A Grain of Wheat (24 page)

‘Me! When the Uhuru war came, I knew I had to fight. Didn’t think twice about it. General! General! Where is the General?’

Every eye looked around for General R. He was quietly drinking at the counter, bemusedly looking at the scene. Githua was still talking. He told of his exploits during the Emergency: how he used to supply bullets to Kihika and the freedom fighters. People loved good stories. And even those who were drunk forgot their beer as they let themselves be lured into heroic realms by Githua’s stories.

‘Then one day, the whiteman struck. Wheeeee! The bullet caught me here!’

He pointed to his cut leg, and Mugo recoiled from the dangling stump. Yet, like everybody else, he felt his sympathies now drawn to this man who was more worthy of praise than he.

‘The government has forgotten us. We fought for freedom. And yet now!’

Again his voice vibrated with tears before it changed into that of a supplicant.

‘So, Chief. Remember me. Remember the poor. Remember Githua. Waiter – Waiter – Bring Tusker beer here. The Chief will pay – the Chief will not deny a drink to Githua – poor Githua.’

Mugo searched his pockets and took out two shillings. All the time he was aware of the General’s eyes on him. Suddenly he rose to his
feet, pushed his way through the crowd and went out. And Githua’s voice reached him in the street. ‘Thank you, Chief! Thank—’

Before Mugo had crossed the road into the village, he heard running feet behind him. Then a man came and walked beside him. It was General R.

‘A funny man! Isn’t he?’

‘Who?’

‘Githua.’

Mugo was quivering: thoughts crowded into his head.

‘I am not coming with you,’ General R. was saying. ‘I will see you tomorrow.’ Then he vanished as quickly as he had come. Mugo was now alone in the darkness. He felt he could embrace the whole night, could contain the world within his palms. For he walked on the edge of a revelation: Gikonyo and Githua had brought him there. He remembered the words: he shall save the children of the needy. It must be him. It was he, Mugo, spared to save people like Githua, the old woman, and any who had suffered. Why not take the task? Yes. He would speak at the Uhuru celebrations. He would lead the people and bury his past in their gratitude. Nobody need ever know about Kihika. To the few, elect of God, the past was forgiven, was made clean by great deeds that saved many. It was so in the time of Jacob and Esau; it was so in the time of Moses.

In bed that night, he dreamed that he was back in Rira. A group of detainees were lined up against the wall, naked to the waist. Githua and Gikonyo were among them. From another corner, John Thompson came holding a machine-gun at the unfortunate men against the wall. He was going to shoot them – unless they told what they knew about Kihika. All at once, Githua shouted: Mugo save us. The cry was taken by the others: Mugo save us. The suppliant voices rose to a chanting thunder: Mugo save us. And John Thompson had joined the condemned men and he was crying out louder than all the others: Mugo save us. How could he refuse, that agonized cry. Here I am, Lord. I am coming, coming, coming, riding in a cloud of thunder. And the men with one voice wept and cried: Amen.

Learned men will, no doubt, dig into the troubled times which we in Kenya underwent, and maybe sum up the lesson of history in a phrase. Why, let us ask them, did the incident in Rira Camp capture the imagination of the world? For there were other camps, bigger, scattered all over Kenya, from the Manda Islands in the Indian Ocean to the Magata Islands in Lake Victoria.

When Mugo was arrested he was taken to Tigoni Police Station and then to Thika detention camp, where captured forest fighters were taken. Many of the fighters came from Embu, Meru and Mwariga. Here he was kept for six months, and at one stage he thought this his final place of rest. Then one cold morning they were all herded into waiting lorries, without warning, and rushed to the railway station. The coaches which took them to Manyani were covered with barbed-wire at the windows to bar any escape. Soldiers waited for them at Manyani. As soon as they got out of the train, they were made to squat in large queues with their hands on their heads. The soldiers beat them with truncheons, cynically encouraging one another: strike harder it’s the whiteman, not we, who brought them here. Manyani was divided into three big camps: A, B and C. Compound C into which Mugo was hustled, was for the hardcore. Every compound was then subdivided into smaller compounds, each enclosing ten cells. One big cell housed about six hundred men.

