Burn My Heart (6 page)

Mugo began to search other faces. Many looked tense and anxious for the meeting to begin. What if the lightning had woken the bwana and he had got wind of what was happening? What if the police were already on their way with their dogs and their trucks to cart them away? But some faces showed no fear. Some younger ones looked excited, boys who were older than him and even some his own age. He felt torn. Shouldn’t he just go inside and join them? Share whatever was going to happen? He wasn’t a coward! Then he remembered that Baba had lied about him. The captain would find out that he hadn’t been sleeping by the bwana’s house. The warning to Baba had been clear: ‘
If you lie, you will pay.
’ With the rain beating on his back, Mugo pressed his eye again to the peephole. He had to stay outside, like a spy.

The meeting began with singing. As voices mingled with the drumming of the rain, Mugo felt a deep loneliness in the words and in himself.

‘
Sorrow and trouble came

Yes, sorrow and trouble.

When we accepted the wazungu

They stole our land.
’

Baba and Mami had lowered their heads so Mugo couldn’t be sure if they were singing. But both Mzee Josiah and Mama Mercy had their eyes and mouths firmly shut. They were probably asking their Christian god to help them.

The captain appeared in the doorway. Under his peaked cap, Mugo now saw short dreadlocks and the spark in the eyes that swept across the shed. A man beside him began to call out names written on a piece of paper. As people’s names were called, they stepped forward and were escorted out of the shed. Mugo felt a tightness around his chest. Were they being led through the archway into Wamai’s hut? Ndio! That was where the important business would take place! It was the ‘thing’ that was unspoken… a secret except to those who were part of it… and the reason they were all there.

As people began returning into the shed, Mugo peered as intently as he could at their faces. He looked for some sign of difference, but at first he could find none. The tightness wrung his chest once more when he heard his parents’ names.

‘Kamau, son of Gitau! Njeri, wife of Kamau!’

Baba and Mami stepped forward.

‘Josiah Mwangi… Mercy, wife of Josiah.’

Mzee Josiah and Mama Mercy did not move. The tightness squeezed up into Mugo’s throat. Everyone in the shed had fallen silent. The man repeated their names, this time more harshly. Still they didn’t move. The next instant, a club cracking against Mzee Josiah’s shoulders sent him stumbling forward.

‘Get up! Don’t waste our time!’

Mama Mercy emitted screams like a tiny, frightened bird as she tried to help her husband. The guard with the club threatened to bring it down on Mzee Josiah again.

‘We – can’t – take – this oath!’ Mzee Josiah stuttered. ‘We are Chris–’

The club swung, sending him down on his knees. It rose to strike again. Mugo gasped. Baba had grabbed it, forcing it to judder in mid-air!

‘These are old people!’ Baba appealed to the captain. ‘It is not right to beat them!’

The captain’s head barely reached Baba’s chest and he tilted back his cap to gaze up at Mugo’s father. Although he was much younger, Mugo could tell that he did not like Baba’s rebuke.

‘When the wazungu settlers stole our land, did they care about our old people?’ The captain spoke loudly enough to address the whole room. ‘The mzungu that you call ‘bwana’ will never leave
unless we speak with one voice. It doesn’t matter if you are young or old. It is your duty to take this oath for
ithaka na wiyathi
… our land and our freedom. If you refuse, it means you want to help the wazungu settlers. It means you are also our enemy.’

Without waiting for a response, he signalled to the guards clustered at the door. They swooped and lifted Mzee Josiah like a sack. Mugo could no longer see his parents with so many young men circling them. But Mama Mercy’s protests punctured the air. They echoed in Mugo’s ears long after he imagined her being dragged away.

When they reappeared, there were no clues in Baba’s and Mami’s faces as to what had happened in Wamai’s hut. Mugo knew he would never be able to ask. Mzee Josiah returned limping, his face like stone. He held his wife by the hand, her silent face crumpled and bewildered. But as more people were taken out and came back, the atmosphere in the shed seemed to liven. It seemed to Mugo that some stepped back inside taller and with their eyes alight.

