The Book of Secrets (14 page)

Outside, the evening’s mood lingered a bit in the occasional shout or burst of laughter; inside was very quiet and still. The bride and groom sat on the bed next to each other, exactly where their happy escorts had left them. He in grey suit and red turban; she in green frock and pachedi. She was staring at her red hennadyed hands clasped in her lap, waiting. Throughout the evening he had caught only glimpses of her — this girl he was taking away, this gift he had been given but could not look at yet. He had been
aware of the shimmer of sparkles and sequins beside him, the soft movement of the pachedi — the occasional thin clink of the bangles on her arms the only sound emanating from her. Looking at her now beside him, finally his to relish, he realized that the jewellery was not hers. People had lent it to her, putting trust in her groom; they had dressed and anointed her and had sung wedding songs for her, a daughter of the community.

He took his turban off and placed it beside him. Then very slowly, delicately, he put his hand to that richly decorated pachedi at her forehead and pulled it back over the hair and the garland of flowers behind it and let it drop to her shoulders. She turned to look at him, and took his breath away.

“Eh, Mariamu, you are truly beautiful,” he said almost reflectively.

How could it be? Pipa thought. He, a former street urchin, without even the dignity of a father’s name to attach to his, and beside him in this little room this houri — a celestial being such as was promised only in heaven. She was so perfectly beautiful, there was such a nobility in her. He could not deserve her. The long oval face, the chin and cheekbones, the long nose — not the round features of the shopkeepers’ wives — and the thick wavy hair he caressed, and the long smooth neck under it that felt so hot to his touch.

“Come my little dear,” he said, fingering the necklace. “We must put away the jewellery carefully. We must change.”

He got up, and from a trunk took out a checkered loincloth, and turning low both lamps that hung in the room, he went into a shadow to change. Then taking one lamp with him, he visited the backyard. When he returned, Mariamu was sitting on the bed, changed into a simpler frock, her other clothes folded neatly beside the bed.

Does she know what to do? he thought. How much have the women told her? Tonight I’ll be the teacher, he thought, recalling an analogy given him earlier that evening. I’ll be the teacher, and
teach by inflicting a little pain. This is how it has to be, how it always is. He felt magnanimous in his manly gentleness and consideration.

Putting the lamp back in its place on a wall, he came to bed. He got into it, behind her, and gently, taking her forearms, pulled her down beside him, saying, “Come.”

“I am your wife,” she told him as she went to him, in a mixture of yielding tenderness and anxiety.

No longer was she a celestial being but a woman in his arms. The smell of halud and the taste of flesh. Under her frock she was obligingly ready, she had been told well. The first time he was all rage and she patience, and when his fury was spent he lay back satiated, waiting for renewed desire, which had to come. It did, and he entered her again, lasting longer, watching her face in the dim light and meeting her eyes so that this time it was a shared act. Then he lay back.

And as he stared at the dark ceiling above him, slow waves of doubt lapped at his unwary brain. The deed was done, twice. Come morning he would show the soiled sheet, banner of his triumph — it had been easy … had it been too easy? And suddenly a crashing realization destroyed his composure — banner of his triumph or
shame
? Quickly he sat up. There was blood, but only a trickle.

“What —?” she began, but in a moment he was out of bed. He looked at her, at the sheet, in revulsion. “So this was the trick!” he said loudly. And then he shouted “Jamali!” towards the door, his anger worked up. “So you thought you would cheat Pipa, you! Take your whore back, Jamali!”

“Please —” the girl pleaded, and he pushed her away violently. She screamed as she fell on the floor.

There came shouts from outside, urgent knocking. The door was flung open, Mariamu’s uncle, the mukhi, almost ran in.

“What happened? Aré, what happened? But tell me, you, what happened?”

Pipa, staggering like a drunk, swung at the mukhi.

“You cheated me — you bastard — you gave me a —”

Jamali pushed him into a chair, telling him for practical purposes not to be a fool and publicize his shame.

