Borderless Deceit (25 page)

A refuelling stop late afternoon in Cairo before the next leg to Nairobi. Once more at cruising altitude Nikko takes a nap, but Rachel is restless. With the day slipping away over the Sahara, she reflects on the circumstances that led to this comfort-filled rush into an African night. The immediate trigger was the champagne party on the boat, but there were other strands which took her there, numerous connections, haphazard encounters really, each leading to others, many end points which turned into starting points. The intricate mosaic of events, all precious to her, now fills her mind and a play begins, a series of interconnected video streams. Her love affairs are prominent. They start off as a welling up of abstract forces out of the deep, become tangible, bring warmth and pleasure, yet, being transient, sink away again leaving no trace – except for remaining part of the tangle of causes and effects which brought her to where she is, to this snug and dreamy cabin. Outside, a purple blanket resting on the western horizon is darkening fast. There is transience and impermanence out there too. A melancholy stirs. She examines it and asks why, in the middle of this brilliant journey, she would suddenly be preoccupied with missing out on something? Her next thought?
Must be the altitude. I get affected too
.

When Nikko wakes up he reaches over and gives her hand a quick squeeze. Soon the engines ease. The landing is smooth as velvet and the jet taxis to a halt. When the cabin door opens, Samson is outside, framed by lights of waiting vehicles and waving greetings at them with a ceremonial staff.
Karibu. Karibu rafiki. My friends. Welcome, welcome
.

A flick of the staff brings on three Landrovers, the middle one for them, the outer two for security. Rachel climbs into the back. The flight's mood lingers and she isn't up to talking much. Driving through
the darkness towards the equatorial city she half hears the minister and the banker picking up where they left off in Geneva, amicably insulting each other.

“A somewhat modest motorcade for an important visitor,” Nikko observes, putting on the accent of a colonial administrator.

Samson, using a version of ghetto speak, mocks back. “Hey man, here yuh gotta be big, a real hammer man, a top dog, you know, in a real bank, to get some true consideration.”

Along the road on the left, kilometre after kilometre, runs a tall wire fence, the boundary of Nairobi Park. The blackness on the other side is like a mask and Rachel fixes on it. She wants to stare it away, to open it like a curtain, so her eyes can probe the mysteries beyond. Up front the exaggerated accents have been dropped, but the sparring continues. The focus is on Kenya's roads.

“Tough on bankers…the roads,” the minister of finance states. “Getting bounced around…bankers don't cope well. Softens 'em up. One day spent on roads like this and the interest rate spread drops on their loans because they want to get out of the country fast. It's one of our tactics.”

“Typical of finance ministers,” the banker answers dismissively, “shaking down sources of good money, emptying unsuspecting pockets. A form of scavenging, if you ask me.”

Finance ministers as scavengers! Samson whoops and slaps his thigh. If finance ministers are scavengers, he wants to know, what are bankers? “Plunderers? Looters?”

Nikko thinks a moment. “Plunderers? No-o-o. Not looters either.” He tugs at his safari hat, pulling it down as if shading his eyes from the night. His chin juts forward. “Noble hunters,” he concludes. “Bankers are noble hunters. Fearless as lions.”

Samson is delighted – Oh, oh, oh! – and claps his hands. He knows something about lions. A Masai's path to manhood leads through lions. “We stare 'em in the eye. If they charge we face them and catch them on our spears. So you see why we're good at dealing with bankers.” Half turning to Rachel, in a tone that shows he reveres the beasts, he explains there's a few prides roaming free right behind that fence.

Her fascination with the fence and all it hides deepens.

At the hotel, during the few seconds it takes to move from the
Landrover into the lobby, there's a momentary contact with the equatorial night which Rachel remembers as packed with the insistent shrillness of cicadas and the rich smell of exuberant vegetation. The banker and the minister plan a nightcap, but she declines, wanting to rest, to get ready for tomorrow.

