Echoes From a Distant Land (28 page)

Jelani stiffened at the taunt and sized up the man. He was tall, solidly built, and in his eye there was the look of a man accustomed to getting his own way, using his size to bully others out of what was theirs.

Jelani retired, angry with the loss of his prized position and at the Kamba man for his thuggish manner, but infuriated by the reference to his appearance.

 

Jelani's new place of business, outside the entrance to the market in Stewart Street, was very busy, with shoppers swarming past his shoeshine box every moment of the day. But business was very slow.

When he abandoned his position outside the New Stanley to the big Kamba ruffian, he felt confident he could start afresh elsewhere without difficulty, but before the first day had ended, he realised it wasn't the quantity of people passing him that was important, but
the quality of their footwear. Most people attending the market wore cheap sandals or no shoes at all.

Now he regretted his cowardly retreat from outside the hotel. There his strategy to allow his customers to set their price had worked handsomely, and they gave him good tips.

It was also the principle of the matter. He had worked hard to secure a loyal set of clients. He had managed to earn a better return on his skills because of his diligence so why should someone else profit from it?

As he sat on his stool mulling over these thoughts, he didn't notice a pair of fine leather shoes that stood before him until a voice drew his attention to them.

‘Can you do something to these old brogues for me?'

Jelani whipped the stool from under him and slid it towards the customer.

‘Certainly,
bwana
,' he said, diving into his box of rags and polishes.

‘You can call me Sam if you wish,' he said.

The accent had deceived him. It was the Kikuyu man who had visited Kobogi. Jelani remembered him because he'd done what he'd promised to do — returning to the village with bags of maize to help the village survive the drought. Jelani also suspected he'd spoken to the chief to allow the initiation ceremony to go ahead.

Sam took his seat on the stool, and nothing was said as Jelani smeared polish on the well-worn but fine quality shoes.

‘Weren't you working outside the New Stanley?' he asked.

Jelani nodded. ‘Yes. I was.'

‘I thought so. Now there's a Kamba in your place. Why is that?'

Jelani buffed the shoes vigorously. ‘He said it was his place before I came there.'

‘Do you believe him?'

He paused. ‘No.'

The man said no more as Jelani worked the polish into the leather while again stewing about the Kamba.

When he stood, Sam asked, ‘Did you complete your initiation?'

‘Of course I did,' Jelani said, miffed by the inference that he was not yet a man.

‘It's not only in Kikuyuland that you must go to battle. In the city there are also good causes for which to fight.' He paid Jelani. ‘Stand up for what you believe is right.'

 

Jelani returned to the New Stanley early the next day, determined to regain his position, but the Kamba man was already there.

Jelani put his stool down beside the Kamba. ‘Go,' he said.

The Kamba laughed at him.

Without further preliminaries, Jelani lifted his wooden stool, and struck the other man on the head.

The Kamba fell to the ground and, as Jelani stood over him with his stool raised ready to strike again, the bigger man crawled away to safety, holding his hand to his bleeding head.

Jelani carefully set out his equipment, and awaited his first customer.

 

After he finished one customer's shoes and collected payment, Jelani raised his eyes to the next man standing in line. It was the Sikh from River Road!

Sitting on his stool beneath the towering Indian, Jelani knew he had no chance of escape. He would be crushed like a
dudu
— an insect — at any moment.

The Sikh looked down at him, nodded, and walked away, leaving Jelani stunned by his good fortune.

The incident played on his mind for the rest of the day. In a world that had generally dealt him more than his fair share of bad luck, the Sikh's actions made no sense.

That afternoon, Jelani went to River Road. The Sikh nodded as he entered his
duka
.

‘Why did you do it?' Jelani asked.

‘What did I do?' He shrugged. ‘I saw you working on the street. I walked away.'

‘You remembered me. Why didn't you call the
askaris
?'

‘
Poosh
. What would the
askaris
do?'

‘Then why didn't you do something? I stole from you.'

‘Why did you steal from me?'

Jelani thought the answer was so self-evident it was hardly worth the response. ‘Because I needed the polish,' he replied.

‘Yes. Polish. I knew you were waiting until I turned my back to steal something, but I didn't know what it was until you ran away. Polish. You had no shoes.
What would you want with polish?
I asked myself.'

