Burn My Heart (5 page)

‘Hapana, Baba,’ Mugo whispered, shaking his head fervently. Baba was relentless.

‘Do you want to learn English in the bwana’s house? Do you want to go to school?’

‘Ndio, Baba.’ Mugo felt tears rising. Of course he wanted these things! If he were sent to work outside, he would earn less. Mugo also knew that Baba was planning to ask the bwana to help with his school fees when his older brother, Gitau, had completed his schooling in Nyeri. Baba’s wages could only pay for one of them to be in a government school that gave proper qualifications.

‘Then be careful not to make the bwana mad like that again. You should know why this fence is a big thing.’

Mugo nodded. He knew very well why the
bwana had made the new fence much higher and stronger than the old one. He had been polishing the veranda and overheard the District Officer’s warning to the bwana: ‘
These Mau Mau agitators are coming from Nairobi to turn your labourers against you. They’ll be making them take their damned oath.
’

‘Tell me, Mugo… if the bwana thinks that you wanted to help the ones who cut his fence, do you know what will happen to us?’

Baba’s question struck like lightning. It hadn’t even crossed his mind. The bwana might think he was with the Mau Mau!

‘But, Baba!’

Baba put up his hand to silence him. Mugo wanted to explain that he knew nothing about Mau Mau or their oath except that it was a secret thing and the wazungu had made it against their law because they feared it. But Baba looked tired and waved that Mugo could go. At the very same moment, Mugo felt drops of rain on his face. Usually he relished the freshness of the first rains as they soaked his skin and the soil under his feet. Tonight, forgetting even to say goodnight, he fled inside to his straw mat and blanket.

Mathew curled up under his crisp cotton sheet, listening to the rain drumming on the tin roof. It was a stroke of luck. By the time Father inspected around the fence in the morning light, his and Mugo’s tracks on the other side would be washed away. Father need never know of their expedition. Usually the sound of rain on the tin induced Mathew into sleep. He enjoyed feeling wrapped up securely from the elements outside. But after the telephone call from Major Smithers, he didn’t feel safe at all.

He was used to hearing grown-ups talk about the Mau Mau, especially at the club. But whenever he asked where an incident had happened, he was told ‘
Fortunately, not here
’. It had always been somewhere else… like Nairobi, which they seldom visited, or Naivasha or some other place in the Rift Valley on the other side of the Aberdare Mountains.

Tonight, however, Mathew lay in bed imagining that people might actually be prowling around their farm. What a fool he had been! What if the fence
had been cut by a Mau Mau gang and they had met them in the bush? That would have been even more terrifying than their encounter with One-Tusk… and Mugo wouldn’t have been able to protect him, a white settler boy.

The rain beat down harder now, rattling the roof, as thunder rumbled in the distance. When Mathew was younger, he had often run into the stables to get out of a thunderstorm. He and Kamau would watch the heavens open, drenching the garden and the bush beyond. In Kamau’s stories, Ngai the Creator rolled out thunder from the top of his mountain when he was angered. There was one story in which Elephant helped Hare to cross a river. Hare offered to hold Elephant’s jar of honey while sitting on his back. By the time they reached the other side, the jar was empty. Hare was laughing but Elephant was furious at Hare’s deceit and vowed revenge. Mathew could hear Kamau ending the story as if he had made it specially for him, the little master: ‘
You see, bwana kidogo, one day Ngai will help Elephant. That day Hare will be very sorry. Bwana kidogo, you must know that Ngai sees everything.
’ Mathew coiled in his head like a snail as he remembered how it had felt to be at the mercy of One-Tusk and his anger. As the lightning cracked, splitting the night sky, he pulled his pillow over his head.

Mugo woke in the middle of the night. The first thing he heard was rain rushing to the earth. He urgently needed to pee but waited to let his eyes adjust to the gloom so he wouldn’t trip over his brother and sister sleeping on the floor beside him. As he tiptoed across the room, a drop of water splashed his forehead. The thatch was leaking again. He had helped Baba patch it up in the last rainy season. He skirted past the bed where Baba was snoring. His father slept lightly and Mugo hoped the rain would cover the sound of him tugging the metal bolt on the door. Then he opened the creaking wood just enough to squeeze out. He eased it shut behind him.

