Petals of Blood (7 page)

‘Or those that smoke.’

‘Or those that write letters to girls . . . but I know why Mwalimu is scared of enrolling us. We might lead a strike. We might tear books and beat up the teachers. Down with our teachers . . . There will be a riot, the school will close and . . .’

Abdulla became absorbed in his mythical school strike. He unrolled idea after idea: image after image.

‘Why,’ he went on, ‘I know of a school where the children went on strike because a teacher had confiscated a love-letter.’

And suddenly he was seized with an irresistible urge to tell that story of a school which almost closed because the headmaster had been suspected of erecting a mountain of shit. He was about to start when he remembered that Nyakinyua was Wanja’s grandmother. He also noticed that Wanja and Munira were quiet, very quiet. They seemed to have inexplicably withdrawn from the drunken irrelevance of a few minutes before. He looked from one face to the other: what had gone wrong? The lamplight flickered. Shadows passed over the walls: shadows passed over the faces. Maybe also over their lives, Abdulla thought: the two after all were strangers to him, and only Ilmorog had brought them together. Munira’s voice when later he broke through the shadow of silence was reflective, sober, but underneath it, bitter.

3 ~ To be made a prefect, Munira started slowly, looking to the ground, absorbed in thoughts he did not know he had, speaking from a past he should have forgotten, crossing valleys and hills and ridges and plains of time to the beginning of his death, you must be able to lick the boots of those above you, you must be able to scrub a dish to a shine brighter than the original, or as we would say in Siriana, outpray Jesus in prayers of devotion. Siriana: you should have been there in our time, before and during the period of the big, costly
European dance of death and even after: you might say that our petty lives and their fears and crises took place against a background of tremendous changes and troubles, as can be seen by the names given to the age-sets between Nyabani and Hitira: Mwomboko . . . Karanji, Boti, Ngunga, Muthuu, Ng’aragu Ya Mianga, Bamiti, Gicina Bangi, Cugini-Mburaki. But you understand we were protected from all that at Siriana, then both a primary and secondary boarding school. But I am straying. I could never quite lick anybody’s boots. I could never shine dishes to brightness brighter than bright, or out-Jesus . . . eeh . . . Mr Christ. To be sure I was never prominent in anything. In class I was average. In sports I had not the limbs — I had not the will. My ambition and vision, unlike that of Chui, never would carry me beyond what the Lord had vouchsafed to me. Ambition, the same Chui used to say, quoting from an English writer called William Shakespeare, ambition should be made of sterner stuff. He himself was made of a different stuff from most of us. He was a tall youth with prominent cheekbones, a slightly hardened face, and black hair matted but always carefully parted in the middle. He was neat with a style all his own in doing things: from quoting bits from Shakespeare to wearing clothes. Even the drab school uniform of grey trousers, a white starched shirt, a blue jacket and a tie carrying the school motto,
For God and Empire
, looked as if it was specially tailored to fit him.

It was Chui who first introduced the tie-pin to school: it became the fashion.

He was the first to wear sports-shorts with the bottoms turned up: it became the fashion.

He was the star in sports, in everything: Chui this, Chui that, Chui, Chui, Chui everywhere. The breezy mountain air in which English settlers had found a home-climate had formed his sinewy muscles: to watch him play football, to watch that athletic swing of his body as he dribbled the ball with sudden swerves to the left or to the right to deceive an opponent, that was a pleasure indeed. Shake, shake, shake the ball, the looking-on crowd would shout themselves hoarse. He was a performer, playing to a delirious gallery. Shake, Shaake, Shaaake . . . spear the ball somebody added. And Shakespeare he remained until, again through him, we heard of Joe Louis and his feats in the
ring. He then became Joe, especially when our school was playing against some European teams. Joe, Joe, shake them, shake them: if you miss the ball, don’t miss the leg. That was his best moment. His footwork would then be perfect. I believe that in such moments he was us, playing there against the white colonists.

