Dreams from My Father (41 page)

“How much did you pay for these?”

“Only four hundred shillings each.”

“So much! Brother, I think you’ve been cheated. Bernard, why did you let him pay so much?”

Bernard shrugged. Roy looked a bit wounded.

“I told you, these are Just samples,” he said as he folded the carvings back in their wrapping. “An investment, so I will know what the market wants. You can’t make money unless you spend money, eh, Barack?”

“That’s what they say.”

Roy’s enthusiasm quickly returned. “You see? Once I know the market, then I will send orders back to Zeituni. We’ll build the business up slowly, you see.
Slow-ly.
Then, when we have a regular system, Bernard and Abo can go to work for the company. Eh, Bernard? You can work for me.”

Bernard nodded vaguely. Auma studied her younger brother, then turned back to Roy. “So what’s the other big plan?”

Roy smiled. “Amy,” he said.

“Amy?”

“Amy. I’m going to marry her.”

“
What?
How long has it been since you last saw her?”

“Two years. Three. What does it matter?”

“You haven’t had much time to think about it.”

“She’s an African woman. I know
that
! She
understands
me. Not like these European women, always arguing with their men.” Roy nodded emphatically, and then, as if he were being yanked by an invisible string, he jumped out of his seat and headed toward the kitchen. Taking Amy in one arm, he lifted his bottle of beer toward the ceiling.

“Listen, everybody! Now that we are all here, we must have a toast! To those who are not with us! And to a happy ending!” With solemn deliberation, he started to pour his beer onto the floor. At least half of the beer splashed on Auma’s shoes.

“Aggh!” Auma shouted, jumping back. “What are you doing?”

“The ancestors must drink,” Roy said cheerfully. “It is the African way.”

Auma grabbed a napkin to wipe the beer off her legs. “That’s outdoors, Roy! Not in somebody’s house! I swear, sometimes you’re so careless! Who will clean this up now? You?”

Roy was about to answer when Jane rushed up with a rag in her hand. “Don’t worry, don’t worry!” she said, wiping up the floor. “We are just happy to have this one home.”

It had been decided that after dinner we would all go out dancing at a nearby club. As Auma and I headed down the stairs ahead of the others, I heard her muttering to herself in the darkness.

“You Obama men!” she said to me. “You get away with anything! Have you noticed how they treat him? As far as they are concerned, he can do no wrong. Like this thing with Amy. This is just an idea that has popped into his head because he’s lonely. I have nothing against Amy, but she’s as irresponsible as he is. When they’re together, they make each other worse. My mum, Jane, Zeituni—they all know this. But will they say anything to him? No. Because they’re so afraid to offend him, even if it’s for his own good.”

Auma opened the car door and looked back at the rest of the family. They had just emerged from the shadows of the apartment building, Roy’s figure towering over the others like a tree, his arms spread out like branches over the shoulders of his aunts. The sight of him softened Auma’s face just a bit.

“Yah, it’s not really his fault, I suppose,” she said, starting up the car. “You see how he is with them. He’s always been more of a family person than me. They don’t feel judged with him.”

The club, Garden Square, turned out to be a low-roofed, dimly lit place. It was already packed when we arrived, the air thick with cigarette smoke. The clientele was almost all African, an older, after work crowd of clerks, secretaries, government workers, all gathered around wobbly Formica tables. We pushed together two empty tables away from the small stage, and the waiter took our orders. Auma sat down next to Amy.

“So, Amy. Roy tells me you two are thinking about getting married.”

“Yes, isn’t it wonderful! He’s so much fun! When he settles down, he says I can come to stay with him in America.”

“You don’t worry about being apart? I mean …”

“Other women?” Amy laughed and winked at Roy. “I tell you honestly, I don’t care about that.” She swung her fleshy arm over Roy’s shoulder. “As long as he treats me well, he can do what he likes. Right, baby?”

Roy maintained a poker face, as if the conversation didn’t concern him. Both he and Amy had the sheen of too many beers, and I saw Jane sneak an anxious look at Kezia. I decided to change the subject, and asked Zeituni if she’d been to Garden Square before.

“Me?” Zeituni raised her eyebrows at my impertinence. “Let me tell you, Barry—if there is dancing somewhere, then I have been to that place. These people here will tell you that I am the champion dancer. What do you say, Auma?”

