by M G Vassanji
When I told Papa the news later that night—he had waited up for me and greeted me as I entered the house—Papa looked me squarely in the eye and asked, Are you sure, Vic? You’re not letting the ladies push you into this?
No, Papa, I told him. I think it’s time to get married. And the girl is good.
He nodded with relief and a far-off look. Mother came on the scene, dishevelled from sleep, and upon hearing the news pressed her knuckles against my head and cried with happiness, her reservations all gone.
Is that all it took to get married? Yes, barring a few details like the horoscopes, which were found to be compatible, and some negotiations about what the bride would be bringing to the new home. The wedding was well publicized, a photo of my bride and me appearing in one of the Sunday papers in its nuptials page. The bride’s sari, it noted, was a brilliant red threaded with gold, and her jewellery shone like the sun, as befitted a jeweller’s daughter. The best man was Dilip, who gave a suitably sophisticated speech on my behalf, in the right accent. The reception was at the Nairobi Club, where prominent Indians delighted in rubbing shoulders with the few of the ruling elite who were known to me and were present. I was touted as a new rising star in the Nairobi firmament, and my in-laws were proud of me.
The Javeris were a large extended family who had branched out across five continents, in the true and caricatured Indian banya fashion, in order to minimize risk to the family’s assets. Thus my wife was a British citizen. In Nairobi the family consisted of old Bhimji Javeri and his wife, and their three sons and two daughters, all with their own families. Shobha was the daughter of the eldest son; she had two brothers and a sister.
I enjoyed their company and they treated me royally, as a son-in-law. They were simple and unpretentious folk who had amassed their wealth only recently, and their interests were rather limited. The talk at their home was money in all its facets, and every adult and most children among them understood the vicissitudes of the daily gold price, the value of the pound sterling and the dollar, and of the Tanzania and Uganda shillings. For my dowry I received a gold ingot, which remained in their safekeeping until I had a reliable safe of my own. On Sundays after the family meal at Bhimji-dada’s house, the men all liked to disrobe into pyjamas or dhotis before napping with their wives, then later would get together in the living room to watch wrestling programs from England, while chewing paan, drinking tea, and smoking cigarettes. The family was so extended, with uncles and aunts and cousins, I sometimes forgot whose wife was who, and the noisy and boisterous children seemed only to have proliferated since the previous time I took note of them.
My wife had a degree in economics and I would learn much about banking practices from her. But her heart was set in making a home. After our marriage we lived with my parents in their Parklands house, but less than a year later she insisted we move to our own place. Mother had aged, with grey in her hair and lines on her face, but she was still mistress of her home. The food cooked there was Punjabi, and Shobha was not only the junior wife but also an alien. She had to ask permission to include her Gujarati curries at mealtimes, which my parents evidently did not enjoy. She found my mother’s home economics too liberal and my parents’ relationship unnerving.
Before we departed the home, Shobha and I said our farewells to the gods on Mother’s puja table; Mother anointed our foreheads and put sweets in our mouths, and we bent and touched our parents’ feet and received their blessings. We gave a gift to our servant Pedro, who broke a coconut in the driveway for good luck, upon Mother’s instruction, and as we drove off to our house on Riverside Drive, Mother’s face was actually beaming. She was happy, if only for my sake, but her dreams of her grandchildren growing up in her lap were now gone.
By this time my wife was pregnant with our son Ami, short for Amitabh. Soon after we moved, my in-laws had a safe installed for me in the new house, behind our bedroom closet; it was a walk-in affair that could do a bank proud, and I would be forever thankful to them. I could now keep my gold ingot on a shelf inside, under the watchful eye of Goddess Lakshmi, whose picture Shobha had provided, and occasionally take a look at it and tell its worth from the daily gold price which I could not escape.
So this is it, my friend, marriage to a virgin Indian girl, a pack of children, and the straight family life. Rice and daal and chappati forever.
