And Then Life Happens: A Memoir

by Auma Obama

  Along with my father and Uncle Were, this second uncle, a lawyer, had been among the “chosen ones” who had been granted a Western higher education. This privilege was bound up with the lifelong duty to provide for the welfare of those who had remained behind.

  All the chosen ones were confronted with these expectations, whether they were financially capable of fulfilling them or not. They were deeply convinced that they owed something to their families. For them it was understood that what belonged to them also belonged to the extended family. Among our relatives, it had therefore become routine, when in financial straits, to go to my father—after all, he was doing better than they were in this respect—or to Uncle Were. But the number of relatives in need far surpassed their capabilities. In those days, the Obama family did not include many educated members with good incomes. Most of them had neither a well-paying job like my father nor a thriving business like Uncle Were. Even if it had been their intention, they could not have helped all the family members in need. Nonetheless, they tried to do everything in their power.

  But now Uncle Were, the second supporting pillar of the family, was dead. The fact that two of his closest allies had died within such a short time hit my father hard. I saw him suffering, here in a foreign country, far away from home. But how was I supposed to console him? Although our evening together had been going very pleasantly until we received the news of Uncle Were’s death, and I had felt a little bit closer to my father, I was incapable of mustering the necessary sympathy to stand by him in his grief. That would have meant letting him in emotionally, and I was simply not prepared to do that.

  I stood in the doorway between our hotel rooms and looked over at my father lying on the bed and weeping, incapable of going to him. The ever-present thick, impenetrable wall of pain and disappointment, undoubtedly mixed with awe and shyness, stood between us. I balked at acknowledging my father’s suffering. And what amazed me was that at that moment I even felt an old resentment welling up in me again.

  When I saw him there in his grief, I could not help thinking of how often I myself would have needed more comforting. He had never been there for me, I now told myself defiantly. How often had he come to console me? And now I was supposed to comfort him? I was too proud and too worried about my own emotional equilibrium to feel sympathy.

  Ultimately, I was deeply afraid that with one step in his direction I would be overwhelmed by all the pain of the past years that I had so successfully suppressed, and would be left alone and defenseless with those feelings. And yet I suffered inwardly with my father. He looked so helpless and sad—completely devastated. He called me over to him, but I stood motionless in the doorway. I could not go to him. Today, I tell myself that as his daughter it was hard for me to bear seeing my father so weak and hurt—this man, of all people, who was always supposed to be a vital support.

  My fears preoccupied me so much that I completely forgot to mourn the person whose death had started the whole drama, Uncle Were, whom I had really loved.

  I will always remember the sadness of that evening—in particular because those were to be the last hours my father and I would spend together. The next time I saw him, my father was lying in a coffin.

  15.

  A YEAR AFTER my father had mourned the passing of the “strong men” in the family, I, too, got a shocking phone call one evening. I was informed—almost fatefully—of another deadly car accident. This time my father was the victim. My father was no longer alive.

  I received the call from Aunty Jane. At that point, I had regular contact with her and always found out the latest family developments from her.

  “Auma, are you still there?” she asked worriedly.

  Her news had rendered me speechless. I couldn’t get a word out and struggled for air.

  “Can you hear me?” Now she spoke louder and sounded almost frightened.

  I began to cry. The most important person in my life was dead. Suddenly I grasped it, and a horrible sense of loss overwhelmed me.

  “Yes, I’m still here,” I sobbed softly. “I’m coming home.”

  I hung up and just kept staring at the phone. Unable to budge, I remained in the small telephone booth.

  How was it possible that the brief sentence that had just reached my ear through that small contraption could cause me such boundless pain? Pain I had not even suspected I was capable of feeling. Why did it hurt so much? Hadn’t I been angry with my father? Hadn’t I experienced as recently as in Rotterdam that I scarcely felt anything for him? Those were all questions for which I had no answers. As I stood in the small, dark booth and the tears ran soundlessly down my face, I knew only one thing: My father was gone.

  After his return from the United States eighteen years earlier, his death in 1982 now meant a radical change in my life for the second time. I felt as if the most important organ had been torn out of my body and my air cut off. While I had previously thought of my father only with mixed, mostly defensive feelings, I now felt an irrepressible longing to see him again, to talk to him and tell him that I loved him and understood his woes, which were mine, too.

  In a horrible way, it suddenly became clear to me that all the years I had fought against my father and refused him my affection, I had basically only been struggling for his love, and that my own suppression of feelings for him, my early quest for independence, the escape to Germany, and even my striving to get good grades at the university had arisen only from the desire to show him that I was worthy of him.

  Years later, long after my father’s death, a good friend of his told me that he had been very proud of me and had always told all his friends about his wonderful daughter in Germany.

  * * *

  Eventually I left the telephone booth and went back to my room.

