"Merican University Library

Home , Descendents, Overcooked

MEMORIES OF COOL WATERS

Gimbiya Mae Kettering

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Fine Arts

Creative Writing

Chair:

Professor Charles-R. Larson

PrafessorEIIen J.Lev;

Dean of the College

y j Date

2005

American University Washington, DC 20016 sun "MERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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Gimbiya Mae Kettering

2005

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DEDICATION

To my parents, Merlyn and Una Kettering for opening the world to me.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. MEMORIES OF COOL WATERS

Gimbiya Mae Kettering

ABSTRACT

Set in the 1980s and 1990s, this novel interweaves the life of a young biracial

woman and Kenya’s maturation. An emblematic character, Jacaranda symbolizes a

generation that came of age during Kenya’s transformation from a dictatorship to a

society on the verge of democracy.

As the novel opens, Jacaranda’s childhood is as idyllic as the Nairobi suburbs

where she lives with her white mother and matemal-grandmother, descendants of the

colonial settlers. Yet the absence of her father and vague memories of violence hint at a

darker past that will eventually be revealed as Jacaranda meets her father, who was taken

political prisoner following the failed coup attempt in 1982, and comes to terms with her

heritage in a country overrun by American imports and entertainment. The novel ends

with the 1998 bombing of the United States Embassy and a difficult choice that the

nearly adult Jacaranda must make.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

According to an African proverb, it takes a village to raise a child and the same

might also be said of writing a novel. There are so many people who inspired and

supported me during the drafting of this thesis project and who were patient with me until

its completion. Starting with all the professors of the Literature Department. In

particular, thank you to my thesis committee, Professor Larson and Professor Levy, for

not letting me settle for anything less than a novel. Your continued feedback is greatly

appreciated, as without your questions, insights, and challenges this book would not have

existed. You have helped me translate a Kenyan story for an American audience and

been sensitive to so many cultural issues. Most especially, thank you for the extra year

with your guidance. Only another writer can understand how important family is when

writing. Thanks to Mom and Dad for telling me to follow my dreams, always. Kahlil,

thank you for helping me remember our childhood in Kenya and staying up with me into

the morning during so many drafts. Thanks to all of you for living so patiently with me,

reminding me to eat and sleep, and helping me with laundry and proof-reading with equal

cheer. Lisa, I wish you every success in our own writing endeavors. Thank you for the

encouragement, coffee, and wisdom.Asante sana to Anjali and Eddie for all the Swahili

translations and corrections, for helping me do research that I could not do in the United

States, sending me books, and being my first Kenyan readers.

iii

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ABSTRACT il

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... iii

PREFACE: COMING TO BIRTH...... 1

PART I: NYAYO NYAYO JU ...... 12

PART II: SABA SABA ...... 153

PART III: NUSU NUSU ...... 291

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PROLOGUE: COMING TO BIRTH

This is what I knew o f1980:

It was the year that the presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda would hold

talks for the first time in ten years a promising sign for the East African community. The

Pope came to Kenya and prayed for peace. I knew that Kenya sided with the United

States and became one of 62 countries to boycott the Moscow Olympics that year.

I knew that 1980 was the year of my birth.

I knew that I had been bom with the green eyes that are characteristics of the

women in my family. At my birth, my hair was sparse and still colourless. I was born

with hair that tricked everyone into believing that my body would keep the secrets of my

true heritage. Within months it would darken to the black hair that betrayed me as a

child by growing in thick, tight curls that kept safe the secret of my paternity from prying

combs. I was born before politics, when Kenya was a single-party democracy holding

back the communist influence from spreading from Ethiopia through the horn of Africa.

I did not know what was really written on my birth certificate or how I came to be

named after a type o f tree. In a family, silent and fractured, much went unspoken about

the missing men. I knew better than to ask. Instead, I made up my own story.

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I imagined that Mum spent the afternoon listlessly in the hospital bed, nervously

tracing the faded insignia of Nairobi Hospital on the blue sheet, pale and thin from too

many hard washings with OMO. Mum was never good at being still, especially when

nervous or worried. Without realizing, she might have begun to pick at the frayed hem

and found a loose thread that gave way to her gentle pull.

I knew that Mum still thought of herself as Sumar.

Not yet Mum. Never Mummy. Nor Mama.

She was not ready to be a mother. She was overwhelmed.

Most sisters of the hospital would probably have sensed Sumar’s nervousness and

fear. Most of the nurses would probably have been sympathetic, but they were too busy

and overworked to take time to talk to her. Besides, they would not consider it in their

place.

In my imagination, a young, inexperienced sister in her still crisp, still fresh,

white uniform charged into the room balancing a small tray. The sister might have

smiled a moment, but her face dropped into a frown when she noticed Sumar ruining a

perfectly good sheet. Or her frown might have been at the pale blue, satin bed jacket that

would have been fitting for Sumar’s sense o f style. Sumar would have glared back at the

sister, angry because it seemed like everyone was frowning at her those days. The sister

would place the tray on the table next to Sumar. On the tray there would have been a

small metal cup of pills and a large drinking glass filled with water. Perhaps, using the

straightening the sheets as a pretext, the sister would move the hem to protect it from my

mother’s grasp. Then, she would have handed the glass of water to Sumar and offered

her the pills from the cup.

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“I won’t take those. ” Sumar would have said. “I don’t need them. ”

“They are from the doctor, ” the sister might have tried to explain.

“Am i sick? ” asked Sumar rhetorically, her accent suddenly changing, the way it

did when she was joking or thought it would make Africans understand her better. “Do I

need such medicines? I had a baby, not malaria! ”

Hearing an almost authentic Kenyan accent coming from the pale, blonde woman

would have startled the sister. However, she remained silent, except for a heavy sigh.

According to her name badge, her name might have been Naomi or Susan or Beatrice,

since everyone in Kenya had to have a Christian name. But, she would continue to think

of herself by her tribal name. Perhaps Waichera. This would not be a name that anyone

at the hospital knew. Waichera was young and unsure how to talk to this white woman, a

patient and an agemate. She had only come just now from a rural nursing school, where

she was top of her class. But, she had never actually seen a white person this close

before; she was still shy and a bit unnerved by eyes that could be so green and empty. In

her village only albinos had such eyes, and they were nearly blind. Despite her nursing

degree, Beatrice did not completely believe that the eyes mzungus,o f white people, could

truly see colours as sharply as brown eyes.

“Are you ready to see visitors? ” Beatrice would have asked.

“No, ’’ would have been Sumar’s inevitable reply. Partly because she was a

stubborn young woman. Partly because she knew who it would be.

“Your mother is waiting to see you, ” Beatrice would explain.

Sumar might have then whispered a curse, almost under her breath and flipped

her long, nylon-like hair insolently. Sumar didn’t curse often, her mother had considered

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it low class, beneath the station of their family. Beatrice shook her head,

uncomprehending how a daughter could speak so disrespectfully about her mother and

how hair could be so limp and straight. It was not in her place to say anything, so she

again offered the pills and water. Sumar took the water, not the pills.

This stand-off between Beatrice and Sumar would soon have been interrupted by

the sharp, hollow sounds of heels advancing down the floor. Then the heels paused and

the door swished open. Sumar’s mother came into the room, her heels still clicking.

Memsab stood beside her daughter’s bed in a neatly tailored sombre linen skirt and silk

blouse.

I knew it took my grandmother a long time to come to peace with her new role,

with having a black, bastard granddaughter. I knew that she was angry with her

daughter. It was not until I learnt to speak that she would become Memsab, my toddler

tongue shortening the ‘Memsahib ’ that the servants called her to mean grandmother. It

would take her a long time to accept this also.

In my imagination, Memsab took off the small felt hat she had been wearing and

set it on the table. Beatrice noticed immediately the older woman’s copper hair as she

carefully rearranged the curls with her neatly manicured, bright pink nails. Beatrice was

as transfixed by Memsab’s hair colour, her long painted nails, and her movements, as if

she were a green mamba looping itself through branches. Beatrice would have

momentarily forgotten her duties as a hospital nurse.

“It is not visiting hours!" Beatrice protested. “It is too soon. ”

As if she had not heard, Mesahib asked, “What are those pills for? ”

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“Medicine from the doctor, ” Beatrice replied, hoping that this older white woman

would not continue to make problems for her. “Something for the pain. ”

Memsab would think, but not actually say, life will now cause her much more pain

and she had best become accustomed to it. Memsab would never say anything like this in

front of the nurse, or in front of anyone. She refused to display private discord in public.

Instead, she took the medicine from Beatrice and dismissed her by saying, “I’ll see that

she takes them. ”

Sumar would have certainly bristled at being called ‘she ’ by her mother and

frowned. Beatrice, who could not have missed the tension between mother and daughter,

looked into the hard blue eyes of the older woman and understood the dismal. And

though it is not in accordance with hospital regulations, she would probably leave,

relieved to be done with the two wazungu women. She would not mention to this to the

matron on duty. She would not tell this to the other sisters on her ward, lest they mock

her for coming straight from the reserve. Instead, later she would write about it in a

letter to her younger sister still at boarding school.

Memsab and Sumar stared at one another, listening to Beatrice’s squeaking

footsteps down the corridor. They were not willing to speak to one another in the

presence of strangers. It was as if they had terms o f endearment too tender for others to

overhear. Only after they were certain Beatrice was out of earshot did they even look at

each other directly.

“How are you feeling, Sumar? ” Memsab probably asked formally, as if she were

paying a charity visit upon a member of the East African Women’s League or her parish

and not visiting her daughter. Even with no one to overhear the conversation, it had to

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have been slow to start. They looked away from one another, trying not to start an

argument, but each prepared for the argument that was sure to start.

“Fine, thank you, ” Sumar would have reply equally formally. “A tad weak. ”

“You should take the medicines the doctor has sent, ” Memsab might have said to

make conversation. But after Sumar shook her head in refusal, Memsab did not insist.

She had her own doubts about male doctors prescribing treatment for women in matters

o f childbirth. The silence between them grew and turned into something unfriendly and

challenging. Mum’s fingers found the loose thread on the sheet again and she began to

pull at it.

Memsab would have seen what she was doing and felt a need to say something

about it, “Stop that! The hospital can hardly afford sheets as it is. ”

Sumar stopped, because she had not realized what she was doing and because

Memsab was right. Kenya could hardly afford to maintain hospitals and she should not

be actively destroying hospital property. Once this might have been enough to make

Memsab happy, but not today.

“Bom this morning, ” Memsab mused. “A Wednesday child. ’’

“That’s but... ’’ Sumar started, then corrected herself. “Superstition. ”

Memsab probably would have raised one eyebrow at her daughter. Sumar would

try to shake off the superstition and her mother’s gaze. Both women remained silent.

“Are you going to have your Guy Fawkes ’party tonight? ” Sumar surely asked,

breaking the silence with her bitter question. Mum has told me so many times how the

annual bonfire and fireworks display had been her favourite holiday as a child. Memsab

always organized a bonfire, built a Guy to burn, bought fireworks, and invited over so

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many o f theirfamily friends. It was nyamaa chomabar-be-que and people would bring

cases o f Tusker beer.

“But of course, ” Memsab would have said, nonchalantly as if nothing had

changed. She was good at keeping up appearances. This was the first time that the

obvious snub was mentioned between them, but later it would grow until it became one of

their deepest wounds against one another.

“It was your father’s favourite holiday, ’’ Memsab might have added.

“Dad would be pleased, ” Sumar said sarcastically. Sumar should not have been

surprised, she had heard the stories about a year ago. Even during the time o f the

Emergency, Memsab had organized parties with blatant disregard o f curfews and

dangers.

“More likely he is rolling in his grave, ’’ Memsab replied.

In my imagination I was in the nursery, crying.

I was the baby causing so much discord between mother and daughter.

Then, as now, the sisters on duty were inexplicably fond o f their mixed race

charges. I was the unnamed girl, unique and beautiful, among the standards applied to

newborn babies. The sisters admired my pale beauty, which was light but but not the

eerie, gecko-like translucence o f wazungu babies. They delicately touched my scalp, the

fine dusting of hair that turned from blonde to red to brown in different lighting and tried

to make me open my strange-coloured eyes that were not blue or green, but rather some

colour in between the two. The sisters would have known that the mother’s labour of the

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previous night was long and lonely. They might have whispered among themselves the

shame that such a beautiful baby was so obviously not wanted.

Since I was an unnamed favourite, each of the nurses called me by a different

name, drawn from Biblical stories, from their tribes, or from terms of affection. I cried

without accepting the names to comfort me. I would not be Ruth or Esther. Nor Njeri. I

would not be calmed as Kadija or Wahome. I would not succumb to Baby or Toto or the

bottles offormula the sisters offered me. They might have patiently dipped their fingers

into the formula and tried to dribble it into my mouth. However, I would not be tricked

into sucking their fingers and the watery formula mixed with tears and mucus until it

slimed my face. Still unnamed, and half African, I would not accept the further indignity

of mzungu formulas and rubber nipples. The other infants empathized with my discontent

and mimicked it in their own new, shrill voices. I cried. Or I imagined that I cried, until

I became the alarming colours of red and then purple that African babies never turn.

Looking at the purple, screaming, gasping infant, the matron on duty would have

had to concede defeat and admit, “This is a good African baby, demanding to be with her

people and suckling her mother's breast. ”

The kind, intelligent women who made up her nursing staff would have laughed.

The only solution would be the traditional African solution: offer me my mother’s breast.

So Beatrice was called by her superior and told to take the infant to her mother.

Beatrice dared not defy the matron, but she did not want to have to interrupt the

wazungu mother and daughter. She rocked me gently as she carried me through the

hospital. I was no longer bawling, my crying had worn me out and I was moaning softly

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trying to nuzzle closer to Beatrice’s chest. Beatrice felt sorry for this half-breed child.

She paused a moment outside the door of the room, took a deep breath and entered.

The tension between the two women was thick in the air, but Beatrice tried to

ignore it. She walked quickly to the bed, not looking at the older woman now standing by

the window. She did not even look at Sumar as she thrust the baby into her arms and

murmured, “She’s hungry. ” Beatrice turned heel and almost ran from the room.

Sumar, her arms now full of me, was awkward and unsure of herself. She had

only nursed the child a few times before, each time the nurse remained behind showing

her how to hold the baby’s head. Sumar tried to manoeuvre me, while also opening her

shirt enough to reveal a nipple and not feel naked before her mother.

Memsab would have watched her daughter’s clumsy attempts several times

without averting her eyes. Maybe it was because she hated watching ineptness and

inefficiency. Maybe it was the pull of maternal instinct that even she had forgotten.

Maybe it was love. Whatever the reason, Memsab went over to the bed, perched herself

delicately beside her daughter and reached out to help adjust her granddaughter.

When the baby was in place, Memsab would have sat back and smiled, pleased

that she had done a good job. The little girl had her lips around Sumar’s nipple and was

sucking with all her might. Memsab would have noticed that the baby’s lips were already

thick, heavy, full. She would have been surprised by how pale the infant actually was, so

light she almost could have been mistaken for a white child.

“She looks almost white. ”

This might have offended Sumar. If she were listening, not completely absorbed

by watching her daughter nurse and being amazed at how perfect the little girl was. She

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was at that moment probably counting my baby-eyelashes or searching my face for hated

freckles. I f she had heard that comment, surely Sumar would have snapped at her

mother. Surely, she could not have ignored such a statement.

After the baby had nursed, Sumar would have tried to rock me.

"She needs to be burped, ” Memsab likely said. Again, Memsab picked up her

granddaughter and repositioned her. Memsab would have been surprised at the greenish

tint of her granddaughter’s eyes, unexpected in a black child. She watched carefully as

Sumar patted the baby rhythmically on her back. Memsab realized it was almost time for

visiting hours to begin. She wanted to leave before she came across anyone whom she

knew. So, she stood up suddenly and the bed shifted, startling the infant who made a

small coughing sound.

"Are you leaving? ” Sumar asked, but she would have regretted the question

immediately. It showed that she cared.

"I have some errands, ” Memsab said. Again she ran her fingers through her hair

and she straightened her skirt over her hips. "Shall I tell the sister to cometake... and

the baby? ”

"No, not yet, ” Sumar replied.

"Have you chosen a name yet? ” Memsab asked, impatient with her daughter’s

indecision.

"Not yet, ” Sumar would have replied. She was tired of everyone asking her for a

name. The baby was only a day old, yet she felt that people rushed to put heavy names

on infants. She knew for a fact that Memsab had her name picked out even before she

was married, it was a name that she did not particularly like.

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In my imagination, Sumar waited alone in her private room, listening to the

visitors coming and going from nearby rooms. She wished that she could have been in

the general maternity ward, surrounded by the womanly, expectant and satisfied

conversations about babbies. Where maybe it would not have mattered so much that she

did not have an anxious husband to visit her, bringing her flowers and the

congratulations of friends. Sumar knew her only visitor would be Julianne, who would

fill the room with her blazing hair and sharp friendship.

I knew that Mum asked Julianne to be my godmother.

I knew that Julianne agreed.

In my imagination, Sumar’s room had a view of the hospital grounds. At the time,

Nairobi was not so built up so she must have had a considerable garden to look over.

Not that Sumar was fond of gardens; that was Memsab’s passion. Though, Sumar would

have certainly noticed the trees. The Jacaranda trees would have been in full bloom, like

a scoop of berry sherbet, lavender against the blue sky.

Ifilled her arms and Sumar would not have been unable to pick at loose threads

on the hospital sheets with her nervous energy. Her nervous energy was contagious and

spread to me. Soon I was crying. Sumar tried desperately to rock me back to sleep.

“Do you see the trees, Baby? ” Sumar might have asked her.

When her voice quieted me, I would have opened my eyes and looked into her

beautiful face. In the brief quiet, she would have decided on my name:

Jacaranda.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PART I: NYAYO NYAYO JU, 1987-1989

Short rains come like memory.

Unexpectedly, fresh and furious each year.

After the short rains, Jacaranda trees bloom.

Watered by daily showers, the dot-small buds open into finger-sized flowers.

Trumpets. Thousands upon thousands unfurling, their colour as strong as sound. Every

Jacaranda tree in the country is covered in blossoms, as the purple echoes from one to

the next. From a distance, the trees are orbs o f almost lavender. Standing together in

groups o f three and four, they seem to stand guard over the hills of Nairobi. In city

center, ancient Jacaranda trees patiently stand, sidewalks over their roots, alongside the

pedestrians, as if waitingfor matatus. They border the finer properties in Muthaiga and

shade aging colonial villas. From underneath, Jacaranda trees are miracles of lavender

lace, each flower the same unrepeatable violet. So vivid the blossoms rob colour from

the sky, turning it a distant, forgetful blue.

I was born when the Jacaranda trees were in full bloom.

Bursting.

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It was as if no one remembered that I was turning seven.

Mum had forgotten to turn on the water-heater for the day, and in the shower the

water splashing on me, on the concrete walls around me, and sliding down the drain at

my feet, it was cold. I stood on my tip-toes to look in the mirror that hung in back of our

shower room to see if I looked different, if I looked seven. My own eyes, long changed

to a brown that was as dark and slick as an oil spill, looked back at me. I put on my

favourite church dress, one that was a pale purple colour. Mum was in our sitting room

wearing a fadedkanga, soft and thin from a hundred washings in the harsh, detergent-

blue OMO granules, wrapped around her full breasts, twisting slightly as it caught at her

thin waist. Her long blonde hair was secured in a bun with two or three porcupine quills

so that it would not fall in her face as she watched the pot of sweet honey-lemon wax

warm and soften on the gas burner.

“Good morning, Jaci,” she said without looking up from the old, bent table knife

she was using to stir the wax. She held it up and watched the wax return to the pan, thick

as marmalade. It was a smell like food to my hungry stomach. “You look nice. New

dress?”

“Good morning, Mum,” I replied, knowing there was no point in asking her for

anything to eat until she was done waxing her legs. So, I crossed our parlour, really our

only room - sitting room and kitchen in one and swung open the metal gate grille. It

clanged against the concrete wall, as loud as my stomach’s grumbles.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 “Where you going? Mum asked. She already had the strips of cotton that she

would spread over her legs to suction up the hair on her legs laid out across our settee,

white and even as hospital bandages.

“Outside,” I said. There was nowhere else I could go. I knew when the wax ran

thin, pale as acacia honey, she would sit on the floor, spreading a towel under her.

Already the baby powder that she would spread over her legs was sitting on our coffee

table.

“Jaci,” Mum said to stop me as I turned to leave. “Don’t bother your

grandmother. She’s rather testy before her parties.”

“I won’t,” I promised, wanting only to escape from the sweet, sticky smell of the

wax and sugar. I knew how Mum would spread each knife-full of wax over her tanned

skin, carefully the way she might butter toast. I knew she would make hissing moans that

escaped from behind her teeth that held her lips closed.

“Jaci,” Mum called me again. I knew she was not going to wish me a happy

birthday, so I didn’t stop or look back.

“I’ll be right back.” I left our small house, before Mum started making her

stinging moans. From our house I could escape only as far as Memsab’s compound.

The main compound was Memsab’s pride-and-joy. My grandmother kept her

garden carefully manicured. In another country it would have been award-winning or at

least been pictured in glossy magazines that also advertised calfskin gloves and seed

nurseries. Our swimming pool shimmered like an oasis in the back yard, bordered by

weaverbird-filled palm trees. Their basket-like nests clustered together like huts in a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 compound, as they flew back and forth in endless busyness of keeping their households

running. The grass around the pool was green, fresh watered by the short rains that had

just ended.

I walked towards Memsab’s house, balancing along the pool’s edge, pausing to

dip my pointed toes into the cool, lapping water. Through the lace curtains and open

windows, I could hear her voice, a blurry picture of sound with bold, bright colours. She

was giving commands to Naomi, her maid, who appeared at the kitchen door. Memsab

was organizing her annual Guy Fawkes’ party, inviting over all of her friends and even

some of Mum’s, sitting in the grass. Burning the Guy and watching fireworks was the

last way she had to reclaim the life she used to have.

I didn’t understand that then: I thought she was trying to ruin my birthday every

year.

Naomi came out the kitchen door carrying a large plastic basin of ice. I watched

as she walked out of the kitchen. At first not seeing me, but then she looked up and saw

me standing at the edge of the pool, “Aye! Be careful,totol Don’t fall in!”

“I can swim,” I reminded her, shouting back across the yard.

“How could I explainMemsahib to if you fell into the water?” she asked, as if

talking to herself. Naomi had worked for Memsab as long as I could remember, and she

remembered Mum as a little girl. “Imagine all those worries today. Your grandmother

would never forgive me.”

“I said, I can swim!”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 Naomi muttered to herself inKikuyu. She could just as easily been swearing at

me or Memsab or the basin of ice. She returned to English again: “You will ruin your

dress. And who will have to wash it? Me?”

I stepped away from the pool and went to Naomi. I watched as she filled the

picnic chest, burying bottles of soda under the ice cubes. Naomi’s dark hand spread the

white ice out in the pale stomach of the icebox. Her blue apron, wide over her thick

figure, had a spreading water stain from the melting ice.

“What do you want?” Naomi asked me. “Have you eaten breakfast?”

I shook my head.

“Come, you need to eat.”

I followed Naomi into the kitchen and sat on a stool at the counter. She had the

radio on, the volume turned so low that I could not tell if it was the news being read in

Swahili or a panel discussion. After she put bread in the toaster, Naomi set a plate, knife,

Blue Band margarine, and strawberry jam in front of me.

“What is going on in here?” Memsab asked, when she came into the kitchen. She

was carrying a tray withsamosas on it, her elbows tight against her narrow hips. She

frowned at Naomi and me. Her red-to-gray hair was carefully pinned up. Like Mum, she

had long hair that when worn down fell straight, long past her shoulder blades.

“Naomi is making breakfast for me,” I told her, the smell of burning bread

coming between us. “I like my toast a bit black.”

Memsab rolled her eyes as if she could tell that I was covering Naomi’s mistake.

“Who turned on the radio?” she asked instead. “How many times have I said that I don’t

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 want to hear the radio in this house? This family has enough troubles without listening to

the news. Leave politics to the politicians.”

In those days, there was only one radio station in Kenya. It was still called Voice

of Kenya -as it had been baptized after Independence. Voice of KANU would have been

more accurate, as it was state-owned and the only political party in the country was

Kenya African National Union. In those days, there were dissident rumours attributed to

the members ofMwakenya and the police were arresting suspects, the families of

suspects, and anyone showing too keen an interestMwakenya in the activities. It was one

of the topics that grown-ups spoke of in hushed tones and tribal mother tongues. All I

knew then was that Memsab had insisted that if it was not music, she did not want to hear

the radio on her compound.

“Sorry,Memsahib.” Naomi’s eyes were hard, flat as plates, when she handed me

the slightly burnt toast. It was still hot, burning my fingers slightly and I kept my eyes on

my plate. I heard Naomi’s slippers patter across the tile floor and then the radio went

silent.

“Here take these,” Memsab commanded, passing her the traysamosas, of each a

deep-fried pyramid for a pastry city. “And put a towel over them to keep away the flies.”

I raised my eyes to find Memsab’s green eyes staring into mine. “Where is your

mother?”

“Getting ready for the party,” I said in a weak whisper.

“Getting ready?” Memsab repeated, her voice a question as she watched me

spread Blue Band over my toast. “What is she doing? Washing her hair? What is she

doing tonight that she needs to get ready for?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 Even though my toast was hot, the margarine did not melt easily and left yellow

lumps that I had to spread the red jam over. Peptang jam was locally produced, more

sugar than strawberry, and sold in plastic jars whose lids were always the wrong size.

“Sumar’s so vain,” Memsab announced. Naomi ignored her, looking through the

drawers for a clean, still new kitchen towel to spread oversamosas. the “She spends

more time caring about her appearance than she does her child. And now you are

wearing a church dress in the middle of the week. What kind of example is she setting?”

I blushed, because Memsab bought the dress for me to wear with her to church. I

was afraid she was going to tell me to take it off. I was too afraid to say something in

defense of my mother. Instead, I bit down on the toast as loudly as possible. The bitter

ash, the salty margarine and the sweet jam all mixed over my silent tongue.

“When you are finished, go outside,” Memsab told me. “And try to stay out of

the way. We are very busy getting ready for the party tonight.” She left the kitchen, her

shoes tapping down the hallway. Naomi and I were silent, not looking at one another.

When we could not hear her any longer, Naomi turned on the radio again and I threw out

my toast, no longer hungry.

Outside, Patick sat in the shade of the guardhouse at the gate polishingrungu his

until it was smooth as bone. The handle of the traditional Maasai club was as thin as a

stem, bending under the weight of a flower. Instead of open petals it had a knot of a

head, bent, cruel, and heavy. Patick was the daytimeaskari, his shift running from six in

the morning to six in the evening. When guests came, he would go the gate and

interrogate them before opening the gate.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 “Habari ? ” I asked, my Swahili had the fractured fluency of a forgotten mother

tongue.

Patrick nodded in mute answer. He didn’t look at me, instead he kept smoothing

the old rag, dipped in oil, over the wooden club. He twistedrungu the in his hand, with

an awareness of it’s the skull-crushing ability. It is said that Maasai traditionally have

usedrungus to kill lions.

“Habari yako?” I asked, repeating my inquiry.How are you?

“Mzuri,” Patrick replied without looking at me. I decided that he wasn’t a very

good watchman, if he couldn’t even see me.

“Do you want to play draughts?” I asked him. Sometimes in the afternoon we

played checkers together, both of us sitting in the shade bent over his old board, so used

that it was getting hard to tell the red squares from the brown wood.

“Ah-a,” he shook his head. “I must wait for the guests to come.”

With nothing better to do, I sat down next to him and waited for guests to come.

The first person to come that afternoon was Julianne, Mum’s best friend. It was

still early in the afternoon whenjua-kali her car came to a clattering stop at the gate and

she tooted her horn. Her car was a small, silver Nissan, imported second-hand from

Japan and converted by her informally-trained mechanic-acquaintances who repaired,

replaced, and reworked the car until it would have been unrecognizable to its original

manufacturers.

“Hey,” she called over the painful mooing sound of her horn. “Open the gate!”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 Patrick peered through the peephole, as if he could not recognize her voice, before

he let her in. Julianne carefully coasted her car down our driveway and it settled next to

Memsab’s bright red Mercedes Benz.

“Hello, Julianne,” I called, waving out my hands as I ran down to her.

“Jaci,” she said, nodding at me like I was already an adult.

She went around to the passenger side of the car and yanked open the door. The

Guy Fawkes dummy fell out, as she had forgotten to buckle the safety belt. Each year

Julianne was responsible for bringing the Guy, a scarecrow-like effigy to be burnt for the

holiday. This year he was wearing a navyaskari uniform, with a golden eagle badge

sewn to a pocket on his chest.

“Shit,” Julianne said, running a frustrated hand through her curly, short red hair.

She pulled the Guy up by his collar, a handful of straw falling onto the driveway. “And

don’t let me ever hear you use that kind of language. You know your grandmother will

blame me.”

“She’s inside worrying about the food,” I told Julianne. I bent to collect the lose

straw from the driveway and gave it to her. “Perhaps you should belt him in.”

For a moment she looked at the straw in her hand, as if she didn’t know what to

do with it. Her hair fell back into her face and she pushed her fingers back through it,

and she looked at me as if she might laugh. “Perhaps, Jaci. Perhaps. And where is your

mum?”

“Waxing her legs,” I reported.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 “As if a bit of hair on her legs would make her less attractive,” Julianne said. Guy

Fawkes slipped to the ground again and Julianne sighed, exasperated at either the dummy

or my Mum. “Go ask Patrick or theshamba boy for a wheelbarrow.”

I came back leading the sullen boy hired to help Memsab in the garden. He

looked from the Guy, now sitting strapped into the seat, to Julianne, wearing a man’s

jacket, then to me in my church dress. He shook his head as if he were seeing spirits.

“Thanks,” Julianne said to him. He looked at her, then at the Guy, refusing to

touch the stuffed uniform with its pantyhose “Asanteface. sana,” she repeated herself in

sarcastic Swahili as she put the Guy into the wheelbarrow. “Just wheel that thing around

to the garden.”

Julianne watched, hands on her hips, as shambathe boy took it around to the back

of the house. She took off her jacket and threw it back in the car, slamming the door

shut. The door closed awkwardly, leaning against the car’s frame. Julianne threw her hip

against it so that it clicked into place and she smiled at me. “What are you wearing?”

“It’s my favourite dress.” I smoothed it down around my waist and twirled.

“You look like your own bloody birthday package!”

A smile rose in my face; I couldn’t help it. She had remembered my birthday.

Julianne smiled back at me, dimples like crescent moons were set deep in her

cheeks. “You thought I had forgotten,” she said with a wink. “I’d never forget your

birthday.”

She waved me around to the boot of the car, which she opened using her key.

Inside there was a bright purple package, done up in ribbon. “The same colour as the

trees -perfect for a girl named Jacaranda.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 “Thank you! Thank you!” I exclaimed reaching into the trunk. “What is it?”

“Your birthday present.” She handed it to me gently. “Go put in your room and

don’t open until tonight.”

“Sawa, Julianne,” I promised, lifting the lumpy package. It was heavier than I

expected. I walked towards the little house I shared with Mum, taking care to stay far

from the edge of the pool.

“Tell Sumar I’m here,” Julianne called after me. “And, go put on something

sensible!”

Mum and Julianne were in the yard restacking the bonfire wood and I had

changed into more sensible clothes, when we heard the gate swing open. Julianne

continued stacking the wood, as if she could not hear the uneven rumble of a car coming

up our driveway. Mum stood and ran nervous fingers through her hair, pulling out the

elastic that had held it up in a lose knot so it fell around her face. We listened as Patrick

greeted the driver with familiar friendliness. Then Uncle Peter came around to the back

gardening, carrying a large, open box in his arms. Bright rockets and paper towers stuck

out from it, all of them fireworks to be set alight later that night. He had bought them

duringDiwalli, when the stores stocked them for the Indian New Year celebrations.

“Hello!” Uncle Peter called out, unable to wave. “Where do you want me to set

this?”

“Hey,” Julianne called back. “Over there somewhere. Out of the way.”

“Hello, Peter.” Mum said, smiling. She stood still, ready for his embrace.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 “Good to see you, Sumar.” When he set down the box, Uncle Peter hugged her.

Like Mum, he was tall, with dark blonde hair, and tanned to the colour of olive wood.

Though they could pass for siblings and I called him uncle, they were not related.

“Always a pleasure.”

“Where’s Doreen?” Mum asked. Doreen was his wife, though I never called her

aunt because she was never very friendly with me.

“Nice Guy,” Uncle Peter said to Julianne, shaking her hand. “Looks a bit like a

police officer’s uniform.”

“An oldaskari uniform,” Julianne corrected him.

“Where’s Doreen?” Mum repeated, her voice getting high and urgent. Mum

claimed she didn’t like Doreen because she was South African. According to Mum, she

came to Kenya with her high-handed ways and dangerous superiority complex.

“She stayed at home. Headache.” Uncle Peter said. He turned to me and smiled,

his arms open, “Hello, Little Lady,” he said to me. Little Lady was his special name for

me. He had been in our lives for as long as I could remember. “How’s the birthday

girl?”

“Did you bring P.T.?” I asked. P.T. was his son and the closest thing I had to a

cousin, a brother. He was my playmate. And though three years older than I, he was my

only real friend.

“Is he the one you care about?” Uncle Peter laughed. “Of course. He’s in the car

with a surprise for you.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 I rushed out to the front yard. Uncle Peter’s Land Cruiser was parked on the grass

in the front yard so there would be room for the visitors who came later. P.T. was sitting

on the ground over another box, the sunlight streaking his pale, flat hair.

“Happy birthday, Tree,” he said, when I reached him. Tree was the nickname

P.T. had given me when he was too small to pronounce Jacaranda and I was too little to

remember. “I got your present here.”

“Thanks,” I said, as I knelt on the ground next to the box. “What is it?”

P.T. opened the flaps that he had flopped closed. A red-brown puppy sat in the

comer, looking up at us, blinking against the bright sunlight. His hair grew up in a

backward stripe along his back. When I ran my finger down his mohawk, the puppy

turned and bit after my fingers with his needle-sharp, milk teeth.

“Is he mine? Really? What’s his name?” I picked up the puppy gently and set

him in my lap. He looked up at me with his deep brown eyes and licked my chin.

“He doesn’t have a name yet,” P.T. told me, his smile as wide as mine. “You get

to name him.”

“His name is Kubwa,” I told everyone, when P.T. and I carried him to the back

garden to show Mum and Julianne.

“Kubwa?” Julianne repeated, “but that means big.”

“He won’t stay little for long,” Uncle Peter told her. “He’s a Rhodesian

Ridgebaek. If it weren’t for the white patch, he’d be proper kennel-quality.”

“I think he’s perfect.” I thought that the white patch on his chest looked like a

star.

“My mother is going to have kittens when she sees it,” Mum predicted.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25 “I’ll handle it,” Uncle Peter promised.

It was nearly dark by the time Memsab’s guests started arriving. The compound

filled, quickly. Cars parked all along the driveway in the front and the back garden

became congested with people. They admired Memsab’s garden in the dying daylight

and all claimed that if they had brought swimming costumes they would have gotten in

the water. I did not believe them, since most of Memsab’s friends were her age and

looked too old to be jumping in and out of the pool on a chilly night.

P.T. and I wheeled the Guy around all evening repeating the traditional phrase,

“Penny for the Guy. A penny for the Guy.”

“Not a penny, idiot. A shilling.” We were the only children interested in the

Guy. A few teenagers sat back and smirked at us, while trying to sneak sips from beer

bottles. They occasionally stopped scowling at the adults and us to smile at one another,

winking over the soda bottles. We didn’t care what they thought; for us Guy Fawkes Day

was a rare financial windfall.

“Shilling for the Guy.” It didn’t matter what we said, as the guests were tipsy

from Memsab’s famous bar. Many people brought their favourite bottles of liquor

actually, but Memsab provided most of the liquor, a half-dozen different kinds of fresh,

homemade juices, sugar-water, and sodas for mixed drinks. Most reached into their

pockets and gave us the large, gold-coloured cent coins that were bright but could only

buy a few sweets at the roadsidekiosks. The more generous guests gave us silver shilling

coins, heavy and large. We went around the crowd until our pockets were stuffed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 “Til give you twenty bob if you can tell me what Guy Fawkes did,” Julianne

promised, holding a blue-green bill out temptingly, stiff and unfolded.

Twenty bob. Twenty bob was four sodas. Or a double handful of Jojo gum

pieces. Each wrapped in wax paper and printed with dry, one-line jokes that P.T. could

read to me, while we chewed the pieces of gum the stiff pink, rubber tight over our

tongues. Mum and Uncle Peter were sitting next to her, eating from the same plate.

“He was MwakenyaT P.T. guessed.

Uncle Peter laughed, but Mum nervously looked around to make sure no one had

heard us. She held her hand over her mouth, as though that would take back his words.

Even mention of the clandestine group made her skittish, as if we would be held

responsible for the anti-government pamphlets they distributed from time to time.

“Close enough. He was accused of treason, that he was a part of a conspiracy to

blow up English parliament,” Julianne told us, her voice serious, as she handed P.T. the

twenty-shilling note to add to our stash.

“What’s that mean?” P.T. asked.

“People thought that he was going to bring down the government.”

“But he didn’t do it?” I asked. “Did he?”

“You’re spoiling those children,” Memsab said. She had been listening to our

conversation, though I had not noticed her. “And whose dog is that?”

I had given Kubwa to Julianne when he had begun to tire from too many new

places and too many new people in one day. He had fallen asleep under her chair, curled

up with his long tail tucked around his feet.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 “Uncle Peter gave him to me,” I told my grandmother, afraid that she would say I

couldn’t keep him. “His name is Kubwa.”

“Who told Peter that we needed a dog?” Memsab asked us rhetorically. “Is he

going to be the one feeding the dog?”

Uncle Peter stood up and smiled handsomely at Memsab. “Surely you don’t think

such a little puppy will eat much? Besides, a good watchdog is an investment.”

I bent down and picked up Kubwa, who yawned sleepily and perked up his ears as

if he were listening to the conversation about his fate. He wagged his tale at Memsab and

sniffed at me. I wanted to tell him that everything would be all right, but it wasn’t a

promise I could make.

“Since when do people living in Muthaiga need watchdogs?” Memsab asked

him. “That’s for land-grabbers who live like bandits in coffee plantations. Or people like

you who want to live in the bush of Karen, beyond the city.”

“Nairobi is changing,” Uncle Peter reminded Memsab, his voice serious and wise.

“It’s better to have a big dog about.”

Memsab sighed. “Where’s the Guy? It’s time to put him on the fire.”

I smiled with relief, knowing I could keep Kubwa. P.T. brought the wheelbarrow

to Memsab and they took the Guy to stacked wood waiting to be his funeral pyre. Her

friends gathered round and said a few words, toasting with their glasses raised. The

teenagers gathered around, leaning on each other’s legs, combing their fingers through

one another’s straight, twisted hair. Julianne pulled out a large jerry-can of kerosene.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 “We ought to necklace him,” one man shouted, referring to the way thieves in the

street were grabbed by mobs, doused in kerosene, tires set around their necks and lit.

“Give him proper Kenyan justice.”

Uncle Peter laughed, “To do that we would have to send him to Nyayo House.”

This conversation passed over me, their voices rising to the branches of the palm

trees and the star-flecked night sky beyond. I did not try to make sense of their words as

I cuddled my sleepy dog. P.T. sat next to me and patted Kubwa. When they lit the fire, I

watched it bum as if it were happening in a far away country.

Uncle Peter had just begun to set up the fireworks when the askarinight came

running to the back garden. Uncle Peter refused to drink since it was his job to light the

fireworks. He did not believe explosives and alcohol mixed well. He was the first person

to see the frightened man. Uncle Peter put out his hands and stopped ouraskari night

who was panting -his eyes wide, white with fear.

“Bwana, the polici are here.” He reported. “They want to talk to bwanathe here.

But, I told them there is no man, no husband.Memsahib.” Just

Mum paled with the mention of the police.

“What do they want?” Uncle Peter asked, his voice steady. Memsab, Mum and

Julianne all gathered around Uncle Peter andaskari. the Julianne held Mum’s hands so

they wouldn’t shake.

“They wouldn’t tell me, sir. They just insisted they speak to the residents of this

compound. I told them it is onlymzungu women here, but they have insisted even if it is

foreigners they must come to the gate, that I must let them in to investigate.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 “Investigate what?” Memsab asked, already marching towards the gate. “I’ll go

take care of this nonsense.”

“Not alone,” Uncle Peter said. “I’m coming with you.”

Memsab’s guests had all fallen quiet, listening to this conversation but pretending

not to. A number of the women started fanning themselves, leaning heavily onto the

arms of whichever man was nearest. The men took long swallows from their drinks.

Mum started to follow theaskari, Memsab, and Uncle Peter to the gate, but Julianne

stopped her.

“Someone has to stay with the guests,” Julianne said, but she did not let got of

Mum’s hand. Mum, still pale, allowed Julianne to lead her to the bar. “Come, let’s pour

another round of drinks.”

“Good idea,” a man said, already holding out his glass.

P.T. looked at me and smiled, his index finger held as a tight secret against his

lips. He slipped into the shadows, tiptoeing across the grass and beckoning me to follow.

I looked back at the table, where Mum was holding a bottle of juice, staring at it like it

was a gourd of camel milk. I put Kubwa down, but he followed us both along the side

hedge to the front yard. We stopped when we could see and hear the people at the gate,

but hidden under a bush so they couldn’t hear us. Memsab, Uncle Peter, and the night

askari stood just inside our compound and six or seven police officers stood shoulder-to-

shoulder, their blue uniforms navy black in the dim shadows just outside, the gate barely

open between them. Everyone was holding battery torches, the police had large metal

ones and Memsab had the small plastic ones we used during blackouts.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 “Yes, of course this is my house,” Memsab was explaining. “My husband bought

it many years ago. Back in the fifties. I’ve always lived here -or at least since then.”

“Do you have a permit to hold this party?” the officer asked. “There are too many

people here. You must have a permit.”

“It’s right here.” Mum passed him a piece of folded paper. He grabbed it from

her, almost tearing it in her fingers. The gate swung slowly more open, its hinges eerily

silent.

I gasped and P.T. leaned closer to me and blew into my ear “Shh.”

The officer looked at the form a long time, turning it over and over. “This is a

photocopy.”

“I know. The original forms were finished, so they gave me a photocopy.”

The officer shone his torch into the hedges, as if the bougainvillea was going to

collaborate her story. P.T. held my hand, which had started to shake as the light came

close to our hiding place.

“Next time get an original,” the officer said, tossing the paper back at Memsab.

It fell to her feet. She started to bend with arthritic slowness to pick it up, but

Uncle Peter stopped her. He bent and picked it up, handing it back to her. Memsab

refolded it and put it her pocket again

“I didn’t come for this,” the officer announced.

“Then what did you come for?” Uncle Peter asked. In the light, I could see a

muscle in his jaw working furiously. “What do you want?”

“There are too many people here,” the man said. “I will come back tomorrow.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 “No,” Uncle Peter said, his voice harsh. Then he smiled and made his voice

gentle. “Eh, Chief, you’re already here. Maybe we can help you tonight. So you don’t

have to come back.”

The police officer looked at Uncle Peter, then at Memsab. He was frowning,

rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. askari Our stood to one side, looking at the

other police officers, who had AK-47s slung over their shoulders. My breath started to

catch in my throat, I gasped lightly for air. P.T. looked at me, in the shadows I could see

his worry. I shook my head and opened my mouth for more air. He started taking deep,

slow breaths and I tried to match my breath with his.

“Do you know this man?” a police officer asked holding out a picture. It was a

black-and-white photograph, and from the distance all I could make out is that it was an

African face. Kubwa began to growl, his throat rumbling with puppy-rage. I put my

hand on his wrinkled forehead and smoothed it to quiet him.

“Well, that isn’t a very clear picture, is it?” Memsab stalled, as she fished up

reading spectacles on the chain around her neck. She the specs on the edge of her nose

and took the picture from the police officer, holding it at arm’s length. Uncle Peter

looked over her shoulder.

“Do you know him?” the police officer asked again. He seemed to be the one in

charge.

“He does not look familiar,” Memsab said, handing the picture back to the police.

“We have had reports that he has had correspondence with this residence.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32 “Well it certainly wasn’t with me,” Memsab said. “Perhaps it was with one of my

employees. I have had to fire threeshamba boys in the last two months. They were

rather strange, and I didn’t trust them. Could it have been one of them?”

“It was more than a month ago,” one of the officers said.

The one in charge turned the torch on him to quiet him. “Do you have contact

information for where these men went?”

“Of course, not,” Memsab said. “They come to my gate telling me they need a

job and showing me letters of reference. I keep them a few weeks on a trail basis, but it

hasn’t worked out so I pay them and send them on. Not hardly the sort of people that I

know or could tell you anything about.”

“If you see this man, you must call the police,” the man insisted. “You must call

us.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Memsab said with a gracious smile. “But now I must be

getting back to my guests. I’m very rude to leave them alone so long. It’s late, and

perhaps you are thirsty. If you like a soda, perhaps I can haveaskari my bring one for

each of you, but I really must be going.

“His name is Matthew Otieno. Remember that.” The police officer started at

Memsab sternly, then at Uncle Peter. Then at askari.the Then he shone the torch around

our yard again.

I remembered that Uncle Peter waited at the gate while the sodas were brought for

the police officers. I remembered that they used their teeth to pop off the lids from the

Fanta bottles and that they turned around, the bottles still half full, and got back in their

truck. They went away without returning the bottles, so we lost our deposit on each soda

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 they drank. P.T. and I waited in the shadows until Uncle Peter, cursing to himself at the

greediness of police officers, returned to the back garden andaskari the was back in his

house, his head hidden by the shadows. I remember how Kubwa followed me, already

becoming loyal.

What I forgot was the name of the man we were meant to watch for. It was such

an ordinary name, not even his full name -just his Christian name and a tribal last name

so common it belonged to maybe millions of Luos around the country. Besides, no one

wanted to remember when the police visited at night.

P.T. and I walked back to the dying bonfire in the back garden. As soon as we

stepped out of the shadows, Julianne grabbed us both. Her fingernails were barbwire

sharp in my shoulder.

“Here she is,” Julianne said, shoving me towards Mum.

Mum turned around, her face tear-streaked. “Jacaranda, Jacaranda. Where did

you go?”