Paul Nderi was disappointed, he had meant to draw me out of the Asian quagmire as he called it. He had hopes for me, but hopes of what? Rose too was disappointed; I had sat with her sister Grace at two parties and driven her home, and Rose rather hoped something would come of that. Grace was pretty but a less flashy complement to her sister. I have wondered sometimes if I took the easy way out, but always come out with the answer, No. To the African I would always be the Asian, the Shylock; I would never escape that suspicion, that stigma. We lived in a compartmentalized society; every evening from the melting pot of city life each person went his long way home to his family, his church, his folk. To the Kikuyu, the Luo were the crafty, rebellious eggheads of Lake Victoria, the Masai backward naked nomads. The Meru prided themselves on being special, having descended from some wandering Semitic tribe. There were the Dorobo, the Turkana, the Boran, the Somali, the Swahili, each also different from the other. And then there were the Wahindi—the wily Asians who were not really African. What would Nderi draw me out into, when the week of my son’s birth he gave a speech, which I proofread, calling for all government jobs to be Africanized, meaning kept for blacks only? I brought him to task, telling him even Julius Nyerere of Tanzania had made a distinction between citizens and noncitizens, regardless of race—that was the democratic constitution of our countries. He answered that what he had said was what the unions wanted to hear and not to be taken seriously.
Nderi seemed always in the thick of secret meetings and conspiracies, whose major preoccupation, I gradually was coming to learn, was the Presidential succession: who would be the new father of the nation, the President, after Mzee, who was old and ailing? From which of Kenya’s many peoples would this man emerge to bear the shield? My boss was said to belong to a secret Inner Circle of the President’s men, who had sworn to keep the presidency among themselves, or at least within the Kikuyu people. This was a subject I dared not show my awareness of before him, especially as the existence of the Circle and its dark machinations had been hotly denied by the government.
One day Okello Okello came to visit the minister. Okello, a charismatic politician whose colour dimmed only in the presence of Mzee Kenyatta, had been the latter’s strongest supporter when he was in prison. In the past Okello had been seen as Kenyatta’s heir. But with his socialist leanings and communist friends, he had gradually fallen out with the President and the government, and he had organized a strong opposition with the support of his people, the Luo of Lake Victoria. The meeting with Paul Nderi was secret, though outside in reception Rose and I and Okello’s two men could hear loud arguing. Okello finally came out in a huff, saying, Don’t think you lot can bribe or threaten us and keep the power away from us. Trailing his long robes behind him and adjusting his beaded cap, he left; a flustered Paul stood watching outside his door, muttering for my benefit,
Says the President did not eat at his house in Kisumu. The President is no fool, does he want to eat poisoned fish? These Luo people are smart, beware their hospitality. They extract poisons from the lake, which even the Americans know nothing about. Now he’s threatening riots in Kisumu, the devil.
Wouldn’t the Luo hosts eat the same fish as the President if he accepted their hospitality, I asked just to be obtuse.
He glared at me. Then he said, He’s not the man to help your uncle.
Mahesh Uncle had been living in India for several years now, ever since he went to Delhi for Grandfather Verma’s funeral rites. Having deposited the ashes in the Ganges and toured the country for a few weeks, when he returned to Delhi he was refused a permit by the Kenyan Embassy to return home. In vain he explained that his
application for Kenyan citizenship was pending; that he was an assistant to the minister Okello Okello, whom he had accompanied in a delegation to Moscow; and that he had a wife and children in Nairobi who were all born there. Our efforts for him in Nairobi were to no avail either. A decision had evidently been made higher up in government to keep him out. Finally his family had to join him in India.
Earlier, as Okello entered our office and I was introduced to him by Paul, I told him I was Mahesh Verma’s nephew and received a hearty handshake. But when I told the man how desperately my uncle wanted to return to Kenya from India, Okello had shaken his head: I think it’s best for him there.
This attitude only confirmed the bitter conclusion my family had come to, that Mahesh Uncle had been shamelessly let down by the man whom he had served. Okello’s office had done nothing for my uncle’s case.
Why don’t you help, then? I said to Paul.
He eyed me again. Maybe Double-O is right, your uncle is better off there, in the homeland.
Next you’ll tell me I’m better off there too, in the land of my ancestors, I muttered.
Touchy, touchy, he said.
I knew I had trodden on thin ground. But I had Paul’s confidence and this had made me bolder.
Rose suddenly appeared, having changed into an imitation leopard-skin outfit with matching purse and red beret and shoes, looking quite striking. She was a couple of inches taller than he. Want to come out with us, to the Casino? Paul asked, rubbing his hands as if ready to grab his mistress. I shook my head. Grace is waiting downstairs, Rose put in, and I shook my head again, as Paul watched with a sardonic grin and a nod.
