A Fool's Knot

by Philip Spires

  The greatest contradiction for Musyoka had been the presence of Lesley and Anna at the same table. In his own house that would never have done but, here in his son’s house, this foreign place, he was prepared to make this concession. He knew that European families always ate together at the same table. Though it was not good manners to do so, he was willing to grant the inevitability that his son, after living in England for so long, would have learned to accept some foreign ways out of necessity. An animal smells of the forest in which it slept, thought Musyoka, but now his son had returned home, surely it was time for common sense and good manners to reassert themselves.

  John asked his father to come and look at the farm, especially the work he had been supervising that morning, and the two of them left the house to walk in silence towards the river bed which bordered the large plot of land. John had been occupied there since dawn supervising the construction of foundations for what was to become the pump house. By the side of the Vinda, which at this time of year was a river of sand, he had laid into the earth two courses of red earth bricks. Piled around the edges was the fine dusty soil which had been moved the previous day and on top of this lay strewn a hundred or more new bricks, some already crumbling or broken, waiting to be added to the structure.

  John and his father stood on top of the pile of earth to survey the project. The old man was clearly very surprised that his son had already accomplished so much. He had said many times to John’s mother that he was afraid his son would forget how to work in the fields, if all he did every day was sit in a chair and write.

  “This,” said John, pointing proudly to the small square of brickwork, “is going to be the engine house. It will be finished, roof and all, before the end of the week.”

  Musyoka gave out a hearty laugh and grabbed at his hat as it shook off his head. “I thought it was going to be the toilet,” he said. “It seems to be about the right size. I was going to say that you ought to have dug the pit before you started the walls!”

  John smiled knowingly and decided to give his father something of a shock. It is the young man who must teach new words to the old. “The toilet is inside the house.”

  “Inside?” retorted his father, as if suddenly burnt. “Are you telling me that you have paid money for a man to build a new house and he was stupid enough to have put the toilet inside?” He tut-tutted for a second or two and shook his head as his son continued to smile. “You finish a job, and then you see the mistakes. That house cannot be a home for you, Mwangangi. It will be very dirty, smelly and unhealthy for your children. And the smell will attract flies. The house will be full of them.”

  “Father, it will not be a long drop toilet,” John explained. “It will be a European style with pipes that bend and stay filled with water. There will be no smell.”

  “What a waste of water!” scoffed Musyoka. “What will this place do?” he asked, jabbing the air with his stick in the general direction of the brick foundations.

  “This will house a diesel engine,” replied John with some pride.

  “So what? A man is always satisfied with a skin from his own cow,” thought Musyoka. Though somewhat impressed with the idea, he was still baffled as to why his son should wish to build a house for an engine. After studying the foundations with reverent ignorance, he turned to face his son and waved his stick towards the expanse of sloping fields before him. “And how do you propose to make this desert fertile? There is no rain here. That’s why no one has farmed this land as far as I or your grandfather can remember.” He continued to face his son, his wide-eyed expression suggesting that he had asked an unanswerable question. Any reply would be sheer enlightenment.

  John pointed at the dry sand of the river bed. The old man looked and noticed for the first time what seemed to be an oil drum sticking into the earth. “Beneath the surface,” said John with some gravity, “there is always water. The engine is going to pump that water. Some of it will go straight onto the fields and the rest will go into those tanks.” He swivelled to point his father’s gaze towards a cleared area nearby, where concrete foundations had been laid to support the corrugated iron water tanks that were already on order. “More than that,” he continued, now with almost childlike excitement, “at night the engine will drive a generator to make electricity and, better still, the excess power will charge batteries that will power some electrical appliances, such as our fridge and the washing machine, during the day.”

  For some time the old man appeared to be studying the ground near his feet. “It will be very expensive to run,” he said, his observation clearly the least of the problems he could envisage.

  “Ah, no,” scoffed John, his tone momentarily offending the old man. “I will run the engine, the pumps and the generator for about five hours a day. It will cost only forty shillings a week for the fuel. I will also have a small windmill up there on the ridge, which will trickle-charge the batteries from a car’s generator throughout the day.”

  To Musyoka forty shillings a week sounded like a small fortune. The contradiction this aroused infected his words with what sounded like sarcasm. “I suppose we harvest what we plant. It seems strange to me that for generations we knew nothing of these things and yet rain came to water our crops.”

  “That’s true,” replied John, “as long as you also remember the times of famine when people died unnecessarily and, above even that, the fact that a generation ago this land supported less than half the people it does now.”

  “What you say is true,” said the father. “I am an old man now. You must excuse me if I cannot learn new words. All I can say is this. When I was young, if our land had grown as bad as this,” he said, turning to point vaguely towards the hillsides, whose surrounding parched brown faces bore no signs of life, “we would have moved to a new area and there would have been no famine.”

