the night sky. The ancient stillness was humbling.

  The speeches were all variations on the theme of hope.

  Seeing Rebecca and Tom holding hands helped speakers to surprise themselves with their willingness to uncover and reveal thoughts and feelings that were normally kept hidden. There was hardly a cliche in sight.

  There had to be a song. Rebecca knew it and insisted that, for once, Tom share the stage with her, Mary and Toni. He gave in unexpectedly easily, knowing that once she was into her song he could slip away out of sight behind the combo from the club.

  ‘I’m coming home’. Mary was pleased with the choice because it gave her the chance for long stretches of harmonising with her best friend. There were two encores. By the time the second started, the audience had quadrupled. At first, th
e guests around the tables who were joining in the singing did not notice the black heads popping above the line of the bank. Those heads grew into bodies and by the end of the song a huge choir was in full voice sending the music down the dark hillside and out across the lake.

  Paul and Daniel, with their wives, were the first of the official guests to leave. Ten minutes later their car raced back up the driveway. The front doors were flung open, Daniel stepped out and hurried to find Tom.

  ‘Tom, just one minute …’ Daniel motioned Tom to follow him and turned to hurry back to the car, trailed by a puzzled Tom who could not yet understand why Daniel seemed unwilling to speak up even in front of Rebecca.

  Paul was speaking on his phone and invited the two men to come close.

  ‘He’s gone, Daniel !’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘David wouldn’t make a mistake on a big one like this. But it’s not going to be made public till the morning. Just a second.’ Paul pressed the phone to his chest. ‘Tom, it’s about the president. He’s passed away.’

  ‘Our president?’

  Grim-faced, Paul nodded and returned to his conversation with, Tom presumed, David. He repeated everything that was said. Gunfire? An assassination? I thought you said something about a heart attack … Okay, we’ll be there in an hour … Oh, don’t worry about that. We’ll think of some story to tell them at the gate. Do not take any chances. Yes, on this phone, but only in an emergency. Right? Kwaheri.’

  Tom and Rebecca were the last to leave the party and it was after midnight when they turned right onto a quiet South Lake Road. Villages and compounds were in darkness all the way home. Rebecca arched her eyebrows as they passed the Londiani turn-off. She looked across, but Tom kept his gaze on the road ahead.

  ‘Am I allowed to ask?’

  ‘Not too far now.’

  ‘Not Nairobi, then? I’m glad … but what did they want?’

  ‘Um, the president has … died. It’s a secret. Well, I wonder about that. After all, if I know … Anyway they’re not announcing it until morning.’

  ‘Tom, you look very weary.’

  ‘I am a bit cream-crackered. That means tired in English, darling.’

  Her face lit up. ‘Thomas, you’ve never called me that before.’

  ‘I have, but you never heard me … because I only said it to you when you weren’t there. Does that make sense? I used to think it was a bit wet, soppy, but not any more. It’s got to be a sort of golden word that’s been mucked about a lot, but really you can only use to a special person … I am definitely going soft, but I’m enjoying it.’

  Rebecca beamed but said nothing for fear of breaking the touch of magic that hung about the moment. She broke silence when they came to the junction close to the level crossing. He took the left turn towards the town centre and she said, ‘There’s going to be trouble when this news gets out. A new sabasaba day, perhaps, but at this moment I don’t care. And, darling, where are you taking us?’

  They exchanged glances and smiled.

  ‘Trouble. That’s why I thought to come into town before anything starts.’

  ‘So, you’re thinking about it.’

  ‘Daniel asked me just now if am a Kenyan or a European living in Kenya. That’s making me ponder a bit. I can’t see most Serena members wanting me to stand. I could never win it for them. I thought I’d have a look around the place in peace.’

  ‘You can win. I want to help you do it.’

  The wide, scrubby verges of the town centre were crowded with trucks on an overnight stop on their journey from the coast to the landlocked interior. By some of the tiny hotels girls were sitting out with their customers.

  ”Becca, do you know that long-distance truck drivers in this country are more likely to develop HIV than to have a road accident?’

  ‘You’re beginning to talk like a politician.’

  ‘Politicians, MPs are meant to do something!’

  Just at that moment they were climbing the hill past the town hospital.

  ‘Tom, you’ve never been in there, have you? It’s a bad place. Don’t get sick in this country unless you have a purse full of money. Better to go to the pharmacy for dawa.’

  They moved on slowly and Tom pointed out another long, low building. ‘St Patrick’s Academy. I have been in there. Part of my gap year. Oundle it was not. But the kids were fantastic. I was there a month. It could break your heart if you started worrying about it. KANU will tell you it’s the colonials’ fault. My grandparents came to Naivasha long before independence and it was a beautiful place. I still love it and I wish I could do something to help. Dad wants me to take more responsibility for the farm. I’m going to be a married man. Then there’ll be the kids …’

  ‘Oh, really? Where did they come from?’

