The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (16 page)

It was a dizzying day with foods and games and prizes and shows of all kinds. With us, besides my uncle and aunt and their four children, was another adult, introduced as Aruna Auntie. She was slim and pretty, with a long braid down to her waist, and she wore a dark blue shalwar-kameez. She instantly took a liking to Deepa and me, holding our hands as she took us around and bought us candy floss and ice cream. She was a wonder at the shooting range and won a large round doll at a lottery, which she presented to my sister. And she also seemed to get along marvellously with both my parents. After the fete, when she had been dropped off at her home (not without all of us being invited in for more food), the adults couldn’t stop speaking about her, and I overheard that she would be visiting us in Nakuru. They all thought that Mahesh Uncle would get along remarkably well with her. I just couldn’t wait to see the two of them together, as my uncle and auntie.

The classifieds of the
East African Standard
, appearing alphabetically every Thursday, week in, week out, began with the same first notice: Abrahamson London Gents’ Tailor, for your up-to-date Saville Row suits. A new suit from this prestigious outfitter was what Papa, with Mother’s permission, had promised himself since Nakuru. And so six of us—my aunt and uncle, my parents, my sister, and I—went into the shop on Government Road. It was dark in a posh sort of way, walls lined with shelves of suiting, illuminated with tube lighting, smelling of fresh new cloth. There were chairs and recliners to sit on, framed pictures of male models in suits. My father was served by an Indian assistant. After a lot of agonizing discussion a material was agreed upon, and finally came the time to take the measurements. There was also in the shop a European couple, picking a suit. When the assistant produced a tape and began measuring my father’s inseam (much to the
amusement of Deepa and me), the European cried out, Ay, you going to use the same tape on me as the coolie? My father’s face crumpled, my mother turned red. No sir, said the assistant, apprehensively eyeing each of his customers in turn, We use a different tape for Europeans. A white man hurried in from the back unravelling a tape, and my family walked out of the shop in silence.

A photograph from that vacation shows my mother and father seated on a sofa, me standing beside Mother, Deepa beside Papa. Deepa has on a striped dress with two bows in front, and her hair has been styled into two braided loops at the back. White socks, black shoes with buckle straps. And I am attired in shorts, a dark blazer over a white shirt, and a wide tie. It is a black-and-white photo, but the tie, I recall, was red and embossed with yellow and blue cranes. My mother was in a sari that day, and she sits up straight, ever so slightly turned toward Papa…a beautiful, mysterious young woman. Papa is in a suit and tie. The photo was taken at A. C. Gomes, up the street from Abrahamson’s. The suit was made by Ahmad Brothers, the third or fourth name from the top in the Thursday
Standard
classifieds, who also promised London fashions, but at half the price and using the same tape measure for Asians and Europeans. And for Africans?—I don’t know.

Long stretches of brown grassland dotted sparsely with thorn trees. A herd of giraffe grazing quietly, staidly; the one closest to us bounded a few steps away. The wonderful thing about these creatures is that they seem quite oblivious to human existence, and unlike impala or gazelle they take only the slightest, the most necessary, safety measures. Zebra in the distance, and the little dik-dik. The train came suddenly to a stop and didn’t move for a long time. Elephants had been crossing the tracks, but two youthful ones had refused to budge from the rails, despite protestations from the rest of their herd and the occasional train whistle. Finally some passengers—among
them my intrepid father—came out to watch, and as they approached the scene, a couple of adult elephants made a trumpeting charge. The passengers fled inside their train, and the two elephant youths got up sulkily and lumbered away into the bushes. This happened just outside Makindu, on our way to Mombasa. Outside the station was a Sikh temple, to which my mother went to pay her respects. If there was no Hindu temple, she said, a Sikh one could do just as well. She brought for us some halva prasad from there. The train started only when the Indian station master had seen her to our compartment.

The track we were traversing now, whistle blowing, engine roaring, was the setting of my grandfather Anand Lal’s favourite stories, and he was with us in spirit. It was on this route that the man-eating lions had so terrorized the work gangs, bringing track construction to a complete stop. We did not see any lions but were assured that they were around. The long journey to the coast, the descent of five thousand feet progressively into a hot and humid climate, the vegetation clotting and greening around us until we were in the midst of dense growth and population, palm and mango trees and villages of mud huts and men in white kanzus and kofias and women in colourful khangas or covered by the black veil, everywhere dusty and dirtier than we were used to but also more relaxed and freer, was a voyage into enchantment. By the light of kerosene lamps men sold roasted meat, cassava, and corn, little dukas stayed open selling the odd item, men sat around on stones or tree trunks or on the ground, as we passed by and slowly approached our destination. We had left early in the morning, at dawn; when we reached Mombasa it was nine at night.

It was such a different world, all abustle and rich in variety and extremes. All the Indians ran small stores, it appeared, including our hosts, who were friends of the family. Boys and girls played on the unpaved sides of the street, beside their homes, barefoot and in rather ragtag clothes. Most residences were behind shops and crowded. The bathroom facilities were
primitive compared with what we were used to, and repugnant. Mosquitoes and flies were abundant, as were beggars and crazies, as also were fruits and vegetables of all kinds, sold on the street, brought along by hawkers, or available in the large souk. The language was hard to understand, though it was spoken in abundance among Indians, Arabs, and Africans. Music blared from radios in various languages, people sang as they worked or walked on the streets. There were processions to celebrate weddings, football matches, circumcisions. The Europeans did not come to bother anyone, from their resorts and homes by the beaches. And there was no fear of the Mau Mau. In the evening boys and girls played tag or hide-and-seek outside their open shops, where Indian men also sat playing cards and availing themselves of the enticements of a passing coffee-seller. From nearby roadstands would come the aromas of corn and cassava and meat being roasted on open fires.