Jelani shrugged. ‘I needed the polish to do my shoeshines.'

‘You needed polish to shine shoes. Exactly. But I wasn't sure. That is why I went to all the places I thought a boy like you might sit to shine shoes. And there you were. Doing honest business. I like that. You started as a thief and finished as a businessman.'

Jelani smiled. ‘If I pay you for the loan of three tins of polish, am I still a thief, or just a businessman?'

‘Come,' the Sikh said. ‘Show me your money, and I will give you a discount — one businessman to another.'

1947

‘How long have you been shining my shoes, Jelani?' Mr Singh, the stationmaster, asked.

Jelani kept buffing the heavy black shoes as he considered the question. ‘I think nine months; maybe a year.'

‘That was how I am thinking,' Singh said, nodding. ‘And you know, my wife still knows when I've been to see you during my lunch break.'

Jelani smiled. ‘Of course. Because she can see her face in your shoes.'

Singh, one of Jelani's best customers, was a friend of the Sikh
duka
-owner in River Road. His black uniform with epaulets and brass buttons was always spotless and he was a striking figure with his huge white turban and white beard. Jelani enjoyed shining the footwear of well-dressed people. It somehow made him feel part of their success.

‘You are perfectly correct, my young friend,' Singh replied. ‘And that is a compliment to your fine shoeshining.'

Jelani's puzzled expression caused Singh to elaborate.

‘After one year, you have not slackened in your energy. Same hard work. Same good shiny shoes. I have seen many in your position, Jelani. Oh, yes. After a while, they let a little bit go. Maybe a little slower. Maybe not so much polish-polish, busy-busy. But you, you are the same.'

Jelani was embarrassed by the praise, and mumbled his thanks.

‘So you must come and work for the railways,' Singh said, with a decisive nod of his turbaned head.

Jelani looked up from his work.

‘Shining shoes?'

‘Ach, of course not shining shoes. Cleaning carriages. Cleaning station. There is plenty to do without shining shoes.' He waved his hand at the collection of cloths and polishes. ‘You can throw all that away.'

Jelani looked from Singh to his kit and back again.

‘I know you have nowhere to sleep,' Singh continued. ‘You've been making do in a market stall on Stewart Street, or somewhere in Jeevanjee Gardens. No, that is not good. You work for railways, you get bungalow. Well … maybe a small room, but it has a door that closes and a roof that keeps off rain.' He nodded again for emphasis. ‘So, you come to my office and we talk about pay, all right?'

Jelani thought about it for just a moment. He didn't know how he knew, but Singh was right. Although he'd been earning enough from shining shoes to feed and clothe himself, he couldn't afford to rent a place to sleep. More than once he awoke to find rats crawling over his body; and on another occasion he had to fight off someone trying to steal his shoes.

‘I think I would like to finish with the shoeshine business,' he said.

‘Very good. Now come, we talk.'

Jelani looked down at his stool and equipment. He wouldn't need it any more.

As he turned to leave, Singh said. ‘Better bring little bit polish. My wife, she will not like me to go home with dirty shoes after all this time.'

 

Jelani's concrete box in the East African Harbours and Railways compound was, as the stationmaster had warned him, small, but it was the first place he could call home since leaving Cook's farm over a year before.

For most of the next year, he cleaned the carriages, station, and station outhouses for a few shillings a month.

When the Nairobi Points Inspector's offsider went missing, Singh nominated Jelani for the promotion. He was the only candidate and
joined Harry Johnstone out on the tracks. Harry had been with the Uganda Railway for nearly fifty years — the last thirty-nine of which had been as a points inspector.

One day they were sitting in the shade under the signals box. It was tea break time — an occasion of almost religious significance for Harry.

‘Yah, been here so long they've forgotten I'm past retirin' age,' he told Jelani as he dived into his Gladstone bag for his tea paraphernalia. ‘And I hope they never twig to it, either. What am I gonna do if I retire? Eh? If I hang up me oil can I reckon I'll just roll over and die.'

He lit a roll-your-own and parked it in the corner of his mouth.

‘Yes, I was a boy even younger than you, Jelani,' he said. ‘Age of fifteen years I was when I joined the platelayer's crew at mile 325 …' His eyes were almost screwed shut to avoid the sting of tobacco smoke. ‘… In the place that is now called … the city of Nairobi.'