  At that time, I was a member of a dance group known as the Afro-Ballet-Ensemble. It included several German and foreign professional and amateur dancers. In our choreography, we incorporated dance styles like Afro dance, modern dance, classical ballet, disco, and break dancing in an idiosyncratic way. Our goal was to combine different dance cultures in order to present their similarities and commonalities and playfully highlight the contrasts.

  The dance group had an international character: Jai, our choreographer, was from Peru; Patrice, José, and Felix were French with Caribbean roots; Susanne came from Germany; Elfie from Ghana; and I from Kenya. Now and then, dancers from other countries joined us, too.

  With Jai, who was my flat mate for a period of time, I also had a close friendship outside of the dance group. I appreciated her sense of humor and her ability to alleviate difficult situations.

  When the news of my father’s death reached me, we were in a phase of daily rehearsals, because several performances were coming up. After long months of intense work, the first performance was to take place that week and another shortly thereafter. During the preparations for my trip to Nairobi, I decided not to fly until after these performances.

  After a last rehearsal, we all sat together.

  “You don’t have to dance with us. Go ahead and leave right away,” Jai had said with concern when I told the group that my father had died, but I would not be flying home until after the second performance.

  “I’ll still arrive on time even if I wait until after the performances,” I explained. “There’s nothing I can do to change the situation anyway, and I wouldn’t want to fly home early either.” But with these last words, I almost lost my self-control. The thought of being among my many grieving relatives, as they mourned the death of the man who was truly the last and most generous of all the chosen ones in the extended Obama family, was crushing.

  Another voice from the group spoke up. “But you don’t have to dance, Auma. Really!”

  “You’re not doing me any favors by saying that,” I protested. “Now, of all times, I need to.”

  I tried to smile. But everyone only stared at me worriedly. They wanted to comfort me, but didn’t know how.

  “Come on, pe
ople—get up! Let’s dance.”

  I gave Jai a grateful look. She had grasped that what I needed now more than anything else was distraction. She went to the cassette recorder, pressed play, and when the music came on, I stood up with relief. All I wanted to do was dance. Forget everything and dance, dance, as if my life depended on it.

  * * *

  I no longer remember clearly the details of my journey to my father’s funeral. I remember only that the tears I had so successfully suppressed after the first shock eventually began to flow and did not stop until I was in Kenya.

  Someone—I no longer recall who—must have picked me up from the airport in Nairobi. The next thing I see in my mind’s eye is myself getting out of the car in the Upper Hill neighborhood of Nairobi in front of the small row house in which my father had lived in the end and entering a room full of people. The whole house was filled with relatives, but I couldn’t really make anyone out through the blur of my tears. From that moment on, there is a gaping hole in my memory, extending to the point when my father was to be buried in Alego next to his father.

  There I see myself standing at the coffin, and I remember looking at my father’s face through a small glass window at the head of the raised coffin. His skin seemed lifeless, very black, but at the same time it was as if there were a sort of gray film over it. Although I recognized my father’s features, I knew that he was no longer lying there. He was already gone and no longer among us. For a long time, I remained at the coffin as if in a dream, until someone gently nudged me aside. Others wanted to say good-bye to him, too.

  What would my father, who placed so much value on quality and a good appearance, have said about the fact that he would be buried in such an ugly wooden box? I simply could not grasp why he had to die so young. He had been only forty-three years old. I couldn’t get it through my head that a car accident had been enough to end his life, especially as he had barely any external injuries. But I shied away from looking into his death in more detail.

  * * *

  When I realized that I had suffered amnesia in the days before my father’s funeral, I told myself that I had clearly not been able to cope emotionally with this sudden loss any more than with thoughts about how he had died. Only many years later did I ask my Aunt Marsat, my father’s second-youngest sister, what had happened back then. For I had heard during a casual conversation with family members that there had apparently been unanswered questions about the circumstances that had led to my father’s death. Indignantly, I asked my aunt why no one had gotten to the bottom of the matter at the time.

  “None of us had the necessary money or connections to make inquiries. All of us felt powerless. That’s why we didn’t do anything, as much as it pained us,” my Aunt Marsat explained to me.

  At her words, I was beset by a horrible sense of powerlessness. But whom could I blame? At the time of his death, I had already been living far from Kenya and the family for over two years, and had for a long time had nothing to do with my father’s life and had made no effort to get to know his friends. I wouldn’t have known how to use his influential acquaintances to get help clearing up his car accident.

  And what would have been the point? My father was dead. Inquiries would not have brought him back to life. Instead, the struggle for the truth about his senseless death only would have caused me more pain, more hardship. But now I wanted to learn every detail, especially about his funeral. Because I had practically no memory of that event, I had Aunt Marsat tell me everything.

  * * *

  Osumba, as we called Aunt Marsat at the time, had lived with my father until his fatal accident. After the divorce from Ruth, he had not married again and lived alone until he asked Aunt Marsat, who is only a year younger than I, to move in with him. Abongo had moved out long ago and was studying in Nairobi.

  My father liked being with Osumba. She is a small, gentle person with a kind face, and her calm temperament was well suited to his taciturn, introverted nature. Her presence certainly helped him not to feel so lonely.

