A Fool's Knot

by Philip Spires

  The woman who shared the seat with Janet and Joseph Munyolo’s mother had sold two goats for fifty shillings and had bought a nearly full sack of maize. She entered the bus when already more than sixty others were crammed onto the seats. Noticing immediately that Janet was smaller and of slighter build than most, the woman made straight for the seat which, of course was only meant to accommodate two, and, finding an unoccupied corner onto which she could place a small percentage of her behind, she sat and lifted the sack of maize onto her lap, panting loudly, as rivers of sweat ran down between her ample breasts. She made a comment about the heat and fanned herself rapidly with a loosened corner of the wrapper she wore around her upper body, and gave out a long deep sigh. Over the next few minutes she carefully adjusted her position, each time nudging a per cent or two more of her buttocks onto the seat, using her significant weight to ease the other two occupants marginally closer to the window. By the time the bus reached Migwani, she had found enough space to have also planted the sack of maize on the seat beside her to ease the pressure on her thighs, leaving Janet so squashed against the window that her own behind was actually against the side of the bus, with only a small portion of one leg actually in contact with the seat. The woman would have been put off the bus back in Mwingi had Janet not paid her fare in a vain attempt to try to get the show on the road. Even Janet’s poor Kikamba was enough to follow what was said.

  “Where to?”

  “Kwa Siku.”

  “Four shillings and eighty cents,” ordered the conductor, beginning to write the ticket.

  “But I have no money,” replied the woman with an air of total innocence.

  “Either you have the money or you get off,” said the young man, still commanding. He seemed to be very angry indeed, having already dealt with several people who were trying to get a free ride.

  “Aiee,” said the woman in feigned total surprise. She eyed the slightly built young man from within her enormous frame, peering over the top of the sack on her lap. She seemed to suggest that it would take an army to move her if she refused to budge. “But you can afford to take me. Look at all these other people who are paying you their fares. What does it matter to take one more person?”

  “And at least sixty of them have the same story as you. You have money,” said the man, pointing at the sack.

  “But I have stood all day to buy this food for my family,” she pleaded. But the tone of her voice said much more than this. She knew that the bus was already overloaded, that the company was rich and could afford to take her for nothing, that the man was asking her family to go without food so that the bus owner could make more profit.

  At this point Janet interrupted. As she saw things, the argument could easily go on forever. He demanded the fare. She was not going to pay and neither was she going to move. And she was too big and heavy to be helped off the bus. So Janet produced a five-shilling note and paid the fare, indicating that the woman could have the twenty cents change. This unfortunately did not help matters. An old man sitting in front, who had just gone through the same routine with the conductor, only to have eventually produced the money for the ticket from a knotted handkerchief inside his shirt, stood up and shouted to announce to the whole bus that this was not fair. If this European woman was so rich, then she should pay for everyone. This fat woman, he said, pointing to the seat behind, should not get special treatment. With the two flat yellow pennies, the change from her fare, nestling in the palm of her hand, the woman also announced her delight to the entire bus and held up the twenty cents as evidence of what had transpired. The woman then turned to the side and thrust the coins into Janet’s hand, indicating that they were a gift that could not be accepted and the general argument began to subside, ignoring the fact that the woman kept hold of the ticket. The conductor moved on to the seat behind to begin a similar process all over again. Janet sighed out of frustration and tried in vain to doze off on her shrinking seat.

  And so it was with great relief that she finally made her way off the bus in Migwani, negotiating her way down the central aisle, stepping over buckets and sacks of maize, stooping to avoid bundles of sugar cane propped against the overflowing luggage rack, pausing on the way to avoid stepping on a trussed chicken or a goat’s leg. With a perfunctory wave to the window where Joseph’s mother now sat to continue her journey, she set off despondently towards the mission to tell Father Michael the details of her fruitless journey. As she passed in front of the south-facing bus, her clothes wet and her face dripping with sweat, she had to step aside as two of the luggage men violently pulled to one side the wiry frame of Munyasya, who had lain down beneath the wheels. He protested, shouting at them in his strange spitting voice. But he could move only slowly, so once he was clear of the bus, the men knew it would take him a minute or more to get to his feet.

  As she crossed the road, the bus set off and by the time it had travelled the thirty yards to be level with her, it was already trailing a high swirling cloud of dust, which added a light ochre coating to her entire frame. And then, for good measure, the driver clanked at the gears and revved the engine in neutral, producing a puff of black fumes to add flavour to the cocktail. The mission was empty when she arrived, but thankfully the door was unlocked, so she went inside to find an easy chair and within a minute, she was asleep.

  She awoke with a start when Mutua dropped a knife on the floor. Michael was sitting opposite her reading Time magazine. He looked up and said, “So you’ve returned to the land of the living. You must have been whacked.”

  “What time is it?” she asked drowsily.

  “Eight,” he replied, anticipating her surprise.