“Just playing,” I whispered.

“I couldn’t find you,” Mum said, her arms so tight around me that I felt my lungs

being crushed, like when I stayed underwater too long. “You were gone. The police

were here. And you were gone.. .1 heard them asking about...”

“That’s enough, Sumar” Julianne said, her voice like powder settled around us.

“You’ll frighten the girl.”

And frighten me she did. Mum’s fears seeped into me, as she held me to her

chest.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 “I was so worried,” she whispered, rocking me in her arms. She was afraid that I

might have been missing, afraid of how people she loved disappeared. Rocking herself,

afraid of police who came with loud knocks in the night. Mum wiped the last of her tears

dry in the tight, unruly curls of my hair. “But you’re here. You’re okay.”

Over Mum’s shoulder I could see Memsab’s friends putting on their jackets and

finding their pocketbooks. Drinks were either quickly swallowed down or set, still full,

on the comers of tables while people said good-night to one another. The teenagers

loudly mimicked the kissing of cheeks, before they pulled apart and followed their

parents home like pale, stretched ghosts. Memsab stood, her hands limp at her side, her

eyes bright with tears, as her party fell apart.

“But we haven’t even done the firecrackers,” Uncle Peter reminded the guests,

trying to restart the festivities. “I bought the best lot you have ever seen.”

“We really must be going,” one man said. “It’s already quite late.”

“Yes,” agreed his wife, or at least the woman with him. “Quite, quite late.”

“Best firecracker show,” Julianne repeated. “Better than Diwali, I’ll bet. He even

has Japanese fire lanterns and Roman candles.”

“Good night and thanks again.”

Uncle Peter turned one of the men, “They were only looking for bribes. Nothing

to worry about.”

The man put on his jacket, “Had a lovely time and looking forward to next year.”

“Next year?” Julianne said. “By next year people will be too afraid to leave their

compounds. Bloody cowards ought to go back to England.”

“Bloody cowards,” P.T. repeated with a mischievous grin.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35 Julianne lightly slapped the back of his head, “Don’t use that language.”

None of this made any difference and people trudged through the grass, along the

pool, and returned to their cars. The sounds of doors slamming and cars being started

filled the night as the last embers of the bonfire died. The gate swung open and didn’t

close as everyone left at once, like a convoy headed across the city.

When at last the gate clanged shut, Memsab sighed and shook her head.

“Do you want help cleaning up this mess?” Julianne asked.

“It can be done tomorrow,” she said. “Naomi will be here. Andshamba the

boy.” Memsab went inside, walking slowly. Her hair looked almost white.

Uncle Peter went to his box of fireworks and brought out a few sparklers. He lit

them one-by-one using his cigarette lighter. Passing the first to me, the next to P.T. and

then Julianne. They hissed and popped in our fingers while spraying their continuous

explosions around our hands. Kubwa backed away from us barking, while P.T. jumped

up and spelled our names with fire like glitter in the black night. I watched, holding my

sparkler still, as Uncle Peter lit two at once, passing one to Mum while he held the other.

Mum made the shape of a triangle in the air in front of her again and again until it burned

itself out.

That night, Mum and I retired alone to our square rooms. I knew that it would be

a long night, one when I could not fall asleep easily. I knew that I would lay awake for

hours, wishing I had the kind of mother who remembered my birthday properly. I knew

that Mum would stay awake, trying to avoid her nightmares. Even if she did fall asleep,

her cries would probably wake us both before morning.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 Julianne’s present sat on my bed, next to the church dress I had changed out of

earlier. I sat on the thin, narrow mattress and carefully began to unwrap the present,

using my nails to peel back the tape, saving the expensive, imported wrapping paper so it

could be used again. Inside, there were layers of old newspapers. I peeled back the last

few months of civil unrest and the claims and counterclaims betweenMutukufu, Kenya’s

second president, and Amnesty International in concerns of human rights and prison

conditions. I did not, could not, read the headlines. The people in the pictures were all

familiar, the same politicians who had decorated the papers my entire childhood. It was

like eating artichoke in Memsab’s house, where each leaf had to be pulled away

separately, before it could be dipped in butter and run between my clenched teeth.

Finally, I peeled away the last layer of newspaper. It was a large elephant hand-

carved from white soapstone, with its trunk held in a high salute. The sculptor had

caught the elephant in mid-stride, one wrinkled foot lifted and each toenail carefully

traced. It was heavy, but delicate with the fragile veins of colour running through the

piece in shades of pink and purple and brown.

Outside, in his basket against the door Kubwa began to whimper and cry, his

whining pleas getting louder and more desperate until he finally fell silent. Mum came

in, carrying the squirming, wide-awake puppy in her arms.

“You had better keep him quiet,” she warned me. “Or he will wake up your

grandmother.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37 “What should I do?” I asked, taking him into my aims. He spilled onto my lap,

already he seemed to have grown larger than he was in the morning. He turned in tight

circles and put his head on my thigh, his eyes closed.

Mum smiled, “Well, I guess you can let him sleep here for one night.”

She sat down on the bed next to me and patted my head. “Jacaranda?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Happy Birthday,” she said, suddenly pulling me to her in a close hug. She

smelled of alcohol and mango juice, sparkler smoke and Uncle Peter’s cologne. “I hadn’t

forgotten,” she whispered into my thick hair, her words too soft to reach my scalp. “I just

didn’t know what to get you.”

Before she left, Mum lit the mosquito coil in the comer of my room. Balanced on

a delicate aluminum stand, its hot-red glow kept watch on me and Kubwa. I watched as

the red dot moved, slowly burning away and knew that gray ash fell to the floor as it

journeyed to the centre, releasing its hypnotic smell.

I closed my eyes and buried my face against Kubwa’s carpet-like fur. He sighed

and moved a little away, his eyes tight with whimpering dreams. To fall asleep, I tried to

create my own dreams, by imagining in the pool the safe images of cool water before

falling asleep. I wanted to remember how Mum taught me to swim. I tried to begin my

dreams with her leading me into the water. My dreams started in memory, perfumed by

pyrethrum.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 3

Like the dry season sky, my earliest memory was unclouded and distant.

It was the memory I recreated night-after-night to cushion my fall into sleep to

ward off the shadows of darkness that moved along my walls and nightmares. On nights

when it worked, I was sitting on steps leading into the pool so long that the bottom of my

swimming costume had started to develop fuzz pebbles from the gritty cement. The water

wrapped itself around my waist, gently embracing me, while Mum knelt in the shallow

end showing me how to hold my hold my head under water and blow bubbles.

I mimicked her, holding my lips and nose under water.

The bubbles tickled as they bounced around my chin and cheeks.

Startled, I lifted my face from the water and a watery beard dripped back into the

pool. I wiped my face with both hands, only getting wetter and wiping harder. Mum

laughed. The sun glinted from the slick helmet of her hair pushed behind her ears. Her

arms were spread to me, wide and welcoming as the rays of the sun.

Her laughter was the spray of water around us.

My memories of learning to swim were of Mum’s hands. Her hands leading me

into the pool, teaching me to never be afraid of water. Her hands under me, providing

me with the buoyancy I had not yet discovered. She taught me never to be afraid of water

and led me into the pool. Her hand guided me and provided the buoyancy that I had not

yet learned. Her hands held my toes together, so that I could have the power to kick

through water. The water and memory distorted her hand until it was as dark and large

as a Lamu dhow.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 This memory was without structure, like childish sentences strung together from

broken bits o f words and ideas. It floated, unconfirmed in my imagination. Memory

became a language offorgetfulness and fantasy, until it grew until it became the truth.

And I had no one to ask if it really happened. With no one to speak to me, I had already

silenced the Swahili foundation that had shaped my toddler tongue. It became the

language of dreams I could not remember in the morning. Mum was supposed to be

teaching me English, to till my mouth with her own language, the language of

colonization, the language of modernization. Instead, she worried that I would drown.

This fear made her more concerned with my swimming lessons than my language-less

silence. She taught me to swim with the fervent conviction her child would not drown, be

swallowed up by the water.

English floated on the surface of my memory, broken childish sentences strung

together from broken bits of words and ideas. Broken memories were replaced by broken

images by broken fantasies that I pieced together into full pictures. Then, in English.

And English made these things true. English replaced true memories with the facts that

could be tolerated and retold and understood. Until the truth of the past matched my

present. Until it was only English. Until the only place I could remember was Memsab’s

compound ringed by bougainvillea, our little house, her big house, and pool between us.

I learned to swim in the instant Mum’s hand was gone, but mastering the water

took forever. Mum showed me the breaststroke first, so I would never be shy of getting

my face wet. I remember her face decorated in beads of water, dripping from the tip of

her nose and clinging to her eyelashes. I paddled towards her, while she swam away

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40 until she lured me further into the pool, from the shallow steps to Mum’s arms. Then

from one side o f the pool to the other, along the width. Until I was able to swim the

lonely length of the pool and Mum no longer turned to watch that I didn’t drown. My

childhood became endless, repetitive laps.

When my limbs were tired and Ifelt as if I might sink, I turned to my back and

floated easily. The water a blue cushion beneath me, just a flutter of my hands to keep

afloat while my feet dangled towards the deep. Mum would swim next to me, turn to her

back and link our ankles together. Fingers o f shade from the palm tree reached across

the pool and bound us together. I would stare at the blue sky, as a cool breeze brought

fresh air to my nose. I imagined that to the birds flying above we looked like a dark star

floating in a parallel blue sky.

Time glided like the kites circling in the sky above us. Seasons were determined

by strokes that Mum taught me and I became a strong swimmer. Mum slowly found her

voice. I learned English, but never completely lost the dreams. My memories from those

earliest times glitter like water catching sunlight.

In my memory, it was only Mum and me in the cool water.

As if it would never rain again.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 4

Mum worshiped the sun.

And I worshipped my mother.

In my earliest memories it is always the dry season, warm enough for swimming.

Mum lay in the sun at the side of the pool. And I dove again and again into the water, to

fetch heavy rings from the bottom of the pool and played with bright, striped, inflatable

balls that skipped over its surface. Seasons were the stages of sunburn across Mum’s

shoulders. Time was marked by the slapping of water at the edge of the pool and history

was without waves.

When I was five, maybe six, I was content to spend my afternoons around the

swimming pool in our back garden, between our small house and Memsab’s large one.

For hours, Mum lay in the sun on a threadbare towel spread over the old wooden poolside

furniture. She wore one of her bright, skimpy swimming costumes that glowed against

her skin. Under the equatorial African sun, my Mum’s pasty, freckled skin would blush

to a grilled-shrimp pink, then bum to broiled-lobster red, until her freckles disappeared

under her scorched, swelling skin as hot and painful as the glare coming from the pool.

Lying on the cement, still wet and chlorinated, I watched her for hours, caught by

the salty, sweaty smell of her that seemed to seep from under the slick, sweet smell from

the coconut oil spread over her glistening legs, arms, the curves of her breasts, and the

flat expanse of her stomach, marked only by the colourless crescent stretch marks from

her pregnancy. I gave her those bleached scars that marred her otherwise perfect beauty.

Small cinnamon-coloured freckles peppered her back. And I counted the freckles that

spread across her shoulders reading them like words left to right. First in the remnants of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 Kiswahili: Moja. Mbili. Tatu. Until I could not keep the numbers straight and lost my

place, and started over in English:One. Two. Three.

I squinted my forehead against the sun, leaning closer to Mum, so close that I

could have brushed her back with my nose, taking in her sun-smell, straining to separate

the freckles from one another, as if they were the letters to words I could read.

“Don’t squint your eyes like that,” Mum said, without turning her head to actually

watch me.

“Kwanini?” I asked. Why?

“It makes your forehead look wrinkled and old. And speak English.”

I understood English better than I could speak it. I considered it as belonging to

Memsab, to her house, church and cars. Mum was still reminding me to speak in

English. When I did, it was English words over Swahili grammar, my sentences twisted

upside down. Mum would correct me, and make me repeat after her each sentence, right-

side-up.

“I’m bored,” I complained, resentful because she expected me to keep my

forehead smooth, as if it were something I had any control over.

“Swim,” Mum replied absently, as she carefully turned to her side, so that her tan

would be uniformly dark. From under the bench, she picked up the glossy, imported

tabloid and opened it to the section of badly dressed royals, wearing hats decked in dyed

ostrich feathers, dried flowers, and stiff lace.

“M lifanya.” I ’ve done it.

“Swim again.” Mum did not look up from Hello magazine. She would idly flip

through the gossipy news that was already three weeks old in England, filled with

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 pictures of the Royal Family breaking apart, facing opposite directions and turning from

prying cameras. Something about these brazen, red titles invoked nostalgia for a country

where she had never actually lived.

I frowned, unable to understand her fascination with the pictures of lesser known

aristocrats in ball gowns and glamourous couples of football stars and daytime telly

actresses from shows that were never aired because, even if the Kenyan Broadcasting

Corporation could have paid the ridiculously high premiums to import such shows, the

adulterous behaviour of skimpily clad Brits was deemed unacceptable by the Censorship

Board, as such shows were certain to erode the traditional family values and corrupt

impressionable youth. Instead, they aired local news, weather, and panel discussions lead

by professors and clerics about the effects of modernization. KBC did import Deutsche

Welle news and second-rate German mystery programs starring potbellied, moustached

detectives with awkwardly dubbed false, high, British accented voices.

“Swim with me.” I reached into the pool to collect a handful of water.

“Maybe later,” Mum said, slowly turning a page of the magazine.

“Sasa hiviH As the cool water slipped from my fingers, I tossed it in a glittering

arc that shattered like mercury on her thigh.Right now!

“Jaci!” Mum shrieked, clutching the magazine away from my dangerous splash.

“You’re going to wet the magazine!”

By then, I had dived into the water. The cool water rushed around my hands, my

arms, my head and shoulders like it was swallowing me. It filled my ears and drowned

her words. My skin hot and tender from being in the sun prickled with the sudden change

of temperature. When I surfaced, I was several meters away from Mum and swimming

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44 with all my strength toward the far end of the pool. Churning the water up around me

with all the force I could muster, until I came to the other end.

There I paused to catch my breath coming in short, shallow gasps. I stretched my

chest as I clung to the rough concrete edge of the pool with my arms extended behind my

back. From there I spied on Mum, the water in my ears making the world eerily silent.

Memsab had given me anIllustrated Children ’$ Bible to take to church ever

Sunday when I accompanied her. In it there was a picture of Isaac stretched out on an

altar of wooden logs. His father standing over him, knife raised above his head and the

yellow light of God shining down through parted, puffy clouds. This was what Mum

looked like, stretched out on the rickety, reclining pool furniture and a ray of sunlight

pouring over her.

When her skin began to heal again, Mum would let me peel the destroyed, flaking

skin from her like peeling the shell from a boiled egg. The skin would come lose in my

fingers more fragile than tissue or lace, which would blow away in tiny flecks with the

wind, until, finally, her skin revealed a burned bronze. She would laugh then, proud of

the colour underneath. Her skin would be closer to my colour, the golden colour that she

claimed to be envious of. A colour that was half black.

In my memory, Memsab watched us from her big house. When we were at the

pool, she would look down through the lace sheers, meant to prevent anyone from seeing

inside her house. Her body was just a shadow against the glass. I waved up to her,

smiling from the water. She would wave down sometimes. Other times, she would just

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 step away from the window. In the evenings, she would draw her curtains and light

would shine golden pale through the striped drapery.

“Jacaranda,” Mum called. “Come here.”

I went to her and she wrapped a towel around me.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, rubbing a towel over my hair.

I nodded. The scratchy towel over my head blinded me a moment, while Mum

tried to rub water from the depths of my thick, curled hair. Mum wrapped a towel like a

turban, over her damp hair, then mine. The towel fell long on my back, and for a moment

I could imagine it was my hair, finally long and flat like hers.

We went inside our house and she turned on ourSundowner radio: 's broken

hearted warnings against cheaters and longing love songs filled the room that served as

kitchen and parlour. Through the music we were connected to game park rangers in the

far-flung savannah, playing cards and cleaning their AK-47s, and every patron of every

zinc, lean-to tea-hotel with a battery operated radio in the slums mushrooming around the

city. Their lives were radio-wave invisible to me and in childhood bliss I imagined that

everyone lived like me.

If there was a world beyond the thorn hedge of Memsab’s property, I remember it

only as the radio broadcasts coming from the big house. The authoritative chime of the

BBC news hour would float from Memsab’s short-wave radio, as distant as the Bush

House Gardens from where it was broadcast. Kenya came to me from the kitchen, like a

dream language I should have remembered. It was the Swahili broadcast of the Voice of

Kenya news that Naomi listened to while preparing dinner for Memsab.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 I thought it was normal for Mum to warm dinner on a single gas burner, while I

filled glasses with water from the filter. I thought everyone ate boiled vegetables and rice

with Blue Band and meat was for weekends. English came to me first from the things

around me the names of food, kitchen utensils, and the already-leaning furniture in our

small house.

While she cooked, Mum talked, but I have forgotten what she said. She made me

practice my English, repeating tongue twisters after her.

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickles P

The stress fell hard on the vowels, each letter taking its own space as my tongue

was being tamed. The Kenyan accent picked up from Naomi, Patrick andshamba the

boys cut back like savannah grass. I remember her repeating each word, the British

inflections as stiff and bland as khaki. This was the same way Memsab had corrected

her, determined that her daughter would not speak with the tanned, British accent of too

many dry seasons spent in Africa.

I did not listen to Mum, so much as watch her lips. My memory of anything

before was cut away by her careful pronunciation. Her face was bright red and painfully

shiny under the single bulb hanging naked from the ceiling. I mimicked her until our

dinner was ready. We ate in the small square sitting room, our chairs pushed against the

walls and our plates held in our lap. Our forks talked to each other, scraping like Morse

Code across our plates.

After I turned seven, Mum became restless. When we finished dinner, she paced

our small house as if it were a cage. Some nights it was as if she were a lioness at

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 twilight, ready to hunt. Other nights, it was as if she were being hunted and after she

washed the dishes and turned them upside-down to dry, she would peer through the

windows, staring suspiciously at the shadows. Kubwa sat back in the comer and watched

her, his eyes twitching left-then-right, following her frantic nervous perimeter of our

parlour.

Mum’s restlessness was at its worst during the short rains, when October nights

were filled with the sounds of rain. In 1987,Mutukufu was preparing to celebrate ten

years of his rule, ten yearsNyayoism, of of following in the footsteps of the former

president Kenyatta. I had seen Patrick reading newspapers full of reports about the

decade ofNyayoism and on the radio I heardMutukufu’s speeches, the music of

traditional dancers, and other dignitaries praising his work as president.

“Shut that thing off,” Mum said, glaring at the radio and me.

“I’m just waiting for music to come back,” I told her,

“Shut if off. I’m tired of hearing that man.”

That man. No one called him that man. He was calledMutukufu. His

Excellency. He was the Honourable President. HeNyayo, was the one who followed the

footsteps of Kenyatta. Mum had never forced me to turn off the radio before; she

sounded suddenly like Memsab. I turned the radio off.

Mum poured herself another drink, mixing juice and alcohol in a small glass that

came free when we bought five hundred shillings worth of petrol. Ice, like diamonds,

chinked in her glass, floating in the juice made from local oranges, too sour for export,

good only for juicing and so sour they almost never ripened. More biting than any

alcohol they mixed with.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 “Can I have a sip?” I asked.

“Just a small one,” Mum said. She knew that if she made the drinks with mango

juice, that was as creamy as long-lasting UHT milk, I had the tendency to gulp too much

to quickly. The alcohol came from Memsab’s liquor cabinet, and the drinks were all the

colours of semi-precious gems found in Kenya.

I sipped the orange drink and coughed. It was papaya juice that tasted of too-

ripeness. I felt my lips pull downward with the sweet and rotting taste.

“A bit strong?” Mum laughed at me. Good night kisses, she called these

concoctions, strong as the traditionaldawa sold by herbalists. On better nights, Mum

offered toasts to our dingy walls, drinking them slowly. Drinking them until they slowed

her.

In the silence of the off-ed radio, I listened to her hard swallows.

“No one even voted for him,” Mum said aloud. Her face shone, almost glowing

in the light coming through from the security bulbs on the outside wall. “He was just

there when Kenyatta died.”

Mum had never talked about politics before. However, it had been an unusual

day. It had been warm and sunny, the first day of the dry season. Mum had spent all day

in the pool, swimming lap after lap. By noon, her skin -unusually pale because we had

spent most of the rainy season indoors -was bright and that night I could see that she was

sunburned. She sat staring through the window for a long time.

“We should go to bed,” she announced suddenly, standing up and stretching. She

left her glass still half-full on the counter.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49 In my room, I looked up at the shelf where the elephant that Julianne had given

me stood. In the mixture of moonlight and security lights, it glowed almost white.

Kubwa followed me into my bedroom and stayed on the floor only a moment before

jumping up to join me on the bed. Though I knew I should have pushed him to the floor,

I let him rest his head in my lap. I leaned against the wall that Mum and I shared, her

heat radiating towards my cheek that I pressed into the wall. The rays that Mum had

absorbed heated the house like a second sun and I waited, listening for her call.

“Jaci,” she called, painfully intoxicated. Her voice coming through the concrete

walls was cool and strong, like the pungent cocktails she had drunk all evening. Her

voice would be quiet, checking if I was asleep.

“Coming, Mum.” I knew what to do. I opened my door, went to the only sink we

had and filled a bright plastic basin with cool water. I did not need to turn on the bulb in

the ceiling; outside lights from Memsab’s house shone through out grill door. From the

triangle comer of a room that was our shower, I took the small hand towels that hung on

nails. The dropped the towels into the basin and watched as they soaked in the cool,

healing water.

When I went to Mum carefully balancing the full basin, she was be lying on her

sheets, a thin cotton, coastalkanga wrapped loosely across her chest and under her arms.

It sagged and revealed her sunburned back. I placed the basin on the floor, so it would

not spill onto the bed. I squeezed out each towel and spread it over her shoulders, her

back, her upper arms, or her legs. She sighed with painful gratitude. The iced water

burned her swollen and sore skin. It made my fingers numb and with stiff, clumsy

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 fingers I opened the glass bottle of Panadol pain-relievers she kept by the bed and offered

her two or three.

She took them, swallowing hard without water.

I waited beside her for the towels to warm with her body heat, while she lay with

her eyes closed tightly facing the wall. There was a glass on her bedside table, half-

empty, half-full of a mixed drink from which I would steal sips. My head filled with

shadowy dreams of vague figures that were comforting and familiar while I waited for

the towels to become warm enough to change. I would doze leaning against the wall,

until the banana leaves brushed against one another making soft taps that woke me. Eyes

half-open, I would watch the night sky through the high rectangle window slanted open

against the metal burglary bars that allowed a cool breeze to brush us, telling myself that

no one could come through those windows, cemented into the wall.

When I removed the towels, Mum moaned. While her back was bare, I studied

her sleek skin, trying to tell in the gray light how badly she had been burned. Then I

would begin to layer the fresh, chilled towels over her. Mum would hiss, suddenly

awake.

“Jacaranda,” she whispered to me, lifting one hand to caress my own un-sunned,

golden cheek, “You’re the answer to my prayers. I wished for a daughter.”

Inside, I felt bubbles of emotion rising like Eno medicine that Mum would take in

the morning, to settle her stomach and head, the white powder fizzing in the glass of

water. I waited, leaning against the wall until she feel asleep.

Sometimes, I dozed, snuggled against Mum, who in the night would put an arm

around me. Or sometimes she tossed violently, calling out in slurred, foreign words. I

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 would try to translate her moans into sentences before she kicked me awake and I would

stumble back to my own bed, taking her bad dreams with me.

Nightmares overpowered my attempt to create cool water dreams of swimming

and Mum in the pool. Dark shadows came from the forgotten parts of my memory and

shrieked through my sleep. I turned in the bed, restless. Frightened, clammy sweat

soaked my sheet and I tapped on my bed lightly until Kubwa crawled, half-disobedient,

half-happy next to me. I struggled to stay awake, against the unknowable revelations of

my nightmares.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52 5

There were nights when remembering the pool did not work and sleep brought

only nightmares. Nightmares that woke me up, and I would stare at the shadows on the

wall, not wanting to admit that I was afraid of the dark. I listened to the quiet night

sounds for danger that I could not put into words. I turned my head towards the distant

sound o f an occasional car driving down the almost empty Muthaiga roads. I was afraid

o f knocking sounds, lizards falling from tree branches to our roof. I waited for my

nightmares to become real; I planned how I would rush to Mum’s room and imagined

places where I could hide. While I practiced curling up tight, my hands over my head

and my knees covering my stomach, I would make webs of what I knew.

This is what I knew:

I knew Mum’s name was Sumer. I knew that she was a strong swimmer and that

breast-stroke was her favourite stroke. I liked floating on my back best of all. I knew

that she was a horrible cook and hated gardening. I knew that she likedSundowner,

mango juice, and bikinis. I knew her best friend in the whole world was Julianne. And

her second best friend was Uncle Peter. I knew that she was the only child Memsab had.

I knew Memsab was my grandmother. She liked gardening and taught Naomi

how to cook. She was a member of the East African Women’s League, Kenyan

Horticultural Society, and the Westlands Anglican Church. She had married my

grandfather, Horace, when she was twenty-one.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 I made up a safety net from the facts that I could list. Julianne was from

Mombasa. She owned a house on the beach and had a scar on her leg from being stung

by a man-o-war in Zanzibar one year.

I knew that I was bom on the fifth of November, a Wednesday. I knew my

birthday came on Guy Fawkes Day.

I was born in 1980, the first of the Nyayo years. The entire country believed in

Nyayoism, that it could bring peace, love, and unity. We thought we were following in the

footsteps of Kenyatta, who was still fresh in people’s faces, and his face was still on the

money. Though 1980 was the year that that too would change.

In November, the day before I was born, Mutuhfu would sign the new Nyayo

money. His face would appear on the new coins, the fifty-shilling and hundred-shilling

notes. These bills would replace the Kenyatta bills, circulating up-country in places

without newspapers or radios, carrying the face of the president.

After signing the notes, Moi looked sincerely into the eyes o f the press and said,

“I wish to see the Kenya currency stable and strong. ”

Everyone assumed he was talking about the money. There was already Moi

Avenue and Moi International Airport. Everyone cheered when yet another Moi’s Girls

School was opened. Moi promised a crackdown on corrupt ministers and those abusing

government positions. A new era in the footsteps of the old: Changes without change.

The clues o f what I did not know were hidden among my nightmares. All children

believe in monsters under the bed, in ghosts and spirits. Mine knocked down doors and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 carried guns. In my dreams, vague shadows were uniformed. And the screams that woke

me were my own, and the figures in my nightmares were silent.

I did not know where my father was at the time of my birth.

I did not know what Mum told Memsab about her brown baby.

I did not know what was really written on my birth certificate or how I came to be

named after a type of tree. I did not know the story of my birth. In a house where much

went unspoken, I knew better than to ask. Instead, I imagined the details of my own birth.

This is what I know:

It was 1980.

It was Wednesday and Guy Fawkes Day.

I know that the warm season was just beginning and the Jacarandas were in full

bloom. I know what the Jacaranda trees look like in full bloom, intense and magical. By

the end o f1980, Kenya would strike gold and there would be a brief rush as people

chased the shiny dream o f a life without poverty.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 6

Kubwa changed my life.

He was housebroken only if I woke early to let him out. It became our pattern

that early in the morning, he would urgently lick me awake, his paws on my shoulder. I

opened my eyes to the window, where the broad, striped banana leaves patted one

another awake and brushed against my wall. Muted dreams hung against the walls like

shadows from iron burglary bars in the window and I would turn on the light to chase

them away. The single bulb, naked and vulnerable, created a halo of yellow 60-watt

safety around me. For a moment, I would lean my head against the wall, listening for

Mum, knowing she would be finally into deep dreamless sleep. Then, I would wrap a

kanga under my arms and across my chest and let Kubwa out.

No matter how early I was up, Memsab was already in the garden, armed in thick

gloves and a broad-rimmed straw hat to protect her pale, English porcelain complexion.

Seeing me in the doorway, she would silently beckon me to her, her fingers opening and

closing. I went to her, beginning a reluctant new pattern between us.

Memsab inspected me the way she would an unruly plant in her garden, as if she

were contemplating pruning me. “Sumar still asleep?”

I nodded, but she did not need my answer.

Mum always slept in late. I wanted to explain that Mum had spent the night

pacing, preferring it to the dreams that closed on her sleep. When I had walked past her

door, it was shut tight against the long day.

“You mother’s crazy,” Memsab said, as if she were an authority on craziness.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 It was true that Mum did not talk much and when she laughed sometimes she

couldn’t stop. She would hug her arms around herself and her eyes would roll like green

marbles. But, it is also true that I had heard theshamba boys describe Memsab to Patrick

or Naomi asni mzungu-kizungu-zungu. The white person is crazy.

By that time, I spoke English, but was without the words to defend Mum. I could

not tell my grandmother about the familiar, untranslatable words that Mum would cry out

at night sometimes. Instead, I looked into Memsab’s green eyes until she turned away,

her attention back on the garden. My grandmother would walk slowly, clearing the way

with a pair of oversized clippers as if her manicured lawn was the rainforest of the

Abederes and not Muthaiga, already divided and tamed into colonial villas. The sullen

shamba boy trailed her, dragging a hose and machete behind him. And I followed the

shamba boy and Kubwa followed me.

I thought Memsab had magic. Birds-of-paradise on her porch grew so tall they

turned to trees, with flowers bigger than my hand with fingers outstretched. She had a

talent with orchids and ferns that grew into an orchestra of ballet slippers and

fiddleheads. Memsab grew her own tomatoes and peas, leaning on stakes, growing

slowly wrapping their tendrils around the stakes and one another. These grew quickly; I

could measure them by standing next to the plants, my feet in the rich, red soil, staining

my brand new Bata shoes, while I counted the number of peapods. Behind the tomatoes,

Memsab planted carrots, potatoes, and onions. These were more mysterious; I could not

watch them grow. I tried to imagine what they looked like under the soil, maybe they too

had flowers that bloomed beneath my feet. I used to pull up the carrots too soon and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 would hide my guilt by eating them unpeeled, washed only in tap-water and throwing the

feathery green tops into the pit where the garbage was burned.

“Why do you plant vegetables?” I asked Memsab. From P.T. I had learned that

most people had either gardens or farms, not both mixed together.

“So we always have something to eat,” Memsab replied.

“Why can’t we go to the Green Grocer?”

“The Green Grocer isn’t always open.”

“It only closes for holidays,” I reminded her. “Just a day or two.”

“Sometimes it stays closed longer then that. You’re just too young to remember.

Once it was closed for more than a week and we ran out of fresh foods. It was horrible.”

“Why did it stay closed?”

Memsab sighed heavily and turned to look at me. “There was an emergency.”

“The Emergency?” I asked, confusing it with the settler term for Kenya’s struggle

for independence in the Fifties. I had heard Memsab and her older lady friends talking

about those times in hushed voices, when there were curfews and passbooks. “That was

a forever ago.”

“No, no. Another emergency.” In those days no one talked about Kenya’s recent

political history or the coup that had happened in 1982. There were political informers

everywhere and, with theshamba boy trailing her, Memsab was even more reluctant to

tell me more of what happened. “It wasn’t a serious emergency. But the Indian

dukiwallas panicked and closed up their stores. That is how they are: always afraid that

Kenya is going to kick them out.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 “Why?” I asked, trying to imagine the Sikh owner of the green grocer closing up

his cash register early, barring up his store, and leaving. I couldn’t imagine it. One

Sunday we had stopped at his store after church and Memsab had said that as long as the

shilling was good, the store would never close.

“Because they were kicked out of Uganda,” Memsab said, without really

answering my question. She was probably relieved that the conversation had turned to

safer histories of neighbouring countries. “Not that they didn’t deserve it.”

“Why did they deserve to be kicked out?”

“Because they have no loyalty,” Memsab said. “All they care about is making

money, not building the country. Anyway,chutis are loud.”

Memsab returned her attention to the bougainvillea hedges that guarded the

property. I tried to imagine Kenya without the Indians who ran the shops all over town,

who sold us food, processed and fresh, bolts of cloth, and operated all the restaurants all

over town. I wondered what they had done to get kicked out of the Uganda and why they

didn’t want to build Kenya. Memsab toldshamba the boy when to prune and how to tuck

the new branches, still tender and thornless, back into the wire fence so that it grew

thicker each year.

Each year, Memsab watched my growth and gave Mum vegetables for me.

Memsab believed they would make my teeth whiter, my skin clear, my hair straighten

They never worked, except that maybe they made me stronger. But I loved the fruit, like

candy growing from trees strong enough to support the weight of a little girl. Oranges

and limes that smelled of citrus sweat and green blood when I tore their leaves into tiny

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 pieces, stirring them into water and dirt magic potions. My favourite was the thick,

satiny leaves of the mango tree that could hide me in its branches.

Memsab let the shamba boys plant maize andsukumawiki. And, eat fruit from the

trees. They would encourage me to pluck the green fruit, which they ate with salt. I

preferred the sweet mangos that ripened until they were the colours of sunset and their

flesh as smooth as butter. Export-quality. I collected avocadoes before they fell to the

yard, elongated and round. Their dark green, already wrinkled skin teased my fingers

with the ripe softness below.

“And, do not pick my bananas,” my grandmother toldshamba the boy.

“These bananas,” she said, remembering aloud and not really talking to me, “were

planted by your great-grandmother. The sweetest bananas in Africa.”

And she was right, the little baby bananas, only as long as my childish hand, were

so sweet they burst from their thin skins. I would pick them easily, ripping one from the

bunch and eating them, still shade-cool, straight from the tree.

It was Memsab who taught me that banana trees grow in threes. She explained to

me that there are three trees, like three generations: Granddaughter. Mother.

Grandmother. Three steps, one is rotting, the other with fruit, and the third a start of a

shoot. Away from the sun and the glare of the pool, the banana trees planted beside our

home, right outside my window, were my favourite hiding spot. At nights I could hear

the wind making their broad, stiff, green leaves rustle against one another, like whispers.

Memsab would order about the poor adolescent, as often as not straight from up-

country, with only a limited grasp of English. shamba Each boy, and there were dozens

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 that she hired in the course of my childhood, stood silently listening to her orders, barely

comprehending, and shamed to be ordered about by a woman. I forget their names. I

have forgotten almost all of their names. David. Ocheng. Johosaphat. AH. Patrick.

Kamau.

“When you prune this,” she would say pointing to a bush, “keep the shape. And

see this stem here, the way it is starting to bud? You must cut below the bud. Below-the-

bud. Here.”

The youth would dumbly nod his head, cowed into agreement. “Yes, Memsab.”

Other times, the shamba boy was an old man, wrinkled with wisdom, who sucked

the holes where the teeth were pulled in ancient, long-ago ceremonies of adulthood.

Always, the shamba boy was her shadow. Always darker than her, pressed as if flat

against the ground either stretched tall-and-thin or compact. She did, he copied. She

showed each of these men how to prune, to weed, and to mulch. What did they think of

this old woman, who gave them orders like a man? She spoke to them in English first.

Always following each order: “Do you understand?” Then repeating, “Do you?”

He might nod, still mute.

“Una aseje?” She was repeating herself, like Voice of Kenya playing the same

programs twice, always at the same time. One station in Swahili, the other in English.

Do you understand?

“Hapana, Memsab,” he admitted, shaking his head.

Then, she would explain the whole thing over again.Kiswahili. In Her Swahili

was good enough, competent and commanding. She knew how to ask for water, get

directions to bathrooms, say that the kitchen was filthy, that the clothes needed to be

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 folded, to point out what plant she wanted moved and to where, how to ask a weak

woman if she were pregnant, and how to compliment a cook. She knew how to tell

people to wash their hands.

She never believed their answers. She inspected their hands, her own held stiffly

at her side, as she looked at them, bringing her eyes close. She would make them turn the

palms up, then down. She would not be satisfied unless she spread their fingers.

Memsab was like a government inspector seeking a bribe in the ways she looked at the

skin around the nails and under. She was not bribable.

“Mano ni kipande” Patrick told the newshamba worker. With a machete he

cleaved off a square of the brown, smellypanga soap to share with him. The man took

the soap skeptically, not understanding that his employment depended on working up

suds from this unwilling cake of soap, rubbing it over his knuckles, creating weak foam

lather in the palms of his hands and cleaning under his nails.

“What’s kipandeV I asked him. I vaguely remembered thatmano meant hands.

“It is nothing,” Patrick told me. “It is only old things, from colonial times. Just a

thing that men had to wear.”

I wanted to ask him again and again. Before I could ask him again, Memsab

called me.

“Jacaranda,” her voice making my name sound like stone and metal, like

silverware falling on tile floor. “Jacaranda, come here.”

When I came to her she grabbed me by my arm and pulled me close.

“How many times have I told you not to botheraskariV the she hissed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 “I was just talking,” I replied, pulling away my arm. I was so distracted by her

anger that I forgot about thekipande mystery. It would be years later, when I was finally

in school that I would hear about the papers, stamped with permission to travel, inky

thumbprints and identification photos that men were forced to wear about their necks in

metal boxes. Even then I would be slow to make the connection between the Kenyan

kipande and Apartheid passbooks.

“Do you not understand me?” Memsab asked. “You are to leave him alone.”

“Why?” I rubbed at the soreness her grip had left, wishing that my skin had

bruised, because maybe that would make her sorry.

“Because he has work to do.”

Patrick had turned his gaze back to the gate, as if our conversation was not about

him. His earlobes were traditionally pierced and stretched, so he now wrapped them over

the top ofhis ears so they looked like he was blocking out our words. He would be

shining hisrungu, as if his salary were determined by the deadly smoothness of the

traditional Maasai club.

“What work?” As far as I could tell his only job was to open and close the gate. I

could not understand what he was doing just sitting in the shade ofhis guardhouse, his

radio hidden under his spare uniform so that he could turn it on as soon as Memsab was

out of earshot.

“Important work,” Memsab answered, her fingers pinching deep into my arm.

“Do you understand?”

Hapana. No, I never did.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 In my memory, Memsab always stands next to me, in gardening gloves and a

broad-rimmed straw hat to protect her pale, English porcelain complexion. I remember

her warnings against the Moon-Flowers, which grew upside down and released a smell

that called me like Pied Piper, but were as poisonous as Memsab’s warnings. She

showed me the Touch-Me-Not that curled slowly upon itself like a whispering tongue

when I traced its fronds with a fingernail and would open again when it thought I was

gone.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 7

Not that I was alone in my ignorance.

According to Memsab, the shamba boys were ignorant, because they thought

water was free in Nairobi and let it run wastefully from the hose into the grass of the

lawn. Women with more than three children were ignorant and irresponsible, having

more children then they could afford to feed and educate. Patrick was ignorant, because

he spent too much time gossiping with the other guards on the street. He listened to

Memsab’s monthly abuse when he asked for an advance on his salary, asking him why he

couldn ’t budget his money. Mum beside the pool, face turned to the sun, had the sense of

an overgrown salamander.

Memsab was not going to let us remain blissful in our ignorance.

She continually ran a public education program campaign -more efficient than

any organized by the Ministry of Health -for the benefit of everyone who came through

her gate. More than that, she believed in washed hands the way she believed in God.

The way we were supposed to believe in the KANU government that provided public

education against domestic violence and billharzia. Memsab worried about cleanliness,

and ignored the traditional handshakes with people who had dirt under their nails.

She insisted in cleanliness and inspected everyone’s hands: The shamba boy

whenever he crossed her path, Naomi before she cooked or set the table, and Patrick on

rainy days when he escorted her from her car to the door with a large green-and-white

Barkley’s Bank umbrella.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65 Since I was still a child and had a chance to improve myself, Memsab took my

instruction most seriously. Each Saturday night, she would take me into her bathroom

and make me sit on the edge of the bathtub while she cleaned under my nails.

“Hold still, ” she commanded me, as she straightened her half-moon glasses on

her nose. “I don’t want to hurt you. ”

I sat still, my stomach flinching as she probed into the soft skin under my

chlorine-bleached nails with the metal arm of her nail clippers. My fingers spread over

her hard, flat hand. Then she would shine a flashlight into my ears.

“There is enough dirt to plant maize in there, ” she said, as she cleaned my ears

out with a cotton swab. “Doesn’t Sumar ever look in your ears? Hold still. ”

This was our Saturday night ritual, because Sunday morning I went with her to

Church. She made me, she let me, she encouraged me- to soak in her bathtub. She

filled it with almost scalding water and poured in pink bathsalts from a glass bottle. She

left me alone, to undress and bathe.

“Don’t get your hair wet, ” she reminded me. “I don’t want to have to try to

comb it out tonight. ”

After grimy hands and dirt under the fingernails, Mesmab was determined to

eradicate malaria. I didn’t really know what malaria was. Headaches, woman-pains,

depression, and strained muscles were all called malaria. I knew that bitter pills, all

named after quinine, were remedies that were sold individually over-the-kioski tablets by

Indian pharmacists. Bad cases of malaria required an injection, directly into the

buttocks, from a doctor. From really bad cases, there was no cure.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 “Each year mosquitoes kill more people than elephant, hippo, and lion attacks

combined. ” Memsab said, over-and-over.

The one thing I knew for certain was that malaria was caused mosquitoes and

getting rid of malaria meant getting rid of mosquitoes. After sundown, Mum lit mosquito

coils and the sweet, poison smell cloaked us, and scented our dreams. As soon as it

started to get dark, Memsab rushed Naomi around the house to shut the windows and

close the curtains, because mosquitoes attracted to the lights inside were sure to try to

get in through the windows. Memsab used sweeter, stronger smelling pellets that were

heated on electric mosquito zappers. The plastic saucers had to be kept away from

curtains, lest they start a fire.

During the rainy season, Mum patrolled the yard seeking out any shallow puddles

of water that had filled during the night. She made theshamba boy follow her, carrying a

bag o f sand mixed with red dirt and a small spade, to cover any possible mosquito

breeding-grounds. She made all buckets be emptied and turned upside down in storage,

fearing that mosquitoes would spawn even in an inch of collected water. Each morning,

the shamba boy walked around the perimeter o f the pool to fish out any mosquito larva.

I knew to fear the water coming from our taps, corrupted by months in decaying

reservoirs, open journeys in old pipes, collecting rust and bacteria. Memsab decreed

that all water used to brush teeth, cook or drink must be boiled and then filtered. Failure

to do so meant that our bodies would be invaded by all manner of invisible-to-the-naked

eye parasites that would inhabit our tender livers, stomachs, eyes, and intestines. Any

itching or loose bowels or extending stomachs made one a candidate a deworming

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 treatment. Once a year, Memsab gave me large, chalky pills every day for a week After

I choked them down with large glasses o f Ribena black-currant juice from concentrate,

Memsab rewarded me with a biscuit.

When the shamba boy reported that he found white, wiggly worms in the Kubwa’s

shit, Memsab took us all to the vet. The tall, delicate Indian woman lifted him onto the

table without a struggle and shone her light in his ears and his eyes and gave us a small

white envelope fdled with medicine. Memsab made me hold down Kubwa, while she

force-fed him pieces of bread soaked in salty beef broth made from Mchuzi beefbuillion

powder that held the tablets from the vet. Kubwa would eat the bread and cough up the

white tablet, scraping his tongue against his teeth. Memsab took the sticky, spitty tablet

from the floor and pried open his jaws. She dropped it to the back of his throat and held

his mouth closed.

“Good boy, ” she said, then blew a sharp burst of air down his nose.

Kubwa swallowed and sneezed. Then sat and waited for his dog-biscuit reward.

“That is how we used to make you swallow pills, ” Memsab told me.

Mum, careless about everything else, was careful to warn me away from the

boiling water. A large pot bubbling dangerously for the magical twenty minutes, gulping

greedily from the gas tank that kept the blue flame underneath flickering. When it

cooled, she would lift the great pot with care and pour into the red-clay, double-decker

filter. A small spout at the bottom released shadow-cool water into my glass.

More than she feared malaria, mosquitoes or unwashed hands, Memsab feared

blood. She feared blood the way the shamba boys feared snakes. The way KANU feared

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 the Mwakenya. The way Mum feared the police. Nairobi Hospital tested all donated

blood for HIV, but this was before the Government ofKenya admitted that AIDS existed

and there were no posters advocating safe sex or advertising condoms. This was before

those acronyms were spoken every day on the radio and before there were rumours of

mosquitoes spreading the infections.

A bleeding shamba boy was enough to send Memsab into a panic. She would

stand a great distance away from him, scrutinizing a thorn puncture wound as if it were a

poisonous snake. She kept plastic gloves in her First Aid kit and would put them on

before washing the wound and painting it with stinging iodine. I knew the amber sizzle of

iodine, Memsab having spread it over my own nicks and scrapes.

I would hide my scrapes from Memsab, waiting for Mum to wake up.

Mum would kiss my still soft scabs and cover them with sticking plasters. Then

she made herself black coffee and waited for the day’s drinking water to boil. Then, as

the water cooled and the sun came high over Nairobi, Mum put on her swimming

costume, a two-piece bikini, and dove into the pool. She started by doing endless laps

and I would float in the waves her strokes made, the plaster coming lose and floating

away.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69

I was sitting in the shade of the banana trees watching a spider build its web under

the veined tent of a banana leaf when I heard a man’s voice burst with pain. It was

Patrick who called Memsab from the kitchen, his voice an urgent alarm.

I went running and found the young boy, his eyes wide with fright and fear,

holding closed the wound in his calf. He was our newestshamba boy, a careless, tall

adolescent who had only been working for us for three weeks.

“How did that happen?” I asked, pointing at his leg.

“A-shh,” Patrick said, his attention turned on the bleeding boy. Gently, he tried to

pry away the boy’s hands, so he could see how much damage had been done. Kubwa

came up, sniffing curiously and Patrick clapped his hands, cursing him away.

“Memsab is coming,” Patrick told the boy who started to cry. “She will take you

to the hospital.”

I found the machete in the grass. Its blunt handle kissing the dirt, its glinting,

sharp edge still bright with the blood the boy had left. I ran my finger along the blade

and my finger came away red.

“Stop it!” Memsab yelled at me. Without even looking at the boy, she grabbed

my hand up and rubbed my fingers in an old towel, bitterly coarse from too many

washings. The blood on my finger spread into the terry cloth in octangle stain the size of

a five-shilling coin.

“Do you want to die?” Memsab asked, still bending my fingers with her

scrubbing.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 I started to whimper, shaking my head. “I wasn’t going to cut myself. I was

being careful.”

