The Mau Mau situation has receded into the past, but Weep Not, Child carries on, independent of its historical context. Kenya has won its independence. African leaders have come and gone. But some things abide: The story of Njoroge lives.
Time changes books in wonderful ways, if they are written with the ink of art. It is a mark of how accomplished Ngugi is as a writer that Weep Not, Child re-creates in the mind the atmosphere, the mood, the tension, and the feeling of the Mau Mau era. It has also created its own time and has the power to make us feel abiding realities: the hopes of the young, the impossibility of the world, the way in which politics affects our intimate lives, the necessity of resistance, and the meaning of family.
If Ngugi had published nothing other than Weep Not, Child, he still would have earned a distinctive place in the African literary canon. He belongs to the tradition of the protest novelist—in fact, the Jomo Kenyatta who is the black Moses of the novel is the very same who in 1977 committed Ngugi to a year’s imprisonment and solitary confinement. As such, Weep Not, Child should be read alongside Richard Wright’s Black Boy, James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and Maxim Gorky’s My Childhood.
At the end of Weep Not, Child, Njoroge has set off into the night. He is in some danger to himself. His mother comes seeking him in the dark with a glowing brand of firewood. That’s what a work of art is—a glowing firewood in the darkness of our days, lighting the way, seeking us out. It’s an image that captures the dual nature of the novel, how it dwells in two worlds: the world of the real and the world of the revealed. The realities of Kenya are all in Weep Not, Child: the divisions in society, the root of betrayals, the problematic question of the land, the never-ending implications of colonial rule. The novel, as a work of art, continues to delight and engage our attention through its formal beauty, its powerful story, its unflinching gaze.
BEN OKRI
for
Jasbir Kalsi
Weep not, child
Weep not, my darling
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not be long victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky…
WALT WHITMAN
ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT
Weep Not, Child
PART 1
THE WANING LIGHT
1
Nyokabi called him. She was a small, black woman, with a bold but grave face. One could tell by her small eyes full of life and warmth that she had once been beautiful. But time and bad conditions do not favour beauty. All the same, Nyokabi had retained her full smile – a smile that lit up her dark face.
‘Would you like to go to school?’
‘O, Mother!’ Njoroge gasped. He half feared that the woman might withdraw her words.
There was a little silence till she said, ‘We are poor. You know that.’
‘Yes, Mother.’ His heart pounded against his ribs slightly. His voice was shaky.
‘So you won’t be getting a midday meal like other children.’
‘I understand.’
‘You won’t bring shame to me by one day refusing to attend school?’
O, Mother. I’ll never bring shame to you. Just let me get there, just let me. The vision of his childhood again opened before him. For a time he contemplated the vision. He lived in it alone. It was just there, for himself; a bright future…Aloud he said, ‘I like school.’
He said this quietly. His mother understood him.
‘All right. You’ll begin on Monday. As soon as your father gets his pay we’ll go to the shops. I’ll buy you a shirt and a pair of shorts.’
O, Mother, you are an angel of God, you are, you are. Then he wondered: Had she been to a magic worker? Or else how could she have divined his child’s unspoken wish, his undivulged dream? And here I am with nothing but a piece of calico on my body and soon I shall have a shirt and shorts for the first time.
‘I thank you, Mother, very much.’ He wanted to say more. But Njoroge was not used to expressing strong feelings in words. However his eyes spoke all. Again Nyokabi understood. She was happy.
When Kamau came in the evening, Njoroge took him aside.
‘Kamau, I shall go to school.’
‘School?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who said so? Father?’
‘No. It was our mother. Has our elder mother told you the same thing?’
‘No, brother. You know I am being trained as a carpenter. I cannot drop the apprenticeship. But I am glad you’re going to school.’
‘I am, oh, so glad. But I wish you too would come.’
‘Don’t you worry about me. Everything will be all right. Get education, I’ll get carpentry. Then we shall, in the future, be able to have a new and better home for the whole family.’
‘Yes,’ Njoroge said thoughtfully. ‘That’s what I want. And you know, I think Jacobo is as rich as Mr Howlands because he got education. And that’s why each takes his children to school because of course they have learnt the value of it.’
‘It’s true. But some, you know, must get learning and others this and that trade.’
‘Well, you see, I was thinking that if both of us could learn and become like John, the big son of Jacobo, it would be a good thing. People say that because he has finished all the learning in Kenya, he will now go far away to…’
‘England.’
‘Or Burma.’
‘England and Burma and Bombay and India are all the same places. You have to cross the sea before you can reach there.’
‘That’s where Mr Howlands comes from?’
‘Yes.’
‘I wonder why he left England, the home of learning, and came here. He must be foolish.’
‘I don’t know. You cannot understand a white man.’
