In the House of the Interpreter: A Memoir

by Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong'o

  It is irritating. Inconvenient. Otherwise I do not see how it should concern me. I never leave my passbook behind; it tells my status as a student. Of course, I have left Alliance, but fortunately I have the admission papers to Makerere in July. Passengers without passbooks or tax receipts or identity papers are hounded out of the bus, where other officers order them to squat in twos at the roadside. The acts are repetitive, other people’s boring business, and I resume my reveries.

  A slap on the shoulder and a bellowing voice startle me. I look up, only to see the face of growling Mr. Rifleman.

  Are you drunk or what? Show me your tax papers.

  I’m a student, I say. I have just left school. Alliance High School, I add, to make an impression.

  Is this the route to Alliance?

  No, I am going home. Limuru.

  Where are you coming from? School?

  Kahũgũinĩ Gatũndũ.

  Gatũndũ? Is that not Jomo Kenyatta’s home?

  Kahũgũinĩ is not Gatũndũ, I say, half a truth.

  Are you a Kenyatta follower?

  I am a student, I answer vaguely.

  Is Alliance at Kahũgũinĩ?

  No. It is at Kikuyu. Carey Francis, you know, the mathematician, is the principal.

  So Carey Francis told you not to pay poll tax?

  No. I am just a student.

  And what were you doing at Kenyatta’s place?

  Kahũgũinĩ! I say to clarify the distinction. I explain that I have secured a temporary position pending exam results—

  Mr. Rifleman interrupts me. Oh, so you are a teacher. And I take it that you don’t teach for free, or do you?

  No, but—

  Don’t play games with me. Show me your tax receipts.

  I don’t have any. Look at these papers. I am going to Makerere. Uganda. In July! First-year university student.

  He laughs loudly. By now all the passengers are focused on us. He is performing for them. He calls out to the other policeman, Mr. Machine Gun. Come and see who says that he is an Alliance prince bound for Makerere to meet with the Kabaka, the king of Buganda, too important to pay taxes. He continues waving the papers, which he has not bothered to read. I should not have mentioned Alliance, Makerere, or Uganda.

  Are you saying that you are more educated than Dr. Julius Kĩano?

  I try to ignore the sarcasm. No, I say.

  Then listen. Even Julius Kĩano, Tom Mboya, and Oginga Odinga* pay taxes, he says, thrusting the papers back to me and ordering me to get out, literally pulling me from my seat and shoving me along the aisle. Not to be outdone by Mr. Rifleman, Mr. Machine Gun pushes me to the ground, where another policeman directs me to the back of the line of captives. There must have been other victims from earlier buses because the line is quite long.

  I still harbor hope that the misunderstanding will be cleared up, that they will realize that in mentioning Alliance and Makerere, I was not trying to show that I am more important than any other person, and they will let me back onto the bus. But then the bus leaves. With a sinking heart, I watch it disappear in the distance. Soon afterward, the roadblock is also dismantled, and Messrs. Rifleman and Machine Gun leave in a jeep. We are still guarded by others, also armed with rifles, but these are underlings and they either don’t or won’t tell us the next step. This is so absurd. I have a lot of money in my pocket, I have Makerere papers, I won’t see my mother tonight, and nobody at home knows my fate.

  And then at that moment, another bus from Nairobi arrives and stops by the scene. Curious about the long line of squatters, the passengers peer through the windows. Among them are Kenneth and Patrick. They come out of the bus and ask what the matter is, but our guards just shrug their shoulders. What do they want to do with the captives? Shauri ya Wakubwa, they say, but they do allow me to speak to Kenneth. I give him most of the money and my parcel of old clothes to take to my mother. Their bus also leaves, but now I have the comfort of knowing that somebody will take the news of my arrest to my family. My mother will get some of the money all right, but that is not how I envisioned the scene.