Jamali had closed the door, but now there was pandemonium outside and suddenly it was flung open once more. Jamali went to close it but faced a crowd of people. Pipa came to stand behind him.

Then Pipa saw the
ADC
push his way forward through the crowd and heard a voice in the darkness outside say: “It was the mzungu who deflowered the girl.” Pipa looked at the mukhi, then at the approaching Englishman, and heard the chuckles and murmurs in the background, and knew he had been cheated, robbed.

Following that first night she had slept on the cold floor of pressed earth, until one night he told her to get up and helped her into bed. He had not touched her. He found it difficult, his heart heavy at the mere thought of it, his loins completely dead to it.

He could reject her. It was in his bounds and the community would support him. She would fend for herself, become somebody’s woman, a prostitute … but even as he cast a glance at her beside him he saw a wife.

They were two lonely people, he thought, as he watched her scrape the pans, helping herself after him. Two people with incomplete, lowly origins — orphans, really. They had to make it, together. Together, they were inviolable. They had respectability, were a family.

They had not discussed that condition, the stigma that came between them at night like a wall. No one had denied his accusation, told him that sometimes these things happen, or that he was only imagining, was guilty of that greatest sin: doubt. No, they had not come to her rescue; not her mother, nor her uncle, the mukhi; and her stepfather had actually confirmed the accusation,
it was Rashid’s voice that Pipa had heard outside accusing the
ADC
. And the girl said nothing.

But in the next few days his pain began to lose its edge. He told himself the adult world was not as pure as a child might imagine, the adult world was a soiled one. He recalled his mother. He realized he could have kept his shame a secret between these four walls; but instead he had announced it from the rooftop.

Her hair was dishevelled and she was in old clothes now; her bare feet gripped uncaringly at the rough floor. Some days ago she had been a bride. The jewellery, carefully accounted for, had been tied up in a kerchief and handed over, the clothes folded neatly, and put away. What remained was the ring, the nose stud, and one set of new clothes.

He had not left the house since that first night and was himself dirty and smelly, dressed only in singlet and a kikoi cloth round his waist. Only she had walked out a few times on errands, once bringing kitchen things from her mother. This evening, he now told her as she took the dishes away, they would go out to the mosque.

Let curious spiteful eyes follow them, for how long? He would show them who was cleverer, smarter.

On their way to the mosque, a chattering of boys and girls followed them, a youthful jeer sounded from across the road. As they entered, the singing chorus halted, letting the single lead voice continue the hymn. Curious, silent faces watched them. As Pipa walked up to the mukhi, joined hands in traditional deference to the office, the mukhi gave loud blessings, joyfully, kindly, as if prompting the rest of the congregation to show similar kindness and acceptance. The girl, now a married woman, was received with respect on the women’s side and was given the chance to lead the second prayer. They ate at the mukhi’s, where Mariamu’s mother, Kulsa, was also present, and Rashid, her stepfather, conspicuously absent.

That night she looked desirable in bed, ripe and fragrant as a
Lamu mango. They lay side by side but he did not touch her, cursing the fate that was now his frozen heart, his inert loins. And yet she was his wife. He would take her to his home in Moshi, on the German side, where his mother was and he had a thriving shop, friends and benefactors.

The following morning he began preparations for the journey. There was a trunk to obtain for Mariamu, and his own had to be repaired. There was the account to settle with Jamali. Porters to arrange. The mukhi’s wife, Khanoum, came and spent the afternoon with Mariamu. Kulsa, her mother, came in the evening and bade a tearful farewell. All being well, the couple could depart early the next morning.

But all was not well. By the end of that day the town was abuzz with rumours of war. The next day war with Germany and its colony to the south was confirmed by the
ADC
, the border could not be crossed, and Pipa was an enemy national.