I admire you, he said, unable to resist a taunt, but I wouldn’t be you. Life is way too short—but you folks believe in reincarnation, don’t you? You should return as an African when you die. By the way, how are the funds doing? Tell that man it’s Johnny-O this week, he said, talking in code and referring to Narandas, and then explained blithely to Rose: A little bit of betting on the side, my dear. She put her arm into his, and they walked away to the elevator, her Italian high heels echoing down the corridor.
The code was simple. The recipients of the foreign grants that I managed were designated Johnny-O, Tommy-One, Phil-Three, Sammy-Four, and so on. I simply had to call Narandas and say in Gujarati, Johnny-O na char, and whoever was Johnny-O went and picked up four hundred thousand shillings from the shop on Muindi Mbingu Street. Sometimes Gerald, who was a teacher at the Maxwell International School, would call me when a donation had arrived and was ready for pickup; sometimes Narandas would tell me that the account was running low or was in overdraft, and I would call Gerald. A meeting would be set up.
I did not query who the mysterious code-named personages were who had been designated to receive the grants. My role required secrecy and discretion, and I was aware that the less I knew outside of that role, the better it was for me. I was simply an intermediary between the donors and the beneficiaries.
Unwittingly though, I did find out who one of these beneficiaries was.
On a Saturday I took a family friend of my in-laws, who was visiting from England, on a visit to the downtown stores to hunt for curios. As we left the city market, loaded with kiondo-baskets, and crossed the street to Narandas’s, where I could presumably expect a good discount on the likes of carved giraffes and African combs, who should we bump into than Paul Nderi with a bulging briefcase, waving a hasty goodbye to the smiling shopkeeper. I would have made something of this accident even had Paul not looked absolutely startled and Narandas looked away in shame.
It was Rochester-educated Paul who was Johnny-O, the largest recipient of those grants. He had a palatial house in Muthaiga and a vast estate outside Naivasha, and he was one of the owners of the new JQS Tower rising ever taller on Kimathi Street, in that constricted heart of our city that could only burgeon skywards. I was truly shaken by my discovery; though I realized that Paul could be using the sums he collected (how much of them?) as Johnny-O for any number of the political activities he was involved in. There the matter lay as far as I was concerned. In all, I believe two and a half million dollars of those foreign grants must have passed through my hands, a staggering sum in those days, yet not so very great on the scale of my involvements later in life.
I was doing well in my job with Paul Nderi; the salary was modest, in accordance with government schedules, but the Christmas bonuses from Paul, in thick flabby envelopes, were hugely generous, and I could hardly refuse the car and house allowance he gave me. One day in my absence the two Americans Jim and Gerald left a thick manila envelope full of hard currency at my home as a present for Shobha’s birthday and I let her convince me to put the sum aside for a rainy day, just in case. Perhaps I was influenced by my boss Paul Nderi’s cold calculations. Once he had uttered an aphorism: If you don’t take it, someone else will; but if you take it, my friend, at least you could do someone some good.
How right that sounds.
Total corruption, I’ve been told, occurs in inches and proceeds through veils of ambiguity.
Recently, Seema asked me in all seriousness, How does one swindle a sum like three hundred million dollars? This is the sum associated with my publicized misdeeds that she’s gleaned from the Internet. I answered her, It’s simply a matter of scale, you can play poker with penny chips or million-dollar chips, the game is the same.
She gave me a brief, hard stare to check if I was serious. I very much was. I puzzle her. I have no explanations for myself either. My life simply happened, without deep designs on my part. Perhaps this narration of my life will explain me to myself. Perhaps it won’t.
Spring has arrived; we’ve had some deliciously sunny and warm days. I’ve been tending the garden a bit, tidying up the beds, turning or replenishing the soil. The Agatha Christie Society, under Seema Chatterji’s direction, will soon adjourn for the summer. Lately they occupied a local inn for a mystery weekend. The event ended with a masquerade ball, in which there were quite an assortment of Poirots and Marples. I went in a plain brown suit, and she told me it was perfect and straight out of a beloved Christie yarn. The Society is planning a Caribbean cruise in early winter.