  They keep us in the sun till the last bus has gone. They have allowed us to sit instead of squatting, and I am grateful for this small mercy. My worries deepen. It is not only the uncertainty of what next. Even if released, I will now not know what to do, where to spend the night, or how to walk the twenty kilometers to Limuru. I know that my auntie Kabera is married and lives around Banana Hills, but I don’t know the actual location of her homestead. I am in limbo. The absurdity of my situation increases. Trying to make sense of it all, I retrace the events of the day.

  In the morning, at Kahũgũinĩ, I was the revered teacher. Teaching had not been my first choice, even as a temporary post, pending acceptance to college. I had really wanted to be a journalist, and when the editor of the East African Standard, the only major English daily in Kenya, conducted interviews at Alliance, I had presented myself, but I was not successful. Once I started, however, I developed a feeling for teaching and forgot all about my journalistic ambition. I felt a rapport with my students. The headmaster, Kĩmani Ware, who pronounced his last name as if it were the English word of the same spelling, was given to dramatics, and within weeks of my joining the school, everybody in the region knew that an Alliance genius was on his staff. When the results of the Cambridge exams were printed in the East African Standard, Kĩmani Ware would carry the page with him as evidence of the genius on his staff.

  This morning we traveled from Kahũgũinĩ to Kĩambu together, and later, after we received our pay, he had urged me to go back with him to Thika and Kahũgũinĩ, offering to accompany me to Limuru the following day. But I had declined: I had to go home to my mother to celebrate the success of our pact.

  Now I am here on a roadside, not knowing what is going to happen next.

  The jeep that took Messrs. Rifleman and Machine Gun returns eventually; the officers whisper something to our guards, and then leave. A decision at last, but not in our favor. They shove us into a line of twos and escort us to Thĩmbĩgwa home guard post. The post consists of a main building of stone walls and iron roof next to a few others of timber around an open yard. A fence of barbed wire surrounds the entire compound. We are crowded into a room with hardly any light. All the other rooms in the barrack are full. There must have been a general sweep; our bus was the last into the net. If only I had heeded the voices of Kenneth and Patrick or even that of Kĩmani Ware, I would not have been caught in the dragnet. I don’t want to wallow in self-pity, but I cannot comprehend the turn of events from hope in the morning to despair in the evening.

  And then a sudden break in the rhythm. Good Wallace and my half-brother Joseph Kabae come to visit. I feel tears at the edges of my eyes. Kenneth has obviously passed on the news.

  * The three were prominent members of the African Elected Members Organization (AEMO).

  59

  Whenever I now think of Good Wallace, the image of us talking to each other, a wall of barbed wire between us at Ngenia, pops up, but this is quickly offset by the other of him at home, a family reunion again after his ordeals in the mountains and concentration camp. We realized how narrowly he had escaped harm when, in March, news splashed across the world about the massacre of eleven political inmates at Hola Camp. Dubbed hardcore for continually resisting, they had been bludgeoned to death. The Horror at Hola suddenly alerted the world to the reality Kenyans had been enduring for seven years since the declaration of a state of emergency in 1952. Even from the hallowed halls of Westminster, Labour MPs demanded an answer from Harold Macmillan. After all, Kenya was still a British colony. On Good Wallace’s release, though, he had told us that he had been lucky, that throughout his stay in the camps, he never faced a situation like the Horror at Hola.

  Good Wallace never ceased to amaze me. On his release late in 1957, he had reinvented himself from a former carpenter, guerrilla fighter, and war prisoner to a market trader, buying and selling foodstuff and managing to float just
above the water. He refused to bow down to hardship. And now, only a few months after, he is here, for me, with Joseph Kabae. I note that Good Wallace stays a step behind Kabae, who does all the talking. Even in civilian clothes, Kabae has never lost his military bearing, a remnant of his days as a member of the King’s African Rifles, during World War II. His chain smoking, crushing the cigarette ends under his shoes slowly and deliberately or flinging them away expertly, gives him an air of authority. Used to command, he has no difficulties in inducing subservience and getting permission to speak to me. They let me step out; Kabae keeps the guards in conversation to buy Good Wallace and me time to talk. He quickly tells me a few more details of the day he left the mountains and gave himself up to Chief Karũga.