There was only one road that ran right across the land. It was long and broad and shone with black tar, and when you travelled along it on hot days you saw little lakes ahead of you. But when you went near, the lakes vanished, to appear again a little farther ahead. Some people called them the devil’s waters because they deceived you and made you more thirsty if your throat was already dry. And the road that ran across the land and was long and broad had no beginning and no end. At least, few people knew of its origin. Only if you followed it it would take you to the big city and leave you there while it went beyond to the unknown, perhaps joining the sea. Who made the road? Rumour had it that it came with the white men and some said that it was rebuilt by the Italian prisoners during the big war that was fought far away from here. People did not know how big the war had been because most of them had never seen a big war fought with planes, poison, fire, and bombs – bombs that would finish a country just like that when they were dropped from the air. It was indeed a big war because it made the British worry and pray and those black sons of the land who had gone to fight said it was a big war. There was once another big war. The first one was to drive away the Germans who had threatened to attack and reduce the black people to slavery. Or so the people had been told. But that was far away and long ago and only old men and middle-aged men could remember it. It was not as big as the second because then there were no bombs, and black people did not go to Egypt and Burma.
The Italian prisoners who built the long tarmac road had left a name for themselves because some went about with black women and the black women had white children. Only the children by black mothers and Italian prisoners who were also white men were not really ‘white’ in the usual way. They were ugly and some grew up to have small wounds all over the body and especially around the mouth so that flies followed them all the time and at all places. Some people said that this was a punishment. Black people should not sleep with white men who ruled them and treated them badly.
Why should the white men have fought? Aaa! You could never tell what these people would do. In spite of the fact that they were all white, they killed one anothe
r with poison, fire, and big bombs that destroyed the land. They had even called the people to help them in killing one another. It was puzzling. You could not really understand because although they said they fought Hitler (ah! Hitler, that brave man, whom all the British feared, and he was never killed you know, just vanished like that), Hitler too was a white man. That did not take you very far. It was better to give up the attempt and be content with knowing the land you lived in, and the people who lived near you. And if this was not enough and you wanted to see more people and hear stories from far and wide – even stories from across the sea, Russia, England, Burma – you could avoid the vigilance of your wife and go to the local town, Kipanga. You could, for instance, tell her that you were going to buy some meat for the family. That was something.
‘All right! Go and don’t loiter in the town too much. I know you men. When you want to avoid work you go to the town and drink while we, your slaves, must live in toil and sweat.’
‘I’ll come back soon.’
‘See how you turn your eyes. You cannot even look at me in the face because you know you’ll go and stay there the whole day…’
‘Now, now, just you trust me to come back soon.’
‘The idea of trusting you!’
There were many ways from Mahua village to Kipanga. You could follow the big road. It passed near the town. Or you could follow a track that went through a valley into the town.
In a country of ridges, such as Kikuyuland, there are many valleys and small plains. Even the big road went through a valley on the opposite side. Where the two met they had as it were embraced and widened themselves into a plain. The plain, more or less rectangular in shape, had four valleys leading into or out of it at the corners. The first two valleys went into the Country of the Black People. The other two divided the land of the Black People from the land of the White People. This meant that there were four ridges that stood and watched one another. Two of the ridges on the opposite sides of the long sides of the plain were broad and near one another. The other two were narrow and had pointed ends. You could tell the land of Black People because it was red, rough, and sickly, while the land of the white settlers was green and was not lacerated into small strips.
Kipanga town was built in this field. It was not a big town like the big city. However, there was one shoe factory and many black people earned their living there. The Indian shops were many. The Indian traders were said to be very rich. They too employed some black boys whom they treated as nothing. You could never like the Indians because their customs were strange and funny in a bad way. But their shops were big and well stocked with things. White settlers, with their wives and children, often came to the rich Indians and bought all they wanted. The Indians feared Europeans and if you went to buy in a shop and a white man found you, the Indian would stop selling to you and, trembling all over, would begin to serve him. But some said that this was a cunning way to deceive the white women because when the Indian trembled and was all ‘Yes, please, Memsahib, anything more?’ the women would be ready to pay any price they were told because they thought an Indian who feared them dared not cheat about prices.
Black people too bought things from the Indians. But they also bought in the African shops that stood alone on one side of the town near the post office. The Africans had not many things in their store and they generally charged higher prices so that although the Indians were not liked and they abused women, using dirty words they had learnt in Swahili, people found it wiser and more convenient to buy from them. Some people said that black people should stick together and take trade only to their black brethren. And one day an old poor woman said, ‘Let Africans stick together and charge very low prices. We are all black. If this be not so, then why grudge a poor woman the chance to buy from someone, be he white or red, who charges less money for his things?’
In the Indian bazaar, black people mingled with white people and Indians. You did not know what to call the Indian. Was he also a white man? Did he too come from England? Some people who had been to Burma said that Indians were poor in their country and were also ruled by white men. There was a man in India called Gandhi. This man was a strange prophet. He always fought for the Indian freedom. He was a thin man and was always dressed poorly in calico stretched over his bony body. Walking along the shops you could see his photograph in every Indian building. The Indians called him Babu and it was said the Babu was actually their god. He had told them not to go to war so that while black people had been conscripted into the army the Indians had utterly refused and had been left alone. It was rumoured that the white men in Kenya did not like them because they had refused to go to war against Hitler. This showed that the Indians were cowards. The Africans were inclined to agree with this idea of Indian cowardice.
