Nairobi Heat

by Mukoma Wa Ngugi

  Soon the meat was ready and it was cut up, put in large bowls and sent off to the wedding party. We, the goat slaughterers, were left with meaty bones, which we gnawed with relish. From somewhere a bottle of vodka was produced and passed around until it was gone. Another appeared, but about halfway into it I left my drunken comrades to go and see what was going on in the tent.

  By the time I got back to O and Muddy the chairs in the tent had been moved and a DJ with an old turntable and a collection of vinyl albums was getting ready to do his thing. After a couple of false starts the DJ played a ballad and the bride and groom opened the dance floor. Then he started to play a familiar song – it was Kenny Rogers singing about her believing in him. Muddy tapped me on the shoulder and we walked on to the dance floor with the other couples. O was already dancing drunkenly with an old woman, equally drunk. I had no idea why I wanted to return to the US. Something had been returned to me – though what it was I couldn’t be sure. Perhaps it was something as simple as knowing I could be happy again.

  Muddy and I started kissing on the dance floor, and as soon as the song was over we walked off and found an empty hut. Not caring whose it was we walked in and made love standing up. Then we returned to the dance floor and, intoxicated with life, continued dancing to the most eclectic collection of songs I’ve ever heard.

  Later, Muddy took to the stage to perform one of her pieces. I didn’t understand a word she said because she performed in Kinyarwanda, but I gathered it was about consummation of marriage from the way she moved her hips and how the crowd responded, urging her on and on.

  Unfortunately, as soon as she was done with her performance, Muddy decided that she wanted a joint, and encouraged by O she told everyone I needed to rest – after all, I was the drunk American. Her excuse worked and I sullenly followed them to the hut that was pointed out to us as a place I could rest.

  I sat on the low bed as O and Muddy rolled their joint, watching the light from the old lantern that lit the hut flicker on the walls. It wasn’t long before they were engaged in what they thought was a profound conversation about the meaning of life, enjoying being high. Tired of being around them I decided to take a walk – we would be leaving soon and I needed to walk and ‘wash the whiskey out of my blood’, as Joshua had put it that night in Madison.

  Stepping outside I walked for a while around the outskirts of the village. Then, just as I was thinking of trying to find my way back to the hut the villagers had given us, I caught sight of an electric light. It was a security light – a single bulb – and it was flickering on and off. Intrigued, I walked towards it, only to realise as I approached that the building it was attached to was a little wooden church – it must have been the only building in the village with electricity. I tightened the bulb and in the constant light it suddenly provided I noticed the door to the church wasn’t locked. My curiosity got the better of me, and I walked in and turned on the light. Inside, unfinished wooden pews were littered with old Bibles and songbooks, and beside the altar, which had unlit candles all around it, there was huge poster on the wall with the words WE SHALL NEVER FORGET YOU printed on it. On closer examination I found that it was surrounded by framed family portraits, small passport photos, with hearts drawn around them, and pictures of smiling babies and lovers holding hands. In the centre hovered a blue-eyed Jesus, looking decidedly out of place, even though this was a church – it reeked of a desperation that contradicted the celebration of life that was still going on outside.

  As I turned to leave a large newspaper cutting pasted on cardboard, with a heart drawn around the photograph, caught my eye. I peered into it. The headline read: Missionaries Caught in Crossfire. I couldn’t quite make out the photograph in the dim light provided by the bulb high in the roof, so I quickly lit one of the candles and held it up to the wall. The photograph was taken in front of a small brick church. Only the parents, a burly white man and his wife, were smiling. The children, three sons and a daughter, dressed in a school uniform, looked like they would rather be somewhere else.

  But the girl in the photo – the daughter – I had seen her somewhere before. I felt something tear through my stomach. It was her. It had to be her. It was the white girl! How could it be? Was I going crazy?

  My mind flashed back to Maple Bluff, to Joshua’s house and the girl’s body. ‘Wait, wait a goddamn minute,’ I said out loud, fumbling for my wallet and taking out her Polaroid. I held it next to this photograph. Her beauty was unmistakable. It shone out even from this old newspaper cutting. I started laughing and yelling. I had found her.

  Macy Jane Admanzah. I repeated her name several times, letting it wash over me one syllable at a time. At last I had a name for her. And she hadn’t been wearing a cheerleader’s uniform when we found her, she was in a school uniform, the same uniform she had on in this photograph. From the cutting, I gathered that the Admanzahs were a missionary family who had been running an underground railroad out of Rwanda during the genocide. The genocidaires had found out and massacred the whole family. Macy Jane survived by pure luck – she was away in boarding school at the time. Her brothers, much younger than her, were not so lucky.

  I read the paper as fast as I could. The father and mother were originally from Montana and had first come to Rwanda as teenagers in the 1960s to do their required two years. They fell in love with Rwanda and with each other, and although they returned to the US they felt that their calling was in Africa, in the land of a hill upon a hill. After twenty years they finally had managed to save enough money to come back to Rwanda, and so, cutting all their ties with the US and the Mormon Church, they had returned with their three children in tow as Catholic missionaries, using their savings to buy the land of an old Belgian settler. They had destroyed the mansion and in its place built a modest church which years later would save hundreds of lives.

