Love after the Mau Mau
More Matata
Homecoming
Plums Lane, Nairobi. November 1951.
“Lando, did you really mean to become a priest?” Linda asks me, grabbing me tightly by the wrist. Perhaps because she is now 16, she does not pinch me as hard as she used to when she wanted my full attention. Linda has always claimed it was her God-given right to pinch me, as she was three years older than me. We are sitting facing each other across the dining table, in a closed-in verandah that doubles as dining room and general meeting space; its walls silent witness over the years to some of the most fiery family discussions, arguments, laughter, joy and tears. Outside, bird sounds fill the air, with occasional interruptions of frenzied yelping by Simba. I hear Mom’s voice too somewhere in the garden.
I have only just returned to Kenya from Goa, where I had been sent to boarding school at age 10, only to be whisked back 18 months later when I wrote to my parents requesting a transfer to a Seminary to train for the priesthood.
“Linda, we had no choice,” I reply. “Musso and I thought we would be better fed at the Seminary than at St. Joseph’s. We were always hungry. Why do you ask?”
Linda pauses before replying as Mwangi, the houseboy, enters the dining room on his way to the kitchen from the backyard carrying a freshly plucked chicken. It is always fish on Fridays and chicken on Saturdays.
“I just cannot imagine you as a priest, “ Linda says, “standing up there before the pulpit, going on and on, every Sunday—but Mom believed you. She made life hell for Dad. She told him she wanted you brought back from Goa immediately. She said that our uncle, Father Thomaz, had already been offered to the Church.
‘One brother is enough; I don’t want to sacrifice a son as well,’ she told Dad.”
“Would you offer up your brother to the priesthood?” I ask, noticing for the first time since my return how she has changed in the 18 months since I waved goodbye on the Goa docks. She has grown breasts and her hair is blacker, shiny and longer, just like Mom’s the year she was married.
“Meaning you? Actually no. Not now,” Linda laughs. “At least not for the next four months. Not until the Christmas and New Year festivities are over. By the way, I’ve already told Mom you will be going with me to a party next Saturday. Will you please come? I missed so many parties because of your being away; they wouldn’t let me go alone, even to my friends’ places.”
The wall clock chimes the half hour. “Oh gosh. I’m late.” Linda rushes out, not waiting for my reply.
I walk outside into the bright sunshine. The air is fragrant with the smell of ripe fruit, just as it was in Goa in May. I hear the cackle of mouse birds squabbling in some trees nearby, and voices coming from around the side of the house. Mom is sitting in the shade of an avocado tree, on a chair made of entwined wooden branches by local craftsmen; she seems very happy.
Simba is still yelping with excitement at my arrival. Mom looks up and smiles at me. “He too missed you terribly,” she says. She is showing Fatima, my 10-year old sister, some basic knit stiches, while Joachim, soon to turn seven, also wants to learn how to knit, and struggles to look over Fatima’s protruding elbow. Little baby Niven, covered by a mosquito net, is asleep in his pram in the shade of the nearby tree. The peach tree grows close to where my first dog, Jolly, is buried; the painted letters on the large rock that marks his grave now faded from a brilliant white to a dull grey.
“Do you want to join us knitting?” Mom asks as Fatima laughs at the idea.
“No thank you.” I glance around. It’s a peaceful scene, but somehow I feel there is no room for me in this picture. I am restless and frustrated. Fatima and Joachim treat me with some suspicion. They are too young to understand why their parents selected me at the age of ten and sent me away to boarding school in Goa. According to Linda, they know that Dad always blamed me if anything went wrong and said that as the eldest, I must set a good example, but why did they choose such harsh punishment like sending me away?
I unhook Simba’s collar from his chain. The dog’s movement is slow compared to the frisky, energetic and affectionate Rhodesian ridgeback I had left behind; he is still only six years old but already behaves like an old dog. Perhaps it is because he was not exercised regularly while I was away and has gained weight. I rub his neck; he likes that and is immediately more animated. He seems happy that our daily walks have restarted.
Plums Lane, with its rough, somewhat potholed compacted murram surface and shrubs of bougainvillea growing wild, looks the same on the outside, but for me much has changed. I miss having Jeep, my best friend and companion since childhood, by my side. I find myself constantly turning around looking for him, but he has left with his family to live in Delaware, where according to what his father Marco told Dad, everyone sells insurance. “It is somewhere in America. Rick Major, Marco’s American boss came looking for him because he was so good at selling insurance in British East Africa,” I had overheard his brother-in-law boast to colleagues in bar at the Goan Gymkhana, as I was buying a Coke.
