He reached out for her. He felt her recoil, recede. He withdrew, baffled. She would come back and she would suddenly carry him, a willing passenger, on a night train to the sindom of pleasure and leave him there panting, thirsting and hungering for more.
Her changing moods were difficult to keep up with and they left him breathless. Sometimes it was her concern for people. She would then be sad, introspective, and would ask him questions that sounded cruel in their innocence. Abdulla especially was nearly always in her mind.
‘Mwalimu: do you know why he came to hide in this place?’
‘Who?’
‘Abdulla: who else?’
‘I don’t know. I found him here. He and I never talked much before you came. You release his mouth more times than anybody I know.’
‘I look at him sometimes. His face is filled with pain but he tries to hide it. It is as if he is carrying much suffering, not in his crippled leg, but in his heart. I suppose we are all alike.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘But you do,’ she insisted, raising her voice a little. ‘What I mean is that perhaps we all carry maimed souls and we are all looking for a cure. Perhaps there is only one!’
Her tone more than the words eerily crept into his flesh.
‘I do not – understand,’ he said haltingly, afraid.
‘You always say you don’t understand. But what’s there to understand? You too are in flight. What made you run away to an area like this? Tell me truthfully. What were you running away from?’
He winced: he felt prickly sweat in his skin. He panicked but kept his voice controlled.
‘Just a simple transfer . . . change of climate . . . change of places. They say that a too long a stay in one spot attracts lice . . . things like that. But after independence . . . I felt well. It is time we all did something . . . Harambee. . . . Self-help. . . . Nation-building . . . Return to the land. . . . I was obeying the general call in my own way. I have often thought of a good national slogan: Self-help is Help-self!’
‘You see!’ she said suddenly, triumphantly. ‘I did not believe your story when I first came here three months ago . . . having no sights . . . all that.’
Looking at her involvement in the village life he could not but feel the lie behind his own words or feel guilty at her sudden declaration of faith.
In the two weeks of maize harvest she threw herself into the work, helping Nyakinyua and even some of the other women. It was a poor harvest and the peasant farmers looked at one another and shook their heads.
At the same time she kept on helping at the shop, arranging things: once she even accompanied Joseph in the donkey-cart to Ruwa-ini to buy more stock, instead of Abdulla going. Munira watched her total immersion in work and he felt anxious almost as if the work was a human rival. She would clean up the place in the morning and take stock. In the afternoon she would join a group of women going into the plains to fetch water.
Wanja enjoyed their gossip about everything: from the dirty clothes they had to wash for the men, to the love-making habits of their men. Wambui said: ‘Why, mine once came back from Ruwa-ini or wherever he works and found me in the shamba and imagine, he wanted it there in the shamba, on dry maize-stalks under the shade of a mwariki shrub, and he wouldn’t hear of waiting for the evening in the hut, and there he was sweating out his power, and I told him that I would cry out “Shame!” and he would not heed my protests and well, can you believe it, that’s where that rogue of mine, Muriuki, was conceived . . . on a maize stalk under the sun.’ ‘I bet you did not mind it much, seeing that one is also thirsty under this hot sun,’ another retorted, and they all laughed. They would often turn to Wanja: tell us about the men in the city – we hear that they put a rubber trouser on it? And Wanja would only laugh. But they were full of praises for her coming to help her grandmother. Do stay so we can see your man from the city when he comes to visit you.
Later she would return to Abdulla’s place to look after the bar, but also to while away the time sipping beer and listening to more gossip and stories, this time from the men. They talked and even sang of the humped longhorns that roamed wild on the wide Ilmorog plains and which once, in a time of drought long before the Ngoci and Mburu and Ngigi generations were even conceived, gave up their horns and humps to God in ritual sacrifice for rain. Wanja was the life and now the major attraction in the place: it was as if they talked in order to catch her ear, to provoke her laughter or to inspire an approving nod from her.
Munira looked at her animated face, at her neck slightly inclined toward a person talking, at her hands that sought for human touch and warmth and he would feel these inward twitches of inexplicable physical pain. She would be so completely absorbed in another person as if he, Munira, did not exist.
The poor maize harvest was followed by months of no rain. With little to do in the fields everybody’s nerves seemed affected by the dust and the searing sun and people would often quarrel for nothing. They all knew but did not want to accept that there would be only one season that year. As if forewarned of meagre harvest, the traders who usually came and bought the produce to take away to the cities this time did not appear.
Wanja’s eyes were more and more turned away from Ilmorog.
Sometimes she would turn her restlessness against the village and flay it and the conditions with merciless fun and mockery.
‘Why should anybody end up in this hole of a place? Look at the women scratching the earth. Look at them. What do they get in return? What did we call by the name of harvest? A few grains of maize.’
‘It was a bad season. Njuguna, Muturi . . . they all say it was a poor harvest because the rains were delayed.’
‘It is a bad season. They say that every year. They hope that by saying that the next harvest will be better. But all they’ll get is this windfall of dust: and this scraggy earth waiting to be saved from a heartless sun by rain that may never fall.’