For many people this Great War, the war of the Europeans, was a great riddle composed of many smaller riddles; it came unasked for, undeclared in their midst. For those not involved in combat, it also became a game — one of observation and commentary, of cunning and survival. In Kikono and other towns of the Tsavo, caught in the midst of the mischief of the mzungus, the telling of the war was often the telling of riddles.

The first riddle (how the war was announced):

— A great cloud of dust moves quietly down the Taveta Road, leaves much destruction behind.

— A swarm of locusts?

— No!

— Na-ni? What then?

— It has many legs.

— Why didn’t you say so? Jongoo? Millipedes?

— Not at all.

— Na-ni? What then?

— Some tongues are mute.

— Ah! Your own tongue is not!

— Comes in peace, goes in peace.

And so on.

From the Mission on the hill one afternoon they saw the cloud of dust move slowly and painfully down the dirt tracks through thorn and bush. Mrs. Bailey watched it a while with her binoculars, then gave a sniff. “Mules. Ox wagons — two,” she announced to her companion, Miss Elliott. They did not think much of it until a few hours later.

The caravan, belonging to two European families, struck camp on the other side of the red hillock where the road entered Kikono. They had with them thirty tired porters, who brought a good day’s business to the town and were treated accordingly. The travellers were on their way west from Voi, the stop was going to be a short one. Baruti’s tea shack reopened and dispensed its potent “gunpowder” tea, bottles of water and soda were fetched. The Indians sold khanga cloth and mirrors and perfumes that would fetch better prices across the border. The Europeans themselves stayed close to their wagons, where they awaited their African porters, but were happy to receive vendors. Then the last of the little caravan disappeared behind the bushes on the long road to Moshi, and when the dust had settled, the air in Kikono remained heavy with rumour and news of war. A war is on, kuna vita, they heard from the stores, from the vendors, from Baruti the teamaker. But where, this vita, and who is fighting it? In Ulaya, between the Germans and the British. You did not have to be told why that distant war was important here. The European visitors of a few hours ago were on their way from British to German East Africa.

It was not until the following day that the
ADC
, frantic for news, at last received it from Voi. The day-old
Herald
carried a one-inch-high headline in bold. It was August 6, 1914.

A column analysed the recent problems in Europe, which had hitherto not merited more than an occasional short paragraph. The photograph under the headline showed a crowd of settlers gathered outside Nairobi House — a ragamuffin mounted corps of farmers waving their rifles. Leaving their wives and children to mind the farms, off they had galloped to the capital on horse and mule, ready to do their duty. A recruiting office was opened, irregular units were in existence, and men were already on their way “to the
GEA
, on the road to Taboray!” but actually to scout the border. Other men heard their call in the distant home country and were boarding trains bound for the coast, where a Union Castle boat was waiting. The
DC
’s message from Voi to his assistant in Kikono was more to the point. “War declared in Europe. Look out for raids from across the border. Await further instructions.”

Corbin’s little kingdom at the mbuyu became a theatre of war, its fate now out of his control and in the hands of master puppeteers abroad. This outpost dominion, whose palace could not even boast a proper ceiling under the roof, where quinine was always an urgent priority, now had a role in the defence and machinations of Empire.

He mustered his small force of police askaris and kept them on alert. He posted scouts under the command of the albino, Fum-fratti, several miles into the forest and hills, and alerted the towns-people to the possibility of evacuation. He interrogated travellers for news from Moshi and Tanga.

The second riddle:

A man clutching his wrap about him comes hurrying into town and sits on a box at Baruti’s tea shack. Evidently a farmer — uncouth, dirty. The others sitting there avert their gaze or move away. A kindly old Swahili smiles and says, “Why do you shake, old man?”

“You piss under a tree and it pisses back.”

“Ah, yes. That’s the way of the world.”

“From the branches.”

“Naam?”

“It pisses from the branches.”

“No doubt.”

“A branch with many leaves leaps down and speeds away.”

“Didn’t I say so? It happens.”

“Gives you the fright of your life.”

“No doubt. Bila shaka. What did you smoke? — some bhang?”