A Fool's Knot (12 page)

After silence had cleared the air, O'Hara spoke again. Assertion was again edited from the voice. “Michael, my boy, don't worry yourself. There's no need to get worked up about it. Let me tell you what I want to suggest. Your leave is overdue. Is that right?”

“It is,” said Michael blankly. He knew now what to expect.

“I suggest, then, that you take some months off and do a job for me while you're away. You can spend some time at home in Limerick and then I'll arrange a tour of North America.”

Michael's thoughts rushed ahead to the time when he expected Janet's stay in Migwani to come to an end. He might not see her before she left. Suddenly he felt completely empty. The crudeness of the Bishop's calculations was obvious.

“I am sure you will prove to be an excellent ambassador for us, Michael,” continued O'Hara. “There's so much good will to be tapped over there. I am sure that what we have achieved thus far is only a fraction of what is possible. The people are very generous.”

Michael leaned forward in his chair and stared blankly at O'Hara. He had not been listening to the last comments. For a while he simply sat, quite motionless, his thoughts somewhere distant while Bishop O'Hara sketched the type of itinerary he might expect. He would arrive in New York and visit several of the large Catholic organisations before making his way to California via stops in Ohio and Illinois. The church in Santa Barbara, which had raised a hundred thousand shillings for the cathedral, would be his host for a fortnight, before he flew to Florida to begin his return journey to New York through the states along the eastern seaboard.

Michael, with his mind firmly fixed on August, got up and, without saying a word, walked briskly out of the house. O'Hara, caught off-guard by this, hesitated at first but then followed, offering first a sympathetic word and then, after this did not register, a stern shouted command that Michael should come back inside. With the military-like order ringing in his ears, Michael opened the door of his car and got in but he left the door open. The Bishop did not cross the kitchen threshold. He was clearly very angry, but his hands were clasped as if in prayer.

Back in the sitting room of his house, John O'Hara lit a cigarette. He drew deeply on it, the sound of his breath wheezing around the room. It seemed that the cigarette had become the focus of his thoughts. He would not chase after Michael, who would have to live with the consequences of his own actions and decisions, but he wondered whether he, himself, might have pushed too hard, been too forthright, implied criticism where opportunity might have spoken louder.

When Michael re-entered the room, neither of them spoke for several minutes. Michael looked at O'Hara and thought that a simple humanity had overcome and replaced the burden of authority. In his eyes, questions had replaced anger.

“I think you are a wiser man than I,” said O'Hara at last.

“I am sorry, John,” said Michael.

“It is not I who deserves your apologies, Michael.”

 

 

 

February 1975

 

The courtroom was crowded to overflowing. With windows shuttered to keep out the sun, the room vibrated with a humid heat and the assembled, seated on long plain wooden benches, sweated freely. Some occasionally mopped their brows with handkerchiefs and mumbled words of conversation beneath the muting cover of cupped hands. Others allowed their sweat to run freely and turned to whisper their words to their neighbours. Though a nervous silence pervaded all, the room was full of discussion held in whispers, spoken between the lines of time. As if with a collective bated breath, the entire room awaited the calling of the next case with a feeling of shared bitterness softened by apprehension. Over a hundred people had travelled from the scattered homesteads and
shambas
that comprised the village of Nzawa and fifty or more had crammed into the minute court room to hear the proceedings, the rest excluded only by the room's inability to accommodate them. People stood around the walls, sat on the floor between and beside the rows of wooden forms, while others pressed in groups outside by the shuttered windows, hoping they might hear what transpired inside. A group standing by the boarded window to the right of the magistrate's desk had encroached upon the section of open floor whose imaginary confines served as the defendants' dock. The sergeant at arms, a young and obviously inexperienced police officer, turned out in immaculate dress uniform, quietly, apologetically, but defiantly ushered them all to other parts of the room, other parts that were already crowded, so there was much jostling for position and whispered apologies as they stumbled along the blocked aisles.

In the very centre of the room sat Janet. Beside her was Joseph Munyolo's mother. They had no way of communicating verbally, so, as a means of offering reassurance, Janet held her hand and turned to her occasionally to smile. Janet looked down at the calloused and lined hand, which contrasted so sharply with the soft whiteness of her own. Munyolo's mother was a true
kiveti
, a housewife, whose daily chores started each day probably before sunrise and did not stop until well after dark, when the dishes from the late meal had been cleared away. She was probably only forty or so, but she looked at least sixty, her wiry body appearing to bear not an ounce of fat and the whole supported on ankles that looked incongruously slender above the plastic flip-flops, flattened almost wafer thin by continual use, their original bright green now masked by ingrained dirt. Munyolo's mother had loosened the cloth, the
kitambaa
, she invariably used to cover her head, to reveal close-cropped hair gathered into squares with rivers of sweating scalp between. Janet's discomfort was easier to see. Her neck glistened with lines of sweat and her light grey T-shirt was patched darker over most of its area.