  “What? I’ve been asleep for three hours,” exclaimed Janet, as if she had lost something irretrievably.

  Michael turned to Mutua and asked him to bring in a beer for Janet and then serve dinner. Raising herself in the chair to accept the beer bottle, she groaned loudly as the stiffness of her limbs resisted movement.

  “You look like you’ve been raped,” said Michael. Janet cast him a knowing look. “What’s wrong? Did Mwangangi give you a hard time?”

  “He did, but the reason why I’m so shattered is the journey. It was…”

  “Mwingi market day,” interrupted Michael, nodding, “and the bus was somewhat more than full.”

  “The bus was full - full stop!”

  “So what happened?” asked Michael, sitting back.

  She felt the first cold mouthful of beer run down inside her. It was one of those blissful occasions when you could feel the progress of the liquid all the way down to the stomach. And with it went the dust of the journey, the taste of fumes and the thirst of a day. She felt immediately refreshed and revived. And then, after a long sigh, she related the events of the day, finishing with, “Mwanza reckons he wanted a bribe.”

  Michael looked thoughtful for a moment and then spoke. “Mwanza would, the stupid whore. No. No, I don’t buy that one for a minute. Mwangangi would never ask for a bribe. He’s above that. Mwanza should have his mouth sewn up.”

  “So you think that if I go on Friday as requested, I will get Joseph out on bail?”

  “If Mwangangi finds no objection and, if you come up with the money, of course, he will do nothing to prevent it. I’m sure of that.” Again he thought for a moment before continuing, somewhat more slowly and pensively. “But there might be a problem. The case has become quite serious.” Michael listed the charges against the defendants, counting them out on his fingers: creating a disturbance, damage to property, actual bodily harm on one of the teachers, using abusive language. “Knowing Mwangangi, he might not allow any bail at all. He tends to get very impatient with that type of case, the type where people try to take the law into their own hands. He is very keen to make an example of people who don’t use the proper channels. Had people from Nzawa gone to him with their complaints about the teachers, he would have investigated. He w
ould have been down there like lightning and he would not have let it go until he had got to the bottom of things. But if people act without authority… He gives people a fair deal, and he doesn’t take bribes. He has probably concluded that they will have to stay in custody for their own and other’s safety.”

  “Then why didn’t he say that instead of making so much of the spelling of the kid’s name?” asked Janet, her frustration flooding back.

  Michael laughed and shook his head, saying, “He might be a young man, university educated and all, but he’s still a Kamba! You know, they’re just like Kerrymen. They can never give a straight answer to a straight question. Ask a Kerryman the way to the post office and he’ll answer, ‘Oh, so you want to buy stamps?’”

  “And what about Limerick people?” asked Janet, laughing.

  “They’re all the same. We’re all people and we’re all a crowd of stupid whores!” And with that they both got up and crossed the room to the table where Mutua was laying out the evening meal.

  Chapter Eight

  May 1951

  Contrary to Sister Mary’s belief that Mwangangi would recover quickly, the boy appeared to make only slow progress. The wound produced by his father’s deliberately barbarous treatment during circumcision had completely healed in no time. Sister Mary grew progressively more concerned, however, as it became clear that, as well as blood poisoning, there was evidence of complications one would only associate with a chemical poison of some sort. If this was true, then the boy had been deliberately poisoned. He had scratches over his thighs. They were not deep, but each one had become red and inflamed with pustules that reminded her of nettle stings. And the effect seemed to be spreading. She tried a number of treatments which seemed to work for a while, but then the inflammation returned.

  And then one of her junior nurses suggested that she knew the problem and knew a cure. Much to Sister’s fascination, the nurse went off into the bush for an hour and came back with a bagful of leaves. These she steeped in milk and then applied the infusion to the affected area, repeating the process every hour or so. In a day the redness had gone. After another day the pustules vanished and by the next the boy was cured. Sister Mary asked the nurse to explain the process. The young girl did not have enough English vocabulary to communicate the details, so she led Sister by the hand out of the hospital and along the road for a few hundred yards where a large patch of succulents grew amongst rocks. This was the plant, the nurse explained. She described its white sap that could be dried and made into a poison. It was used to poison hunter’s arrows, being applied as a sticky resin to the barbs that were shaved back just behind the small head. The pin-like barbs always made a graze on the animal’s skin, even when the arrowhead itself did not pierce the hide. If the hunter waited and followed the animal, the poison would work into the wound and slow it down within a couple of hours, so that he could finish it off. Because the barbs were sharp, the nurse told her, the hunters themselves were always pricking their fingers and so regularly poisoned themselves. But there was an antidote, which was the infusion of leaves and milk she had used on Mwangangi. Sister asked her if the poisoning could have been an accident. She said it might be possible.

