The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (48 page)

I spent a nervous night at home, worried by Nderi’s ominous words. Without my almighty protector, I realized, I was naked, easy picking for any enemy I had casually made on the side. An arrogant word dropped in the past, a business deal declined, the Old Man’s favour to me that was a disfavour to another: any of these could turn up to exact a price. As I had discovered once before, I was an easily disposable commodity. I had to take more care than simply duck the line of fire. The next morning I removed some documents together with a large sum of money from my safe and packed them into a trunk; in the evening I boarded the Nakuru-bound train. Shobha and the children had gone to stay for a few days with her parents. I did not journey all the way to Nakuru but got out in
Naivasha, where I stayed the night with friends of the family, and in the morning I borrowed a car and drove to Jamieson. It had been five years since my last visit to this dead town, but I knew that Mungai and Janice were still there. After my previous visit, I had sent them packages every Christmas, and once I had helped them with their bank account in Nakuru. This time I spent four days with them, and before I left I asked them to keep my trunk in their safekeeping, it was valuable. They did not ask me what it contained, but they must have guessed. It was pushed under their bed.

Nairobi was calm when I returned. No riots had broken out, no coup had occurred. Our house, however, had been broken into. There were bullet holes in the walls; jewellery and significant amounts of cash, which I had deliberately left lying around, had been taken. Some of my papers had also been removed, but the walk-in safe had not been discovered. I called retired Chief Inspector Harry Soames to complain: what kind of security was his company offering, why had the guards not seen anything, the alarms not gone off, and the police not been called? The former Mau Mau hunter was back in the country as head of a new British security company, SecuriKen. His experience of the country and influence with the police made him a useful asset. Soames told me the break-in looked like an inside job; one of the servants must have been involved, did I want him to come and interrogate them? I said no, and the ensuing silence told us we both understood the situation: there were certain intruders his security guards could not stop. This was as I expected.

I called my wealthiest clients and informed them that I feared I might be targeted by influential parties who were anonymous, and I dropped hints that if anything were to happen to me…well, I had secrets, and there were signed documents in the possession of my lawyers that many people might not like to see publicized. I was reassured that I was only imagining my terrors, fearful Asian that I was. I was an important and valued member of the business community and
had nothing to be afraid of. The wheels grind on as before—perhaps even a little faster, sio?—for we have a hungry, impatient lot in the new government who’ve waited long for their turn at the honey pot to come. The hegemony of the Kikuyu is gone, but business is business is still paramount. Would I like to be a member of a delegation that was being struck this moment to visit and pay homage to the New Man? I said I most certainly would, realizing that I was being given the opportunity to establish my status in the new regime. I was told to await instructions, but meanwhile to prepare a briefcase of donations to present to the President, in aid of the lepers of Kenya, the basket weavers of the Rift Valley, or whatever, even the fallen women of Mombasa. This was spoken with such cynicism as to startle me. At least in Mzee’s time some niceties of form were observed.

So many prominent yet nervous Asian businessmen desired to contribute to my briefcase, my membership in the delegation having been amply broadcast, that to accommodate all it had to be filled with notes of twenty-pounds stirling instead of the local currency. The names of the signatories were embossed in gold on a card and highlighted with small but handsome red diamond bullets by a goldsmith in one of my in-laws’ workshops. There was no doubt for whom the donation was intended.

The meeting with the President was to be at Nakuru State House on a Sunday. Some twenty of us flew in a single plane the previous night, road journeys considered unsafe because of all the suspicious car accidents involving prominent people that had occurred in the past. Early the next morning, at six a.m., we drove in several cars through the gates of the State House. Unlike the Old Man, the New Man evidently was an early starter.

The grounds were scattered with army personnel. Three tanks stood guard in the distance among the jacaranda trees, their guns trained toward the main gate through which we had entered. A helicopter stood by on a lawn, where tea was being
served in silence. As soon as we alighted from the cars, the message went around that we were supposed to wait, and that while we waited we should take care not to make noise. Some of us stood quietly with our teas, exchanging a word or two here and there with caution, others went to stand in awe before the copter.

Suddenly the cool Nakuru morning air was filled with loud choir music, which someone opined was that of Bach, the President being a very religious man.

The nervous tinkle of teacups on saucers ceased in a moment and the President, the Right Honourable Patrick Iba Madola, was amongst us. He went around briskly, grimly shaking hands, accompanied by two bodyguards and followed by a golf trolley that collected all the briefcases of donations.

Mr. Madola was a small man who hailed from the coast. He had a quick, dry handshake and a look to match. He nodded briefly when I introduced myself. We had of course met before, but he did not acknowledge this. The Old Man had patronized me, with a glint of humour in the eye; this New Man, I realized, would simply tolerate me. He did not smile easily.

There are those who say that if the Old Man showed greed, then those who followed under Patrick Iba Madola took that attribute to its zenith, squeezed the country dry to its rind and core. I rarely met the New Man, which was just as well, for I was too much identified with the old regime. But I came to know well those under his patronage, the perpetually upwardly mobile businessmen and politicians. I was their banker of choice, the alchemist who could transmute currencies, the genie who could make monies vanish and produce gold out of thin air.

And thus the 1980s wore on.

On the anniversary of Njoroge’s death my sister and I would meet in town for a private remembrance of our own. She would have been to temple before that, the same old temple where she had taken Njoroge, where the priest had blessed
them jointly as a couple. Once she asked me to drive her there and insisted that I go inside with her. When we came out, dupatta on her head, she proceeded to give shillings to every beggar sitting outside on the sidewalk. We then walked down to the Ismailia on River Road; this modest tea shop had been a special place for the three of us. Ancient Mr. Mithoo still sat behind the cash; the potato pakodas tasted the same as they had for decades; foreign researchers sat in noisy groups with local friends. It was here, at its counter, that her first letter from Njoroge had arrived and been passed on to me.

