Mission

by Philip Spires

  And then she saw KPY. The white Mercedes stood close behind Father Michael’s car and was now blocked in by a herd of cows wandering down the road. It was KPY. It took some minutes before the confusion born of shock and grief began to dissolve and thus allow her to apportion blame. Surely this was God’s work. Surely only He could have presented her with such an opportunity.

  In a shocked instant, all her grief dissolved. Her tears dried and all the hate and anger, which her self-pity had enclosed for over two years, begged for release. It seemed like instinct itself, which brought her to her feet and demanded she walk briskly but with dignity intact toward the car she knew so well. Boniface was so surprised by the speed of her movement that he did not even have time to call her name as she left him. He began to follow, but her shouted words stopped him dead in his tracks.

  “Take it! Take it!” she screamed at the man inside the car. The window of the passenger door was still closed, but from his agitation, it was clear that he could hear what she said.

  Charles Mulonzya wound down the window and reached out towards her. With a defiant shove, he tried to push her away from the car, but, belying her small and fragile frame, she was now surprisingly strong. His hands slipped awkwardly as she sidestepped his lunge toward her.

  With lightning speed and single-minded accuracy, she shoved her baby’s corpse into the car through the open window. “This is what you planted inside me, John! Take it! Take it! It can replace the one which really was yours and which you never wanted to know!”

  Charles Mulonzya squirmed sideways across the front of the car and bundled himself into the driver’s seat. He shouted something out of the window that only those people on that side of the car heard above the rest of the commotion. “There seems to be some mistake. This woman thinks I am someone else...” And then the Mercedes’ engine started. The windows began to rise by themselves as if by magic, and threatened to trap Josephine’s arms as they reached across to try to catch hold of the jacket of the man she knew as John. And then KPY lurched forward, knocking over three of the assembled onlookers. They were not hurt and immediately got up and ran aside, out of the car’s way. The others also got the message and rushed as if with one mind out of the obvious path of the car. With Josephine momentarily disengaged, her continued attempts to grab something which the side of the car might present were rendered futile by its immense power, Charles took his chance. Reaching across to the passenger seat, he took hold of the bundle that had fallen onto the floor. Reluctantly, as if handling something that was fundamentally and inherently dirty, he picked it up. With a simple manoeuvre which never actually exposed any part of the wrapper’s contents, he opened the driver’s door and dropped the whole thing onto the road, an act which very few - but at least some - of the onlookers registered. With a dull, almost silent thud, the dead child fell into the road and the white car sped off with a screech from its tyres, forcing its way through the milling people and cows which now filled the road. While Boniface continued to watch and listen to the now constant repetitions of his wife’s words, he became oblivious to the nearby plight of Father Michael, to everything in fact, save his own latent desires.

  Munyasya

  Munyasya troubled people little. The less he interfered in their day the better it was for everyone. Nevertheless, he was never ignored. He had become a part of the town, an apparently permanent feature of its life. Wherever he went, all attention was automatically his. His every wish or whim was answered, though usually he demanded nothing, and his every incomprehensible word was heeded and interpreted by anyone who might hear. He was capable of talking continually to himself in a gravelly speech, which, for the most part, was no more than a breathless whisper, a mumble whining from the chest. Hidden beneath the lank strands of saliva-matted hair which formed his full, but straggling moustache and beard, his lips could often hardly be seen to move as he spoke, so his voice seemed more of his body than his mouth. His chest, naked and hairless, possessed the concavity of decrepit old age, his entire body appearing bottom-heavy as if the organs it once held and supported had slipped to the depths of his distended belly, the breath fuelling his words coming more from the gut than the lungs. If he spoke louder, his stomach would heave, swell and contract like a wrinkled balloon, mimicking the rise and fall of his voice.

  This was Munyasya, old, weary and weak, his blank, dark eyes clouded red with drink, dressed only in torn shorts and the brown remains of a raincoat; but always all this was proudly topped by an army officer’s hat, with a resplendent shiny black peak. The regular polishing of this, with spit and a vigorous rub with a torn flap of his coat, was his only, but dutifully, if sometimes inaccurately, performed daily chore. As a result, though the peak still shone, the rest of the hat was blotched with stains where wayward gobs had been rubbed into the felt. Thus he sits each day beneath the shade of the broad acacia in the market place, his spidery legs spread like broken twigs from a felled bush that was never quite a tree, until the bottle that he never releases is again empty.

  Then he rises to his feet and, with the slow laboured deliberation of the destitute, he begins to hobble, to shuffle short step by short step, his movement so heavy that the dust beneath his feet might be mire. Without his stick he could surely never walk. It seems to take the entire weight of his double-bent body, so that his legs might be released from their burden to edge forward, hindered only by their own weakness. Slowly, deliberately, his bent form crosses the shadeless open ground of the market-place until he reaches the bar, his goal, towards which surely only instinct guides him now, since there can be little sight left in his eyes.

