by Mike Resnick
I found an empty bench, but decided not to sit on it. I didn’t want to be like these men, who saw nothing but the squirrels and the birds, when I could see the lions and the impala, the war-painted Kikuyu and the red-clad Maasai, who had once stalked across this same land.
I continued walking, suddenly restless, and despite the heat of the day and the frailty of my ancient body, I walked until twilight. I decided I could not endure dinner with my son and his wife, their talk of their boring jobs, their continual veiled suggestions about the retirement home, their inability to comprehend either why I went to Kirinyaga or why I returned—so instead of going home I began walking aimlessly through the crowded city.
Finally I looked up at the sky. Ngai, I said silently, I still do not understand. I was a good mundumugu. I obeyed Your law. I honored Your rituals. There must have come a day, a moment, a second, when together we could have saved Kirinyaga if You had just manifested Yourself. Why did You abandon it when it needed You so desperately?
I spoke to Ngai for minutes that turned into hours, but He did not answer.
* * *
When it was ten o’clock at night, I decided it was time to start making my way to the laboratory complex, for it would take me more than an hour to get there, and Kamau began working at eleven.
As before, he deactivated the electronic barrier to let me in, then escorted me to the small grassy area where Ahmed was kept.
“I did not expect to see you back so soon, mzee,” he said.
“I have no place else to go,” I answered, and he nodded, as if this made perfect sense to him.
Ahmed seemed nervous until the breeze brought my scent to him. Then he turned to face the north, extending his trunk every few moments.
“It is as if he seeks some sign from Mount Marsabit,” I remarked, for the great creature’s former home was hundreds of miles north of Nairobi, a solitary green mountain rising out of the blazing desert.
“He would not be pleased with what he found,” said Kamau.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, for no animal in our history was ever more identified with a location than the mighty Ahmed with Marsabit.
“Do you not read the papers, or watch the news on the holo?”
I shook my head. “What happens to black Europeans is of no concern to me.”
“The government has evacuated the town of Marsabit, which sits next to the mountain. They have closed the Singing Wells, and have ordered everyone to leave the area.”
“Leave Marsabit? Why?”
“They have been burying nuclear waste at the base of the mountain for many years,” he said. “It was just revealed that some of the containers broke open almost six years ago. The government hid the fact from the people, and then failed to properly clean up the leak.”
“How could such a thing happen?” I asked, though of course I knew the answer. After all, how does anything happen in Kenya?
“Politics. Payoffs. Corruption.”
“A third of Kenya is desert,” I said. “Why did they not bury it there, where no one lives or even thinks to travel, so when this kind of disaster occurs, as it always does, no one is harmed?”
He shrugged. “Politics. Payoffs. Corruption,” he repeated. “It is our way of life.”
“Ah, well, it is nothing to me anyway,” I said. “What happens to a mountain 500 kilometers away does not interest me, any more than I am interested in what happens to a world named after a different mountain.”
“It interests me,” said Kamau. “Innocent people have been exposed to radiation.”
“If they live near Marsabit, they are Pokot and Rendille,” I pointed out. “What does that matter to the Kikuyu?”
“They are people, and my heart goes out to them,” said Kamau.
“You are a good man,” I said. “I knew that from the moment we first met.” I pulled some peanuts from the pouch that hung around my neck, the same pouch in which I used to keep charms and magical tokens. “I bought these for Ahmed this afternoon,” I said. “May I…?”
“Certainly,” answered Kamau. “He has few enough pleasures. Even a peanut will be appreciated. Just toss them at his feet.”
“No,” I said, walking forward. “Lower the barrier.”
He lowered the force field until Ahmed was able to reach his trunk out over the top. When I got close enough, the huge beast gently took the peanuts from my hand.
“I am amazed!” said Kamau when I had rejoined him. “Even I c annot approach Ahmed with impunity, yet you actually fed him by hand, as if he were a family pet.”
“We are each the last of our kind, living on borrowed time,” I said. “He senses a kinship.”
I remained a few more minutes, then went home to another night of troubled sleep. I felt Ngai was trying to tell me something, trying to impart some message through my dreams, but though I had spent years interpreting the omens in other people’s dreams, I was ignorant of my own.
* * *
Edward was standing on the beautifully rolled lawn, staring at the blackened embers of my fire.
“I have a beautiful fire pit on the terrace,” he said, trying unsuccessfully to hide his anger. “Why on earth did you build a fire in the middle of the garden?”
“That is where a fire belongs,” I answered.
“Not in this house, it doesn’t!”
“I shall try to remember.”
“Do you know what the landscaper will charge me to repair the damage you caused?” A look of concern suddenly crossed his face. “You haven’t sacrificed any animals, have you?”
“No.”
“You’re sure none of the neighbors is missing a dog or a cat?” he persisted.
“I know the law,” I said. And indeed, Kikuyu law required the sacrifice of goats and cattle, not dogs and cats. “I am trying to obey it.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“But you are not obeying it, Edward,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded.
I looked at Susan, who was staring at us from a second-story window.