  I ran out of the church, heart racing and almost in tears. Two minutes later I burst into the hut to find Muddy and O still deep in their philosophical discussion. Without saying a word I ran out again and they ran after me, thinking something was wrong. At the church, I showed them the photograph. Muddy rushed out and came back with one of the villagers. But the woman didn’t know much – only that she and many others owed the Admanzahs their lives. We asked more of the other Rwandans in the village about the Admanzah family, but no one had any more information beyond their having been killed by the genocidaires. They only came to learn that the family had been killed (including the girl, they had thought) while in a refugee camp, before they found their way to Butere.

  ‘Shit, man, if anyone ever deserved a lucky break it is you,’ O said, trying to make sense of the whole thing.

  ‘Luck is the sum of hard work, O,’ Muddy corrected him.

  They were still high and I left them to go call Mo and update her. She had been looking into the Never Again Foundation, but had found nothing. We agreed that she would hold the big story about the donors, the money laundering and the Refugee Centre until we could substantiate it properly. In the meantime she would begin with the Admanzah story and Joshua’s role in the genocide. She did not have to say that he had killed her – we still did not know that for sure – but she had more than enough to be going on with. Mo laughed and told me that her Pulitzer was shaping up well, but I knew that she was also thinking that this story could do both of us in – powerful forces were still at work.

  I called the Chief and gave him the news. ‘We have a name, at last we have a name,’ he said over and over again, as if with the name it was all over.

  I understood how he felt. It was a major breakthrough. The name would buy us more time as the media would turn its attention to finding out more about Macy Jane Admanzah.

  As I cut the call it suddenly felt as if an arc was closing – I had started off believing Joshua was involved and now I had a confirmed connection. Joshua must have known who the girl was. Why did he withhold her identity? Because without it we had no way of connecting her back to him. Why try to have
me killed? Because I had uncovered his past and once what I knew was out in the world his whole life would come crashing down on him.

  Macy Jane Admanzah, all along we had been looking for an all-American girl vaguely connected to Africa. This, that her family had been victims of the genocide, we would never have guessed in a million years. But it made sense that she and Joshua would be intimately connected by the genocide. BQ, hadn’t BQ said the killer was intimately connected to her? What could be a deeper connection – as pathological as this might sound – than the one shared by a murderer and the grown-up daughter of his victims?

  By now I could answer almost all of my questions except one: why would he kill her and yet incriminate himself by leaving her body on his doorstep? Whatever the answer, one thing was for sure, Macy Jane Admanzah never forgot what Joshua had done and she had gone back to the US to get justice, in one form or another. It wasn’t over yet, but I was close.

  ‘When in doubt go back to the beginning,’ O said when I asked him what he thought. He was high and feeling philosophical, but he was also right, and the beginning was Joshua.

  We set out for the border soon afterwards, leaving the whole village in a drunken stupor, save for the little kids. There were no officials at the border post and we drove straight through to the airport where I walked right on to the British Airways flight. We didn’t have much of a goodbye, Muddy and I. For now, only solving the case mattered. If I didn’t manage it we would all be dead soon enough, killed by assassins for reasons we still did not quite understand.

  SMOKESCREENS AND OTHER CRIMES

  I had not changed clothes for days. I stank. Yet I had a big old smile on my face. I could see the horizon – and it looked pretty enough. I proceeded to have a Bud and a meal of rather tasty beef and mashed potatoes, soon after which I promptly fell asleep.

  In Chicago I used the one-hour layover to rummage through a pile of newspapers as I enjoyed another Bud. The story was alive and well, though not plastered over the front pages as I had expected. Almost all the papers had new photographs of Macy Jane, with mine as an inset. I had no reason to worry about anyone recognising me, it was an old photo – I was much younger and in uniform – and apart from Homeland Security, who looked over my badge and gun permit and tried half-heartedly to pry some information from me about the case, no one bothered me.

  Finally, at about ten or so, I was back on familiar ground – Madison. I took a cab from the airport and asked the driver to let me out four blocks from my apartment, aware that I had to remain cautious. But after walking past my building a couple of times I decided I was being paranoid and made my way up to my stale-smelling apartment. I desperately needed to shower and after letting the water warm up I jumped straight in. Afterwards, wiping the steam off my bathroom mirror, I stared at my face. I had lost weight, my eyes were bloodshot and my beard heavy – I could barely recognise myself. But despite all I had been through I had never felt better in my life. I felt vital.

  I put on my best suit – a T-shirt underneath the jacket. I was dressing for destiny. I was going to see Joshua and I was going to rattle him – tell him I knew all about him and Macy Jane and that Macy Jane would have the last word.

  Ten minutes later I stepped outside my door. Not again, I thought as my world suddenly went dark.

  When I came to I was tied to a chair in my kitchen, a gag tied across my mouth. There was a bright light shining in my face and lying somewhere beneath it I could make out a tray of needles and razors – a clear signal that an unbearable amount of pain was coming my way.