“Zeituni’s the best.”

Zeituni tilted her head proudly. “You see? Really, Barry, your auntie can dance! And you want to know who was always my best partner? Your father! That guy, he really loved to dance. We entered many contests together when we were young. In fact, I’ll tell you this story about his dancing. It was when he had come home to Alego one time to visit with your grandfather. He had promised that evening to do some chore for the old man—I don’t remember what it was—but instead of doing his work, he went out to meet Kezia and take her dancing. You remember, Kezia? This is before they were married. I wanted to go with them, but Barack said I was too young.

“Anyway, they came home late that night, and Barack had had a few too many beers. He tried to sneak Kezia into his hut, but the old man was still awake and heard their footsteps in the compound. Even as an old man, your grandfather’s hearing was very keen. So right away he shouts for Barack to come. When Barack comes in, the old man doesn’t say a word. He just looks at Barack and snorts like an angry bull. Hmmmph! Hmmmph! And this whole time, I am peeking through the window of the old man’s house, because I’m sure that the old man will cane Barack and I’m still angry at Barack, for not letting me go to the dance hall.

“What happened next, I couldn’t believe. Instead of apologizing for coming home late, Barack walked over to the old man’s phonograph and started to play a record! Then he turned and shouted to Kezia, who was hiding outside. ‘Woman!’ Barack shouted. ‘Come here!’ Right away Kezia came into the house, too frightened to refuse, and Barack took her in his arms and began to dance with her, around and around in the old man’s house, as if he were dancing in a palace ballroom.”

Zeituni shook her head and laughed. “Well now … no one treated your grandfather this way, not even Barack. I was sure now that for this thing Barack must be beaten severely. For a long time, your grandfather said nothing. He just sat there, watching his son. Then, like an elephant, he shouted out even louder than Barack. ‘Woman! Come here!’ And right away my mum, the one you call Granny, rushed in from her own hut, where she had been mending clothes. She asked why everyone was shouting, and your grandfather stood up and held out his hand. My mum shook her head and accused your grandfather of trying to make a fool of her, but the old man was so determined that soon all four of them were dancing in the hut, the two men looking very serious, the women looking at each other as if now they were sure that their husbands were crazy.”

We all laughed at the story, and Roy ordered another round for everyone. I started to ask Zeituni more about our grandfather, but just then the band took up their positions on stage. The group looked a bit ragged at first, but the moment they struck their first note, the place was transformed. Immediately, people began pouring out onto the dance floor, stepping to the
soukous
beat. Zeituni grabbed my hand, and Roy took Auma’s, and Amy took Bernard’s, and soon we were all dancing into a sweat, arms and hips and rumps swaying softly; tall, ink-black Luos and short, brown Kikuyus, Kamba and Meru and Kalenjin, everyone smiling and shouting and having a ball. Roy threw his arms over his head to do a slow, funky turn around Auma, who was laughing at her brother’s silliness, and right then I saw in my brother’s face the same look I had seen years ago in Toot and Gramps’s apartment back in Hawaii, when the Old Man had first taught me how to dance—that same look of unquestioned freedom.

After three or four numbers, Roy and I both relinquished our partners and carried our beers into the open courtyard out back. The cool air tickled my nose, and I felt a bit tipsy.

“It’s good to be here,” I said.

“You know it. Like a poet.” Roy laughed, sipping his beer.

“No, really, I mean it. It’s just good to be here, with you and Auma and everyone. It’s as if we—”

Before I could finish, we heard a bottle crash to the floor behind us. I spun around to see two men at the far side of the courtyard pushing another, smaller, man down onto the ground. With one hand, the man on the ground appeared to be covering a cut on his head; with his free arm he was trying to shield himself from the swings of a billy club. I took a step forward, but Roy pulled me back.

“Mind your own business, brother,” he whispered.

“But—”

“They may be police. I tell you, Barack, you don’t know what it’s like to spend a night in a Nairobi jail.”

By now, the man on the ground had curled up into a tight ball, trying to protect himself from the haphazard blows. Then, like a trapped animal who senses an opening, the man suddenly jumped to his feet and climbed onto one of the tables to scramble over the wooden fence. His assailants looked as if they were going to give chase but apparently decided that it wasn’t worth it. One of them noticed Roy and me but said nothing, and together the two of them sauntered back inside. I suddenly felt very sober.