  John decided not to pursue the point and opted to change the subject. But before he had a chance to speak, his father continued. “There is famine, my son, because people are no longer allowed to live their natural lives. We are unable to move because our government forbids it. They told us years ago that we should support them, that they would rid us of the British so that we could return to the way of life which we all knew and which had been denied us. They said they would repeal the laws that limited the number of cows a man could own. Well, they did that and we were grateful. What they did not tell us was what they themselves really wanted. They just wanted to take the white man’s place, to banish him and then replace him with their own. But, alas, they are only Kikuyus and cannot see that they are fools. The white men still control them with bribes. If you go to Nairobi and look around, what do you see? You see white men – rich white men riding alongside these Kikuyus in cars. The only reason, my son, why there is famine here is because the government wants one. If we could move, as we used to, or if the government would give us dams and not schools, then there would be plenty. These Kikuyus, though, will only allow us the husks of the maize whilst they promise the grain. These people,” he scoffed, waving his arms high to imply and include everyone who lived in the area, “have been blinded by the white man’s religion, his schools and his water pumps. They don’t seem to realise that they will get nothing of any use from their Kikuyu masters or, for that matter, from the white man. They have been educated into stupidity.” He paused for a moment, as if to allow time for his words to sink in. His lips seemed to be bursting with examples he could use to illustrate and strengthen his case, but he calculatedly chose only one, and one which had direct relevance for his son. His words were intended to provoke, and provoke they did, but John listened in silence, if grudgingly, like he had done as a child, when scolded for criticising his father’s advice. “Look at the people in the town,” Musyoka continued, now almost shouting, pointing up the valley vaguely in the direction of Migwani. “The council said they would bring water, so they put one of your engines by the dam. And what has come of it?
It has worked for about three weeks in the last two years. When the water comes it is undrinkable because it is so dirty and it is expensive. It costs more than buying a woman as a new wife to draw water from the well. The whole idea is stupid.”

  John could listen no more. “The water would be fine if people did not allow their animals to shit in the dam. And the reason why the pump doesn’t work is nothing to do with the engine. You know yourself that the man who got the job to operate the thing is a drunkard. When the fuel for the engine arrives he sells it to Mbuvu at his shop to get money for drink and, when asked, he lies and says it was never enough and that it has run out. It is the people here who abuse themselves. But there are better ways, more effective ways to do things, ways that work. In fact, if everyone would listen to the ‘white man’, as you call him, and learn some of his ways, as I have done, then they might all be as rich as the Europeans you saw in Nairobi.” The bitterness in John’s words provoked an equally bitter reply from the father.

  “One does not ask a fool to untie another fool’s knot. If it were not for the Europeans, our land would not have died like this. How can we trust the one who killed it to bring it back to life? The one who casts the spell cannot be the one to undo it.”

  “I am doing this,” shouted John, gesturing towards his farm. “Am I an Englishman?”

  Musyoka smiled at his son and stood proud and erect before him, stretching a little to compensate for the smallness of his stature. “There are times when I wonder, my son.” After a pause that seemed like an age he continued. “What a man is taught by life lives with him until he dies. You must ask yourself who gave you your life – the white man and his machines,” he said pointing at the pump house foundations, “or this soil, your birthplace and your father.”

  John could not answer. He had tried in vain so many times to convince his father that the choice was not as he saw it, that there were no contradictions between the roots of his identity and the way he chose to live his life. He was not embracing the white man’s ways or rejecting his birthright. All he wanted to do was acknowledge and use what was good in any way of life, any culture, any identity. He wanted what would prove best for everyone and cared little about its origins. Above all, he wanted what was best for his family. Though not prone to despair, John had often wondered whether his father would ever recognise this and stop interpreting every suggested change as a threat.

  “Well?” asked Musyoka forcefully, clearly expecting at least some reaction. “Do I speak the truth?”

  Frustrated, John turned aside, as if sidestepping the thrust, trying to find words that might bridge the confusion. “Of course you are right, but…”

  “Then prove me right.” His father interrupted, as if he had foreknowledge of the opportunity, as if things were conforming to a plan. An old bull fights with an aim. “Prove to me that you respect what I say. Prove to me that you respect your traditions, your ancestors and your family. Prove to me that you have returned to this place to live as my son, not merely like some white settler who fences off our land and calls it his own. Prove to me that you have returned to respect me, not despise me or ridicule me for my ignorance of your ways. Prove to me that you respect me and what I represent, as much as you respect the things you have learned elsewhere.”