“Careful?” Memsab snorted, calming a bit. “There is no such thing as careful.

How many times have I told you not to touch blood? Go inside and wash your hands.”

Memsab’s hands were ivory in latex gloves. She turned away from me, her eyes

still worried as she wrapped the towel around the bleeding leg. She gave Patrick several

large plastic bags to wrap around the leg, so that it would not soak through the towel and

stain her car. So that she would not have to touch his blood.

When she turned and saw me still watching. “I said go inside and wash up.”

I ran into the kitchen where Naomi was picking rice. She made me rub my

fingers in the plastic tub of gritty, green Axion dish-washing soap. While I washed my

hands lemon-sparkling clean, Memsab droveshamba the boy to the hospital. When I

came out, Patrick was at the gate, lethargically nodding his head to the traditional music

hour on the radio station.

Without Memsab, the yard was suddenly empty and busy at once. Naomi came

out of the house and sat with Patrick in the shade, drinking a Fanta she had brought from

the pantry. They talked to one another in the privacy of Swahili, fanning themselves with

slanted-rectangle lids from plastic Lyon’s Maid Ice Cream containers. The odd-

polygonal lids had never properly closed the containers and it was as if they had been

made for some other purpose. Perhaps for this: sitting in the shade and talking and

fanning.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 “What are you doing?” I asked, leaning over Naomi’s solid back. I was standing

so close to her, I could smell the hairdressing she used through the plaid, cotton headscarf

she wrapped over her comrowed hair.

“Talking adult things,” she said.

“Like what?” I asked. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to tell Memsab you’re

drinking our sodas.”

“'Memsahib said we should drink soda,” Naomi said.

I looked at her skeptically, weighing the truth of the statement.

“Water is being rationed,” she reminded me. “So, it makes more sense to drink

soda.”

It was true that throughout my childhood water cuts had been frequent in

Muthaiga, if not all of Nairobi. For days, sometimes weeks, no matter how far I twisted

the cold-water tap it would give nothing but a dry groaning sound. The water heaters in

the house held a few precious litres of water, but we could not use all of them or the dry

tanks would crack with internal thirst and have to be replaced at great expense. Memsab

bought water from the trucks that drove down our roads. Black, plastic jerrycans lined up

along the side of the kitchen and water was measured out with Memsab’s stingy

precision. Water used to wash the dishes was kept to dampen the red-dust that made its

way from the drying flowerbed to our driveway and swirled around the car tires.

When water was rationed, Mum and I bathed only every other day in Memsab’s

house. The bottom of the tub was lined with only a few inches of water and Memsab

bathed first. Then a red bucket of two steaming kettles of hot water and the rest cool

water straight from the jerrycans was added, and I bathed. Then another red bucket of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 water was added so that Mum could bathe. Our bathwater was then saved to use to flush

the toilets and we all used the same toilets. The rule for the toilets was the yellow was to

mellow, and if possible the toilet was only flushed at the end of the day.

I wandered away from Memsab and Patrick, unable to argue with her about the

water. Kubwa followed me, his fur redder than usual and stiff. I patted his head and my

hand came away tinted with the dust embedded on his short hair. The water had been

gone for longer than usual; in my childhood sense of time it seemed like months. Our

supplies were so low that Kubwa was no longer getting his weekly baths and instead I

had to comb him with a narrow tooth comb to prevent fleas or ticks, but the dust

remained.

“Are you thirsty?” I asked my dog.

His tongue lolled out of his mouth, the usual pink almost white. Kubwa followed

me to the kitchen, where he stood at the door and wagged his tail hopefully. I filled his

water bowl and he drank greedily.

I went to Mum who was lying beside the pool. Even the pool had been emptied,

because the water had been used to flush toilets and mop the floors. Then Memsab had

the last few feet drained because it had become stagnant, a mosquito breeding ground. I

had seen Patrick and theshamba boy fill several empty yellow cooking oil bottles with

the water before they emptied the pool.

“Memsab took theshamba boy to the hospital,” I told Mum.

“What happened?” Mum asked, without opening her eyes.

“He cut himself.”

“Really? Was it bad?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. “He’ll probably need stitches.”

“I hope she doesn’t fire him,” Mum said. “He just started working here and

deserves a second chance.”

I sat on the edge of the pool and looked at the still-glossy blue tile. I missed the

daily swimming and would have given anything to dip into the chlorine-sweet water of

the cool pool. My whole body felt thirsty, the kind of thirsty that only a day in water

would quench. I longed to soak until my fingers turned into raisins. When I lay beside

the pool, pretending like Mum, I felt lonelier for the pool. And with water rationing there

were no parties, because there was no pool to swim in and we could not spare the water it

would take to offer drinks and flush toilets behind guests.

“What’s wrong?” Mum asked, sitting up.

“I want to swim.”

“Me too,” Mum said. “I miss the water.”

Memsab came back alone. She had given the boy bus fare and the rest of the day

off. Before going into the house, she stopped to talk to Patrick. I crept around the back

ofhis guard hut to listen to her tell him about the many, many stitches thatdoctari the

had to put into the leg and how stupid the boy was to have cut himself in the first place.

“He is going to be too much bother to teach,” Memsab told Patrick. “I should

send him back up-country. He should be in school.”

“But Madam,” Patrick protested, turning his hands upward in a sign of

resignation. “His family has no money for school fees for so many children, so he has

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 come to Nairobi to work. His father has two wives and many children. He’s the oldest

and it’s his job to help provide for them and to save for a dowry.”

“Dowry? For a wife? He isn’t even old enough for this work. The boy can

hardly take care of himself, so how will he take care of a wife?”

Patrick shrugged and wiped his forehead with a patched handkerchief that was

monogrammed with the initials E.J.C.

“You don’t look well,” Memsab said.

“It’s malaria,” Patrick said. He returned the handkerchief to his pocket.

“It’s too many nights in town,’ Memsab said. “Looking for a good time.”

Patrick shrugged, not listening to Memsab.

He was prone to malaria, which made him irritable and feverish. When he was

sick, he drank weak tea and chewedmirra sticks until his eyes were red, blood-shot, and

wild. Memsab sighed, peeled the gloves from her hands, and put them into the dustbin

beside the guard hut. When she went into the house, Patrick salvaged the now pink-with-

blood gloves and put them into a bucket of water to wash. I went back to watching the

spider spin his web.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 9

This is what I knew:

That everyday at six o ’clock the night askari would come to relieve Patrick. I

knew that when the fresh askari rang the bell, my draughts game with Patrick ended, even

if we had just begun. Even if he was about to beat me, Patrick would open the gate and

greet the night askari in hushed tones, shaking hands again and again. Then Patrick

would turn off his radio and take out the batteries, keeping them in his pocket. I knew

that this was to make them last longer.

Then Patrick would check his wallet, just to ensure that he had the license for his

radio and bicycle. He would unfold the permits quickly, as if making sure that he still

had the right to own both. I knew that he had to have both with him at all times, when he

left our compound, carrying both these prized possessions back to his home. I knew that

the police could stop anyone on a bike or listening to a radio and demand that they

produce the slips of paper.

What I did not know is what the police would do if he did not have them.

“Lala salamaa, ” I told Patrick. Sleep with peace.

Good -bye. He would give me the simpler reply that hung without emotion,

“Kwaheri. ”

I never imagined Patrick outside our gate.

I knew Patrick only during the days as he walked around our yard, bearing with

paid patience Kubwa’s spoiled, attention-begging, mzunguhabits. I knew Patrick as a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 patient man, who I bothered with my boredom. Instead of chasing me away, during the

afternoon heat he taught me how to play draughts.

All the askaris on the street held tournaments to determine who was the best

player on the street. In my memory, Patrick wins these friendly competitions as often as

not. This makes him the champion as on a red-and-black checkered board he spread the

pieces, really only bottle-tops from sodas, turned up or down. He beat me steadily, time

after time. While he kept most of my bottle-top down pieces, I was able to take only one

or two of his bottle-top up pieces. These I surrendered back to him, when his pieces

reached the finish line, jumping graceful, as a gazelle over my clumsy, childish strategy

and luck.

“King me, ” he would say. Triumphant and kind.

And I would stack another bottle-top above his. Kinged.

I never knew anything about his life outside our compound.

I never imagined that he might be king outside our gate, that somewhere beyond

Muthaiga he was a king of a man. I never realized that his uniform made him askari an

only within our compound.

I never imagined Patrick at night, leaving our compound. Riding his black-

mamba bike across town, without reflectors. Ringing the small, made-in-China bell

against the rough-and-tumble downtown traffic. I never imagined his house, in the

village at the end of town. I never knew if it was a traditional mud-walled hut, or made

from the wood and metal sheeting discarded by factories.

At the edge of my imagination Nairobi grew slowly, its borders stretching wider

and wider as it filled with the emptying villages. People came to Nairobi lured like moths

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 to the electric-bright promise of jobs, money to be made, and things to be bought with

cash salaries. Nairobi was filled with men like Patrick. In another time, those men

would be warriors. Instead, they populated the shantytowns and slums that were at the

end o f the mataturoutes.

I could not imagine Patrick having a different destiny. I could not imagine him

with a leather shield in one hand, spear in the other. I could not imagine him dancing

with agemates, bringing his heel down into the dirt-packed down by the dancing of his

forefathers. I never imagined him dancing, sweat-gleaming and magical. I never knew

that he had his own rituals of prayer and courtship. I never imagined that the meaning of

the village life was beginning to evaporate.

I never imagined the Friday nights that Patrick would spend, drinking Tusker or

traditionally brewed beer. Or imported packets of vodka, the size of his hardened thumb.

That he might have looked at alcohol the same way Mum did. I never understood that

Patrick was a man cut off from his bloodline -forwards and backwards. Children and

ancestors rarely made the journey to Nairobi. He joined the other city-single men, who

left their wives in villages to take care of their children, their land, and their ancestors.

Here they were lost, unhookedfrom their tribes. They kept company with one another,

remembering their boyhood dreams of an independence that never quite came.

Remembering village days, herding cattle and farming. Remembering those days without

the bitterness and hunger that brought them from up-country.

They reminisced in restaurants called hotels, while eating nyoma choma,smoking

Rooster cigarettes and playing cards. The battery operated radio turned down, until

someone brought a stretched, pirated copy of West African lingala music. These foreign

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 tunes were familiar. This music brought women, unlike their wives. Women who

straightened their hair, wore bright lipstick, and rubbed Somali perfume, desert-

dangerous between their breasts. Women who wore bras and lipstick, and removed their

kangas to reveal short-shorter skirts. Women who could be bought without cattle bride-

price. City women, who could be bought for city wages.

I never imagined that Patrick would stand up in those packed, sweat-stinking

restaurants that sold illegal changa, the homemade brew that blinded men. He risked his

sight for escape. When the music started, he staggered to his feet, remembering the

dances o f the village he could not forget. And with a woman pressed close he would

remember that he was descended from chiefs and warriors. That he had passed the test

of manhood. The women knew how to dance, seducing him to the dark comers where he

was still king. Kinged.

These were city women who knew how to stir the blood o f lonely city men.

Those were the days when no one understood the ways blood was dangerous.

Almost no one. And those who did were under strict orders not to tell anyone

about the mysterious disease that killed everyone who contracted it. Traditional

herbalists began to make a fortune on this disease called a figment of the white man’s

imagination and a punishment from God. The disease traveled into and out of Nairobi,

fully heterosexual, along the main roads like blood through veins. It came to rest at

truck-stops, bars, malikas, and home to villages and co-wives and unborn children. Too

many hospitals selected blood donors based on the appearance o f looking-healthy, since

tests were too expensive to run. Since it did not really exist, except as a lie told by the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 outside world, a world trying to blame Africa. Besides, Mutukfu had become an ostrich,

hiding from foreign reports that Africa was the home ofyet-another, deadly virus. As if

AIDS were Amnesty International, falsely accusing the government of using torture to

demand secrets from professors and writers in the bowels ofNyayo House.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80

During the warm season, when the pool was bluest, shimmering, most inviting,

Mum held parties on Saturday afternoons. There was barbequing and music and her

friends dancing, swimming, sunning. The men drank Tusker, turning the branded-

elephant on his head, sucking the golden beer from the brown necks of glass bottles.

They wanted to forget their weekday problems of car garages, photo shops, and tour

companies. They drank to forget the toil of fallen aristocracy, who had lost their land to

revolutions and labour, and were left without even the middle class education and frugal

sensibilities. The women rubbed baby oil over one another, with flat open palms over

thighs and necks with tickling fingers, until all shades of pale, pink and yellow whiteness

glistened. The backs of string bikinis were untied so tans would be uninterrupted by the

threads of decency. A stereo pumped British rock into the equatorial skies and they

danced, flirted, forgetting that they were no longer frolicking teenagers, remembering

their heritage as descendents of the Happy Valley Tribe. Still Happy. Still striving after

slippery happiness.

Mum was a tall and thin queen. Her blonde hair that had lightened in streaks was

her crown of gold and a cape swaying behind her. The men watched her with their eyes

narrowed to slits against the sun, many of them former boyfriends and school chums.

When she passed offeringsamosas, they reached for her taut waist and tightly drew her to

their bare chests, and brushing her cheek with their scratchy beards. My mother looked

ripe, as if she were a banana bursting from the peel of her swimming costume and her

laughter was sweet. She talked louder when the men pulled at her; she lightly slapped

their arms and dodging smiles. When a man held her, Mum would pull back her

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 shoulders, but that only brought her hips closer to his. Wives, other women, lounging

around the pool would laugh at her, but their eyes flooded with jealousy. My mother met

their eyes evenly with her unnerving green stare that claimed no one. The women would

blush and suck in their stomachs, their waists already thickened from bearing the children

that were my playmates.

“Sumar,” Julianne would call from her seat in the shade, her voice rising above

the music as suddenly shrill and bright as her cropped, red hair.

“What?” Mum replied, irritated. But, she would always go to Julianne leaving a

man’s arms empty, cupping her shadow.

Julianne used her voice to protect Mum from the sidelong glances of the other

women. “Sumar,” Julianne could say her name like no one else, her voice at once shy

and commanding:“Nataka samosa.” Or she might ask, “Would you please get me a

glass of juice?” She asked Mum to bring anything. Anything to bring Mum away from

the suspicions that would stain her.

Julianne’s lips turned down, and her voice would be soft: “I need sunscreen.”

Mum sighed heavily, peeling herself away, and sat down on the bench beside

Julianne. Mum held upside-down a Nivea-blue bottle of sunscreen and poured the thick

lotion in a cold line along Julianne’s spine until she hissed and shrieked.

“Aw, too bad,” Mum offered false sympathy, her nimble fingers already

spreading the lotion across Julianne’s pale, freckled back.

“Cold as shit!” Julianne complained. “Is that necessary?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 “Ask yourself,” Mum would hiss, but by then she would not be angry anymore.

She spread the sunscreen all the way to the nape of Julianne’s neck and her dark auburn

curls that floated over Mum’s fingertips.

“You are so pale,” Mum would say. “You really ought to get more sun.”

“I’ll only bum,” Julianne predicted, but she reached her hand and placed it on

Mum’s shoulder. “I only wish I could tan like you.”

“You’ll never tan sitting under the shade,” Mum would say, pleased with her new

colour. Mum would hold her arm next to Julianne’s to compare. Her arm, oiled like a

sausage just lifted from a pan, would be hot to the touch and dark. The other women

would watch this, already tasting the pebbles of gossip that had slid under their tongues.

Mum was always the darkest, except for me. She would call me laughingly from the

pool, and dripping I would stand before her. My mother would pull me close to her, so

that her hot dry skin kissed my cool wet skin.

“Jaci, darling,” she would say, challenging those women with her eyes. “Oh, look

at your colour!”

I nodded, wordless as if I still did not speak English.

“She needs sunscreen,” Julianne told tell Mum.

“Don’t be silly,” Mum snapped, as she dried me with her towel and turned to the

jealous women, showing me off like a golden statue. “She does not bum. It seems that

she just turns browner and browner. Such a lovely colour.”

“Lovely,” the women agreed, their thin lips in tight smiles.

Mother would push my springy hair away from my face, burying her fingers into

its tightly curled wetness. Her fingers reached my hidden scalp, an itching caress that felt

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 good. I shook her hand loose of my head and ducked away, roughly trying to flatten my

disobedient, wild hair and jumped impatiently into the pool. Air bubbles rushed around

me, slipping past my folded body. When my feet touched the bottom, I pushed to the

surface. Surrounded by the other children, my eyes stung from chlorine and tears.

My towheaded playmates were playing Marco-Polo in the water.Marco. Polo.

Marco? Polo! And I could join, without saying anything, splashing into the water and

distracting Marco, making Polo laugh. They welcomed me back to their game, blindly,

feeling with outstretched hands.You ’re cheating! Am not! Are too! Are three! Marco?

If P.T. were Marco, I would watch him straining with his eyes closed and fingers

outstretched, the sunlight glistening off his wet hair, the water making it almost brown

and the glare turning it glossy.

“Polo,” I would call with the other children, my voice only a whisper in the

chorus of voices, but tantalizingly close. I would tread water just out of his reach,

occasionally splashing him lightly on the back of his neck. “Polo.”

He would come after me, the person closest, but the trickiest, slipperiest

swimmer. I could dive under the water and in just a stroke pull away from him.

“Marco?”

“ Polo!”

I couldn’t call Polo when I was underwater, so close that the others laughed and

pointed. They shouted to hints to guide and confuse him.

“Polo!” I called when I surfaced, my voice alone. Teasing him still.

“Marco?” he questioned, his voice becoming shrill with frustration.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 “Polo,” I answered, now not swimming away, letting P.T. come close, his

outstretched fingers, finally brushing my skin. When he would open his eyes, I would be

facing him. Caught. I could be Marco. I could close my eyes and listen for their voices

and P.T.’s voice mixed with theirs:Polo! With my eyes closed I could imagine his

mouth making tight round O’s, just like his thin lips that were so ungenerous with

vowels.

We played together the fierce water games of children who are unafraid of

drowning. We played touch-tag, wrestling, lost-and-found, racing the length of the pool,

and dive and seek. And my favorite game: Who can stay under water longer? Longest?

Always me!

I won, because I practiced holding my breath, even when I was not underwater. I

would count slowly, because maybe then I would become invisible. Maybe that way

time would pass more quickly, my lungs full to capacity, bursting and burning for

oxygen, but only allowing tiny bubble to escape in small sips of pain. The bubbles would

rise to the surface, tickling my nose and breaking under the chins of the other children, as

they turned red then redder.

They came up, gasping for air. And, when I finally came out of the water and

could breathe again, the air would be sweeter. Fresher. And, I was the winner. I would

be saluted by my agemates, the warrior-winner.

I loved them. P.T. most of all, because I saw him most often when Uncle Peter

came to visit my mother. I wanted them to love me: Luke Thatcher the oldest of the kids,

too-cool-to-hang-out-with; Tara and Timmy -the twins who spoke in their own language;

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85 Julian who died in a head-on collision with a lorry when he was only eight; the four

Duncan boys: Dillian, David, Daniel, and Darren while Mrs. Duncan kept trying for a

daughter. In my memory, they each come back to me in the colours that white skin tans

and bums. I loved each of them, even Margery who I knew was in love with P.T. and her

younger brother, Colin, who peed in the pool. I wanted to be one of them, one of the

displaced on the African continent, lost and wandering. How could I not love those blue

eyed children, sunburnt, and snobbish? They were my only family. I was the half-black

member of this white tribe.

But, sometimes it did not matter so much after we all climbed out of the cooling

pool waters, to dry ourselves on the concrete hot from the days’ sun. We would count the

drops running from our trembling bodies, over our goose-bumped skin, and back onto the

concrete. P.T.’s Mum would spread a towel over his back backs, warning him that the

Nairobi night air was getting cold.

I watched closely, when she called P.T. to her, made him stand before her, so she

could roughly towel his hair dry. When she stood next to P.T., I realized how short she

actually was, not much taller than many of the older kids. Her hair was a dark brown that

she coloured regularly to reddish tones or highlighted in shocking streaks of blonde. She

always wore a watch, never taking it off. But then again, she rarely swam at our parties.

She sat on the poolside furniture like a lifeguard, watching P.T. jump in and out of the

water and telling us not to dive in the shallow end.

From the time Doreen arrived, she seemed almost ready to leave. She only

nibbled at food, that she held in paper napkins instead of eating straight from the serving

dishes or taking her own plate. After Uncle Peter opened a bottle of beer and took a sip,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 she would take it from and drink the rest. She leaned on to him, her head barely reaching

his shoulder. Then, as soon as it started to get dark, she stood up and put jeans on over

her swimming costume.

“Get dressed,” she would say to P.T., her voice crisp. “It’s time to go.”

The other adults would protest, their voices softer and rounded. “It’s still early,”

one would say. “Doreen, come have another drink, first.”

P.T. would already be gathering his clothes, a towel wrapped around his skinny

waist.

“Peter,” she would call to her husband, “It’s time to go.”

Uncle Peter would stand up, very steady and very still against the jeers of the

other men.

“Too-Well-Trained,” was the joke.

“She has you,” another added.

“Show her who’s the man!”

“Who wears the pants?”

I watched him, squinting up at his silhouette as thin as a shadow. In that moment,

I wished that he was my real uncle and I could say something in his defense so that

everyone would know how strong he really was. At our parties he blended among the

other men, mostly sitting on a bench and drinking beer until one of the women pulled him

to his feet begging him to dance. If I got out of the pool while he was dancing and

grabbed hold of his hand, he would call me Little Lady and swing me up on his shoulders

and turn around and around. For this I loved him most of all.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 Doreen would start gathering up her things, draping towels over her arm and

making a show of her impatience.

From Uncle Peter’s shoulder I could see P.T. sitting at the edge of our pool with

the other little boys, kicking his feet as hard as he could. I could see P.T.’s mum, always

Mrs. Edinbourgh and never Aunt Doreen, with her hands on her hips and her foot beating

impatiently against the music. My Mum would reach for me, scolding Uncle Peter to be

gentle, to be careful, to go slowly. And something in her voice broke the spell, when

Uncle Peter put me back on the ground everything would return to its proper place.

“Are you ready?” Mrs. Edinbourgh repeated herself. “I’m ready to go.”

“Coming, Doreen,” Uncle Peter would say. He shook hands with the other men

and they thumped his back. He took time to seek out Mum, hugged her stiffly and said,

“Thanks for having us.” He said, “Good-bye.”

“It’s early,” Mum protested, trying to reach for his hand. “Stay just a little

longer.”

“Doreen’s ready to go,” he told her. Then, he turned to P.T and told him,

“Remember your manners. Say good bye to Aunt Sumar and Jacaranda.”

“Good-bye, Aunt Sumar,” P.T. said as he shook Mum’s hand. Mum always

pulled him to her, hugging him tightly. I noticed that his blonde hair was just a little

darker than hers.

“Little Lady,” Uncle Peter called to me, opening his arms.

I always ran to him, drawn like metal to magnet. “You promised to dance with

me,” I protested, trying to make him stay a little longer. Even the length of a song. The

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 length of a hug, with his strong arms around me and my face pressed to his cotton shirt

that smelled of cologne and stale sun.

“Next time, Little Lady,” he would promise. “Next time.”

“Let him go,” Julianne said, taking my hand, but looking at my mother.

Julianne stayed after everyone else had left, helping Naomi collect the dishes

scattered about. It was my job to find the glass bottles set in the long grass and put them

back into the wooden or plastic crates. The soda bottles, abandoned by other children sat

half-full, three-quarters empty, or with just a few sips on the bottom. I poured the bright,

sugary, flat soda into the garden, around plants. I segregated among the slated, wooden

crates: ribbed, clear Fanta bottles shared a crate with the green Sprite and Bitter Lemons

and there was a full crate of thin-waisted, womanly shaped classic Coke bottles.

“You could be a bit more helpful,” Julianne said to Mum, almost impatiently.

“I’m in charge of music.” She was tuning our radio, all her attention fixed on the

small battery operated box. After static and sounds from nonexistent transmitters, she

finds KBC English. Sundowner. Broken-hearted, abandoned, and alone. American

voices: Dolly Parton, Percy Sledge, Harry Belefonte, Johnny Cash, and Gladys Knight

layer on top of one another.

“That’s the problem with you, Sumar. You have no sense of responsibility. You

sit here and act as if you are a teenager able to spend your days just bumming around the

pool.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 The radio announcer interrupted Julianne’s speech, he repeated the titles of the

last few songs. He tried to make his Kikuyu accent sound smooth, as if he were being

broadcast from Atlanta or New York. As if he did not reverse his r’s and /’s.

“Do you think I picked this life?”

“You need to take charge of your life.”

I was looking for the hard-to-fmd earth-coloured glass beer bottles that hid in the

shadows, a shade darker than the soil, but richer. I could smell their fermenting hops, the

last drops sour-sweet dripping into the grass before I could see them. Tusker lager.

Tusker Export. The occasional, Guinness. Kubwa, budding-alcoholic that he was,

helped me by sniffing for them and licking clean the mouths of the bottles. Looking for

the bottles was an important job, because there was a deposit on each empty bottle that

was refunded when we would go to buy more soda. By counting the empties, we would

know how many of each type of soda or beer we needed to get for the next party.

“In case you haven’t realized,” Julianne said, in her BBC, proper voice. “The

Decade of the Woman has officially come to an end. They had the final ceremonies

downtown last month.”

“Disappointed?” Mum asked sarcastically. She had not attended any of the

United Nations organized seminars or the closing ceremonies that Julianne had been on

the organizing committee for reproductive health. Julianne had brought me back a hand-

painted t-shirt with a woman cradling the earth like a baby.

“You need to get a job.”

Mum frowned, her lips were made for pouting. “What for?”

“Everyone needs a job.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90 “What do you do?”

In my memory, Julianne was never steadily employed. Secretarial college was

meant to train her for meeting good men. Men with earning power and social stability,

perhaps a little land. Except that no man seemed to be interested in her. She had given

up looking for a man, and instead choose to dress like one. She could hustle like a man

between jobs, one year assisting in the organizing of the safari rally and leading photo

safaris, the next year connecting people with duty-free import privileges on cars with

people interested in buying same for a small commission. She led tours of Mombasa, the

town where she had grown up, knowing all the back avenues too narrow for a vehicle to

pass through, the history of the slave trade, and where to buy the best traditional Swahili

meals of coconut-spicedmbaazi.

“At least I have a life.” The note of triumph in Julianne’s voice was meant to

goad Mum into action. Instead, Mum sat down again, her hands hanging heavily

between her knees.

“Do you think I wanted everything to turn out this way?” Her lips trembled and

for a moment it looked like Mum would cry. Julianne sat down next to her, and Mum

leaned into her freckled shoulder. There was no space for me between the two of them.

“You must make the most of it.” But Julianne did not sound convinced.

The radio announcer broke over the last strummed chords, announcing that the

final selected song for theSundowner program was to be a Dolly Parton classic. This

was the music of memories. Somewhere upcountry, in a reserve, Dolly Parton was

playing from a battery-operated radio to the tired patrons of a Tea Hotel that Is little more

than a zinc lean-to. Game park rangers were probably listening to her while playing

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 cards and cleaning their AK-47s. Mum always had a fondnessSundowner for and its

melancholy, heartbroken tunes imported from anywhere but Africa.

After Mum’s parties, Julianne would spend the night. She would give Naomi a

bonus and bus fare to go home for the rest of the weekend. Naomi thanked her in

Swahili, pressing the crumbled, bright bills into her bosom. At night, Julianne would

tuck me into bed. Tell me that that she loved me, always that everything was going to be

fine, and once that I was her daughter. I never asked her what was wrong. I let her close

the door behind her and listened for the squeak of wood-on-wood as she joined Mum in

the narrow cot.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92

I was a child without time.

I watched insects walking on water, water becoming solid ground. I only half

listened to Mum’s explanations o f the physics o f surface tension. I was more interested in

the tiny dramas o f ambush hunting and hurried courting. I only half-remembered the

sermons about Christ walking on water. My days were as long as the lives as insects and

as short as miracles.

Each day joined the circle of time that folded back on itself each day like the last.

And the next. I walked over time, like insects walking across the galaxy of the pool.

Time was a continuous trinity of Memsab, Mum, and me. The entire universe existed

within the hedge o f growing bougainvillea that bloomed year-round, paper-thin blossoms

hiding short, sharp thorns.

On the telly, a clown performed an afternoon magic show for children and I was

one o f thousands under his charm, even though under his red nose and afro-rainbow wig

I knew that he was an Indian. He twisted bright-long balloons into giraffes and lions and

gave them to the children in the audience. Then he hid a hanky under his hat and made

us repeat the magic words: Rambo-rambo-boom-booml

He pulled yards of hankies from his sleeve and we applauded.

“That is how Indians make money, ” Memsab said. I sat in her living room,

wishing that I could join the other kids in the studio.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 The clown hid a red marble under one of three yellow cups and I watched

carefully as he switched them round-and-round. His hands were a blur and I tried to

guess which cup held the marble.

I repeated the magic words, Rambo-rambo-boom-boom I

Time after time, I guessed wrong.

What I remember is the times I guessed right, feeling as if I were magic.

Then the news summary started. Reporters went across town where people

queued to meet Mutukufu.They stood in crowds five-and-six deep, waiting for his

motorcade that stopped traffic, as police officers turned from boys-in-blue to knights-in-

modern-armour. The procession moved through town, stopping traffic at the

roundabouts as it raced, motorcycles two-by-two, followed by 4-wheel-drives with sirens,

in the centre a three black, stretched-to-luxury cars with pitch-black windows followed by

more police.

“If the children show is finished, turn off the telly ” Memsab reminded me as she

passed down the hall.

“Almost, just one more minute, ” I told her, watching with the televised crowds,

pushing around the camera, smiling and waving their index fnger in the KANU salute of

independence and chanting: Nyayo-Nyayo-Ju I

Nyayo-Nyayo-Ju!

When the motorcade came to a stop, Mutukufuappeared like magic from one of the

black cars. The crowd cheered louder, with old-young-man-and-woman enthusiasm.

Nyayo-Nyayo-Nyayo-Jul

Literal translation: Footsteps upward.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 Nyayo-Nyayo-Ju!

But that wasn’t what it meant.

Nyayo-Ju!

Footsteps upward. Really, it was about following in the footsteps of the father-of-

the-nation, the first president, Kenyatta who was a man named-after-a-mountain. A man

named after a country. The people loved Kenyatta, his memory, his legacy, and willingly

followed in his footsteps, believing it meant climbing upwards. The controversy of

Mutukfu’s politics was translated to be in keeping with old traditions to build a new

country.

“I said, ” Memsab repeated herself. “Turn the telly off. ”

She grabbed the chord and yanked the three pronged plug out from the wall. The

television hissed brightly before it flashed dark. Memsab stood glaring at me, dangling

like the chord as if she had picked up a dead snake by its neck.

“You didn ’t have to do that, ” I protested, afraid she had killed the television.

“Jaci, do you know that television makes you anti-social? ”

I knew that Mum had chosen not to follow in Memsab’s footsteps. I assumed that

she had been charmed by the trick of Nyayo, wanted to believe that those footsteps lead

upwards. Raising the country to new heights. The footsteps that she was following lead

back on themselves, like a circle in the sand. She returned to her mother’s house.

Almost. We were living in the servant’s quarters, but I hadn’t realized that yet.

Perhaps the footsteps she followed were a downward spiral.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 I was like an insect walking on water, leaving behind no footprints of my own. I

believed that I was walking in no one’s footprints. I walked on water because my child-

light weight did not break the delicate surface tension of blue water-skin.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96

“Flesh-fest,” my grandmother said, scorning Mum’s parties. From her tone of

voice, I knew she was not talking about the endless sausages and beef-burgers we grilled.

Every Sunday morning, I had to go with Memsab to church. The agreement had

been worked out between Mum and Memsab long before my memory begins. Memsab

tolerated the sin-filled parties in her yard in exchange for my religious education. She did

not trust Mum’s sun-worshipping ways.

Mum’s door was tightly shut as I left to meet Memsab, wearing one of the

flowered cotton dresses, white cotton socks and patent leather shoes. It was Memsab

who brought me church clothes, though she never measured me for size or took me to the

store with her. She favoured dresses with pink or peachy flowers that did nothing for my

complexion. I rode in the front seat of the classic red Benz, proud and frightened as

Memsab raced the engine and took comers so fast and tight that I had to close my eyes.

“Did you study your memory verse?”

I would nod and start reciting my Sunday school lesson.

“Are you sun-bumt from yesterday?” she asked, patting my sore shoulders.

“Sumar can bum herself is she wants, but she needs to take better care of you.”

“I don’t bum,” I whispered.

“Where did you hear that nonsense?” Memsab asked. “Everyone bums.”

She drove in silence, her lips a thin straight line and not looking at me. I wanted

to apologize, but I was afraid to look into her eyes. They were the same shade green as

Mum’s, but harder.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 Before going to church, she would spit into her handkerchief and wipe my face.

Then, she would push my hair back, trying to subdue it. “Did you comb your hair?”

“Yes, Memsab,” I whispered, my chest feeling tight.

“Do not call me that,” she said, her voice suddenly chilled. She smoothed my

eyebrows into tidy arches with her manicured fingernail. Then, she would take my hand

and march me down the aisle to the front of the church. We would take our seats and

Memsab knelt on the little bench, put her head on the pew before us, closed her eyes and

whispered prayers that I could not hear. I would follow her example, moving my lips,

but I never actually said any prayers.

After church, I spent my Sundays in the big house with Memsab. While she

prepared breakfast, I would watch the telly. It was still so early in the day it was only a

news broadcast showingMutukfu in church services. The churches he attended were

primarily African, full of clapping and rocking with choruses sung in Swahili. The

church I attended with Memsab was overseen by a sunburnt priest who led hymns with a

light tenor voice. His messages were short, as if even God did not have breakfast before

church and was eager to finish quickly and eat. After the services, we walked past him in

his droopy robe as he shook hands with the faithful. When he shook my hand, I would

smile into his serious blue eyes. Memsab would just nod at him, keeping hold of my

other hand, her lips stretched into a smile that did not show her teeth.

The sermons attended byMutukfu were long, dragging from one scriptural

reference to another as the pastor told anecdote after anecdote, as if he were intent upon

proving Memsab’s statements against giving Africans microphones. I only half listened

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 to the sermons, as I only half listened to the long wandering fables that Naomi told me in

the afternoon while she picked stones from the uncooked rice. Often the telly preacher

would still be reading scripture when Memsab called me into the dining room for a

breakfast of hot tea and cold scones smothered with sharp marmalade.

On hushed Sunday mornings the house reminded me of the Kenya National

Museum, the large arched hall filled with framed dark, vibrant oil portraits of people in

traditional tribal dress and stuffed animals with glass eyes. In Memsab’s house the

framed paintings were of my grandfather’s well-established, bureaucratic family that

became part of the colonial aristocracy. There were masks carved out of mahogany with

hollowed eye-slits and elaborate beaded necklaces in out-of-place, clashing oranges and

blues and whites and reds banded together that my grandfather had kept as archeological

treasures of his travels among the tribes in Northern Kenya or given to him by tribal

elders as rewards for his services.

There were pictures of my grandfather spread around the house. In the one over

the piano he was a solemn-eyed baby held in the lap of his mother. In another, there was

a group of British boarding schoolboys all kneeling around a rugby ball and I could never

be certain which one of the smiling, blurry faces was his. The pictures were more yellow

than black-and-white, tinted with a careful, posed formality. Before journeys, groups

stood before boats, steam-engine trains and old-fashioned cars, their luggage tied on top

in small square suitcases. In my favourite picture, my young grandfather leaned against

the bonnet of the car, one hand in his trouser pocket and the other raised, half-open at his

shoulder. The wind lifted his hair from his face and he was smiling as if he was happy

where he was and happy to be traveling.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 The picture that Memsab kept on her desk was taken much later. My

grandfather’s hair was gray at the temples and he was not smiling. He stared almost

handsomely into the camera, his hair slicked back and smoothly combed away from his

face. To me, it was indistinguishable from so many other portraits taken of my

grandfather sitting stiffly straight and waiting for the photographer to say smile.

“What was my grandfather like?” I would ask.

“Horace was a most magnificent man,” Memsab replied. “Magnificent.”

Other grandmothers read from solid books, satin, fairytale pages about golden

haired princesses living in castles. I knew that grandmothers were supposed to believe in

knights in shining armour. My grandmother told me about my grandfather’s triumphs as

a District Commissioner.

“He was very brave,” Memsab said with an impossible-to-read smile, while she

straightened one of his pictures. “Very brave.”

Testaments of his bravery were also included among the artifacts that Memsab

kept. These included framed medals awarded to him by the colonial government,

pictures of him with visiting dignitaries, and certificates written in old-fashioned

calligraphy that I could not yet read. I was more impressed by the carefully oiled guns

that he once used for hunting that hung heavily on the wall. I would stand on overstuffed

high-backed chairs to run my fingers over the slick, seductive metal.

“Be careful,” Memsab would warn me. “Those still work. A collector once

offered me a small fortune for the lot, but I could not bear to part with them. Your

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 grandfather was a fine shot, a very fine shot. Have I ever told you that he taught me how

to shoot? Yes he did. And, with practice I was not such a bad shot myself.”

I did not know about Memsab’s aim, but the lion-skin carpet she kept in her study

was proof that Grandfather had been rather a fine shot. For a child, the stuffed head,

yellow-glass eyes, and real teeth were a horrifying site, and I refused to go into

Memsab’s study by myself. Even when others were there, I would take care to walk

around the edge of the room, keeping a wary eye on the glass eyes that never wavered

from me. Memsab would turn in her chair, slide her feet out of her slippers, bury her feet

in the scratchy hide, and beckon me to her side. She held me before her, forcing me to

stand on the back of the lion, making my feet bum.

“Don’t be afraid of the lion,” she would say. “Your grandfather shot him long

ago. Have I never told you that story?”

“I’m not afraid.” It was true: I just didn’t like the rug, a sentiment shared by

Kubwa, when he snuck into the house. Memsab did not officially prohibit him from the

house, but beyond the kitchen he knew that he was trespassing and not even with a

biscuit could I tempt him onto the lion’s back.

There was a photo of my grandfather and his African assistants standing around a

just-shot lion, their guns still out, as if it might again roar to life. The lion’s eyes were

rolled back into its head and a pool of blood, black in the old colourless photograph,

collected under its mouth. In the photograph, my grandfather is the only man smiling.

“Did you see him shoot the lion?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 “Heavens, no,” her proud smile turning her into a young bride again. Her green

eyes darkened with memory until they were a colour I understood. “But that is the gun

he used.”

The gun that he had used to shoot the lion hung above the photograph, pointing

towards the window. The black metal and wooden handle were polished to a menacing

shine. Once, spying on Memsab, I had seen her take it from the wall and polish it. She

had a large cloth spread over her lap as she opened each section, wiping it down with a

rag cut from an old bedsheet. It was the same type of rag used by the maids to dust the

house and theshamba boys to tie up their wounds when a machete slipped, if the blood

were not so much to warrant Memsab’s attention or a trip to the emergency room.

“Have I ever told you about the lion?” Memsab asked.

She told me this story until I had it memorized: “A District Commissioner had

fallen ill with a mysterious fever and died rather suddenly,” Memsab would begin.

“Horace was called upon to act as the Temporary District Commissioner in the north.

This was before we were married, but I had decided that I wanted to see Lake Rudolph,

so I talked him into taking me along as well. I was very daring in those days. Well, the

sub-chief from a local village came to the HQ and explained that the Turkana people

were being terrorized by a spirit lion. They never heard it coming, and even the sentries

who were posted to wait for the lion heard nothing until it had attacked and the goats

began to bleat in fear and the camels groaned with pain. While this had upset the

tribesman, they did not become genuinely concerned until after the lion began to attack

their camels. For the Turkana, camels are like gold. Like cows are for the Maasai. This

was the first time that a lion had hunted camels, which alarmed them greatly.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 Apparently, these attacks had started just after the previous District Commissioner died,

so they were quite convinced that the old man’s spirit was responsible since he was

reputed to have had a fondness for camel meat. The sub-chief explained that according to

local custom, if the spirit lion were of a white man then a white man would have to kill it.

“Naturally, Horace never believed any of the local superstitions for moment. He

told them that it was an ordinary lion who had become too daring and developed a taste

for camel meat. For three days they came back, afraid that the lion was going to strike

again soon -as it was its habit to come every eighth day. Finally, Horace agreed to help

them by killing it, and that very day he packed a few supplies and left with the sub-chief

to go the village that was being haunted by this lion. Well, I begged him to take me

along, but he refused. He insisted that it would be too dangerous. That is how your

grandfather was, always thinking of my safety. Instead, he promised that he would bring

home the pelt of the lion and make a rug out of it for me.

“You see, Jaci,” Memsab concluded. “There is nothing to be afraid of. Though,

sometimes I like to think that in this rug I have captured the spirit of the old DC and he is

here keeping order in my study.”

As soon as she looked away, I escaped from the lion, grateful for the cold wooden

tiles of the floor against my soles. I would walk around the edge of the room, feigning

interest in the posed, professional portraits of my distant relatives in silver frames that

hung on the walls or sat atop low bookshelves. I would study their frozen, black-and-

white features searching for recognition and resemblance.

“Do I look like my grandfather?” I asked Memsab once.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103 “No, you do not,” she replied curtly. “And you should be grateful. He was a

magnificent man, but not handsome.”

I would look at the picture of him, taken shortly before his death when his hair

had begun to show distinguished gray streaks and his eyes were surrounded by wrinkles.

Other than his too thin lips that almost disappeared under his carefully groomed

mustache, I thought he was a handsome man.

If Memsab was in a bad mood, she would tell a different kind of story about

Grandfather. “He would have been better off without that mustache,” she told me once.

“Some men can wear mustaches some men cannot. Horace could not. But, he insisted

that it was attractive. By the time we moved to Nairobi, I think he wore it because he

knew it bothered me. When he really wished to upset me, he would strain his tea through

his mustache and look at me, dripping like the beard of a waterbuck.”

Such stories were followed by a short, harsh laugh that frightened me. I wanted

to ask her why she would marry a man who was not attractive to her. I wanted to ask her

if she missed my grandfather, if she loved him. However, I was too young to ask such

things, even if had I known the words to use.

“He was really as superstitious as an African,” Memsab told me. “He had lived

among the tribes too long and considered himself an expert. He told me I shouldn’t hire

Naomi because Taita women were prone to mischief.”

“Mischief?” I asked, trying to imagine Naomi short-sheeting the bed or hiding a

rubber snake in the pantry.

“Mischief was his word for witchcraft and native-superstions.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104 “Do you believe in them?”

“Of course, not. fm a Christian,” Memsab told me. “And so are you.”

I wondered if my grandfather, the gun-toting lion-killer, was afraid when he

waited in the dark, listening to the sounds of the wild bush and waiting for the lion. At

night when I repeated the mantra of protective-prayers, I heard crickets and bats calling

to me from beyond the window in their secret language. In my dreams, I was stalked by

the lion, the old District Commissioner and my grandfather.

Other grandmothers told ancient stories about how the hare tricked all the other

animals, being both helpful and spiteful. An African grandmother would have explained

to me how the zebra came to have stripes or why the tortoise has a cracked shell. My

grandmother made me a cold breakfast of scones and sour marmalade. I sat at the table,

my ankles crossed beneath me, the way she had taught me. On the wall next to the table

there was a picture of young Memsab and my grandfather standing next to one another in

front of the DC’s house. They were smiling stiffly at the camera, but all I could see is

that they were not touching.

“What happened to grandfather?” I once asked Memsab.

“He died,” Memsab replied.

“How?”

“He drowned.”

The horror of this struck me silent. I could imagine drowning, water rushing into

my eyes and ears and mouth. I could imagine sinking to the bottom of blue water, unable

to fight my way to the surface again. Memsab would poor tea into my cup, it swirled

around itself like miniature bronze whirlpool. She stirred in half a spoon of sugar without

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105 asking how I liked it. And I drank the tea without telling her my preference for sweeter

tea.

“After tea, we will start your reading lessons,” Memsab said. The books were

already set to one side, as if she had been preparing for this all day.

By the time I was eight, Memsab began to insist that I spend my Sundays

practicing my handwriting in carefully ruled out pages. I carefully copied her old-

fashioned cursive looping graceful to the right. She made me copy out nursery rhymes

and verse copied from the children’s Bible.

“You’re too old to still be out of school,” Memsab whispered.

“When will I start school?”

“Your mother says you’re not ready yet,” Mem said, her voice stiff and cold. She

looked through the dining room window to the pool where Mum was sunbathing. “And

there are some things even I cannot force her to do.”

As if she heard Memsab’s phrase, Mum sat up and stretched luxuriously. She

looked toward the house, and I thought that maybe she could see me sitting with a book

open in front of me. Memsab cleared her throat and turned the page for me. I looked

away from my mother and the story of my grandfather sank into silence.

One Sunday, we came home to Uncle Peter’s Land Cruiser in our driveway.

Memsab’s lips narrowed to a horizon of disapproval as Patrick opened the gate slowly, as

if he was reluctant to admit us to the private shade of thick, thomed bougainvillea hedge

bright with papery blossoms. The driveway should have been empty and large in

Sunday-morning sunlight, but through the open gate we could see the large spare tire

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106 bolted onto the back door. He waved because he was lonely without Naomi or the

shamba boys on their weekend leave. Memsab would not be distracted from the Land

Cruiser’s, rusted-green was too distinctive to be hidden by the weak shade offered by the

naked leaves of the Jacaranda tree.

Before her car was properly parked I jumped out of the car and rushed to our

house.

“Uncle Peter!” I called. “P.T.!” I swung open the gate that I thought was a front

door to our empty parlour. The bathroom doors hung open and the porcelain basin

winked at me. My own door had been left flung wide to reveal the intimate disarray of

my unmade bed.

Mum’s door was almost closed. I pushed against it lightly, the way Kubwa tested

the kitchen door when he was trying to sneak past Naomi and sit on the mat by the stove.

Nothing. The door was locked. Mum had never locked her door before.

Shocked, I returned to the big house. Memsab had left the front door open and I

could smell sausages frying. She was standing at the stove, cooking for herself. I

realized that I had never seen Memsab fry sausages before. She brought the hot breakfast

to me on a tray.

“Thank you, Memsab.”

“Call me ‘Grandmother’.”

