A Fool's Knot

by Philip Spires

  When the District Officer bid goodbye to Father Michael, still shaking his head in profound disbelief, he said, “I cannot think what is happening these days. We used to say that it is the old man who is taught new things. But make no mistake, what Musyoka has done is unknown amongst our people. From now, Musyoka and his family will only be known for their sin.” With that he shook hands with both Michael and Janet without saying another word, took his seat in his Land Rover and drove off into the town. He stayed around Migwani for some hours, gathering what information he could and talking to anyone willing to talk. By the time he set off for Mwingi, Michael and Janet had themselves already left the town, but in the other direction, bound for Nairobi and a meeting with Lesley Mwangangi. In the District Officer’s assessment the case was clear-cut. Later, when he wrote up the report, he concluded that the case would go to the High Court, which would find that John Mwangangi, son of Musyoka, had been murdered by his father, Musyoka, son of Mwangangi, an old man who now was incarcerated in the town’s only cell at the rear of Mwingi’s police station. As he signed the report, he passed it through the hatch in the wall to the waiting clerk, who typed it with multiple carbon sheets, one for his own files, one for the Kitui Police, one for the Nairobi Police and one for the Public Prosecutor. As for Musyoka, neither his name nor a word of sympathy on his behalf would ever again be spoken. He would first be transferred to Kitui and from there to Nairobi to await trial. The case would be judged, his guilt declared and he would hang. Throughout his time in custody, wherever that was, Musyoka would never again see a member of his family, neither his wives, daughter, Lesley nor Anna Katuunge Mwangangi. In death he would be granted an unnamed pauper’s grave near the prison outhouse where he was hanged.

  It was almost dark by the time Janet and Michael reached John’s house in Nairobi. Only a few short hours now separated Janet from her midnight flight to London, but first there was this duty to perform. As she wept in Lesley’s arms with Michael looking on, apparently unable to react, she still wondered how she might find words to convey any meaning. And then a young boy emerged from the house. She knew him. He was the son of one of the shopkeepers from Migwani market, a day student in her school’s Form Three. It was only then she fully realised that Lesley was not crying. She seemed strangely calm and controlled. As Janet drew back to look at her, she said, “Julius came on the morning bus and brought the news. He arrived about an hour ago.” Lesley’s voice sounded empty, merely empty.

  “Will you be wanting to go to Migwani?” asked Michael after a nervous pause during which he walked towards the still embracing women and then away again.

  “No,” said Lesley with conviction.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Janet, disengaging herself from Lesley’s now limp arms.

  “I don’t know,” was the soft, hollow reply.

  For some minutes they stood there in the driveway, statically arranged, as if about to deliver a quartet in a tragic opera, but they were all silent. Then, after a simple goodbye, Janet and Michael got back in the car and drove away. Only then did Lesley weep, but it was only a single tear and even that had dried by the time she approached Julius with repeated thanks for bringing the news.

  The accommodating waiter in the restaurant that Janet chose was worried throughout by their lack of appetite. He approached the table many times and asked with a broad nervous smile whether the food was all right. Both Janet and Michael said it was fine, but still, it seemed, they did not want to eat. At the airport, necessity ruled as they worked through the formalities of flying. Janet weighed the luggage that Michael had carried and the clerk checked the ticket she presented. Janet paid the tax of twenty shillings and took the stamp without which she could not depart. Then, after kissing Michael once on the cheek, she said what became a hurried goodbye and walked beneath the sign that said ‘Departures’ without once looking back. She had to begin again.

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