Now when I come to think of it, it was strange that with all the hate we had for white people, we hardly ever thought of the Rev. Hallowes Ironmonger as a white man. Or maybe we thought of him as a different sort of white man. He was, despite his name, a gentle old man who looked more a farmer than a missionary headmaster. He was rather absent-minded and he would often forget his gold-laced black gown in the classroom or in the chapel. Walking across the grass lawns hand in hand with his bow-legged wife – we used to say that if she were to be made a goalkeeper, all the balls would go through her legs – they looked as if they were pilgrims resting on earth for a time, before resuming their journey to heaven, where they would eternally plough cotton-white fields, drink milky tea and eat vanilla cream chocolates. Rev. Ironmonger liked Chui and used to call him Shakespeare (but never Joe Louis) affectionately to the amusement of us all. They used to take him for long rides in the country in their choking Bedford. They also took him to musical concerts and puppet shows in the city. He was probably the son they had never had. We were not surprised when Chui, in his third year, was made the school captain, previously a prerogative of those in the fourth forms.

That was just before the Ironmongers retired to their home somewhere in England to wait for death, as some students rather ungraciously remarked, and a Cambridge Fraudsham came to the scene. Before we had any time to know him, he changed our lives. Fresh from the war, he already had firm notions how an African school had to be. Now, my boys, trousers are quite out of the question in the tropics. He sketched a profile of an imaginary thick-lipped African in a grey woollen suit, a sun-helmet, a white starched stiff collar and tie, and laughed contemptuously: Don’t emulate this man. There was to be no rice in our meals: the school did not want to turn out men who would want to live beyond their means. And no shoes, my boys, except on the day of worship: the school did not want to turn out
black Europeans but true Africans who would not look down upon the innocence and simple ways of their ancestors. At the same time, we had to grow up strong in God and the Empire. It was the two that had rid the world of the menace of Hitler.

The strength to serve: sports, cross-country races, cold showers at five in the morning became compulsory. We saluted the British flag every morning and every evening to the martial sound from the bugles and drums of our school band. Then we would all march in orderly military lines to the chapel to raise choral voices to the Maker: Wash me, Redeemer, and I shall be whiter than snow. We would then pray for the continuation of an Empire that had defeated the satanic evil which had erupted in Europe to try the children of God.

Chui – who else? — led us in a strike. We wanted all our former rights restored: we would have nothing to do with khaki shorts and certainly not with mbuca and other wadudu-eaten beans, no matter the amount of proteins in the insects. And why should teams from European schools get glucose and orange squash after a game while our own teams only got plain water? Bring back Rev. Ironmonger, we shouted.

Today, now, I wonder what came over me. It was probably the emotion of the hour. But for those three days of defiant refusal to salute the British flag, I felt more than my usual average and I must have unnecessarily brought myself to the fore. Chui and I plus five others were expelled from Siriana. The rest returned to classes, after fierce-looking riot police with batons and tear gas and turai-shields came marching to the school. Fraudsham had played it tough and won . . .

Munira paused. His voice had become more and more faint with the progress of the narrative. But it retained the weight and power of a bitter inward gaze. He had not quite realized that a school incident in the early forties could be so alive, could still carry the pain of a fresh wound. Maybe the drink and Wanja’s presence had mellowed him. Maybe that or something else. He raised his face from the past of his days at school and looked at the grotesque shadow images on the wall. Wanja cleared her throat as if to say something, but she didn’t speak. Abdulla called out to Joseph to shut the counter. Munira continued.

‘Chui was later heard of in South Africa and then America. For me the whole episode was a lesson. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Mine was of soft material. Withdrawal into self . . . depersoning myself before a crowd demanding passionate commitment to a cause became, thenceforth, my way of life. Let me remain burrowed into the earth. Why should I dare? I say: Give me a classroom; give me a few attentive pupils and leave me alone!’

Abdulla started cursing Joseph and asking him why he had not yet brought more beer. Joseph quickly brought the beer. Abdulla shouted at him to clean and clear the table.

Joseph was about seven years old with bright eyes but a hardened, expressionless face. His presence was a kind of distraction and they all looked at him. Wanja noticed his untucked shirt; she was quick to see that as he cleaned and cleared the table he was avoiding turning his back to her. The table was big with a huge crack in the middle. He tried to lean across but he could not reach her side.