“That was terrible,” I said.

“Yah, well … you don’t know what the other guy did first.”

I rubbed the back of my neck. “When were you in jail anyway?”

Roy took another swig of beer and fell into one of the metal chairs. “The night David died.”

I sat down beside him and he told me the story. They had gone out to drink, he said, in search of a party. They had taken Roy’s motorcycle to a nearby club, and there Roy had met a woman. He had taken a fancy to her, and they started talking. He had bought her a beer, but before long another man had come up and started getting in Roy’s face. The man said he was the woman’s husband and grabbed her by the arm. The woman struggled and fell, and Roy told the man to leave her alone. A fight broke out. The police came, and Roy didn’t have his identification papers, so they took him down to the station. He was thrown in a cell and left there for several hours, until David finally managed to get in to see him.

Give me the keys to the motorcycle,
David had said,
and I can get you the papers you need.

No. Just go home.

You can’t stay here all night, brother. Give me the keys ….

Roy stopped talking. We sat and stared at the shadows, oversized and faint off the lattice fence.

“It was an accident, Roy,” I said finally. “It wasn’t your fault. You need to let it go.”

Before I could say anything else, I heard Amy hollering behind us, her voice slurring slightly over the music.

“Hey, you two! We’ve been looking all over for you!”

I started to wave her off, but Roy jerked out of his chair, tipping it to the ground.

“Come on, woman,” he said, taking Amy by the waist. “Let’s go dance.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A
T FIVE-THIRTY IN
the evening, our train rumbled out of the old Nairobi train station heading west for Kisumu. Jane had decided to stay behind, but the rest of the family was on board—Kezia, Zeituni, and Auma in one compartment; Roy, Bernard, and myself in the next. While everyone busied themselves with storing their luggage, I jiggled open a window and looked out at the curve of the tracks behind us, a line of track that had helped usher in Kenya’s colonial history.

The railway had been the single largest engineering effort in the history of the British Empire at the time it was built—six hundred miles long, from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to the eastern shores of Lake Victoria. The project took five years to complete, as well as the lives of several hundred imported Indian workers. When it was finished, the British realized there were no passengers to help defray the costs of their conceit. And so the push for white settlers; the consolidation of lands that could be used to help lure newcomers; the cultivation of cash crops like coffee and tea; the necessity of an administrative apparatus that could extend as far as the tracks, into the heart of an unknown continent. And missions and churches to vanquish the fear that an unknown land produced.

It seemed like ancient history. And yet I knew that 1895, the year that the first beams were laid, had also been the year of my grandfather’s birth. It was the lands of that same man, Hussein Onyango, to which we were now traveling. The thought made the history of the train come alive for me, and I tried to imagine the sensations some nameless British officer might have felt on the train’s maiden voyage, as he sat in his gas-lit compartment and looked out over miles of receding bush. Would he have felt a sense of triumph, a confidence that the guiding light of Western civilization had finally penetrated the African darkness? Or did he feel a sense of foreboding, a sudden realization that the entire enterprise was an act of folly, that this land and its people would outlast imperial dreams? I tried to imagine the African on the other side of the glass window, watching this snake of steel and black smoke passing his village for the first time. Would he have looked at the train with envy, imagining himself one day sitting in the car where the Englishman sat, the load of his days somehow eased? Or would he have shuddered with visions of ruin and war?

My imagination failed me, and I returned to the present landscape, no longer bush but the rooftops of Mathare stretching into the foothills beyond. Passing one of the slum’s open-air markets, I saw a row of small boys wave to the train. I waved back, and heard Kezia’s voice, speaking in Luo, behind me. Bernard yanked on my shirt.

“She says you should keep your head inside. Those boys will throw stones at you.”

One of the train’s crew came in to take our bedding order and tell us that food service had started, and so we all went into the dining car and found ourselves a table. The car was a picture of faded elegance—the original wood paneling still intact but dull, the silver real but not perfectly matched. The food was just fine, though, and the beer served cold, and by the end of the meal I was feeling content.

“How long will it take to get to Home Square?” I asked, wiping the last bit of sauce off my plate.