Jelani had heard the story several times before, but he hadn't the heart to stop Harry in any of his repeated renditions. He enjoyed hearing them almost as much as Harry enjoyed telling them.

Harry nodded. ‘Been with the railways, man and boy, for nearly fifty years.' Pleased with himself, he returned to preparing his cup of tea.

They had been working together for over a year. Harry had obviously decided to take Jelani under his wing, as he had done with all his young charges over the years. Jelani had to reconsider his animosity to all white men now that he'd met at least one who treated him as a human being.

Harry poured tea from a Thermos flask that might have been as old as the man himself. He could make a real ritual out of drinking a cup of hot tea. First, he would blow on it for a few minutes — little thoughtful puffs from his pursed lips as he curled the cup between both hands. Then he'd commence drinking it. But because it was still too hot, he'd whistle it up into his mouth with such a loud slurping sound that it reminded Jelani of a mule trying to pull its hoof out of one of Nairobi's notorious black-cotton bogs.

‘There we go,' said Harry with a sigh. It was another ritual, this time to signal the end of morning tea. ‘Hello, hello,' he said, packing up his tea things then taking a sheet of paper from his bag. ‘I forgot about this.' He waved it in front of Jelani. It was a circular letter from Railway Headquarters. ‘The stationmaster reckons I should take a look at it.'

He pulled his spectacles from his jacket's top pocket and popped them on the bridge of his nose. ‘It says here:
Expressions of Interest. The Uganda Railway invites expressions of interest from all staff, in pursuance of the Railway's ambitious training program in the application of the sciences in railway management, who might be so inclined as to enter into training for the purposes of engaging such training for personal advancement.

‘
In preparation for such modernisation that the sciences of electrical and electro-magnetism might offer in such modernisation, applications for a study period of two years, with pay, are invited forthwith.
'

‘What do ya reckon about that?' he said to Jelani as he slipped his glasses back into his pocket.

‘Very nice, Harry,' Jelani said, smiling, although he wasn't happy at the prospect of losing Harry as his boss. There were many supervisors in the railway that Jelani would fear to work for. Harry was a little odd, but at least he was fair.

‘That's what I was thinkin'.'

‘What does it mean,
modernisation
?'

‘Well, modernisation is them electrical point things they're talkin' about puttin' in. So the stationmaster says. They won't need the levers and rods no more.'

Jelani gave it some thought. He knew very little about science, and was surprised that someone of Harry's age would be interested to learn such complicated new skills.

‘I am sure you will find it very interesting to work with these new electrical things,' Jelani said.

‘Me? Hell no!' he said. ‘It's you the stationmaster had in mind. Not me.' He cackled. ‘Gawd, what a laugh.'

‘Me?'

‘Yes, me boy, you. Stationmaster reckons you got the spunk to give it a go. And I do too.'

Jelani stared at him. Harry had said the training would lead to promotion. His imagination went into a spin. He could see himself among electrical things, whirring and sparking. A position of importance far beyond his expectations.

‘So,' Harry pressed him. ‘Want to give it a go?'

Jelani's smile spread. ‘Yes, I would, Harry. Very much.'

1950

Mombasa was a jewel lazing on the shores of an opalescent harbour sitting snugly in a nook in the Indian Ocean coast. The harbour lapped at the back walls of Arab shop-houses whose coral-stone footings were already oyster-encrusted when Vasco da Gama dropped anchor there in 1498 to a chilly but largely uneventful welcome. He left Mombasa in peace, but two years later his countrymen laid siege, which was not the first sacking the island town had suffered in its history — and nor would it be its last.

During the following centuries, the strategic port was caught in a tug-of-war between Portugal and Oman until finally, late in the nineteenth century, Britain sent a gun ship to the East African coast and settled the matter. The locals had named the place
Kisiwa Cha Mvita
meaning
Island of War
, which was appropriate, but it was a version of the Arabic name,
Manbasa
, that had endured.

The old Arab town and its beautiful port were initially very strange to Jelani, but he'd been there almost two years and had learned to find his way around the claustrophobically narrow alleys crowded with eating houses and trade stores selling spices, exotic food and tropical fruits. Jelani had seen nothing like them in the high dry interior, nor the thousands of trinkets, baubles, weavings and works of art available in the town's many coral-built shops.