‘Bring the cloth,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you.’

‘Let him do it. He is a lazy mass of fat and idle bones.’

She took the cloth all the same and cleared the whole table. As he left the room she saw that his shorts were torn at the seat and she understood.

‘Is he at your school?’ she asked, turning to Munira.

‘No, no,’ Munira said quickly, as if he would absolve himself of the responsibility.

‘Why not?’

‘Ask Abdulla,’ he said, gulping down his drink.

‘Look at this leg: I can’t run round the shop on one leg. I’m not a magician.’

Unpleasant memories seemed to be interfering with an evening which had started so well.

‘Listen, Abdulla,’ Wanja said after minutes of silence. ‘I’ll be here for some time. Let him go to school. I will help in the shop. I’ve done this kind of work before. Now I must go. Mr Munira, I am scared that I might meet a hyena in the dark. Walk me to my grandmother’s place.’

Abdulla remained at the table and didn’t look up as the two said kwaheri and left. He called out to Joseph.

‘Go and shut the door. Bring me another beer and retire,’ he said in a softened voice and this time he did not curse him.

4 ~ Within a week she too had become of us, the new object of our gossip. She was Nyakinyua’s granddaughter, this we knew – she often helped the old woman in the daily chores about the house and in the fields – but she remained a mystery: how could a city woman so dirty her hands? How could she strap a tin of water to a head beautifully crowned with a mass of shiny black hair? And what had really brought her to the gates of Ilmorog village when the trend was for the youth to run away? We watched her comings and goings with mounting curiosity: for there was little else to do in the fields beyond breaking a few clods of the earth as we waited for the beans and maize to ripen so that we could start harvesting. She would go away, we all said.

One day she disappeared. We were sure that she would not come back, despite the enigmatic smile on the old woman’s face whenever she was asked about it. It’s strange because we all talked as if we wanted her to stay away: but really we were all anxious that she should come back. This was clear on the people’s faces when after a week she returned in a white matatu Peugeot car loaded with her things. We surrounded the vehicle. It was the first time we had seen a real car stand by the door of any Ilmorog homestead and we felt that something was stirring on our ridge. We helped her unload. The driver was all the time cursing the road and saying that had he known, he would not have agreed to the deal. At least not for that kind of money. Why couldn’t they build even a track fit for a cattle wagon? We stood aside to let the car pass. We waved and waved until dust buried it in the distance. Then our interest was taken up by Wanja’s things, each item in turn becoming the centre of gossip and speculation: the Vono spring bed, the foam mattress, the utensils, especially the pressure stove which could heat water without the aid of charcoal or firewood. But it was the pressure lamp that later in the evening really captured our hearts and imaginations. Ilmorog star, we called it, and those who had travelled to beyond the boundary said it was very much like the town stars in Ruwa-ini or the city stars that hang from dry trees. She moved to a hut not far from Nyakinyua’s, and
even a week later people still hung about the courtyard just to see her light the lamp. Still the question remained: why Ilmorog? Maybe now all our children will come back to us, for what’s a village without young blood? But for that night of her return we stayed wakeful outside her hut. Nyakinyua broke into Gitiro, for which she had once been famous in Ilmorog and beyond: she sang in a low voice in praise of Ndemi and his wives, long long ago. The other women chimed in at intervals with ululations. Soon we were all singing and dancing, children chasing one another in the shadows, the old men and women occasionally miming scenes from Ilmorog’s great past. It was really a festival before harvest-time a few months away, and the old only regretted that they had not prepared a little honey beer blessed by the saliva of Mwathi wa Mugo to welcome these promises of new beginnings.

The other women nodded their heads in appreciative understanding.

‘Nyakinyua has found a helper in earthing up crops and later in harvesting,’ they said.

‘We even would follow her into the fields to see if she could really cultivate.’

The floral cloth over Ilmorog countryside was later replaced by green pods and maize cobs. The peasant farmers of Ilmorog now went into the fields to idly earth up crops that no longer needed the extra earth, or to merely pull out the odd weed. Thistles, marigolds and forget-me-nots would stick to their clothes, and they would now laugh and tell jokes and stories as they waited for the crops to ripen.