It was after a series of screenings that Mugo and a few others were chained hands and feet and taken to Rira.

Rira camp was in a remote part of Kenya, near the coast where no rain fell and nothing grew except sand, sand and rocks. Detainees taken there consisted of a few who had sworn never to co-operate
with the government as long as Kenyatta was in prison. They refused to answer questions and often would not go to work.

Here Mugo found conditions worse than those in Manyani. Food rations were small.

It was here that Mugo was destined to meet John Thompson again.

Thompson’s sudden success in Yala was so impressive that he was immediately transferred to Rira. Thompson brought fresh breath to Rira. A common game in Rira had been to bury a man, naked, in the hot sand, sometimes leaving him there overnight. Thompson put an end to this means of extorting confessions. Instead he lectured the detainees in groups about the joys of home; they could go home to their wives and children as soon as they confessed the oath. This method had weakened resistance in other camps. Thompson hoped it would work the same magic. In his first month of reign, sanitation in Rira improved. Previously detainees suffering from typhoid were left to die. Now they were rushed to hospital.

When he considered the moment ripe, Thompson started calling them in singly into his office. His theory which had matured into a conviction over the years in administering Africans was: Do the unexpected. But here he met different men; men who would not even open their mouths, men who only stared at him. After two weeks he was driven by the men’s truculence to the edge of his patience. He went home and cried to Margery: These men are sick.

He hoped the third week would prove different. He leaned back in his chair and waited for the African warders to usher in the first man. Beside Thompson sat two other officers.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Mugo.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Thabai.’

Thompson was relieved to find a man who at least agreed to answer questions. This was a good beginning. If one man confessed the oath, others would follow. He knew Thabai. He had been a District Officer
in Rung’ei area twice; the last time being when he went to replace the murdered Robson. So for a few seconds he tried a friendly chat about Thabai: how green the landscape was, how nice and friendly its inhabitants. Then he resumed the questioning.

‘How many oaths have you taken?’

‘None.’

This sent Thompson to his feet. He paced up and down the room. Suddenly he faced Mugo. The man’s face seemed vaguely familiar. But then it was difficult to tell one black face from another: they looked so much alike, masks.

‘How many oaths have you taken?’

‘None.’

‘Liar!’ he shouted, sweating.

As for Mugo, he was indifferent to his fate. He was in that state of despair when a man perceives that all struggle is useless. You are condemned to die. Let the sword come quickly.

One of the officer’s whispered something to Thompson. He studied the man’s face for a while. Light dawned on him. He sent Mugo out of the room and carefully dived into the man’s record.

Thereafter things went from bad to worse. Many detainees never spoke. In fact, Mugo was the only one who consented to answer questions. But he only opened to repeat what he had said in all the camps. Thompson, like a tick, stuck to Mugo. He questioned him daily, perhaps because he seemed the likeliest to give in. He picked him up for punishment. Sometimes he would have the warders whip Mugo before the other detainees. Sometimes, in naked fury, he would snatch the whip from the warders and apply it himself. If Mugo had cried or asked for mercy Thompson might have relented. But now it seemed to him that all the detainees mocked and despised him for his failure to extort a cry from Mugo.

And that was how Mugo gained prestige among the other detainees. Beyond despair, there was no moaning; the feeling that he deserved all this numbed Mugo to the pain. But the other detainees saw his resignation to pain in a different light; it gave them courage; they came together and wrote a collective letter listing complaints. Among other things they wanted to be treated as political prisoners not
criminals. Food rations should be raised. Unless these things were done, they would go on hunger-strike. And indeed on the third day, all the detainees, to a man, sat down on strike.

Thompson was on the edge of madness. Eliminate the vermin, he would grind his teeth at night. He set the white officers and warders on the men. Yes – eliminate the vermin.

But the thing that sparked off the now famous deaths, was a near-riot act that took place on the third day of the strike. As some of the warders brought food to the detainees, a stone was hurled at them and struck one of them on the head. They let go the food and ran away howling murder! Riot! The detainees laughed and let fly more stones.

