by Dan Gleed
“Yes, I saw the red-haired white man of whom you speak, but I know nothing of his fate. Even if I did, why should I tell you? Simply by being here you put me in danger of my life. Am I the first to whom you have spoken? Will I be the last? One word to the right person is all it takes and a hornets’ nest will be stirred up and when hornets are angry they look for trouble, attacking anything that moves. You know what has already been done to me, so you will understand when I tell you that if I give anything away, it is to invite trouble. Yet it is true, I hate the men who have ruined my life and care nothing for what they have done. No one leaves their service and lives but, given one chance, I would mutilate them myself or flatten them as carelessly as a cow swats a fly. They are ruthless and have their spies everywhere. If you cross them you must be prepared to kill, or they will surely kill you. Are you the man to do this? I don’t think so. You are not like them. You have the appearance, but your eyes tell me you are not a violent man. Men like you do not kill quickly or easily. And that will be your downfall. What if they discover you have been here? They will always find me, no matter how long it takes, because I know too much. Suppose, then, they torture and kill me, what is that to you?” Jomo paused and looked at Malcolm through the thickening haze, waiting for a response. Testing him.
Struck by his candour, Malcolm hesitated, wondering what would convince the old man that he was sincere and trustworthy.
“Mzee, I perceive you are Giriama and you come from a time when loyalty was the measure by which men were judged. When men lived or died by their word to their friends, to their fellow warriors, to their tribe, no matter what the cost. Thus I know you will remember Mtoro. He is of an age with you, a Giriama to his fingertips, much hated by the Government because he was not afraid to demand from them the land he believed they had stolen. Only one other trusted friend has heard this from my lips.
I knew Mtoro well and knew him to be a man of his word, who never made any secret of his commitment to the old ways, or his contempt for the little men to whom a bribe was the only way and who, day by day, inch by inch, stole the reins and trappings of power from their rightful owners. For years he was like a thorn on the path to their bare feet, ridiculing and exposing them wherever and whenever he could. Always, they tried to trap him, to catch him with some falsehood, but they never succeeded. One day during the war, when there was unrest amongst the tribes over conscription, the Governor called a grand conference of all the tribal elders, assuring them their safety would be guaranteed for the course of the meeting. Mtoro went, only to be arrested and detained in gaol the moment the gathering ended. Later he was tried secretly for crimes he did not commit and found guilty, the punishment being death. Word was brought to me and although I stood to lose everything if discovered, I bluffed my way into his cell the night before his execution. With the help of a sympathetic guard, I arranged a suitable distraction and gave Mtoro the opportunity to break out. He fled into exile and had it not been for the war to which I was soon called away, my part in all of this would have been exposed, with inevitable consequences. As it is, the authorities seem to have forgotten and I have not seen Mtoro in many years. However, I believe he is still in contact with the tribal elders in Malindi. Send to them and ask. They will testify that I am to be trusted.”
Back home and slaking his thirst with lime juice fresh from the garden, it didn’t take Malcolm long to recount all that had passed that morning. What did take the time was explaining to Roz why he had thought it necessary to go without her. Still, Roz could hardly be anything but placated when it was pointed out that since Jomo was taking the trouble to check with the Giriama elders in Malindi, he obviously did have information for which it was worth waiting. The problem would be biding their souls in patient acceptance of the rather slower beat that defined the Giriamas’ uniquely African sense of time. So, for three days Roz sat kicking her heels while Malcolm went back to work, catching up on lost hours.
Chapter 22
The call, when it came, was precise and to the point. Malcolm was to be told that Jomo could be found at the northwest corner of Fort Jesus that evening. The problem was, Malcolm was unreachable, having gone up country that very afternoon to arrange some business. Roz fumed, but not knowing when he would be back and being absolutely certain Jill would try to prevent a solo foray, she could do nothing except beg a bicycle from a houseboy and swear him to secrecy.