  Good Wallace tells me that on the eve of his presenting himself at Karũga’s house, he had slept, cold and hungry and all alone, under coffee bushes not far from here, not knowing whether, if caught, he would be shot dead on the spot or be sent to the gallows at Gnthũngũri. He is trying to encourage me to keep hope alive. He assures me that Kabae will use his contacts in government to secure my release. His mention of cold and hunger has awakened my stomach. They will bring me some food, he tells me, which they do: a loaf of bread, shortly after. Kabae reiterates that I have not broken any law; he will ensure my release. The guards he talked to were underlings with no authority to do anything about the inmates, so negotiations for my release will have to await the new day.

  As I watch them leave, the irony does not escape me. Not so long ago, they were on the inside and I on the outside, gazing helplessly at their brotherly dance of death, with Kabae on the government’s side and Wallace in the mountains. The glow of the spirits I felt in their presence wanes. But they have assured me of release: it is matter of enduring the night.

  60

  We are massed together, standing room only, in the dark. I don’t know what to do about the toilet. I follow what I have seen others do: shout for permission to go to the toilet outside, under a guard. My voice is too weak, and the others express solidarity by hollering to the guard for me. My bladder relieved, I am back inside, standing again. No, it’s too much for my feet; I push my way to a corner, slide to the floor, and sit, my back against the wall.

  By now word has spread that among the inmates is a captive from Alliance. They turn to me, ghostly voices in the dark, curious. To their questions, I can only say, I don’t know, tears in my eyes, occasioned by their pity. I may be the youngest among them, but I must not succumb to tears, not even silent sobs. I can hold back only by remaining deaf to even the most insistent whispers of sympathy. I retreat into myself. Would it have helped if, in the bus, I had kept quiet about being a college-bound graduate of Alliance? I doubt it. I feel like I have gone through this before, that what is happening to me fits into a pattern that has dogged my path since that January afternoon four years ago, when the gates of Alliance opened and I entered. I recall my return to Limuru after my first term to find my old homestead a wasteland.

  The sage who once said that the events of history appear twice, first as tragedy and then as farce, could have been talking about my current situation. Thĩmbĩgwa post, where I am now held, could have been a replica of the community prison I helped to build four years back. The shock of that first return had the ring of tragedy. The present is a comedy without laughter. What can top this absurdity of my being held in a garrison for nothing more criminal than stating that I have been to Alliance?

  Wrestling with these memories has neither helped numb the pain I feel nor blunted the humiliation. After ten there is no going outside for relief. Darkness hides the identity of those who use the walls to ease pressed bladders. But it does not cover up the stench. My mother used to tell us that even the longest night ends with dawn. I cling to the hope that in the morning I will leave this stench behind me.

  61

  SATURDAY

  A bugle accompanying the raising of the Union Jack interrupts the restless stream of images in my mind. I hope that this day will be kinder and gentler than yesterday. As if in response, dawn brings back Good Wallace, Kabae, and a loaf of bread. The inmates depend on relatives to bring them food. Those without anybody who knows their whereabouts depend on what they can get from the others. I break the bread with those near me.

  Kabae is at his impressive best, with curls of smoke issuing from his mouth and crushed cigarette ends under his boots. The guards are apologetic as they explain that their white boss is not yet in but will definitely appear. As they leave, promising to return later in the morning, Good Wallace tells me that they worked through the night and contacted important people, by which I understand that they bribed those who claimed to have influence. Kabae assures me that something good will happen today.

  The white district officer, who apparently does not spend nights in the post, finally drives in. Perhaps this is a testament to Kabae’s power and influence. Life visibly stirs all around. The police stand at attention, saluting their boss, calling him effendi, in what amounts to a visual absurdity. The officers are tall, big, older, armed. Their boyish boss is shorter, thinner, and civilian clad, looking harmless except for the pistol hanging from his hip, which he keeps touching as if he is afraid of his own officers. The inmates reiterate to each other for the umpteenth time their innocence and certainty of release once the white officer hears the truth. Whites are more understanding than their black underlings, a case of the kindly master who does not know that his ferocious dogs have their fangs open at innocents.