My other two closest friends, Abdul and Hardev, still live in Plums Lane; but they too are no longer able to come out and play as we once did. Hardev is a Sikh, and Abdul a Muslim, and now they do not mix with each other because of what happened in India after Independence in 1947. Hindus and Sikhs fought Muslims, and many hundreds of thousands on each side were slaughtered. Both Hardev and Abdul work at their fathers’ shops during their free time after school. Hardev’s father is a greengrocer at the Municipal Market and Abdul’s father is a general trader in the Indian Bazaar.
I see Mr. Gelani’s pajamas securely pegged to the clothesline. It is clear that Mr. and Mrs. Gelani still live in their house across the lane from us. On the outside, the only visible change twice a week is the bright colour of Mr. Gelani’s pajamas. Mom says there have been no recent complaints from Mrs. Gelani about Simba’s wanton assaults on those garments as they wave like twin air socks with the breeze.
But inside their home a profound change has taken place. Ahmad has gone. Mrs. Gelani has lost a very important tenant and I have lost a special person in my life. Ahmad is an engineer, a Muslim who came from Karachi as a young man to join the Uganda Railways. He had resigned after the expiry of his first contract, ow- ing to the unfair salaries paid to Asians compared to Europeans doing the same job. A chance meeting with Dad in a store near the National Bank of India, where Dad worked, had led to a second meeting. They liked each other at first sight. Dad helped him buy a taxi and get started with a loan from his bank, and as Ahmad did not know many people outside the Railways, Dad also guaranteed the loan. “All on just a handshake!“ Ahmad boasted. He was grateful to Dad beyond words.
Jeep and I too became Ahmad’s fans. He was only about 10 years older than us, but very smart and strong with deeply tanned hairy arms, and a well-trimmed black moustache. He let us polish his big black Chevy Sedan every Saturday, while he regaled us with stories of his homeland, and of his daily adventures with the different characters who entered and exited his taxi. Most of all, Ahmad was to us as an elder brother, and a good friend who answered our most complicated questions, and always with good humour. But now I feared that he too was out of reach, as he has moved into his own home with his new bride.
“I can’t get Ahmad to come around,” I had complained to Linda about Ahmad’s tardiness a few weeks ago. We were to set up the antenna for my crystal radio, (I still don’t understand how that crystal magically snatched inaudible and invisible BBC news and music from the dark skies and squeezed it into sounds through my earphones.) Ahmad had twice postponed our appointment.
“He’s besotted, Lando,” Linda said.
“He’s bees...what?”
“Besotted...he’s love-struck. But you won’t know anything about love yet... besotted. Oh! I don’t suppose you’ve learnt any new English words in Goa!” Linda snapped. “Have you met his wife, Serena? She’s so lovely.”
“Yes. Ahmad now just spends all his free time at home with Serena,” I said.
“That’s what love is.” Linda had replied.
“This way Simba,” I call out. He’s dashing about in a frenzy, over-joyed that we can walk together again. We turn south onto Kikuyu Road towards the Gymkhana by the intersection with Forest Road. These roads define the ‘Europeans only’ residential area and border the zone with the stone-built European staff quarters of the Kenya Uganda Railways. Jeep and I used to take a short cut to school through this area, our hearts in our mouths, as the owners had ‘Mbwa Kali’ signs all over– savage, trained dogs to attack non-whites. The Parklands Sports Club to my left still has the ‘Europeans Only - Members Only’ sign over the entrance gate. I realize how free Goa was by comparison. Perhaps one day the government will realize we are all equal in the eyes of God. The priest at St. Francis Xavier says so.
Simba’s barking interrupts my thoughts. We are near the crest of Ainsworth Hill; I can go left to the Gymkhana or turn right towards the Coryndon Memorial Museum that has a wonderful collection of stuffed animals, birds, reptiles as well as historical artifacts and geological samples. Simba wants me to take him down to the river under the bridge, where he loves to splash in the puddles and chase birds through the long grass on the banks. I hesitate. I can see a cricket match is underway at the Goan Gymkhana. Perhaps my classmates Oscar and Savio are there, since they live next door to the club; I think the match will stop soon as darkness drops like a curtain at half-past six. I decide to return home instead.
I have a lot of catching up to do in my studies, now that I am back at the Dr. Ribeiro Goan School. While at boarding school in Goa, I was immersed in the discoveries and conquests of great Portuguese mariners and commanders, including Vasco da Gama, who first reached India in 1498; Afonso De Albuquerque, who conquered Goa in 1510; and Pedro Cabral, who added Brazil to the possessions of the Portuguese Throne in the year 1500. But knowing about their exploits will not help me in British-ruled Kenya.