I don’t think I will last that long here, I tell her in reply to her invitation, I have to face my accusers and start functioning again.
This is the first time I have hinted that I might go back to Kenya. We are sitting out on my porch with beers, enjoying the bright clear weather; children have come out to play in the ample and mostly bare backyard that stretches right out to the lake; a nursery rhyme from my own childhood comes to mind; steam from the nuclear reactor in distant Darlington appears to have drawn a long white arc in the blue sky. Seema looks up sharply at my comment and says:
Don’t you have a whole squad of hitmen looking for you there?
I’ll have to find a way around that, I tell her.
I could be found here too, but I don’t say that out aloud. Joseph has only to mention my whereabouts on the Internet, either inadvertently or out of righteous indignation at my misdeeds against the country. I have received some silent phone calls, which are probably wrong-number calls, but still. The neighbours’ dog, who barks at every shadow and whisper of wind, is a good alarm signal, and I have an emergency hideaway, just in case—not as excellent as the steel-walled walk-in safe my in-laws installed for me (it has still not been discovered), but it will do. And I subscribe to the MuKenya Patriot newsletter on the Internet under a false name, in case I get mentioned there. Its contributors continue to demand an end to corruption in Kenya. Their obsession, though, remains the “genocide” of their Kikuyu compatriots in the Rift Valley; calls for revenge and the overthrow of the government refuse to fade away. Where will they lead?
TWENTY-FIVE.
Mzee. The Old Man with the white goatee and deep-set magus eyes.
So much has been said of him, mostly negative nowadays…the greed and nepotism, the selling of the country, the purported deal with his British jailer
s, the betrayal of the freedom fighters…even the acquiescence to murder in his name; yet he was, remains, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, the one and only; we delight to quote him to each other as we would an old father; we agree we would have been a lot poorer without him.
He was fatherly, this man the British claimed masterminded the Mau Mau uprising, whom they convicted in a kangaroo court. We know he didn’t mastermind the movement, his name merely lent prestige to it, and its reputation in return gave him the aura of menace and power.
Paul Nderi came rolling and puffing into the offices one day, checked for messages with Rose at her desk, then turned around and said to me as I approached, Come, hurry, I’ll take you to meet the Man himself.
I looked up in confusion and he said, The President—Mzee Kenyatta—he wants to meet and thank you in person, Vikram Lall.
I could only gasp incomprehensibly and follow him out, with a helpless look at Rose. My heart palpitated all the way to the State House. I racked my brains for words I would say to Mzee. How would I address him? What would a man such as he think of someone like me? Beside me Paul smiled wryly. He had no explanation except that Mzee had said he wanted to meet me. In silence we both stared out the car windows. He seemed a little on edge himself, as he always did before his meetings with the President.
The Old Man started his days late and so we had gone at eleven. I had never been to the State House, a lovely-looking white colonial building glimpsed in parts from the road outside, over its trim deep green hedges and through thick canopies of cassia trees with their yellow flowers. It was the rainy season and the morning air everywhere in Nairobi smelt of damp earth, and more so at this arboreal address. The sun, though, was beginning to shine through at that hour, the day was warming. Past the gatehouse, at various points on the driveway and outside the building, stood languid-looking soldiers in camouflage outfits carrying automatic weapons; they would look bigger, more threatening, and greater in number as the years passed. A policeman waved Paul in at the entrance and searched me, then I followed my boss as he swung past two mammoth elephant tusks mounted on stands and into the VIP reception room. We drank Coca-Cola and waited, Paul bantering with the secretary, inquiring from her what mood to expect Mzee to be in. Cantankerous, was her answer; his stomach was bothering him and he had been receiving complaints about his ministers. And “that Nakuru man”—meaning the outspoken MP J.M. Kariuki—was causing him ulcers; he should be taught a lesson. They joked about the Old Man’s rather frank public utterances; Mzee was not one for niceties and euphemisms in his speeches to the people. Once, he had pronounced to a crowd of thousands, There are those who say I am no longer man—eti I cannot get it up—but you just ask my wife here if that is true! His beautiful young wife stood giggling behind him. The crowd roared. Then there was the time when he asked the young women of the nation why they willingly opened their legs all the time and then complained about the men when they got pregnant.