What occurred next is known to the world. The men were rounded up and locked in their cells. The now famous beating went on day and night. Eleven men died.

This was foremost in the mind of Mugo as on the following day after his vision he walked towards Gikonyo’s home. In his miraculous escape from death, he now saw the guiding hand of fate. Surely he must have been spared in order that he might save people like Githua from poverty and misery. He, an only son, was born to save. The exciting possibilities of his new position agitated him and lured him on. He would tell Gikonyo his decision to lead the people of Thabai in the Uhuru celebrations. Thereafter, as a chief, he would lead his people across the desert to the new Jerusalem.

A song from the radio drifted to Mugo. A woman’s voice, live, full, almost drowned the soloist in the radio. The song moved slowly, sadly, a strange contrast to the vigorously bright morning. For a time he stood, hesitant, near the neatly cropped hedge surrounding the house. The L-shaped house was roofed with new shining corrugated-iron sheets, and the outside walls were made of thick cedar slabs. He stood there, letting Mumbi’s voice disturb him pleasantly, refusing to believe that discord could be hidden beyond the hedge. Wangari left the house, a sufuria in her hand, and walked towards a smaller house, also newly built, at the far corner of the compound. A small boy, whom Mugo took for the child in dispute, pranced ahead of Wangari, and this sight, for no apparent reason, gave him pain.

Mumbi welcomed him with a smile, her face lit up as if she had been expecting him. He looked back over the many years past and saw the young girl who once met him and expressed sympathy because of his aunt’s death. Now her face appeared tired and hardened. Maybe weary inside, he thought. He became conscious of her well-formed body; her dark eyes, infinitely deep, swallowed him, unsettled him, and he feared her.

‘I just wanted to see Gikonyo,’ he said, refusing the seat she offered. ‘Is he not in?’

‘He goes to work very early.’ Her voice was well controlled and clear, though Mugo detected a slight flow of lamentation below the surface of her words.

‘Will you not sit down?’ she went on. ‘You must. I shall quickly make you a cup of tea, it will be ready in a minute.’ Her voice grew animated, alive, he sat down in instinctive deference to her powerful presence. Studying her face, it occurred to him as odd that he rarely thought of Mumbi and Kihika as brother and sister. Her brows had the same Kihika curve, and her nose, though smaller, had a similar shape.

‘How is your brother – I – I mean your younger brother, you have one, haven’t you?’ He stirred the tea in the cup to hide his confusion.

‘Kariuki?’ She sat on a chair facing him.

‘That is the name, is that not so?’

‘You know he finished his secondary school about two years ago. Then he worked in Nairobi for a bank before going to Makerere College.’

‘That is in Uganda, Obote’s kingdom?’

‘Yes, he goes there by train. He says it takes a whole night and day to get there. How I feel envious … travelling by train all night and day…. I have never been on such a long journey by train.’ She laughed quietly; her eyes lit as if with the thought of travelling, her whole body expressive of a resilient desire for life despite suffering. ‘But he did not come home for the holidays this time, which is bad, because he will miss all the celebrations on Thursday.’

Mugo did not join in the talk about the celebrations, and the conversation ended abruptly. He searched for another subject, and failing, said he would leave. He stood up.

But Mumbi remained sitting, her face set, as if she had not heard him.

‘I wanted to see you, and I would have come to you,’ she said. Though not above a whisper, her words reached him as a command. He sat down and waited.

‘Do you ever dream?’ she suddenly asked, a sad smile playing on her lips. The question startled Mugo, again raised the thrilling fear which lasted a few seconds before subsiding.

‘Yes, sometimes, that is, everybody dreams.’

‘I don’t mean ordinary dreams at night when you are asleep. It is when you are young in a clear day and you look into the future and you see great things. Your heart beats inside because you want the days to come quickly. Then Life’s sorrow cannot touch you.’

Her voice increased the tremor in Mugo. She was recreating his dream, dressing it in live words, breath.