A Fool's Knot

by Philip Spires

  All this took place out of Janet’s sight as she sat drying her hair in the sun and wind, but she still saw everything. She had seen the bus come and go almost every day for nearly six months and could picture without effort the confusion and chaos it brought. In her first few weeks, she had wondered why, when teaching in class, the sound of a bus or indeed any vehicle passing along the road in front of the school would provoke her students to stand for a moment to peer out of the window. As time passed, she learned to do the same herself, and like the others, she did it not because she expected to see anything, but merely because, in this place, time was measured by the sun and buses more clearly than by any clock. It was time to get out of bed when the morning bus rattled up the hill on its way south, bound for Mombasa. It was time for lunch when the midday blue and white Uhuru na Kazi, Freedom and Work, went out to Nairobi. With the arrival from Nairobi there was time to relax as the sun began to set, and when the night bus from Mombasa sped anonymously through the dark, it was time to put out the lamp and sleep.

  Thus it was time to relax. Another school day was over, its classes taught, its new knowledge imparted and, she hoped, absorbed. The day had been like all the rest and she felt happy and contented as she sat on the miniature veranda beneath the overhang by the front door, with the town spread across the far side of the low valley before her. The classrooms were locked, having been swept with the straggling but effective twig brooms the students made themselves. Some boys were still out playing football, but most had walked off down to the dam to find water for washing before the evening meal. Now that the bus had come, the day students would begin their walk home and Janet would relax, surveying the town’s unchanging landscape.

  As she sat, Father Michael’s motorcycle came rasping along the track by the mission. Her eyes followed his progress as he banked the bike around the last corner to enter his driveway through the gap in the hedge. She watched him pull up by the front door and go inside. She knew he would be emptying the haversack in which he carried his priest’s robes, his bottles of Mass wine and the tobacco tin containing the thin slivers of the Eucharist. And then there would be the short trip to the fridge at the back of the room to get a beer before collapsing in a tired heap in a not-so-easy chair. But today he unexpectedly reappeared and she watched him restart the bike with a kick and set off along the road in her direction.

  Concluding correctly that he would be on his way to see her, she rose from her chair. She was not quite decent enough to receive him, so she went inside to find an extra wrapper. By the time she had re-connected the gas bottle to the cooker, filled the kettle from the water bucket under the sink and set it to boil on the fastest flame, he was already drawing to a halt by the kitchen door. As usual he entered in a flurry.

  “Right. I’ll have a cup of tea and a slice or two of bread and jam before my dinner,” he said, as he marched straight through the kitchen in search of an armchair in the other room.

  “Will you have a beer instead?” she asked.

  “No, I’ll have a beer as well,” he replied, offering a gigantic yawn as accompaniment. “No. No. I won’t,” he said, now rubbing his eyes. “If I have all the enjoyment now there’ll be nothing to look forward to later. Just the tea, please. And can I stay for dinner? Mutua had to go home this morning. His wife took sick.”

  Janet laughed at him. She thought he was a very funny and very sweet man, and truly looked forward to the days when they were able to eat together and talk during the evening. “Of course you can stay. Daniel always cooks far too much anyway.”

  She brought in the tea on a tray, which she set down on the low coffee table next to the priest’s feet. Michael was stretched out with his bush hat over his face.

  “Two sugars and plenty of milk, please,” he said through the hat and making himself even more comfortable. “Oh Jaysus, that reminds me,” he said, suddenly springing to his feet. “I’ve got a letter for you.” From his trouser pocket he produced a rather crumpled blue airmail envelope. “It’s from that little fellow from Nzawa in Form Three. What’s his name? William? I was over there this afternoon,” he said, as he handed the letter to her. “He said it was something very urgent.” There was a hint of ridicule in his voice, indicating that he believed it was nothing of the sort.

  Her student had definitely written something important. Janet knew that immediately, because the envelope was sealed, thus precluding its reuse. She took the single sheet of paper from the envelope and read the contents. “Michael,” she began after a lengthy silence, “please listen to this. It sounds important.” Janet waited until he was obviously ready to listen. “Dear Miss Rowlandson, I greet you with happiness and hope that you are well. I am at home in Nzawa, trying very hard to find the school fees for the term, but my father is very poor. I am writing this letter to inform you of the great trouble in our village. The police have come and taken away some of our friends. They are now kept at the prison in Kitui town. One of those taken was Joseph Munyolo from your class at school. He accompanied me here from school last Friday. Miss, the trouble is serious and I fear that Joseph will stay in the prison for a very long time if you do not help him. His mother has tried to see him, but they say that now he is at Kitui and she has no bus fare. Father Michael can tell you what has happened here if you ask him. Yours sincerely, your student, William.”