  The boy’s health did return. When Father John O’Hara paid his visits, Sister would make sure that he was fully briefed on what had happened, that the boy had been poisoned and that without the contribution of the young nurse his condition might have got much worse. “The only thing that matters is that he’s getting better, thanks be to God,” was O’Hara’s only comment. Privately, however, he was wrestling with what to do when the time came to reunite the boy with his family and his father.

  After two weeks in hospital, Mwangangi was discharged and returned to Migwani on John O’Hara’s motorcycle. The boy himself had only a suspicion that his illness had been deliberately caused by his father, but he knew he had done wrong and he accepted that he deserved to be punished. What he did not understand was how severe that punishment might have been had it not been for the contribution of a young nurse, whose name he would not remember. Father John O’Hara, who made a second trip to the hospital to collect the boy, was apprehensive about what would happen when he took the boy home, so much so that he had already made enquiries and drawn up a plan as to what he should do if Musyoka would not readmit him into the family.

  They stopped on the way at the mission in Migwani, where Father John and Mwangangi sat and talked about the future. First there was his postponed baptism into the Church. John asked him a couple of questions to test his knowledge of the catechism. They were answered perfectly and in full, of course, the boy explaining that he had used his time in hospital to do some extra study from the copy that Father John had given him on his first visit. The boy explained further that he had been very bored in hospital. Having nothing else to do, he had memorised the book. John O’Hara laughed at this, but then began to realise that the boy was serious. He chose two paragraphs at random, prompting Mwangangi with the first few words. In both cases, he continued word perfect to the end of the section, leaving the priest quite speechless, impressed, perplexed and immediately considering how this talent might be developed. The two remained silent for a minute or more.

  “You have an excellent knowledge of the Church’s teaching, young man,” O’Hara said reassuringly. “I can arrange the baptism for next Sunday, if you want.”

  The boy was immediately proud. “I also want to ask you, Father, about the name I will take as a Christian. You said that it should be Pat… Pat…” he could not pronounce the name. There was no letter ‘r’ in his language.

  “Patrick,” said John. “It’s a fine name to choose, my boy. Your church is dedicated to him and a finer saint or more Christian man it would be hard to find.”

  Mwangangi’s small body, lost in the large armchair, heaved a little as he continued nervously. “But Father…” He looked up to see O’Hara’s eyes glaring at him across the room. He was afraid. “Father, I want to have the same name as you. I want to be called John.”

  John O’Hara was deeply moved, but tried not to show it. His love for this boy had always been strong, but had intensified to an almost paternal affection since his illness. He was not quite sure what he might say or feel. Thus he said nothing for some time as he fought to control the tears that he wanted to cry. His face was set in a stern unchanging expression, but his colour changed. Gradually, and much to Mwangangi’s growing fright, the priest’s skin turned from light pink to bright red. Mwangangi had never before seen a white man blush and found the red skin, standing out in contrast to his prematurely silver-white hair and black bushy eyebrows quite frightening. And through this the priest’s clear blue eyes seemed to pierce him with their steel gaze. It was hard to look at blue eyes, thought Mwangangi, who swore that when he felt them meet his own gaze, he could feel them piercing his head. Why did Father John remain silent? He had gone too far. He had offended him. To share someone’s name is a difficult thing to ask.

  Suddenly John O’Hara rose from his chair and walked out of the room. Mwangangi half rose to follow, started to ask what might be the matter and then sank back into his chair feeling dejected, already constructing his apology. He was not sure what he had done, but he knew it was wrong.

  In his own room, Father John O’Hara wiped the tears from his eyes and knelt before the crucifix on his desk. Aloud, he begged Jesus Christ’s forgiveness for crying, for feeling such misplaced pride. He prayed for the boy’s future and then bent forward to kiss the cross and whisper a repeated amen.

  The door opened slowly. “Is it all right, Father?” asked Mwangangi timidly.

  John jumped to his feet and shouted at the boy for coming into his room without knocking. Mwangangi felt sure that he would be beaten and cowered away in fear from John’s outstretched arm. But the arm held him and embraced him. “Of course it’s all right,” said John after a moment. “Of course it’s all right.”

&
nbsp; Mwangangi’s face lit up with joy. He threw his arms around John’s neck, embracing him as he would embrace his own father. “Thank you, thank you, Father John, thank you,” said the boy, close to tears but not crying.

  “But you must promise me something, Mwangangi,” said John O’Hara a few minutes later. “You must promise me that you will never do anything to disgrace the name because, if you do, it will be my name that you will disgrace.”

  “Father, how could I do anything to bring disgrace on your name?” answered Mwangangi, still overjoyed. “I will try with God’s help to do only good things in your name. I promise to work extremely hard at school and on my father’s farm so that I can go to secondary school and become an educated man like you. I will work so hard that people will see that only good things can come from that name. More than that, Father,” continued the boy, eager to justify his claim, “I wish to join the seminary and become a Father like you.”