And Then Life Happens (23 page)

My grandmother threw her hands in the air and let out a cry that cut me to the quick. It sounded as if she had hurt herself terribly. I looked at her worriedly, and from her facial expression I could tell that she didn't know whether to weep or laugh. The surprise had been a success.

“Barry? Is it really you? How lucky I am to have lived long enough to meet you! Auma, have you really brought Barry home?” She was beside herself with joy. “If only your father were still alive!” With the edge of her
leso,
a wraparound garment that Kenyan women wear around their hips, she wiped the tears from her eyes. Then she pressed Barack tightly to her ample bosom and pulled him by the arm to the main building on the homestead, my grandfather's house. The relatives who had come over had in the meantime taken our luggage from us and walked ahead toward the house.

“We have to slaughter a rooster immediately,” my grandmother exclaimed excitedly as we walked. “The occasion must be celebrated. My grandson has come from America. Osumba, Guala!
Bi uru,
come here!” Osumba and Guala were my grandmother's younger children, who still lived with her.

She spoke quickly and loudly, literally breathless with happiness about Barack's appearance. I followed the two of them, smiling, for I had expected this reaction to Barack's “homecoming.”

Most of the time we spent telling stories. Barack thereby learned some more about our father—for example, how he had refused as a small boy to go to the local primary school, because a woman and not a man taught there. In those days, the teachers were permitted to cane children, and our father vehemently resisted being beaten by a woman. He even managed to persuade his parents to send him to school in N'giya, a small village two and a half miles away.

Barack also met new relatives and participated enthusiastically in the rural family life. My brother observed everything closely; despite the fact that on our grandmother's homestead he got only a glimpse of traditional Luo life, he wanted to experience it as fully as possible. He went into the fields with our grandmother and watched how they were tilled. Together we accompanied her to the market. There she brought the cabbage and other vegetables grown in the garden, and Barack helped her carry the large sack. All the people eyed him with curiosity, and Granny Sarah told them excitedly about her grandson who had come all the way from America to Kenya to visit her. Unfortunately, Barack spoke no Luo, and my grandmother could barely converse in English. Nonetheless, they managed to communicate wonderfully with gestures.

*   *   *

After several days, we left my grandmother to travel on to Karachuonyo. In this village on the shores of Lake Victoria lived additional members of the Obama family. It was also where my father and my mother had fallen in love at a dance. Though the Obamas originally came from Alego, our great-grandfather, Obama Opiyo, left Alego to take up residence in Karachuonyo, where land was allotted to him. There his sons and daughters were born. One of these children was my grandfather, Onyango Hussein. Grandfather Onyango was a very community-oriented young man, who liked to participate in political events in Kendu Bay. But it was made clear to him that he was an outsider and thus had no say in decisions. Because he was a proud man, he didn't want to feel slighted anymore, and so he set off with his family to return to his father's home. His siblings remained behind and settled in Karachuonyo, where they established their families.

Grandfather Onyango was accompanied on his return by my biological grandmother, Akumu, his second wife and my father's mother, as well as Sarah, his third wife, at that time his young bride. His first wife, Halima, refused to come with him. She had heard that Alego was very primitive and backward, and she did not want to live there. Ultimately, Akumu didn't last long in Alego either. After only a brief stay she departed the compound and left her three children behind, my father and his sisters, Nyaoke and Auma. Nyaoke, the oldest, was twelve at the time, my father nine. Auma was still a baby. They all grew up with Granny Sarah. Although she was not their biological mother, Granny Sarah was nonetheless considered their mother by tradition and years later became the only grandmother I really knew. When I introduced her to Barack, he, too, embraced her as our Granny.

*   *   *

In Kendu Bay, we were welcomed as warmly as in Alego. The family was happy to meet Barack. They asked almost as many questions as he did. For me, it was not always simple to introduce Barack to his relatives without getting lost in the confusion of the familial relationships.

Back in Nairobi, we were invited to dinner by more family members. In some cases, I would have preferred it if Barack had gone alone, but my brother insisted that I accompany him. Uncle Odima was among those I didn't necessarily want to see. I had mostly unpleasant memories of him and his family and had not been in contact with him for many years. But now I had made Barack curious about this uncle with all my stories.

“Odima lived with you, with our father. I have to meet him and his family.” My brother looked at me imploringly.

“You should do that. I just don't want to be there.”

“That would be impolite. They must know that I'm staying with you.”

I didn't want to tell Barack that I didn't care about that and that I didn't owe that family anything. Only because I saw his disappointed expression, I gave in.

*   *   *

The visit with Ruth was also difficult. I had run into her in the city and told her that Barack was with me. She invited us to lunch and mentioned that Mark (Okoth) was also staying in Nairobi at that time. I accepted the invitation, for I thought that Barack should meet this younger brother, too.

We arrived on time at the home of our father's third wife. Her house was not hard to find. She lived on the large street that leads from Spring Valley to Gigiri, a beautiful area of the capital. She had sold the house in Lavington a long time ago. With the proceeds, I had been told, she had opened a preschool.

After we had turned onto her property, I parked my old Beetle in the gravel driveway. Even before we had climbed out of the car, Ruth was already standing at the front door, a broad smile on her face.

“Welcome!” she said heartily as we got out. She was looking warmly at Barack. “And you must be Barry.”

“Barack,” he corrected her. I knew that my brother didn't like being called Barry; only with our grandmother had he taken no exception to it.

“Come in, Rita,” she said, turning to me. Although I had told her several times that I wanted to be called Auma, she stuck with Rita. To avoid any friction, I resigned myself to it.

Another person was standing at the door, too. It was not Mark, whom I had not seen since he was nine years old, but Juliana, the domestic help my stepmother had taken with her when she left us. I greeted Juliana with a somewhat reserved smile—too many years had passed, too much was unresolved, and too much still hurt.