Duly equipped, she set off to cover the three miles into town, relying on Malcolm’s description to recognise the man she was due to meet. She found him easily enough, but it took all her charm and some swift talking in fluent Giriama to convince Jomo not to depart in something of a huff over the perceived slight that he, an elder, had been left to deal with a mere girl. Eventually, somewhat mollified by a young white woman who could not only converse in Giriama, but who was clearly acquainted with the social mores so beloved of his generation, Jomo relented.
Together with his young interpreter, they threaded their way through the close-packed streets and alleys, plunging deeper and deeper into the warren of narrow streets that long before the advent of gunpowder had allowed the locals to defend their homes and their ultimate escape hatch – the old harbour. Roz had little difficulty in keeping pace, but in the brooding, unlit alleys she realised it wouldn’t take much for her imagination to get the better of her. The absence of normal city sounds didn’t help either. So it was unnerving to move in near silence, with nothing said until they eventually stopped in deep shadow outside a tall, whitewashed wall, its ramparts proof against anything but the most determined effort to force entry.
“This is the place where Jomo came with the red-haired man you seek.” The interpreter’s whispered remark barely carried to Roz as she stood facing the featureless wall. “Jomo was here about two weeks ago and when he left, the white man stayed. Jomo does not know what happened to him, but he knows it was not good. He was being held by the man called Giuseppe, a white slaver, ruthless in all things and one who respects no one. He is one you do not anger. Jomo believes there must have been Arab traders here too, but he did not see them and cannot be certain who or how many. If you want to return, you must remember this place for yourself. Jomo will not come again as it is too dangerous for him. He has nothing more to tell you. Come, we go now.”
They turned to leave, but as they did so, an unnatural noise, the suddenly suppressed sound of metal on metal, clanged briefly out from the other side of the gates and for a second they froze where they stood, before retreating further into the shadows. Roz pressed her back as hard as she could against the rough coral blocks behind her, abruptly and keenly aware that she was out of her depth and, as a girl, never mind a white girl, very vulnerable, despite the reassuring presence of the two black men. Anxiously she watched the heavy gates as they were drawn back, surprised by how quietly they swung for such substantial barriers, until she realised they must have been kept well-oiled for just such an occasion of secrecy. No sooner were they fully open than the sound of a car whirring into life and moving off in one swift motion shattered the stillness of the narrow alleyway. Headlights flicked on as the car nosed through the opening and as Roz shrank back the bright lights raked her briefly before the driver turned left down the alley, apparently heading towards the old harbour just a couple of streets away. Temporarily blinded by the unexpected light, they were unable to see who or what was in the car, but the driver obviously had no intention of hanging around long enough to be identified by anyone. Frustrated, Roz listened to the dying sound, satisfied that whoever was involved had not only missed them, but was bound for the tiny space known as Government Square in front of the old harbour, close to the tight-packed warehouses huddled around the docks. Tall and dark, they stood sentinel to the short slipway that, for centuries, had played host to wandering dhows, some of which even now creaked lazily to themselves in the languid rhythms of the inner harbour, their battered hulls spewing water with every rise and fall.
***
“We
ll, what now? Do you think we can find a way in?” Malcolm sank into a chair opposite Roz as she finished speaking. He was far from happy at what she’d done alone, but he watched with sympathy as the tell-tale jump of tightly clenched jaw muscles and the pull of unaccustomed anxiety etched ever more worry lines around her mouth, giving the lie to her almost casual report. It was impossible not to care for this vulnerable young girl who so effortlessly wore her heart on her sleeve but who, for all that, grew in determination with every passing hour. “You say this place is like a fortress and Jomo doesn’t know how many there might be inside? One thing we can be certain of is they’ll be armed, whoever they are, so, whatever we do, it will have to be done without alerting them. Jomo may well be adamant he left Paul there two weeks ago, but I suspect Paul has been moved on long since. Still, we’ll take a look, although I’m convinced it’s highly unlikely he’s still there. At least we know he was alive then and this is the only lead we’re likely to get, so you’re absolutely right, we can’t ignore it. Which means we really don’t have much option, do we? As soon as it’s dark tonight, I’ll go and take a closer look. See if I can get over the wall while you keep watch.” Malcolm raised a hand to stifle the inevitable protest. “I know it could be dangerous, but if you don’t want to involve the police, it’s the only option we have. I’ll give you a promise, though. If I think it’s too dangerous, I’ll come out, but if I do and we haven’t got the information we need, then we have to go to the police. It’s that or risk not seeing Paul again.”