The school was situated near the port of Kilindini on the outskirts of the town. Its purpose was to train the semi-skilled workforce needed to fill the ranks of the growing colony's transport infrastructure.

Slowly the mysteries of electricity and magnetism unravelled for Jelani and his African and Asian classmates. Initially, he was afraid of the hidden forces within an electrical current and, after several jolts from low-voltage systems, he soon understood to treat them with respect. He learned about electrical relays that used the principles of electromagnetism to control events in multiple locations. He learned about motors and magnetos, pumps and signal points.

But the East African Harbours and Railways trade school staff were not content to churn out mechanics to merely build and repair electrical devices: they insisted students also know how to complete the mountain of paperwork demanded within its massive bureaucracy. The proper use of the English language, both written and spoken, was an important part of the course.

Jelani had enjoyed learning his craft and would soon complete his training and join the ranks of real railwaymen, inspecting points, repairing signals and wiring new works.

It was a Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, when Jelani ran into Peter Gikuri in the market. He'd come to Mombasa from Cook's farm in search of work on the wharves. Gikuri and Jelani had never been close friends, but finding each other far from home and in such an exotic location, they immediately bonded like brothers.

Jelani remembered Gikuri as a prankster at the government school. He was always receiving a thrashing from one or other of the teachers because of his practical jokes.

After finding out that Gikuri had only just arrived, Jelani asked about his family back home.

Gikuri became solemn. ‘Your father, Karura,' he said. ‘They took him to gaol.'

‘Gaol?'

He couldn't believe it. His father was a loyal supporter of the white's rule of law. Even after the government took away his farm, he maintained that the years following the whites' arrival were the most peaceful that he, or any of the elders, could recall.

‘Who took him to gaol?

‘The administration police,' Gikuri answered. ‘He did not pay his poll tax.'

‘But he always pays his taxes.'

‘There was much sickness in the village at that time. Even your mother and her sister-wives had been poorly. Your father had no crop to sell and could do no work for many weeks, so when the collector arrived, he could not pay.'

‘What of Mr Cook? Surely he could help until my father was well?'

Gikuri shook his head. ‘He said there was already too much indolence.'

‘What is indolence?'

‘I don't know. I think it means not paying tax when you should.'

‘Then what of our friends? Our neighbours? Could they not help my parents?'

Gikuri shrugged. ‘Nowadays people only seem to look after themselves. Not like when we were all in the village together.'

Jelani was disgusted with his former neighbours and felt bad about himself. In the three years since leaving Cook's farm he'd not returned home to give them the money he'd promised. When he was cleaning shoes in Nairobi he had no money for anything; and when he was with the railways there, he had no leave. Now, in Mombasa, he had excused himself by saying it was too far to travel. But he had managed to save a little. He would find the time to take some money home.

‘It is shameful that we Kikuyu can't help each other as we did in the old days,' he said. ‘Is my father at home again?'

‘I don't know. My family sent me here soon after the
askaris
took him. They are also worried about paying their taxes. They hope I can find a job to send money to them.'

‘Have you found anything?' he asked.

‘No. Nothing.'

‘How do you live?'

Gikuri nervously shifted his stance. ‘I have nothing, and I was hoping that you might … might help me until I find something.'

Now that he'd roundly condemned others for selfishness, Jelani could scarcely refuse, but it meant his mother and father would have to wait a little longer for their money.

 

Jelani discussed Gikuri's situation with his dormitory mates at the East African Harbours and Railways school. They agreed to have Gikuri sleep under Jelani's bed so long as they were not implicated in the scam, but as soon as Gikuri took up residence he was an immediate favourite. He had amazing mimicry skills and, within a couple of days of moving in, he could impersonate everyone in the dormitory.

His favourite subject, and that of his dormitory audience, was Nasar Visram — the Indian gang leader on the railways' wharf at Kilindini. He was a huge man and one with a very short temper. Gikuri would mimic Visram's ambling gait and out-thrusting belly as he strutted up and down the wharf. It took Visram some time to discover why the young trainees were laughing at him. When he spotted Gikuri in action he flew into a rage and chased him all over the wharf. Gikuri would let him almost reach him before he eluded him, to his friends' even greater amusement.