“All night to Kisumu,” Auma said. “We’ll take a bus or
matatu
from there—another five hours, maybe.”

“By the way,” Roy said to me, lighting a cigarette, “it’s not Home
Square
. It’s Home
Squared
.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s something the kids in Nairobi used to say,” Auma explained. “There’s your ordinary house in Nairobi. And then there’s your house in the country, where your people come from. Your ancestral home. Even the biggest minister or businessman thinks this way. He may have a mansion in Nairobi and build only a small hut on his land in the country. He may go there only once or twice a year. But if you ask him where he is from, he will tell you that that hut is his true home. So, when we were at school and wanted to tell somebody we were going to Alego, it was home twice over, you see. Home Squared.”

Roy took a sip of his beer. “For you, Barack, we can call it Home Cubed.”

Auma smiled and leaned back in her seat, listening to the rhythm of the train on the tracks. “This train brings back so many memories. You remember, Roy, how much we used to look forward to going home? It is so beautiful, Barack! Not at all like Nairobi. And Granny—she’s so much fun! Oh, you will like her, Barack. She has such a good sense of humor.”

“She had to have a good sense of humor,” Roy said, “living with the Terror for so long.”

“Who’s the Terror?”

Auma said, “That’s what we used to call our grandfather. Because he was so mean.”

Roy shook his head and laughed. “Wow, that guy was
mean
! He would make you sit at the table for dinner, and served the food on china, like an Englishman. If you said one wrong thing, or used the wrong fork—pow! He would hit you with his stick. Sometimes when he hit you, you wouldn’t even know why until the next day.”

Zeituni waved them off, unimpressed. “Ah, you children knew him only when he was old and weak. When he was younger, aay! I was his favorite, you know. His pet. But still, if I did something wrong, I would hide from him all day, I would be so scared! You know, he was strict even with his guests. If they came to his house, he would kill many chickens in their honor. But if they broke custom, like washing their hands before someone who was older, he would have no hesitation in hitting them, even the adults.”

“Doesn’t sound like he was real popular,” I said.

Zeituni shook her head. “Actually, he was well respected because he was such a good farmer. His compound in Alego was one of the biggest in the area. He had such a green thumb, he could make anything grow. He had studied these techniques from the British, you see. When he worked for them as a cook.”

“I didn’t know he was a cook.”

“He had his lands, but for a long time he was a cook for
wazungu
in Nairobi. He worked for some very important people. During the World War he served a captain in the British army.”

Roy ordered another beer. “Maybe that’s what made him so mean.”

“I don’t know,” Zeituni said. “I think my father was always that way. Very strict. But fair. I will tell you one story I remember, from when I was only a young girl. One day a man came to the edge of our compound with a goat on a leash. He wanted to pass through our land, because he lived on the other side, and he didn’t want to walk around. So your grandfather told this man, ‘When you are alone, you are always free to pass through my land. But today you cannot pass, because your goat will eat my plants.’ Well, this man would not listen. He argued for a long time with your grandfather, saying that he would be careful and that the goat would do no harm. This man talked so much your grandfather finally called me over and said, ‘Go bring me Alego.’ That’s what he called his
panga,
you see—”

“His machete.”

“Yes, his machete. He had two that he kept very, very sharp. He would rub them on a stone all day. One
panga
he called Alego. The other he called Kogelo. So I ran back to his hut and brought him the one he called Alego. And now your grandfather tells this man, ‘See here. I have already told you that you should not pass, but you are too stubborn to listen. So now I will make a bargain with you. You can pass with your goat. But if even one leaf is harmed—if even
one half
of one leaf of my plants is harmed—then I will cut down your goat also.’

“Well, even though I was very young at the time, I knew that this man must be so stupid, because he accepted my father’s offer. We began to walk, the man and his goat in front, me and the old man following closely behind. We had walked maybe twenty steps when the goat stuck out its neck and started nibbling at a leaf. Then—Whoosh! My dad cut one side of the goat’s head clean through. The goat owner was shocked, and started to cry out. ‘Aalieey! Aaiieey! What have you done now, Hussein Onyango.’ And your grandfather just wiped off his
panga
and said, ‘If I say I will do something, I must do it. Otherwise how will people know that my word is true?’ Later, the owner of the goat tried to sue your grandfather before the council of elders. The elders all felt pity for the man, for the death of a goat was not such a small thing. But when they heard his story, they had to send him away. They knew that your grandfather was right, because the man had been warned.”