  This bar, whose crude, rusty tin roof cracks and creaks in the ever present Migwani wind, whose mud walls melt with each storm; this is Munyasya’s goal. He is known here. This small rectangular hut, windowless yet draughty and cool is his only true home now, the only sanctuary that he himself knows. Inside it is surprisingly light. Walls, which appear from the outside to be featureless and dark, are transformed on entering. In fact they are painted white, though a white which in places has faded badly. Near the earth floor, the walls display brown rivulet stains where liquids of various types have spilled or splashed. Higher up, a grand repeated image contrasts with the stronger, less discoloured white. A gaping wide-eyed hunter is wrestling with a snake that is coiling both its body and its absurdly long tongue about his limbs. Waving above and below this painting is a motto in Kikamba that roughly translated could mean, “One finger alone cannot kill fleas.”

  On entering, he says nothing, yet, as always, he appears to speak constantly, thus demanding the attention of all assembled there, but never quite divulging the only part-heard secrets in his voice. Having crossed the room in his methodical, machine-like but stalling step, he habitually slams down his empty bottle onto the plastic-topped counter, always neatly avoiding the wide metal grille which stretches from bar to roof (there is no ceiling) to protect the till from those who, in the past, have been tempted to grab what they can and run (but never very far).

  Maluki, the barman, and the latest in a long line of renowned brewers of uki, a home-brew of sugar and water, then fills the bottle from his apparently bottomless jug and places it on the counter. Not a word is said. Sometimes, there is not even a glance of either greeting or acknowledgement for Munyasya. The sooner the job is done, the sooner the old man will go and leave the customers in peace and untroubled.

  Two heavy raps of the bottle on the counter is the sign that it is full and then, somehow, the old man’s hands grope and feel their way until they find their prize. And they grasp it. Then, like clockwork he raises the bottle to his lips (to check that it has been filled to the top?) and with a new smile lighting his entire face finally turns to begin his shuffling hobble back to the tree, his shade, his rest.

  There he dozes away the long hours of daylight, occasionally drinking his beer, taking no more than a sip each time, until the shivering cold of darkness forces hi
m to cross the square back to the bar once again. There, after another refill of the bottle, he sits in a corner on the bare earth floor and sleeps, untroubled and ignored, still grasping his beer bottle as if he dare not let it go.

  When morning comes, he awakens at sunrise when the first warming rays from the east filter through the bar’s holed and unhinged door. He gently pats the rough ground at his side with the palms of his hands until he finds the food which Maluki always provides, unasked. Always ignoring the spoon, which nevertheless the barman never forgets to supply, he eats his daily ration of boiled goat’s liver and bread with his fingers. It is his only meal of the day, indeed of any day, and it is consumed, without enjoyment, but with gratitude and vigour. He knows that this food is expensive and in limited supply, much sought after by all those who over the years have lost their teeth and cannot chew tough meat or grains and pulses. But this gratitude never overflows into expressions of thanks to Maluki. After all, as an old man, destitute perhaps, is it not his right that the young should tend to his needs?

  At last, amid grunts of morning stiffness, he empties from his bottle of beer any dregs remaining from the previous night before presenting it again at the bar for another charge. Now ready to begin his day, he again stumbles across the market square to the shade of the acacia, now known by everyone as ‘Munyasya’s tree’, to mumble, drink and doze his way through the hours of daylight, always unhindered and untroubled by those going about their business around him. There he remains, apparently ignored, but yet inevitably the focus of many minds that privately fear him, or, more accurately, what they believe lives within him.

  It was not Munyasya the decrepit old man whom people feared. Munyasya, the old, weak and destitute alcoholic, was no more than part of the landscape here. For all people cared about this bone-bag, he could have been just another of the acacia’s spindling roots, as he sat beneath his tree through the heat of the day. Neither was it Munyasya’s seniority in the community that called for respect. He was old, perhaps the oldest man in the town, who could know? But though age alone is worthy of some respect, it is the wisdom which accompanies it which provokes the greater part of peoples’ fear of the old and, in this state, no one could claim wisdom on his behalf. It was another Munyasya, unknown perhaps even to himself, that people feared. He was not seen often, this other Munyasya, but whenever he showed his voice, people would listen, and invariably scoff at what they heard, but they would keep their distance, never contradicting, never intervening.

  Once a renowned officer in the King’s African Rifles, he had fallen victim to a purge after his country’s independence from colonial rule. Somewhere within complicated layers of internecine conflict, a number of important strands combined to result in Munyasya and many other senior figures like him being swiftly replaced. It may have been that the dominant Kikuyu power block within the new government saw the mainly Akamba and Luo officer class in the army as a potential threat. It may have been that Munyasya, and others like him, were seen as too imbued with the very essence of British militarism and all that went with it, such as assumptions about class, fitness to rule, worthiness to act. Surely here was a group that would act collectively, itself, in the future, if the nation did not appear to be upholding those values that they themselves held in unquestioning esteem. Or perhaps it was merely that a new nation needed a new beginning in all manifestations of its identity. A new nation cannot be built on old ways of thinking.