Sheets of water pitched down from the edge of the thatch. The rain was driving a stream across the compound and he decided against trying to reach the toilet area. Instead, hugging the wall, he hurried to the back of the house to relieve himself there. He took his time, enjoying the freshness of
the air and the damp earth. The rain was a blessing. With luck it would help everyone forget the incident of the fence.

He was feeling his way back when he realized that he was not alone in the compound. He pressed his back against the wall, his heart thumping. Three shadows were slicing through the torrential rain, aiming for the room where his parents were sleeping. They were almost close enough to touch with a long stick! The one in front was bent double, carrying something. A gun? The door was unbolted and they could go straight in! There was no chance of Mugo getting back inside in time to lock it.

His instinct told him to hide. Could he conceal himself between the maize stalks in the shamba? But he needed to know what was happening. Diving through the rain, he reached the entrance to the shamba and, trembling, felt his way along its thorny hedge until he thought he was in line with the front of the house. He scratched his fingers trying to feel for an opening through which he could peer. The downpour was easing slightly and he could just make out a shape standing outside like a guard. Then Baba’s and Mami’s shapes came stumbling through the door. They were probably still half asleep. There was no screaming or shouting but Mami huddled close to his father. Where were his little brother and sister? Had his
parents been forced out of bed so quietly that the little ones were still sleeping?

More shadows emerged and there was talking. Mugo strained to hear. One of the strangers was much shorter than the others and his high-pitched voice carried through the rain.

‘Where is the kitchen toto?’

‘…not here… sometimes he sleeps there… kitchen… Mzungu keeps him late…’ Baba’s bass voice was more difficult to follow but Mugo also saw him wave his arm towards the bwana’s house.

‘If you lie, you will pay.’ The words flew sharp as arrows.

Mugo’s mouth felt dry. How did these young men know about him? If they had an informant, they would soon know Baba was lying. He had only once slept in the shed by the kitchen.

‘Why should I lie?’ Baba sounded composed. ‘Are we not coming with you without trouble?’

‘Must I look, Captain?’ The shape of the guard stepped away from the door.

‘Hapana. No, we go.’ It was the same rapid, higher voice that had asked about the kitchen toto. He was the one with the gun and clearly the leader. Mugo was surprised how short he was, probably not much taller than himself. Mugo made out a peaked cap but could see nothing of the face underneath.

With Mami and Baba between them, the young men headed briskly towards the row of banana trees that separated Mugo’s compound from Mzee Josiah’s. Mugo was torn. Shouldn’t he go back to his brother and sister? That’s what his parents would want him to do. But he also had to know where the strangers were taking them! He would lose them in the rain-filled night if he didn’t follow instantly.

The shamba extended almost to the banana trees but the thorn hedge was so thickly planted that it would be difficult to get out at that end. He was obliged to hurry back to the shamba’s entrance and, by the time he was running softly on the other side, he had lost the figures in the thick wet darkness. Mugo imagined, however, that they might be heading for Mzee Josiah’s door. In daylight you could see it from the banana trees, but as he emerged through the web of dripping leaves, he realized he would have to sneak up closer to see anything.

Mzee Josiah and his wife lived on their own. Their children were all grown up, working in Nairobi and Nyeri as clerks and teachers, for more money than their parents could ever earn. Halfway between the banana trees and the house was a fat mango tree. Mzee Josiah claimed his mangoes were juicier than any in the memsahib’s orchard and that his cook’s nose could sniff out any young
thieves. When ripe, the sweet golden finger-licking smell of the fruit was a great temptation. Occasionally, made bold by friends, Mugo risked capturing a couple of mangoes. With his blood pulsing just as strongly now, he trod softly towards the tree. Tonight the rain was his friend, covering his sounds. But as he slid between the mesh of mango branches and leaves, he felt a thousand fingers circling his neck. Seconds later, he heard a shout, a scream, then scuffling and muffled shrieks. Even the gun hadn’t made Mzee Josiah and Mama Mercy come as quietly as Baba and Mami.

‘Stop their mouths!’ It was the captain again. ‘Haraka! Hurry! These ones will make us late!’

Late for what? No one said it, but it was understood. Mugo’s hammering heart knew… just as it knew why they had asked for him too.