The hotel driveway the next day is choked with officialdom. Police on motorbikes are in phalanx formation in front of a convoy of Landrovers much longer than the one the night before. There are the same two for security – one to lead, the other to follow, with the one in between for Samson and his guests – but in fourth place is one for servants, and two more at the rear are stuffed full of supplies. The entire stock of an outfitter's store has been squeezed in. A small army of uniformed men in paramilitary black or plain colonial khaki inspect the wagons with popping eyes, as if they're staring at bullion.
Wazungu,
those unbelievable creatures from far away, are known for requiring exotic comforts while on safari, but these mountains of equipment are something else. Samson, leading Rachel and Nikko out of the hotel, flicks his staff which sends the troop scattering to positions. Swahili shouts bounce up and down the line, motorcycles jump, engines rev, doors are slammed, and the convoy plunges into Nairobi traffic, the phalanx punching an opening, the sirens tunnelling them forwards.

This part – the show of power – Rachel prefers to wish away. She'd rather be stuck in the traffic like everyone else, hopelessly swallowed up in chaos. Her eyes are glued on what's passing by: makeshift fruit and vegetable stalls, ramshackle markets with tin utensils, outdoor African boutiques selling clothing previously worn in the northern hemisphere, and people in the thousands, numerous as locusts, on foot, marching purposefully into all directions.

On Nairobi's outskirts, when the police motorbikes have peeled away, the convoy calms. The road climbs through coffee plantations and dense stands of trees. It climbs still more to heights too cold for coffee, up to eight, nine thousand feet. On the left through the trees Rachel catches glimpses of a chasm in the earth. Soon there's a viewing point where they halt and get out to experience the earth falling away from their feet. Samson says: “New York has the Empire State building. In Kenya we make do with the Rift Valley.”

For Rachel, New York's skyscrapers are tawdry toothpicks compared to what she's looking at. It must be a kilometre down and the features in the valley, squatting extinct volcanoes that witnessed
Homo sapiens
taking his first upright steps, are razor sharp, as if there's no air. On the far side, more than forty kilometres off, the Rift's other edge is a dark mysterious wall begging for exploration. Rachel removes her hat because the brim restricts the vastness of the panoramic sweep.

Nikko approves the grandeur too. A step up from Schleswig-Holstein, he admits.

Samson, pointing his staff to the far right, waves it solemnly to the left as if he's laying claim. This is Masailand and he begins to name the features. Rachel, following Samson's arc, holds then releases the details. Something stirs in her, something impels her to go beyond what she's looking at. The physical elements of the landscape seem an encryption of something larger which her senses can't decipher. The previous night it was blackness which acted as a mask; now, on the Rift's edge, it's the unblemished brilliance of the light that shrouds. She tries to put her finger on what it is that's behind what she is looking at, but no definition arrives. All the while Samson's recitation continues – names in Masai, Swahili, English. When Nikko poses questions, Rachel's self-absorption ends. She notices the breeze is playful, the air cool, the sun warm, and the rhythm of the men's voices congenial.

From a temperate zone they coast down to the Rift's semi-arid floor. Travelling south, the road weaving past volcanoes, Samson describes Masai culture. The way he talks about his tribe he sounds like a collector of great art – respectful and admiring, pointing out details, standing back to expose the whole. He owns this culture, but as with all collecting, it owns him too. In his mind he, Samson the Masai, is never really anywhere but here, walking the dried-out plains dressed in a blanket and carrying a stick and a spear.

Hours later, at the boma of his youth, women and children spill out of the huts, and warriors with red blankets draped from their shoulders emerge from the savannah. The greetings are loud, clacking sounds which aggregate into a complex chorus. Samson teases the warriors and they get excited, so the crescendo grows. Time for a speech. All eyes are on the visitors, two awkwardly grinning aliens so obviously helpless inside vulnerable white skin.

Samson turns to Nikko. “I told them you're an important banker. What's a banker? they asked. I said bankers play games with money. Now they're asking, if that's what you do, you know, play games, like children, is that because you were afraid to become a warrior?”

Nikko reflects. He turns to Rachel whose smirking informs him she won't help. He replies, “Tell them bankers don't play games. Bankers aren't children. Bankers are hunters. The best bankers are warriors, like the Masai.”