The main door of the courtroom continually opened and closed as people came and went. No one wanted to leave. No one wanted to miss this next case, but the interior had become so uncomfortable that some people were prepared to suffer the embarrassment of threading and stumbling their way to the exit for a breath of fresh air. Thus a steady stream of people punctuated the expectant but near silent buzz of the room, as each of those coming and going turned at the door to face the oblivious and unconcerned magistrate to offer a silent and self-conscious, but carefully stated bow. These people were poor, but they bore their respect.

John concluded his report on the previous case by signing the document before him on his desk and rubber-stamping his official seal beneath. The defendant, accused of stealing from a shop, had flatly denied the charge, despite the combined and accusatory testimony of a procession of eyewitnesses. After being told by the magistrate that he was found guilty and that a confession would reduce his sentence, the man, still ignorant of the consequences, had refused to comply. In a voice heavy with regret and resignation, John had sentenced him to one month's imprisonment or a fine of four hundred shillings. The defendant, stricken dumb with shock, stood with his jaw sagging pathetically, trying in vain to equate the severity of the sentence with the meagre worth of the bag of sugar he had stolen. How could he pay such a fine? If he had money to pay a fine, would he not have simply bought the sugar in the first place? What would happen to his family while he was in prison? They were poor people and had no food. What else could he do?

Still mouthing the questions his body refused to ask, he was led by the handcuffed wrist, accompanied by the attached policeman who had brought him into the court. If the man had employed an attorney, most of whom were willing, at a price, to attend any court and fight any case, an appeal would have been lodged and the sentence then duly reassessed on compassionate grounds. With no money to finance such a defence, however, the man was led away and made ready for his transfer to Kitui prison, where he would serve his time. At least he would get a meal a day for the whole of the next month.

Syengo, self-conscious of his obvious youth, placed a new file on the desk in front of John Mwangangi and then turned to face the court to announce in Kikamba and English the title of the next case to be heard. “The disturbance at Nzawa School,” he said, without expression. As John extracted the papers one by one from their folder, examining each of them methodically and closely before reassembling them in a pile, a tall neatly dressed young man, who had been sitting at the table beside Syengo and his silent typewriter, rose slowly and deliberately to his feet. For some time he stood there, fumbling with a pen, waiting to catch the attention of the magistrate, but John's eyes remained angled down, focused on the detail of his papers, detail which his agile mind merely needed to reinforce, since he had read them many times already over the preceding days. Eventually John looked up and the man brought attention to himself by holding up his pen. John nodded.

The man put his pen down on the desk and then stretched himself to his full height. Before speaking, he slipped his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and took a deep, long and deliberate breath, whilst casting his gaze around the room to ask for total silence. Whether he had copied this attitude from re-runs of American courtroom dramas he had watched on the television he so proudly owned, only he knew. Most in the court were duly impressed. Janet thought him an obvious idiot. She could not predict how Mwangangi might respond.

“Your honour,” said the impeccable young man in only lightly accented English, “I am here to represent my clients Mr Kivara and Mr Muchira.” Pauses here and throughout his speech allowed Syengo to translate each sentence into Kikamba for the benefit of the court. As Syengo spoke these words of introduction, a ripple of noise spread across the room as members of the audience turned to their neighbours to whisper, “Another Kikuyu.”

The attorney, keen to conclude his business, continued above the murmur. He had accepted the case only reluctantly. Those who knew him would have realised from the terseness of his words that he resented travelling from Nairobi to attend such a lowly gathering in such a tiresomely bush area. Had the two teachers not made him such a generous offer, he would never have contemplated going to such trouble. “My clients,” he continued, “have requested that the case should be adjourned until certain key witnesses, who are not present today, can be called.” Syengo translated. The response was a collective, audible sigh from the gallery. They had come for nothing.

“The crooks are frightened to come here!” shouted a faltering voice from the back. It was an old woman, who had not found a seat and took support from the shoulders of the man in front of her. A wizened old man at the side of the room shouted his agreement and waved his stick towards the superior-looking attorney in a defiant gesture. John smacked his gavel on the table and called for order. After threatening the two hecklers with expulsion from the court, John turned to face the public prosecutor who, acknowledging the prompt, immediately rose to his feet.