The African shops were built in two rows that faced one another. The air was full of noise and, near the meat shops, there was a strong stench of burning flesh. Some young men spent all their time doing nothing but loitering in the shops. Some could work the whole day for a pound of meat. They were called the lazy boys and people in the village said that such men would later turn to stealing and crime. This thought always made people shudder because murder in cold blood was a foul thing. A man who murdered was for ever a curse in heaven and earth. One could recognise such boys because they were to be seen hanging around tea shops, meat shops, and even in the Indian bazaar, waiting for any errand that might earn them a day’s meal. At times they called themselves young Hitlers.
The barber’s shop was a famous place. The barber himself was a short brown man with hair very carefully brushed. He was very funny and he could tell stories that made people laugh. The barber knew everybody and everybody knew him. He was not called by any other name except the barber. If you said that you did not know who the barber was, or where his shop was, people at once knew that you were either a stranger or a fool. A fool, in the town’s vocabulary, meant a man who had a wife who would not let him leave her lap even for a second. How could anyone afford not to call on the barber who knew how to sing and dance and could speak English?
‘I learnt it during the big war.’
‘And it was all that big?’
(The barber lets his clippers go flick – lick – lick – lick. Everyone stands expectantly by waiting to hear about the big war. The barber takes his time.)
‘My man, you would not ask that if you had been there. What with bombs and machine guns that went boom-crunch! Boom-crunch! Troo! Troo! And grenades and people crying and dying! Aha, I wish you had been there.’
‘Maybe it was like the first war?’
‘Ha! ha! ha! That was a baby’s war. It was only fought here. Those Africans who went to that one were only porters. But this one…(Turn your head this way. No, this way. Yes, that’s it.) this one, we carried guns and we shot white men.’
‘White men?’
‘Y-e-e-e-s. They are not the gods we had thought them to be. We even slept with their women.’
‘Ha! How are they–?’
‘Not different. Not different. I like a good fleshy black body with sweat. But they are…you know…so thin…without flesh…nothing.’
‘But it was wonderful to…’
‘Well! Before you started…you thought…it was eh – eh wonderful. But after…it was nothing. And you had to pay some money?’
‘Are there–?’
‘Many! Many who were willing to sell. And that was in Jerusalem of all places.’
People around became amazed.
‘You don’t mean to say that there’s such a place as Jerusalem?’
‘Ha, ha, ha! You don’t know. You don’t know. We have seen things and places. There now, you’re ready. No! Wait a minute (flick – lick). That’s all right now. You look smart. Had you been to Jerusalem–’
‘It is getting late!’
‘I must go. I must buy something for those at home.’
‘Me too. Told my women that I would come and buy meat for them. Now it’s al
most dark.’
‘These women!’
‘O yes, women!’
And with these words, Ngotho made his way through the crowd into the open. He always loved to listen to the barber. Somehow the talk reminded him of his own travels and troubles in the First World War. As a boy he had been conscripted and made to carry things for the fighting white men. He also had to clear dark bush and make roads. Then, he and the others were not allowed to use guns. But in the barber’s war! Ah, that was something. His own two sons had also gone to this one. Only one had returned. And the one who had returned never talked much about the actual war, except to say that it had been a terrible waste of life.
Ngotho bought four pounds of meat. But they were bound into two bundles each of two pounds. One bundle was for his first wife, Njeri, and the other for Nyokabi, his second wife. A husband had to be wise in these affairs, otherwise a small flaw or apparent bias could easily generate a civil war in the family. Not that Ngotho feared this very much. He knew that his two wives liked each other and were good companions and friends. But you could not quite trust women. They were fickle and very jealous. When a woman was angry, no amount of beating would pacify her. Ngotho did not beat his wives much. On the contrary, his home was well known for being a place of peace. All the same, one had to be careful.
He went across the fields. He did not want to follow the big road or the valley because these two were long. He wondered what Nyokabi and Njeri would say. He had not kept his word to be back soon. But then, he had not intended to come home soon. His wives were good women. It was not easy to get such women these days. It was quite true what the barber had said about a fleshy, black body with sweat. Look at that Memsahib in whose husband’s employment he was. She was so thin that Ngotho at times wondered if the woman had flesh at all. What did a man want such a wife for? A man wanted a fat woman. Such a woman he had in Njeri and Nyokabi, especially when he married them. But time had changed them…He wondered if the barber had quite told the truth – that bit about going with a white woman. Who could believe that a white woman like Mrs Howlands could make herself cheap enough to go with black men for money? Yet one could believe anything these days. He wondered if his son Boro had done such a thing. Of course, it was something to have a son who had – but the thought of buying was not at all nice. And if they had nothing extra, well, it was better to have a black woman.