A Fool's Knot (21 page)

John could listen no more. “The water would be fine if people did not allow their animals to shit in the dam. And the reason why the pump doesn't work is nothing to do with the engine. You know yourself that the man who got the job to operate the thing is a drunkard. When the fuel for the engine arrives he sells it to Mbuvu at his shop to get money for drink and, when asked, he lies and says it was never enough and that it has run out. It is the people here who abuse themselves. But there are better ways, more effective ways to do things, ways that work. In fact, if everyone would listen to the ‘white man', as you call him, and learn some of his ways, as I have done, then they might all be as rich as the Europeans you saw in Nairobi.” The bitterness in John's words provoked an equally bitter reply from the father.

“One does not ask a fool to untie another fool's knot. If it were not for the Europeans, our land would not have died like this. How can we trust the one who killed it to bring it back to life? The one who casts the spell cannot be the one to undo it.”

“I am doing this,” shouted John, gesturing towards his farm. “Am I an Englishman?”

Musyoka smiled at his son and stood proud and erect before him, stretching a little to compensate for the smallness of his stature. “There are times when I wonder, my son.” After a pause that seemed like an age he continued. “What a man is taught by life lives with him until he dies. You must ask yourself who gave you your life – the white man and his machines,” he said pointing at the pump house foundations, “or this soil, your birthplace and your father.”

John could not answer. He had tried in vain so many times to convince his father that the choice was not as he saw it, that there were no contradictions between the roots of his identity and the way he chose to live his life. He was not embracing the white man's ways or rejecting his birthright. All he wanted to do was acknowledge and use what was good in any way of life, any culture, any identity. He wanted what would prove best for everyone and cared little about its origins. Above all, he wanted what was best for his family. Though not prone to despair, John had often wondered whether his father would ever recognise this and stop interpreting every suggested change as a threat.

“Well?” asked Musyoka forcefully, clearly expecting at least some reaction. “Do I speak the truth?”

Frustrated, John turned aside, as if sidestepping the thrust, trying to find words that might bridge the confusion. “Of course you are right, but…”

“Then prove me right.” His father interrupted, as if he had foreknowledge of the opportunity, as if things were conforming to a plan. An old bull fights with an aim. “Prove to me that you respect what I say. Prove to me that you respect your traditions, your ancestors and your family. Prove to me that you have returned to this place to live as my son, not merely like some white settler who fences off our land and calls it his own. Prove to me that you have returned to respect me, not despise me or ridicule me for my ignorance of your ways. Prove to me that you respect me and what I represent, as much as you respect the things you have learned elsewhere.”

“Have I not done that already?” John's voice was now raised, less than a shout, but verging on it. “Would I ever have returned to this place if I bore no respect for you or my people? Could I have not simply stayed where I was, in England, and simply forgotten that you existed? I had a fine life. I had and still have a fine family, a wife I love and a wonderful daughter. I had money, a fine house and a car. I gave that up because I wanted to contribute something here, something that could help my people. What more do you want of me?” John's stance was now imploring recognition, his outstretched arms looking like a confession of innocence.

In Musyoka's eyes there appeared great understanding. Seemingly without needing to think, he spoke quickly and quietly, as if the words had been rehearsed, practised in private until perfect. “A man harvests what he plants. You come here because you want power, my son. Only here amongst your own people can you achieve your aim. The Englishman might offer you a share of his riches, but he will never allow you to control. Here you can win and control people's ultimate respect. Here you can aspire to become a leader. You think that they will respect you because you are educated and you are rich. Here, my son, you can have access to the power you crave. So be it, but be sure to use it for everyone's good, as well as for this,” he said, gesturing again towards the generality of his son's project.

“Tell me, father,” asked John with a calculated innocence that only just excluded cynicism, “if this is not good, then what would be?”

Again Musyoka's words were quiet and assured. “Allow your daughter to do as she wishes, to become a woman as a Kamba.” He paused for a moment and stared at his son, eager to assess his reaction. When none came, he continued, “I have tried to tell her much in these last few days of what young girls of her age are expected to do in the home, and what is expected of them outside the home in the community. I have told her of the respect she should always show to her elders and of her duty always to follow her father's wishes as she grows older. She has understood. I am sure of it. She then asked me what she should do, so that she could become accepted as one of her father's people.” Surprise suddenly shone in his son's face. “Yes. That is what she asked me. A calf with no mother must lick its own back. I told her that she should become a woman as Kamba women do, that she should be initiated into adulthood in the way that her future sisters expect and accept. I told her it is the way to make herself ready for maturity. She told me that more than anything else in the world she just wants to be like other girls and do as they do. Unless she is ruled by the same laws and responsibilities as the other girls this can never be so. An uncircumcised child can never mix with those already mature.” Musyoka then said no more for what seemed like some minutes, during which the windless silence of the afternoon grew heavy around father and son. John, deep in thought, could not look at his father. He stared, as if bearing the guilt of some great abuse, dejectedly at the ground. Finally, Musyoka spoke again, his authority demanding his son's attention. “I have spoken to Katuunge. I have not tried to trick her. I have even had the words translated by your sister who knows English. I tell you that this is her desire that I speak of, not my own. Ah yes, my son. ‘Yes' can never harm.” With that the old man bid a timely goodbye to his son, turned and set off to retrace the rising path towards Kamandiu. He walked with the strength of one still young, swinging his stick and whistling quietly.

Some hours later, with darkness surrounding and encapsulating the isolation of the house, John sat opposite his wife across the table where earlier Musyoka had shared their food. Lesley and he had sat, it seemed, for hours and drunk innumerable cups of coffee. The night, however, was still young. Crickets and cicadas had yet to awake and the air was still undisturbed by night's breezes.