  “Shortly before your father died, he had flown to Libya as the leading economist with representatives of the government to a delegation meeting of the OAU, the Organization of African Unity. There, he suffered from eye problems, was examined by a doctor, and returned to Nairobi sooner than planned to get further treatment here. Even though he was on sick leave, he went to the ministry every day for a few hours.”

  Typical, I thought, as I listened to my aunt with rapt attention.

  “At that time he was assigned to participate in a meeting with the president of the World Bank,” she went on. “This took place in the Norfolk Hotel, here in Nairobi.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked her.

  “Because your father told me. He always told me where he was and what he was doing.”

  She said that so matter-of-factly that I had to believe her. Strange, I thought. I did not remember my father as someone who confided in others about his affairs. Suddenly, I saw my aunt with completely different eyes, and I have to admit that I was a little bit jealous.

  “He never returned from that meeting,” my aunt went on with unmistakable anger in her voice. “At the time, he was already with Jael, and little George was not yet a year old.”

  Jael had been romantically involved with my father at the time. She moved in with him when Aunt Marsat was living with him. Shortly before he died, Jael bore him a son: George.

  I nodded. I wanted her to go on talking about my father.

  “As it got later and later and he didn’t show up, Jael and I began to worry. We tried to persuade ourselves that he had gone out after the meeting. But the next day he still wasn’t there.” My aunt rubbed her eyes, and for a second I thought she was going to start crying.

  “We waited all day, but heard nothing from him. The next morning we decided to inquire at his office in the ministry.”

  * * *

  That day, as Aunt Marsat and Jael made fruitless inquiries at my father’s office, the transferred corpse of a student who had died in a gas explosion in India arrived in Nairobi. Like my father, the dead woman was a member of the Luo people. After her family had picked her up at the airport and brought her to the city mortuary, they discovered there the body of my father, who was well known among the Luo.

  “They did not believe their eyes, and so they inquired at his ministry about him. But just like us, they didn’t find him there. So they called Odima. He then got in touch with his friend Okech. Both of them went to your father’s house to ask after him.”

  Only Jael was in the row house in Upper Hill, for she herself, my aunt went on, had gone to ask her older sister Zeituni for advice. Jael could tell the two visitors only that she had not yet heard from my father. Then Odima and Okech went to my aunt Zeituni.

  “I did not believe my ears,” Aunt Marsat continued. “What the two of them told me about your father’s body put me in a complete state of shock. Confused, I left the house. The servants obviously noticed how disoriented I was, because they followed me. They stopped the bus for me, and I got on and sat thunderstruck in my seat.”

  Only during the bus ride did Aunt Marsat gradually realize what had happened. She headed to my brother’s home, and by the time she arrived there, she had pulled herself together enough to speak with Emmy, Abongo’s girlfriend at the time. My brother was not at home. Aunt Marsat delivered the news of my father’s death to Emmy and sent her to look for Abongo. Then she headed back to Upper Hill, where she found her sisters Zeituni and Nyaoke, the oldest of the family, who had met there in the meantime.

  A few hours later Abongo appeared, too, and shortly thereafter my mother and Aunty Jane. More and more people gathered in the house, and the weeping, regarded by the Luo as the highest sign of respect toward the dead, drowned out all other sounds.

  * * *

  “You know, Auma,” my aunt said, “when your father was found at the scene of the accident, he still had his expensive watch, worth several thousand Ke
nyan shillings, and all his papers on him. He was even wearing his glasses.”

  She took a deep breath, as if she wanted to give herself and me time to digest what she had just said.

  “The car he was driving was labeled as a ministry car. But someone must have taken him out of the car and brought him to the mortuary without informing the family.” She sighed deeply. “His body lay there for two days before it was identified.”

  I swallowed hard. My chest tightened painfully and I could barely hold back my tears. My heart was as heavy as lead, and I felt completely helpless. At that moment I wished that I had been more outgoing a few years earlier and had not avoided associating with the great and powerful in Nairobi. Then I would have known to whom I could turn now to find out what or who was behind my father’s death.

  “Not until the family of the student from India had raised an alarm was your father’s body identified by Odima, Okech, Zeituni, and Nyaoke. Then, on the third day, Abongo went to the mortuary, too.”

  “Then what happened?” I asked. I couldn’t bear the silence that had followed Aunt Marsat’s words.

  “When the police later began their purely routine investigations, we found out that a Nissan from Kenya Airways, in which employees are brought home from the airport, had passed the scene of the accident. The accident had happened in Upper Hill, on Elgon Road. The passengers in the vehicle saw your father’s car. The driver braked, but didn’t stop, because there were already people at the scene of the accident. But one of the passengers notified the police.”

  “But they obviously didn’t respond immediately,” I remarked bitterly.

  My aunt shrugged. “I don’t know. I only know that the car wasn’t there anymore the next morning.”