by Mike Resnick
“I do not blaspheme,” he said. “I speak the truth.”
“And now you will want me to bless the Europeans' scarecrows, I suppose,” I said with finely wrought irony.
He shrugged. “If it makes you happy,” he said.
“If it makes me happy?” I repeated angrily.
“That's right,” he said nonchalantly. “The scarecrows, being European, certainly do not need your blessings, but if you will feel better…”
I had often wondered what might happen if for some reason the mundumugu was no longer feared by the members of the village. I had never once considered what it might be like if he were merely tolerated.
Still more villagers went to Maintenance's infirmary, and each came back with some gift from the Europeans: time-saving gadgets for the most part. Western gadgets. Culture-killing gadgets.
Again and again I went into the village and explained why such things must be rejected. Day after day I spoke to the Council of Elders, reminding them why we had come to Kirinyaga—but most of the original settlers were dead, and the next generation, those who had become our Elders, had no memories of Kenya. Indeed, those of them who spoke to the Maintenance staff came home thinking that Kenya, rather than Kirinyaga, was some kind of Utopia, in which everyone was well fed and well cared for and np farm ever suffered from drought.
They were polite, they listened respectfully to me, and then they went right ahead with whatever they had been doing or discussing when I arrived. I reminded them of the many times I and I alone had saved them from themselves, but they seemed not to care; indeed, one or two of the Elders acted as if, far from keeping Kirinyaga pure, I had in some mysterious way been hindering its growth.
“Kirinyaga is not supposed to grow!” I argued. “When you achieve a Utopia, you do not cast it aside and say, What changes can we make tomorrow?'“
“If you do not grow, you stagnate,” answered Karenja.
“We can grow by expanding,” I said. “We have an entire world to populate.”
“That is not growing, but breeding,” he replied. “You have done your job admirably, Koriba, for in the beginning we needed order and purpose above all else … but the time for your job is past. Now we have established ourselves here, and it is for us to choose how we will live.”
“We have already chosen how to live!” I said angrily. “That is why we came here to begin with.”
“I was just a kehee” said Karenja. “Nobody asked me. And I did not ask my son, who was born here.”
“Kirinyaga was created for the purpose of becoming a Kikuyu Utopia,” I said. “This purpose is the basis of our charter. It cannot be changed.”
“No one is suggesting that we don't want to live in a Utopia, Koriba,” interjected Shanaka. “But the time has passed when yon and yon alone shall be the sole jndge of what constitutes a Utopia.”
“It is clearly denned.”
“By you” said Shanaka. “Some of us have our own definitions of Utopia.”
“You were one of the original founders of Kirinyaga,” I said accusingly. “Why have you never spoken out before?”
“Many times I wanted to,” admitted Shanaka. “But always I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of Ngai. Oryou.”
“They are much the same thing,” added Karenja.
“But now that Ngai has lost His battle to the God of Maintenance, I am no longer afraid to speak,” continued Shanaka. “Why should I suffer with the pain in my teeth? How was it unholy or blasphemous for the European witches to cure me? Why should my wife, who is as old as I am and whose back is bent from years of carrying wood and water, continue to carry them when there are machines to carry things for her?”
“Why should you live on Kirinyaga at all, if that is the way you feel?” I asked bitterly.
“Because I have worked as hard to make Kirinyaga a home for the Kiktiyu as you have!” he shot back. “And I see no reason to leave just because my definition of Utopia doesn't agree with yours. Why don't you leave, Koriba?”
“Because I was charged with establishing our Utopia, and I have not yet completed my assignment,” I said. “In fact, it is false Kikuyu like you who have made my work that much harder.”
Shanaka got to his feet and looked around at the Elders.
“Am I a false Kikuyu because I want my grandson to read?” he demanded. “Or because I want to ease my wife's burden? Or because I do not wish to suffer physical pain that can easily be avoided?”
“No!” cried the Elders as one.
“Be very careful,” I warned them. “For if he'is not a false Kikuyu, then you are calling me one.”
“No, Koriba,” said Koinnage, rising to his feet. “You are not a false Kikuyu.” He paused. “But you are a mistaken one. Your day— and mine—has passed. Perhaps, for a fleeting second, we did achieve Utopia—but that second is gone, and the new moments and hours require new Utopias.” Then Koinnage, who had looked at me with fear so many times in the past, suddenly looked at me with great compassion. “It was our dream, Koriba, but it is not theirs—and if we still have some feeble handhold on today, tomorrow surely belongs to them.”
“I will hear none of this!” I said. “You cannot redefine a Utopia as a matter of convenience. We moved here in order to be true to our faith and traditions, to avoid becoming what so many Kikuyu had become in Kenya. I will not let us become black Europeans!”
“We are becoming something” said Shanaka. “Perhaps just once there was an instant when you felt we were perfect Kikuyu—but that instant has long since passed. To remain so, not one of us could have had a new thought, could have seen the world in a different way. We would have become the scarecrows you bless every morning.”
I was silent for a very long time. Then, at last, I spoke. “This world breaks my heart,” I said. “I tried so hard to mold it into what we had all wanted, and look at what it has become. What you have become.”