“Thank you, Grandmother.” The word felt unfamiliar and stony in my mouth. It

made her sound older and weak, in a way that she wasn’t. I would forget that reminder

immediately, returning to the more familiar Swahili corruptionMemsahib. of “The

sausages are very nice.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 Memsab nodded, without scolding me about my table manners as she usually did.

After we were done, I helped her carry the plates into the kitchen. She turned on

the telly for me. Star Trek was showing and I watched Spock save Captain Kirk from

death using his incorruptible Vulcan logic. In the kitchen, I heard Memsab doing the

dishes instead of leaving them in cold water for Toyota to clean the next morning.

Silently, I cheered for Spock ,as he exchanged blows with the alien. I felt a kinship to the

half-Vulcan, half-human.

Memsab came into the parlour, smelling of dishwashing soap and drops of

wetness on the front of her church dress. Kubwa sat at our feet, watching telly just like a

person. Memsab asked me what was going on and I told her about Spock and the Starship

Enterprise.

We sat in silence, watching the dated American program about a future so far

away that we could not imagine it. Lieutenant Uhuru in her short skirt was not like any

African woman I knew, but I knew her name meantFreedom in Swahili.

Later, we watched the Hindi reenactments of the great battles of Krishna, Memsab

reading the sub-titles allowed for me. The exotic, never-ending Indian music replacing

conversation between us and one arrow shot falling ten thousand soldiers. We listened to

the afternoon news.

Neither of us moved until after we heard the Land Cruiser start and the clang of

the gate shutting behind it.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108 On the grounds that it was history-making, Uncle Peter had invited me to go with

him and PT to see the burning of the ivory at Nairobi National Game Park. Mum stayed

up late the night before, helping me make sandwiches to eat during the day in case I got

hungry. She ironed my jeans and gave me a t-shirt that said, “Only Elephants Should

Wear Ivory.”

Uncle Peter came to get me early, but it was only he and P.T. in the car. Doreen

refused to go on the grounds that it would be hot, smelly, and there would be too many

Africans. When he told this to Mum, she agreed to go along with us, and I was glad we

had made extra sandwiches. She was already dressed, wearing a pencil-thin skirt that

clung to her hips and made her walk funny. She could hardly get into their Land Cruise

and Uncle Peter had to help her up. P.T. and I sat in the back, bouncing against one

another and the windows, without seatbelts, which had long ago been lost beneath the

seats.

“Are we going to see elephants?” I asked him.

“No dummy,” he said. “Just the tusks.”

“Why no elephants?”

“If you were an elephant would you want to watch tusks being burned?”

I shook my head.

In front, Mum cracked open a beer and offered it to Uncle Peter, but he waved it

away. PT gave me a half-frozen box of Vimto that I half sucked, half ate with a straw.

We had not had time to eat breakfast before leaving, so Mum had given me a Crunchie

bar that I split with P.T. He used his Swiss Army Knife to cut it in half, also cutting the

fabric of the backseat between us.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 “What’s going on back there?”

“Nothing,” PT told his father. My mouth was already too full with the first bite of

honeycomb sweetness, breaking into shards over my tongue.

“When we get there,” Uncle Peter said. “Be good and stay in the back.”

“But I want to see!” PT protested.

“You will see just fine from the back.”

I don’t know how Uncle Peter got invited. But, we were not even the first ones

there. The game wardens, in unusually crisp, unusually clean uniforms gave us unusually

sharp salutes as they waved us to the makeshift parking lot.

Mum shoved sandwiches into her pocketbook, which was really kiondo.a sisal

The mustard oozed like yellow blood onto through the bread and into the plastic bags.

P.T. made a face, but Mum didn’t notice. She gave us tangerines to hold, in case we got

thirsty. Uncle Peter nervously stuck a cigarette in his mouth, chewed on the end a minute

and then changed his mind and put in the top pocket of his safari jacket.

He took my hand and led us toward where the crowd of people waited. Doreen

was right; there were many Africans. The whitest thing in the area was the stack of

ivory, towering over us. The tusks were smooth and dangerous looking. They criss

crossed higher and higher like a giant game of pick-up-sticks and I wanted to touch one,

but when I pulled ahead a bit, Uncle Peter jerked my arm tightly.

“Have you ever seen an elephant before?” I asked Uncle Peter.

“Yes,” he said. “Haven’t you?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 “Nope,” I told him, watching his safari boots that poked strangely under his long

trousers. I realized that I had never before seen him in trousers before, not proper dark

ones, pressed with a crease down the front.

He stopped and looked at me. “You’ve never seen an elephant!”

I shook my head. “No, sir.”

His eyes narrowed and he looked over at Mum, but asked me, “Have you ever

been onsafariT'

I nodded. “My class came here last semester.”

“Here? Nairobi Game Park? This issafari to you?”

I nodded. PT had gone ahead of us and I wanted to catch up with him, before he

had a chance to get to the tusks without me.

“This isn’t a real safari. Some day I will take you on a real safari.”

“Okay.” I let go of his hand and ran to catch up with PT. The dry soil puffing

like powder around my feet. But, I could still hear Uncle Peter talking to Mum.

“Why haven’t you taken her on safari?”

“And where is the money for that going to come from?”

“You only needed to mention it. I would take you both with me.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Peter,” Mum said. “It isn’t fair to me and

it isn’t fair to Jacaranda.”

I had caught up with PT who had been stopped by a game warden with tribal

scarring running in parallel lines across his forehead. The man frowned at us, keeping us

a safe distance from the ivory and the important people. Behind him, I could see people

waiting for the president, everyone else in suits and ties.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I l l After the president got there, the speeches began. Endlessly, politicians droned in

English and Swahili and translators droned and big-black flies droned around my ears.

The Kenya Broadcasting Corporation cameras zoomed close to the fat faces of the

politicians. P.T. swatted at his ears and stamped in the dirt. Uncle Peter clapped him in

the back of the head and Mum unpeeled the first of the tangerines, her fingernails

bursting in mists of acid and juice. She handed slices to me and to P.T. Each was

deveined, delicate in our fingers and tart, wet over our tongues.

I kept looking at the mound of tusks, cross-hatched over one another. A fortune,

it had been said. Millions and millions of shillings. I tried to imagine that many

elephants, large and lumbering. I tried to imagine that many shillings, but I knew only

coins, large and heavy in the collection plate and light, coloured paper bills, the largest

bill is a red five-hundred shilling note.

The president picked up a torch. The flame was yellow, bright, and smoking

badly. The ivory did not catch fire easily. It was not like wood, but bone. Damp from

the short-rains, it smoked and smoldered. The smoke blew in the round, lonely eye of the

video cameras and the reporters backed away, uncertainly, fearing for their equipment.

Someone had added kerosene. Then, the ivory caught, the flame finally burned bright

yellow with a red-sun centre. The smoke was thick gray and black, blowing around us.

Everyone fanned and coughed. Mum wrapped my facekanga in so a I would not have to

breathe in the ashes already filling the air.

We got home that night and Memsab was waiting up for us.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 “The ivory was so tall,” I told her, the smell of smoke still clinging to my hair and

clothes, wafting my news to her. “It was even taller than the president.”

“Go to bed, Jacaranda.” There was no room for negotiation in her voice.

I stopped, felt the smile slide from my face. When I looked at her to see what I

had done wrong, she was looking at Mum. Mum was walking toward our house.

“Sumar, come here.”

Mum stopped, her back stiff and straight. I could see her sigh, her shoulder rising

and falling. The night air was cool around us and, when she turned, I could see she was

shivering just a little.

“Go into bed, Jaci,” she said. Her voice was soft and even softer was her hand on

my shoulder as she turned me around. I went into bed and waited for her. But she did

not come, and when I woke up in the morning her car was already gone.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113

Memsab did not tell me stories about herself.

I had noticed the burn that covered her left hand, stretching over her knuckles,

across the back of her hand, paler than skin and stained by the hills of her blue-blooded

veins rising up like uneven rivers. She drove as though her hand did not pain her in the

rainy seasons. But she would sometimes massage it, slipping off her wedding ring.

Usually she kept her arm covered, the scar stopping at her sleeve. I imagined that the

scar went along her arm, sometimes even up to her chest, as if it were dripping down

from her heart.

For stories about Memsab, I had to ask Mum.

After Mum turned off the radio and I had finished my simple Sunday dinner of

Farmer’s Choice beef sausages and baked beans, I asked, "What happened to Memsab’s

hand?”

"It was burned, ” Mum replied. She filled the sink with warm water to wash out

our dinner dishes.

"When was it burned? ”

"New Year's Eve 1980. ”

"What happened? ” I asked unsatisfied with Mum’s brief answers. Getting stories

from her required me to ask again and again for details that she was unwilling to recall.

“She was at the Norfolk Hotel when a bomb went off. ”

I had been with Memsab to the Norfolk Hotel when she met with her lady-friends

for weak, over-priced tea, served in china cups. It was the oldest hotel in Nairobi and its

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 elegant porch that had once overlooked the savannah now faced a double-lane of traffic

in front of the dilapidated Kenya National Theatre. Matatus, the privately-owned Volks-

Wagon vans packed beyond capacity as public transport, turned the two lanes of traffic

into knots o f three, then four. Mum and her friends, wearing their best dresses and

manicured fingernails covering their most delicate laughs, would sit about and complain

about the decay of the city and rising prices.

“Who would anyone want to kill Memsab? ”

Mum’s laughter as a sharp sound exploding from her throat and startling me.

“Kill your grandmother? I was probably the only person who would have done that. It

wasn’t about her. "

“What was it about? ”

“Memsab was just there for a New Year’s party. The government claimed a

Moslem extremist group, agitating for the liberation ofPalestine, had planted the bomb.

They caught a man and prosecuted him. Memsab was just there for the New Year’s

party. ”

Mum sounded like she didn’t believe her own words. From listening to the BBC

on Memsab’s short-wave radio, I had heard of Palestine. The heavily-fortified Israeli

Embassy was across the street from the Headquarters of the East African Women’s

League, where Memsab did charity work. When we drove by, a white askari with a large

gun would follow us with his eyes hidden behind a black stripe o f sunglasses.

“Where was I? ” I asked Mum the next day when Ifound the courage to ask more

questions.

“At home with me, ” Mum said. She was reading a magazine by the pool.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115 “Why didn ’t we go with Memsab? ”

“She wasn’t talking to us that year, ” Mum replied.

“Why not? ” I asked, knowing I was pushing my luck.

“That was a long time ago, ” Mum replied. “I don’t remember. ”

Mum’s stories were like news reports, brief and unimaginative. They were

officially stripped of any details that could have been controversial. Her answers ended

without really answering what happened, the truth flattened beyond boring. My

imagination added this story to the real and imagined memories that haunted my nights.

Soon I awoke, fearing loud, hot explosions that rocked my city.

It was years before I was able to do the math and realize that it was only two

months after my birth and that Mum had not yet moved back to Memsab’s compound.

Even if Mum had told me the whole story, I would not have understood what she was

saying. Her story would have clashed with the versions of Kenyan history that were

allowed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 14

In the privacy of Monday afternoon, Mum did our laundry. In the back garden,

she spread out clothes across Memsab’s clothesline. Often, Naomi hung her uniforms

next to our clothes. Our swimming costumes hung skimpy and bright, alongside her

checkered kerchiefs and white aprons. Too short to reach the line, I twisted the apron-

strings and stretched as far as they would go.

“Don’t break them,” Naomi warned me. Her voice was stem, but she gave me a

forgiving, gap-toothed smile.

I let go of the string and a spray of cool water fell down like a small rain.

“Jacaranda, make yourself useful,” Mum said.

“What should I do?”

“Be good.”

“I am good.”

Naomi smiled, “Go find Kubwa.”

I would run off, whistling and clapping my hands on my thighs. Kubwa came to

me from under the shade of the avocado tree. He came to me carrying an avocado that

had fallen, ripe and rich.

“Kubwa, give it here,” I said.

He wagged his tail at me playfully.

“Come on,” I said. “You know you aren’t supposed to have it. Give. Give.”

Kubwa came, his head hanging away from me. When I grabbed the fruit from

him, it melted around my fingers -butter soft and mushy inside its hide. Kubwa started

licking the crushed, green fruit flesh from my fingers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 “What are you doing?” Mum asked. “How many times have I told you not to let

that dog get into the avocados?”

“He just picks them up,” I protested.

“He’s going to make himself sick,” Mum promised.

Kubwa, oblivious to his fate, was gnawing on the hard seed of the avocado as

though it were a bone from which he could suck marrow. He wagged his tail at Mum,

who was still wringing out my trousers. When Naomi finished hanging out her work

clothes, she returned to the kitchen, and Kubwa followed her leaving behind the egg-

shaped seed, slobbered with traces of guacamole.

After we were alone, I asked, “What was Grandfather like?”

Mum’s hands stopped. A clothes pin half-open, suspended over the line, still

pinched in her fingers. “We were a lot alike.”

“How?”

“He liked music and dancing and parties. And being with other people. Everyone

loved him, and women liked him even though he wasn’t so handsome.”

I tried to imagine a man like this, like the man in Memsab’s photographs.

“What was Memsab like when you were a little girl?”

“Mum was the same way she is now,” she told me. Hearing Mum call Memsab

Mum was strange, like hearing about someone strange, someone not related to me. It was

like another family. I tried to imagine Mum as a little girl, with her own grandmother

taking her to church. I tried to imagine Memsab, still full-breasted, unwrinkled and as

beautiful as my Mum.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 “I had more in common in my father,” Mum said, but she was not really talking to

me. “Except, he was handy at fixing things. He knew how to take control of any

situation. He spokeSwahili and understood Africans. He loved Kenya.” She

pronounced the countryKeeny-yaa, as drawing out the vowels, twisting it into a place of

yellowed photographs and khaki hats. It was not the place I knew.

“How did he die?”

“He drowned,” Mum replied. The afternoon shadows stretched thin and long in

the grass. A slight breeze made the clothes swing in the wind and the shadows on the

ground swung, too. Mum took my hand as we walked back to our little house.

A car tooted at the gate. I pulled myself out of the water, recognizing the horn. I

paused to grab a towel from the side of the pool and ran towards the garden.

“Patrick! Patrick!” I called at the top of my lungs. “Someone is at the gate!”

The watchman came from the back entrance of the kitchen where he was having

lunch, wiping his hands on a cloth handkerchief before reaching into his pocket for the

gate key. Kubwa was already at the gate barking. Patrick shooed my dog into the grass,

so he could open the gate.

The green Land Cruiser rolled into the yard slowly and parked as far away from

the bigger house as possible. Kubwa chased after the car, barking with playful

recognition. When the car stopped, he jumped up to the driver’s window, tail wagging,

almost jumping into the car when the front door opened.

“Uncle Peter!” I shouted, throwing my arms around him. He wrapped his arms

around me and lifted me up into the air. And I could not help but laugh.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 “How is my Little Lady?” His beard was rough against my cheek. My Little

Lady, as if those words could claim me and bind me to him. “Did you miss me?”

I nodded, hiding my face against the side of his neck, overwhelmed by his

masculine size and his smell that was a mixture of musky cologne and automobile grease.

From over his shoulder, I could see the curtains in the front room of the big house shake,

and I knew Memsab was watching me from her study. Suddenly, I was embarrassed and

wished that he would return me to the ground. If Uncle Peter noticed Memsab’s shadow

in the window upstairs, he acted like he didn’t and held me close to him until Mum came

up, knottingkanga a at her waist.

“Peter,” Mum said, stretching her arm out, as if to shake his hand.

Uncle Peter grabbed her wrist with a playful smile and pulled her towards him in

a warm hug. He kissed each of her cheeks lightly. “Hello, Sumar.”

Under her tan it was almost unnoticeable, but Mum blushed.

By then, P.T. had come out of the car. He was petting Kubwa, who had finally

stopped barking and was soaking in his attention. Without looking at me, he said, “Hello,

Tree.” When he stood up to shake my hand, I looked into his strange gray eyes that were

identical to Uncle Peter’s.

“Why don’t you two go swim,” Mum suggested, pushing me gently on the

shoulder in the direction of the pool. Her eyes darted over my head to the window where

Memsab’s silhouette had been visible only moments before.

P.T. followed me, but only sat down on Mum’s bench and looked at her

magazine. We used to be friends, but that was before he was too big to play with me. At

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 ten, he seemed to be much, much older than my childish seven-going-on-eight years.

Now he only came because Uncle Peter told him he had to.

“Did you bring your swimming costume?”

P.T. shook his head. “No. Dad told Mum that we are going to the garage.”

“Are you?”

P.T. shrugged. “Sometimes we go after we leave here.”

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“We could try to spy and hear what they are talking about.” He nodded in the

direction of Mum and Uncle Peter, who were leaning against the Land Cruiser, their

heads bending towards each other. Mum was smiling, running one hand along the inside

of her other arm. I shook my head, embarrassed.

“I’ll show you a secret,” I told P.T. Even though I did not have a secret to show

him. He followed me reluctantly further into Memsab’s garden, turning once to look at

his father.

“Memsab says this is poisonous,” I told P.T., as we stood at a respectful distance

from the upside-down moon-flowers. The sweet smell that seeped from the bell-shaped

blossoms enchanted us but was as dangerous as my grandmother’s warnings.

“Everyone knows that,” PT sneered, unimpressed. He turned away from me,

wandering towards the pool and the driveway.

I took his dry, pale hand in mine and bent down next to the touch-me-not.

Memsab had shown me how when I traced its fronds with a fingernail it would curl

slowly upon itself like a whispering tongue, opening again when it thought I was gone.

“So what?” Now that he was ten, PT refused to be impressed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 “You know those roses by front door?” I pointed to the potted plants next to

Memsab’s house. “My Memsab made them.”

“That’s not possible,” PT told me. “No one makes roses. They just grow.”

“But Memsab made that rose,” I promised him. “She named it Sumar after my

Mum. And it won a prize.”

“I don’t believe you,” PT said, shaking his head.

“It’s a hybrid,” I said, using the word I learned from Memsab.

“What’s a hybrid?”

“Like me,” I told him. This is how Mum explained it to me. “Something mixed.”

“Plants can’t be mixed!”

An emotion rose in my chest, tight as a balloon in my throat. I tried to open my

mouth to protest, but it was like my voice had popped. The pressure made my face bum,

like I had spent too long in the sun.

Before I could argue, I heard Uncle Peter calling him.

“It’s true,” I whispered, as PT ran to the front yard, without stopping to wave. I

went back to the pool and waited on the bench. I picked up Mum’s magazine and flipped

through the blur of words on the page. I looked at the pictures of the women in bright

dresses who were walking down red carpets, holding onto the arms of men dressed in

dark suits. I listened as the car started and pulled away and heard Patrick lock the gate.

Mum came and sat down next to me. “Do you want to swim with me?”

I shook my head. It didn’t matter anymore.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 Naomi came out of the house with a message from Memsab: Grandmother wanted

to talk to my mother. Mum rose obediently and went into the big house. I watched her

shadow trail her reluctantly, as if it did not want to go inside and see what was demanded.

Naomi took my hand in hers. “Have you eaten yet?”

“No,” I replied, suddenly realizing that I was hungry.

We went through the back door into the kitchen. Kubwa followed us into the

house, knowing that there would soon be food to beg. Naomi flashed her apron at the

dog, who only shook his tail at us. I sat on a stool at the kitchen counter while Naomi

retied the cloth over her hair. Naomi was the coconut colour of coastal women, with a

wide gap between her front two teeth that spread her smile even wider.

I watched as she cut a small piece of coldugali for me and spread Blue Band

margarine over it. She put it on a plastic plate, still wet from the dish drainer. She gave

this to me with a glass of water from the filter.

“Asante sana,” I told her. The water still had the slight taste of reddish clay.

“Karibu,” Naomi said, as she cracked the door to the dining room. We sat in

silence, able to listen to the conversation between Mum and Memsab in the parlour.

“What do you think you are doing with that man?” Memsab hissed.

“We are planning a surprise party for Doreen.”

“His wife? Who do you think you are fooling? Only each other.”

Mum continued as if Memsab had not said anything. “It will be a swimming

party Saturday after next. There will probably be about thirty people. And I will have

Patrick light the jiko so we can do sausages and such.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123 Naomi stood at the sink, her broad back turned to me. I took a biteugali of the

that crumbled heavily over my tongue. It was the staple food in Kenya, but I rarely ate it

because Mum claimed it was tasteless, and Memsab said it wasn’t nutritious. Made of

ground and boiled white commealugali was cheap and more filling than flavourful.

“I do not have to stand for this,” Memsab said, her voice brittle and broken.

“Your father would roll in his grave if he knew how you carried on. With a married man.

You’re getting yourself in trouble and you expect me to watch.”

“Look the other way,” Mum said, her voice was tired. “You used to be good at

doing that.”

“How dare you,” Memsab’s voice warbled.

I could not hear what she said next, because Naomi suddenly turned on the small,

battery operated radio that she had on the counter. With a rush of syllables, KBC

Kiswahili station filled the room between us and drowned their voices. I did not speak

Kiswahili, except a few broken greetings and commands, so I was lost by the official

news.

“Mutukufu Daniel Arap Moi leo the ni,” announcer said.

I knew this was the beginning of the news broadcast, it started as it did every day

with the daily activities of the president, His Excellency Daniel Arap Moi. I wanted to

ask Naomi to translate for me, but I knew she would only scold me for not learning

Kiswahili and it would send her in a frenzy of lessons for the next few days. So, I

strained, trying to pick out the words that I knew, until I became bored and wandered

back to our house across the compound.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124 Julianne was against the surprise party, too. Like a quickly formed alliance, they

were united in their efforts to distract Mum, and for once Memsab did not complain about

Julianne’s small, silver Nissan cluttering her driveway. Its engine was a loud

announcement, a protest against the jua-kalimany workers who had replaced bits using

second hand pieces. It roared with power converted by a mechanic-acquaintance who

had worked on cars for the East African Safari Rally.

Julianne brought rumours of jobs and openings for Mum. She would come out of

her car with a blue-and-white plastic-paper bag filled with triangles of KCC soured,

yogurt-thickmaziwa lala, House of Manji biscuits, and local newspapers, the kowtowing

East African Standard and ever-profitableDaily Nation.

“Read something relevant.” She pulled the picture-magazine from Mum’s fingers

and sat on it. She replaced it with a local newspaper, folded open. “Act like you at least

want to care what happens in the country.”

Mum’s glassy, green eyes would skim the paper. At the time I thought Mum

could not see how fatalities Nyayoon buses, coffee prices, sex education,Mwakenya or

affected her. While Mum pretended to read, Julianne would find in her jacket pockets

Goody-Goody toffees in a half-dozen flavours for me. The waxed orange paper was

impossibly slick to my pruned fingers and she would tear it open for me. Drying in the

sun, I chewed the brown, sugary sticks that were stiff as old tires until my jaws ached.

“Have you been following the Olympics in Seoul?” Julianne asked Mum, opening

the paper to the sports section, trying to tempt Mum.

“Who cares about that?” Mum asked rhetorically.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125 Julianne’s eyes were narrowed with dreams, “Imagine, the Olympics in Korea.

They only just came out of a civil war, not even thirty years ago. No one believed that a

developing nation could hold the Olympics.”

“What do you think,” Mum started, her voice sarcastic and sour. “Nairobi will be

next? An African Olympics?”

“Not next; those have already been decided,” Julianne assured Mum. “But surely

within ten to twelve years. We already hold the Safari Rally and have several large

sports-arenas. If we just applied ourselves, really worked hard, we could host the

Olympics. What have the Koreans got that we don’t?”

“They don’t live in Africa,” Mum answered Julianne’s hypothetical question.

Julianne continued as if she had not heard Mum, “Even the editorial has suggested

that Nairobi should put in a bid for the Olympics.”

“The editorial is full of manure and the paper is full of shit.”

Mum did not curse often and I watched her, stunned silent.

“You know what your problem is?” Julianne asked my mother, seemingly

unfazed by her dirty language. “Your problem is that you don’t have a dream.and You

everyone else in this stink-pot government. No one can see the country’s potential any

more. No one thinks for the long term. Everyone just out for themselves.”

“As if you’re suggesting the Olympics is a charity,” Mum suggested. “Would

that be before or after your expediter’s commission? And how much did you make

managing just one team during the last safari rally?”

“Since when was having a job a crime?” Julianne asked. “In fact, what you need

is a job.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 Mum laughed. “Whatever for?”

Julianne snatched the paper from her and shuffled through the pages until it came

open to the classifieds. She handed the newspaper back to Mum.

“There is a job for you.” Julianne had circled an ad with an authoritative, blue-

biro circle.

“Swimming instructor?”

“You used to swim for the national team.”

“Did you, Mum? Did you?” I asked having never heard this before.

“Yes,” Julianne told me. “And Sumar was supposed to go to the Olympics.”

“What happened?”

“They were boycotted,” Mum said. Her voice strangely thick with sadness and

pride. “In 1976, because South Africa was allowed to participate. In 1980, because the

US did not want to go to the games in Moscow.”

“You should go this year,” I suggested, not really listening to them.

“I don’t compete anymore.”

“You don’t have to,” Julianne said, shaking the paper at Mum. “You just teach.

A couple classes ofmzungus. How bad can it be?”

“Do it, Mum.” I encouraged her. I could imagine her standing on a diving board,

before a proper big pool. Like everyone in the country, I had caught Olympic fever.

Memsab encouraged us to watch the news that showed repeats of the games nightly. She

let Toyota and Patrick join us in the sitting room, we sat on the couch while they stood

leaning in the doorway. Patrick bringing inside his smell of hot-sun, sweat, and metal. I

dreamt that Mum would be a famous coach, bringing Kenya gold. I imagined cheering

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127 on the sidelines, while my Mum hugged her still wet, victorious swimmers. I imagined

Mum standing proud, her hand over her heart, and an armful of flowers, while the

Kenyan anthem played.Oh God of all Creation, bless this our land and nation. . .Mum

had other Olympic dreams, vicariously budding as she watched my muscles lengthen in

my endless days in the pool.

That year Kenya came in thirteenth overall.

“Not bad,” Memsab admitted. “For a small country with no budget to train

athletes.”

Mum did not like track and field and ignored our cheering, even though with nine

medals we were the top of the African table. The first African to ever win a gold medal

in the boxing ring returned home to a hero’s welcome. People queued up to meet him at

the airport, and he was interviewed on the radio and television for weeks.

The month of Olympic excitement passed quickly and then the country turned to

celebrating a decade ofNyayoism. Mutukufu had a cake taller than himself made which

he cut with a sword to feed the dignitaries gathered at the Stadium. Julianne came by

with the newspapers and a stack of workbooks taller than me. She was responsible for

the acquisition of old school texts, that she begged and borrowed from friends, the

foundation of my informal education with Memsab. Meanwhile, the rest of the country

went back to arguing about queue-voting, haggling over the value of saving elephants,

and the church got involved with politics. Much to the disappointment of politicians.

The outside world was not something I needed to study, and it retreated into the distant

sky as distant as the kites that glided overhead in spreading circles.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128 Julianne returned to campaign for Mum’s employment. She scoured the

classifieds for promising opportunities.

“The job is yours,” she promised. “I spoke to a friend of mine who works at

Braecrest. He will hold the position open a few more weeks for you.”

“What did you use to bribe him?” Mum asked.

“Nothing, we just talked,” Julianne said, raising her hand in girl-guides-honour.

“Between corruption and nepotism, this country will never improve,” Mum said.

“What is nepotism?” I asked.

“Tribalism,” Mum replied, staring down Julianne.

“But we don’t have a tribe,” I reminded Mum.

“I just talked to him,” Julianne said in her own defense. “Just apply.”

“I’ll think about it,” Mum said, noncommittally. She stood up, stretched and

walked to the edge of the pool. Then, gracefully, she lowered herself into the water.

“She’s not going to do it,” Julianne whispered to herself.

Eavesdropping on all our conversation was Patrick, slouched in the guardhouse,

his battery-operated radio turned down. The corrugated tin roof made the guardhouse as

hot as the underground politicking that he was listening to. Julianne sat at our coffee

table, pounding away on a borrowed typewriter to create a C.V. for Mum. She chewed

nervously on the end of a red-and-black striped HB pencil. When she gave the draft for

Mum to correct, Mum barely glanced over it as she used the same pencil to secure her

hair in a bun at the nap of her neck.

When Julianne left, Patrick put down his radio and swung open the gate, holding

back Kubwa with his other hand.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 129 Mum returned to the pool bench, sunning like the geckos that clung to the side of

the house. Her thoughts were as unclouded as the sky, and time passed in seasons like

the sunburn against her back. The cold season came subtly. It brought me out of the pool

earlier each day. I stretched, still dripping over the warm concrete, watching rivers of

water drop and evaporate.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 15

I was a child without memory. My past had evaporated, leaving me with only the

dry present. For me, time was a circle, folding back on itself, each day like the last. And

the next. The future was rainwater, sinking into the always-thirsty ground.

Mum lay facing the sun, unwilling to open her eyes to the present. I thought her

mind was empty, like the tranquil pool when I climbed out and the waves and ripples of

my swimming stilled. Like a children, I assumed that all of her thoughts were of me or of

nothing at all. I could not imagine how talks of Olympic games stabbed through her. I

knew Mum loved swimming for the weightlessness of the water. She must have hated the

solitary quiet of our lives; she must have missed the easy camaraderie of competing on a

team, the encouragement of friends, and the locker room fellowship. She turned on the

radio to fill the silence o f her mind. Or, perhaps, it was to drown out the noisy memories

that she never told me about.

When the rains started, we spent our days inside.

We were muffled in the dull sound of the afternoon rains drumming on the roof.

Once the rains started, it was like they would not end. Hours passed under the gray

overcast sky, the yellowish-light from the bulb not quite bright enough for Mum to read

her magazines. Instead o f imagining the happily-ever-after lives o f the anonymous,

minor aristocrats in the United Kingdom, she brought out a deck of playing cards. She

taught me how to play go-fish and hearts. I learned to count in card suits and recognized

the royal-flush families. While Mum shuffled and dealt the cards between us, the radio

sobbed its sad songs about broken hearts that were even more broken in the rainy season.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 By the time the rains came to an end, the saturated, red soil could soak up no

more water. Puddles pooled in Memsab’s garden, and before the grass was dry she was

out with the shamba boy, filling them up before mosquitoes could start breeding. Kubwa

ran around her, glad for the company in the yard, until his paws caked with mud left

footprints on the pavement around the pool. The wet concrete around the pool made a

steamy mist as the water it could not absorb evaporated under the suddenly warm sun.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132

Memsab was right about the party: It was the beginning of trouble. Only, I was

the one in trouble. It was the biggest party we ever had. Uncle Peter had spent three

days at our house, arriving early in the morning and staying until late in the afternoon to

set up the surprise. Memsab’s freezer was filled with meat that we would grill and

Naomi made a large fruit salad. Julianne came the night before and we hung paper

streamers around the pool. That morning, Memsab parked her Benz so close to the house

it seemed to be hiding. She ordered Naomi to close all the curtains and locked herself in

her study. Kubwa was locked in the laundry room, where he howled and whined and

begged to be allowed to join the action.

By late in the afternoon, our yard was as full as the Ngong racetrack on Saturday.

In addition to the usual crew of Mum’s friends, there were a number of beefy, almost-

blonde South Africans who were friend with Doreen. They spoke to one another in the

rough-and-tumble consonants of Afrikaners; to everyone else they switched to a deeply

accented English that we children mimicked, good-naturedly amused. I stole a beef

burger patty, still uncooked, and took it to Kubwa who ate it three giant bites.

Someone brought a crate of South African white wine. They popped open several

bottles at once and the small kids tossed the corks into the middle of the pool and then

swam out to get them in a tireless game of fetch. Everyone filled their plastic cups with

the rich, rare wine.

“I thought it was illegal,” Julianne said to Uncle Peter over the music. “Kenya

has banned all South African products as long as Apartheid rules the nation.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 “Someone smuggled it out through Zimbabwe,” he said with a shrug. “One of her

friends from Cape Town.”

“Someone without a conscious,” Mum said, her voice dark. “There is a reason for

the trade embargo.”

“Lighten up,” one of the South Africans said. “It’s a birthday party and we’re just

remembering our home.”

“You should go home and change the place,” Mum said, not quite loudly.

Uncle Peter put a hand on her arm and raised his finger to his lips. “Please, not

today, just let Doreen enjoy herself.”

Mum was drinking steadily, beer even though she claimed not to like it. “At least

Tusker is made in a free country,” she said, holding up the brown bottle in a toast.

I think Doreen’s wish came true after she blew out the candles on her beautiful,

multi-layered, iced cake. Pieces were passed and traded and best wishes offered. Mum

turned down the cake and I only ate the icing.

“No swimming for an hour,” Julianne told us. “I don’t want anyone puking in the

pool.”

So we sat on the edge of the tempting pool, kicking our feet in the water and

splashing one another, our stomachs still bloated with sugar and cream.

“Why does your hair do that?” P.T. asked, pointing at my wild head.

“Shut up!” I told him, attemptng to grab his straight, blonde hair and pull it out.

“Why?” he asked. “I just want to know, Tree.”

“Shut up or else...”

“Nitii?” he asked challenging me. What?

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134 “ Watcha wewe, ” I said, wagging my finger at him. Watch yourself. “I’ll drown

you.99

And I nearly did. He was much bigger, already twelve, and I was only nine-

going-on-ten, but I pushed him into the pool and we splashed and thrashed. The air we

carried underwater turned to bubbles that floated around us. I let the air out of my lungs,

so I became heavy and hung to his neck like a stone, pulling him under with me. It was

his father who dove in to haul us out.

The adults all stopped drinking and came to stand around PT and me. Both of us

were gasping for air and coughing up pool water. We were shivering, and the voices of

the adults sounded like they were coming from far away. I shook my head, trying to

shake the water from my ears so that I could hear what they were saying.

“What happened?” Mum asked, appearing from nowhere and desperately trying

to knot a kanga at her waist.

“I just pulled them out of the pool,” Uncle Peter said, not looking at my Mum.

His cold, clear, blue eyes were fixed on us.

Uncle Peter was almost my father and I loved him as I would have my own father.

But that day I hated him. He put us both on the hot concrete, which burned through my

swimming costume to my bottom. “What’s going on?” he asked. “You two are best

friends, and I don’t like what I saw out there. What was going on?”

“Nothing,” P.T. said, challenging his father’s stare with identical blue eyes.

“Nothing,” I repeated, but I could not meet his gaze. I kept my eyes fixed on my

knees, counting the drops of water that ran one at a time into each other and creating

roads of water down my skin.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 “You’re both too old to be acting like a pair of baboons,” Uncle Peter said. “I

want the whole story. Now.”

Mum stood behind him, nodding her head in agreement, her face shone with

sweat, her lips trembling, and I could see that she was about to cry.

“I saw! I saw!” Margery sing-sang, dancing around. “P.T. asked Jaci what’s

wrong with her hair and she pushed him in the pool. She was going to kill him! I saw

her!”

“Did not!” P.T. and I said at the same time. The other adults turned away,

looking for their drinks, their towels, and their children. They turned away with the

impeccable politeness that was their heritage.

Uncle Peter frowned deepened, “Is that true, Peter Theodore?”

P.T. hated his foil name. He hung his head, shamed. Shrugged.

“Answer me,” Uncle Peter said. “What did you say?”

“I forget,” P.T. said, his voice as small as a drop of water.

“Did you say something about Jaci’s hair?”

P.T. looked down at his feet and a drop of pool water ran down his nose and fell

to his chest.

“Look at her,” Uncle Peter said. When P.T. shook his head, unwilling to look up

at me, Uncle Peter grabbed his chin and forced his eyes to meet mine. “Look at her good,

because she is the same as you are. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Remember that, Peter.”

“Yes, sir.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136 “And if you ever forget, I’ll give you a lesson you’ll always remember.”

“But, Peter,” my mother whispered to him, her hand on his shoulder, her voice

bringing his ear close to her lips. “It was Jaci. I’ll deal with her.”

“No, Sumar,” he said, contradicting my mother. “It was P.T. and he will have to

deal with the consequences. He is my son.”

Mum did not say anything, but she looked away and stepped back from Uncle

Peter. He grabbed P.T. by the arm and marched him into our tiny house, away from

everyone. Mum smacked me, and my neck flashed and my ears rung. I gasped and tears

forced themselves out of my eyes. Suddenly, Mum was crying too, she pulled me to her

chest, and pushed her fingers into my hair.

“I’m so sorry, Jacaranda,” she whispered in my ear. She kept crying, pulling me

closer and closer as if she wanted to make me part of her again, as if I were a baby that

could fit back into her stomach.

That night I was awakened by a woman’s body sliding into bed next to me.

Julianne pressed her hand against my mouth to keep me silent. In the shadows created by

the outside security light shining in the barred window, she looked almost sinister.

“Shh.” Her breath blew into my ear as she placed a finger over her pursed lips.

In the disembodied grayness of my room, Julianne became familiar and I leaned

onto her, frightened. My heart still pounding from being wakened so suddenly. Her

heart pounding even faster than mine, she smelled of Mum and old beer and sleep. She

held my shoulders, as if her thin womanly arms could protect me from the night. She

was listening closely as if waiting to hear furniture break, as if the door to my room might

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 be flung violently open. As if someone were looking for us.

“What do you expect if you let the child run around looking like a bloody

MauMauT Memsab asked Mum.

“Her hair is natural and free.” Mum’s voice was hard with stubbornness.

“It is wild and tangled. If you don’t do something with it, I will shave her head.”

“I am too old to threaten, Mother.”

“That is not a threat.”

“Jaci likes her hair as it is.”

“If she likes it like it, why did she try to drown Edinbourgh’s son?”

Julianne and I waited in the dark listening to them argue. They must have known

that we could hear every word through the thin wooden door. I could almost see them,

Mum sitting on the couch, her feet tucked under her. Memsab nervously standing by the

front door.

“They’re best friends,” Mum said, not answering the question. “Sometimes best

friends fight.”

I leaned my head harder into Julianne and closed my eyes. Julianne brushed her

hand on top of my hair, just barely touching the surface.

“You were lucky it was Peter’s son. Anyone else would have .. .”

“Peter’s a fair man,” Mum said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Pity you did not notice some of his more admirable qualities when you had a

chance,” Memsab said.

I heard a sob break from Mum’s throat. Tears gathered in my eyes.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 138 “Do not be a fool,” Memsab hissed. “He’s a married man. With a son. It is too

late. Don’t ruin Jacaranda’s life, too!”

“What should I do?” Mum asked. I imagined her covering her face with her

hands, by a need to protect her mouth and nose and eyes.

“It’s time she went to school.”

School. School? I turned to look at Julianne, but a stripe of a shadow from the

barred window fell across her eyes and she did not look at me. She held me tighter,

rocking a bit more for herself than for me. When Memsab left, the grille gate slammed

shut, and Julianne tucked me back into bed, lifting the covers high and capturing the air

before it billowed down in silence. She went back to the other room, and I heard the

settee groan when she sat next to Mum, still crying.

The next day, after church, Memsab took me to a hairdresser in town. I followed

her frightened, thinking that my head was going to be shaved. I was afraid I was going to

look like ashamba boy, my naked head brown and round. Instead, she handed me to a

silent African woman who clicked her tongue when she saw me. Memsab disappeared.

The African woman washed my hair, patiently pulling through the tangles, and then blew

it straight. Under the roar of the hairdryer, I saw my hair fall into straight sweeps.

“You have good hair,” she said, parting it and rubbing oil on my dry scalp.

Then she began to braid my hair, parting small sections and twining them

together. It took her three hours, but when she finished she allowed me to choose the

brightly coloured beads for the ends and she secured them with black thread.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 Memsab smiled when she saw me. The tidy braids swayed around my ears and

neck as I tossed my head proudly.

The next Saturday party, I proudly flashed my braids. When I swam, the water

ran off my hair in small rivers that trickled over my back.

“Your hair looks nice, Tree,” P.T. said, after all the kids had gone home with their

parents and we were alone together. “It looked nice before, too.”

“Sorry about last week,” I said.

“Apology accepted,” P.T. nodded.

We were sitting at the edge of the pool wrapped in towels, kicking our feet in the

water to make small splashes. P.T. reached and touched one of my braids, lightly

touching the beads.

“Your dad got really mad at you?”

“Yeah.”

I did not know what to say, so I kicked my feet harder - trying to get P.T. wet.

“You mad at me?” I asked him.

“No,” he said.

“I start school in January,” I told him. “Memsab says I have to go.”

“School isn’t so bad,” he promised. “I’ll look out for you.”

On the other side of the pool, Mum and Uncle Peter were sitting next to each

other, talking quietly. It was then that I realized she loved Uncle Peter. That he was the

only person who would visit us on days that were not parties. Memsab was right: he had

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140

protected me. It was getting dark and I started to shiver. P.T. put his arm around me and

we both sat there, covered in gooseflesh.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141

Memsab kept an old edition o f the Swahili-English, English-Swahili dictionary

written by a British scholar who had lived in Colonial Kenya for his entire life, collecting

the bits-and-pieces, categorizing them and alphabetizing the meaning of everything he

heard. When Memsab reached the end o f her Swahili before the end o f a conversation,

she would have Naomi or me fetch it from her study, and with her reading glasses she

would give the literal translations for each word she wanted to say, one at a time, without

trying to conjugate the verbs or use the grammatical model for the sentence structure.

The askari or shamba boy would look at her as if she were speaking backwards, words

that could not be understood.

There are things that cannot be translated.

There are words in one language that do not exist in the other. Or when

translated become twisted, confused until they mean something else. The Swahili that I

remembered from my first toddler years or relearned were the words that could not be

translated. These were words so specific that English could not substitute. I needed the

words that existed only in Swahili.

Pembeleza almost means ‘to comfort’.

Mother’s pembelezatheir babies, rock them gently and pat them on the back.

Pembeleza is to sing lullabies. It is to quiet, to reassure.

Tama is to have desire. When you smell the food that someone else is eating and

your mouth floods with water, this tama. is Tama is something sweet that you want but

cannot have.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142 Sometimes the untranslatable is just adopted into the other language. English

words that become Swahili-zed, a part of a new Kiswahili: computer!, hospital!, daktari.

There are Swahili words that become English in a mistranslated way.

Safari meant only a journey. In English it became a holiday excursion to an

exotic location, usually to photograph animals.

Hakuna matata. No problems. Except in Swahili it meant that there were no

problems to be made. It meant do not make a problem where there isn’t one.

Swahili and English mixed together in my world, side-by-side, without translation

or explanation. My memory did not separate the language from the meaning. Though

memory is only translated experience, like all translations, it is not to be completely

trusted. In translation and in memory, meaning might be corrupted.

I learned that even the imagination might be detained.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143

While everyone else shopped for Christinas gifts to carry to extended families,

that stretched beyond aunts and uncles to in-laws and second-cousin and lived in the far-

flung rural-regions of the country, Memsab began shopping for my primary school.

At nine in the morning, Memsab was dressed and sitting in her study, as if she

were reporting to work. She put on her half-moon reading glasses and opened the Yellow

Pages to S - for schools. I watched from the hall, as she pulled the phone closer to her

with one hand. In her other hand she had a pen hovering over a pad of paper, her manner

efficient and purposeful.

“Hello,” she greeted. “Do you have space for a female student in Standard Five?”

The school year started in January and most classes were already full. Memsab

crossed out of the phonebook each school that was full, each number that was out-of-

service, or listed incorrectly. She started with the more prestigious schools and worked

her way down the list to the public schools. She even called the American missionary

school, and they first asked her about our religious standing.

“Anglican,” Mum replied, tartly. “What do you mean, do I work for the Lord? Is

He hiring?”

Then she was quiet, listening to the other end of the line.

“Are you hiring on His behalf?” Memsab asked. “I have a daughter who needs a

job. She would make a brilliant swimming instructor.”

“Oh, I see, you don’t have a pool. Well, thank you very much.”

“Yes, God bless you, too.” After she hung up, she peered over her glasses at me.

“What are you doing there?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144 “Just listening,” I replied shyly.

“That was the Americans,” Memsab told me. “Do you want to go to school with

a blasted bunch of American fanatics?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know any Americans.

“They’ll baptize you and have you speaking in tongues,” Memsab told me.

“Missionaries are all like that.”

“Will I have to go to boarding school?”

“I hope not,” Memsab said. “Sumar put off looking for a school so long it will be

a wonder if you can get admitted anywhere.”

About half of my playmates had disappeared from our Saturday parties, because

they were sent to boarding school in Highlands around Nairobi. They came back from

the holidays taller and mysterious, talking together inPig-Latin, the They would lean

against one another, in coolly unhappy silence that excluded the rest of the world. P.T.

told me that in boarding school the teachers could withhold dinner and after lights out the

bigger kids didn’t sleep. He said that the night air was cooler than in Nairobi.

“I don’t have to start school this year,” I told her. “I can wait until next year.”

“You’ve waited too long already,” Memsab said. “Much longer and there won’t

be any point in your going to school.”

“What happens if I don’t get into school?” I asked.

Memsab just shook her head, “Let’s not imagine the worst.”

I couldn’t imagine school would be so bad, but from the look on her face I could

tell Memsab was worried. Then suddenly she smiled at me, the smile of grown-ups who

have made up their mind and want to be left alone with their thoughts.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145 “Don’t worry about it,” Memsab reassured me. “Something will work out.

Would you please go see what Naomi is doing?”

In the kitchen, Naomi was makingchapattis. She hand mixed the white-flour

with water andKassuku brand vegetable lard. She pulled out handfuls of dough and

carefully rolled them into long snakes. Each of these she twisted and folded, tucking the

end into a tight fist.

“Can I help?” I asked, putting my hand into the bowl the dough was satisfactorily

sticky when I pressed my fingers to it.

Naomi knocked my hand away with her flour-covered fingers. “Stop it. If you

touch the dough too much chapattisthe will come tough.”

“I can learn,” I told her. “If you show me how.”

“Another day,” Naomi always promised. “When I have more time.”

She coated a heavy, wooden rolling pin with flour.

“Did you go to school?” I asked Naomi.

She looked up at me, her brown eyes suddenly hard. “For a few years.”

“What is it like? Why did you stop going?”

“My family could not afford the fees to send a girl to school.”

“Did you like school?” I asked her. I wrote my name in the flour she had spread

across the counter where she was going to roll out the dough.

“School is good,” Naomi told me. “Without it there is no chance for the family to

do better. When you go to school, you must study hard...”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146 Before she could finish what she was saying, Memsab came into the kitchen, with

her jacket on and kikoya over her shoulder. I thought she did not notice me, since she

was hunting through her large purse for the car keys.