  Whatever their motive, the new rulers, with a swiftness of action which in later years they would sadly lose, pensioned off many existing army officers and commissioned those of similar minds to their own from the ranks to replace them. Brigadier Munyasya (when he, himself, told the story) or Major Munyasya (when others repeated it, later) was one of those removed after a long and distinguished, if somewhat servile career. He was already long past retirement age, of course, but then no one, not even the man, himself, knew exactly how old he was. He had certainly served at least forty years and probably fifty, because his name - or at least variants of it - could be traced through various identities right back to the East Africa Campaign during World War One, when, as a boy, he had been drafted as a porter to trek after an army which searched valiantly, but found there was no war to fight. He survived the cholera, dysentery, influenza and malaria that killed so many of his fellows and saw the campaign through to its conclusion. Unlike the vast majority of his fellows, however, he was filled with awe and ambition by the experience so, when the Carrier Corps was disbanded and, almost to a man settled new land near Nairobi, thereafter known as Kariokor, Munyasya joined the army proper as a private. His progress at first was slow. He never had an education, could neither read nor write his name, could not even remember, after spending three formative years of his youth trekking the plains of German East Africa, how to plough, tend animals or weed a field of millet. But after the arrival from England of one Major Thomas Cunningham, Munyasya’s combined life and career took an important turn.

  Munyasya Maluki became the young officer’s personal valet, a post to which he was admirably suited in the opinion of his Commanding Officer. “Munyasya is a true Mukamba”, the CO told Major Cunningham. “He is happy, polite, well-disciplined and docile. He will serve you loyally and well, but never once let him forget his subordinate status. Treat him as you would treat a child, because too much freedom is not good for these people. They have not yet learned how to handle it or use it.” Major Cunningham never forgot this advice and, over the years, followed it to the letter and hardly a day went by when he was dissatisfied with his servant.

  Munyasya was both privately and publicly proud of his position and saw it unquestionably as a privileged promotion. Not only did it release him from much of the inane drudgery of day-to-day army life, but also, in time, afforded him numerous material and preferential privileges which came as reward for his continued, dedicated and faithful service. He gradually began to look upon Cunningham as a kind of substitute father, a replacement for the now shadowy stranger of a stepfather he had left behind in the bush those years ago when he had first enlisted. Major Cunningham was rock-solid in his belief in the universality of Anglican high-church morality. Its culture had moulded his entire life and beliefs, with the persona he presented to the world nothing but its manifestation in miniature. He thus felt privileged to adopt this role of joint commander and guardian of his own Munyasya. After all had he not already had the experience of bringing up his own children to appreciate what was right and wrong? Thus convinced of the absolute truth of his own convictions, Cunningham became a stern but concerned teacher, a rigid but caring father, a demanding but understanding superior. In Munyasya he found a pupil eager to learn, a ward eager to imitate, a subordinate eager to share the rewards of coordinated effort. In some not too distant future, the young man saw what he believed were the inevitable rewards of self-advancement which would flow from his opportunity. After all, it had worked for his master, and it would work for him.

  Soon, on the advice of his master, Munyasya was baptized a Christian, taking the name Edward as his reward, naming himself after the English King, whose so memorable photograph had hung on the wall of the District Commissioner’s office he had once visited as a child. He had accompanied his stepfather, who was trying to lodge a claim to a piece of land the family thought they already owned. The boy’s jaw had sagged at the sight of that giant face framed in black on the wall, a face he saw as upside down, with all the hair at the bottom. The step-father, amused at his son’s immediate fright, had bent over to bring his own face to the boy’s level and pointed, encouraging him to say the words, “King Edward.” From that day until his enforced retirement many years later, he himself insisted that he should be called Edward and only Edward. He had also later tried, for decades, to emulate that beard, a style named king’ethwa, King Edward, in his own language of Kikamba, but had managed only a straggly, and now matted and dirty fuzz.

  He even insisted on having
Maluki, the name he had been told his own father had borne, erased from his papers, replacing it with Nzoka, his proud step-father’s name. Soon, however, an idea came like a revelation, a vision revealed through his contact with his European masters. After all, he had never known his father, or hardly even his stepfather, for that matter, and could see no reason to retain an identity that he had long since left behind. So Private Edward Munyasya, he became, dropping any reference to father or stepfather, thus turning his back on any identity other than his own. And so he stayed, until many years later. Those who ignored his wish, and continued to link him by name to a paternal identity he now wished to deny, he would learn to shun, as unworthy of his friendship. Of course, it was the Europeans in his life who more readily used his Christian name, whereas his fellow Akamba would invariably use the name that more easily rested on their ear. And so Munyasya shunned his original identity and became Private Edward in another world. As years passed, and as those who had known him dispersed or died, new generations knew him only as Edward, but by then his rank had changed and so, therefore, had his name. All those years later, as an old alcoholic, arguably insane and mouthing again the name of a father, he would be heard to deny that any Christian baptism had ever taken place.

  Under Major Cunningham’s tuition, Private Edward learned quickly, religiously upheld all the virtues he was taught and, in time, gained not only the confidence but also the friendship of his master. For some years he followed Cunningham from one posting to another throughout East Africa, but never, it must be said, home to England during the periods of leave. It was during these months that Private Edward first mischievously and then at others’ behest, played at being his superior, taking on the airs and graces and even some of the functions of his master, in order to keep the office running. It was during these periods that the now literate Private Edward identified himself for the promotions that soon followed.