“You can direct change, Koriba,” said Shanaka, “but you cannot prevent it, and that is wThy Kirinyaga will always break your heart.”
“I must go to my boma and think,” I said.
“Kwaheri, Koriba,” said Koinnage. Good-bye, Koriba. It had a sense of finality to it.
I spent many days alone on my hill, looking across the winding river to the green savannah and thinking. I had been betrayed by the people I had tried to lead, by the very world I had helped to create. I felt that I had surely displeased Ngai in some way, and that He would strike me dead. I was quite prepared to die, even willing … but I did not die, for the gods draw their strength from their worshipers, and Ngai was now so weak that He could not even kill a feeble old man like myself.
Eventually I decided to go down among my people one last time, to see if any of them had rejected the enticements of the Europeans and come back to the ways of the Kikuyu.
The path was lined with mechanical scarecrows. The only meaningful way to bless them would be to renew their charges. I saw several women washing clothes by the river, but instead of pounding the fabrics with rocks, they were rubbing them on some artificial boards that had obviously been made for that purpose.
Suddenly I heard a ringing noise behind me, and, startled, I jumped, lost my footing, and fell heavily against a thornbush. When I was able to get my bearings, I saw that I had almost been run over by a bicycle.
“I am sorry, Koriba,” said the rider, who turned out to be young Kimanti. “I thought you heard me coming.”
He helped me gingerly to my feet.
“My ears have heard many things,” I said. “The scream of the fish eagle, the bleat of the goat, the laugh of the hyena, the cry of the newborn baby. But they were never meant to hear artificial wheels going down a dirt hill.”
“It is much faster and easier than walking,” he replied. “Are you going anywhere in particular? I will be happy to give you a ride.”
It was probably the bicycle that made up my mind. “Yes,” I replied, “I am going som
ewhere, and no, I will not be taken on a bicycle.”
“Then I will walk with you,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“To Haven,” I said.
“Ah,” he said with a smile. “You, too, have business with Maintenance. Where do you hurt?”
I touched the left side of my chest. “I hurt here—and the only business I have with Maintenance is to get as far from the cause of that pain as I can.”
“You are leaving Kirinyaga?”
“I am leaving what Kirinyaga has become,” I answered.
“Where will you go?” he asked. “What will you do?”
“I will go elsewhere, and I will do other things,” I said vaguely, for where does an unemployed mundumugu go?
“We will miss you, Koriba,” said Kimanti.
“I doubt it.”
“We will,” he repeated with sincerity “When we recite the history of Kirinyaga to our children, you will not be forgotten.” He paused. “It is true that you were wrong, but you were necessary.”
“Is that how I am to be remembered?” I asked. “As a necessary evil?”
“I did not call you evil, just wrong.”
We walked the next few miles in silence, and at last we came to Haven.
“I will wait with you if you wish,” said Kimanti.
“I would rather wait alone,” I said.
He shrugged. “As you wish. Kwaheri, Koriba.”
“Kwaheri,” I replied.
After he left I looked around, studying the savannah and the river, the wildebeest and the zebras, the fish eagles and the marabou storks, trying to set them in my memory for all time to come.
“I am sorry, Ngai,” I said at last. “I have done my best, but I have failed you.”
The ship that would take me away from Kirinyaga forever suddenly came into view.
“You must view them with compassion, Ngai,” I said as the ship approached the landing strip. “They are not the first of your people to be bewitched by the Europeans.”
And it seemed, as the ship touched down, that a voice spoke into my ear and said, You have been my most faithful servant, Koriba, and so I shall be guided by your counsel. Do you really wish me to view them with compassion?
I looked toward the village one last time, the village that had once feared and worshiped Ngai, and which had sold itself, like some prostitute, to the god of the Europeans.
“No,” I said firmly.
“Are you speaking to me?” asked the pilot, and I realized that the hatch was open and waiting for me.
“No,” I replied.
He looked around. “I don't see anyone else.”
“He is very old and very tired,” I said. “But He is here.”
I climbed into the ship and did not look back.
Epilogue
THE LAND OF NOD
{AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2137}
Once, many years ago, there was a Kikuyu warrior who left his village and wandered off in search of adventure. Armed only with a spear, he slew the mighty lion and the cunning leopard. Then one day he came upon an elephant. He realized that his spear was useless against such a beast, but before he could back away or find cover, the elephant charged.
His only hope was divine intervention, and he begged Ngai to find him and pluck him from the path of the elephant.
But Ngai did not respond, and the elephant picked the warrior up with its trunk and hurled him high into the air, and he landed in a distant thorn tree. His skin was badly torn by the thorns, but at least he was safe, since he was on a branch some twenty feet above the ground.
After he was sure the elephant had left the area, the warrior climbed down. Then he returned home and ascended the holy mountain to confront Ngai.
“What is it that you want of me?” asked Ngai, when the warrior had reached the summit.
“I want to know why you did not come,” said the warrior angrily “All my life I have worshiped you and paid tribute to you. Did you not hear me ask for your help?”
“I heard you,” answered Ngai.
“Then why did you not come to my aid?” demanded the warrior. “Are you so lacking in godly powers that you could not find me?”