The rain eased and a cold wind set in. Mugo knew he should set off home before the meeting ended. When it seemed that everyone had returned from Wamai’s hut, he told himself it was time. But the captain now introduced the oath administrator
who had travelled with his assistant all the way from Nairobi. He wore a blanket over his European shirt and trousers and spoke so passionately that Mugo was captivated.

‘The mzungu is our enemy!’ he declared bluntly. ‘He has stolen our land and it must be returned to us. That is why we must act like one man with one mind. That is why every Kikuyu must take the Oath of Unity.’

Mugo had never heard anyone talk like this, using such stirring words in openly accusing the wazungu. He could never imagine this man saying ‘Yes, bwana’ and ‘No, bwana’ to Bwana Grayson! But the oath administrator had not finished.

‘You are now joined with that “Mau Mau” that the government has banned. Never reveal this secret to any non-member! If you do, the government will throw you into their prisons. We will also kill you for breaking your oath. We have our people everywhere.’

Mugo felt the quivers enter him. What would be the punishment for a spy? He had to get away! But the administrator’s assistant had begun to teach some old Kikuyu greetings and a special handshake by which members could recognize each other. If anyone was sent on a mission to someone they didn’t know, these signs could be used, he said. Once again, Mugo was mesmerized.

It was only when he saw the administrator looking
at his watch, that he pulled himself away from the peephole and hurriedly crept along the wall the way he had come. But when he reached the corner, to his horror, he saw a figure at the gate. Wamai! How was he going to get out? Could he crawl under the fence? The strands of barbed wire would surely be too close to the ground. He remembered Mathew scrambling under the other broken fence a few hours ago. He had been cross at the foolishness of the mzungu boy. But was he not even more foolish? He could hear Baba saying that only a fool pokes his head into the fire to discover what makes it burn.

He wondered if he should risk trying to slip in with the others when they came out of the shed. Someone would surely notice and take him to the captain! He had just decided to go back into hiding behind the shed until everyone had gone, when the figure at the gate turned and saw him. Mugo froze.

‘Eh! What are you doing?’ Wamai fiercely signalled Mugo to come to him.

Mugo approached the dairyman, inhaling deeply to steel himself against trembling. He held out his hand and greeted the old man with the handshake he had just seen demonstrated through the peephole. Wamai returned the greeting.

‘So it’s you, Mugo! Why are you outside when everyone is inside?’ Mugo felt the dairyman’s watery eyes trying to penetrate him.

‘I am on a mission, Mzee Wamai,’ Mugo whispered. ‘The others will follow.’

‘I see,’ said Wamai. ‘You had better hurry, then.’

‘Goodnight, Mzee,’ said Mugo. He ran off as if the wind were chasing him. He had tricked the old dairyman into believing that he was a new ‘member’. It was the only way out. Mugo didn’t stop running until he reached the slope beneath the pepper trees. He glanced up towards Kirinyaga. The clouds were clearing and a few stars sparkled above. As he scrambled up the muddy slope towards his grandfather’s grove, he heard the first cocks crowing.

‘I’m the oldest, so I’ll be the general. Mathew can be my adjutant.’

Lance Smithers surveyed the cluster of children on the freshly mown lawn outside the lounge at the club. Mathew pushed his hands deeper in his pockets and pulled back his shoulders. He had already discovered that Lance, who was only a few months older, always liked to be in charge.

Lance’s family had been occasional visitors to the club while his grandfather, Major Smithers, was alive. When the major had recently died of a heart attack, Lance’s father, Frank, had been worried about his elderly mother living on her own. Mau Mau attacks on isolated farms were becoming more frequent. Yet, according to Mathew’s mother, the major’s widow had refused to leave the farm, point-blank. She insisted her servants were loyal and that she could still handle her .22. In the end, Frank Smithers had left his office job in Nairobi
and brought his family up to the highlands to manage the farm himself. They had arrived at the end of October, on the weekend after the governor had declared a State of Emergency. Rumour was that the old lady was secretly delighted. Lance’s father had volunteered for the local Kenya Police Reserve and her conversations were full of references to ‘my inspector son’.

While his parents were relieved, Mathew had also been pleased. When Lance arrived at his boarding school, he had felt secretly flattered when the new boy announced to everyone that he was Mathew’s neighbour and friend. Matron had put Lance into his dormitory and told Mathew to look after him. It didn’t take Lance long to get the hang of most things about the school and to gather a whole collection of friends. Lance had reserved, however, a special place for Mathew. His ‘adjutant’.

