A Grain of Wheat (28 page)

Was the dog’s threat a prelude to disaster, thought Karanja? In his consciousness of an imminent disaster, Karanja did not know whether to be pleased or angry when later Mwaura came into the room.

‘Hey, man. Is it true?’ Mwaura started in a subservient, conspiring whisper which said: you know all the secrets of the powers that rule above us. Throw me a few crumbs of your mighty knowledge.

‘What?’ Karanja asked, slow to respond to the affected adoration.

‘Well, that the boss, you know, Ka-Thompson, has gone?’ Whenever
Mwaura wanted to conspire against any man in authority, he always put the diminutive ‘Ka’ before his name.

‘Who told you?’ Karanja was startled, but tried to appear cool.

‘Oh, just rumours. And I said to myself, the only person who would know is Karanja. He is in these people’s secrets. Especially the boss. That man loved you, you know – always sent for you – oh, yes, and I could see he feared you. Is it true?’

Karanja knew he was being flattered, it made him feel good.

‘You people and your rumours. Didn’t you see him at work yesterday?’

‘Yes, but…. Couldn’t that have been the last day? That’s why he called for you, is that not so? To say good-bye. Did he give you some money? And people say – well, do you know I often agree with you when you say that people’s tongues are wild?’

‘What do people say?’ Karanja was suspicious and curious.

‘That an African, a man with a black skin like you or me, is coming to replace him.’

‘No!’ Karanja said firmly, expressing more what he would not want to see happen than what he knew would happen. ‘You may think what you like, but Thompson is not going anywhere. It was only yesterday that I was having a chat with his wife. She gave me coffee.’

‘Really! Mm,’ Mwaura said, nodding his head several times. ‘I see, I understand. You know, I would not be surprised to hear that you have tasted that woman. Do you know how my mouth waters when I look at her smooth buttocks and her breasts that cry to you: touch me, touch me. And her voice, it is like a song, makes you think of her thing itself. Lucky man. How did you start her?’

‘What are you talking about?’ Karanja had warmed to the talk, but was uneasy, unable to deny or confirm what Mwaura was suggesting.

‘Come, man. You must have tasted her. How do her goods taste?’

‘You people. Why do you think Europeans have anything special? They are like everybody else, you or me.’

‘A confession! Anyway, I knew you had done it. By the way, what are you doing on Thursday, on Uhuru day?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing …’ he added, the inner warmth melting.

‘Nothing? Aren’t you going to this thing?’

‘What thing?’

‘The ceremony at Rung’ei. Don’t you know they are organizing games and dances to celebrate Uhuru?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said vaguely.

‘But you can’t stay here all alone! Everybody from the camp here is going to hear Mugo speak.’

‘Who is Mugo?’ he asked, more uncertainty creeping into his voice. Mwaura seized it.

‘People say the man talks with God and receives messages from spirits of the dead. Or how do you explain that at Rira he escaped alive while ten of those involved in the hunger-strike died? And remember, he was the leader?’

‘Nonsense. People are full of wild tongues,’ he said without conviction. He had not thought what he would do on the day. But could he go back to Thabai and meet people who would mock him? What about if he went to see Mumbi just once? Couldn’t he make a last attempt to wrench her from Gikonyo?

‘You may call it nonsense. Anyway, I would rather go and see for myself. The man Mugo is a true hermit, has kept to himself, has never spoken to anyone, since he left detention camp. And there’ll be plenty of women. You know how they go free (even married ones) on such occasions.’

‘Are you going?’ he asked, tempted by a desire to see Mumbi.

‘Me, left behind?’

‘Let me know when you decide to go,’ Karanja said, looking at the window. John Thompson was just parking his Morris outside.

‘There is
your
Thompson,’ he told Mwaura, barely able to disguise his triumph. He stood up, quickly dusted the khaki overall, passed his hands over his hair and rushed out, hoping to meet Thompson along the corridor. Then he would put the awful question. A watery lump leapt to his throat as soon as he saw Thompson’s abstract face: should I ask him or not?

‘Excuse me, sir!’ he called out, wanting to cry. John Thompson walked as though he had not seen Karanja. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ Karanja
raised his voice, gathering courage in despair. Thompson turned round to face Karanja.

