‘Then why are you making music? What is the point of it all?’ I asked him.
‘Man, you are hinting at nihilism. That is not what I am saying, brother. I am saying it’s okay to have been alive, to have died and to be forgotten. But I am also telling you that you and me, we will never really be forgotten, because we moved something; we changed someone’s life — maybe we gave something, or we took something. The things we touch, even though our fingerprints will be erased by time…our imprint carries on, changes form, maybe, but it’s there…,’ he explained animatedly.
‘So? Are you saying we accomplish just by being born then?’ I asked him.
‘By being born, we change the future. But I mean a little bit more than that. I am talking about being freed to be nothing except a good human being. Man, I know I have some talent other people do not have. When I discovered this graveyard, it freed my talent and me. I refuse the pressure of making history. Mrs. Hughes wants me to make history, and perhaps give her a place in that history. But I want to make music — whether I jam in juke joints or at the fucking Carnegie, I just want to make music. Because I know it’s okay to end up in untended, unmarked graves.’
He took the bottle of Chivas, took a swig and, unlike Bekele’s father, poured a generous libation. ‘That is why I came to the ABC, for the music, not for history,’ he added, before I could ask him.
‘Would you say the same thing if you were not rich?’ I asked him, well aware of the irony.
‘All the more reason, actually,’ he said with a laugh.
I could almost see it: The Diva, The Corporal, The Taliban Man and Miriam — the Tizita — it was about the music, not living the life of a musician, but being a musician. Music is life; life is music. The Tizita is life; life is the Tizita. And you go where life, which is also the Tizita, leads you, even if it’s the ABC or the juke joint or a stadium full of people.
‘By the way, The Diva said I should tell you she wants to bring you in,’ I said, remembering her curious request.
He laughed. ‘What were her exact words?’
‘“Bring you in” — she would not say into what, or from where,’ I answered, not knowing what difference it made.
‘Bringing me in from the cold — play on Bob’s “Coming from the Cold.” But what the fuck does she mean?’ he asked.
‘Not sure I am the right person—’
‘Oh, come on, man!’ he protested.
‘You want her in your corner. She is a world unto herself — if I was to think of one person the god of music would be scared of, it’s her. There is much to learn from her — like how to reconcile all the yous into one you,’ I answered, using words I would not use in my article. In my write-up, I would probably say she is the consummate musician’s musician.
‘Is that what she is doing for you? Bro, you are in love, smitten. Damn, what did she do to you?’ he joked, but I could tell he knew what I meant.
‘I can share my graveyard philosophy with her,’ he added, as we took several sips (for the road, he said) and went back to the house.
From a distance, it sounded like the party had quieted down, as instrumental music from the house band drifted to us.
‘My friends sometimes pass out early — call it taking a nap — before carrying on,’ The Taliban Man explained.
21
‘He pitied me for not knowing absolute love, giving it and receiving it.’
Fuck! We got back to a sex party! There were a number of empty beer cartons full of condoms and all sorts of lubricants, some edible and some that glow in the dark. The band was now playing an instrumental version of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It.” The partiers were in all sorts of positions and penetrations, glowing penises and confetti on breasts. It looked like sculptures of squirming bodies strewn all over the backyard. The Taliban Man tucked on a glowing condom and went off to join one of the sculptures.
One of the women I had been introduced to much earlier, and thought pretty in an abstract kind of way, came up to me. It was a quick decision. With all that I had seen and experienced over the last few days, and here with the cool kids, what choice did I really have?
I gathered she had been closing in on her orgasm before wanting to switch partners. Just as well, because I did not last long. We came together, and she was off to another partner, leaving me out of breath, embarrassed as my glowing condom threatened to fall off my limp dick.
Before I could stand up to leave, there was a man’s mouth on my dick — it was Binyam. I willed myself to get excited — nothing. I tried to explain it was not him, that I am a one-shot kinda guy, that there is no way I am going to come to an orgy full of beautiful people and leave so soon, but I am done. And I really wanted to, to be part of the energy, to give back, so to speak, I added. Besides, a mouth is a mouth — on a dick, it has no gender, and it still felt good — I was just done.
‘Did you prepare?’ he asked with casual concern.
‘Prepare?’
‘For anal?’
‘You have to prepare for that?’ I asked him, sounding so surprised that he did a double take.
‘Damn, what does the Repo-Man know?’ he said as he guided my hand to his dick.
‘Now, this I don’t need to prep…plenty of practice,’ I said to him as I jerked him off, watching his pleasure join the chorus all around us.
After he was done, he strode off energetically and still hard to another couple. I threw my used, cold condom into the wastebasket as someone walked out from the kitchen with fresh homemade popcorn. I stood around and watched jealously for a few minutes before calls for Repo-Man to join one scene or another started. With nothing to offer, I made my way to the pool.
After washing my sticky hands, I dipped my feet in, waiting for a floating bottle of whisky to ebb and flow my way. I heard a splash, and a few seconds later, something tugged at my toes. I screamed and fell into the pool, thinking the indignities would never end. The culprit, it turned out, was Maaza.
‘I figured you needed a bath,’ she teased me.