“Jaci,” she said surprising. “Are you ready to go?”

“Where are we going?”

“To see about a school for you,” Memsab said. “Hurry up and find your shoes.”

I had left my shoes by the kitchen door I sat on the floor and tied my laces.

Kubwa came up and leaned his stocky weight against my legs. I paused to pat him.

“Hurry up, Jacaranda,” Memsab said, as she stepped over us. “And don’t let that

dog get you dirty we don’t have to be washing up and you need to look presentable.”

I rushed after her to the car. She reached over and flipped open the lock on the

passenger side. I pulled the door open and slid across the seat, in my rush slamming the

door closed rather hard.

“Don’t slam the door, you’ll break it off.”

“Sorry,” I whispered. Pole sana.

“Buckle up,” Memsab said, idling the engine while she waited for me to get

situated in the car. As soon as I had the safety belt fastened, she revved the engine and

raced through the gates. I was certain that the bright red of her car and the speeding roar

of the aging engine disturbed the well-to-do peace of our Muthaiga neighbourhood. On

each side of the road, there were six to eight feet of grassy shoulder before the hedges

that bordered and shaded each property.

At the roundabout kitty-comer from the Muthaiga Mini-Market, Memsab turned

to the left, taking the route through Parklands to town. I looked out the window, my

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147 stomach churning nervously, barely registering the various neighbourhoods that we raced

through. I was suddenly afraid that Memsab was taking me to school at that moment. I

looked through the window for familiar places, the entrance to the Hawker’s Market

where Memsab bought fruits and vegetables -the roundabout that we passed on the way

to church that had a tree so overgrown with bougainvillea that it looked like a giant

chicken, and then down the hill and past the National Museum.

On Moi Avenue, we turned off and into the maze of side streets of town. Without

the daily traffic, the double-parked vehicles, and the crush of pedestrians, it was to

navigate to the Stanley Hotel. It was like a ghost town.

“There isn’t a school around here,” I said, my voice as shaky as my legs, as I got

out of the car.

“Of course, not,” Memsab said, as she opened her coin purse to find a few

shillings in the meter. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

Memsab held my hand as we walked into the Stanley Hotel I had been there

before with her. She sometimes met her friends there for tea, on the days when they

didn’t play bridge. Anaskari in a red coat with long tails that reached past his knees held

open the door with too-dingy-to-be-white gloves. I thought the hotel was glamourous

and felt part of an elegant era when I walked beside my grandmother, but I didn’t

understand what this had to do with my schooling.

“This way,” Memsab said, turning me with a guiding hand towards the Thom

Tree Cafe. “We’re meeting someone for tea.”

Memsab followed a waiter to a comer table on the fenced in patio that stretched

back into the sidewalk of town. The waiter left us with leather-and-plastic menus. While

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 Memsab looked over the menu, I watched the few other people sitting at tables, all of as

scattered away from one another. At each table, two or three people leaned to the centre

in conspiratorial conversations over cooling cups of tea. The few waiters who had to

work through the Christmas holidays were standing in the comer talking to one another

and chewing through the hotel’s supply of toothpicks, as if they were organizing a strike.

“Sorry I’m late,” a familiar female voice called behind me.

I spun around and saw Julianne rushing past the waiter who was trying to lead her

to another table. Her red hair was brighter than any of the Christmas ornaments hanging

in the hotel lobby. Her smile was brighter than her hair. Julianne lassoed the third chair

at our table with her jacket before she sat down.

“Please, have a seat,” Memsab said, smiling wanly, as if all of Julianne’s energy

made her feel a bit faint. “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice.”

“Hakuna matata,” Julianne said, leaning over and kissing my cheek. “Happy

Christmas, Jacaranda. Have you told Father Christmas what you want this year?”

“There is no Father Christmas,” I told her. “I’m too old to believe that.”

“I don’t know about that,” Juilanne said with a bemused smile. “He got me what

I wanted, early this year.”

“What was that?” I asked her.

“Enough time off to have a holiday at Mombasa.”

The waiter brought the pot of tea that Memsab had ordered, two cups, and a sugar

bowl. Memsab smiled at him vaguely, while watching him set the table for us. I spread

the cloth napkin across my lap and waited for Memsab to trace her finer along the rim of

her cup before I dared to sip my own tea.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149 “What would you like?” Memsab asked Julianne.

“A cup of coffee and a chocolate croissant,” she told the waiter.

The waiter returned with the coffee and a smaller pot of warm cream. Julianne

added three spoons of sugar and enough cream to turn her coffee a shade lighter than my

skin. With each exorbitant gesture, Memsab’s eyebrows drew closer and closer together

until they almost met in the middle.

“So, what is this about?” Julianne asked pointedly. “I can’t imagine this is a

purely social invitation.”

“I have called every reputable school in Nairobi and each of them is full,”

Memsab told Julianne. She spoke as if I were not there. “I simply don’t think she can

stay out of school another year, or else she will never be able to keep up with her peers.

And I would rather not send her to boarding school.”

“You wouldn’t...” Julianne protested on my behalf.

“I would rather not,” Memsab acknowledged. “I think it would probably be good

for Jaci to have some discipline and a regular schedule in her life. But, there is a good

chance that it would break Sumar’s heart beyond repair.”

Julianne sighed with relief. So did I.

“Is the job you mentioned at Hillcrest Secondary still available?”

“Yes.” Julianne’s eyes narrowed with caution, as if she had sensed a trap.

“Why?”

“I was thinking that if Sumar took the job, then they would have to make space

for Jacaranda in the school. As part of the contract for teaching.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 “Hillcrest Secondary?” Julianne looked at Memsab as if she was crazy. “Jaci isn’t

old enough!”

“Obviously not. At the Hillcrest Primary -they are related and it is the only

solution that I can think of. Except for the American schools, they will take anyone so

long as you can pay their inflated fees.”

“Can you afford their fees?”

“I will not have my granddaughter in an Evangelical, fundamentalist school,”

Memsab said in a self-righteous voice. “Missionaries have their way with the rest of the

country they can at least leave us alone.”

“The idea of Hillcrest is brilliant, but one small problem: Sumar won’t take the

job. I’ve been after her for two months and I can’t ask the headmaster to keep it open any

longer. I’ve run out of personal favours.”

“Sumar will take the job.”

Something in Memsab’s voice made Julianne sit up straight. I could feel myself

staring at her, mouth open, fly-catching. There was a subtle threat behind the certainty of

that statement. At the next table, the waiter was seating a man whose face I recognized

from the telly as a Minister of Parliament. He sat facing the door, his back to a wall,

carefully flicking back his jacket so as not to sit on it. After lie gave his order to the

waiter, he unfolded his newspaper and read the front page slowly.

“You can’t make Sumar do anything she doesn’t want to.”

“Can’t I?” Memsab asked. “When she lives in my house, she shall abide by my

rules. And she will be there if I have to escort her personally.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 “No doubt,” Julianne said, taking a bite from her croissant. “And that I would

like to see.”

“All you have to do is arrange an interview and she will be there, pressed and

dressed.”

“Are you planning on car-jacking her?”

“If I drive her to work every morning, I’ll do it.” Memsab refilled her teacup and

mine. “It is time she start living again and Jacaranda needs to be in school.”

Julianne wiped her mouth off, refolded her napkin and set over the crumbs on her

plate. “I must be going,” she apologized. “But am glad to help.”

“No, thank you,” Memsab said.

“I’m doing it for Jaci,” Julianne told her, brushing imaginary crumbs from her lap

before she stood up. “And Sumar.”

She pulled a few bills from her pocket and was about to place them on the table

when Memsab stopped her, folding her fingers around Julianne’s. “This is my treat.”

“Thank you and have a lovely Christmas.”

Julianne strode off, carrying her jacket over one shoulder.

“Well, that settles it.”

Memsab poured tea into my cup and passed me the sugar bowl. I neatly stirred in

a single heaped teaspoon of tan-darkMumias sugar granules. I could feel her eyes on my

each move, precise and careful. I had learned these gestures from her. Memsab’s pride

was as fragrant as the Ketepa tea in our cups.

On the way home, Memsab took me to get measured for my uniform. The tailor’s

measure stretched across my shoulders, my waist, my hip to ankle. He hung the tape

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 measure around his neck and wrote down my measurements. I had grown up seeing

students walking down the roads in their red or blue or brown uniforms, matching

sweaters with badges sewed over their chests. I realized I was about to join their ranks,

in the plain, heavy cotton material. I wanted to ask Mum if I could go to school with

another colour, not the plain gray. As I watched Memsab fingering the cloth for its

quality, I realized how happy she was, so I said nothing.

At home, Memsab went straight into her study, striding though the front door. I

went through the kitchen to go to my house. On the stove, Naomi had left the fried

chapattis wrapped in a kitchen towel. I unfolded the towel and admired them. Naomi

made some of the best chapattis in the country. They were proper black-and-white and

when I tore one in half, the dough had inner pages that I could peel open like a

newspaper. The taste ofchapattis was comforting, familiar in the moment when I knew

my life was to be forever changed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PART II: SABA SABA, 1990-1994

Jacaranda trees bloom suddenly.

Always surprising, always plentiful and purple.

The trees, full and heavy with blossoms, look as if they will remain purple forever,

but the wind combs loose the flowers, at first falling unnoticed to the ground. The flowers

that kiss the branches let go with heart-breaking ease when the winds blow and the sky

turns a forgetful gray with the last rains. The trees rain jacaranda-purple drops, like

tears of watercolor dripping from a brush. The ground is covered by crushed blossoms

so delicate that they grind without complaint to the red soil. Unremembered, they blend

in with the forest. Unimpressive, unclimbable trees with that are barely green. Then the

Jacaranda trees disappear, plain almost leafless branches that scratch the sky. When

they bloom, it is always surprising to see which trees are cloaked in purple.

153

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154

Mum got the job.

Which meant she had to get a one-piece swimming costume.

“Practicing some modesty will be good for you,” Memsab said, when she found

out.

Julianne took us out for a celebratory dinner at the TinTin Chinese Restaurant. I

was awed by the red carpet, high ceilings, and the soft glowing light coming from red

paper lanterns. The Kenyan waiter in a rich, red dinner-jacket and black bowtie lead us

to the table. When he turned to return to his station by the door, I saw there was a pale

bleach stain on the back of his jacket. Another Kenyan waiter brought us the menus in

leather casing that had gold Chinese lettering on the outside, most of the lettering already

rubbed off and only the indented shadows of the unreadable remained.

“I’m ordering for all of us,” Julianne declared.

Mum folded her menu and picked up her monologue where she had left off.

“You’re in on this, Julianne. I know, so don’t try to deny it. You’re in cahoots with my

mother in making me get this job.”

It was easier to study the menu than to listen to Mum’s tirade. She had been

complaining to me for three days, saying basically the same things she was now repeating

to Julianne: accusing Julianne and Memsab of ganging up on her, that the money was so

small she wouldn’t even be able to pay for the petrol to drive across town, and that she

was happy enough without a job. On the menu each item was labeled twice, first in

Chinese and then in English. I compared the English letters to the Chinese and was glad

that I didn’t have to go to a Chinese school. Memsab believed that I would be able to

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 keep up with my classmates, but I didn’t quite trust her. It had been a long time since she

had gone to school. Looking around the restaurant, I didn’t see any Chinese people.

After Julianne ordered, our waiter took the menus away. Julianne opened the

bottle of Kilamanjaro bottled water, pouring some for herself before passing it to me.

Mum was now silent, staring into the glass of red wine that the waiter had brought for

her.

“Is anyone here Chinese?” I whispered to Julianne. “The cook? The owners?”

She laughed. “That’s the owner over there.”

At the table she was pointing to there was an extended, Indian family, who were

laughing. They were scooping spoonfuls of fiery, ground chili sauce on their plates. The

grandmother was feeding a spoonful of rice to a baby on the chair. A fat man patted his

stomach and smiled benevolently over his family, looking almost like the large stone

Buddha that sat at the entrance of the restaurant.

“Did your friend mention to you that I have to wear a one-piece swimming

costume?” Mum asked Julianne. She had found out this particular detail about the job

only after she had accepted the position and now it was added to her list of complaints.

“One-piece? Two piece? What differences does it make?” Julianne asked. “A job

is a job.”

“Who wears a one-piece suit?” Mum asked.

“Everyone but you?”

“Old women and children,” Mum corrected her. “Do you know when the last

time I wore a one-piece was?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 “No,” Julianne replied, seemingly unaffected by Mum’s tirade. “When?”

“Almost ten years ago, when I was competing.”

“So, do it again.”

“Afterwards, you know. After everything I promised myself two things: that I

would never compete for Kenya again. And that I would never wear a one-piece

costume.”

“That was 1982,” Julianne pointed out. “Things have changed since then; maybe

you should too.”

“Name one thing that has changed since 1982,” Mum said, crossing her arms in

front of her. “Just one.”

“People are starting to protest,” Julianne said. “That is the beginning of change.”

“There was protest then, too,” Mum retorted. “See how effective it was.”

Julianne arched her eyebrows and pursed her lips. Mum was suddenly silent,

pretending to toss her hair so that she could look over her shoulder where a waiter was

lurking too close to our table. He could have been trying to be helpful, making a good

impression to ensure a large tip, or he could have been eavesdropping.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Mum said, her voice lowered.

The waiter came with plates of spring rolls and fried dumplings. He smiled at me

as he placed them on the table and then gave us the bowl of sweet-and-sour sauce from

the empty table next to ours. I picked up the chopsticks awkwardly.

“Do you want a fork?” Mum asked, already raising her hand to call back the

waiter.

“No,” I said, trying to hold the chopsticks between my fingers. “I can do this.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 “Here,” Julianne said, leaning over the table. She took my right hand and gently

twisted my fingers into the proper position. “Hold those two fingers steady and use the

top stick to pinch the food.”

I watched, my hand frozen and cramped, as Julianne gracefully used her

chopsticks to pick up the wantons. When I tried to copy her movements, the wonton fell

into the sticky sauce and I had use a fork to fish it out. I put it on my plate and tried to

pick it up again with the chopsticks. It barely made it to my mouth. Sweet-and-sour

dripped down my chin, and when I looked up, Mum was smiling for the first time that

evening.

Mum needing a one-piece swimming costume meant we had to go shopping in

town. On the second of January, she borrowed Julianne’s car and I went with her to

town. In the beginning of January, it as still the holidays and Nairobi was a ghost town of

foreigners andchutis. Real Kenyans, everyone else, went up-country, to the reserves and

their tribal-homelands to celebrate with their extended families. I always imagined the

reserves beingmanyatas, the traditional Maasai huts encircled by fence made from cut

thorn bushes and small acacia trees.

Mum parked a few stores down from the Nairobi Sports house, and as we walked

down the street, I peered into the quiet shops. People trickled back to Nairobi slowly,

and it would be two weeks before school started and everyone returned to their ordinary

schedules. Anaskari sat in an old office chair outside the shop, his baton under his seat.

He smiled at us, not needing to be vigilant since the shop was empty.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158 The windows downtown were still decorated for Christmas with landscapes of

snow that had been hand-drawn in the windows of many of the stores. A few weeks

earlier I had come to town with Memsab for Christmas shopping and seenjua thekali

artists who sat facing the street, balancing vials of paint on their knees and gripping

brushes in their teeth. Like me, the artists who copied the snow-flakes and bounds of

snow from greeting cards, had never seen winter or snow or a real Christmas tree. They

always painted Father Christmas white, as if even they knew no African would ever be

able to afford to give away gifts freely to all the children of the world.

We were the only customers inside the shop and the Indian cashier greeted us as if

we were his first customers all year, as if we were going to be responsible for his business

luck for the entire year to come. He wiped sweat from his brow with a large, white

handkerchief that he then used to polish his glasses, each lens as large and as bright as a

new shilling coin. Gold and silver foiled paper still hung in the stores wishing us a

Happy New Year.

“Happy New Year,” he said to Mum, his head swaying side-to-side, in tempo to

his accent. “How can I help you today?”

“I need a swimming costume,” Mum said.

“I have very many fine swimming costumes,” he said. He stepped down from his

counter and led us past the tennis rackets and rugby shirts. “Just upstairs here.”

The steps were narrow, with a metal banister. The Indian stood aside so that

Mum could go up, which she did gripping the railing with knuckles that glowed white

through her skin. I put my fingers on the cold, smooth metal and swallowed a vague

unsettling feeling

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159 “Jaci,” Mum said without looking behind to me. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, Mum.” Except I wasn’t. I could not bring myself to go up into the yawning

shadow at the top of the steps. My feet refused to obey the thoughts I was sending to

them, knee to bend, foot up, forward to the next step.

“Go on,” thedukawalli said to me. “Swimming costumes for ladies are upstairs.”

I nodded to him and swallowed again. I raised my left foot, but my right would

not follow. Mum turned on the steps and faced me, hands rooted on her hips.

“Jacaranda, don’t be a baby now.”

I nodded and understood that I needed to get up the steps, that she was counting

on me to follow her.Now. This was not about buying a swimming costume or following

her upstairs. The shopkeeper muttered something to himself in Hindi, probably about the

foolishness of thinking thatmzungu a would bring him good luck for the New Year. He

gave me a tap between my shoulder blades and broke the spell that had held me gripped

with fear. I rushed up the steps as quickly as I could, gripping the rail to pull me up

faster, pushing past Mum and suddenly standing on the top floor of the store. The room

was larger, brighter than I expected. I was surrounded by glowing, short-short tennis

skirts and racks of swimming costumes, all bathed with light the windows let in from the

street.

“I am sorry,” I heard Mum say to him, as they caught up with me. “I don’t know

what gets into her sometimes.”

“It is nothing,” the Indian said. He turned on the ceiling lights, making the room

even brighter.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160 I looked at the swimming costumes, all for ladies and children. I didn’t know

what got into me either, a nameless darkness that lived in my dreams and surfaced so

rarely that I forgot to be afraid of it. Memsab had told me that I would outgrow it,

forgetting the childish anxieties.

“How about this one?” I asked Mum, holding up a bright pink bikini top that I

knew Mum would like.

“Very nice color,” the shopkeeper said, nodding his head and smiling.

“That is too ski...” Mum paused, searching for an appropriate word that would

not embarrass her or the shopkeeper. “Remember, Jaci, that we came for swimming

costume that I can wear while I teach.”

“Aa, you needed a competitive suit.”

“Something like that.”

“Speedo is the best international brand,” he told her. He began holding up

different costumes, each emblazoned with the check-ed approval of the brand.

“I like the blue one,” I told her. The colour was the same inviting shade as

chlorinated pool water.

Mum took it from him. “It’s nice enough.”

Without trying it on, she put it over her arm and went downstairs.

I followed her, gripping the banister tightly as if I could squeeze the truth of my

fears from it. The Indian shopkeeper followed me, still muttering in Hindi, like repeating

incantations of a spell.

“You will need this,” he told Mum, showing her a large whistle while he rang up

the cash register. The whistle on its thick, canvas ribbon glittered harshly. To me it

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 161 looked like a comma, the most mysterious of punctuation marks that I was having trouble

learning. “Try it. It is the best whistle used by coaches. Try it.”

Mum lifted it to her lips and in the sudden silence of the store she blew it.

It was as if a flame had landed in my ears. The whistle screamed shrill and cruel

in the air. Without meaning to I backed away from her, from the door and into the tennis

rackets. They fell with an even louder clatter to the cement floor aroundme, the sounds

of metal and wood on the floor seemed to drum into my own flesh. I ran a few steps

backwards, my mind filled with darkness.

“Jacaranda. Jacaranda. Jacaranda.” Mum’s voice sounded far away.

I did not want to open my eyes. I realized that I had fainted, like a woman in the

movies. I wanted to stay forever in the golden-bathed darkness of my eyelids.

“Jacaranda, please wake up.”

“Is she sick? I will call the police. Is she dead?”

I could feel Mum’s lap around my head, she was bending so close that I could feel

her breath puff onto my forehead. I could feel the way that her green eyes were searching

my face. Without opening my eyes, I could imagine the Indian shopkeeper twisting his

handkerchief in his hands, turning around his knuckles until it became a knotted turban.

T m sorry, Jaci. I forgot. I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Jacaranda.”

“Let me call the hospital. They should come.”

“Jacaranda.”

I slowly opened my eyes, so slowly that I could see my own lashes. Tears were

caught on Mum’s eyelashes, quivering like raindrops on the burglary bars in our

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 windows. The Indian behind the counter and holding the phone between his ear and

shoulder. The tennis rackets on the high walls seemed to be waving down at me.

“Jacaranda?”

“Is she okay?” He said something in Hindi, probably thanking his gods that there

was no dead child in his store. He hung up the phone and came out from behind his

counter.

“I’m okay,” I told them, overwhelmed by their adult-sized worry.

Mum ran her fingers through the narrow parts of my braids, her fingertips gently

tracing my scalp, reaching through my hair, almost into my thoughts.

“Do you think you can stand up?”

I was not sure. The shopkeeper offered me his hands, both of them lined and

firm. They were dry and large, swallowing up my fingers, and he pulled me up from the

floor easily. My legs were like custard under me and I swayed dizzyly.

Blood rushed into my head like a red sheet. I could feel my heart drumming in

my ears. He put one hand on my back and the other against my chest.

“Asante sana'' My lips moved, but I wasn’t sure he heard me. Swahili was

familiar and salty in my lips. Between his hands, I feel steady.

“Stand strong,” he said, smiling encouragingly.

He set me on the chair by the door saved foraskari. the The watchman stood in

the shade outside, looking at me with malaria-yellow and suspicious eyes. The cracked

leather seat pricked my thighs through my cotton skirt and my head was still watery, as if

there were a swimming pool in my brain. I looked behind the closed cash register, to the

blue-skinned child-god in the golden frame. The cherub body of Krishna was decked in

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163 gold, his black eyes, framed with blacker lashes seemed be looking right through me.

The Indian brought me copper-smelling water in a dripping glass. I swallowed it,

knowing it was cool and unboiled.

“Slowly. Slowly.”

“Jacaranda, does your head hurt?”

I thought about Mum’s question while I sipped the water. I ran my fingers over

my comrows, feeling the contours of my skull.

Mum paid for the swimming costume. They talked in whispers, as if afraid I

would hear them the way I heard the whistle. Against Mum’s protests, he wrapped the

whistle in brown paper and included it in the package he made for us.

“She must confront her fear.”

I must confront my fear. Except I was not afraid, not really. I wanted to tell him

that I was not afraid of anything, that I had no reason to be afraid.

“Thank you,” Mum said, dipping her head.

Back in the car, Mum chewed her bottom lip. Every time we came to a stoplight,

she would stop and look at me. I smiled at her, trying to show her that I was fine. The

plastic bag taped into a tidy square was on the seat behind us.

“She’s not ready for school yet,” Mum told Memsab when we got home.

“And why not?”

I sat on the kitchen stool, sipping a cup of milky, overly sweet tea with Naomi.

We both drank out of painted tin mugs while listening to Memsab and Mum in the next

room. They were having tea like acquaintances who knew they didn’t like each other but

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164 were at the home of a mutual friend and trying to be civil. Naomi left the door ajar, just

enough for their words to slip through to us.

“She is still too young.”

“At ten everyone else has started school. As it is she will behind her agemates.”

“She’s not ready,” Mum repeated.

“You aren’t doing anything to help her.” I could hear Memsab stirring sugar into

her tea, the quick tap-tap-tap rhythm of her silver spoon clicking in the china cup. “If

you put if off any longer, she will be like a village child, unable to learn. Besides, I have

taught her enough about reading and writing for her to do just fine in her classes.”

“She had a meltdown at an Indian shop today. She wouldn’t follow me up the

stairs and when I blew a whistle...”

“Who told you to go about blowing whistles?”

“She fainted. Collapsed on the floor, screamed and then blacked out completely.

She didn’t remember anything.”

“Of course not, she’s too young to remember.” Memsab paused a moment,

probably sipping her tea. “I’ve been telling you that for years. It is your fear that you

have spread to her. She has absorbed it without reason.”

“That’s impossible,” Mum said. Then there was a long silence, they were

probably staring at each other, waiting to see who would blink first.

“She screamed before she fainted.”

I didn’t remember screaming. I had awoken with the peaceful shadows of dreams

and memories pulled away from my brain. The flame of noise had stopped.

“What are they talking about?” I asked Naomi.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165 She shook her head, and held a finger to her lips, hushing me with one ear turned

towards the open door. From the way she narrowed her eyes, looking at the floor and not

at me, I knew she new more than she was willing to tell me. Suddenly I was frustrated by

all the secrecy around me, and I put the cup in the middle of the table, resolving not to

drink any more until she told me something.

“Have you ever talked to her?” I heard Memsab ask through the door.

“To Jacaranda?”

“No, to the Queen. Of course, to Jacaranda!”

“I thought we agreed not.” Mum said, her voice trailing away. Memsab

sometimes looked at me in a way that made me want to swallow my words and that is

what kept me silent, listening to my mother and grandmother.

“We? You never talked to me about anything.”

“Mum, don’t be like this.” There was something strange about hearing Mum use

the wordMum. I couldn’t quite imagine Memsab as a Mum. “She is my daughter and I

know what is best for her.”

“Do you, now? On what grounds did you come to that conclusion?”

The weight of too many past mistakes held that question to the floor.

“I’m her mother,” Mum repeated, stubbornly. It was her only answer.

“Mothers make mistakes,” Memsab said, her voice soft. “I have. The only thing

we can do is keep trying our best to make sure the mistakes are not permanently

damaging.”

Naomi was twisting her teacup around and around. She had children in boarding

schools up country who she sent school fees and clothes to each month. Three girls and a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 little boy. She saw them during the school holidays, but I was the child whom she saw

everyday. I was the one whom she madechapattis for and I was the girl whose hair she

combed through, undoing the small braids that left my hair crimped. When Naomi

looked up at me, her eyes were steady with ownership and truths that she could tell me.

Frightened, I fled leaving behind my cup, half-empty, for her to wash.

I went and sat on Mum’s favourite poolside bench. Kubwa came up to me and

put his head in my lap. I gently stroked him, feeling the ridge of hair ripple back to its

backwards stripe under my hand. He brought me an old, heavy rubber ring that was his

toy for me to throw for him. When I threw it, he chased after it, almost knocking over the

shamba boy who was trimming one of the large red bushes in the centre of the yard.

Kubwa brought the ball back. I knew that no matter how many times I through

the ring, he would bring it back to me. He was only half-trained, because I had been too

young to give him the daily lessons he needed. Instead, Kubwa did as he wanted and

mostly he wanted to keep us happy.

He sat down, his eyes fixed on my hand that held the ring. I pretended to throw it

and he ran a few steps, before stopping. He turned around and looked at me, his forehead

wrinkled. Then he ran back and sat down next to me. I threw it as hard as I could across

the yard. When he brought back the ring, I did not have the heart to make him chase after

it again.

He whined a moment and put his heavy paw in my lap. Mum came out of

Memsab’s house and sat down next to me. She patted Kubwa, his thin tail beating the

ground with pleasure at all the attention.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167 “Are you feeling better?” Mum asked.

I nodded, my tongue heavy with the questions I wanted to ask.

“I’m sorry,” Mum said.

“What for?” I asked.

“I will teach at Braecrest,” she said, as if she had not heard my question. “It will

be good for you to start school.”

“I don’t have to start school if you don’t want to work there.”

“I want you to start school,” Mum said. “I think you’re old enough.”

When I said nothing, she turned and looked at me strangely.

“You’re not afraid of school, are you?”

I shrugged.

“It is only day school, so we will still have our nights together. You’ll make new

friends,” Mum promised. “Julianne and I became friends in school.”

Mum picked up Kubwa’s rubber ring ball and threw it across the yard. When it

hit the ground, it turned to its side and rolled like a wheel. Kubwa caught it and brought

it back to her. She patted him with one hand and took the ring with the other. He

watched the ring, his eyes darting with excitement. And when she threw it, he took off

and caught it in midair, his body arching gracefully as his teeth snapped shut.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168

My afternoons spent face in the sun, feet in the pool, and growing like a plant,

were over. Even if I hadn’t been starting school, I would not have been able to continue

spending my days splashing through the water. The whistle had split my life open and I

was filled with the questions I had never dared to think about.

It was as if that whistle was the first I had ever heard.

I knew this was not possible. Every police officer in the country had a whistle,

kept in the breast-pocket o f his uniform and tethered to the shoulder with a ribbon braid.

Traffic officers kept them clenched in their teeth as they tried to direct traffic with short

bursts o f sound and hand signals. They stood at each inflow point o f the roundabouts

during rush hour, bearing with the honking abuse o f matatu drivers rushing to pick up

more passengers. The traffic was a snarling, stop-and-go war between the police trying

to enforce the traffic laws handed down from the British and the matatus trying to make

enough money to live on.

Everyone knew the police were a joke: With a two-hundred shilling note one

could bribe the officers manning the spiked road blocks that bottlenecked the road to a

single lane. They were supposed to be checking vehicles for up-to-date insurance and

drivers for valid licenses. But really they were collecting ‘chai money, ’ that was

supposedly used to buy endless rounds o f tea. In instead, the police were underpaid and

over-worked and the bribes were how they made ends meet. During the rainy season,

they stood at the roundabouts in bright yellow rain ponchos and the traffic was worse

than any other time.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 When you went to the police station, a long bench faced the desk that was filled

with people waiting to see prisoners, file reports, or reporters waiting for a good story.

The police never had the needed forms, but knew a photocopy place across the street

where for a shilling over the Copy-Cat rate you could make duplicates of their last copy.

The whistles were meant to be a low budget siren.

The whistles were a part of the English bobby tradition.

The whistles were not enough to stop matatus or part the slowly gathering

crowds.

In Swahili there was no traditional word or concept for police officers, so they

took the English word and added an ‘i Polici. Polici became something different from

police officers.

They were called the boys-in-blue, at once affectionate and derogatory.

Everyone was afraid of the police officers. They were unpredictable, dangerous.

Most carried guns, either small pistols or AK-47s, slung over their shoulders as casually

as schoolbags. They made arrests on Friday night, put you in a holding cell for the

weekend, when the judges who could set bail were unavailable until Monday. Bribes had

to be offered subtly, as a friendly gesture, or else be illegal.

The whistle was a reminder of things that had passed.

Without being told, I could not remember the whistle that shattered my childhood,

breaking my life that should have been. It was the warning of change, after which came

the chaos of shattered news reports and shifting secrets. Afterwards came with batons,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 drumming against doors and shots in the night and the tense waiting. A part o f me

remembered the shrill sound.

The whistle echoed through me, starting my new year with a warning o f things to

come.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Mum and I started school on the same day.

If she was nervous, she didn’t show it. Sunday nigh, she packed her gym bag

with the one piece swimming costume we had bought and set it by the door. In my room,

I spread my brand-new school supplies across my bed and organized them like a treasure.

Five red-and-black HB pencils with black ends and a small silver pencil-sharpener. A

large white rubber in a green paper sheath. Two blue Bic pens. Two black. A glue stick.

I put these into a round pencil case that Mum had written my name on. Braecrest

Primary School had sent a list of supplies that Standard Fivers would need. We went to

Sarit Centre, the oldest mall in East Africa, and joined the back-to-school crowd filling

our basket with the required stationary and supplies. Four exercises books: Three lined

and one graph. English, history, science and maths.

The night before school, I couldn’t sleep and as soon as I heard Mum in the

kitchen I got up and joined her. Still in my pajamas, I sat on the weak settee, my heels

pressed against my thighs. Mum was a pale spirit in the half-shadows of the kitchen

refusing to turn on the light hanging from the middle of the ceiling on a crooked wire.

“Are you going to get dressed?” she asked me. She was already dressed in a skirt,

and had tied an apron over her clothes. Mum sawed through the tough crust of the white

Vienna bread, spread BlueBand on both sides of each thick slice, and mixed Milo for my

breakfast.

“In a minute,” I said. At least since we wore uniforms; I didn’t have to decide

what to wear. “Do you think, I will do well in school?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 “You’ll do fine,” Mum said, her back turned toward me. She put the bread into a

hot skillet, and the toast smelled salty.

“How do you know?”

Mum sighed heavily and passed me a plate with a piece of bread on it, her mind

already far away from me. I dipped my crispy golden bread into the Milo until it was

sweet and soaked. I bit off the wet part, sucking away the last of the sweetness. Mum

untied the apron and sat down next to me. She stirred instant coffee granules into a cup

of hot water.

“Can you take me to school?” I asked.

“We talked about this already,” Mum said. “I have to be there for the opening

assembly. Memsab will take you. Go get dressed.”

I would have preferred Mum. In my room, my uniform was on a hanger on the

back of the door. As I slowly put on the skirt, it felt strange to have such stiff clothes on

my body already. It seemed like I should have been getting dressed for church. After

Mum found the car keys for the small Izuki she bought to drive to school, she came into

my room.

“You look lovely,” she told me, as she fixed my collar. “Good luck.”

“You, too,” I whispered after her. I opened my door and watched her pick up her

duffle bag and walk out.

Memsab came to our house a few minutes later. “Are you ready, Jaci?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173 I shook my head. My hands were shaking so hard that I could hardly tie my

shoelaces. I looked at my reflection in the Kiwi-polish mirror shining on my shoes.

Inside my shoes I curled and twisted my toes.

“What’s wrong?” Memsab asked. “Have you got everything?”

“Yes,” I said with a shrug.

“Have you had breakfast?”

“Mum made me some toast,” I told her.

“Excellent. Now let’s hurry so you won’t be late.”

I picked up my school bag reluctantly and followed her to the car. Kubwa

followed me, but Memsab shooed him over to Patrick. Patrick put his finger through the

loop on Kubwa’s choke collar and held on to him while he opened the gate. I turned and

looked out the back window as Patrick closed the gate. He waved one hand in a salute to

me. Kubwa lay behind the bars of the closed gate, his head on his paws watching my

departure.

We drove in silence for a while before Memsab again asked me what was wrong.

“Can I go to Mum’s school? I don’t want to go to school alone?”

“Your mother is at a secondary school and you’re too young. Besides, if you’re

in the same school as your mother the other students will treat you differently.”

“Can I start tomorrow?” I asked, my voice quiet.

“Are you afraid of school?”

The traffic was at a back-to-school standstill. It seemed as if the entire population

of Kenya had returned to work. A large school bus spewed diesel fuel over us.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 “What nonsense! School is nothing to be afraid of.” Seeing that I didn’t believe

her, Memsab added. “Everyone feels that way the first day of school.”

Memsab was wrong: Everyone else knew each other from Standard Four.

As I walked up to the building, I was surrounded by girls greeting each other with

the exaggerated kisses and exclamations. They were the perfect, miniature reproductions

of how their mothers greeted one another. They did not pay attention to me as I stopped,

watching them. I saw Margery from Mum’s parties. She was the one who had first seen

me push P.T. into the pool. At school, she looked straight through me. I leaned against a

building, watching the boys shake hands, and begin pick up games of football in the

schoolyard, already scuffing their new shoes. If I hadn’t been in a skirt, I would have

tried to join their friendly competitiveness and dribbled the ball the way P.T. had taught

me one Sunday afternoon when he was hanging out at our house.

The schoolyard was a bewildering herd of kids, ages six to fourteen, all of us in

identical uniforms. Braecrest was a school founded by the British settlers when Nairobi

finally had a large enough population to warrant a day school for primary students.

Before independence, it became one of the first schools to accept African and Indian

students. Still, most of the students were the descendants of the founding families, whose

parents and grandparents had attend Braecrest. It was prestigious enough to enroll many

of the children of politicians, whose family-names appeared almost daily in the papers.

Even in uniforms they conveyed an air of wealth: European holidays, imported shoes and

schoolbags, and State House invitations. The few Indians stood quietly to one side,

talking together, the oldest of the girls already wearing the redbindi in the centre of their

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 foreheads and a few of the Sikh boys with their hair knotted in buns at the top of their

heads. Already, everyone had divided into the clicks that dominated the social

segregation of the country. From the far end of the schoolyard, the headmistress blew the

whistle to signal the start of class. My head spun. It was that same eerie match-strike of

sound and flame of fear that slid against the flint-side of my heart.

Everyone rushed to the centre of the yard and teachers called to us, holding up

fingers to indicate what Standard they were in charge of. Feeling faint, I watched the blur

of uniforms blend to gray around me. Just when I thought I was going to fall down, I felt

someone grab my arm and pull me with the other students.

“You don’t want to get in trouble from now,” Margery whispered harshly in my

ear. In her school uniform she looked older, more official, and nothing like the girl who

came to our parties, afraid of water splashing into her eyes. She wore thick, plastic

glasses, but I had never realized that was the reason for her reluctance in the pool.

“Thank you, Margery,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t let go of my hand.

“I’m over there,” she pointed to the Standard Six line. “But since it your first day,

I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

She pushed me to the Standard Five line, and then disappeared in the crowd of

students. I searched the press of students until I found her standing in the Standard Six

queue. When I smiled and tried to wave at her, she turned around and frowned away

from me. I was on my own at Braecrest Primary School, to sink-or-swim to the best of

my ability.

Our teacher, a short square woman, squinted her eyes to study the line forming of

her students, as if we were overgrown coffee bushes and she was responsible for

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176 trimming us. She held one hand high above her head, all five fingers extended wide so

we knew to come to her. In the morning sun, we all stood still, shifting from one foot to

the next, looking over our shoulders as nervous as a Thompson’s gazelle at dusk.

“In the future,” she told us, “a bell will ring and you must come directly to our

classroom. Now follow me.”

One girl shot her hand up, an Indian girl who was the shortest in our class.

“Yes?” the teacher said.

“Why didn’t the bell ring this morning?”

“There is no power and the generator isn’t working.”

The school yard was laid out like an African village, with round brick buildings

instead of huts. Each hut was divided into three, one for each section of Standard Five

and led us to the first door and called out the names of the students who were to go into

that room. I went in with the other students who I didn’t know.

In my section of Standard Five, there were only two new girls.

Me and the chuti who had asked about the bell. She wore her hair in a single long

braid, straight and thick as sisal rope, and long to the waist of her skirt. My hair was in

tiny individual braids, flat against my scalp. It seemed that everyone else has sun-

lightened bowl cuts with bangs or gentle waves. Her skin was a clove brown, darker than

mine but we were bound by our untanned darkness, by our dark hair and our foreignness.

And our newness.

She smiled at me and sat down in the desk next to mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 I took out my exercise books and tried to ignore her. When I smiled at the girl on

the other side of me, she just shrugged and folded her hands neatly in the gray sea of her

skirt. I copied her, facing front and waiting for the teacher to start class.

While Ms. Robin squeakily wrote out her name in loopyon writing the board, I

wondered what Memsab was doing at home. I wondered if Mum was already teaching a

class or if she wouldn’t start until afternoon. I looked around the class to guess who

would be my new friends. There was another biracial girl, her hair in long braids with

ribbons and extensions, but she was sitting with another girl -both clearly the children of

the politicians, as they spoke to one another in rapid-fire Swahili. She pulled at the gold

loop in her ear.

“Quiet!” Ms Robin said. “When I say your name please stand up and tell us a bit

about yourself.”

She worked her way down the list: Addlewood, Adhiambo, Binyam, Chadwick,

Dartmouth, Haruun, Lockway, McLoren, Owour.

Everyone else stood up and said what they did during the holidays or their father’s

profession or their favourite subject. Mombasa-Architect-Science. London-Minister of

Parliament-Literature. Dubai-Engineer-Maths. I didn’t know what my favourite subject

would be and we never went anywhere for the holidays and I didn’t have a father.

“Rupa Patel.”

The Indian girl stood up. She looked around the room bravely, realizing that she

was the only Indian in our class. “Rupa,” she repeated her name, her voice quiet but

gathering strength. “My father is an endocrinologist which is a kind of doctor that

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 measures the level of hormones in people. During the holidays we went to Kisumu. And

my favourite subject is Kenyan History.”

“Jacaranda Smallwood.”

I stood up nervously. “Swimming.”

“What?” Ms. Robinson asked.

My voice seemed to rising like smoke from deep at the bottom of my stomach,

faint and slow in my own ears. “My favourite subject.. .it’s swimming.”

“Did you say swimming, Jacaranda?” Ms Robinson asked with exaggerated

patience, each syllable falling. She came over to my desk and looked down at me, at the

end of her long nose, her delicate nostrils flared. I could smell myself, a faint almost

salty smell of chlorine clung to my skin, buried beneath my braid. It was the kind of

smell that did not wash away.

“Swimming isn’t something we study,” she informed me. “I must have misheard

you. Please speak up.”

Everyone in the class shifted nervously, either about to laugh or wanting to sink

into the ground with me. They looked at each other and I tried to speak, but my lips

moved without making a sound.

“She said her favourite subject is swimming.” Rupa was standing up again next

to me. “Maybe it was part of the physical education class in the school where she was at

before.”

“Thank you, Rupa that is more than enough. Now sit back down and let

Jacaranda speak for herself.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179 Rupa sat back down slowly, smoothing her skirt so it wouldn’t wrinkle under her.

She smiled at me with sympathy and encouragement. She was so short that sitting down

she could have been sitting on the steps of my pool, the water high on her waist.

“What does your father do?”

I looked at the floor and waited to faint.

“Where did you go for the holidays?”

“The Thom Tree Cafe,” I said. Everyone laughed.

“What kind of name is that?” I heard someone whisper in the back of the room.

“People call me Jaci. It’s shorter, easier than Jacaranda. My Mum teaches

swimming and my grandmother gardens.” I said these facts so fast that the words seemed

to tumble over one another.

“Well, that explains the name,” the voice said again, a bit louder.

Ms. Robinson spun around. “Who said that?”

No one claimed it. Everyone was suddenly studying the engraved graffiti

previous generations Standard Five had carved into our desks to inspire us with

chronicles of wrongs committed by teachers and great loves of the term.

“When I am speaking, no one else. Is that clear?”

Everyone nodded, eyes open with earnest innocence and eagerness to avoid

trouble.

“Thank you, Jaci. You can sit back down.” Ms. Robinson sighed before looking

back at her class list.

I sank gratefully to my seat, my knees still watery. Rupa smiled at me and

nodded. Even I knew that making friends with the only Indian in the class on the first

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 day of class was not a good omen. I turned overKaratasi my excerise book and started

tracing the map of Kenya on the back. The regions prone to malaria were shaded in fine

dot-matrix gray. The entire country was dark, except for a small spot around Nairobi.

There were tips to prevent malaria and to kill mosquitos. I looked at the familiar

reminders without reading them.

Rupa was a serious student, her eyes seemed to broadcast her hunger for

knowledge, and when the teacher talked, Rupa’s mouth hung open as if she were sucking

in the words. I never raised my hand when the teacher asked a question or needed a

volunteer, but Rupa always did. Even though the teacher only called on her once, she

was the first person to shoot her hand into the air each time. And when other students got

the question wrong, she would wave her hand about to give the correction. By the end of

the day, it was clear she was the smartest student in the class. Last year her father had

been in the United States on a sabbatical and she had scored so highly in classes there

that she had been promoted an extra grade. She was a year younger than most of the

students, which explained why she was the shortest person in the class. Though she was

only a few months younger than I, I towered over her each time we stood up at our desks.

The coolest girls in my class ate the hot lunch prepared by a Muslim woman who

served it from large, metalsufarias that she took straight from the stove to the table.

Kenyan women served the overcooked rice and watery stew onto the plastic plates for the

students who paid monthly. Memsab had said there was no need to give the school more

of our money when we had more than enough food in our house and she had made

Naomi pack me a lunch. To my dismay, Rupa also had a packed lunch and she sat down

on thebanda next to me.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181 The rest of the afternoon I watched the clock, my head spinning and ready for

Mum to come pick me up. Time moved more slowly than I knew was possible and by

the time three-thirty came, I hardly had the energy to walk out of class. I wanted to put

my head down on the desk and keep it there until the semester ended.

After school, I sat down on the steps and waited for Mum to come pick me up. I

watched the other children get on to the bus, everyone shouting their good-byes and

tetwanana-keshos, see-you-tomorrows. Rupa sat down on the other side of the steps and

opened her school bag, took out our schoolbooks and began do work on the assignments

for tomorrow. Just watching her study made my mind hurt. I was still trying to soak in

the meaning of my day, but everything the teacher said had floated away from me.

I wanted to strip off my school uniform, put on a swimming suit and return to the

pool. I wanted to lie in the grass of the back yard, my head resting on Kubwa’s panting

side, listening to his heartbeat. The buses coughed repeated as the drivers gunned the

diesel engines to life, and slowly they lumbered out the yard. Even Rupa went home,

picked up by her mother. She waved at me before she got into the station-wagon

crowded with boys, her brothers I would learn later.

Only the teachers’ cars were in the parking lot when Mum arrived. When I saw

the orange of car, I was relieved. I jumped up and waved to Mum, so that she could see

where I was waiting. I got into the car and slammed the door shut behind me, almost

smiling for the first time that day.

“How was your day?” Mum asked. Her hair was still damp and the entire car

smelled of chlorine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182 “Fine,” I lied. I put my primary-coloured school bag on the backseat next to her

duffle. “How was yours?”

“Fine,” Her voice was flat, truth hiding.

We drove in silence. There were not words between us for the new languages we

were learning. I could not have imagined that she was as lonely as I was and that the first

day of school had almost brought her to tears. Beneath my uniform, she did not see that I

was not ready to be a student. Our lives were changing, pulling apart and in our silence

we hid our private failures. Her eyes were rimmed with red, as if she had developed a

sudden allergy.

“I won’t be able to pick you up tomorrow,” Mum reminded“I start me. coaching

the after-school swim team.”

I had forgotten. Or perhaps I hadn’t understood what it meant.

“I could wait until you’re done.”

“Practice runs until 6,” Mum said. “It is better for you to come home.”

On the second day of school I would have to start riding the buses, making my

days even longer as I had to sit among my school mates, who weren’t chums, until the

bus dropped me off at Muthaiga at the end of the route.

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Mum gave me a watch so that I could know what time she would be coming home.

I wore it to school the next day, and checked it every few minutes. I checked it at

every corner when the bus stopped to let off students, as if that would take me home more

quickly. When I got home, I changed into my swimming costume and dove into the pool,

forgetting to take off the watch. I remembered it only after an hour, when I came out

exhausted, my heart pounding and the watch had stopped. I lay out in the cement

listening to my heart slow, my wrist in the sun hoping the watch would dry out and work

again. Yet, by evening the watch was dry, Mum was home, and the jerky-second hand

had jerked to a stop.