  One at a time, the inmates go into the office and then come back into custody in the same order with the same complaint: the officer listens only to the policeman, his sole informant, translator, and interpreter. There is no more talk of the difference between the master at home and his dog at the gate. They are the same colonial shit.

  Eventually, it is my turn into the office. The officer is playing stern and serious, probably to impress his authority on his much-older African underlings. Even the way he bends forward over an open file, holding a pen, seems a performance to impress an audience, a behavior almost identical to that of Johnny the Green, three years ago. Without looking up, he asks why I did not pay taxes. Having heard what those before me said about the police interpreter, I hasten to speak for myself. I recently left school, I answer him in English. I have papers to prove it, I add quickly, not to give space for the interpreter to intervene. A pause, a slight pause, then with his eyes still bent over the file, he stretches his hand for the documents. I give him my college admission papers, which include my performance on the Cambridge exams. He studies them intently, and now he looks up at me. Do I detect surprise on his face? A blush even? His name suggests itself: Johnny the Red.

  Alliance?

  Yes.

  Bound for college, I see?

  Yes.

  Johnny the Red leans back, seemingly relaxed, as if ready to hold a conversation on a theme more to his taste than the sordid business of probing if poor farmers, men older than him, have paid taxes or are telling the truth.

  You have beaten me to it, he says, with something like a smile. I am waiting to hear if I have been accepted at Oxford. I am a graduate of Duke of York, your nemesis in hockey, he adds with a hint of pride.

  The conversation I had with Andrew Brockett a year ago in Mutonguini flashes across my mind. The young officer sitting in judgment over my fate is waiting to go to college? His job in government, like mine at Kahũgũinĩ, is temporary. Our situations are similar. But we are on opposite sides of the table, a gun between us, I remind myself, as I listen to him. He is still into sports. He can remember the last victorious hockey engagement with Alliance. He was a member of the team, he says, and I congratulate him as if the victory has just occurred. I want to remind him that last November in four soccer engagements, two home and two away, Alliance beat York, but I don’t think I should be reminding him of defeat. I simply add that indeed York is better than both Alliance and Wales in hockey, which puts him in an ev
en better mood, to the continued chagrin and incomprehension of the police interpreter. All because of sports, I am thinking, still anxious and uncertain about my fate. Finally he asks me what I have been doing since I left Alliance. I tell him. As far as I can see, your papers are in order, he says handing them back to me. You can go, he continues almost wearily.

  I am also weary but elated as I leave the premises. On the way out, I see one of the arresting officers, Mr. Rifleman, head toward the room hurriedly. I ignore him and wave to my fellow inmates. I don’t look back. I am already in transition from incarceration to celebration, hoping that I might meet with my brothers and save them from having to come all this way for nothing. Their mission has been accomplished.

  I am about to round the corner and vanish when I hear footsteps behind me. It is the police interpreter. He stops me. Bwana officer wants you, he tells me.

  Maybe I have left one of my papers behind, I think as I walk back, the policeman behind me. One glance at the erstwhile gentleman, and I know that his mood has changed. Johnny the Red, the hockey-loving-college-student-in-waiting has resumed his authoritarian look of a British colonial officer determined to enforce law and order. He has found something more morally uplifting to enforce than chasing poor farmers for poll tax.

  So you were resisting arrest? Even fighting my own officers? Do you think that Alliance has given you license to attack a police officer doing his duty? He does not let me explain. Take him back to his kind, he orders. Mr. Rifleman is still in the room, actually standing by the side of his young boss, and I can see a triumphant glint in his eyes.

  Nobody earns the young officer’s clemency. New, inexperienced, with little knowledge of the laws he is enforcing, he relies almost wholly on the words of the police, who have been in the field many more years.