Samson's loud translation rambles on, taking five times longer than Nikko's statement. There are intermittent shouts of approval from the villagers. An aging warrior with sunken lips and pretzels for earlobes thrusts a spear towards the banker. A gift. Nikko accepts, takes off his canvas hat and places it on the scalp of the elder. A fluent trade. The old man grins – or is it a sneer at having bested a banker? Yanking the brim down he disappears.

Rachel hasn't seen this side of Nikko. In Geneva he was frequently intense; on the plane he was correct; here with Samson's tribe, he's loose. No sign of tension.

Samson asks if the banker wants to say something further and Nikko begins to describe the place he's from – Schleswig-Holstein – where the grass is thick and the cows are happy. Masailand, he says, waving his finger in a circle in the same way Samson moves his staff, is beautiful and Masai cattle are impressive. “Where I'm from, it's like here. Your tribe, my tribe, we both have great herds of fine cattle, except we use hats to drive them along for milking while you look after yours with spears.”

With this brotherhood established the crowd presses around as Samson gives a tour of the boma. He's not bothered by the flies. Anyway, they're always hungrier for Europeans. Outside the enclosure, away from the dung, the insects thin a bit and the party strolls over to a clearing by some great acacias. Tents have been struck here in a tidy layout. There's a dining hall, a screened-in salon, sleeping quarters and facilities for personal hygiene – an impromptu
wazungu
village, a place of total comfort, a fairy tale.

Down time before dinner.

At dusk Rachel joins Nikko under the acacias. He is sitting deep back in a reclining camp chair with a view west where the sun is turning
blood red. His spear beside him is jammed upright in the ground. Sipping a drink Rachel remarks, “You connected pretty well this afternoon, I mean with Samson's village. Were you close to taking off your shirt so you could wear a Masai blanket too?”

Nikko grins. “Without my shirt? I'd be a freak, a witch doctor at least.”

“All the same, a good show. I don't know what you're like in the boardroom in Berlin, but out here in this neck of the woods, you show talent.”

“Maybe I missed my calling. Well, I felt honoured being given a spear.”

“And the old man was happy to get your hat. He probably thinks he's halfway to being a banker now.”

Samson walks up. Seeing the upright spear, he asks if Nikko plans to get up early to go lion hunting.

The banker jerks the weapon out of the ground and studies the razor edge of the metre-long blade. “No,” he says finally, “no lion hunt. Too easy with this kind of weapon. I'll keep it sharp for my next meeting with a finance minister. I've heard they like to play games with bankers, shaking them down, emptying their pockets, that kind of thing. This spear will correct that. Nothing wrong with making sure the playing field is level.”

Samson starts to snicker. He can't contain it and it grows into all-out laugher. His shoulders shake. Outburst after outburst. Then he claims the spear in Nikko's hands won't threaten finance ministers.

“Why not?”

Tears roll down his cheeks. “Because the word is out,” he cries. “We all heard you. Bankers from Schleswig-Holstein love fattened cows. They herd them with hats, not spears.” Samson takes off an imaginary hat and uses it to shoo off phantom cattle. “That's not too intimidating.”

Nikko bites his lip, balancing the spear at shoulder height, as if he's about to throw it.

Samson says to Rachel. “He's got good form though.”

Rachel agrees the pose isn't bad. “A touch cinematic, that's all.” Nikko lowers the spear and they sip their drinks. Rachel changes the subject. She wants to know how different bomas get along. Samson, an
ever-obliging cultural guide, describes more intricacies of Masai behaviour. Darkness sets in fast and the talk continues over dinner. In the flickering light of kerosene lamps Rachel asks about witch doctors. Samson shakes his great head and his eyes twinkle. Everyone has a witch doctor story and he has his. It's all about voodoo being used as a political tool with some African tribes, about the spells they cast, and the usefulness of fear for ordering society. Nikko sees an opening.

“I can match that,” he says. “The pastors in Schleswig-Holstein. Their voodoo is so great that even the finance minister is under their spell. In my country finance ministers have to pay pastors their salaries.”

That merely proves, sighs Samson, that finance ministers are close to God. “Now Rachel,” he continues, “tell me, if Germany uses its pastors to cast spells, and Africa makes do with witch doctors, what does your country have?”