Mum didn’t say anything about the stopped watched but it did not stop the days of

the weeks that forced themselves on me. The rush to get dressed in time to catch the bus

to school ruled my mornings and my days were the endless cycle o f school. I returned

home to find Kubwa standing at the gate, tail swooshing back and forth like a pendulum,

waiting for me to come home. He always knew what time to expect me home.

“Kubwa can read the time, ” Naomi told me, as she prepared an afternoon snack

for me. “Every day at three-thrity, he goes to the gate and waits for you. ”

“Don't be silly, ” Memsab scolded us both, when she came into the kitchen.

“He’s just a dog. Do you have any homework? ”

I always had homework. I would open it and try to study, but really it was

another way of waiting. I missed my mother. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

were lonely days, as Mum stayed after school late to coach her students. I imagined her

missing.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184 I wanted to believe that Mum drove across town, through Forest Road

Roundabout, called the Chicken-Roundabout for the shading tree so overgrown with

bougainvillea. I imagined her struggling to manage the clutch, her flip-flops slipping off

her feet. The whistle she wore around her neck would have been louder than those

carried by the traffic officers, who knotted the traffic at each roundabout along Kenyatta

Avenue. The boys-in-blue would have been half afraid of her. I wanted to imagine that

Mum was becoming the kind of woman who took the same roads each day. As if she were

the faithful sort of woman.

During long evenings alone I imagined that she was standing on the edge of the

pool, the whistle around her neck. In my imagination Mum had become professionally

inspired, caring more about her job and the goose-pimpled children she was paid to

coach than about me. In my imagination, all the children were white, gathered in an

adoring circle around her. I wanted to believe that it was her passion for competition

that kept her late after work.

It was easier to imagine this than the truth. I did not want to imagine her cutting

swim practice short, skipping out on her lunch break and driving, matatu-frantic, deeper

into Lavington’s residential zone. Driving to Uncle Peter’s house, to him, afraid of

keeping him waiting.

I did not want to imagine how quickly she would get out of her car, going in

through the kitchen door while the servants, used to keeping secrets, turned away. Mum

and Uncle Peter conducted their affair in the guestroom, as if that would make it more

polite. As if she had been invited into theirfamily. I did not want to imagine what would

happen if P.T. came home early one day.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185

Mum was not afraid of being caught by Doreen.

From her years with my father, Mum was familiar with what it meant to wait to be

caught.

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Mum started her mornings with laps.

After she started teaching at Braecrest, Mum began to wake up early while the

sky was still a cool pink-gray and the water still cold. I heard turn on the lights and dress.

Then the gate of our house would bang shut behind her. She would stand on the edge of

the pool, every muscle taut, still, stretched like the slowly lightening sky, preparing for

the cold water. Perhaps mentally going over her exercise routine. Perhaps thinking about

the day ahead of her and the classes of students she would teach. Perhaps she was

remembering. Perhaps she was praying.

I would watch her but she would not move. Then in the moment when my sleepy

eyes blinked, she would dive into the water, curving like a rosewood arrow, piercing the

frigid water, and I would catch the delicate splash of her pale feet hitting the water. Eel

like she would slide under water for half the length of the pool before coming up for air

in a clean stroke. Stroke. Stroke. Modified-breath-stroke. Stroke.

Free style. Then backstroke her face turned upwards, eyes opened, as if searching

the sky. Then butterfly. Finally, breast-stroke, up-down-up-down-up appearing and

disappearing from my view. It was like a rosary chanted with her whole body.

I was dressed by the time Mum came in smelling of pool water and peace with a

towel wrapped around her waist and another around her hair. She would turn on the

overhead light and open our small fridge to take out containers of left over dinner or

packets of sausages and eggs. She would quickly heat up breakfast for us, making sure I

ate before leaving for class.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 I showered and dressed before breakfast and would sit with my textbooks open

trying to read. I read slowly, moving my lips to silently pronounce each word.

“How’s your studying going?”

“I hate school,” I told her.

She put a plate of baked beans and bacon in front of me. “Don’t say things you

don’t mean, Jaci.”

“It’s true.”

“You’re still just getting used to school.”

Mum could say that easily, because they loved her at Braecrest Secondary

Academy.

She was gentle with the students who were afraid of the water. She would lead

them into the water, standing next to them, holding a floatation board with one hand,

holding out her other, as they learned to release themselves and the water surrounded

them.

But, with the swim team she was different.

She wore sun-shades that hid her eyes, turning them to the feeling-less eyes of

safari ants. Over the whistle she wore a large, black and green timer that bounced against

her stomach. She would stand at one end of the pool, black lenses keeping digital time

by the second. Her assistant, a Kalenjen man built like the Michelin Man, stood at the

other end watching dives and underwater somersaults. Mum spoke in low tones, her

voice colder than water when the near-naked teenagers stood around her, shivering, pale-

to-blue, goosefleshed arms wrapped around their chests. But when they pleased her, she

smiled the cryptic smiled I craved, her nod of approval slight.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188 They loved her competitive professionalism.

They loved promises of the trophies she would bring from tournaments.

For the first days of school, I tried to sit with first the white girls in my class. I

spoke with my best British accent and ate with my best manners and I was ignored with

their best manners. Then I tried to sit with the few Kenyan girls from rich families,

whose Kiwi-blackened shoes were from England or Italy. They smiled at me, shaking

their long braids, the extensions touching the small of their backs. I was jealous and self-

conscious of my own short braids, barely reaching my shoulders and thin from using my

own hair, because Memsab had forbidden me to use the tighter braids of fake hair,

fearing that it would rip out my hairline and leave me balding. It was the first time that I

heard Sheng, the slang developing in Kenya, their words blurring from English to Swahili

and back to English, closing around secrets and opening to laughter.

Finally, I stopped trying to be sociable and during lunch hours I lay in the grass

and stared at the sky. I untucked the shirt of my uniform, lifted it as high as I dared,

raising my skirt and tucking it around me so I could tan my legs in the drying prickly

grass, as if I were at home by the pool. Through lowered lashes I watched the boys

chasing after the football in the sun-bleached field and measured the tan of my arms

against the paler skin of my stomach. Rupa sat in the shade of a tree and studied,

carefully turning the pages of thick, hardback books. Sometimes, when I looked over to

her, I caught her looking at me.

In class, I would daydream about a time when I would be old enough to go to

secondary school and join the swim team. I promised myself that I would join the swim

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189 team. One afternoon, another teacher had dropped me off at the secondary campus on

her way home, and I watched Mum coach her swim team. I sat at the edge of the pool,

on a plastic-backed chair, my open hand shading my face. It was the only time I saw

Mum in a full swimming costume. She would stand at the edge of the pool, the way I

had imagined her, the whistle around her neck. All the students gathered around her as

she separated them into groups, and on her command they dove into the unheated water.

Since I was there, she did not use the whistle, but clapped her hands sharply, her voice

brittle over the splashes of water.

I promised myself I would join the swim team.

I knew what I wanted. To be the best woman swimmer in my age group. To take

home tournament plaques. To have my picture in the Saturday Sports Section. I wanted

Mum to give me that nod, her lips curled to almost smiling.

Teaching exhausted Mum. She came home too exhausted to swim with me, but

satisfied as Julianne has promised. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were the

days when she left early in the morning and returned home after coaching the swim team

until late. By the time she came home,Sundowner would be over, the seven o’clock

news would have been read, and I would be alone in the house.

“How was your day?” she asked me, from the settee, her legs up and her

shoulders down. She spread a towel over her face, and the whistle still around her neck,

glinting dangerously, though silently, at me.

“How was your day?” I asked. Knowing she had more of an answer than I.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190 “Usual.” Usual turned into a long explanation. I learned about her students,

which ones were good swimmers and which were hopeless, sinking like stones. From her

words, I could imagine them - pink and turning blue in the short-rain cool days. Their

hair slick around their heads, water dropping around their shoulders.

These students gave Mum a sense of purpose.

Most were enthralled with her. Her most promising students were preparing for

weekend tournaments with other schools later in the term, always ready for the glow of

victory and I imagined what she looked like when she used to swim: when she used to

compete, the blush of victory driving her forward.

I was jealous of the students who in only a few weeks returned that glow to her

cheeks. They sent her home to me smiling, focused on something beyond the walls of

our home, and too tired to swim. And she smiled at me, as if we were winning.

I would say good night, waiting for sleep and dreading mornings.

For the first month, the school year progressed without incident.

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It wasn’t that I hated school; it was that I was failing.

The social experiment of putting me with my agemates was going poorly and I

couldn’t keep up with the studies. Instead of listening to the teacher, over and over in the

margins of my paper, I sketched vines that grew around the two-holes punched out for

binders andflowers that I remembered from my days in Memsab’s garden: roses, birds-

of-paradise, and African violets. Perhaps, in an ordinary year Ms. Robinson would have

noticed that my grades were slipping, that during class I sat on my hands and avoided

her gaze. In another year, she would have immediately scheduled a parent conference

with Memsab or Mum and they would have talked about my progress -or lack thereof.

Except that just after the first round of testing, Robert Ouko was found dead.

He had been the Foreign Minister and Minister of Parliament for Kisumu Town.

He was a husband andfather o f seven children. He was more than a bit outspoken about

the corruption of the Mutukufu government. And after being missing for three days, he

was found only 4.6 kilometers from his family farm. I f reporters are to be believed, he

poured petrol over his body, lit himself and then shot himself through the head. If the

government is to be believed, he committed suicide though that wouldn’t explain how he

broke both his own legs.

The university students rioted: in protest to his death, in protest that the

government thought that the nation would be ignorant enough to believe the official

version of events, and because this is what the Nairobi University students did. On

February 19th the riots spread though Nairobi and in Kisumu. The students demanded to

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192 see the remains of Ouko’s body and they set petrol stations and cars on fire. In Kisumu

the police opened fire on the crowds and four students were killed.

KBC reporters were the only ones who braved the town as they covered the story.

The villain-students were shown with bricks raised over their heads and the police were

bravely facing the rioting crowds. Main streets were shut down by either rioters or

police check-points. Schools around town were closed for day after day, because even

the school buses could not make the rounds to collect students.

“To riot or to be rioted, that is the question. ” The reporter stated, staring

impassively into the camera while a car burned behind him. Then, a Knorr instant-soup

commercial began, a stylish woman sang the familiar jingle while adding water to the

powdered concentrate.

“It’s starting all over again, ” Mum said. Mum had started spending most of her

evening in Memsab’s house to watch the telly.

“What’s starting all over again? ’’ I asked.

“Sumar, ” Memsab warned, holding a single finger over her lips.

“What difference does it make? ” Sumar asked. “Everyone can see what is

happening this time. ”

“What is happening? ” I asked. “What are you talking about? ”

“Nothing for children to know, ” Memsab said. “Jaci, please go get me a

sweater. I feel a draft. ”

Memsab’s sudden chilliness banished me from the room. At the edge of important

conversations, I was always sent from the room on flimsy excuses that did not hold water.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193 Instead of going straight to her room, I walked loudly down the hall and stopped, crept

back to where I could hear the rest of the conversation.

“Jaci’s not a child anymore. ” Mum said on my behalf.

“And how much are you planning on telling her? ” Memsab asked. “What parts

of your story do you plan to tell her? When does the story begin? ”

“She doesn’t need to know the whole truth? ”

“Andyou are the one to decide what to tell her and what not to? ’’

“I’m her mother. ”

“That’s called censorship and it makes you no better than the government you

claim to despise. ”

The commercials came to an end. As the newscast began, the conversation ended.

I quickly-quietly fetched Memsab’s sweater and returned to my seat as if I had heard

nothing. I could feel Memsab’s boring into the back o f my head.

“What took you so long? ”

“I couldn’t find your sweater, ” I lied and pretended to focus on the news.

Eventually Scotland Yard was called in, but even the technically-impartial,

supposedly-omnipotent colonial powers could not solve the mystery of Ouku’s death.

When does the story begin? What parts were important? Most of it remained untold and

his murder joined the hall-offamous-unsovled-homicides in Kenya:

Pio de Gama Pinto, 1965. An Indian born in Kenya, he was a founding member

of the Goan National Congress, against the Portuguese colonial power and Kenya the

Indian Congress. He was arrested for his support o f the MauMau revolt and joined

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 194 KANU in 1960. When an unidentified gunman shot him outside his home in Nairobi,

Pinto became Kenya’s first political assassination.

Tom Joseph Odihambo Mboya,1969. After agitating for Independence from the

British, he became minister of Economic Planning and Development. He helped found

KANU as the only party, but the party was divided against itself, and he was shot while at

an Indian-owned Pharmacy. Those who believe that he was destined to be the second

president of Kenya also believe that the man arrested and charged with his murder was

part o f a larger conspiracy.

John Mwangi Kariuki,1975. A member of the MauMau revolt, he was detained by

the British. He was a popular Kikuyu who was increasingly popular in the Kalenjin-

dominated Kenyatta inner circle. And on 4 February 1975, the day before Parliament

opened, several witnesses claimed to see him escorted through town with official security.

It was the last time he was seen alive. His body was found on 3 March.

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When school restarted, we were all a bit cautious, at once gentle and suspicious

with one another. History classes focused on the stone-age discoveries at Olduvai Gorge.

Ms. Robinson planned a trip to the National Museum to see the skulls they kept there.

We even got to hold the stone tools, anonymous and heavy history, as they passed the

treasures around the class. They all looked like stones to me.

The next week, Ms. Robinson gave us our first exam. I careful printed my name

on the top page and read through the multiple-choice questions. Multiple-guess

questions. I read them again and again, listening to everyone else’s pencils scratch across

the paper. Rupa was the first person finished, and she returned her exam to Ms.

Robinson before I had answered the second question. She took a novel out of her desk

and read it while she waited for everyone else to finish.

When Ms. Robinson returned the history exams, she walked around the room,

placing them face down on each of our desks. Everyone turned them over right away and

smiled or put on stoic faces, depending on the grades.

When Rupa turned over her exam, she smiled.

I was afraid to turn over my paper, looking at it for long seconds before I touched

it.

I received a U. Ungradeable. I folded the paper in half, before anyone else could

witnesses my shame. At lunch Rupa sat next to me, opening her plastic bin that smelled

of cold curry and yogurt. My own lunch was a cold meat sandwich packed by Naomi

each morning, because Mum refused to pay the too expensive fee for a hot lunch at

school.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196 “What do you have for lunch?”

I ignored her and she shook her head, her braid bouncing between her thin

shoulders.

“You think you are too good to talk to me.”

I began to eat my roast beef sandwich, as if spicy brown mustard complete with

seeds were the best thing I had ever tasted. Ripping the crust off with each bite.

“Well, my mother says I shouldn’t talk to Africans either.”

“I’m not an African. My mother is white.”

“Maybe you should tell them.”

Them. The popular girls of our class, with flippable blonde hair or microbraids.

“You’re not stupid,” Rupa told me. “Everyone said your grandmotherkiti- gave

kidogo so you could get in.”

I shrugged, I had heard the rumour that Memsab had given a bribe to the

headmistress too.

“It isn’t true.” Just like that Rupa changed the truth. As if her words could make

or unmake what happened. The possibility that my right to be in Standard Four had been

compromised was removed by the side-ways shake of her head and the loud shrill way

she denied the truth.

“I’m eating roast beef,” I told her.

She wrinkled her nose dispassionately and I realized she was a Hindu.

Memsab picked me up from school.

“How was your day?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197 “Fine,” I told her. Only today was the first day it was true. “I don’t want beef for

lunch anymore.”

Ms. Robinson must have called Memsab and told her that I failed the history

exam. Ms. Robinson must have also gone through my Maths and Science notebooks and

finally finished reading the essays we had handed in before the rioting began. When

school reopened, she called Memsab and told her that I was failing every subject in

school except physical education. There was a parent-grandparent-teacher meeting to

discuss my failure.

“I think you should hold her back a year,” Ms. Robinson said.

“Absolutely not,” Memsab refused. “There must be an alternative.”

Mum came home with eyes red from crying. She came into my room, where I

was sitting on my bed with Kubwa, doodling on the back of my notebook.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “You should have said something sooner.”

“Am I in trouble?” I asked, but this only made Mum start crying again.

Memsab did not cry about my failure. She rearranged furniture in her study to

make space in the comer for a second-hand desk, a chair and a lamp that she bought at a

trash-and-treasure rummage sale. I now had to do my homework with Memsab watching

while Mum was at school coaching the swim team.

“It’s not fair,” I complained, half-heartedly. Half-relieved that my struggle in

school was no longer a secret.

“I will not tolerate failure,” she told me. “Not from you.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198 After school I was to come straight home to Memsab who checked my schoolbag

for all homework. Memsab took chare of my reading lesson, and while she pruned the

plants I had to sit in the garden read and my assignments aloud to her. She listened to me

with half-an ear, still correcting my English. She took on the jungle of my bad grades

with slash-and-bum readiness. She was going to untangle my mind and sow my mind

with civilization, which she did by insisting we take tea together, silently in the big house

eating the food placed out by Naomi who no longer smiled at me the way she used to.

Memsab also hired tutors to come to the house on the weekends. They were men

who taught at Kenyan schools, taking side jobs to make ends meet and tutoring students

at better schools. Memsab made them sit with me on the veranda on the glass and iron

table, so she could watch from the house. Naomi broughtchai them and bread or scones.

They ate these quickly, always adding more sugar to the already sweetened tea. They

used the serviettes to catch the crumbs that scattered in their sparse mustaches and

threadbare ties. Memsab made me call them Mr-This or Mr-That, and they had gray

temples or receding hairlines. The math tutor, Mr. Ochieng, always came late, smelling

like numbers, his tie askew, and sweaty from the walking from the comer wherematatu a

dropped him. His hairline was receding. I guessed that it was chased away by the stress

of doing maths and he would not let me use the old calculator P.T. had given me the last

time he came to one of the parties.

Leaving me with pages of numbers to add together or subtract, he went to talk to

Patrick. I counted out the numbers carefully, pressing my fingers against my thighs and

curling my toes inside my Bata shoes to hold the places for units of five, and I listened to

them whisper in dark tones about KANU Mutukufu.and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199 Once, he disappeared for three weeks. When I asked Memsab what happened to

Mr. Ochieng, she only hushed me. I heard her call his school and find out that he had not

been in to teach his classes. It was as if he had disappeared into thin air. When he did

return, he had a large bandage wrapped around one ear, bright white gauze, like layered

mosquito netting that was evilly out of place.

“Where did you go?”

“I went up-country,” he said. “To see my family. Did you continue practicing

your multiplication tables while I was gone?”

Lightly, with edges of his still chalk whitened fingers, he touched the edge of the

bandage the way Mum sometimes touched the side of her cheek. The way Memsab

fingered the scars over her left hand, running a finger under her sleeve. The chalk left a

fine powder on the bandage and it dusted his dark cheek.

“Did your family do that to you?”

“No.” His voice left no room for further discussion. But my curiosity had been

piqued. When I was younger, such things were easy to ignore but with reading and

writing and maths, my analytical mind had been awakened and I had questions after my

questions that chased the silence surrounding me.

“Were you in a car wreck?” I guessed, based on the fact that so manyAkamba

buses that took people up country were known for their speeds on the bad, barely paved

roads. Flying Coffins. According to Memsab you had either to be stupid or invincible to

ride them.

“How does this relate to your maths?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 It didn’t. I looked at the page of graph paper tom from a full-scab tablet in front

me where had hand written out problems for me to solve. Multiplication tables filled the

table, each number in his tidy hand writing fit into the squares of graph paper.

“I was robbed,” he said.

Thieves were blamed for everything. As if they could steal concrete from the

roads not yet built. They were the small thieves, like birds on the phone lines, who would

carry away pieces to make their nests. The bigger thieves, the ones armed with guns they

would not fire and drove in conveys of tinted-glass cars were never charged. Lies

sounded different, they made his voice break in a way that it did not when he was

explaining to me how to multiply. I looked at the tidy page, knowing my own large, ugly

numbers would overflow, filling up two or three boxes.

“I studied the multiplication tables,” I lied. My voice, too, sounded different.

Only after he left, leaving me with three pages of handwritten problems to

complete by the next week, did I get to go into the pool. The cool water seemed to wash

away the verandah heat and the smell of books that clung to me. I did not mind the

learning, as endless rounds in the garden had begun to bore me. My mind craved the

exercise it had never had, but the constant sitting was so constricting, my young muscles

used to sun and chlorine were relieved by the exercise of the water. The lessons were

only half-taught by my tutors, and the blanks they left were filled by my own desperate

swimming, as if I could tire myself of thought that stretched my mind beyond the

scholastic exercises.

I began to do better in school.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201 Rupa and I ate lunch together, in the sweet, thatched shade ofbanda. the We

watched as the kites dove down through the blue of the sky, talons outstretched to our

schoolmates who walked with foolish omnipotent faith. Our teachers had warned all of

us that the kites could and would carry off our fingers with the snatched food.

After Rupa finished eating, she would open her school bag and look for

homework. She was bitter for having come in second on the literature exam and was

determined to come in first in all subjects for our class at the end of the term. Too often,

I was more than pleased that my exams were graded.

“Can’t you shut the books for a minute?” I asked her. “It’s lunch time.”

“You need study, too,” she said, knowing that my grades were only just starting to

improve.

“It’s not normal to study all the time,” I complained, even though she seemed able

to do it. I folded her book closed and put in under my head like a pillow. “Let’s at least

take a break just today. Its only an hour.”

“Thirty minutes of rest,” Rupa bargained. “And thirty minutes of work.”

“Fine,” I gave in easily. “But it doesn’t start until after you stop talking about

school.”

Rupa and I were silent. Other than school we didn’t have much in common. We

never saw each other during the weekends. She went back to Parklands, or Little

Bombay as Memsab called the over-crowded section of town, where the Indians lived. I

spent my free time at home, trying to catch up on my studies and swim. Whatever our

differences, studying with Rupa had improved my marks. I no longer came in last in the

class, though I posed no danger to her first place.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Rupa asked me, trying to fill in the

silence.

“That’s school talk,” I told her, because I had no answer.

Rupa wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, like her father. I envied her

single-minded purpose. Her ambition. Her parents at home who cheered her

accomplishment and hung on her bedroom wall the brass-on-wood plaques that turned

green after a few months. I had visited once their apartment in Parklands, only three

bedrooms so her two brothers had to share. Her mother cooked me mild curry, still so

hot that I had to guzzle water glass-after-glass while insisting it was delicious. Rupa

always declined my invite to come visit me in Runda.

“If you own a house in Runda, why don’t you live in it?” I had asked her.

“We rent it out to the American Embassy,” she told me.

“But your apartment is so small, it would be better to live in a house.”

“My father doesn’t want us to.”

“Why not? Runda is one of the poshest neighbourhoods and you would be close

to me. We could see each other everyday.”

“Only crazy white people live there. It isn’t safe.” Rupa rolled her eyes. “It’s

still practically all coffee fields, and bandits hide there.”

“So what? Get dogs or anaskari.”

“Askaris will strangle you in your sleep to rob you.”

I shrugged, unable to prove her wrong but I could not imagine Patrick strangling

me. “It happens all the time. Ask anyone.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203 “I’ve never heard of it.” Perhaps, happened all-the-time in Parklands. It did not

happen in Muthaiga. I trusted Naomi. I never doubted Patrick. I never even feared the

stream of sullenshamba boys whose names I never remembered and whose faces were

forgotten any day I did not see them.

“Haven’t you heard about Ouko?”

“Who hasn’t?” I asked. “So?”

“So! Have you been living under a rock? The minister killedaskaris.'" by his

“You think it was hisaskaris?"

“Obviously. Stop stalling,” Rupa said, smacking her open hand on my thigh. “It’s

time to start studying.”

“His askaris didn’t kill him,” I told her, for once knowing something that she

didn’t. “It was the government.”

“Why would the government kill him?”

I shrugged, “That’s what the government does.”

I opened the exercise book to my notes from class and tried to focus, except I was

counting down the days until Saturday. Mum had planned a pool party and I was hoping

that P.T. would come. I was counting the days until the holidays. If I passed the term,

Mum had promised that I would not have to spend the days with a tutor. Instead I would

be able to lounge by the pool with her.

Instead of a holiday, the rioting began. Riots, once started, it seemed they would

never end. Politics spilled from the State House to the streets and police were on

constant alert for trouble. By 7 July 1990, Nairobi was again engulfed. Again, there

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 204 were riots in Kisumu. This time the riots spread to Kiambu, Nakuru, Limuru, Muanga,

Naivasha, and Nyeri. The Kikuyu Highlands, that had been the epicentre of the MauMau

revolt that lead to the end of colonialism, were now agitating for another change in

government. And it was not just Kenyatta’s tribe: People of other tribes were insisting on

the release of the former cabinet members who were demanding a multiparty

government. They were the first who gathered before the rainy-season of opposition

politics.

According to the official broadcasts by Kenya Broadcasting Coorporation, 20

people died as a result of theSaba Saba riots. Kenya Television Network had started

only months before, and it provided a very different coverage of the riots. Its

independent reporters interviewed rioters who talked about the unfairness of a single

party state and talked with human rights organizations that claimed all-necessary-force

used by the paramilitary police to control the crowds resulted in as many as one hundred

fatalities.

All I cared about was that the riot-days that gave me extra days off from school.

Since traffic in town was restricted, Mum’s school was also closed and she loafed around

the pool; already tanned to a wooden colour, she could not absorb any more sun. I

practiced my diving, standing at the edge and held my hands over my head in a perfect

formation. I counted to three and dove in, entering the water with a smooth arch. When I

surfaced, she did not even open her eyes. Her face was a mask of calm, her lips slightly

upturned. Instead of splashing and goading her into the water, I swam my laps silently.

Then floated on my back until my fingers pruned.

“Jaci,” Naomi called from the kitchen door.“Simu kwa wewe”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205 When I got to the house, the phone in the entry way was off the hook, the receiver

on its side waiting.

“Hello,” I said, unsure who would have called me.

“Jaci! What took you so long to come to the phone?”

“I had to come into the house,” I admitted.

“Are you watching the news?” Rupa’s shrill voice seemed to escape from the

phone and clash into Memsab’s house. Memsab had the television off, refusing to watch

any of the news. Not waiting for an answer, Rupa continued, “They are looting down

town.”

“Kwani?” So what?

“My uncle’s shop was attacked. They broke away all the burglary bars and all the

windows and took everything. Everything. And when the police came they shot at

people. Now there is blood inside his shop.” Behind her I could hear the sounds of an

Indian family in distress, her mother’s panic rising in a shattering of Hindi. Her father’s

voice steady as the clicking of trains pulling themselves over the tracks laid by her

forefathers.

“But no one is hurt?”

“Not yet.” There was another burst of Hindi, and all I could make out was Rupa’s

name ail vowels pulled long and urgent. “I got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

As soon as I put down the receiver, the phone rang again.

“Hello?” I answered it unsure of myself.

The voice on the other end was foreign in its masculinity, “Hello? Jaci?”

“Uncle Peter?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206 “Yes, is your mother there?”

I went back to the pool and got Mum, who came towel-cloaked into the house.

She spoke in troubled tones with Uncle Peter. When she saw me close, she waved me

away and I went to Memsab’s study.

Memsab sat in the quiet BBC-absence, her short-wave radio was turned off, and

she was writing at her desk. Even the paper beneath her hands seemed calm, and there

was a stately grace to her penmanship.

I sat on a stool across from her, looked at the lion rug, my old nemesis at my feet.

“This too shall pass,” Memsab recited. Her words a promise that I carried back to

my bed on the other side of the garden. Later that night, I repeated Memsab’s promise

when I heard Mum crying in the next room, opening the small fridge to make herself a

drink. When I woke in the morning, her breath was alcohol soured. She was fast asleep.

Classes restarted and our teachers began lessons where we left them off. They

never spoke of the missing days. Rupa returned a few days later, looking old with dark

bags of worry under her eyes. She looked like someone about to travel, and she had

developed a nervous habit of looking over her shoulder every time someone spoke behind

her.

“Maybe you should sit in the back row,” I suggested.

“How can I study in the back?”

So we continued to sit in the front, she the shining star and I the pale shadow.

While she worried about marks, I developed the habit of biting my nails. A commission

was set to investigate the death of Ouku, but he remained dead, the circumstances

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207 remained undetermined. I became convinced that the dark shadows moved, waking me

at night with the stealthy creep of their arms across my walls.

While Nairobi tried to heal itself from riots, or at least forget them, I awoke one

morning realizing that I lived in the servant’s quarters. I saw that our house was at the

back of the spacious garden of Memsab’s rambling colonial estate. My room had

belonged to theayah who had raised my mother, and who was fired when Mum was old

enough for boarding school. Over the years, Mum tried to make it seem nicer, covering

the cement floors with rugs. Naomi had shown me how to cut pictures from discarded

magazines and hang advertisements on the wall using a glue of flour and water. The

cheaply printed glossy advertisements of brown women with straight hair and African

features. Once beautiful they now baffled me and offended me.

I tore them down, leaving smeared, yellowed stains on the wall. Mum’s room had

belonged to a string shambaof boys, all of them probably as mute and sullen as the one

who Memsab had at the moment. I felt somehow violated by their presence in the room,

as if they could still watch my mother as she slept, peering in through the high windows,

their fingers wrapped around the metal bars, their eyes as black as the night and as

guarded as steel.

I became bitter towards to concrete hut that had no real bathroom, just the

separate little squares walled off for toilet and shower. The ‘parlour,’ as Mum part

wistfully and part sarcastically called the only living space in our home, was really a

metal counter for kitchen, with a double-gas burner sitting on top, an ancient fridge, that

spilled into the kitchen to the dingy living room furniture that used to belong to Memsab,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 208 where our rare guest would sit. More than bitter, I was ashamed. I was ashamed that we

did not have a proper door and that the bougainvillea hedge around Memsab’s property

came right up against the back of our little house. I was ashamed of my Mum who would

live in such a place, not caring that I was ashamed of the banana trees that used to

whisper to me at night.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209

Sometimes I remembered my childhood with Mum and I could hate her for her

weaknesses. She lacked the courage to tell me the truth about my father and avoided my

questions about our past. She was unable to move forward in her life or return to mend

the past.

Yet, my memories were scented with the sweet smell o f melting honey,

sugar, tinged with lemon as she made a thick paste over the blue gas flame. Mum waxed

herself, and this sticky homemade mixture was what she used. She would be in her

underwear, sitting on a towel over the carpet in the living room where the light was best.

I would watch her spread the too warm, sticky, stripping syrup over her legs in

long, sweeping movements. Each application turning her skin dark golden brown,

something closer to the colour of mine. She kept a stack of soft strips of cotton cloth next

to her. She would smooth each cloth strip over the wax, pressing down hard, and then

suddenly pulling it up from the edge. A sharp, sudden pull against the direction of the

hair that was ripped out by the roots. She repeated the process again and again, over

her legs and arms, until each limb was hairless and smooth. She would stretch and

contort her body to catch the patches of hair over the top of the outside of her ankle, the

back of her thigh - just below her buttocks right up to the line where her skin turned

white, and her shoulders. Then, she would run her fingers over her entire body,

searching for any offending stray hairs that she would painstakingly remove. Then, she

would lie on her back and do her armpits, in the two directions that hair grows. Four

strokes of hot wax, four sharp yanks to remove the cloth.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210 Each time she grasped the cloth and pulled, Mum would let out a small gasp that

escaped around her clenched teeth. She would pick up the pot of hot wax, taking it into

her own room with several strips of cloth.

She was not a woman of weakness.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 10

It had been the same as any other day in Standard Six when Memsab

unexpectedly met me at school after school. Rupa and I had been heading towards the

buses when I was stopped by Memsab’s bright red Mercedes the colour of a scraping

wound that would not scab to a dull colour waiting in the parking lot. Memsab was

standing next to my bus, waiting for me to come from school.

“Isn’t that your grandmother?” Rupa asked. “What’s she doing here?’

“I don’t know,” I admitted, as I walked towards Memsab and Rupa followed

behind me for moral support. She was weighted down by the armloads of books she

hugged to her chest. Her twig-thin body bent to an impossible angle under the weight of

her book satchel. She followed me to the car, because her mother first had to pick up her

older brothers and then come to collect her.

“Hello,” she said, suddenly shy around my grandmother.

“Hello, Rupa. How are your studies going?”

“Very well,” she said, grinding the toe of her boot into the ground.

“Memsab, you’re early,” I accused her. I expected to have time to sit with Rupa

after school, going over our studies and trading our grudges against our classmates,

school, and families.

“I have to go to the Muthaiga Club. You will have to come with me.”

I opened the back door and dumped my bag on the seat. “Can we give Rupa a

ride home, she lives in Parklands?”

“I am running late,” Memsab said, dodging the question.

“But its on the way,” I told her.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 “No, it’s not necessary,” Rupa said. She had backed away from Memsab and the

ugly, bright car. She had backed away from me, shaking her head, her braid swaying

uncertainly across her back. “Mother is coming.”

“But it is on our way,” I insisted. “There is no hurry. She could come with us to

the club and eat.”

“No, she can’t,” Memsab told me. “I am running late now, get in the car.”

I did not dare disobey and slid into the front seat next to Memsab. Before I even

had the seatbelt stretched across my chest and buckled, Memsab took off. I turned and

waved through the closed window to Rupa, who was sitting forlornly in the shade. She

waved at me, fingers fluttering open and closed like a brown butterfly.

Caught in the tangled town traffic, Memsab was still not speaking to me.

Newspaper vendors walked between the cars, arms outstretched like shelves. Headlines

of theDaily Nation teased the truth that the East African Standard veiled. I was more

interested in slick magazines, ordered from around the world. Too often taken from the

Post Office, before being delivered to individual boxes, the labels with the intended

recipients still boldly declaring their intended destinations on the back covers.

“What are you doing at Muthaiga Club?”

“A meeting,” Memsab snapped. She had a membership, but rarely went. She

insisted our pool was just as nice, nicer. That there was no one there we needed to see. I

knew that it was about shame. “I carried your swimming costume so you can swim while

you wait.”

“I don’t want to swim. I wanted to talk to Rupa. You should have let her come.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 “She couldn’t, and don’t even put me in that position again,” Memsab said as we

left Nairobi’s down, town traffic behind us. “I did not want to have to tell that Indian girl

she could not come with us.”

“Why couldn’t she come?”

Memsab sighed. “She isn’t a member.”

“But you could have signed her in as your guest,” I suggested, determined to

show that I was right

“It isn’t so easy, with the Muthaiga Club rules,” Memsab said.

The gates swung open slowly,askari the looked at our car, at Memsab, at me. He

did not smile or salute, but only let the gate close closely behind us. Memsab parked in

the shade and got out. I took the duffle bag of swimming things Memsab had packed for

me from the backseat. I followed her into the lobby, while she went to the restaurant, I

turned to the changing room. Still unable to understand her exclusion of Rupa.

I had been about to dive into the pool, my hands held over my head and gasping

for breath when I opened my eyes one last time to check that the water was clear. I saw

an African man swimming towards me.

The other African men who came to the club sat around the pool, reading

newspapers and talking to one another in the cheerful, lilting Gikuyu language. Or they

would join their children splashing in the shallow end. These middle-aged men would

still be wearing hats and dark sunglasses and t-shirts. They showed no interest in

swimming and after some minutes they would climb out of the pool, order chips and a

beer, drinking from the side as they watched their children.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214 This man was nothing like that. He was cutting powerfully through the water, his

flesh dark and glistening like a fish. As he grew closer, I was able to see his form, fingers

closed, arms slightly bent in a perfect freestyle, his head turned as he gasped for breath. I

was so mesmerized that I could not move, could not take my eyes from him. I stood with

my arms outstretched above me until he came to the ledge and pulled himself up onto the

ledge of the pool, drops of water rolling from his face to my toes.

I think he was surprised to see my shadow covering him, but he smiled when he

looked up to see who was before him. He squinted against the sun behind me, smiling

uncertainly at me. He had large dark lips and a line of straight even teeth, unbelievably

white. I smiled back at him. From his deep, satin color and prominent cheekbones, I

guessed he was Luo and imagined him to be tall. He squinted into my face as rivulets of

water continued to drip to my feet, then he stopped smiling.

“I am s-s-s-sorry,” I stammered and realized my hands were still over my head. I

dropped them self-consciously to my sides. “I was about to dive ... I didn’t want to

jump on your head,” my voice trailed off as I looked down at him. The skin on his chest

and shoulders was a dark web of small scars. His arms crossed over one another, resting

on the cement at my feet were more perfect in their muscular definition and smoothness.

A network of scars went down his back and chest to where his body was submerged in

the water. Perhaps those scars stretched to places I could not see down his legs, to his

feet.

“Hello,” he said, the deepness of his voice surprising me.

“Daddy! Daddy!” a little girl called as she came running towards him, her hair in

long braids bounced with beads at the ends. “Come see! Come see!”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215 “Ali-afa, Chiro,” he said, shaking his head. “Go show Mama first.”

Chiro looked at her father, then at me. Then she ran away, her feet skipping

lightly over the concrete as if it burned her feet.

“That is my daughter.” His words splashed between us.

Ordinarily, I was a little afraid of strange African men, but there was something

familiar about him. I felt my attention arrested, wanting to stall and ask him questions.

“How old is she?”

“Only four,” he told me. “Her name is Chiro, named for her mother’s mother. To

keep her Kikuyu family happy.”

I wasn’t listening to his words. There was something familiar about his face that I

was trying to interpret.

“What’s your name?” he asked. From the way he asked I knew he had asked

before.

“I am Jaci,” I told him. “It is short for Jacaranda.”

“The tree. Named for a tree,” he whispered, but he was not speaking to me. To

me he said, “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

“Jacaranda!” Memsab’s voice was hard, like the clap of glass-on-glass slatted

windows slamming shut. “Jacaranda come here!”

I turned, the possibilities of recognition shutting behind me. “Coming, Memsab!”

“My name is Matthew,” the man said. Like he was trying to delay me, to make

me stop and look at him. “Matthew Otieno.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 “Nice to meet you,” I called over my shoulder, not wondering who he thought I

was. Not wondering who else I might have been. I wrapped the towel around my waist

and stood dripping at Memsab, who stood in the shadow of the entryway.

“I have told you not to talk to strange men.”

“I was just apologizing,” I told her. “I almost dived on him.”

“When will you act your age?” she asked the sky. “Come inside and get dressed.”

“But I was swimming.”

“You can swim later. Come inside and get something to eat.”

I was not hungry but, still obedient, I gathered my things from the bench and went

back to the changing room, dripping chlorine-sweet water behind me. I looked over my

shoulder at the man, still holding himself out of the water, still watching me. He shaded

his eyes with an open hand, trying to see Memsab in the shadows. He did not wave, but

turned when his daughter came skipping back to him. In the shadows Memsab beckoned

me, her whole arm pulling me into the cement-block coolness of the club. In the

changing room, I dried without showering and returned my school uniform over the crust

of chlorine. To spite Memsab, knowing how chlorine ruined clothes and skin and hair,

but she did not notice.

I joined Memsab at a table full of older women, her agemates from the East

African Women’s League, who were organizing a fundraiser.

“This is most unusual,” the branch chairwoman said, smiling stiffly at me,

rustling her papers loudly.

“My granddaughter,” Memsab said. “Jacaranda.”

“Hello,” I said softly, smiling shyly at the members.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217 “Hello,” a few greeted me in chorus, the rest just nodding.

“Is she a member or a guest?”

“A guest considering membership,” Memsab said, buying me permission to sit at

the table according to the constitutional rules of the EAWL.

“Now, as I was saying...” the chairwoman said, after clearing her throat. Her

business-like demeanor rendered me invisible at the table. A waiter brought me a clean

cup so that I could help myself to the small pots of tea that were out on the table.

Memsab was no longer listening to the proceedings of the meeting. Instead, she watched

me slowly sipping my soup from the side of the spoon. She sat directly blocking my

view of the swimming pool, and I could feel myself nested in the safety of the old

women.

While they divided into committees and sub-committees, I studied the other

guests in the dining room. At the table next to me, three men talkedKikuyu in over plates

of fish-and-chips. An old British gentleman wearing a safari jacket with thirteen pockets

read the Daily Sun. Two boys whom I recognized from school were sitting with their

parents, ordering an early dinner. I realized that there were no Indians in the dining

room. Nor had there been any by the pool. I had never seen an Indian at the Muthaiga

Club, I realized. This realization made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

After the other ladies left, Memsab kept sitting across from me, still studying me.

“What did that man say to you?”

“Nothing.” Memsab’s eyes were on me, burning my words down to only the

truth. “Only that girl was his daughter. And his name. Matthew something.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218 Memsab looked about angrily, she called the waiter to her and complained about

the tea in the pot and a fly buzzing on the sugar. He removed both. Memsab drummed

her fingers along the tablecloth and I brushed all the sugar and crumbs that spilled on the

tablecloth into a small pile.

“Do you know him?” I asked Memsab.

“Do you know him?” she said, I wasn’t sure if she was repeating herself or asking

me.

I shook my head, just in case she expected an answer.

History was china dishes, so thin that light passed through the flower-painted

borders that Memsab kept in an oaken cupboard brought from England years ago. So

long ago that it had become Kenyan now, by rainy and dry seasons. By revolution, by

train, and daily use. Only it was solid enough to keep the treasured dishes, each as fragile

as Memsab’s skin stretching parchment thin and brittle from too many years in Africa.

While KBC radio played in the kitchen, the announcers repeating the government

defense of political inheritance, Memsab taught me how to tell if the silver had been

properly polished. She counted the teaspoons, holding each up to the window and

searching for streaks. Then, she placed them in the cupboard that was my inheritance,

heavy as history.

Memsab was only one of many ladies, old as the cupboard, as sturdy, as

weathered. The rest I knew only as her Bridge Girls who came over on Monday

afternoons. They would play cards. Chatting over endless pots of tea, eating scones and

cucumber sandwiches. After school I would go to her house and snack from the silver

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 219 trays waiting in the kitchen, watching Naomi boil tea, and listening to the brittle,

breaking laughter of the women.

“Come in,” Memsab would call me, welcoming me to her parlour. “Did you greet

my guests?”

I would greet each of the old lades, shaking their dry, bony hands. They would

smile at me, oblivious of the crumbs that nested around their sinking lips. Then, I would

help myself from the tidbits on the silver tray, holding a linen napkin under my chin

while I walked around the table examining their hands. Soon, I grew bored with the

game and sat in the hall, with my ears as open as the textbook in my lap. Their talk was

more gossip than strategy, more rumour than news.

That was how I heard the whispers about Uncle Peter and Mum.

“Shame about her daughter,” one voice said, when Memsab had stepped out of

the room to answer the phone. “She is so beautiful and so talented. Pity that she was so

headstrong when she was young.”

At first, I thought they were talking about me as their cups clinked against

saucers, ringing as they waited for Memsab to return to play her hand.

“As much as they loved each other, I always did imagine that she would marry

that Peter boy.”

“After he took up with that South African?”

“She should have forgiven him.”

“My husband had bet forty pounds that she would. It wasn’t anything to get

excited about, but he lost the bet when she moved in with that African.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 The cards hissed slippery against one another, as the old women tapped the cards

in their hands impatiently.

“Funny how things come back around.”

Laughter shuffled around the table.

“Oh, do tell,” one of the girls said. “What is that about?”

“Haven’t you heard? They have been seen together...”

“With Peter?” the clueless woman asked for clarification or scandal. “Surely

being friends doesn’t prove anything.”

“From what I heard,” another said, lowering her voice so much I had to lean

closer the door, “they didn’t look like friends...”

“Hush!”

“Whose turn is it to play?” The question was asked as a too-loud announcement.

The click of Memsab’s heels on the wooden floors brought silence balanced on

her silver tray. She walked past me and smiled, as if we were family. I could hear her set

down the tray and the women exclaimed over the homemade guava jam.

“Is it true?” I asked Memsab as she cleaned up afterwards.

“Is what true?” Memsab asked.

“Mum and Uncle Peter used to be in love?”

The china plate she was holding dropped and split on the floor. Memsab turned

pale and her hands began to tremble. “Where did you hear that?”

“When you were on the phone.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 “Jacaranda, standing behind doors is a very bad habit and incredibly rude,”

Memsab said, her voice quivering dangerously. “But if you must know, your mother is a

very beautiful woman, so other women are envious and say ugly things. Someday they

may do the same to you. She and Uncle Peter were once in love. Now, they are friends.”

“Friends,” I repeated. But, I was thinking about P.T. I wanted to know if he

knew the secrets from the world of womanly whispers. I wondered if he had heard that

Mum and Uncle Peter had once been in love.

“Someday you will understand.” She was bending to the floor, her fingers nimbly

avoiding the sharp sides of the shattered china. The infinite ring of flowers now broken

into imperfect, irrepairable triangles.

There was only one picture of Memsab hanging in her parlour. In the picture, she

is young, without the heavy wrinkles and weight that age would add to her. Her face is

framed by the Indian Ocean and even in this black-and-white picture I could see the vivid

pink of her lips and intense green of her eyes. She is smiling at the photographer, one

smooth eyebrow arched. I would study the picture, trying to mimic it: a cool closed-lip

smile with my full lips and arching one eyebrow. When I looked in her bathroom mirror,

I realized my eyebrows were exactly like Memsab’s.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 11

I had never heard of the video, so I couldn 7 understand how it killed the radio

show until Kenya Television Network started in 1990. A privately-owned, independent

television station was the unexpected side effect of the political upheaval. With less

censorship it was able to show footage it wanted of current events in Kenya 7 and didn

have to start its broadcast with Mutukufu’s daily activities.

Best of all, from after the ten-o ’clock news until the next morning, broadcasting

MTV music videos. With the looser censorship laws, we saw Australian soap operas and

the “Bold and the Beautiful, ” which came with a family-friendly warning. Previously the

music of Bob Marley had been banned on the grounds that it was too revolutionary.

Suddenly, hip-hop, rap, and techno-dance music was being imported.

My generation sat captivated by the violence, the raw language, and the near-

naked bodies. In the conservative, elder-dominated culture, these things had not existed.

Or only in the shadiest of place. We were mesmerized by the imported images. They

invoked untranslatable emotions in us.

The solution to the translations between English and Swahili Sheng was - half

Swahili, half English. It would take my generation to invent the street language that

would explain our new world, a world that existed in Kenya and dreamed of English

worlds.

The government hated the loss of control Sheng that represented. The KANU

government hated the cryptic, mixed language of the new language of the younger

generation. The government claimed that Swahili was being corrupted, that the youth

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223 were being corrupted by American values, or rather the immoral American

entertainment.