Malcolm didn’t add what he was really thinking, that there was a good chance I was already dead or, at the very least, out of the country and beyond their reach. In which case, as a slave, it could be assumed that I was as good as dead anyway. Perhaps it was fortunate he didn’t see the way Roz’s jaw stiffened, or notice the look she gave him. If he had, he would have realised there was little hope of breaking and entering without her and so would have been immediately tempted to call the whole thing off.
Chapter 23
Footsteps. Throughout my incarceration, it had amazed me how such mundane sounds, any sounds, even caught at the very edge of aural perception, could assume such immense importance. Footsteps had been my last link to humanity, the final event in a sequence that at least had had the merit of anchoring me to a reality of sorts. Now these tiny, teasing sounds filtering from somewhere beyond my prison cell had become the first harbingers of a world that was surprisingly difficult to recall. Darkness, silence, cold and hunger had all seen to that. In my tightly circumscribed world reality had become what I dreamed between waking and the restless drowsing that passed for sleep, or simply became a myriad of jumbled thoughts teased out into emptiness.
But not quite. Deprived of external stimuli, condemned simply to sit because I was unable to lie down with any comfort, I had discovered something that I had previously missed in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. There was more to life than mere physicality. And this had given me the kernel of an idea, a concept, a possibility I couldn’t quite grasp, couldn’t quite evaluate, as it remained tantalisingly out of reach, in the far recesses of my mind. Familiar, yet somehow alien. Something to do with the soul. Perhaps even something supernatural. An understanding that I felt, if grasped, could somehow unlock the secret of life. But more mundanely, time had long since ceased to have any true meaning and for what might have been a few days or maybe even a few weeks, my body had begun the slow and fitful process of shutting itself down, piece by piece, organ by organ. For one thing, I was convinced my tormentors had long forgotten me and even the sound of my own voice trying to tear down the wall of silence in a vain bid to attract some response had finally petered into silence. Water I had in abundance, licked from the damp wall as it slid silently down from somewhere above me. Food no longer held the imperative it had once demanded. Now I craved human contact above all else. Another face, another voice, some acknowledgement that I was not alone in the universe. Even if that person had to be my very own sjambok-wielding psychopath.
* * *
I remember, with utter clarity, the sudden clang of a bolt being withdrawn, because it startled me from an endless reverie. It hurt my ears and, to that injury, was added the insult of a torch’s stabbing beam probing through the bars of my cell door, temporarily blinding my light-starved eyes. What did I do, this monument to youthful virtue? I instinctively curled into a foetal ball. My body clearly hadn’t forgotten my local psychopath, even if my mind had long since floated off with the fairies. But the expected blows failed to materialise. Instead, my gaoler, for that was whom I supposed this apparition to be, merely grunted and levered me further into the cell with the toe of his foot, before stooping to place something beside me that resonated with a metallic clang. Then, with no further ceremony and without a word spoken, the door was pulled shut and the bolt shoved firmly back home.