“You have two wives,” I pointed out. “The younger one lives with you, but the older one lives many kilometers away, and sees you only when you take your children away from her on weekends. This is unnatural: a man’s wives should all live together with him, sharing the household duties.”
“Linda is no longer my wife,” he said. “You know that. We were divorced many years ago.”
“You can afford both,” I said. “You should have kept both.”
“In this society, a man may have only one wife,” said Edward. “What kind of talk is this? You have lived in England and America. You know that.”
“That is their law, not ours,” I said. “This is Kenya.”
“It is the same thing.”
“The Moslems have more than one wife,” I replied.
“I am not a Moslem,” he said.
“A Kikuyu man may have as many wives as he can afford,” I said. “It is obvious that you are also not a Kikuyu.”
“I’ve had it with this smug superiority of yours!” he exploded. “You deserted my mother because she was not a true Kikuyu,” he continued bitterly. “You turned your back on my sister because she was not a true Kikuyu. Since I was a child, every time you were displeased with me you have told me that I am not a true Kikuyu. Now you have even proclaimed that none of the thousands who followed you to Kirinyaga are true Kikuyus.” He glared furiously at me. “Your standards are higher than Kirinyaga itself! Can there possibly be a true Kikuyu anywhere in the universe?”
“Certainly,” I replied.
“Where can such a paragon be found?” he demanded.
“Right here,” I said, tapping myself on the chest. “You are looking at him.”
* * *
My days faded one into another, the dullness and drudgery of them broken only by occasional nocturnal visits to the laboratory complex. Then one night, as I met Kamau at the gate, I could see that
his entire demeanor had changed.
“Something is wrong,” I said promptly. “Are you ill?”
“No, mzee, it is nothing like that.”
“Then what is the matter?” I persisted.
“It is Ahmed,” said Kamau, unable to stop tears from rolling down his withered cheeks. “They have decided to put him to death the day after tomorrow.”
“Why?” I asked, surprised. “Has he attacked another keeper?”
“No,” said Kamau bitterly. “The experiment was a success. They know they can clone an elephant, so why continue to pay for his upkeep when they can line their pockets with the remaining funds of the grant?”
“Is there no one you can appeal to?” I demanded.
“Look at me,” said Kamau. “I am an 86-year-old man who was given his job as an act of charity. Who will listen to me?”
“We must do something,” I said.
He shook his head sadly. “They are kehees,” he said. “Uncircumcised boys. They do not even know what a mundumugu is. Do not humiliate yourself by pleading with them.”
“If I did not plead with the Kikuyu on Kirinyaga,” I replied, “you may be sure I will not plead with the Kenyans in Nairobi.” I tried to ignore the ceaseless hummings of the laboratory machines as I considered my options. Finally I looked up at the night sky: the moon glowed a hazy orange through the pollution. “I will need your help,” I said at last.
“You can depend on me.”
“Good. I shall return tomorrow night.”
I turned on my heel and left, without even stopping at Ahmed’s enclosure.
All that night I thought and planned. In the morning, I waited until my son and his wife had left the house, then called Kamau on the vidphone to tell him what I intended to do and how he could help. Next, I had the computer contact the bank and withdraw my money, for though I disdained shillings and refused to cash my government checks, my son had found it easier to shower me with money than respect.
I spent the rest of the morning shopping at vehicle rental agencies, until I found exactly what I wanted. I had the saleswoman show me how to manipulate it, practiced until nightfall, hovered opposite the laboratory until I saw Kamau enter the grounds, and then maneuvered up to the side gate.
“Jambo, mundumugu!” whispered Kamau as he deactivated enough of the electronic barrier to accommodate the vehicle, which he scrutinized carefully. I backed up to Ahmed’s enclosure, then opened the back and ordered the ramp to descend. The elephant watched with an uneasy curiosity as Kamau deactivated a ten-foot section of the force field and allowed the bottom of the ramp through.
“Njoo, Tembo,” I said. Come, elephant.
He took a tentative step toward me, then another and another. When he reached the edge of his enclosure he stopped, for always he had received an electrical “correction” when he tried to move beyond this point. It took almost twenty minutes of tempting him with peanuts before he finally crossed the barrier and then clambered awkwardly up the ramp, which slid in after him. I sealed him into the hovering vehicle, and he instantly trumpeted in panic.
“Keep him quiet until we get out of here,” said a nervous Kamau as I joined him at the controls, “or he’ll wake up the whole city.”
I opened a panel to the back of the vehicle and spoke soothingly, and strangely enough the trumpeting ceased and the scuffling did stop. As I continued to calm the frightened beast, Kamau piloted the vehicle out of the laboratory complex. We passed through the Ngong Hills twenty minutes later, and circled around Thika in another hour. When we passed Kirinyaga—the true, snow-capped Kirinyaga, from which Ngai once ruled the world—90 minutes after that, I did not give it so much as a glance.
We must have been quite a sight to anyone we passed: two seemingly crazy old men, racing through the night in an unmarked cargo vehicle carrying a six-ton monster that had been extinct for more than two centuries.
“Have you considered what effect the radiation will have on him?” asked Kamau as we passed through Isiolo and continued north.