‘We’re going to hunt Mau Mau!’ Lance commanded, sweeping his eyes across the group on the lawn up towards the mountain. The other children were all younger. Some of them wriggled and made scared faces.

‘I don’t want to play that!’ someone whined.

‘It’s only a game! Mathew and I are the search party.’ Lance nodded briskly at Mathew. Then he signalled a stubby boy who was in the year below them at school.

‘John will be our guard at number-three tennis
court.’ Lance pointed to the children’s court, beyond the enclosure for the swimming pool. John’s cheeks puffed out in a grin.

‘The rest of you are Mau Mau, so you can hide wherever you like in the grounds. No one goes inside the club house. We’ll count to a hundred. If we catch you, we put you in detention in the tennis court, where John guards you. We’ve got twenty minutes to catch you all, so start running
NOW
!’

Squealing and screaming, the younger ones ran off.
Amazing
, thought Mathew,
how they all obeyed! Lance just said what he wanted and that was that!

‘Right turn! Adjutant! Start counting!’

Mathew turned his face towards the wall near the French windows leading into the lounge. He scanned the grown-ups at the bar and in armchairs around coffee tables. Mother said that seeing so many men in the Police Reserve’s khaki uniform reminded her of wartime. His parents were sitting with Lance’s parents not far from the French windows. Both fathers’ revolvers lay out of their holsters on the coffee table.

‘One, two, three…’ he began loudly but quickly lowered his voice. The two fathers were arguing! Lance’s father sounded tetchy.

‘I grant you know a damn side more about farming than I do, Jack –’

‘I also understand my labour!’ Father interrupted
irritably. ‘I speak their language! I grew up with some of them!’

‘If you believe that means you know them, you kid yourself! These Mau Mau aren’t human like you and me, Jack! Look what they’ve just done to their own people in Nyeri! Slaughtering their own elders, women, children! Good Christian people… on Christmas Eve to boot!’

‘I’m not talking about those damn murdering Mau Mau but – my – own – labour!’ Mathew could hear Father struggling to be patient. ‘I know them individually. I know their families. I even help some of them with school fees, damn it!’

‘That doesn’t mean a thing.’

‘Take my syce, Kamau. I’ve known him nearly all my life and he has – never once – given me cause to distrust him. I provide his family with work! I have his boy in my kitchen, his wife in my garden, and I’m helping see his older boy through school! So he knows on which side his bread is buttered!’

‘I’m telling you, Jack, they don’t see it like that.’

‘If any Mau Mau terrorist had come to my farm to stir up my labour, Kamau would have told me.’

‘Hmmph!’ Lance’s father snorted. ‘My war years as an intelligence officer evidently taught me to be less trusting than you… It’s safer that way.’

There was an awkward silence around the coffee
table. Fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight… Mathew continued counting but realized that he was now silently mouthing his numbers. He glanced at Lance beside him. It was obvious that he had also been listening.

‘Sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy…’ Mathew whispered. He heard his mother ask if anyone wanted more coffee. That was so like Mother, smoothing over any discord and keeping her voice bright.

‘How is Lance settling in at school?’ Mother changed the conversation.

‘Quite happily, we’re glad to say.’ Lance’s mother picked up her cue. ‘We’re also very grateful to Mathew. He has been so…’ Mathew didn’t hear any more because Lance began counting out loud alongside him.

‘Ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three…’ Together their voices blurred those inside.

‘One hundred!’ Lance shouted across the lawn.

Mathew turned. There were no children in sight except for John, who stood by the tennis court with arms folded, waiting for his captives.

‘I’ll check the cricket pavilion. You go round the guest quarters,’ Lance decreed. ‘Any resistance and give me a shout!’ He dashed off before waiting for a reply.

Mathew smiled wryly to himself. He wasn’t likely to need Lance’s help. Their victims-to-be were all
under nine. Since the Emergency, families from outlying farms had cut down travelling to town except for necessities. So it was a matter of luck who had called in at the club for tea or lunch. No one stayed late and few stayed overnight. It was best to be home well before dark and behind your own fence.