Thus it was, every year, we would meet at a place that reminded us of him, and we would chat quietly over tea or coffee. This annual ritual of grief was important to her. No one else could belong to it, or even know about it.

One year she brought along photographs, one of which she had obtained from Mother. It was a picture of the five of us, Deepa and Njoroge, myself and Annie and Bill, taken outside our store in Nakuru. We reminisced, but carefully; detailed memories were painful.

Now there are only the two of us, she said softly.

Yes, I replied. We survived.

I wonder…had Annie lived…if you would still be in love with her?

I don’t know, Sis. We were young then.

Poor Vic—

Why poor?

Sometimes I wish that you had known real love, complete and passionate love. It’s a gift, Bhaiya, to be possessed like that.

But a curse too, Sis, it doesn’t come without a price.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, does it? You have to take a chance.

As she did, and paid the price, while I chose safety.

What about your love for me, Sis, I said, I always had that?

Yes, Bhaiya, you’ve always had that. And I’ve had yours, for which I am grateful.

Ten years after Njoroge’s death, Dilip died in a car crash in Germany, while speeding on an autobahn in a sports car. He had just reached his forty-fifth year. He had become well known and liked in Nairobi, a fixture at sports and charitable functions, a handsome and gracious rich man always ready with a cheque to donate, and the news of his death was shocking. Among Asians it inevitably raised ugly rumours, pointing accusing fingers at his widow, my sister, recalling the scandalous front-page photograph of Njoroge with his head on her lap after his shooting. That picture had driven Meena Auntie and Harry Uncle out of the country in shame. They went to live in London. Now when grief-stricken Meena Auntie returned for Dilip’s funeral ceremony, a wave of communal sympathy greeted her; at meetings of condolence in people’s houses, in tragic tones she would roundly condemn “that whore” for her son’s death.

Deepa lived in the large family house in Muthaiga with her daughter Alka, their two dogs and a parrot, who sometimes disturbingly broke out in Dilip’s voice, calling out the cricketer’s cry: How’s that? She was a director of Mermaid Chemicals. Her son Shyam was in America studying, and Alka was soon to follow suit. In Nairobi Deepa couldn’t be seen at Asian functions without being made to feel embarrassed. On one occasion, at a qawali concert, she had been spat at.

A few months after Dilip’s death came the tenth anniversary of Njoroge’s death; Deepa and I agreed to meet at the Sanamu this time. She had already been to the temple, and her driver dropped her off outside the gallery café, where two tourist vans had also just deposited their charges. She was in a white sari that day, wearing dark shades against a brilliant sun, and as I watched her step inside from the cluttered street I was reminded that she was doubly a widow. She joined me where I sat and opened for me a small packet of prasad she had brought
from the temple. The granules of sugar powder shooting savage pains into the gums, I sought quick refuge in a sip of bitter black coffee. That made her smile: it was exactly what Njoroge would have done, as she’d told me on another occasion.

It was an awkward moment. I couldn’t help wondering if Dilip should not be uppermost in her mind right then; but what did I know of passion—as she had pityingly observed to me, I had never known real love. Today was Njoroge’s day. She could recall every detail of it, up to the time he had lain in her lap dying, and she had wept and pleaded, Stay alive, please, Njo,
please
!

It was now ten years almost to the hour since that moment.

There is something you should know, Vic, she broke into my thoughts rather sharply.

Yes, Sis? I turned toward her. She had been on the verge of tears and they started copiously to fall.

Take it easy, Sis. What is it?

There is something you should know, she repeated, in a quavering half-whisper. Help me forget it, Bhaiya, no one else can…it’s monstrous and it eats into me…

I’m here, Sis, tumhara bhaiya ko batao na.

She took out some tissue paper and wiped her eyes; some of the makeup had run and smudged. She looked petite but older in sari, which she had taken to wearing after Dilip’s death, to present an appropriately sombre appearance to a keenly watchful Asian public. Her sadness touched me as no one else’s could. Still little Deepa, I thought, taking on the world.

She said, That day Njoroge died, when the two men rushed into the shop waving guns…

She assured me she had actually checked the front door of her pharmacy after her two assistants had gone, and ensured that it was locked; and she was positive the back door too was locked. It had not been opened since the previous day, when she had locked it herself. But according to police reports at the time both these exits had been inadvertently left unlocked.

You could have been mistaken, I told her.

No. They had keys, Vic, that’s how the two killers must have come in the front door, and I heard them unlock the back door when they left!
They had keys, Vic
!

What are you saying—who gave them the keys? Why didn’t you tell the police?

A long pause, then in an even voice: Dilip had the spares, Vic.

What are you saying, Deepa? Your husband?—

My husband had the spares, which he gave to them. There was no other way.

It’s not possible. There must be another explanation.

No. Remember, the getaway car had gone to wait at the back—the police had no explanation for that. It was all prearranged. I am certain, Vic, the killers obtained the spare keys from Dilip.

But she never let on at home that she knew of her husband’s role in the murder. For the sake of her children, and for him whom she had betrayed and made suffer, she kept the knowledge to herself. He had never once been cruel to her, he was the perfect husband. She must have driven him by her indiscretion to seek her lover’s murder. She must even consider herself partly responsible for that murder. What point was there now in making a public fuss over the event and seeking further ruination? So she remained the dutiful, loving wife and mother. But the knowledge of his guilt, and hers, was acid in her heart, the pain muffled only by the little joys and the busyness of family life. She thought that he must have guessed that she knew something, that he must glimpse sometimes the fleeting edge of the shadow that suddenly and momentarily darkened her demeanour. Perhaps for that reason he tended to go away frequently on business trips.