Mugo followed just far enough behind not to be detected. Although the young men kept away from the fence surrounding Bwana Grayson’s house, he thought he heard Duma barking. He relaxed a little when they entered the grove of pepper trees. It was the daily route he took when Mzee Josiah sent him to collect milk from the dairy. Even in the soaking darkness the path felt familiar. He felt a special attachment to this grove. His own grandfather had planted these pepper seedlings before setting off with the wazungu for their war. But, as Baba said, he had never had the pleasure of harvesting them.

On the other side of the pepper trees, the path sloped down into a grassy plain. To the east were rows of Bwana Grayson’s cramped labour lines that housed his many labourers. The dairy lay to the north-west, further into the plain. Mugo waited at the top of the slope until he thought the others had reached the bottom. The last thing he wanted was
to slip on the wet earth and slide on top of them.

He was about to descend when a bolt of lightning lit up the sky and the land below. His eyes were drawn to movement on the plain in front of him. A throng of people were heading from the labour lines towards the dairy! They were almost there. It was as he thought. Everyone who worked for Bwana Grayson was being collected in one place.

A great burst of thunder exploded overhead. Mugo retreated a few paces from the open slope. Shouldn’t he go back home now? The lightning might have woken up his brother and sister. They would be crying. But the brief vision of everyone running towards the dairy blazed in his mind. He stood dripping, shivering and wondering what to do when lightning struck again. The plain ahead of him was now empty of people. Mugo’s legs made his decision for him.

Scrambling down the slope, then half-walking, half-running through the long grass, he trusted his knowledge of the path to keep him from tripping. It wasn’t enough to know where his parents and the others had been taken. He had to know what they were actually doing! It was only Mzee Josiah and his wife whom he had seen resisting the strangers. Hadn’t Baba said ‘
Are we not coming with you without trouble?
’? Perhaps they were not such strangers after all. He had to find out.

*

The first thing Mugo heard as he approached the back of the dairy was the mooing and shuffling of the cows in the boma opposite the long shed where the cows were milked. Wamai, the old dairyman, must have left them there, against the bwana’s instructions. Mugo had heard the bwana telling the new Swahili foreman to keep an eye on Wamai. ‘
I don’t want any of my cows struck by lightning! If there’s a thunderstorm, you make sure Wamai takes them into the milking shed.
’ But with Juma away visiting his sick mother, there was no one to check and no one else would inform the bwana.

The milking shed was surrounded by its own high barbed-wire fence. Stories of settlers’ cattle being mysteriously slaughtered in the night had made Bwana Grayson recently replace the old fence here too. Mugo dropped behind a bush as he figured a way of getting through it. First, he must find where the guards were. There was surely more than one. Creeping low, he circled through the long grass round to the front. To his amazement, he could see no one at the gate! Instead there was a cluster of men at the entrance to the milking shed, next to Wamai the dairyman’s hut. With the rain pelting down, they were more sheltered there. In the weak light coming through the door of Wamai’s hut, Mugo caught the glint of long steel blades. The men carried pangas and it seemed that they were making an archway of what looked
like banana leaves and maize stalks. He hoped that this was the only reason they had brought their pangas here in the middle of the night. Did he dare to sneak through the gate while they were busy? If he were spotted, they would surely chase him!

Once again, his legs seemed to decide for him. He found himself dashing for the gate and from there to the back of the milking shed and around the corner. Breathing heavily, he was relieved to see a few small bushes. If a guard came to the back, the bushes would make it a little more difficult to see him. Finding a slit between the wooden stakes of the shed wall, he put his eye to it. A dim light came from a hurricane lamp up at the front and, at first, all he could see was a mass of shadowy people with their backs to him. He tried to scan individual shapes, searching for his parents, but it was impossible.

Peering through one slit after another as he edged along the wall, he at last found Baba and Mami in a row near the front. His father had that severe expression that gave nothing away, but he saw Mami wipe her brow. He had seen her do that when she had a headache. A guard stood at the end of their line. He twirled a small club in one hand, his distrustful eyes fixed on Mzee Josiah and Mama Mercy. Old Mzee stood stiffly to attention, staring straight ahead. His face reminded Mugo of
an angry carving. He didn’t even seem to notice when his wife’s shoulders suddenly shuddered as if ants had crawled over them. Mami placed her hand on Mama Mercy’s arm. To Mugo’s surprise, Mama Mercy clasped it and lifted it to her chest. As a house servant she usually kept herself apart from Mami and the other women who weeded the memsahib’s garden.