  As my eyes adjusted to the light I made out three white men dressed in expensive-looking business suits – exactly like the men who had tried to kill me on my way to Nairobi airport. They were talking amongst themselves, unhurriedly, as if they were in a bar waiting for a beer. The Foundation had me and at any minute Joshua would walk in, I just knew it.

  ‘He’s awake,’ one of the men said disinterestedly, pulling out his cell to inform someone of the new development.

  As we waited the Foundation men continued to chat amongst themselves. How had they known I was arriving when I did? I wondered. Only four people knew with any certainty which plane I was on. The Chief? Had they gotten to the Chief? But then it struck me that they could have had someone watching Madison airport – it was small enough. Maybe I had simply missed them when I had walked in. It was pointless going on like that, I realised. I was going to die here, and knowing how they had found me wouldn’t change anything. I was surprised by how calm I felt. Maybe I had seen too much over the last few days, maybe I had resigned myself to losing my life once too often, but whatever the reason, at that moment I didn’t feel my life mattered any more than the ones I had taken.

  Then, suddenly, the apartment door opened and an elderly black man entered the room. I had been expecting Joshua, but this frail old man was obviously in charge.

  ‘Are you Ishmael?’ he asked almost soothingly as he pulled a chair up beside me.

  I nodded.

  Immediately he looked over at the men, and without warning two of them grabbed my hands while the third began to push long needles up under my fingernails and into each of my fingers, one finger at a time. I felt my body screaming in pain and I moaned in agony in spite of myself.

  ‘Ishmael, let me explain what is happening here. I have found inflicting pain first establishes trust. I hate the Q and A, you know, I ask you a question, you say you don’t know, a little bit of pain, a little bit of truth, et cetera. When I am doing this sort of work I like to clear the ground for truth telling. Do you understand me?’

  I couldn’t breathe through the gag, but I somehow managed to nod.

  ‘I am also very determined that we conclude our business this evening.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Or should I say tonight,’ he corrected himself. ‘Are you in agreement?’

  By now sweat was pouring down my face and I was shaking with pain, I felt like I was about to black out, but I managed to nod once again.

  The men pulled the needles from my fingers – though it would have been better if they had left them in because it hurt even worse after they had come out. They also removed the gag.

  The old man watched as I recovered myself, then reached into his pocket and removed a box of prescription pills. He held it up so that I could read the label – Vicodin. He offered me a pill, but I shook my head. I was going to die on my terms.

  ‘Cancer,’ he explained, taking two for himself. ‘My time here is not long.’

  The way he said it I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to time here on earth or in my apartment.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he continued, sounding as if he was speaking to a nephew he hadn’t seen in years.

  I shook my head.

  ‘It is okay, Ishmael, you can speak now,’ he encouraged.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well then, let me introduce myself.’ He stood up and returned with the logbook Jamal had given me. He flipped through the pages, then put it in front of me and pointed to a name: Andrew Chocbanc. Next to it was a donation of ten thousand Kenyan shillings to the Refugee Centre. I looked up at him in surprise. He was going to kill me for less than two hundred dollars.

  ‘What do you want?’ I asked.

  He leaned back into his chair and laughed. ‘What I want, Ishmael, is the truth. Can you do that? Speak truthfully?’ He rattled the tray with the needles. ‘When did you arrive?’ he asked.

  It was a control question – he knew what time I had arrived. ‘At about ten pm,’ I said.

  ‘And where does the beautiful Muddy live?’

  Another control question. I told him. If they could find me, they could find her.

  ‘And your partner, Odhiambo?’

  I told him. If Muddy and O were not dead already they soon would be, with or without my help.

  ‘And my good friend, Jamal?’

  I said I didn’t know.

  ‘Who killed my guitarist?’ he asked.

  ‘Muddy
, she killed him.’

  ‘You are a sincere man and sincerity should be rewarded,’ Chocbanc said, pushing the little table with his instruments away and standing up to wipe my forehead with a cold handkerchief, like a trainer does his boxer, roughly but with affection.

  He was giving me a break, trying to get my mind off the questioning. It would make it easier for him to detect a lie. I remained focused.

  ‘These documents,’ he finally continued, sitting down again, ‘have they been seen by anyone besides the obvious parties?’ He held up the logbook and e-mails from Jamal.

  I shook my head. Now we were getting to it.

  ‘Now, why don’t you name these obvious parties?’ he said with a gentle laugh. ‘Just to make sure we are on the same page.’

  ‘Me, Jamal, Muddy and Odhiambo. I was taking them in tomorrow morning … to the Chief,’ I said.

  ‘You could have faxed them.’

  ‘Yes, I could, but I didn’t.’

  ‘Why?’ He pulled the tray closer.

  ‘Trust. I can trust no one,’ I answered.

  It was the right answer. His world and to a lesser degree mine did not operate on trust. There were no permanent alliances. Suspicion and mistrust made it go round.

  ‘So, if I burn the documents then Africa does not collide with America? What happened in Africa stays in Africa?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Nobody knew about Mo besides me and I would die before I gave her up.

  ‘Your sincerity begs for mine,’ Chocbanc offered. ‘You are going to die tonight, but I would like you to die at peace with yourself. What would you like to know?’