The youth no longer listened to the government. Instead, we made pirated tapes

of our favourite music and played them in our walkmans, corking our ears with

earphones. Matatus began to play the throbbing-pounding beats as they drove down the

street to attract the younger, hipperpassengers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224 12

Mum did not organize so many pool parties, preferring either to be at school with

her swim team or alone sunning. I tried to lure her into our pool, goading splashes at her

feet and promising that the water was warmer than it really was. She ignored me, her

face serenely sunward, her eyes closed against the world around her. Her magazine on

the ground beneath her, damp and unread.

When that failed, I said, “I’m going inside to study.”

“IJmm,” her mind a secret society that I could not join.

Then I got out and towel-dried, quickly with harsh pulls of fabric over my limbs.

I tucked the towel around my waist and turned to the house. I was in Standard Seven,

already worried about the Standard Eight exams coming up the next year that would

determine my eligibility for entrance to high school.

“Jacaranda, do you want to gosafariV on

“Mum?”

“During the Easter holidays, Uncle Peter is going to be leading a group of

Americans in the Mara. It isn’t for sure, yet, but he would like you to help him. ”

“Isn’t that P.T.’s job?”

“He might not be able to go and you could In his place. Doreen wants to take P.T.

to South Africa.”

“Why?”

“She thinks Kenya is going to the dogs.” Mum frowned, her face a pool of ripples,

as if disturbed by a hurled, sinking stone. “Do you want to go or not?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225 “Can I think about it?” I asked, even though in my heart of hearts, I already knew

the answer. I would go. I was greedy for the time alone with my Uncle. For the open

grasslands and the wildlife. For elephants.

It was Julianne who came to pack me, because Mum could not. Would not.

When I was pretending to waffle about my decision, Julianne reminded me that I had

never been. She promised that I would see cheetahs, the migrating wildebeests,

elephants. She told me that Uncle Peter would look out for me and treat me as well as if I

were his own daughter.

At the last minute, it seemed that Mum changed her mind about wanting me to go

with Uncle Peter. At first she had said it was a great idea, as I was too old to have never

been onsafari, a but as the days got closer she became stubborn. She worried that there

might be an accident on the road, as we drove down to the mara, and asked me why I

wanted to go. No answer I gave her was right, and I took refuge in my books, claiming to

be studying for my exams, studying harder for end of term. Mum came home later and

later from swim practice, but she did not smell of pool water.

“Don’t you want to spend Easter with me?”

“I just want to go on safari. I’ve never been before.” Then I suggested, “Why

don’t you come with us?”

“Are you mad?” Mum asked. “People will talk. Gossip, you know that.”

“Who cares if people talk?”

“Why don’t I take you during the Christmas holidays.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226 “We can go then, too. But Uncle Peter said if I go now, I might be able to catch

the beginning of the wildebeest migration.”

“It’s too soon,” Mum said. “It’s not dry enough yet.”

I shrugged. “I’ll just see what there is then.”

“She’s jealous,” Julianne told me. She had come over to help me pack my things

and keep Mum company while I was gone.

“What of?”

Julianne sighed. “You’re too young to understand.”

She rolled up a pair of my khaki shorts, pressing them smooth against her

stomach. I sat on the edge of the bed, my back against the wall. I knew Mum was in her

room, and I imagined that we were sitting backs pressed together through the concrete

blocks. Sometimes, even I knew there was no right answer.

“Your Mum just worries too much.”

Julianne neatly pressed the shorts into the comer of my duffle bag. She rolled up

my t-shirt, with a clean pair of underwear and socks in the centre. I tapped the back of

my head against the wall, feeling tears building in my eyes.

“What are you thinking about?”

I kept tapping my head, the dull thudding rhythm became comforting.

“Stop it, Jacaranda.”

I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227 Julianne put her hand between the wall and my head -so quickly I couldn’t stop

knocking and I cracked her fingers against the wall and she hissed in pain. But I pulled

my head up and knocked it back again.

“You have a father.”

I rested my head in Julianne’s hand. I could feel her fingers twisting with pain

and love cupping my head. I could feel tears rolling out of the comers of my eyes and

down the sides of my face.

“Sumar doesn’t like to talk about it.” Julianne’s voice, usually strident, confident,

and room-filling had dropped. She was quiet, full of secrets. “It still hurts her.”

“What?” I was crying, the tears gathering silently under my chin and dripping

onto my chest.

“If she is not ready to talk to you about it, I shouldn’t.” Julianne’s loyalties did

not lie with me. She was my mother’s friend. “But some day she will. I promise.”

“I want to know now,” I said. Suddenly a curiosity was blooming in my chest, as

if it had been waiting for the short rains of my tears. “What happened to him?”

Julianne sighed, a sound likewadi a filling a riverbed, sucking away the dry sand.

She moved her hand from behind my head. “There are things I can’t tell you.”

“But I want to know.”

“I will talk to Sumar while you are gone. I will tell her that it is time for you to

know.”

She massaged her fingers with her other hand. Julianne picked up the next t-shirt,

pressing a pair of underwear and socks into it. Before she could roll it up, I took it from

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 228 her and rolled it. My roll not as tight as hers. My heart was loosened with repentance for

knocking against her fingers.

Richard Leaky had been appointed as Minister of Kenya Wildlife Services in

1989 and instituted a fleet of KBS buses that went through the Nairobi National Park.

For the price of bus ride, ordinary Kenyan citizens could have a safari experience. The

large buses were the same colour blue as the plastic Lyon’s Maid ice cream cups and

looked like litter tossed into the long grass, picked up by the wind and pushed along the

roads. The drivers were still in the fare-collecting mindset of matatu drivers and did not

slow down so that the faces pressed against the windows could pick out the shy gazelles

that blended into the savannah. It is doubtful that they ever stopped for a rhino or went to

the rivers to see crocodiles. Instead, they found the shortest route from one gate to the

next, where the tum-boy quickly herded everyone off the bus so the next set of

passengers could get aboard. In time, Leaky’s program ended the way the last of dust

devils stirred up by the speeding buses disappeared, spreading thinly until the dirt fell

back to the ground and coated the grass.

Uncle Peter kept his promise. He took mesafari. on He came on the first day of

the holidays to pick me up. The land cruiser had two spare tires chained to the top, a

jerry can of petrol and another of water. He had screwed in a shovel to each side. And

several large sandukus, suitcases hand-made in a nearby market from the metal printed to

be used as Coca-Cola lids or Candbury’s Drinking Chocolate cans, were in the back of

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229 the car. Next to all this preparedness, my bag looked small in the back of the Land

Cruiser.

“Buckle the safety belt,” he said.

I knew better than to mention that I had never seen PT use it. The belt resisted

being unwound, and Uncle Peter reached across and jerked it harshly several times. Then

he passed me the metal buckle. It clicked like metal teeth closing over one another.

“Well, Little Lady,” Uncle Peter said, clapping his hands and rubbing them

together. “You ready for an adventure?”

I nodded my head.

He put his face close to mine, his blue eyes sharp, and he nodded his head, chin

tucked towards his neck in a way that was clearly mimicking me. “What does this

mean?”

I shrugged.

He shrugged, bringing his broad shoulders close to his neck. “You shake your

head like a dukawalli, not saying what you mean. Cat got your tongue?”

I shook my head, as a small bubble of unsure laughter tried to escape.

“That isn’t acceptable. You must say yes or no.”

His voice was harsh, bursting the happiness in my chest.

“Are you ready for adventure?”

I bit my bottom lip and wanted to cry, but my mouth opened and from deep inside

came a small voice that I didnot recognize as my own. “Yes, sir.”

“Better,” he said, rewarding me with a small smile. He started the car, revving

the engine several times before getting into gear. Patrick held the gate open and waved at

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. me, as we drove slowly all the way down the driveway. I waved back, hoping that Mum

or Memsab would stand in the gate, but neither of them came out of the house. Only

Patrick stood at the gate, regal, thin as his own shadow and just as dark. Kubwa stood in

the middle of the driveway, tail wagging uncertainly. And suddenly, we turned onto the

road and I was alone with Uncle Peter.

Uncle Peter taught me how to climb up to the roof the Land Cruiser and tie up

suitcases. Sometimes, if it was midday and the plains were empty, he let me ride up

there, the winds streaming past my face as real as water. But, usually he insisted I stay in

the car, the windows down, one hand hanging brown outside.

“You’re going to lose it,” he said. “And not to a lion. Probably to a small acacia

tree.”

The threat of thorns pulled my hand into the car, but not completely.

“What are we looking for today?”

“Leopards,” Uncle Peter said. Photo safaris require a yearbook line up of the Big

Five. He taught me how to tell the Americans, Kodak gold, from Japanese with green

Fuji Film and wide zoom lenses that they carried in deeply padded bags. “And cheetahs.

And they want to see a white rhino. Next they’ll be asking for a bloody dragon.”

I laughed, binoculars knocking against my flat chest. The road disintegrated from

paper-thin asphalt, to a worn, yellow dust path, to a parallel scar of tracks, already

healing with grass. I knew he actually liked looking for animals, while the pink morning

sun reflecting against the grass was still undisturbed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231 Most days were spent managing the camp Uncle Peter did not own. He was in

charge of keeping staff on task, making sure tourists were smoothly accommodated, and

tinkering with the aging machines -especially the generator that was prone to go out at

any moment, that demanded obscene amounts of petrol and responded to curses.

I would sit in the shade, unable to help. Listening to him curse the owner, half

under his breath, fearing treason for his blasphemy against an appointed secretary who

was responsible for putting the import duty on generators so high that he couldn’t afford

a new one.

“Did you know,” Uncle Peter asked, “that there is no word for maintenance in

Swahili?”

Of course I knew that. It was the explanation for how the National Theatre had

gone to rot, why the phone lines were always congested, and roads crumbled at the edges,

cracking to potholes large enough to swallow a lorry. Around the pool, Mum’s friends

had repeated that mantra. Bridge afternoons cards were shuffled with theories of

Commonwealth decline and what Kenya would be like if the British had stayed.

In the evenings, Uncle Peter sat at the edge of camp, while the tourists padded off

to bed, the smoldering campfire burping smoke at us. He took out a battery operated

radio and tuned it carefully until a thin dribble of KBC trickled in. We listened to the

crackling news and the not-so-distant cackles of hyenas laughing to one another. He took

a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lit it in his cupped fingers. When he set the Benson

& Hedges box on the bench between us, I picked it up. Clumsy, I tried to light the

cigarette.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 232 He watched me, his eyes squinted against smoke and laughter.

“Jaci, what do you think you’re doing?” A puff of smoke ringed his question.

I ignored him, keeping my head bent down, my shoulder twisted to cradle against

the wind. Finally, the cigarette caught light. I raised it to my lips and breathed in

triumphantly. The smoke burned and prickled into my throat and nose and lungs. I

coughed to let it go.

Uncle Peter leaned over and smacked me across the back of my head. Not as hard

as the smoke, but hard enough to make me drop the cigarette in surprise to the ground. It

brushed close to my leg, hot without burning. He ground it out with his heel.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

I rubbed the back of my head, though it was my throat that was sore.

“You are not going to start smoking on my watch,” he promised. “You father

intends for you to be an Olympic swimmer, and I won’t be the reason it doesn’t happen.”

“My father?” I asked. Unable to take in the rest: that my father was an Olympic

swimmer, that Uncle Peter knew my father, and that he would know what my father

wanted for me. My voice was seared by the smoke and revelation.

“Shit,” Uncle Peter said. He looked into the darkness beyond the camp, as if he

were scouting the night-black plains for some way to take back what he had said.

“Tomorrow I want to take you to see elephants.”

“I’ve already seen elephants.” With the drivers and other tourists we had come

across a herd of young bulls, driven from the others because of what Uncle Peter called

their antisocial adolescent tendencies. They had shaken their tusks at us and flapped the

ears, but not really stopped grazing.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 233 Typical teenagers, the American tourists had joked.

“Not like that,” Uncle Peter said. He dropped the still-glowing butt of his

cigarette to the ground between his feet. With one heel, he carefully ground it out with a

circular motion. “Just the two of us.”

In the distance there was the coughing moan of a lion, as if he were clearing his

throat.

Uncle Peter put a finger up to his lips.

In the darkness, the sound became its own colour. A deep scarlet colour that

bloomed as the cough rounded out and built to a roar. The roar filled the valley, a sunset

of sound. Tourists flipped on their torches as if they were in city-houses, where they

might call the police about an intruder. askaris The of the camp were Masaaimorans,

their hair in the traditional ochre-red, warrior braids, earlobes pierced and stretched to

delicate ovals. When the lion roared, they stood in respect, heads cocked to one side.

Pink-early in the morning, he tapped on my tent and hissed my name.

“Jaci? You awake?”

“Yes,” I said, through my dream-logged mind. I had been dreaming about

swimming, about being a pool so large that I could not see either side when a shadow

covered the sun. I had slept in a t-shirt, so I had only to pull on jeans and wrap a Maasai

shuka around me. The scratchy, bright red-plaid clashed with the morning peacefulness.

We went to the car, Uncle Peter as quiet as a gazelle. I followed his strides across

the camp, sometimes skipping to keep up with him. It was so early that even the most

ardent of tourists was still asleep. The drivers who would be taking out the tourists raised

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 234 one hand at him, in a shooing salute. In their other hands they held cups of hot tea or

instant coffee. The way long grass parted for our tires, immediately behind us the drivers

closed back over their red-dirt stories that they told in every language but English. From

the cook, Uncle Peter got a few boiled eggs still pot warm. He gave me a pinch of salt

folded in a serviette and a thermos of hot tea. Though already sweetened and milky, it

was difficult to drink as we bounced along the main dirt road out of the camp.

Engine noise was animalistic in the morning, like the Cruiser was hungry and

hunting. I put my feet on the seat, and Uncle Peter didn’t say to take them down. The

shuka wrapped around me kept off the damp morning dew that filmed over the

windscreen and chilled the air between us. Leakey had made it illegal to drive on the old

furrowed paths trampled long ago by determined tourist expeditions and now grown up in

the middle. He claimed the animals needed the space to hunt and mate and that the

tourist vans had not allowed in their pursuit for closer pictures. Uncle Peter turned down

one of the forbidden roads, fitting the tires into the forgotten grooves.

“What if we get caught?” I asked him, thrown against my safety belt as the Land

Cruiser went over a large stone in the road.

“Who is going to catch us?”

Only a brown ibis looked up from the long grass where he hunted for small frogs

and mice. He croaked his guttural agreement with Uncle Peter and flapped his foil-green

wings twice, before deciding to fly away up and report our trespassing.

Gray-brown boulders in the distance moved slowly into life and became elephants

as we drew closer. Uncle Peter drove slowly, and as if instinctually the engine quieted.

Equally quiet, the elephants turned to look at us. Uncle Peter turned off the engine and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235 the only sound was the elephants. Breathing, snorting, and grunting to one another.

Their bulk hushed by their soundless, brushing steps.

“Don’t make any noise,” Uncle Peter warned. His words more the movements of

his lips than sound. “They have babies and are very protective.”

The baby elephants, smaller than our car, looked tiny next to the adults. They

flapped their ears at one another and swung their delicate trunks in curious greeting to the

morning world. They seemed to be dancing, lifting their feet high above the grass and

shuffling to the side. I could not help the silent smile that spread across my face. Even

the old elephants, massively grave, seemed amused by these antics. They shuffled the

grass with their trunks that moved like a dancing arm between their tusks, sometimes

coming to rest over the ivory shaft.

The herd spread slowly around us, enveloping the car as if it were another

elephant or just a rock coming out from the ground. Inside, the air was hung with wonder

and awe, at danger of their size. I knew in that instance the power of nature. All but the

youngest of those elephants could have tossed the car on its side without breaking a

sweat.

“That’s the grandmother,” Uncle Peter said, pointing an at elephant looking back

at us. She seemed older than the others, serious and suspicious. Never turning her back

to us as her tribe moved around, her tusks long almost to her knees, curved like bows.

“Elephants are matriarchal,” he reminded me.

“MutukufuT I asked, trying to make that a joke.

“Even he isn’t so strong now.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236 With the herd around us, we could not move. The absence of walky-talky radio

was as loud as if it were crackling and I realized I had become used to the constant calls

between guides and drivers and KWS wardens. Instead, I listened to the near-silence of

the elephants, like we were underwater and my ears were clogged. The sun rising,

burning the dew away, and waking the elephants seemed to make its own golden

humming noise, but that was the insects waking in the grass.

With the binoculars, I could look at the elephants, bringing them so close that I

could see their wrinkles, the fine whiskers of hair on their trunks, and their stiff

paintbrush tails. I could see the discolourations and cracks in the tusks of the oldest

elephants. In the newspapers I had seen of the elephants, the carcasses of elephants.

Their heads hewn open with electric saws to steal the tusks, the babies left crying.

Orphaned elephants often die, of heartbreak. Watching the baby elephants rolling in the

dust at the feet of their elders, I felt a kinship as if I could get out of the car and join them.

I unwrapped theshuka slowly, letting it fall around me like a nest. Already, it

was clear the day was going to be warm. The binoculars bounced on my chest and the

elephants were back at their proper distance. I was hungry again, but happy too. Uncle

Peter had his seat reclined, his hands behind his head. When he saw me looking at him,

he winked. We could not talk until the elephants passed us by. Then, he started the car

and slowly we returned to the camp in time for lunch.

Time in the game parks moved slowly, like elephants in the midday sun. The

distance of a migration separated me from Nairobi worries, from school and Rupa. I

missed Memsab and Mum the way I missed hot showers and fresh, fridge-cool juice.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237 Radios did not broadcast this far into the wilderness and wardens at the gate would ask

for day old papers. I would not have known it was time to go, if Uncle Peter had not told

me to pack the night before. When we left a week later, they waved the same paper,

crossword completed, and editorial editorialized. When we returned to downtown

Nairobi, Uncle Peter stopped at roundabout to buy a paper from a newspaper vender. He

had me read the headlines aloud so that he could catch up with what had happened while

we were gone.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 238

In my imagination, I began to make space for my father.

His absence filled my life, crowding between Mum and me. Silencing the secrets

about love and boys and family we should have shared. Maybe in another time, we could

have been a family, with petty arguments and memories to make us laugh. Maybe he

would have built a home up around me, supporting it with his broad back.

I knew that he would have had a swimmer’s back, rippled by muscles and wide

shoulders. From the slips that Julianne made, I believed that my father would be on the

swimming team. The best swimmer on the national team. His body as fluidly unforgiving

as water. When he dove in, water parted around him and buoyed up under him. Twice

he was selected to go to the Olympics. Twice the country boycotted the Olympics. 1976,

Montreal, because New Zealand was allowed to compete, despite their All-Blacks rugby

team touring Apartheid South Africa. A total of 26 African and Arab nations banded

together for this. No one asked my father if he wanted to spearhead the attack against

the racist regime, if he was willing to give up his opportunity to compete.

He focused on his swimming and promised that 1980 would be different. That

would be his chance to compete for his country. Instead, Mohammed Ali came from the

United States as an emissary encouraging African nations to boycott the Moscow games,

as a statement against Communism. I imagined that my father had nothing against

Communism or Moscow. He had only wanted his chance at the Olympics.

Instead, he was stuck in Nairobi. The newspapers of the time were filled with

reports about how an American marine was acquitted of the murder of a Kenyan girl,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239 who was an under-aged prostitute. The handsome American was given diplomatic

immunity and Kenyan courts were not strong enough to service justice.

My father might have looked at his wife, swelling with pregnancy. I imagined that

he promised that his child would grow up in a different kind of country. A country that

had the courage to stand up against unfair international pressures.

I could not have imagined before that Mum would be capable playing the role of

wife, her hair modestly tucked behind her ears. Mum setting the table, spooning hot food

into clean plates. Mum listening to the radio, listening to the news reports.

I lost the memory o f my father. I forgot the Swahili he taught me and that he

brought home the newspapers and talked politics with a loud voice. That he hated

corruption and nepotism and despots. That he invited over his friends nyoma for choma

and Tusker and political debates. Mum would sit on the edge o f these conversations,

passionate about the role of racial reconciliation. I was the adored child, the future of

Kenya. Tribeless. Raceless. Transcending the previously known divisions. My father

promised me the world, bouncing me on his knee.

Without being told, I could have never understood that my nightmares were of

tense waiting. That the fear was planted when the whistle split my life open, when the

uniformed men who forced themselves into the before-life that I had to forgot. It was best

to forget the way my father’s eyes turned yellow as the handcuffs clicked shut behind him.

But without the memory, I still heeded his final words.

“Shh. Be quiet. Kimia. ”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 240 A command o f silence, as if that would protect me from the dreams that started

that night. As in silence, I could safely witness the birth of hawk-eyed Mutukfu, hatched

from treason and greed. I could not have imagined my life fitting into the history that

Mutukufu’s KANU pretended did not happen. The 1982 Coup was as lost as the files on

the detained prisoners. As lost as my father.

By 1984, my father would be imprisoned as a traitor to his country. Perhaps

there he reflected on the irony that he never had an opportunity to compete for the

country that had imprisoned him. He had grown up in a government-issue house, with

cement walls and corrugated tin roofs, allocated to his father for being the headmaster of

a secondary school in Mombasa. My father had grown up surrounded by the Swahili,

Arab lemon people, learning their Swahili, as elegant as Arabic script and the way their

hands danced as they talked. Luos were a minority in the coastal province.

Maybe another time my father would have been an Olympian. I f history had

turned a different direction, he would have finished his degree without interruption and

become a professor who inspired generations o f students. Maybe if the coup had been

successful he would have been a part of the government. Ifhadn’t been detained, maybe

he would have been hopeful when it was announced that multi-party, democratic

elections would be held in 1992. Maybe, if politics had gone another direction, I would

have known my father.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241

Things never returned to normal.

It was a strange man who opened the gate. He wore a brown Securicore uniform

and a wooden baton swung from his waist. He opened the gate only a crack first, spying

on us. First at me, then at Uncle Peter, who had rolled down his window.

“Who do you want?” he asked.

“I live here,” I said to him in my most stem voice, trying to sound like Memsab.

“Open the gate and let me in.”

He opened the gate reluctantly, as if he thought I might be lying. As if a little girl

and an mzungu would try to steal from the house. As we drove past, he raised his hand in

a half-hearted, habitual salute, covering his face with the shade from the palm of his

hand.

Mum was waiting for us and she was hugging me before I was even completely

out of the car. “You’re sun burnt,” she said, pinching my forearm as if checking if I were

a figment of her dreams.

“Not really,” I said, hiding my hand behind my back, suddenly shy around my

own mother. There was something unpredictable about her. She had the same gleam in

her that appeared when she talked about politics. Then she would gesture with wide -

sweeps of her open palms and quiet whispers with Julianne or Uncle Peter or any adult

she thought would listen.

“She got a little sun,” Uncle Peter said. He carried my bag in from the car, put it

down on the floor, and reached to hug Mum. “How have you been?”

“Busy,” Mum said. I could tell she was lying. The room was too neat.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242 “Where’s Patrick?” I asked. A line of empty juice and jam jars were against the

window and even the rug on the floor looked like it had been pressed.

“He has malaria,” Mum replied, but she did not take her eyes off Uncle Peter.

With one hand she smoothed her skirt.

Uncle Peter looked around the room nervously, sensing that her sudden

cleanliness was not a good sign. He lingered slowly, his hands empty at his side. I

realized it was the first time since we had left that I had seen his hands empty; not

gripping the steering wheel, holding a cigarette, or a wrench for the generator.

“Again?” I asked, but it did not help deflect her attention.

“Again.”

There was nothing more for us to say.

“I’m going to see Memsab.” I left them to their private messiness.

Memsab was waiting for me, dinner warm on her table, enough for two. Naomi

smiled at me, as she brought in a place setting for me.

“Thank you,” I told her, pouring my own water.

“Did you have a nice time?” Memsab asked.

“Yes,” I replied, our conversation refitting awkwardly into the space allowed it.

Truth ripens slowly, like guava turning sweet inside the softening rind. I wanted

to ask Memsab for her side of the story: why we lived in the servants’ quarters, why she

never let us live with her in the house so obviously too large, and what had happened to

my father. Instead, I asked her to pass the rice.

“I saw elephants,” I told her.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 243 “Impressive, aren’t they.” This conversation was trivial, the rice stuck to the back

of my mouth, overcooked and gummy. “Mum said Patrick has malaria.”

“That’s what he told me,” Memsab said, but from her voice I knew she didn’t

believe him. “If he gets sick again, I’m taking him to doctor.”

“I thought he went.”

“For an AIDS test,” Memsab said, her voice blushing. The word, sounded funny

coming out of my grandmother’s mouth. It seemed odd that an old woman should know

about sex or think about sexually-transmitted diseases. The NGOs had been holding

panel discussions on the radio to discuss the implications of Kenya’s rising infections

rates, but this was the first time that AIDS reached into my life.

As she had promised, Julianne had asked Mum to tell me about my father. At

least this is what I think happened, because they were in the middle of a major fight when

I came home. The next afternoon, Julianne came over to ask me how my holiday was,

but within minutes she had picked up an argument that had apparently been started in my

absence.

“You’re a coward,” Julianne told Mum. “A flipping, spineless coward.”

“Drop it.”

“How else do you explain your stupidity?”

“Drop it.”

I sat at a card table, turning on the lamp that Memsab gave me from her house so I

could study. These additions made our previously sparce living room space seem

crowded and messy and our lives feel borrowed. I was supposed to have finished reading

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244 the government and history book before I went to classes, but it was amazingly dull.

Kenyan history seemed devoid of anything interesting since the British were thrown out

and the MauMau returned to civilized society. Instead, I had been tracing over P.T.s

name on the textbook I had inherited, my pencil fitting into the grooves he had made

years ago, as if engraving myself over him.

“Everyone knows,” Julianne said. Our house was cold, damp from the short rains

and she kept her jacket on. It looked like she was here on business, just popping in or

already on her way out. She had actually been storming around Mum for the last hour,

while Mum nonchalantly ignored her best friend’s agitation.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Mum asked her. She was dicing tomatoes on a

wooden cutting board. The red juices, like blood seeping around her fingers and the

knife frighteningly sharp and close to her white hands.

“I’m not going anywhere until you start listening to some sense.”

“I guess that means yes,” Mum replied mildly, adding another tomato. The oil on

the bottom of the pot was heating, sending up curls of smoke. Then Mum added the

tomatoes and onions to the hot oil, stirring them mwiko,with a and the room filled with

the hiss and snap and smell.

“Everyone is talking about you.”

“Small minds,” Mum’s mild tone reminded me of Memsab.

“You are missing the point. Completely missing the point. You stand there as if

everything is peachy. While your reputation is going to the dogs.”

“My reputation? Since when were you suddenly so interested in the state of my

reputation or anyone else’s? You should start worrying about your own!”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 245 “I don’t have a family to affect.”

My ears burned and I knew they had forgotten me bent over my books. I turned

the page slowly, wishing I could forget them and block out their voices, wishing that their

angry-woman words did not beat around me. I tried to imagine, PT at home with his

family, with Uncle Peter, probably having a beef brisket dinner. Mum added the bright,

thinly slicedskuma-wiki that wilted in the heat of the pan and turned a black-green

colour. We were eating African food. It was not the Kenyan traditional dish to me, what

my textbook called economican indicator.

“Do you ever think about consequences, for Jaci?”

“Is that what this is really about?” Mum still was not looking at Julianne.

“What else?”

“I have a few other theories,” Mum said, stirring theskuma-wiki.

“I’m telling you this because you’re my friend: Doreen is going to kill you.”

“Jacaranda,” Mum called me as if realizing I was in the room for the first time.

“Would you mind going to Memsab’s house and asking Naomi to lend you some black

pepper?”

I did not even wait to hear Mum’s lame excuse. I gathered my books and rushed

out. It was starting to rain again and all I could hear were Julianne’s words echoing in

my ears.

Mum’s voice followed me, “You are as bad as the Americans searching for

Happy Valley romance. Would a dramatic Lord Delemere murder mystery make you

happy? Not blood likely, this is Nairobi and we’re all adults.”

“What is adult about this kind of carrying on?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246 My heart felt like it was flutter-kicking under my shirt. I could hear Julianne’s

voice as a steady roar of anger beneath Mum’s angry words -sharp and scattered as bullet

shots at night. I shut my eyes, waiting for darkness to fall again. Or for a vision. All I

could hear was the sound of the neighbours’ servants laughing, a baby crying and being

hushed in a tribal language. Patrick was scolding the dogs in a mixture of Swahili and

English, as if they were bilingual, and Naomi had the radio on in the kitchen.

“Bad things come of little girls who eavesdrop,” Memsab said. Her voice was

bright as a kerosene lamp. It seemed to bend back the shade of the banana trees and my

mind. With apanga, she chopped through an almost ripe bunch that hung on the tree.

She picked up the bananas, and not knowing what else to do, I followed her.

She gave the bananas to Naomi in the kitchen, along with an order for tea.

We went into the dining room and sat across from one another, the table an empty

savannah between us. Naomi brought the tea, the sound of her kitchen radio following

her through the cracked door. The door closed behind her, silencing the Swahili news

broadcast.

“Listening to rumours is what leads to riots,” Memsab said. If that were true, it

would explain the sudden political peace since the repeal of the single-party state. “You

should just ask her.”

“Ask her?”

“Sumar,” Memsab said, adding milk to her tea. “About your father.”

“Mum won’t talk about these things. She never has.”

“Maybe she will now,” Memsab said. “Times are changing.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 247 She stirred her tea slowly. I watched as she lifted the cup to her lips, sipping

delicately.

“What has changed?”

From upstairs, the BBC chime sounded familiar to mark the hour. The

newscaster’s announcement was garbled as it crackled out. Memsab deliberately

swallowed the tea, setting the cup down on the saucer. Outside the window, Patrick

paced the yard restlessly, followed by the dogs too dumb to know that he was dying and

unafraid of catching a disease from him. He was thinner, as if the plates Naomi prepared

for him, but would not wash, did not hold enough food. Memsab did not allow me to

play checkers with him any more.

“Ask her.”

I should have sunk like a stone each time I dived, weighted by the unasked

questions heavy in my stomach. Sometimes I let myself drift to the bottom of the pool,

using my feet to push back to the surface. Breaking with a splash. Other times, I did

laps. Our pool too small for my sudden height, fewer strokes taking me across the length.

“Your breaststroke is beautiful,” Mum called to me from the edge of the pool

where she was painting her nails.

“When did I leam to swim?” I asked Mum, one day when it was just the two of us

sitting by the pool. Mum was painting her toenails a brilliant shade of pink.

“I don’t remember,” Mum replied absently, staring at her flexed toes.

“I wasn’t bom knowing how to swim!” I protested, angry with her noncommittal

answer and focus on the nail polish. “I am not a fish.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 248 “You might have been a fish,” Mum replied, almost smiling.

“Not funny,” I replied and I stood up -too old to play this game with her. I went

to the edge of the pool and looked at the sparkling blue water, contemplating diving back

in. Drops of water licked one another as they slid down my back and legs to the ground.

Her voice was only a whisper, “Your father taught you. The rest you learned after

we moved in with Memsab.”

Before I could say anything, Mum asked, “Are you going to join the swim team?”

Understanding Mum was like understanding the opposition. Impossible. Her

attention was slippery, broken. Something had been unleashed in her and she would stare

at the pool for hours, watching the tiny ripples spread to the edges. Other times, she was

a whirlwind of activity. She started drinking again, after dinner before we went to bed as

if I would not smell the alcohol. I listened through the wall, but she no longer called for

me.

In the morning, she stumbled around the room and put the kettle on to boil. I sat

in my uniform, my shoes Kiwi-commercial bright, and my gym bag already packed.

While we waited for the water, she looked at me as if I were mocking her with my

dream-refreshed bright eyes.

“What about the swim team?” I asked her.

“I have practice tonight. Probably until late.”

“How will I get there?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 249 “Memsab will take you to school,” Mum said. She stirred two heaped teaspoons

of instant coffee into a mug of hot water. The rest of the water from the kettle she poured

over a tea bag for me.

“But after school, how will I get to swim practice?” I missed the days when Mum

would make tea for me. I missed the toast and her humming music.

“That’s not until Saturday.” Mum set her empty mug in the sink and ran water

into it so that it would not attract a long, black row of ants before she had a chance to

wash up.

“But I thought...”

“No, not at Braecrest,” Mum corrected me. “You have to be a secondary student

to be on their team.”

Without saying anything else, she returned to her room to get dressed. I got my

school bag and went to Memsab’s house without saying goodbye to my mother.

On Saturday morning came early, Mum woke me her eyes sparking with an

excitement that I did not feel. “Are you ready?”

“Where are we going?”

“Swimming. I know I told you about it.”

“Yes, but I thought you meant Bracrest.”

“Get dressed,” Mum said. I heard her in our kitchen area knocking about dishes.

When we walked through the YMCA lobby, the receptionist smiled at Mum with

recognition. On the patio, there were a few American backpackers eating breakfasts,

while one too many waiters hovered uselessly about. The smell of beef sausages and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250 toast made my stomach growl. It was almost an hour since I had a bowl of Wheatabix

and cold milk. Mum had insisted that I get up early and eat lightly so that there would be

time for the food to digest before swimming. I was already hungry again and the smell of

the breakfast distracted me. Mum did not even seem to notice, as she turned off the patio

and headed down the hill.

But, I stopped in my tracks. Down the hill, at the end of the pathway was the

largest, bluest swimming pool I had ever seen.

“Olympic sized,” I whispered in awe.

“Are you coming, Jaci?” Mum asked, looking back impatiently.

The familiar, pungent smell of water and chlorine pulled me forward. White

styrofoam spheres bobbed along the length, sectioning off a third of the pool. Gleaming,

sweating limbs of about a dozen sprinting swimmers alternately broke above the bright

water. Several instructors in dry swimming costumes lounged in the shade on gleaming

plastic furniture. I could hear the voice of the coach, shouting names and calling times

from the side of the pool where he paced agitatedly, excitedly. At first, I could only see

his bright green swimming costume.

He looked up and saw Mum, already at the little office next to the pool signing

me in. The coach lifted his mirrored sunglasses and smiled, waving to her. He walked

away from his swimmers and went up to greet Mum.

“Sumar, you have been lost.”

Mum laughed. “Too long, Samson. Too long.”

“This is Jaci,” Mum said, pushing me forward.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251 I shyly raised my hand to shake his hand, which was as large and flat as a fin.

When I looked up I saw dangling whistle on his chest, which made me balk.

“How old are you? Twelve?”

“Almost,” I admitted.

“She’s young,” he said. His voice was unfriendly.

“She’s shy,” Mum said. “But strong.”

“You should wait a year,” he said to Mum. “Fast as you?” His eyes measured the

width of my shoulders and the size of my feet. Under his gaze, I felt my muscles roll and

clench under my skin.

“She takes after her father in the water. She’s strong,” Mum said to him. She

turned towards me, pointing vaguely with one hand, “Go change into your swimming

costume.”

The changing room was nothing like the one at the Muthaiga Club. I was afraid

of putting my bare feet on the floor. I was reminded of the public-health advertisement

on the exercise books showing a barefoot being attacked by germs, saying they were

thirsty for warm blood and ready to get out of the cold. The shower ran steaming hot and

I could hear women laughing. I went to the back room and faced the only mirror, waist-

high and wide as the room, cutting me off below the knees and the top of my head.

I walked out of the room, and my head was light with fear. The edge of the pool

was closer to the changing room door than I remembered. The water splashed at my feet

and the coach stood at the end, hands on his hips. I looked around, but couldn’t see

Mum.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252 “Jaearanda,” he called in a voice then did not leave room for disobedience.

“Come here.”

At the edge of the pool, the water was dangerously deep. The swimmers were

doing laps with the methodical precision of an army on patrol. The timer on his neck was

scrolling through numbers so quickly I couldn’t keep track of their upside-down progress.

“Dive in and give me four lengths of freestyle.”

I stood at the edge and waited for the water before me to clear enough for a dive.

None of the other swimmers seemed to notice me. He blew the whistle sharp and shrill

and I dove in without thinking. The watery refuge of silence and splash embraced me.

Instinctively I stretched my body to my full height, arms and legs, even fingers and toes

fully extended. Stroke-stroke-stroke. My arms reaching over my head and swooping

down past my thighs. Breath. Stroke-stroke-stroke. Modified-stroke-breath. The air

was clear and bright in my lungs. Around me older, larger, strong swimmers created

currents that pulled me with waves. Like schools of fish, we swam independently close

to one another, our paths never actually crossing.

When I came to the end of my laps and pulled myself out of the water, resting my

folded arms on the cement, he looked at his timer and at me. His mirrored sunglasses

were like the eyes of insects.

“Jaearanda?”

I nodded, sending the water dripping faster down my face, waiting to hear my

time.

“Four laps of breaststroke.” He looked at the stopwatch, arching one eyebrow at

me.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 253 I looked around for my Mum, but didn’t see her. So I ducked into the water,

turning a backwards somersault, and planting my feet firmly against the wall to push off.

The cold tile was as firm as the man watching me swim. By halfway through, I felt my

muscles starting to bum.

When I reached the end, he sent me out again: two lengths of backstroke. I turned

backwards and opened my eyes to the sky, a dry, distant blue. Water splashed around me

and the pull of stronger swimmers threatened to bring me off course. I held to the bar at

the side of the pool, my legs pulled tight against me. My lungs burned and the coach

with the insect-eyes examined his stopwatch. He looked at me, but I could only see my

face expectant and exhausted looking back at him.

“Can you tread water?”

I nodded, releasing the banister at the side of the pool reluctantly. My legs were

twisting, like I was paddling an invisible bicycle. My tired arms were unable to keep my

head fully above water and I tilted my ears back. I swallowed the choppy waves made by

the other swimmers. I coughed, trying to get the sour chlorine water out of my lungs.

“Get out,” he said. “We charge five shillings a glass for water.”

Gratefully, I found the steps. My legs were shaking when I pulled myself out of

the water. I sat on the edge of the concrete, waiting for my strength and balance to

return, suddenly not caring if I made the team. Hating the coach, hating his insect eyes,

hating the reliability of his stopwatch. Hating Mum for bringing me here.

“Good job,” he said. “You are a strong swimmer. I think you will do well on the

team.”

I squinted up at him, the glare of the sun beating against my eyes.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 254 “Go change,” he said. “You will have your first official practice next week.”

When I went towards the changing room, I saw Mum running down the stairs -so

fast that she almost slipped, one hand gripping the banister and her other hand waving at

me. I shrugged, too tired to listen to what she was saying. I went into the changing room

and stood in the hot shower, not caring if germs got in my feet, promising myself that I

would be the best on the team.

After I dried and dressed, Mum took me upstairs to a small restaurant overlooking

the pool. She ordered heavily salted chips and two Farmer’s Choice sausages that we

shared. I dipped each chip into the cornstarch thick, red-dyed Peptang tomato sauce and

drank water from the bottle she had brought from home.

“I’m so proud of you,” Mum said. She had that small smile, the one she gave

swimmers on her team when they beat their own times. “Your father would be so proud

of you, too.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 255 15

After ten years, history would no longer be suppressed and the truth began to rise

like bubbles in porridge. Slowly, with heavy reluctance. Holding puffy, still a moment.

Then popping with a small, but violent splash. Dissatisfaction and greed, like breakfast

porridge, boil hotter than the steam they create.

Julianne brought a radio for Mum, so that we could listen to the news in the

morning before leaving for school. She claimed that this would help me improve my

history and government classes. Except we only talked about Independence and the

agricultural economy, as if the price of coffee was relevant to democracy. KBC blandly

reported the US invasion o f Somalia, tribal clashes up-country, the two gold, four silver

and two bronze medals brought back from the elections, and defections No one wanted to

interpret the omens o f1982 and 1992: o f opposition and Air Force, of the university

students and Youth Wingers.

Mum proclaimed her hatred o f politics every day.

She would not tell me her theories of multi-partyism.

But she carried home the newspaper, swiped from the teacher’s lounge.

Her dreams were replaced by spirals of memories - of what happened, of what-if

and what-might-have-been. She drank until she remembered everything that happened.

She cried to Sundowner, while Roger Whittiker sang about his love of the old EAR. And

though Kenya Railways still ran to Mombasa, I doubted he would risk his life to ride on

it. She cried herself to sleep and her mumbled sleep-words carried through our walls

and invaded my dreams.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 256 We both woke in the morning, bleary-eyed and nightmare-tossed. KBC filled , the

silence between us, because I could not tell that I dreamed of doors being broken in, of

handcuffs, of being beaten. I thought that she would have said I was becoming

politically-paranoid, like an opposition leader claiming fraud and threats. Foreign

envoys, led by the US ambassador, walked out on Mutukufu’s Jamhuri Day speech,

because it was inappropriate for foreign emissaries to participate in a political rally.

For me it was only another day off from school.

After ten years, the secrets began to circle around me. Bringing my life into a

circle, the past like an underwater somersault, disorienting. The tiled pool bottom over

my head and the wall along my back. My feet flicked out to breathe and my toes seeing

sudden clear sky. Democracy came to mean chaos. And authoritarianism meant stability.

Memsab remembered the Emergency and Independence and the death of Kenyatta,

telling me the stories she claimed to have forgotten.

The opposition defected and divided.

The election ran with democratic inefficiency, international observers were

appalled. Polling stations opened late or not at all. Memsab gave everyone off, except

Patrick who could not bear to return up-country a walking corpse. The money he sent to

his wife slowed to a trickle while he paid exorbitant fees to witchdoctors and miracle-

workers. He disavowed any interest in politics and joined a religion that met in the city

parks, beating on drums and the women wearing white dresses and white handkerchiefs.

Even as we watched the news, everyone knew that the touch-tag team of

politicians, all more interested in being president than having Mutukufu defeated, would

lose. Perhaps, it was whispered, that it would be for the better if he defeated the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 257 opposition: an opposition leader could never unite the country and that tribalism would

turn to civil war. A known evil was better than an unknown. These things were said with

only half the tongue, believed with only half the heart.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. reproduction Further prohibited without permission. 258

Elections were scheduled during the December Christmas holidays. This was

intentional: violence would be less if everyone were up-country, celebrating the holidays.

Like a Roman census, everyone returned to their tribal lands. Everyone except the

Indians andmzungus.

The embassies planned just-in-case provisions for their diplomats.

The Indians made plans to flee the country, remembering how Ida Amin threw

them out of Uganda. They feared that the next regime in Kenya would do the same.

The rest of us stocked up on canned goods and toilet paper.

Memsab didn’t worry; she had her garden. “I planted it after 1982, so we would

never have to worry about being hungry again.”

“What happened?”

“So much craziness,” Memsab said. “We needed to get milk for you, but all the

stores were closed. After a week, Muthaiga Mini-Market opened. In those days, to shop

there you had to have a deposit. Even still, when the owner reopened, he said, ‘Cash

only.’ I paid for milk and butter using British pounds. dukiwalla Damned opportunists,

no loyalty.”

“I’m going to India for my aunty’s wedding,” Rupa told me, repeating what her

parents told her to say.

I shrugged as if I did not care, as if my heart had not already been poisoned by

Memsab’s bitterness, as if she had any real choice.

“You’re angry at me.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 259 “When you coming back?” I would not meet her dark, large eyes.

“In the New Year,” she told me.

“Does a wedding take a month?”

“You don’t know Indian weddings.” Her laughter was nervous, high-pitched.

Untrustworthy.

I could not have explained to her why it was so important that she stayed, so

instead I shrugged. I thought she was running away from us. It was true, Indians would

never be loyal and shouldn’t be trusted. I let our friendship cool. She had her temples

andDiwali firecrackers, her long-haired, sari-wearing friends, and good Hindi brothers to

look after her. I was only a friend at school.

The day before classes closed, she waited for me after school in the parking lot.

“See you in the New year,” she said hopefully.

“I’ll see you when you see me,” I said. Then I ran to my bus without saying

good-bye. If the elections went badly, maybe she would never come back. Maybe there

would be violence. Maybe there would be no Kenya. I never even hugged her or turned

back to wave.

It was warm season again and the city prepared for a tropical Christmas and

multiparty elections. The stores painted their windows and hung up the foil banners of

Christmas greetings. Meanwhile, supporters of each party, papered the city with posters

of their candidates. Poster-after-poster of a presidential nominee was unrolled and glued

to bridges or placed one above another on telephone signs.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 260 We started receiving greeting cards for the holidays. Memsab’s came from her

old friends in England, Zimbabwe, and Australia. I tore off the stamps and glued them in

an exercise book and looked up each country in the atlas of my geography book. I only

got two cards, one from Julianne and the other from P.T. carefully printed in parentally-

dictated politeness. If Mum got one from Uncle Peter, she hid it fro me.

“We’re going to the Coast for the Christmas holidays,” Mum announced.

“Why?” I asked.

“I’ve already bought the train tickets,” Mum said. “We’ll be staying at Julianne’s

house in Mombasa town. We both can use the holiday.

The real reason we left was that Mum believed if the elections went badly,

Mombasa was likely to be less bad than Nairobi.

“Is Memsab coming with us?” I asked.

Mum invited her, again and again. Begged and tried to insist. But Memsab

would not be moved, she continued to tend to her garden and ordershamba about the

boys.

“I’m not going to have you, or anyone else, running me out from my own house,”

Memsab said. “Your father had this house built for me, and I’m not abandoning it. I

lived her during the Emergency. I lived here during the 1982 coup. I’m not leaving

now.99

“But what if something happens.”

“Nothing is going to happen,” Memsab said.

Mum rolled her eyes, frustrated and impatient. I saw the stubborn old woman that

my grandmother had become an immoveable as a brick wall. While we packed our

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261 swimming costumes and passports, just-in-case, Memsab took the old gun down from the

wall and test fired it in the backyard.

“Can we take Kubwa with us?” I asked Mum, worried about my loyal dog.

“Let him stay and look after your grandmother,” Mum said, instead of telling me

no. “She might need his protection.”

Kubwa had never bitten anyone and though he was already eight years-old, old

for a Ridgeback, he took a lively interest in everything that happened and I had no doubt

that he would be a good watchdog. If anything happened, he would at least try to attack

the intruders. I couldn’t imagine that my dog, with his now-gray eyebrows, and my older

grandmother could put up much of a defense.

“Has Kenya ever had complete anarchy?” I asked.

“Anarchy?” Mum repeated. “Did you learn that word at school? Of course it

hasn’t.”