Auma shook her head. “Can you imagine, Barack?” she said, looking at me. “I swear, sometimes I think that the problems in this family all started with him. He is the only person whose opinion I think the Old Man really worried about. The only person he feared.”

By this time, the dining car had emptied and the waiter was pacing back and forth impatiently, so we all decided to turn in. The bunks were narrow, but the sheets were cool and inviting, and I stayed up late listening to the trembling rhythm of the train and the even breath of my brothers, and thinking about the stories of our grandfather. It had all started with him, Auma had said. That sounded right somehow. If I could just piece together his story, I thought, then perhaps everything else might fall into place.

I finally fell asleep, and dreamed I was walking along a village road. Children, dressed only in strings of beads, played in front of the round huts, and several old men waved to me as I passed. But as I went farther along, I began to notice that people were looking behind me fearfully, rushing into their huts as I passed. I heard the growl of a leopard and started to run into the forest, tripping over roots and stumps and vines, until at last I couldn’t run any longer and fell to my knees in the middle of a bright clearing. Panting for breath, I turned around to see the day turned night, and a giant figure looming as tall as the trees, wearing only a loincloth and a ghostly mask. The lifeless eyes bored into me, and I heard a thunderous voice saying only that it was time, and my entire body began to shake violently with the sound, as if I were breaking apart ….

I jerked up in a sweat, hitting my head against the wall lamp that stuck out above the bunk. In the darkness, my heart slowly evened itself, but I couldn’t get back to sleep again.

We arrived in Kisumu at daybreak and walked the half mile to the bus depot. It was crowded with buses and
matatus
honking and jockeying for space in the dusty open-air lot, their fenders painted with names like “Love Bandit” and “Bush Baby.” We found a sad-looking vehicle with balding, cracked tires that was heading our way. Auma boarded first, then stepped back out, looking morose.

“There are no seats,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Roy said as our bags were hoisted up by a series of hands to the roof of the bus. “This is Africa, Auma … not Europe.” He turned and smiled down at the young man who was collecting fares. “You can find us some seats, eh, brother?”

The man nodded. “No problem. This bus is first-class.”

An hour later Auma was sitting on my lap, along with a basket of yams and somebody else’s baby girl.

“I wonder what third-class looks like,” I said, wiping a strand of spittle off my hand.

Auma pushed a strange elbow out of her face. “You won’t be joking after we hit the first pothole.”

Fortunately, the highway was well paved, the landscape mostly dry bush and low hills, the occasional cinder-block house soon replaced by mud huts with thatched, conical roofs. We got off in Ndori and spent the next two hours sipping on warm sodas and watching stray dogs snap at each other in the dust, until a
matatu
finally appeared to take us over the dirt road heading north. As we drove up the rocky incline a few shoeless children waved but did not smile, and a herd of goats ran before us, to drink at a narrow stream. Then the road widened and we finally stopped at a clearing. Two young men were sitting there, under the shade of a tree, and their faces broke into smiles as they saw us. Roy jumped out of the
matatu
to gather the two men into his arms.

“Barack,” Roy said happily, “these are our uncles. This is Yusuf,” he said, pointing to the slightly built man with a mustache. “And this,” he said, pointing to the larger, clean-shaven man, “this is our father’s youngest brother, Sayid.”

“Ah, we have heard many great things about this one,” Sayid said, smiling at me. “Welcome, Barry. Welcome. Come, let me have your bags.”

We followed Yusuf and Sayid down a path running perpendicular to the main road, until we crossed a wall of tall hedges and entered a large compound. In the middle of the compound was a low, rectangular house with a corrugated-iron roof and concrete walls that had crumbled on one side, leaving their brown mud base exposed. Bougainvillea, red and pink and yellow with flowers, spread along one side in the direction of a large concrete water tank, and across the packed earth was a small round hut lined with earthenware pots where a few chickens pecked in an alternating rhythm. I could see two more huts in the wide grass yard that stretched out behind the house. Beneath a tall mango tree, a pair of bony red cows looked up at us before returning to feed.