  “Have I not done that already?” John’s voice was now raised, less than a shout, but verging on it. “Would I ever have returned to this place if I bore no respect for you or my people? Could I have not simply stayed where I was, in England, and simply forgotten that you existed? I had a fine life. I had and still have a fine family, a wife I love and a wonderful daughter. I had money, a fine house and a car. I gave that up because I wanted to contribute something here, something that could help my people. What more do you want of me?” John’s stance was now imploring recognition, his outstretched arms looking like a confession of innocence.

  In Musyoka’s eyes there appeared great understanding. Seemingly without needing to think, he spoke quickly and quietly, as if the words had been rehearsed, practised in private until perfect. “A man harvests what he plants. You come here because you want power, my son. Only here amongst your own people can you achieve your aim. The Englishman might offer you a share of his riches, but he will never allow you to control. Here you can win and control people’s ultimate respect. Here you can aspire to become a leader. You think that they will respect you because you are educated and you are rich. Here, my son, you can have access to the power you crave. So be it, but be sure to use it for everyone’s good, as well as for this,” he said, gesturing again towards the generality of his son’s project.

  “Tell me, father,” asked John with a calculated innocence that only just excluded cynicism, “if this is not good, then what would be?”

  Again Musyoka’s words were quiet and assured. “Allow your daughter to do as she wishes, to become a woman as a Kamba.” He paused for a moment and stared at his son, eager to assess his reaction. When none came, he continued, “I have tried to tell her much in these last few days of what young girls of her age are expected to do in the home, and what is expected of them outside the home in the community. I have told her of the respect she should always show to her elders and of her duty always to follow her father’s wishes as she grows older. She has understood. I am sure of it. She then asked me what she should do, so that she could become accepted as one of her father’s people.” Surprise suddenly shone in his son’s face. “Yes. That is what she asked me. A calf with no mother must lick its own back. I told her that she should become a woman as Kamba women do, that she should be initiated into adulthood in the way that her future sisters expect and accept. I told her it is the way to make herself ready for maturity. She told me that more than anything else in the world she just wants to be like other girls and do as they do. Unless she is ruled by the same laws and responsibilities as the other girls this can never be so. An uncircumcised child can never mix with those already mature.” Musyoka then said no more for what seemed like some minutes, during which the windless silence of the afternoon grew heavy around father and son. John, deep in thought, could not look at his father. He stared, as if bearing the guilt of some great abuse, dejectedly at the ground. Finally, Musyoka spoke again, his authority demanding his son’s attention. “I have spoken to Katuunge. I have not tried to trick her. I have even had the words translated by your sister who knows English. I tell you that this is her desire that I speak of, not my own. Ah yes, my son. ‘Yes’ can never harm.” With that the old man bid a timely goodbye to his son, turned and set off to retrace the rising path towards Kamandiu. He walked with the strength of one still young, swinging his stick and whistling quietly.

  Some hours later, with darkness surrounding and encapsulating the isolation of the house, John sat opposite his wife across the table where earlier Musyoka had shared their food. Lesley and he had sat, it seemed, for hours and drunk innumerable cups of coffee. The night, however, was still young. Crickets and cicadas had yet to awake and the air was still undisturbed by night’s breezes.

  John’s mind was made up, but he felt a great inner sadness. Finally, he had realised that the changes were irreversible. Ideals he had tried to live had been revealed as no more tangible than dreams, no more attainable than fantasies. He had learned, that afternoon, to hate his father, but still these feelings could find no expression, so deeply did his fear of the old man restrict his words and silence his lips. He was not left totally without hope, however. As Lesley had pointed out, there was still herself and Anna. If he really believed in what he was doing, she had asked, why should this setback change his plans? If the farm would have succeeded before, it would still succeed. If his job was worth doing, it would still be worth doing. If he still loved his family, what had changed? No aspect of their family life, John’s career or ambition or, indeed, his project needed the cooperation or blessing of his father.

  Lesley, however, could not begin to understand how deeply
the father’s suggestion had bitten into her husband’s conscience. In his own mind were painful recollections of the hospital bed where he had lain as a child. Deeper than that were memories of the malice in his father’s eyes on the day Father John had taken him home to rejoin his family. Since that day, he had never again felt a true son to his father, something that over the years had caused him great pain and much soul-searching. The matter, however, had been decided. Without being prompted, Lesley had spoken her mind and he had immediately and sincerely agreed. The matter was settled.

  “Never!” said Lesley, almost shouting the anger that distorted her face. The very idea of her daughter going though an initiation rite, being physically mutilated and frightened into a conformity she did not want, filled her with abhorrence, a mixture of nausea and guilt. “No one is going to doctor Anna. She is my daughter, not your father’s.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  April 1976

  A stranger is a passing stream. His coming changes the land through which he passes, sometimes germinating a memory which will live alongside the people he leaves behind, sometimes bearing fruits to enrich their lives. But he will pass on his way. His influence might last a season at most, but his words flow away with him, remembered today, forgotten tomorrow.