“Lando, welcome back,” Mr. Tavares, the history master, had greeted me on my first day back at Dr. Ribeiro. “Remember you are now a part of the British Empire again. You must make an effort to catch up with your classmates.” Now I am drowning in homework. I will have to learn about Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh and other English seamen and explorers. In addition, I must study and absorb the intimate details of a century-long war between England and France, if I am to move to high school next year.
As we approach Plums Lane, Simba bounds away with a quick yelp to welcome Dad who is getting off the bus. I wait for them at the intersection. Dad has gained weight since returning from Goa in 1950; he has been assigned more responsibilities at work, but even so, he seems more relaxed. He has eased up on his homilies to me about medicine and law as possible careers. Perhaps he has noticed how immersed I am in my homework. But I know he is worried about recent events at the school. All is not well at Dr. Ribeiro’s.
“You’re early Dad.” I greet him. He smiles.
“Have you been to the museum? It must feel different without Jeep’s company.”
“No Dad. Just walking Simba. Yes I miss Jeep.”
“You remember your pal Dr. Leakey?” he asks me. “I’ve just heard he is not a full-time curator anymore. He’s now working with the Colonial Office on a secret mission.” Dr. Leakey is a world-famous anthropologist, who is the curator at the museum. He lives with his wife Mary and their sons Jonathan and Richard and a pack of Dalmatians, in a small house by the entrance to the museum. One day, when Jeep and I were visiting an exhibit of a live African python, Leakey quietly crept up on us from behind and in a loud voice announced the name of the snake. My blood froze and Jeep too jumped with fright. Leakey laughed and thought it was hilarious, but he was nice to us and even got one of his assistants to show us the taxidermists’ workshop. We were his biggest fans.
“What secret mission?”
“I can’t say. I heard that news from a reliable source at work,” Dad says. “Lando, while you have been away there has been some matata; some political problems upcountry, but you need not be concerned. It does not affect us.” We arrive home.
That night as I lie in bed listening to the din of crickets outside, and awaiting the midnight hour for my regular BBC World Service news bulletin, I cannot help remembering the conversation during dinner on the SS Amra returning from Goa three months earlier with Alberto Pinto and his wife, Dona Pulquera. Alberto is a senior civil servant in the Colonial civil service, and he had kindly agreed to chaperone me back to Nairobi as I was considered a minor. I had overheard Alberto and his friends discuss rumours that many existing prisons were to be expanded and new ones built in Kenya, and that meant the likely growth in civil service jobs at the Prisons Department. I had wondered then whether it was because the European farms needed cheap labour, as I had seen prisoners used on the tea plantations in Kericho. Later, I asked Alberto about it.
“There’s a great deal of trouble brewing,” he had said. “Strange things are happening on European farms. The Africans are creating serious matata for the Colonial Office.” And then he had dropped his voice to a whisper. “I cannot talk about it here. Even these floating walls have ears.”
I wonder if Dad was referring to the same matata, and whether this was related to Leakey’s secret mission with the Colonial Office.
There has been nothing in the local papers about this. I realize how I have changed since going away. I now crave news. The trip to Goa had expanded my world, but coming back to Plums Lane had caused it to shrink again. One of my first priorities on my return had been to retrieve my crystal radio from storage. It is now working again. Every night after some crackles, screeches and a few prolonged whistles, I can usually get a good signal, the clearest around midnight.
I tune in and listen avidly to cryptic bulletins every night— ‘Churchill wins General Election’—‘Kiki Haakansen of Sweden who won a beauty contest for wearing a bikini at the Festival was planning a world tour’—Although I do not always understand the contents or context, I can relate to some news items. For example, when the BBC announces the King has had a lung operation, I think of my father’s colleague at work, Mr. Cunha, who died on the operating table when his lungs collapsed, a week after my coming home. Dad said Cunha would not absent himself from work because he needed the money to support his family, so he postponed a visit to his doctor. By the time he agreed to see his doctor, it was too late. I know that the King, attended by the best doctors in England, will be fine. After all, we sing God Save the King at least once a month at school.
Today the BBC announces, “Six thousand British troops were flown to Egypt”. I wonder if the troops flown to Egypt are heading our way to help with Leakey’s secret mission. From overhearing Dad and my Uncle Antonio talk in hushed tones, I feel something is going on in Kenya, but nobody will talk publicly about it. My curiosity has been aroused. Within days I become addicted to listening to the BBC news. It is my contact with the outside world.
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