Shortly thereafter, we stood in a living room with a dining table that was already set. The middle of the room was dominated by a seating area, and next to glass doors that led onto a terrace and into a large garden, there was a piano. I looked out the window and thought of my only previous visit to this house. That time I had come to stand at Opiyo's graveside. Family members had told me that only Ruth knew where he was buried. After his death, they had tried to bury him in Alego in accordance with Luo tradition. But Ruth had resisted that vehemently, even though according to the old customs she had no authority to decide about Opiyo. Nonetheless, she had managed to retain control over the son she had only called David. She had his body cremated—the Luo are unacquainted with such a funeral rite—and his urn buried in her garden.

I looked at that part of the garden where I had said farewell to my brother almost six years earlier.
Too bad that Opiyo is not with us,
I thought. He would have been so happy about Barack's visit.

“I'll get Mark,” Ruth said, and left the room. My brother and I looked at each other, but said nothing. My look must have revealed that I found the situation extremely uncomfortable.
Patience, patience,
Barack's eyes seemed to reply. I smiled faintly and was about to make a sardonic remark when Ruth entered the room again, followed by a young man with an Afro and a defiant face.

“This is Mark,” she announced proudly. The sentence was directed at Barack, who had taken a seat on the sofa. He stood up and said formally, “Hi, Mark. How are you?”

“Fine, thank you.” Mark's answer was no less formal. It was clear that he wasn't particularly interested in the brother who had suddenly turned up. He probably remained in the room only because his mother had told him to.

“Mark is a great pianist,” said Ruth, when we had all sat down and there was a lapse in the small talk. “He should play something for you.

“Come on, Mark, play something,” she implored him. “The two of them would definitely enjoy it.”

Mark did not look thrilled. But when he replied that we probably didn't feel like listening to him play anything, we protested politely, of course. I wondered whether his mother's demand might have embarrassed him a little. But during the brief, stiff exchange with Barack, he had not struck me as shy. He had seemed confident, almost arrogant. Mark wasn't shy. He just didn't want to be shown off.

I have to admit that he elicited beautiful sounds from the piano. He played outstandingly. When the piece was over, I applauded not only to be polite, but also because I was truly impressed.

Mark stood up from the piano stool and accepted our compliments as if they were the most obvious thing in the world. But without music we again had to cultivate the conversation ourselves. We were at the mercy of the melodrama that I had in the meantime silently dubbed
The Reluctant Meeting of Two Brothers
.

At that moment, Juliana appeared and asked whether she should serve the food. Ruth stood up and followed her into the kitchen. She looked satisfied—no wonder, with her son's musical abilities.

Whether Ruth's two sons from her second marriage—she had gotten married again, to a man from Tanzania—ate lunch with us, I no longer recall. I can see only Barack and Mark in my mind's eye, trying out of respect for Ruth to show a certain interest in each other. Before we said good-bye shortly after eating, my stepmother urged the two of them to exchange addresses. That way they could stay in contact in America. They did as she said, probably in the certain knowledge that neither would continue the brotherly contact.

*   *   *

“The things I do for you!” I groaned, when we were back in the car.

“It went well, don't you think?” Barack grinned mischievously.

“But of course. Mark this, Mark that. Did you hear the way they talked about our father? It was as if he never meant anything to them. Ruth I can understand—that is, I can't really understand her attitude, only accept it. But Mark? What reason does he have? And he's so full of himself!”

“Maybe he's a bit insecure. And our father didn't exactly leave them with the best impression.”

“Always the diplomat. Typical, that you interpret Mark's snootiness as insecurity. For me, he was just plain arrogant.” I knew that I was perhaps being unfair to Mark, but I couldn't help myself. I was simply angry that he had received us without any sense of joy or warmth. And after I had heard nothing but disparaging remarks about my father during lunch, I was not willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Today I think that Mark's standoffish facade concealed much that remained unresolved from his childhood. After all, the memories were still vivid for me, too.

*   *   *

Before Barack and I left Ruth, we had visited Opiyo's grave in the garden. Neither of us had spoken a word. And inwardly, I had again regretted that Opiyo was not with us. Perhaps he would have managed to bring us all together again.

*   *   *

Our complicated family situation fueled another desire in Barack: He asked me to introduce him to George, our father's youngest son.

Because I was no longer in contact with George and his mother, Jael, I did not know their new place of residence. But eventually I found out where our youngest brother went to school. So Barack and I decided to go there and greet him briefly during a break between classes.

At first, everything went according to plan. We visited the school principal and told her our request. She asked us to wait a few minutes, for soon the bell would ring. She showed us the door to George's classroom; we could wait for him outside in the hall. But on her way back to her office, the principal must have thought twice about our plan and called Jael to tell her about us. For when the bell rang, and the doors of all the classrooms flew open, filling the school with loud children's voices, she rushed toward us from the end of the hall. We had just begun to ask a few boys and girls about George. They pointed him out to us, and we approached a lively eight-year-old.

“Hi George,” said Barack. The boy looked up at him with curiosity, and then glanced at me.

“I'm Auma, your sister, and this is Barack, your brother,” I explained, but by then the principal was standing next to us.

“I'm sorry,” she broke in. “But you can't talk to George.”

“Why not?”

“I spoke to his mother on the telephone, and she did not allow it.”

“My brother came all the way from the United States and would like to meet his family, and George is part of it, too.” I tried to soften up the principal, but she remained firm.

“Nonetheless, that's not possible. You really have to leave the school now.”

George stood there uncomprehendingly and looked from one of us to the other. He didn't know us, and so he didn't grasp the meaning of all this.

“Okay, let's go,” said Barack. He sensed the combativeness awakening in me, but he didn't want to make a scene. “We've seen George, after all.”