But it was unendurably hot and muggy, physically uncomfortable, and even in its own way frightening and mysterious. It was not easy to be a Nairobi boy—as I was derisively called—with my pressed shorts and my shoes and socks, my uncallused feet, my combed and gelled hair, my manner of speaking, my language. Mother, on the other hand, fitted perfectly: this is India, she would say gleefully, walking about barefoot.

We stayed a week in this wonderland—mother had to be pulled away—and then proceeded to our own disciplined and at the time beleaguered world.

After we returned I began corresponding with some of my cousins, and with a friend I had made in Mombasa. There was talk now in my family that I would ultimately go to school in Nairobi. And we all awaited anxiously the arrival of Aruna Auntie. Bill and Annie must have undergone their own profound transformational experiences; we saw them again after four months. We all looked a little bigger to each other now. Bill’s games were the same as before, but his movements
slower and more deliberate, and I think a little abstracted. Annie was a little thinner; she still stayed close to me and there was still that mischievous, drawn smile on her face, the twinkle in her eyes, as we followed the warring Bill Bruce on the trail of one enemy or another, on sea or land, or in the skies. Bill gave me some comic books. Annie had brought a Stanley Gibbons stamp album for me. I had nothing for her and felt terribly guilty, and Mother, to comfort me, said, What do you give to someone who’s just returned from England, and you’ve come only from Nairobi and Mombasa? There was truth to Mother’s words, but I’ve always regretted my fickleness; surely there was enough to choose for her (and Bill) from among all the exotic wares on sale in the streets of Mombasa. The plain fact is that Annie and Bill had practically vanished from my thoughts during the four weeks of my holidays.

The Stanley Gibbons album remains one of my treasured possessions. As does my memory of Annie.

And Njoroge?

Nairobi had much to offer in the way of presents for someone who had not gone to London, and we brought for Njoroge an eighteen-inch-long pencil shaped like a cane, with frills at the top, and a Mickey Mouse pencil sharpener. This was a present from all of us. But wilful Deepa also managed to give him a paintbox, from only herself. She had got my parents to buy her one at Patel Press, then on our way back from Mombasa, tears flowing down her grimy cheeks, she sobbed, It is gone. A new paintbox had to be purchased. The original item miraculously made its reappearance in Nakuru, and so with Mother’s permission Deepa gave it to Njoroge, with a knowing sideways look at me.

The week of our return from holiday, Farmer Hackett and his wife were hacked to death in their home down Njoro way, as they sat down at night to listen to the news. The pun was not lost on anyone; the Mau Mau, it was said, had many educated men among them. One of the Hackett cows was discovered
wandering about, its eyes gouged out. More than twenty of them were discovered hamstrung.

A package arrives from Deepa, couriered. It contains a box of Punjabi sweets and a rakhi. The latter is an elegant bunch of coloured threads, a couple of them silver. A sister presents a rakhi to her brother to affirm their closeness and his role as her protector. Deepa always took the greatest pleasure in tying a rakhi around my wrist, as Mother did in giving one to her brother Mahesh, in a solemn ceremony that took place for some reason at the threshold between our living and dining rooms. There would be a wonderful smile on Mother’s face as she began the ceremony by covering her head with her dupatta. Mahesh Uncle would extend an arm, saying, Accha, tie me up, sister; gently, Mother would tie the threads, orange, vermilion, and white in those days, round his wrist, patting it when she finished. Then, dipping a finger into an orange paste in a saucer, she would put a tilak on his forehead. Finally, taking the plate of sweets from whoever was attending her, Deepa or I or Papa, she would break off a piece of burfi or petha or shakar para with one hand and put it into his mouth. He would present her with a gift in return: some money, a bottle of perfume, a photograph of our family that he himself had taken and had framed.

That year she suggested that Deepa present a rakhi to both Njoroge and me, and little Deepa went about it with great enthusiasm. Thus, though unwittingly, she made Njoroge her brother, a fact that Mother would use as an argument in later years with much force.

TEN.

How is my little boyfriend Vic?

A beautiful face beaming at me as I open my eyes—Aruna Auntie sitting on my bed. She had finally arrived, late the previous night while I was asleep.

You have come, I said. Why didn’t you wake me up as soon as you arrived?

Kids need their sleep. And besides, do you think your mummy or daddy would have allowed me to disturb you?

How long will you stay? Stay for long, stay forever!

We will see, she replied pertly, standing up. I took her hand and at the door we bumped into Deepa rushing in. Together, holding her hands possessively, we escorted Aruna to the breakfast table, where Mother admonished us to go and brush our teeth first.

How could there have been a more perfect match for my
uncle? She was a beam of sunshine, a great dollop of extra happiness in our household. How different from our dull, picky parents! How lucky Mahesh Uncle was! She got along with simply everybody. She engaged easily and passionately in discussions, so that my father found her companionable at mealtimes and afterwards, when we sat in the living room. She liked to banter with him, and he rather enjoyed the attention. With my mother she sat huddled for hours—so it seemed—until we had to pull her away to play with us.