During the month of December she became more and more visibly restless: it was as if something were really eating her. Her complaints against Ilmorog became sharper and more bitter. One day, after a stream of invectives and ceaseless complaints, she jumped from the counter, got an exercise book and quickly drew sketches of a group of old women raising dust as they ran from a pursuing lusty young man sun toward thin old man rain with a tiny head and spindly legs.
‘They are one with the soil . . . peace . . . Uhuru na Kazi . . . There is dignity in labour, don’t you think?’ Munira was saying of the peasants.
‘One with the dust, you mean?’ She said, looking at her sketch and then throwing it at Abdulla, ‘Haven’t you seen the flies on mucus-filled noses? A cowhide or grass for a bed? Huts with falling-in thatches?’
And now she laughed. Not from deep in her stomach but from her throat: a bitter, ironic laugher.
For some reason Munira was angry at this: after all he had accepted the conditions. They were his very protection and now she was laughing at them.
‘Why did you leave those places you talk about, the coast, the cities, Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kisumu, and come here? Why don’t you go back?’
‘Why not indeed?’ She suddenly said, angry, but somehow Munira felt that she was restless and quarrelling about something else. ‘I hate Ilmorog. I hate the countryside – so boring! I could do with clean tap water. Electric light and a bit of money.’
She spoke quickly as if her mind was there and not there: as if she was both there and also in another landscape. She had never spoken harshly to Abdulla but now she turned on him. She took the piece of paper and tore it into small bits.
‘What does Abdulla here tell me? I will pay you well. When? Do you know, Abdulla, that all employers are the same? I have worked in many bars. There is only one song sung by all barmaids. Woe. They give you seventy-five shillings a month. They expect you to work for twenty-four hours. In the daytime you give beer and smiles to customers. In the evening you are supposed to give them yourself and sighs in bed. Ba
r and Lodging. The owner grabs twenty shillings for letting a couple use a Vono bed and torn sheets for ten minutes. Abdulla, do you know you can make a lot of money by simply buying a spring bed, a blanket and two sheets and labelling this place: Ilmorog Bar and Restaurant? Provided of course that you get yet another barmaid to wash the sheets!’
They all watched her, expecting her to cry or something. But she had changed. She sipped her beer thoughtfully and then went on dreamily.
‘Wait a minute. We should turn this into a church. Those tired of the city can come here. They will wash the pain in their souls with beer and dancing. Or a sanatorium. A big one. They run away from their wives and children for a weekend. Roast goat meat. Drink beer. Dance. Get cured. Go back to the waiting wives. Or, Mwalimu: what should we do to this place? To Ilmorog? Isn’t a teacher the true light of the village? Would you light a fire and hide it under a tin? Seriously Abdulla, start brewing Chang’aa, or Muratina, any of these. Kill-me-Quick. Truly these drinks kill people but they still go on paying their hard-earned last cent to hasten their death. Buying the right to die sooner. Here in the village people will die under this sun and they’ll not pay you for it. So Abdulla, brew Chang’aa. Get rich on the misery of the poor.’
Her smile as she said this seemed cunning and sinister: it carried mockery and irony at the edges. He felt she was talking about him and his escape from his home to this place. Munira felt her even more remote: as if he had never touched her: her taunt had the same alluring power as the beckoning coquetry of a virgin: he could touch her only by deflowering her by force and so himself flowering in blood. A virgin and a prostitute. Why couldn’t she carry an advertising label on her back: Drive a VW: Ride a Virgin Whore. Or VIP: Very Interesting Prostitute. He thought of throwing these insults at her. But the malicious and bitter flow of his thoughts was interrupted by Wanja’s next antic. She stood up and went to the door and yawned: why are we all in this hole? Then as suddenly, she wheeled round, jumped over the counter, onto the floor, and faced the men with a hard and set expression. She almost screamed:
‘Some music, Bwana Abdulla. Some music: this body is only fit for dancing. Why! this place does not even have a radio! Siiiing! Mwalimu, play the guitar, play a flute, I want to dance.
Without waiting for their responses, she started to dance, gyrating her hips, slow motion at first but in rhythm with some music in her head. The rhythm became faster and faster, her face changing into something between ecstasy and pain. She moved her hips, her breasts, her stomach, so that her whole body was now wave-motions of sensuality and power. Soon the music was over. She sat down exhausted. She spoke quietly now, calmly, as if she had worked out something inside her. She was more relaxed, almost the Wanja they knew.
‘Well, that is how we used to lure men. It was our only minute of glory. Two girls could be dancing together on the floor. Men would beg with their eyes and beg with their hands and in the end with their drinks and money. I am really very wicked. I hate a man thinking he can buy me with money. I once made a man spend over two hundred shillings buying me imported cider. Cider can never make you drunk you see. I simply walked out on him. I went with another who had not spent a cent on me. It felt good. The following morning he was waiting for me with a knife. Give me back my money! What money, I asked him? Cider, cider, he shouted. I put on my most innocent face and put sugar and honey in my voice. You mean you wanted me last night? Why didn’t you say so? Cider has no mouth to speak. But I must say I am hurt: there I was thinking all the time, at long last I have found a true friend . . . so you are like all of them! I flashed angry eyes at him. He was so ashamed. He bought me more cider, and he never again molested me. Abdulla . . . I am really tired of this wretched hole.’