‘Yeah, an orgy is no country for old men,’ I replied, thinking there was no point in hiding the obvious.
‘Great movie,’ she said.
‘Not your scene, I take it?’ I asked as I climbed back to land.
‘No, not really. Been there, done that — all of that — my undergrad. Now, I like my sex the way I like my basketball — one-on-one and with as little dribbling as possible,’ she answered.
I knew the line — from the spoof movie Naked Gun, and so we spoke about movies for a while.
‘We should make out,’ she suddenly said, to my surprise.
‘Why?’
‘Just because we can,’ she answered.
So we did, in a very high schoolish way, until we started laughing. Ours was not a sexual connection, and the joy was in trying to make it one from the safety of knowing that. The ‘orgists’ trickled back onto the dance floor, a zipper or a bra needing adjusting every now and then. And we carried on.
How would I explain what had just happened to my readers? And how far would I be willing to go in the telling? Yes, when you looked at it, it was sex across genders, straight and gay. I mean, I had just jerked off a dude for the first time in my life, and watching the growing pleasure on his face was beautiful, as it had been with the woman, as it was watching all the writhing sculptures in the garden. We were humans giving each other another form of pleasure. To me, that moment — it felt like it really was just as life should be. It was life. The beauty of it, of writing for a tabloid, was that it was, for the reader, going to be truth and fiction, and therefore I would tell everything.
***
I was woken up by a text from Alison in the morning. I had maxed out The National Inquisitor’s credit card. I was not sure where all the money (1,000 dollars, she said) had gone, but I had been eating and drinking well these past few days, and generous with buying. I called her to ask for more — no way! My story had done well, but not well e
nough to justify ‘bottomless expenditure.’ She asked me how much material I had gathered, and I told her enough for two profiles. She wanted me to go back to Nairobi and have in-depth interviews with The Corporal when he came for the final competition. But I knew that would not work; when we travel, we become other people. It was the listening and observing in place that I wanted.
I did not have enough in my savings to keep me going. So I did the one thing I had never done since I returned from Boston: I called my mother to ask for more money. She did not give me a lecture about fiscal responsibility, as she would have done in the past. Or hand the phone over to my father for the same lecture. She did not even ask me where I was, but I explained anyway. As it turned out, she had read my write-up and found it ‘of interest.’ My mother reading The National Inquisitor? I guess I was pulling them into the gutter one by one. She asked me how much, and in less than 30 minutes, she had wired 2,000 dollars into my bank account. There was a small price to pay, though: I was to spend a whole weekend with them out in Nakuru when I returned. I was looking forward to seeing both of them. Our relationship had always been reflexive, they trying to reel me in and I avoiding them, but it felt like it was the right time to spend time with them. Even get answers to a few questions I had never dared ask.
I got off the phone and walked and looked around, expecting a war zone. But The Taliban Man’s place was immaculately clean. His maids had cleaned up after we passed out. All the debris was gone, and only bodies in various stages of undress remained. What was left on display was a group of young people who could literally do anything. I had never seen so much talent and promise in one room. Feeling less optimistic than I had yesterday, I could not help but wonder, through the fog of my unfolding brain, how much of this talent was going to eventually go to waste — overdoses, alcoholism, drug addictions, the occasional suicide and, even worse, being co-opted into corrupt governance. The level of intensity I had witnessed was not sustainable. As in the apartheid generation of the Can Thembas and Arthur Nortjes, there were bound to be a few casualties.
I walked into the dining room and found The Taliban Man playing his electric guitar, headphones hooked into the amp. It reminded me of the naked Diva on her piano, only he was wearing a bathrobe and sandals. I stood there watching him for a while, listening to the almost silent sound of an intricate web of various forms of music — he was slipping in and out of jazz, into afro-beat, sometimes into merengue, which he would slow down to salsa. It was like watching an athlete doing a workout. It occurred to me he was trying to tap into something deeper than music or, rather, into a river of sound from which all music draws its form, dip into it and rise up with a sound that was his own — not because it was original and new, but because it had found some unsaid things, some unsounded things that he could add to the language of music. And to get there, he had to speak all the languages of music he knew.
Maaza woke up from wherever she had passed out and joined me. Still a bit groggy, she leaned onto my shoulder, I embraced her and we watched her brother trying to find footing in the otherwise fast-moving river of muted sounds. I started to hear it, and so did Maaza, because she leaned deeper into me: his own sound that he was yet to own. He was humming along now — anticipating a note, or sometimes following something he had just played. It was there — an infant sound learning from the languages of Fela Kuti, Beethoven, Ali Farka, Mahmood Ahmed, Bezawork, Nina Simone. It was there. The foetus (Maaza’s words, not mine) was alive and kicking.
Abruptly, he cursed aloud and stopped playing. He held up his fingers to his eyes. They were bleeding. He attempted to play again, but the pain was too much, and he stopped and just cradled the guitar. I started to walk in to ask him about that sound, but Maaza stopped me.
‘He is still playing, in his head,’ she explained as she walked me outside for my ride back to my hotel room. I had to start working on The Corporal’s write-up anyway.