“After all these years you still do not understand,” said Ngai sternly. “It is you who must search for me”
My son Edward picked me up at the police station on Biashara Street just after midnight. The sleek British vehicle hovered a few inches above the ground while I got in, and then his chauffeur began taking us back to his house in the Ngong Hills.
“This is becoming tedious,” he said, activating the shimmering privacy barrier so that we could not be overheard. He tried to present a judicial calm, but I knew he was furious.
“You would think they would tire of it,” I agreed.
“We must have a serious talk,” he said. “You have been back only two months, and this is the fourth time I have had to bail you out of jail.”
“I have broken no Kikuyu laws,” I said calmly, as we raced through the dark, ominous slums of Nairobi on our way to the affluent suburbs.
“You have broken the laws of Kenya,” he said. “And like it or not, that is where you now live. I'm an official in the government, and I will not have you constantly embarrassing me!” He paused, struggling with his temper. “Look at you! I have offered to buy you a new wardrobe. Why must you wear that ugly old kikoi? It smells even worse than it looks.”
“Is there now a law against dressing like a Kikuyu?” I asked him.
“No,” he said, as he commanded the miniature bar to appear from beneath the floor and poured himself a drink. “But there is a law against creating a disturbance in a restaurant.”
“I paid for my meal,” I noted, as we turned onto Langata Road and headed out for the suburbs. “In the Kenya shillings that you gave me.”
“That does not give you the right to hurl your food against the wall, simply because it is not cooked to your taste.” He glared at me, barely able to contain his anger. “You're getting worse with each offense. If I had been anyone else, you'd have spent the night in jail. As it is, I had to agree to pay for the damage you caused.”
“It was eland,” I explained. “The Kikuyu do not eat game animals.”
“It was not eland,” he said, setting his glass down and lighting a smokeless cigarette. “The last eland died in a German zoo a year after you left for Kirinyaga. It was a modified soybean product, genetically enhanced to taste like eland.” He paused, then sighed deeply. “If you thought it was eland, why did you order it?”
“The server said it was steak. I assumed he meant the meat of a cow or an ox.”
“This has got to stop,” said Edward. “We are two grown men. Why can't we reach an accommodation?” He stared at me for a long time. “I can deal with rational men who disagree with me. I do it at Government House every day But I cannot deal with a fanatic.”
“I am a rational man,” I said.
“Are you?” he demanded. “Yesterday you showed my wife's nephew how to apply the githani test for truthfulness, and he practically burned his brother's tongue off.”
“His brother was lying,” I said calmly. “He who lies faces the red-hot blade with a dry mouth, whereas he who has nothing to fear has enough moisture on his tongue so that he cannot be burned.”
“Try telling a seven-year-old boy that he has nothing to fear when he's being approached by a sadistic older brother who is brandishing a red-hot knife!” snapped my son.
A uniformed watchman waved us through to the private road where my son lived, and when we reached our driveway the chauffeur pulled our British vehicle up to the edge of the force field. It identified us and vanished long enough for us to pass through, and soon we came to the front door.
Edward got out of the vehicle and approached his residence as I followed him. He clenched his fisis in a physical effort to restrain his anger. “I agreed to let you live with us, because you are an old man who was thrown off his world—”
“I le
ft Kirinyaga of my own volition,” I interrupted calmly.
“It makes no difference why or how you left,” said my son. “What matters is that you are here now You are a very old man. It has been many years since you have lived on Earth. All of your friends are dead. My mother is dead. I am your son, and I will accept my responsibilities, but you must meet me halfway.”
“I am trying to,” I said.
“I doubt it.”
“I am,” I repeated. “Your own son understands that, even if you do not.”
“My own son has had quite enough to cope with since my divorce and remarriage. The last thing he needs is a grandfather filling his head with wild tales of some Kikuyu Utopia.”
“It is a failed Utopia,” I corrected him. “They would not listen to me, and so they are doomed to become another Kenya.”
“What is so wrong with that?” said Edward. “Kenya is my home, and I am proud of it.” He paused and stared at me. “And now it is your home again. You must speak of it with more respect.”
“I lived in Kenya for many years before I emigrated to Kirinyaga,” I said. “I can live here again. Nothing has changed.”
“That is not so,” said my son. “We have built a transport system beneath Nairobi, and there is now a spaceport at Watamu on the coast. We have closed down the nuclear plants; our power is now entirely thermal, drawn from beneath the floor of the Rift Valley. In fact,” he added with the pride that always accompanied the descriptions of his new wife's attainments, “Susan was instrumental in the changeover.”
“You misunderstood me, Edward,” I replied. “Kenya remains unchanged in that it continues to ape the Europeans rather than remain true to its own traditions.”
The security system identified us and opened his house to us. We walked through the foyer, past the broad, winding staircase that led to the bedroom wing. The servants were waiting for us, and the butler took Edward's coat from him. Then we passed the doorways to the lounge and drawing room, both of which were filled with Roman statues and French paintings and rows of beautifully bound British books. Finally we came to Edward's study, where he turned and spoke in a low tone to the butler.