John's mind was made up, but he felt a great inner sadness. Finally, he had realised that the changes were irreversible. Ideals he had tried to live had been revealed as no more tangible than dreams, no more attainable than fantasies. He had learned, that afternoon, to hate his father, but still these feelings could find no expression, so deeply did his fear of the old man restrict his words and silence his lips. He was not left totally without hope, however. As Lesley had pointed out, there was still herself and Anna. If he really believed in what he was doing, she had asked, why should this setback change his plans? If the farm would have succeeded before, it would still succeed. If his job was worth doing, it would still be worth doing. If he still loved his family, what had changed? No aspect of their family life, John's career or ambition or, indeed, his project needed the cooperation or blessing of his father.

Lesley, however, could not begin to understand how deeply the father's suggestion had bitten into her husband's conscience. In his own mind were painful recollections of the hospital bed where he had lain as a child. Deeper than that were memories of the malice in his father's eyes on the day Father John had taken him home to rejoin his family. Since that day, he had never again felt a true son to his father, something that over the years had caused him great pain and much soul-searching. The matter, however, had been decided. Without being prompted, Lesley had spoken her mind and he had immediately and sincerely agreed. The matter was settled.

“Never!” said Lesley, almost shouting the anger that distorted her face. The very idea of her daughter going though an initiation rite, being physically mutilated and frightened into a conformity she did not want, filled her with abhorrence, a mixture of nausea and guilt. “No one is going to doctor Anna. She is my daughter, not your father's.”

 

 

 

April 1976

 

A stranger is a passing stream. His coming changes the land through which he passes, sometimes germinating a memory which will live alongside the people he leaves behind, sometimes bearing fruits to enrich their lives. But he will pass on his way. His influence might last a season at most, but his words flow away with him, remembered today, forgotten tomorrow.

No more than a day separated the juxtaposed scenes in Bill's eyes. Through rain and a driving wind he had sat, sprawled, resting on the suitcase at his side, across the back seat of a London taxi. Through the crawling traffic of the westbound rush hour the cab had stopped and started along the Cromwell Road apparently compressed by a combination of darkness and the enclosing buildings on either side. The driver, a Londoner by birth, travelled this route to the airport every working day and yet he appeared to become ever more frustrated with other road users the further he travelled, his cursing and swearing effectively punctuating the snatches of conversation he shared with his passenger. He had swapped lanes several times, braked, accelerated, done everything he knew to try to cut the journey time, everything possible to get one car ahead and had accomplished little except raise his own frustration. On hearing that Bill was bound for Kenya, he had sucked hard on his smouldering stub of a cigar and offered words of confident advice.

“I'd be very careful, mate, if I were you,” he said. “The same goes for anywhere in Africa nowadays. You should hear some of the stories people tell me after coming back from some of those places! It's a white man's grave is Africa, mate. And watch you don't get ripped off. They seem to think that we are made of money – Lord knows we give ‘em enough in charity and aid as it is. I've stopped giving, myself. As far as I can see, there's more money over there nowadays than there is here. They ought to be sending their money back here, if you ask me. I suppose I shouldn't complain really because some of ‘em, some of them Arabs, keep me in business. Mind you, I don't like ‘em. Yes, if I were you, I'd be very careful. Have you got a hotel booked already?” He offered a snatched glance towards his passenger via his rear-view mirror.

“No,” replied Bill, his reticence implying at least some disinterest and distaste, “I'm staying with friends.”

“OK, that's all right then,” said the driver with apparently relieved, if rather overdone, concern. “They'll take care of you. They'll know the ropes, I suppose, won't let anyone get at you. Been there long have they, your friends?”

“Not really,” replied Bill, “they went out there about three years ago.”

“Well they must have a nerve and a thick skin, that's all I can say,” said the cabby sarcastically, apparently drawing on experience he clearly did not have, “to emigrate to Africa and stay. I suppose they are getting rich on some contract job or other?”

“No,” replied Bill, almost encouraging further confusion, “they're working with the government.”

“God Almighty, they're tempting fate, aren't they? You tell ‘em from me to watch their step,” he said. “I hear so many stories from people who've gone out to these places and they've been promised the earth. When they've got back here, they've climbed into my taxi and cried because they've been so glad to get back. I've had people saying that they've been cheated, humiliated, robbed – and loads who have said they've never been paid what they were promised.”

And so the one-sided conversation continued as far as the airport where, still ignorant, the taxi driver took his fare and wished Bill a good flight, before repeating his warnings in the same seemingly experienced voice. So he drove away and returned to the job he had done all his life in the only home he had ever known.

Laid on top of and melting into this scene was the sight now before his eyes this evening. It showed a barren landscape where people seemed to disappear into the earth's anonymity. This was an apparently empty world, which human beings had never tried to tame, and certainly never controlled. The night before had brought rain – a lot of it – which had destroyed the road to Miambani, along which John had hoped to travel in the last stage of his journey from Nairobi to his farm. Thus, skidding and sliding on the treacherous mud, they had diverted to Migwani having decided to stay there for the night. The mountain roads were gullied and awash with run-offs, and numerous small flooded patches along the way had threatened to glue John's car to a halt, but they had now reached their changed destination and, relieved, had gone straight to the mission house to see if they could have a bed for the night. Disappointment, however, was all they found. The house was empty and betrayed no sign of life as the two men walked around the outside, peering through every closed window. For some minutes, John had been undecided as to what to do. He felt sure that even if Father Michael were not around, Mutua, the cook, would still be in town, since the only day he usually took off was Saturday. So, leaving Bill alone in the car, he turned to walk the short distance to the town to see if Mutua was in the room he rented at the back of Ngandi's shop.