Mustafa and The Diva happened to be rolling in to see The Taliban Man as I was getting back into the red limo. Mustafa asked me if I wanted to wait around, and they would drop me off. I said no and wished them all the best.
‘So, what do you think of The Taliban Man?’ The Diva asked me.
‘You need him on your label, and he needs you,’ I replied.
‘Another believer —that makes two of us,’ she said with a laugh.
‘See you both in Nairobi,’ I said curtly and hopped into the red limo, feeling strangely depressed.
I could feel tears of wanting — of just wanting, of hunger — welling up. As the driver started the car and I took out my notes and laptop, I realised I did not want to do this alone, that I could not do this alone. I asked the limo driver to wait. He did not ask why. I found Maaza and asked her whether she would like to come with me to see The Corporal, and she said no. Close to tears, I begged her to come with me. I needed a translator, someone who would help me navigate, but deep down, it was because I did not want to be alone; my wounds untended would bleed me to death.
‘Just know I am not interested in you,’ she said to agree.
‘You have no reason to worry. I am, as you know, already spent. It takes me one week to recover,’ I said to cheer both of us up, feeling relieved and grateful.
What was it that Mohamed had told me the night of the bonfire to the heavens? He pitied me for not having children. He pitied me for not knowing absolute love, giving it and receiving it. Those words came back at me more forcefully than he had said them. But it was what he had said that was hurting: that we miss those things that we don’t know. It was not because I wanted children per se, or a house in the suburbs with a saloon and another one in my village with a pick-up truck parked outside. It was the being haunted by all the nameless things I could feel missing.
22
The Corporal
‘Your Corporal is a war criminal who should be tried at Nuremberg.’
‘What do you mean that piece of shit is a musician? He is just a mean son of a bitch who loves killing. Music? Music? No!’ Jember Belendia was saying angrily. JB, as he insisted we call him, was tall, balding and portly, but with a thin face and freckled brown skin. ‘But I guess the most fertile place to plant a seed is in shit,’ he added with mock contemplation. JB had served in the army with The Corporal.
Maaza and I were having lunch at a small bar kiosk in Dejen, a small, poor town on the outskirts of Addis where we were to meet The Corporal.
‘The trick to good food is eating at this kind of place. Grandma’s cooking — the real thing, not trying to cater to the city middle class,’ she was saying as she tore some injera and scooped some chicken doro wot from her side of the round serving platter — her territory, I joked.
That was when, through the door, I noticed a man circling her BMW whistling and gently running his fingers along its contours. I pointed him out him to Maaza; she smiled and acquired more territory on the plate. The Maaza who was expensively dressed the night before was now wearing a long, simple blue dress, her hair down, no makeup and looking fresh in spite of the hard night. I was in my journalist uniform, a black shirt, brown corduroys and my safari boots. The man, when he walked in, would turn out to be JB. One of those moments, pure coincidence, which we love as journalists — it means you are in the story, or the story is finding you.
‘Why do you write for a tabloid? You can tell me; I won’t judge,’ Maaza asked, moving away from culinary talk.
I wanted to tell her about how I had received a letter from Mr. Mbugua, my very own Mrs. Hughes, in which he could not hide his disdain at my working for a tabloid. This was all the more hurtful because I had just done a big story on how wealthy old politicians in their quest for perpetual youth were misusing Viagra so much that parliament had to shut down when MP after MP stood to address the venerable body with a hard on. In his letter addressed to the editor, Mr. Mbugua had written that he had always hoped I would become a serious fiction writer, a family doctor or (boldly hinted) an English primary school teache
r like himself.
I had considered becoming a writer in the past, even applying to Iowa’s Writing Workshop, where my literary hero, Meja Mwangi, had sharpened his pen, but they did not even bother writing me a rejection letter. Soon after that, I applied to journalism schools, and Boston University took me in. I did not write Mr. Mbugua back, but if I were to do it now, it would be to tell him that we are born many things and then we become one.
But I did not tell her all that — that his letter still disturbed me, the idea that he would feel he had wasted his knowledge on me.
‘For the same reason you do poor law,’ I said instead.
‘Poor law!’ she scoffed, but she let me continue.
‘Anger, I think. Because of my parents, I had access to the private lives of the politicians. On TV they appear put together, invincible. But I had their dirt — little things, but really nasty stuff. No paper wanted to touch that. I wanted to expose them. But along the way, I have been coming across people doing interesting things — ordinary people — like this crazy guy who earns his drinks reading the daily newspaper like a TV news broadcaster in a bar….’
‘Can you do it?’ she asked. As I mimed, to her amusement, a broadcast about a long dormant volcano suddenly erupting, the man from outside came in and asked if that was our car outside. After Maaza answered, he asked if we were married, and she said no, we were just friends.
‘You can’t fool me; you are obviously a couple,’ he said with knowing winks. ‘What brings you to my town?’
Then he asked what we do, and she said that we were journalists and were writing a story about The Corporal and his music. Perhaps he knew him? And that is when JB shouted, ‘Your Corporal is a war criminal who should be tried at Nuremberg.’
Unbury Our Dead with Song Page 13