  As requested, Father Michael told the full story he had learned just that afternoon from his parishioners in Nzawa. It appeared that it had all started from some trouble in the primary school. Someone had written in charcoal on the Standard Four classroom wall a very abusive and obscene remark about the pedigree of one of the school’s Kikuyu teachers. As a result, the teacher and his colleague had become incensed and had systematically beaten every child from the Standard Four class to try to find who had done it. This had all started in the middle of the previous week and the beatings had continued over three days. Of course, when the parents found out they were displeased, to say the least, but it had not been until market day, when lots of people met, talked and realised that every child had been beaten by these men, that the animosity grew. Then, so the story went, a group of men who had been drinking in one of the bars decided to do something about it and went to the school compound to teach the teachers a lesson. They threw stones at the house and broke the windows. One of the teachers then went to the police and made a complaint. A detachment of police came in vans and went to various homes and took people to Mwingi. It seems that the two teachers involved had given them a list of names. Initially they took about thirty people, but then released most of them when the teachers, now probably sober, realised that they couldn’t accuse them all, because neither of them could positively identify anyone by name. The police detained six people in the end, because one of the teachers picked them out in a parade. He claimed he knew who had taken part in the stoning of his house. Joseph Munyolo was obviously one of the six.

  “Joseph would never have got involved with something like that,” said Janet, scoffing at the very idea. “He wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

  “That would have been my opinion,” said Michael, taking a sip of his tea. “But the younger brother was one of those beaten by the teachers. Anyway, that’s the story.”

  “So what should I do? What can I do?” asked Janet.

  Michael thought for a while. “It’s not something I have that much experience with. I have only dealt with criminal things a couple of times, and never in Kenya, not once in the last six, seven years. But there is someone you could probably trust, though he will do you no favours. He’s not that kind of man. The kids were taken to Mwingi. That’s where the case was lodged, so that will probably be where it will be heard. So that’s the place to start, and in Mwingi, for my money, there’s only one man to see. Don’t go to the police. Go straight to the District Officer, John Mwangangi. His office is the large compound on the other side of the road from the police station. If he can, he’ll help. He’s
a good Catholic.”

  Janet smiled again. He was always joking, this priest, but fundamentally he was never flippant. His advice was always precise and considered. Without another word, since Michael’s advice had effectively concluded the point, she rose from her chair and took the four steps needed to reach the kitchen, where she lit the oven, in which the food Daniel had left was waiting to be re-heated, having first, of course, made sure that the connection to the gas bottle was sound. Daniel had finished early today, Janet having granted him some time off to attend to family matters. She hoped his wife would enjoy the unscheduled visit. She selected two clean glasses from the draining board by the sink and a bottle opener from a box in the cupboard. As she re-entered the living room, daylight was beginning to fade and it was time to light the lamp. Janet’s attention was taken for a few seconds by the noise and dust whirl of the orange and white Mrembo from Mombasa. This Mrembo, this handsome young man, was of course a bus, owned by a division of Mulonzya Enterprises of Mwingi, the family firm that also owned the petrol station in Mwingi, the petrol station that was just along the road from John Mwangangi’s office, an office she must visit urgently.

  Father Michael had reclaimed his place on the settee and once more was feigning sleep beneath his bush hat. “Fancy a beer?” she asked.

  “Is the Pope Catholic?” he replied.

  Chapter Six

  February 1962

  John was already more than an hour late. Dr Bill Goodman and his wife, Helen, discussed for a moment what they ought to do, but decided to wait on, though the food keeping warm in the oven might spoil. It was not as if they really had a choice. Bill was convinced that John would arrive soon. After all, he had only been in the country for a few months and everything must still seem very strange. He had probably got himself lost on the tube.

  Bill retired to the lounge and to his work. On the copious arms of his easy chair were balanced various things that he had gathered about himself that evening. On one side there was a wad of papers and a pen, an empty coffee cup and a half full whisky tot on the other. Carefully he threaded his body into the chair and took the papers onto his lap.

  They were not a bad lot this year, he thought, as he scanned through the first written offering of the term from his first year tutorial group. University teaching could be a dull affair without the stimulus of some bright and interested students. In this year’s intake there was one student in particular who seemed not only quick to learn, but also eager to teach his tutor and fellow students about things they would otherwise never even consider. A person like that could dominate and destroy a group, but if guided could also be its enduring stimulus.

  Bill worried about this student, however. John Mwangangi Musyoka was surely talented, but he was finding it hard to settle into college life. He seemed not to make friends easily and spent every night studying his law books in his hostel room. It would be such a shame, Bill thought, if John’s undoubted potential were to go untapped as a result of a breakdown or illness. John was clearly a candidate for such an eventuality, being quiet and timid in college, withdrawn and intensely studious away from it. As part of a strategy to draw him into things, Bill had endeavoured to build a relationship with John that could be stronger than the usual teacher-student mould. Though John hardly drank, appearing to regard the consumption of a glass of beer as more of a personal vice than a source of possible enjoyment, the two of them had already gone to the bar together on a few occasions after lectures. Time spent with John had soon begun to prove unexpectedly enlightening for Bill. He had taught many overseas students, of course, but they were nearly always from middle-class, professional families, representatives of a local elite. But John Mwangangi Musyoka was different. He was clearly from a poor family. He was not at all used to city life and was patently unaware of social mores and other cultural trappings, an ignorance that often seemed to leave him isolated, a reaction or two behind his peers. It was only during these chats in the bar that Bill came to realise how little ‘European’ or ‘Western’ life John had ever experienced.