  Tom smiled but breezed on. ‘Simon Nyache. He must be nearly eighty. I think he’s been the MP since the beginning.’

  ‘Papa says that, too. He thinks they’ll bring up some well-off city man to take his place. He’ll win the seat and then disappear. If we want to speak with him, we’ll have to go down to the Nairobi Club.’

  ”Becca, that’s it! It’s obvious. Stephen Kamau, MP for Nakuru South. He’s the wisest man I’ve ever met.’

  ‘He loves his flowers too much.’

  ‘And so do I! Let’s go home. We need sleep. Tomorrow, I mean today. Things could get, well, interesting.’

  * * *

  In the hours of darkness troops had been moved to all the big centres of population and were on full alert. The only places where their presence was unashamedly overt were in the Kikuyu heartlands. There were rumours of minor rioting in Nakuru and Eldoret. Gunfire had been heard but no news of casualties. TV and radio stations were heavily policed and broadcasts consisted of solemn music interrupted by government statements which were mostly expressions of sympathy from world leaders. As the day moved on, programs began to show the comings and goings at State House in Nairobi where the president’s body lay in an open coffin.

  All over the city there was furious activity. By lunchtime fears that there would be uprisings on the Kibera estate and other parts where the poorest of the poor were crowded had diminished. A few of the braver Asian merchants were opening up their businesses on Kimathi Street and Kenyatta Avenue. In club lounges gatherings of excited men were on edge talking, sometimes heatedly, and speculating at each snippet of news and rumour that came their way.

  It was in smaller gatherings where the real business of the country was being conducted and in one meeting in particular. It was common knowledge that for years a group of shadowy figures had been running the country. The president enjoyed the trappings of power, had his share of the pickings but did as he was told. The CIA and a dozen other international snoopers knew all about the vast accounts held in European and American banks. Kenya was being run like an exclusive club. The World Bank understood, reluctantly, that this was as good as they could get in terms of the stability for the region. Flashpoints might erupt when a big player was removed from the scene.

  So the big business of the day at the Rubai house in Karen was to make sure that this necessary exercise in democracy did not throw up any nasty surprises.

  Twelve men sat at the large, round, oak table. Outwardly they were calm. As long as they stuck together they were safe. The chairman was dead, so long live the chairman, whoever he would be. At these meetings nothing but bottled water or fruit juice was drunk. Nothing was eaten and no one smoked.

  Item one on the agenda was to draw up a list of people who might be a danger to them. Rather it was a question of checking off a prepared grading the names in terms of the threat they posed at the time of the meeting. Later all lists were burned in a portable stove set up on the marble hearth. A red spot by a name meant that a very serious threat was posed: possible elimination. A yellow dot signified caution. Green dots said that unknowing recipients were checked out on a weekly basis.

  There were eighty-five names on the list. When it c
ame to voting, Asian businessmen evoked long lists of green. Known troublemakers, headstrong activists and leading lights in the opposition attracted a lot of red. Over and over speakers pressed for quick action. The wananchi would not take much notice if the jobs were done before the funeral. The general consensus was that they could get away with two hits, possibly three.

  The second and only other item to discuss was, for the moment, less urgent. New lists were passed around with the names of all the constituencies in the country, their sitting MPs and possible replacements. The committee accepted that they would not be able to fix all seats. The bonus here was that they could show the world that Kenya was a well-governed country, a beacon of democracy in a continent of dictatorships. Alfred Koinange reminded the meeting that the Serena Party had been registered only a week before. No one saw a threat in this bunch of intellectuals who thought they were living in Washington or London.

  ‘Alfred, don’t even think about worrying! These people do not like to get their hands dirty. They will be off the map in a year.’ George Mgara was ripping up his lists ready for burning.

  Robert Ngala put his arm around Alfred’s shoulders. ‘It is as Abel says. We are a democracy. We believe that everyone has the right to his opinion. The wananchi know this and this is why they trust KANU to look after them.’

  The meeting broke up. No decision had been made about the one who would be their man chosen to be the next president. There was an assumption that it would not be one of those who had been sitting around that oak table. The elite band of brothers was the dominant force in the life of the country. Abel was the dominant force in the brotherhood, not least because he alone was independent in his ability to generate very big sums of money. He understood the international financial scene. He manipulated legitimately. He enjoyed the mechanics of it all but, much more, he enjoyed being a manipulator of people and systems.