Stunned by this sudden intrusion into my lonely world, it took me a while before I could even summon sufficient courage to reach out and touch whatever had been left. Tentatively, I let my fingers do the walking, finding the edge of something cold and uneven, which didn’t take more than a couple of seconds to trace out in the form of a battered metal plate. But even before I could begin to explore the contents, my nose told me something else had changed. The first and only clean smell I had known since being ignominiously dumped struggled up from the floor, to bring a modicum of life to the turgid atmosphere that permeated not only the cell but every last pore of my filthy body. I can remember the flood of relief I felt at the presence of this bread. It meant they wanted me alive, that I wasn’t forgotten, wasn’t discarded to rot and die in the accumulated obscenity of their stinking hellhole. And with that understanding came a surge of pure encouragement flooding through my soul, lifting my morale almost into the stratosphere for a few precious seconds. Clasping my arms tightly about me, I nevertheless sat motionless, consciousness firmly fixed on its own familiar inward gaze, struggling to risk the first savouring of emotions as they creaked to the surface, released from the lonely fear of abandonment. It wasn’t much in the great scheme of things, but an intruder, a real live person, had finally broken the drear stillness that characterised the long, lonely hours that had taught me their priceless lesson: how to transcend an unbearable present by harnessing one’s mind to a rigorous review of the past and a somewhat cryptic examination of the future. But although now armed with a new-found assurance that life might at last hold some prospect of improvement, I remained helplessly sealed within my fairy world. It was the only real protection that I understood anymore.
Slipping past the bonds that held my body, my free-ranging mind had allowed me to experiment with thoughts of home, to relive life in all its vivid glory, to recall the sounds and colours of Africa, circumscribed only by the limits of imagination. Scrolling across the screen of my mind, I had taken the liberty to examine the vaulting, achingly beautiful prospect of my home skies, studded with slow-moving, fluffy white clouds that slid their light shadows over the long, rolling plains of dry grass and rivers of dark green trees that stained the ancient valley curves. I had heard again the echoing calls of wood pigeons around the house, sensed the high and lonely cry of circling eagles and listened to the alarm cough of restive baboons. Drawn inexorably by beauty, I had faced into the light breeze that always seemed to blow between dawn and dusk, riffling my hair and bringing much needed relief from the heat of the day. My roving eye had fallen on the familiar lines of the only home I had ever known and, as I had watched, those lines had seemed to dissolve before my swooping dream-flight. Dissolve into the startling sight of my ever-anxious mother, her tormented marriage exposed as never before to my spellbound gaze, as she cringed before the thought of her husband’s homecoming. For perhaps the first time I had felt some understanding of the deep lines that had always seemed to define her face. Etched, I now saw, by years of humiliation, mute but indelible pointers to a man who derived such sick pleasure from dominating her every mood. Across the miles she
had grown more real to me than had ever been the case when I’d been at home. I seemed almost able to touch the dark pall my bullying father had thrown across the fabric of her life and, in doing so, to understand what had been done to her, as well as to him. I had even watched my own craven retreat whenever life threatened to become too difficult and touched in horror upon the dark stain that was all that remained of Matt within my mind. Above all, dominating the landscape of dreams and striding un-opposed across the fabric of my being, the stunning, enigmatic figure of the most beautiful girl I’d ever known held me in her thrall. Roz.
In my surreal dreaming, I yearned to tell her, as now I understood with complete clarity, that I loved her. Now, when it was already too late. Too late to undo the harm I had so recklessly imposed in my desire to withdraw, to run away from the hand of cards that life had dealt me. All at once I had seen my actions for what they were and a desperate anguish had begun again to wrap its hungry tentacles around my hallucinating heart. Even so, despite the proffered nourishment, I would have preferred to stay a while, to revel in every exquisite detail of the girl my mind refused to erase. Reluctantly, slowly, I remember gliding back to the present, permitting my hand to begin again its arrested movement. To slip back down, seeking the dry, flat chunk of coarse bread so carelessly thrown at my feet. But the time for hunger had passed, despite an all-pervading faintness made ever-more immediate by that heavenly scent. With what little sense I still retained, I decided the only possible course of action was to eat but a portion of it and to do that slowly. Most importantly, I would hoard the bulk of the offering, just in case I was once again made to wait awhile before fate, in the form of my nemesis, stepped back into my world. But even the small chunks I broke off were hard to chew in my severely debilitated state and I ended up soaking each small offering one by one against the wall.