And now Munira was lost in admiration of her coquetry. She sat there looking so desirable: he wanted to ride a VW to the sindom of pleasure and now, now, he would reach her, he would bind her to himself. But Abdulla looked out past her, past the door to the outer edges of the now dusty land after the cultivation which had followed the harvest. It was as if he was holding communion with memory and distance. What loneliness is here, he muttered to himself. He turned to Wanja: his eyes were kindly and mellow with intense pity.
‘Wanja, you also listen to me. I will say this and Mwalimu here can be a witness. I know what it is to carry a live wound. And I am not talking of this leg stump. Stay in Ilmorog. Let us face what you call this hole together. The wages that I would give you will now become shares. You and I will be joint-owners of this business. It is not much to offer, but it is offered sincerely. But don’t go away.’
Wanja controlled her tears with difficulty. She understood what he said and even more the sincerity behind the offer. But she could not accept: there was that within her that urged her to go away now that she knew that her visit had come to nought. But even if – how could she stay in Ilmorog?
‘Abdulla, you have a big heart. You make me feel I want to cry. I am a wicked woman. Do you know why I came to Ilmorog? Why did you? Why did Munira here? Mine, Abdulla, is a long and a short story. Maybe I’ll come back. But I feel as if I’ve a debt to settle with the world, out there.’
Without another word, she suddenly stood up and walked slowly across the dry fields toward her hut.
Early the following day Nyakinyua went to Abdulla’s shop. She refused a seat but she sent Joseph to call Munira. Abdulla’s stomach tightened with fear.
‘Wanja has gone away,’ she now said after Munira had come. ‘But she might return since she did not take away all her things,’ she added, doubtfully.
Munira and Abdulla did not say anything.
‘Aah, this sun,’ Nyakinyua said and made as if to move without actually doing so. ‘This sun!’ she repeated.
And still Munira and Abdulla did not say anything.
Chapter Five
1 ~ The year that followed Wanja’s departure from Ilmorog was momentous for the whole country. It was the year that started with a mysterious political murder in open daylight without the assassins ever being caught. He was a national, of Asian origins it is true, but one famous in the whole country for his earlier involvement in the struggle for independence and after, for his consistent opposition to any form of post-independence alliance with imperialism. He was an implacable foe of wealth gotten from the poor and whether in or outside Parliament, he would call for an agrarian revolution. Rumours were rife in the country for the whole of that year: people would meet in groups of three or four to discuss the latest rumour and theory. Was it true that he was in league with this or that politician? Maybe he had been planning something fishy: a coup d’état? But how—? Communism: what was this? Opposition to foreign control of the economy? Call for agrarian revolution? Call for the end to poverty? Asian: maybe that and this. But he had been imprisoned and detained by the British in the years of struggle? So many questions without answers and a current of fear, the first of many others to follow, coursed through the veins of the new nation.
For Ilmorog the year saw yet another rain shortage. For a second year following there was only one harvest more miserable than that of the year before.
So that when the year of assassination ended and still there was no rain people of Ilmorog put on frowning faces and anxiously looked up to the sky. But the sun seemed to mock their inquiring faces.
The sun sent direct waves of heat in exaggerated brightness that almost blinded the eye to look. The wind would suddenly whirl dust and rubbish into the air as if sending an offering to God-sun: but as suddenly the wind dust-storm would subside and the rubbish would fall disconsolately to the ground as if the offering had been found unacceptable. The peasant farmers of Ilmorog felt this headache giving heat-rays on their dry skins, saw the little furious whirling of dust and rubbish and retreated to the verandahs of their huts: in the fields were no more green umbrella leaves of mwariki to give shade and shelter. Still they went to the shambas not because there was any weeding and breaking of the earth to do but simply because the
y were attracted to their shambas as a moth to light. They could not help it. Now under the eaves of their huts they exchanged gossip and memories and wicked pleasantries but underneath it was a disquieting consciousness that this year might be a season of drought.
Njogu, Muturi, Ruoro, Njuguna were sitting outside Abdulla’s shop. Ordinarily they would have taken the cows and goats to the plains. But it was the end of the year and the beginning of a new one and the school was closed for holidays and it was the children’s turn. What worried them was that the previous two years had only yielded one harvest in September. Thereafter it had not rained except for a few intermittent falls – the kind of rain that only drove away lazy ones to shelter. So if this New Year’s njahi rains were late as had been the case in the last two years the community would almost immediately be faced by famine. But as they sat outside Abdulla’s shop they tried many subjects but they always came back to the rains.
‘It might still rain . . . sometimes it has been known to rain at the beginning of the year or a little bit later,’ said Njogu.
‘I don’t know why, but the weather is becoming less and less predictable. It’s as if something has gone into its head,’ argued Njuguna. ‘Mwathi wa Mugo seems to be losing his power over the rains,’ he added with an ironic smile, without looking at Muturi.