“I have no objections, your Honour,” he said, correctly anticipating John's unasked question. Syengo translated.

“The case is then adjourned until the next meeting of the court, which will be two weeks from today,” said John, without looking up from the papers upon which he was making a handwritten record of the proceedings.

Janet stood up and raised her hand to attract Mwangangi's attention. All eyes rested on her as John continued to write. Though embarrassed, she continued to stand and to hold her arm high, afraid that Mwangangi would again refuse her request or, worse than that, simply ignore her and move on to the next case. She had decided not to try to see Mwangangi personally, where a suggestion of a bribe might be made, preferring to conduct all communication with him in a social arena. She now feared that this might have been a mistake. Her distrust of all officials suggested that the magistrate would conveniently forget to acknowledge her request for bail.

Without looking up, his attention still firmly fixed on the words he committed to the case's fattening file, John asked if there were any requests for bail. Syengo translated.

A man at the far side of the room stood up and confirmed that there were. Still writing, and without looking up, John invited him to speak. Munyolo's mother gave Janet a stiff nudge in the side, fearing that she would not speak up. Janet's nod offered her reassurance that everything was under control.

He has ignored me on purpose, Janet thought. She began privately to scold herself for not visiting the parents of the other defendants to see if they had offered bribes.

John granted this first request and levelled bail at three hundred shillings. Before Janet could speak, a second man stood and called out his request. This was also granted. Janet was worried that these men sounded so completely confident. She was convinced they had seen Mwangangi before the hearing. But then they spoke and made their requests in Kikamba. Being native speakers of the language, they could instinctively judge when the troughs and dips in communication appeared, and could occupy them. Janet's contribution would be in English and thus would not fit the same mould.

Frustrated, Janet spoke. Her request to be heard sounded a little impatient and John looked up from his papers with an expression of mild surprise. He then looked down again and continued to write.

“There was some confusion,” said John, having anticipated Janet's request, “over the name of your student. Is this the boy whom you are seeking?” He looked up and turned to point his pen at the eldest of the defendants, huddled in a tight group in all that was left of their dedicated space.

“It is,” said Janet. “This is Joseph Munyolo.”

“Can you guarantee that if bail is granted, he will not visit Nzawa for any reason until the case is concluded?”

“I can,” replied Janet.

“Bail is granted,” said John, turning again to write his notes. Janet sighed with relief and, as Syengo delivered his translation, Munyolo's mother turned and smiled with relief and pride at her friends who were scattered throughout the room. “Bail is granted,” repeated John, “at five hundred shillings.”

Janet was suddenly furious. Why had Mwangangi not offered three hundred shillings like the others? Was it prejudice that immediately convinced her that he had increased the amount because she was white and could therefore afford to pay more? How she hated these paper tigers of officials who used every possible means to exert their pathetic authority! To think that people like this considered themselves to be educated!

Within ten minutes the courtroom was empty, except for John who remained seated at his desk collecting together the papers that still lay strewn over its ample surface. Janet emerged from Syengo's adjoining office after re-entering the building, having taken the refreshment of a minute or so breathing air that was not heavy with sweat and its associated odours. She had already paid the clerk the necessary five hundred shillings and held the receipt prominently so Munyolo and his relieved mother could see it. As Janet spoke to them, John Mwangangi collected his files and withdrew to his adjoining office.

“My mother wishes to thank you very much for what you have done, Miss Rowlandson. She says that we are poor and that she could not have found the money for my bail. Thank you again,” said Joseph, as his mother shook Janet's hand. “I think you will accompany us to the bus,” he continued, pointing vaguely towards the marketplace at the town's centre.

“Not yet,” said Janet. “You go on ahead and I will follow. I want to speak with Bwana Mwangangi.”

She stood and watched through the now opened windows as Joseph and his mother walked out of the compound and out of sight behind the high euphorbia hedges by the roadside. She then approached the office door and gave a sharp tap. She went straight inside without waiting to be invited.

“Ah, Miss Rowlandson,” said John with what sounded like pleasant surprise. “Take a seat.”

“No, thank you,” she replied. Her voice betrayed an edge of contempt. “I wanted to ask you if there was a reason why Joseph's bail was set so much higher than the rest? Was the boy, perhaps, so much more of a risk than the others? And if so, why?”

John looked a little surprised, as if the question was so trivial it need not have been asked. “He is older, Miss Rowlandson. In the eyes of the law he is an adult, older than the other defendants, all of whom are primary school age.”

She nodded and accepted this as
fait accompli
, without actually knowing if this should make any difference. But she was not convinced. She was sure, however, that this man should not be trusted.