‘Yes?’ The voice was clear, cold, distant.

‘You—’ Karanja swallowed some lumpy liquid. ‘—you are going!’ he made a statement instead of the intended cool question.

‘What!’

‘You are – you are—’ he swallowed some more lumpy liquid; it made a noise as it went down his throat. But he stood his ground.

‘—are you going back to – to your country.’

‘Yes, yes,’ the whiteman answered quickly, as if puzzled by the question. Panic seized Karanja. He played with his fingers behind his back. He would have loved to suddenly vanish from the earth rather than bear the chill around. Thompson was about to move, but then he stopped.

‘What can I do for you?’ he asked, in a brusque manner.

‘Nothing. Nothing, sir. You have been very kind.’

Thompson hastened away.

Karanja stood in the corridor for a while and took a dirty handkerchief to rub off the sweat from his face. Then he went back, his gait, to an observer, conjuring up the picture of a dog that has been unexpectedly snubbed by the master it trusts. Karanja did not seem to see Mwaura, who was still waiting in the room. He sat on the chair, his hands limply on the table, and uncomprehendingly stared at the world outside the window.

‘Is he going back, then?’ Mwaura asked, tentatively.

‘I don’t know,’ Karanja answered in a thin, colourless voice. Then suddenly he seemed to see Mwaura for the first time.

‘What are you doing in the office?’ he shouted at Mwaura, who quickly backed to the door. The tooth was aged and broken; it could not bite. As if exhausted by the gesture, Karanja resumed his deathly posture at the table. It was Mwaura’s turn to feel triumphant and, for a time, forgot that his mission was to befriend Karanja and lure him to the Uhuru ceremony.

‘Angry that master is leaving you, eh?’ he taunted, standing safely at the open door. ‘Not even decent enough to say farewell? I once worked for a whiteman in Nairobi. When he left Kenya, he at least
shot dead all his pets – cats and dogs. Couldn’t bear to leave them alive without a kindly helper.’

Karanja apparently did not hear him. He did not make the slightest stir from his position at the table.

The farewell party held at Githima hostel was to start at eight. John and Margery Thompson went early but found some guests had already arrived. Dr Brian O’Donoghue, the Director of Githima Agricultural and Forestry Research Station, could not attend the party because he had gone to an International Forestry Commission in Salisbury. He was a tall thin man with big-rimmed glasses, who was never seen walking across Githima ground without a book under his arm. His wife, however, made a brief appearance. The official contingent was later strengthened by the arrival of the Deputy Director, his wife, and the heads of the various departments. Within an hour or so, the common room at the hostel was full of men and women, diversely dressed, clinking glasses, cracking little jokes, laughing.

At first, Mr and Mrs Thompson were the monopoly of the official contingent. Envious and deprecating glances were cast at the wives of the two Directors; they always dominated the scene, couldn’t they give other people a chance to say a word to Mr Thompson (poor John, a real dear, liked him so much, such manners, such dedication: could a man be worse treated by his government?). They searched their hearts and suddenly discovered that they had always admired John, that Margery had been their special friend, and what wouldn’t they do to help them settle down in their next home!

Thompson’s imminent departure and the Independence tomorrow night brought back in their hearts the man who had been at the centre of scandal at Rira. Thompson was therefore a martyr, had been so received at Githima, was so regarded now on the eve of his departure from a country he had served so well.

As soon as the official contingent had gone, the party jumped to new life and commotion. Women fussed over Thompson: What was he going to do? Had he found a job? Wasn’t it a shame the way the British Government abandoned men she had encouraged and sent abroad? It came from her yielding to African violence and International Communism. Didn’t you see what was happening in Uganda and Tanganyika? The Chinese and the Russians had rushed to establish embassies. Mrs Dickinson, the Librarian, was always the more out-spoken in politics and predicted a holocaust after Uhuru. She and Roger Mason, her boyfriend had already booked a flight to Uganda, where they would stay to escape the violence that would be unleashed on all white people in Kenya. Now she was saying: ‘I tell you, I can see it all, in ten years these countries will be Russian satellites or worse still, part of the Chinese Empire—’ Another woman broke in: ‘You resigned, didn’t you? Now, think of that, and I—’ Some wanted to know why he had taken such a step. Others withdrew fearing to embarrass John (poor John, they moaned again, casting deprecating glances at Margery, surrounded by men. The way she had carried on with that alcoholic, it wouldn’t be surprising if really John wanted just to get away from the scene of shame).