  Bill had found it quite incredible to learn that a large number of people in at least one part of the world believed that all European men were priests and all women nuns, because nearly all the white people ever to have lived in that area had been missionaries. But if all Europeans were priests or nuns and therefore celibate, Bill had asked, then how could it be that there were still Europeans? Didn’t people see just a slight a contradiction here? Bill had thought that John would see the intended joke. Surely he would retract and qualify what he had said. But John answered quite seriously. People did not believe that nuns and priests really lived apart. They had other lives behind closed doors. And besides the word for a white man, mzungu, also means a wonderful machine, so who knew what techniques of reproduction these white people might use?

  The doorbell rang. John offered no apology for being late. Noting his wife’s hackles on the rise, he found himself apologising to Helen on his guest’s behalf. He was starting to protect this young man from himself, almost as if he were a son.

  Bill had envisaged a long evening. He was quite keen to ‘show off’ John to his wife, and for quite a while he found himself feeling more than a little nervous as to how she would react. This nervousness was expressed as a constant fussing over John’s comfort, offering him drinks he refused, plucking books from his shelves, directing him towards snacks that would only further postpone the meal that was probably already spoilt. John accepted only water and sat with a glass in one hand and one of Bill’s selected books in the other, unable to pick up any of the savoury snacks. With Bill in such a socialising frenzy, it seemed that neither Helen nor John could slip in a word edgeways. The less they spoke, the more Bill extemporised, the more he dominated their exchanges and the more Helen allowed her attention to wander. Finally, Helen left the room without a word and served the food.

  At table John was served first and immediately set about his meal with a dessertspoon. It was only after Bill and Helen had exchanged glances and exaggeratedly taken up their knives and forks that John self-consciously licked the spoon clean and followed their example. With obvious embarrassment, he tried to explain that he had still not grown used to using knives and forks at the same time. Bill was sympathetic. Helen was not. She was obviously beginning to feel increasingly uncomfortable in John’s company and Bill grew progressively more aware of the tension that was being built, and thus created more via his own compensatory manner.

  After a while, however, John noticeably began to relax and talked more freely. He began to ask questions, some of which Helen found quite astoundingly naïve. She found his English difficult to understand and several times switched off her attention whilst he was speaking. Bill again sensed this and effectively repeated everything for her benefit, as if translating, but this only added to the young man’s confusion. He asked, for instance, whether all houses in England had running water. Helen, who had heard that question, immediately gave him directions to the toilet, mouthed slowly in what were tantamount to vocal phonetics. “But I think you have not understood,” suggested John after a moment’s thought, during which he turned his attention back to his food. “Is it really true, Mrs Goodman, that women here do no work? And is it true that few people bother to grow food to eat? In my village every family has a farm and tries to grow all of their own food. Women do a lot of the work. They do the weeding. The men do the ploughing and planting. Everyone helps in the harvest. All of these houses here have gardens, but nobody grows any food, and yet I understand that many women are mainly just staying at home.”

  “I don’t quite understand what you mean when you say ‘just staying at home’,” said Helen, her voice tinged with both defensiveness and obvious impatience. The man was such a contradiction. Was he being utterly naïve in asking such questions, surely more naïve than any first year law student ought to be? Or was he being provocative, implying that people in suburban Britain ough
t to be more aware of their privileged status and how little they had to struggle for existence?

  “You see, Mrs Goodman, besides bearing children, women in my area must carry wood and water for the household, sometimes from very great distances, sometimes more than five miles. I have lived in Nairobi and seen that for many people life is different from this. But in Kenya, nowhere else is like Nairobi. It is a special place. But here it seems that everyone lives that way. For a Kenyan man, it would seem strange that English men do not require their wives to do more work.” Perhaps John did not realise what he was saying. Perhaps.

  Bill, who considered the proposition with some humour, interjected. “I suppose it is rather strange, isn’t it, dear? Fancy turning over the front garden?”

  “Yes, dear. How interesting. I’ll bear that in mind.”

  On one occasion John came close to offending and alienating Helen completely. From the start he had insisted on drinking only water. He seemed to regard the wine they drank with sufficient distaste to want to distance himself from it. He was clearly a thirsty man, however, and soon finished the whole jug of water that Helen had provided at table. He was speaking at the time, trying to describe some aspect or other of his home area to Bill, whom he faced. He reached for the jug and began to pour before registering that it was empty. Almost without breaking the flow of words directed at his tutor, he cast a glance aside to Helen and said, “More water.” His stress was placed on the start, with the intonation falling across the words, the flat ending making the phrase a command in Helen’s ear. She was visibly and immediately startled, despite her beginning to fulfil the request before pausing to show her shock. But, not wanting to make a scene, she took the jug and refilled it from the kitchen tap. Meanwhile Bill stopped John and explained how he must follow certain rules of politeness in British society and learn to use them constantly. When Helen returned, John apologised, still not understanding what he had done.