“I questioned my son about it,” I answered. “He is aware of the incident, and says that the contamination is confined to the lower levels of the mountain.” I paused. “He also tells me it will soon be cleaned up, but I do not think I believe him.”
“But Ahmed must pass through the radiation zone to ascend the mountain,” said Kamau.
I shrugged. “Then he will pass through it. Every day he lives is a day more than he would have lived in Nairobi. For as much time as Ngai sees fit to give him, he will be free to graze on the mountain’s greenery and drink deep of its cool waters.”
“I hope he lives many years,” he said. “If I am to be jailed for breaking the law, I would at least like to know that some lasting good came of it.”
“No one is going to jail you,” I assured him. “All that will happen is that you will be fired from a job that no longer exists.”
“That job supported me,” he said unhappily.
The Burning Spear would have no use for you, I decided. You bring no honor to his name. It is as I have always known: I am the last true Kikuyu.
I pulled my remaining money out of my pouch and held it out to him. “Here,” I said.
“But what about yourself, mzee?” he said, forcing himself not to grab for it.
“Take it,” I said. “I have no use for it.”
“Asante sana, mzee,” he said, taking it from my hand and stuffing it into a pocket. Thank you, mzee.
We fell silent then, each occupied with our own thoughts. As Nairobi receded further and further behind us, I compared my feelings with those I had experienced when I had left Kenya behind for Kirinyaga. I had been filled with optimism then, certain that we would create the Utopia I could envision so clearly in my mind.
The thing I had not realized is that a society can be a Utopia for only an instant—once it reaches a state of perfection it cannot change and still be a Utopia, and it is the nature of societies to grow and evolve. I do not know when Kirinyaga became a Utopia; the instant came and went without my noticing it.
Now I was seeking Utopia again, but this time of a more limited, more realizable nature: a Utopia for one man, a man who knew his own mind and would die before compromising. I had been misled in the past, so I was not as elated as the day we had left for Kirinyaga; being older and wiser, I felt a calm, quiet certitude rather than more vivid emotions.
An hour after sunrise, we came to a huge, green, fog-enshrouded mountain, set in the middle of a bleached desert. A single swirling dust devil was visible against the horizon.
We stopped, then unsealed the elephant’s compartment. We stood back as Ahmed stepped cautiously down the ramp, his every movement tense with apprehension. He took a few steps, as if to convince himself that he was truly on solid ground again, then raised his trunk to examine the scents of his new—and ancient—home.
Slowly the great beast turned toward Marsabit, and suddenly his whole demeanor changed. No longer cautious, no longer fearful, he spent almost a full minute eagerly examining the smells that wafted down to him. Then, without a backward glance, he strode confidently to the foothills and vanished into the foliage. A moment later we heard him trumpet, and then he was climbing the mountain to claim his kingdom.
I turned to Kamau. “You had better take the vehicle back before they come looking for it.”
“Are you not coming with me?” he asked, surprised.
“No,” I replied. “Like Ahmed, I will live out my days on Marsabit.”
“But that means you, too, must pass through the radiation.”
“What of it?” I said with an unconcerned shrug. “I am an old man. How much time can I have left—weeks? Months? Surely not a year. Probably the burden of my years will kill me long before the radiation does.”
“I hope you are right,” said Kamau. “I should hate to think of you spending your final days in agony.”
“I have seen men who live in agony,” I told him. “They are the old mz
ees who gather in the park each morning, leading lives devoid of purpose, waiting only for death to claim another of their number. I will not share their fate.”
A frown crossed his face like an early morning shadow, and I could see what he was thinking: he would have to take the vehicle back and face the consequences alone.
“I will remain here with you,” he said suddenly. “I cannot turn my back on Eden a second time.”
“It is not Eden,” I said. “It is only a mountain in the middle of a desert.”
“Nonetheless, I am staying. We will start a new Utopia. It will be Kirinyaga again, only done right this time.”
I have work to do, I thought. Important work. And you would desert me in the end, as they have all deserted me. Better that you leave now.
“You must not worry about the authorities,” I said in the same reassuring tones with which I spoke to the elephant. “Return the vehicle to my son and he will take care of everything.”
“Why should he?” asked Kamau suspiciously.
“Because I have always been an embarrassment to him, and if it were known that I stole Ahmed from a government laboratory, I would graduate from an embarrassment to a humiliation. Trust me: he will not allow this to happen.”
“If your son asks about you, what shall I tell him?”
“The truth,” I answered. “He will not come looking for me.”
“What will stop him?”
“The fear that he might find me and have to bring me back with him,” I said.
Kamau’s face reflected the battle that was going on inside him, his terror of returning alone pitted against his fear of the hardships of life on the mountain.
“It is true that my son would worry about me,” he said hesitantly, as if expecting me to contradict him, perhaps even hoping that I would. “And I would never see my grandchildren again.”
You are the last Kikuyu, indeed the last human being, that I shall ever see, I thought. I will utter one last lie, disguised as a question, and if you do not see through it, then you will leave with a clear conscience and I will have performed a final act of compassion.