Dr Lynd was talking to Roger Mason about her work, but kept on casting anxious glances towards John Thompson. She talked incessantly and Roger Mason, a tall man with a red moustache, looked bored though he made no effort to get away.

‘Githima area? Oh, it’s all right, because though most potatoes here suffer from Fungus blight, they can be treated with copper sulphate. But potatoes suffering from bacterial blight can’t. And it is this blight which affects most parts of Kenya, especially the African areas. Oh, yes, we do all sorts of experiments, like, for instance, the one I am doing now – injecting a specific bacterial strain to trace the path of infection through the plant. But – oh, excuse me—’

She hurried to where Thompson was standing and just managed to hold him to herself. Gradually she led him into a corner and compelled him to sit down. She looked agitated and he expected her to tell him about the dog.

‘You remember the incident I told you about yesterday?’

‘The dog?’

‘Yes … the murder of my dog!’

‘Yes.’

‘You remember I told you about the houseboy.’

‘Yes.’

‘He was never caught.’

‘Yes, I believe you told me so.’

‘I am frightened. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘Because – because, I saw him again—’

‘When?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Yesterday … Do you think it is going to be safe for us who remain?’ she asked him. But before he could answer, she added defiantly, ‘No! Safe or not, I’ll not leave this place. I’ll not leave my property to them.’

‘Then you’ll have to get better homeguards!’ he said, rather savagely. But Dr Lynd did not get the irony. She clung on to the idea. ‘Yes … many more mbwa kalis to protect our lives and property,’ she said and started talking about the qualities of the most loyal and the most ferocious guard dogs.

By eleven o’clock people were getting drunk. A few couples were dancing. The African waiters stood aside, like posts, dressed in white Kanzus, a red band round the waist, and a red fez on the head.

Men clustered around Margery, caressing her figure with their eyes. One by one they were pulled on to the floor by their wives, until only one fat man with a long unkempt beard and bushy eyebrows was left talking to her. She kept on stealing SOS glances at her husband, who did not see because he was now engaged in a group that was discussing politics, Independence Day, and the fate of the whiteman under a black government.

‘It’s logical, isn’t it?’ the bearded man was saying, as he pulled her to the floor for a dance.

‘What’s logical about that?’ she yawned, unable to disguise her boredom. The man reminded her of the worst aspects of her lover.

‘That we are all drunk, eh? I don’t know why I act like this today – hiccup! – and it follows that – hiccup – you—’

Suddenly she heard the sound of a broken glass on the floor. Everybody stopped dancing and talking. Margery looked at the group behind her husband. His empty hand was in the air as if holding a glass to his mouth. Everybody’s eyes were now turned on him. Margery quickly walked across and linked her hand in his and bravely smiled at nowhere. An African waiter rushed in with a dustpan and brush and collected the broken pieces. The silence was over. The conversation resumed as if nothing had happened.

John and Margery drove back in the dark slowly. The consciousness that she was seeing Githima for the last time drew her closer to her husband.

‘Before the party I didn’t feel that we were really leaving. Now it seems that all this belongs to our past.’

He drove on, avoiding their home. At the very edge of the forest, he stopped the car and lit two cigarettes. Suddenly Margery realized that this was the very spot where Van had made love to her. She started smoking furiously, waiting for him to accuse her.

‘Perhaps this is not the journey’s end,’ he said, at last.

‘What?’

‘We are not yet beaten,’ he asserted hoarsely. ‘Africa cannot, cannot do without Europe.’

Margery looked up at him, but said nothing.

When Gikonyo came home in the evening, Mumbi could tell that he was in a bad mood. First he did not talk to her. This was not unusual. Then, when she gave him food, he only glanced at it once and then continued staring at the wall. Again this was not unusual. But it was the way he was breathing, as if suppressing a groan, that convinced her that something had happened. Though scared of him, of his moods, she could not help but probe into his affairs.