Memsab took us to the train station to catch the seven-o’clock, overnight train to

Mombasa. In the parking lot, she kissed me good-bye on the cheek, but didn’t stay to see

us off. Mum had gotten first-class tickets so we joinedwazungu the families and rich

Africans who were getting on at the center of the train. The front of the train was

reserved for the third-class cars, the cheapest tickets that entitled one to a seat on a bench.

The passenger got there early enough to claim a seat, or else had to stand until a seat

became available. These were market women going around the country with their

produce, Nairobi’s servants and factory workers in town returning to be with their

families for the holidays. At the back of the train were the second-class cars, mostly

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 262 large Indian families and middle class Kenyans, who were comfortable sharing the close

quarters of the four beds and a single sink. It looked more like a marketplace then a train

station

“Come here,” Mum said, as we sat on the bench outside, not yet wanting to have

to be in the small, stuffy cabin until the movement of the train brought in fresh air.

“What?” I asked, more interested in exploring the train station. Boys walked

around carrying paper cones of roasted groundnuts and individually-wrapped House of

Manji biscuits that were as hard as they were sweet. “Can I have twenty-bob?”

“Hold still.” Mum sprayed my legs with mosquito repellant and then turned me

around to spray my arms. Afterwards, she dipped her fingers in mosquito-repelling

Vaseline and spread it on my neck, behind my ears, and my forehead.

“This stuff stinks,” I told her.

“Malaria is worse,” she said. The trains were known for carrying the worst

mosquitoes back-and-forth, Mombasa-to-Nairobi, trapped in the cabins. Mombasa

mosquitoes carried the worst kinds of malaria, the strains that killed.

“What about the twenty bob?” I asked.

Mum gave me a blue-bill from her purse. I wandered about until I found an ice

cream vendor selling from a white, insulated pushcart. I joined the other children in line

and bought a half-vanilla, half-strawberry ice-cream cup.

“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you,” Mum said when I wandered back to her.

“Why not?” I asked, licking off the small plastic spoon with each bite.

“If s going to make you sick if it wasn’t properly refrigerated.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 263 A loud whistle blew and everyone climbed onto the train as its engine warmed up

with a distant thunder sound. As we rolled out of town, little kids who lived at the

villages bordering Nairobi came out and waved at us. They shouted and smiled. Some

tourists, apparently ignorant of the impending elections or lured by the bargain-basement

packages that year, threw American hard-sweeties out the window. The children ran

after the train a few steps to catch the candies and shout their thanks while asking for

more.

“What are you thinking?” Mum asked, standing out in the hall with me.

“Not much,” I replied. I was had my arms crossed over the opened window and

rested my head so that the wind of the train’s movement rushed over my face and through

my braids. I watched the passing countryside.

I welcomed Mum’s quiet company, as we watched the dark felt hills that

overlapped each other like pillows on the bed of the earth flattened into savannah.

Occasionally, she pointed out a herd of zebra or a single giraffe rising statuesque from the

flattened horizon. It was as if the train were traveling through the Africa of history

books, the one found by the canvas-capped explorers who claimed to have discovered

Mount Kenya and renamed the source of the Nile for Queen Victoria.

After it was dark, Mum locked the cabin that we had to ourselves and went to the

dining car. A waiter in a white-button down shirt and faded black bowtie brought us a

stained, doggy-eared menu. It listed starters as a cream of vegetable soup and a desert of

cake with sweetened condensed milk instead of ice-cream. The main entree was a choice

between a beef, fish, or a vegetarian dish.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 264 “They called it the Lunatic Express,” Mum told me. “Because the whole

undertaking of building the East African Railroad was insane.”

I could imagine men like my grandfather Horace, standing at the edge of

Mombasa and looking north-westward, at the endless plains, the wildebeest walking

alongside the Maasai cattle herds. Beyond the horizon, Africa stretched, untamed and

unmapped. Undulating in its beauty.

Mum had taken P.T. and me to the Train Museum once. P.T. and I had spent the

afternoon climbing in and out of the old cars from various eras of the East African

Railways. They were all kept, mostly unattended, under giant corrugated tin roofs. We

could pretend we were driving them, pulling on the levers and even making the whistles

blow. We saw pictures of the Indian workers who were imported to build most of the

railway and the claws of the man-eating lion who picked off the workers, one-by-one, as

the track advanced through Tsavo.

At the Museum, there were full sets of the silverware that originally was used in

the train. Solid silver, tarnished, but the EAR engraving still perfectly clear. The table

we were sitting at still had an original silver fish knife and two salad forks. The rest of

our silverware was stainless steel from China and sold for a few shillings a piece at the

local Nakumatf general store. I wondered if the original silver had been stolen or simply

lost along the way.

After dinner, we went back to our room and, after a few hands of cards, Mum and

I retired to bed. The tik-tik-tik rocking of the train lulled away any of my questions about

what had happened to the silverware or dreams about the lions that could have been

waiting under the tracks. I slept dreamlessly for several hours.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 265 In the middle of the night, I awoke as the entire train tilted slight with the curve of

the track. Mum was right about the ice cream. I was feeling rather queasy. I climbed

down from the cradle of the upper bunk and walked down the hall to the bathroom,

keeping one hand on each wall, as if I were having trouble balancing. In the bathroom, I

watched the tracks rushing under the hole at the bottom of the toilet until I was so dizzy

that I threw up.

“Are you feeling better?” Mum asked, scaring me when I returned to the cabin.

By morning I was feeling better, and after breakfast the train arrived in Mombasa.

Julianne was there to meet us, she was sunburnt and happy. She tossled my hair and

carried Mum’s bags.

“After all these years,” she said. “You’re finally coming to visit me.”

“It has been a long time,” Mum admitted. “Too long.”

“Remember the good times we used to have?” Julianne asked.

Mum nodded, a radiance returning to her cheeks.

Julianne’s parents had died and left her a house that was just a few kilometers

from the beach. Most of the year she rented it out to various friends-of-friends returning

from England for a few weeks or on business travel, people who wanted somewhere

cheap and central to stay. She gave me my own room, with a balcony overlooking the

street.

Mombasa was quieter than Nairobi. Thematatus were slower and played their

music more quietly. Hand-pulled,mukukuatena carts still went down the main streets.

At five in the morning, I heard themullah begin his calls to prayers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 266 “Allah ackbar,” he crowed. God is great.

The mosque was only a block away and the golden-dome rose above the rest of

the buildings. In the early morning light it blushed a pink colour and I could see Muslim

men in their long white robes and skull caps headed for prayers. Later, the women in

headscarves and black robes would come out and greet each other in Swahili,elegant

more Arabic than Bantu, uncorruptedSheng. by From my window I could watch the

elaborate gestures of theirhenna-Q d hands as they began their mornings.

After our breakfasts, Julianne would pack up the car and park at a hotel and walk

onto the beach. I charged at the waves occasionally, swimming out as far as I could

against the waves until my arms were exhausted. Then, I would let the waves carry me

back towards the shore.

“Mind the undercurrent,” Julianne warned me. She and Mum walked ahead, arm-

in-arm, just how I imagined them as school chums. They laughed over secrets during the

days. At night, I heard them talking in whispers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 267

1 1

In my heart, best friends were agitators, as iffriendship were an uneasy

allegiance between patriotism and morality. Julianne reminded Mum in half-whispers,

half-curses o f the truths she would have rather forgotten and holding her accountable for

the times that Mum would have rather forgotten.

I imagined them meeting as schoolgirls. Mum in Mombasa for Easter break,

walking along the beach, tanned and supple: bending to collect seashells, captured by

their saltwater shine, a beauty that is lost when they dry. Julianne captured by how the

wind whipped the edge of Mum’s kangapulling its wet hem into the waves.

“Hello, ” Sumar would have said. Her heart still unsuspicious, unafraid.

Julianne would have been as tongue-tied as a boy, blushing. Stammering, “You ’11

get the prettiest shells at the reef. ”

At low tide, the Indian Ocean sucked back to itself, revealing a mile o f its

underwater secrets. Sumar followed Julianne, who wore a large straw hat over her

short-cropped red hair. They stepped over tiny pools of trapped fish, who waited

frantically for the water to return. Julianne patiently bent over, to throw snails back into

the water. They arched over the horizon and splashed lightly into deeper pools. The

shore was distant and the sound of the reef gave them underwater privacy. Perhaps it

was then that they began to tell one another their secrets. It was something like a

summer romance. It was the foundation offorever.

I imagined that they were surprised to find that they were at the same boarding

school in the New Year. But maybe they had talked about that, too. Julianne would have

learned then to be supportive to Mum’s half-dozen crushes each term, the way Sumar fell

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 268 in-and-out of love, like a flickering bulb, and the way she sighed and gasped, retelling the

secret intimacies. While Julianne pined for even a special smile, then learned to find her

own lovers, even more secret.

“Who do you like? ” Mum might have whispered after lights-out.

“You, ” Julianne would have replied. Her voice deepening with sleepiness.

“Not like that, ” Mum corrected her.

Julianne would never have lied. Though she might have changed the topic, “Are

you going to come to my field hockey game? ”

“Of course, ” Mum promised, because she knew that Peter or some other beau-of-

the-moment would be there. She would go and make eyes with the boys, flirting

outrageously with only one eye on her friend on the field. “Who else is coming to watch

you play? ”

Or maybe Mum wouldn’t have needed to ask.

I measured Rupa against the time-tested, time-proven friendship of Mum and

Julianne.

I wondered if she would tell my children the stories what I would not remember, if

she would record for me the truths I would as soon forget and hold me accountable to

everything that happened. She failed, because when her family fled to India I knew that if

there had been a coup she wouldn’t have driven across town, through the gun-studded

roundabouts, ignoring the police and the university students, listening to the captured

KBC broadcast warnings to stay inside and away from windows.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 269 It was Julianne who found Mum, crying, beaten on the floor of the apartment.

Mum was still holding me, protecting me with the shield of her stomach and arms. The

police had left the chairs overturned, drawers pulled from the cabinet. Dishes, with

dinner warm in them, had been smashed to the floor. It was Julianne who came, after my

father was gone.

I doubted that Rupa would understand how people can be broken beyond repair.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 270

WhenMutukufu won the elections, it was clear that 1993 would bring no New

Year change. The opposition claimed that it was a scandal, but without a unified voice

their protests were lost under the KANU celebrations.Mutukufu held his traditional New

Year party in Mombasa.

Julianne took Mum and me to her favourite hotel, a small, informal place owned

by Italians. A small, Mombasa band played sappy romantic ballads on a synthesizer and

an electric guitar. They all wore identical suits from leopard-print cotton, the leader

crooning in a Kikuyu accent. The clientele looked like bit-players in a gangster movie,

but the manager recognized Julianne and pampered us.

Julianne ordered seafood scampi, saying, “New Year only happens once a year.”

A dark-eyed man with gray hair invited Mum to dance. She stood up -the short,

black dress swirling around her knees -as she joined the man who despite being half-a

head shorter than her looked dignified. After that, one man after another invited her to

dance. I watched, others asked Julianne.

I watched as Mum closed her eyes, the music possessing her hips. I wondered in

whose arms she learned to dance. I wondered if she had ever gone dancing with my

father and if it was thoughts of Uncle Peter that were making her half-secret smile.

The next week, Julianne dropped us off at the Mombasa train station. She waited

on the platform and waved until she was only a pale speck and the train bended out of the

way. The train was packed, we could only get second-class tickets and had to share the

four bed cabin with a family that had two little kids.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ill When we got to Nairobi, Memsab was waiting for us at the train station.

“I told you there was nothing to worry about,” she said.

Mum just shrugged and put our bags into the boot of Memsab’s car. After three

weeks in Mombasa, she had tanned to the impenetrable colour of olivewood.

Everyone was returning to Nairobi, certain that the capital remained stable.

The flights coming through Europe arrived full of non-essential personnel that the

embassies had encouraged to leave. The planes departed with the international reporters,

disappointed that there hadn’t been an interesting story to cover. Interesting would have

meant the collapse of Kenya into anarchy.

The Kenyans migrated back to the city from their tribal homelands, villages, and

rural farms. Everyone had an opinion on what had happened, but people were a bit shy to

talk about it, never sure who had been part of the thirty-seven percent ‘majority’ that won

the KANU election forMutukufu. No one was sure what it meant that the multiparty

election had been won by the old party.

The Indians returned from India and Britain and Canada. They unlocked the

metal bars and gates that they had closed across the windows of their businesses, rang

open their cash registers and were ready for business. Nairobi was again full of life.

Rupa called me her first day back.

“Are you going to school on Monday?” she asked.

“Obviously. How was your aunt-y’s wedding?” I could feel the scratching

sarcasm in my question.

“It was nice,” Rupa said. “I’ll tell you about it on Monday.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I said to her. But, in my heart I was glad that she came back.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 272

I was thirteen when Coach Samson took me to my first competitive tournament.

The morning was cool and I wore one of Uncle Peter’s sweaters over my tank top and

swimming costume.

“Where did you get that?” Mum asked.

“It was in the wash.” The sleeves were long over my arms, and I wrapped them

around my knuckles, covering my fists. I held one fist under my nose and inhaled the

sweet-and-sour smell of Uncle Peter in the knitted fabric. He had been coming over more

often, leaving reminders of himself around the house. He had promised that he would

come to watch me swim.

At Kasarani Stadium, the pool had been sectioned in long, tidy lanes. Different

groups of swimmers gathered according to teams. I rushed in to the changing room,

leaving Mum to find her way in the stands. I joined my swimming team, the YMCA

youth team.

“Jaci,” Coach Samson said, clapping his hand on my shoulder.“Sosa?”

Whassup. I had just learned theSheng greeting and the proper response.

“Vizuri.”

I stretched my arms wide, then twisted my shoulders over my waist. I could feel

the sleek length of my back extend to the fullest. I closed my eyes and smiled with the

pleasure of the movement and the tension it released.

Samson raised his insect-eyes sunglasses and looked at me. “You going to be

okay out there today?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273 I nodded. I knew what he was thinking: fast but fearful. It made for an

untrustworthy swimmer. There was already the metallic taste of desire over my tongue.

I spat in a drain at the side of the pool. He ran a hand over the comrows flat against my

scalp and turned to talk to another swimmer. I joined a few swimmers in the water,

warming and stretching our muscles. An American girl gave me a white-toothed smile

before snapping her goggles over her face. The blue Nike swim cap held her hair from

view. I recognized her from the newspapers. She went to the International School of

Kenya and was said to be the best swimmer in the 13 to 15 age group.

I pushed off a few strokes behind her. Like a horse in the starting blocks, my

body was nervous energy and bursts of speed. But I willed myself to slow down and not

to try racing her already. When I pulled myself out of the water, I saw Mum sitting

between Julianne and Uncle Peter. P.T. sat a bench lower than his father. He was

drinking a coke, gripping the bottle in his fist. When I waved, Mum waved back with

both hands. Uncle Peter and Julianne clapped. P.T. looked bored, cleaning his

fingernails, using his Swiss Army knife.

A whistle blew everyone out of the pool.

The American girl gave me another Colgate commercial smile. I smiled back,

relieved to realize that she was only two, maybe three, inches taller than I. And her feet

were at least a size smaller. She snapped off the swimcap and shook out a lot of curly

blonde hair.

“Jaci, get over here.” I went to Coach Samson.

“What are you doing watching her? Focus!”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 274 Focus. I sat on the bench, towels from the YMCA hostel being passed among us.

My teammates smiled at me, encouragingly. None of them seemed particularly nervous.

Focus. Try not to think about anything else. Not my Mum up in the stands, cheering

embarrassingly. Not Uncle Peter and Julianne, who took off their Saturdays and drove

across town to watch me swim. Not P.T., who was already playing rugby, his muscles

becoming heavy over his young, still growing bones. Try not to think about the whistle.

Coach Samson pointed at people in order, calling each of us away from the bench.

I waited, my elbows resting on my knees, and watched the splash of pool water. I

watched the boys, lined up along the edge of the pool, their toes neatly gripping the edge,

nervous as drumming fingers. The whistle blew and they dove in. Whistles still bothered

me. When Coach had found out he had asked Mum why she bothered bring me, and that

I was now on a permanent trail basis. An athlete should not be so skittish. He had stood

behind me and blown the shrill whistle until his ears rang, until silent tears streamed

down my face and I no longer had the energy to wince, until Mum had left the restaurant

above the pool at the YMCA, unable to watch me cringe and cry.

Other swimmers came out of the water, congregating around one another and the

table of officials recording scores. They were shoed away. Parents cheered.

Coach Samson pointed at me. I stood slowly, as if I were already under water.

Today was a test: only one race, only two laps. His insect eyes focused on me, weighing

my fear, wondering if I would jump into the water or fall away frightened. I willed

myself not to be afraid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275 The American girl was in the lane next to mine. She reached out to shake my

hand before we started. Her hand was firm, damp and confident.

“Good luck,” she said. As if luck did not apply to apply to her.

I nodded. The concrete was coarse as calluses under my feet. My toes gripped

the edge. I bent feeling my back stretch, curving around my stomach to lessen the shock

of the whistle. The American girl did not look as if she were ever afraid of anything, as if

she ever had bad dreams.

The whistle blew and I dove into the water, the coolness cradling me, hiding me

from the noise of the stadium. In the water, I was in control. Unafraid. My body

stretched easily, naturally. Stroke. Stroke. Stoke. Modified-breath-stroke. Stroke. I

did not think about the other swimmers. I did not have to win. All I had to do was be

steady and finish. At the end of the lap, I turned a somersault underwater. Easily.

Turning back was easy, the water was a safety net. At the end of the lap, I was done.

The American girl was just ahead of me. But even that was not so important. I

had completed the race. I pulled myself out of the water. The American girl nodded at

me, unsmiling. I nodded back, jutting my chin upwards.

“Good job,” Coach said. “Very good job.”

“Can I stay on the team?”

“Yes,” he said nodding. He waved over a reporter fromDaily the Nation, and

they shook hands as old friends. “This is my new star, Jacaranda. She will be a

champion.”

“Can I get a picture?” the reporter asked, and without waiting for my answer

pointed his camera at me. Mum came up, squeezing herself into the photograph.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 276 “I’m so happy for you,” she said. Hugging me close to her, as if I were still a

child, though I was almost as tall as she was. “So proud.”

“You did well,” Uncle Peter said.

“Bloody fantastic!” Julianne exclaimed, kissing me on the cheek. “And you’re

going to look stunning in that photo. Half the country will fall in love with you.”

“Only half?” Uncle Peter joked, lightly pushing Julianne’s shoulder.

“Who cares about the country?” Mum asked. “We love you.”

“Thanks,” I said, overwhelmed, not sure what to say.

P.T. came up, eating a Red Devil Popsicle that turned his lips and tongue red as

blood oranges. “You let an American beat you,” he said.

“Bugger off,” I told him, ready to be angry.

He smiled mischievously, winking. “Don’t take it so personally. Bloody

American probably on steroids anyway.” He hugged me across my shoulders with one of

his heavy arms. “Gad, you’ve always been touchy.”

I pretended that I didn’t care what he said and snatched his iced-lolly. I took a

bite and enjoyed the sugary juice that drained down my throat. I knew that I had made

Mum happy. With everyone gathered around, it felt something like family. I did not

think about the picture that would be in the sports section of the paper tomorrow, spread

all over the nation.

Saturdays were either swim practice or swim meets. My body was consistently

exhausted, swim-worn, bleached by the chlorine and drained by the sun. I took long

showers, rinsing off the competitiveness and recorded times. Sometimes I was so tired

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 277 that I had no interest in eating. I would fall asleep on the settee, until Mum prodded me

awake and took me to bed. She would tuck me in, pulling a blanket up to my shoulders.

Sundays should have been a day of rest.

But, Memsab still insisted that I attend church with her. Even after I told her that

I did not believe God existed in church, there I was -among the chanting, the candles, or

the sermons.

She smiled, “I don’t believe He does either.”

“Why do you continue to attend?” I asked her.

“So that He knows where to find me if He wishes,” she said.

So I sat with her on Sundays, usually flipping idly through the Bible and hymnals.

In resistance, I refused to wear the frilly dresses she had insisted on for so long. We

compromised on long, simple skirts. As modest as the Sunday collection plate. After

church I leaned against the car, almost too tired to support my own weight.

When we got home, it would often be Julianne’s car in the driveway. Knowing

that she and Mum would be talking, it was easy to follow Memsab into the house. She

cooked breakfast for me and we left the dishes in the sink for Naomi, when she returned

to work on Monday.

“How are your studies going?” Memsab asked.

“Fine.” Fine in most of my classes. Since starting Standard Eight, my scores had

settled and I was at least doing homework every night. I was doing well enough in

literature and decently in biology and chemistry. But, my maths and history scores were

dismal.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 278 “You will be taking the 8-4-4 exams at the end of the year,” she reminded me.

“And when I was speaking to the headmistress, she mentioned that your scores could

stand to be improved.”

“Pm doing well enough,” I insisted.

“That isn’t your attitude about swimming,” Memsab said pointedly. “It would

serve you well if you invested some of that dedication to your studies.”

I shrugged.

“You need to decide what is important to you.”

At school, Rupa was giving me the same reminders. She was studying with the

fervour ofKANU youth wingers at up-country rally. My grades had settled in a

mediocre ranking in the class. Rupa still came in first in our class and she was

determined to score among the first five-hundred students in the country and get her

name in the paper. Her parents had hired tutors for her and she rarely had time to talk to

me any more.

“What is more important, school or swimming?” she asked me.

“Do I have to pick?”

“Because you swim so much that you don’t have time to study properly.”

“I like swimming.” And I was doing well at it. I was consistently shaving

seconds from my times. Each of my strokes was crisp. Coach Samson treated me as a

favoured protegee. And Mum was so proud that she came to all of my swim meets.

“It makes you tired,” she informed me.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 279 “Not really.” I shrugged, stretching out in the sunshine. My limbs had the

familiar rejuvenation that came in the afternoon after a good swim in the mornings. I

could have taken a nap then, or just as easily gotten up and started laps again.

“But what about the exams?”

“I’m not trying to be a doctor or lawyer or anything.”

“Well, what do you want to be?”

Olympian, except I knew that swimming had not turned out well for Mum. Or for

my father apparently. But, I had potential, and times had changed. Countries didn’t

boycott the Olympics any longer. But I knew that was not answer I could give Rupa.

“Teacher, maybe.”

“If you don’t do well on the exams,” Rupa started, twisting her hands anxiously.

“I’ll do fine.” I was actually thinking about the American girl from the

International School, Lara. We were neck-to-neck in all our races, sharing first and

second positions. We rarely talked, but the newspapers had a picture of us shaking hands

a few weeks ago. She would have been able to understand the desire to be an Olympian.

“You’re hopeless,” Rupa told me. She shook her head in dismay.

“Can we talk about something else?” I asked, my voice snappish. “I’m sick of

hearing about school.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“What?” I had expected another about my plans for the future, what I would do

after secondary school or something like that.

Instead, she asked me, “What is your real name? Everyone has an African name

and a Christian name. Except you.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 280 I had only the name of a plant. I shrugged.

“Haven’t you ever asked your mum?”

“You don’t know my Mum,” I told her. Mum didn’t even seem to like plants very

much.

“Your school files would have it,” her eyes glittered with mischief. “I bet we

could get them out. All we would need is a plan.”

While Rupa began to devise a plan to get into the headmistress’ office, to find my

file among the thousands, and to find my real name, I drifted off in a river of daydreams.

I wanted her to be able to understand the pleasure I got from swimming and all I wanted

to know is if she would still be my friend when we transferred to different secondary

schools.

When I invited her to my next swim meet, Rupa finally came. Her parents let her

spend the night at my house so she could ride with Mum and me to the International

School. We sat up and talked, and I wouldn’t let her study. Instead, I lured her into the

swimming pool, trying to assure her that no one would be watching.

“Who?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said, blushing modestly though her one-piece swimming

costume so modest that it was barely functional. Only Kubwa sat in a chair, meditatively

looking down at the blue water. She shyly untied her kanga and waded into the shallow

end, one step at a time. She wrapped her arms around her chest as if she were cold.

“Just jump in and get over with it,” I said, as I splashed her lightly.

She only frowned deeper, taking baby steps into the water.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 281 “I can’t swim,” she said.

“No one can with their arms hugging them. You have to move your hands.”

“Jaci, I don’t know how to swim,” she said it slowly, the way she explained

algebra problems to me.

“Don’t be afraid,” I told her. Shocked, I realized that she could not swim.

“I’m not afraid,” she lied.

That night she picked at the boiled vegetables and ate the rice slowly. I was

embarrassed that Mum was not a better cook but relieved that she did not cook any beef.

I was embarrassed by our house that was even smaller than her apartment. That evening

I let her sleep in my bed, while I slept on the settee. It took me a log time to fall asleep,

and I thought about the swim meet and realized inviting her might have been a mistake.

The next morning, we got a late start, and by the time we got there the small

stands were packed, so she and Mum had to sit close together. Mostly it was the mostly-

diplomatic, mostly-American parents in the stands. Clapping for their children even

before the races began. No longer in the youngest age group, I got to sit with my team

and watch the little kids race, wondering if I had looked so small only a year ago.

Coach Samson had me in several races, including a relay. He trusted that whistles

would no longer frighten me. He would smile at me, my face winking back in the

reflection of his sunglasses. The same inscrutable glasses that had bothered me so much

when I first met him were no longer a problem. The races were fun, since it was at the

International School and didn’t count towards nationals, my rank would not be affected

by the outcome.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 282 When I came out of my second race, 100 meters free-style, second, Coach came

up to me frowning.

“What’s going on? You’re not even pushing out there!”

“It isn’t for nationals.”

“I expect you to do your best. Always. And today you’re acting like you don’t

even care.”

I wrapped a towel around my waist. I could feel Mum watching me. “Sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry is like soap, you wash your hands and it is finished.”

There was no answer I could give to that.

“Sit down!” he barked, and turned to talk to another swimmer.

Left alone on the bench, I wondered if this really was what I wanted to do. Lara

was in the next race. I watched her long body dive into the water. She was still taller

than I was but by only an inch. Her face was a mask of determination, her teeth lightly

clenched. She did not look happy as she swam.

But, she won the race, five full strokes ahead of the second place.

When everyone wandered off for a lunch break to the students selling hotdogs and

beefburgers, Mum came down to the pool. Rupa stayed in the stands, her arms wrapped

around her knees, but she was smiling at me.

“What’s going on?”

“Coach told me to wait here.”

“For what?”

I shrugged and my heart dropped as Mum went to confront Samson. I could see

them arguing. Coach was unnervingly still, almost relaxed while Mum stood alternately

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 283 with her hands crossed over her chest or in fists on her hips. Lara came up to me and

shook my hand.

“Jacaranda?” she asked, really just confirming my name. “You okay?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I missed you out there. You force me to swim faster.” She smelled of pool

water and sunscreen. She picked at a short fingernail for a long moment. Then she

looked at me, her pale blue eyes suddenly open. T m leaving.”

“Leaving?” I repeated, feeling like an idiot. “Where to?”

“My Dad works with the US embassy. It’s been three years, and he has a new

assignment. We’re going to Bangladesh.”

I could not even imagine Bangladesh. “Do you want to leave?”

She shook her head. “I might go back to America. My mom is tired of moving

around. She’s threatening to get a divorce and move back home. At least if I went with

her, I could start competing in the Junior Olympics.”

I saw her parents in the stand, backs turned to each other talking with their

neighbours. It reminded me of the Prince-Charles-and-Diana picture, legs crossed away

from one another and clearly unhappy. “I’m sorry.”

“Most of my friends have divorced parents. How about you? I’ve never seen

your Dad.”

“Don’t have one.” It didn’t seem odd to be answering these personal questions to

a relative stranger, things I had been reluctant to share with Rupa. It was as if she would

be the only person who could understand. It felt safe since I knew she was leaving. I

waited for her to come up with follow -up questions, but she didn’t.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 284 “You going to swim again today?”

“Hope so,” I told her. “My coach is being a bit odd.”

“All coaches are that way. Mine has been having a cow since I’m leaving at the

end of the semester. As if it’s my fault!”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged. “I just wanted to say thanks. It’s been an honor to swim with

you.” She held out one hand, palm up.

I slapped it and turned my open palm to her.

She slapped my hand. “Get back in the water and let’s make one last go of it.”

Finally, for the last race, Coach Samson let me back in the water.

“Try this time,” he said sarcastically. “Natural talent is sometimes wasted on the

naturally lazy.”

Lara and I lined up next to each other and smiled. At the blow of the whistle we

dove in. I was able to see our bodies arch together, hitting the water at the same distance

at the same moment like trained dolphins. We surfaced and began to swim furiously.

Four laps. Breaststroke. A stroke that seemed to demand a stateliness. We kept pace

with each other, easily surfacing at the same time. Three laps. The world went up and

down in front of me. I could hear Lara splashing alongside me. Two laps. I forced my

stroke longer, pulling my fingers tight as sails. Gradually, I began to pick up speed. So

did she.

On the last lap, we were neck-to-neck. Perfectly matched, except that I could feel

her pulling ahead, her pure determination pulling her ahead. And luck. It was her pool,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 285 with her fans cheering. My mind was somewhat distracted by Coach Samson, by

thoughts of my Dad. When I reached the end, Lara was there.

The two refs began arguing, pointing at their stopwatches and one another and the

two of us floating in the water. I started to laugh, unable to stop. Lara looked at me like I

was crazy a moment, and then she smiled slowly. A real smile, not one that belonged on

a toothpaste commercial. She started to laugh. We laughed so hard that our tired lungs

hurt and we almost let go of the wall. We laughed so hard that our coaches came to pull

us out the water and gave us packets of re-hydration salts that we ate from the palms of

our hands.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 286

In colonial times, the Thom Tree Cafe was more reliable than news and faster

than the regular postal service. It was like a post office. Notes were pinned on the tree,

tacked on to the thorns and left there. When people came for tea, they would look over

the notes for one with their name or the name o f anyone they knew. A friend. A relative.

A neighbour. A note they could pass on, getting it to the right person.

Some things don’t change much. Julianne always hung out at the Thorn Tree,

dDrinking endless cups of coffee. She remembered it during its glory days when the

original tree stood outside the Six-Eighty Hotel, round as a coffee table. While not given

to nostalgia, she was fond of the tree, the idea behind it, and the history. Even though

coffee got more and more expensive for a cheaper and cheaper brew, she kept going.

The original tree had died, and been replaced by a struggling sapling too young

to have proper thorns jutting out from its trunk. Instead, a corkboard wall was

constructed around it, adorned with push-pins and a little roof to protect the notes. Few

people used it seriously any more, and it became a tourist gimmick. The way one might

pass on a chain letter, doubting it will bring will luck.

Out of habit, Julianne always checked for a note, hoping for a note from a friend,

maybe a thank you note or a cryptic message, vaguely worded and suggestive. She would

walk around the corkboard walls, systematically reading top to bottom, the hieroglyphic

handwriting. Picking up notes for friends, even acquaintances. She was willing to drive

clear across town to deliver them, to perpetuate the tradition.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 287 But many messages sat there, uncollected, until the cafe stafffinally gave up and

took them down. The odds of getting a message weren’t ever good. But sometimes, it

worked, delivering like divine intervention -like the day that Julianne saw a note labeled

Sumar Otieno. Otieno. No one had called Sumar that in years -her brief marriage

changed her life, fell apart and was almost forgotten.

I f Julianne had been reading quickly, just skimming over names, she might have

missed it, forgetting the marriage. Overlooking that inconvenient past. It would have

been left there until the manger passed by, noticed how many weeks it had been there,

and taken it down, and dropped it the dustbin on his way to the kitchen.

Surely it was not the only note ever written for Sumar Otieno and left at the Thorn

Tree. There must have been at least one other, perhaps many, all in the same familiar

handwriting, all signed with the familiar name: Matthew Otieno. The others were all

thrown out, why not this one?

Instead, Julianne folded it in half and stuck it in the breast pocket of her jacket.

She promised herself that she would bring it by our place at the end of the week. She

never admitted to it if she opened it, read through it, knew what it said. But she would

never claimed that she didn’t, either

“Why didn ’tyou give her the note when I was there? ” I asked, as if this could

prove my suspicions. Julianne had an answer for everything.

“Maybe it was God’s will, ” she said. But, I knew she did not believe in God.

She gave the note to Mum, maybe with a half smile playing at her lips, maybe with

tears behind her eyes. In my imagination Mum looked at the outside of the note, unsure if

it was really hers, doubting the name, unable to claim. Perhaps she recognized the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288 handwriting, like deja vuor a flashback. I imagined that her hands shook when she

opened it, tearing the top of the envelope with her finger and gently unfolding the paper

within.

In my imagination, she cried as she read the letter. Cried for everything lost that

could never be gotten back. Julianne put her arm around her friend, pulling her close

but not wiping away her tears. I imagined that she rocked Mum, letting her cry and

remember. When Mum finished crying, she washed her face with cold water, promising

to make something better from her life, promising to change the future.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 289

The morning of our exams, I met Rupa at ourbanda lunch before school. The bus

had been caught in traffic, so I arrived late. Her skin was cinnamon-pale and it looked

like she had been crying.

“You’re late,” she told me. “I was worried you weren’t coming.”

“I wish. My grandmother would have my head.” I told her, looking closely into

her brown eyes. “What’s wrong? Surely you can’t be worried.”

Her look told me it was the wrong thing to say. Even her braid, usually plump

and glossy, looked wanly nervous.

“You’ll do fine,” I told her. “But you have any problems, you can copy from my

exam.”

This joke brought a small smile from her. I laughed at my own joke, hoping it

would help her relax or say something.

“Aren’t you nervous?” she asked me. “I wasn’t able to eat breakfast this

morning.”

“How does being nervous help?” I asked. I had joined Mum in her early morning

swim and had a hardy breakfast of sausages and baked beans before school. On the bus, I

had dozed off, my body loose from the cool water. My hair was still a little damp.

“What if I fail?”

“Rupa, what is your problem? You won’t fail.”

“You never know,” she said, her hands were shaking.

I took her hands in mine. “I know: You’ll do fine.”

I pulled her to her feet when the bell rang so we could go to our classroom.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 290 “Good luck,” I whispered to her.

“This is for you.” Rupa passed an uneven piece of lined paper folded into a tight

square.

I didn’t have a chance to open it until I got home. In the quiet of my bedroom, I

unfolded it, expecting a good luck note intended for the exam. Instead, she had written

three words, each one a name: Adihambo Grace Otieno.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PART III: NUSUNUSU, 1994-1998

Jacaranda trees are native to South America or the Caribbean Basin. Depending

on the book: Brazil, Bolivia, or Argentina. It is the British who took them around the

world. Part of colonization, like tea with milk-and-sugar, like God-Save-the-Queen, like

suit-and-tie bureaucracy-in-triplicate, and Anglican prayers.

All told there are more than fifty species ofJacarandas spread from Istanbul,

Turkey to Pretoria, South Africa. From Jacksonville, Florida, to Melbourne, Australia.

Like the empire where the sun never set.

They managed to thrive in Kenya, oblivious of politics and unaffected by

economic trends. Shading the people who ignored the spectacular blooms during years

when they were preoccupied with politics and politicking.

291

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 292

Mum’s affair with Uncle Peter ended.

I was only thirteen and too young to understand the suddenness of the change. As

if Mum woke up a different woman, with a different heart. Uncle Peter came to our

house, alternating between angry and crying. He slammed the door each time he got out

of his car in the driveway, and Patrick would come to stand by our house when Mum and

Uncle Peter fought. Patrick was almost as thin as hisrungu and bruised easily. If Uncle

Peter had been a threat, Patrick would have been too weak to defend Mum, but his

presence was comforting.

“Things have changed.”

“What things?” Uncle Peter asked. Then begged. Then demanded. “What

things?”

“Things,” Mum replied, vaguely. “Things have changed.”

“Why?” he asked. “What did I do wrong? What do you want?”

“Nothing,” Mum said. But everything had changed. She began to leave for

school later, taking time to have breakfast with me. She came home from practice each

day at the same time, until her comings and goings were more reliable than the KBC

news broadcasts. I couldn’t bear to listen to the arguments and they did nothing to hide

them. I began to go to Memsab’s house, carrying my textbooks and exercise books to

study. But, their questions followed me.

“Is this about Doreen?” he guessed. “Did Julianne tell you to do this?”

“This was my choice,” Mum said, her voice trembling but brave, unaccustomed to

voicing choice so clearly.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 293 “Sumar. Sumar. Sumar.”

“Go home, Peter. Go back to your wife. Your son.”

“Sumar.”

“It’s too late,” Mum said with finality.

Her life’s centre returned to me. Like the days of my childhood, before I started

school and she began coaching, we spent endless hours together by the pool. Only this

time it was tinged with competitiveness. We raced one another many short lengths,

rolling over at the walls with rough splashes. Kubwa barked alongside the pool and

chased us. Mum started making me do push-ups and crunches in the evenings.

The year I turned thirteen, my adulthood began.

It was the first time that Mum waxed my legs and arms.

Hair was starting to grow thick and brown along my calves and even my thighs. I

could blame her for the hair on my legs. African girls did not have it, and at swim

practice all the other girls on the team had legs smooth and dark. If I had their colour, I

would not have had to wrapkanga my low on my waist to cover my legs, hoping no one

would notice, though I could feel their eyes on my legs. If I had inherited her pale-

blonde hair to match my almost too-pale skin, then maybe the hair would have blended

with my skin, only sometimes catching the sun like golden glitter. Instead, I had dark

hair and thin pale skin. Perhaps Mum noticed too, or perhaps it was Coach Samson who

discreetly took her aside. Perhaps it was simply time.

“You are a woman now,” Mum said vaguely, as she spread out the towels on the

living room floor and smiled encouragingly at me.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294 I sat on the floor, my legs towards her. She spread lightly scented talc over my

legs, brushing the long dark hair straight down. She took the wooden spatula and spread

the wax over my leg - it was almost soothingly hot. She spread it out evenly, thickly

until my skin looked even darker than ever. She spread the white cloth over the wax and

pressed it firmly against my skin, her hand rubbing in firm, heavy strokes downward.

“Is it going to hurt?” I asked her.

“Most of life will hurt you much more,” Mum promised.

Without waiting for me to catch my breath, she ripped up the cloth. The first pain

was so intense that I thought I must have been mistaken -nothing could hurt so much. It

hurt hot and bright -like a bum -yet not like a bum at all. My skin screamed and I hissed

through my teeth. Every hair follicle was opened and sore; Mum brushed her cool

fingers straight down on my smooth, naked skin. Her touch was somehow sweet.

When she waxed my legs, Mum told me how it would shave seconds from my

times. She did it gently, as gently as such things could be done. I got used to the hot pain

of the wax and marked the time by the three weeks between each ordeal. So as not to

think about the pain, I would study her face. I noticed for the first time the lines framing

her mouth. Her dark tan had a freckled under-base that I had forgotten about. Her hair

was streaked gold by sunshine and green by chlorine and at her temples there were

strands of gray. Like the way coffee stains white china teacups, her skin was darkened.

“That wasn’t so bad,” she would say smiling, when we finished.

All I could see were the deep lines around her eyes.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 295 During the holidays, Rupa called me almost every day. She wanted to speculate

about her exams scores, and I wanted to tell her about my swimming. We would hang

out together in Parkland or at the Sarit Centre in Westlands, talking but not listening to

each other.

Rupa was the only person who said anything about my waxed legs. “About time.

It looks good.”

“Do you wax?”

“Even my arms,” she admitted. She held her hand out before me. A fine stubble

of short, coarse black hairs coated her arm. “Since, I was like, ten.”

“My Mum did it,” I told her.

She made a hushing sound through her teeth. “I go to a hair salon, I would never

let my mother do it.”

I shrugged. Suddenly, we had began to mourn the loss of our lunch breaks

together. Instead, we promised that we would be friends forever. Mum was remarkably

patient as she taxied us around town together, laughing together until Rupa left with her .

family to go to Kisumu.

Rupa never mentioned the name she had given me the day of our final exams.

Adihambo Grace Otieno. It was the name of a stranger, unrelated to me. It was only an

imaginary name, not attached to a person. Not yet attached to me.

Mum still swam in the mornings. Sometimes I would join her, silently doing laps

in the freezing water, so cold that I could hardly breathe when I dove into the water. She

would go faster and faster. I learned to keep pace with her, my lungs burning from the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 296 exertion and my muscles sore afterwards. We raced one another to the hot shower, our

bodies freezing from the pool. Some mornings we didn’t speak.

Finally, I understood why she swam in the cold mornings. It was penance. Like

baptism. Or a rosary chanted with the entire body.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 297

Mutukufu was still in the State House.

Two-hundred and seventy people died in a ferry sinking. It was overburdened,

carrying more than twice its ideal capacity and terribly run down. It should not have

happened. The oldest member o f the political opposition died, his nursery-rhyme name

became a news-hour pun. The changes that he had agitated for had not happened. He

had dreamt of being an African Big-Man but died without tasting the power he had lusted

for.

Everyone had assumed that free and fair, multi-party, democratic elections would

mean a new president and a change of the government. But 36.4% was enough to assure

victory - since he was the only candidate who got votes in all provinces. The donors did

not read the fine print. For two years foreign aid had been cancelled. That was the

unspoken condition that international donors had based the return of foreign aid upon.

The much needed money was pledged with new conditions: end of ethnic violence,

opening the market, and curbing corruption.

The fresh fruit markets were still flush with crisp new paper bills that had been

printed before the election. Mutukufu looked younger on the back of the paper money

than he did in the daily papers. Everyone felt rich and free. And road works paused two

years earlier began again. So did the large houses on un-zoned land, the outer walls

even thicker. Boats of imported goods filled the ports in Mombasa: butter from New

Zealand, baked beans from Heinz in England, South American canned beef and berry

preserves from Europe, cereals in cartoon-bright boxes from the United States.

Memsab said, “Buy Kenya, build Kenya. ”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 298 Mum just looked for what was cheapest.

Mutukufu was in State House, but that was normal, the only reality we had

known.

History was to repeat itself and Leaky was reappointed as Kenya Wildlife Service

director. I nearly failed my exams. On the maths section, I scored so low that I was

ashamed of the number. My government-and-history section wasn’t much better.

Memsab was furious. “You ’re not dumb. Why do you do this? ”

Mum was more resigned. “I can get you a spot in Braecrest, ” she said, nworried

since her position as a gym teacher and coach gave her certain privileges.

“You ’re lucky, ” Julianne said. Her voice twisting with anger. “If it weren’t for

Sumar, you would be in a good bit of trouble. ”

I shrugged. I sort of wished I had completely failed. Mum had used my position

on the national swim team to pressure the school accepting me, saying that I was sure to

help increase their sporting stature. I was afraid of Braecrest Secondary School.

Rumours were that during cold season there was ice on the bottom of the deep

end. The administration installed solar panels on the roof of the gym to deflect into the

pool, but the students told me it was just tinfoil strips hammered down to make it look like

school fees were being used to develop the academy.

In my imagination, my father followed my swimming career through the

newspaper reports and his stale connections in the swimming community. He was friends

with Coach Samson, and tribesmen. I imagined him proud of my swimming achievements

and worried enough to pursue details about my life.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 299 Coach took me aside after practice, “In Secondary school you had better get

better marks or you are off the team. ”

I promised that I would. In my imagination, I thought that my father had told him

to say this. I felt as if I had a guardian angel. He was closer than I realized.

Memsab stopped buying tilapia and Nile perch, even though the government

scientists and the World Health Organization insisted it was safe. The bodies of forty-

thousand Rwandans were pulled from Lake Victoria. Partially eaten, partially chopped.

And Memsab believed it would anger their ancestors. Or at the very least give us all

diarrhea. Meanwhile, there was famine along the northern border.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 300 4

One morning, as I sat at the breakfast table reading the sports section of the

newspaper, following the junior tennis championships, Mum came and sat across from

me at the table so small my knees and hers could almost touch under the cloth. It was

mid-morning. Memsab had already left for the town to run any number of ordinary

errands, check our post office box, and pick up groceries.

“Your father wants to see you,” Mum said, as if that were an ordinary request.

The room spun around me. “My father?”

“Yes,” Mum said, but the shaking of her voice belied her calm front. “He wrote

me, asking about you, after he saw your picture in the papers.”

She was silent for so long that I thought maybe I had imagined the moment.

“It would mean a lot to him.” Mum was crying, and I couldn’t care. “And to

me.”

It was as if I had dived into the water and the momentum was still pushing me

through the water. I waited for my ears to clear, wanting to come up for air.

“Jacaranda, please,” Mum said. “Don’t be like this. Say something.”

“Like what? I’m not the one being Tike this’. That is between you and him.”

“Sometimes things aren’t what they seem to be.”

I didn’t wait to hear what else she had to say. I went into my bedroom and

slammed the door as hard as I could. I threw myself on my bed and cried, without trying

to understand my tears.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 301 Memsab came in that afternoon and rubbed my back. I had cried myself to

dreamless sleep, but woke up to her softly calling my name.

“Go away!” My voice was still too much asleep to be angry.

“Jaci, listen to me.”

“Pm tired of listening. If Mum wanted me to listen, she should have started

talking years ago.”

“Yes.” By agreeing, Memsab took the force out of my argument. “But, she

didn’t know as much as she knows now.”

“What is there to know? He went away and never came back.”

“He was arrested,” Memsab said. “After the coup and detained for years.”

“He never even sent a letter.”

“Do you think jail is like staying at a holiday resort, with free stationary in each

room?”

“He should have come looking for us when he got out.”

“Haven’t you ever wondered about him?”

I didn’t nod, but I couldn’t deny it either. I had expected my grandmother to be

on my side. I had expected her to have hated my father, to have protected me from

Mum’s request.

“For your own sense of peace, you should talk to him.”

“I won’t have anything to say to him.”

“Then let him talk.”

Memsab reasoned down my defenses and objections. She had an answer for all

my excuses. She just kept saying please. Please. Please. Until, finally, I agreed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302

Let him talk, became my mantra. I told myself I did not have anything to say to

him and that all he asked was to see me. Seeing did not require conversation. I went on

the condition that it was Julianne who drove me to the restaurant where we agreed to

meet. I chose the most expensive restaurant in Nairobi, because I had never been there.

Because I wanted to make him to pay for something. She walked in with me, and I held

her hand and leaned against her. At a table in the comer, a man stood up when I walked

in.

Even before he said anything, I recognized him.

He was the man who had been swimming in the Muthaiga Country Club, the

network of scars still seemingly fresh along the side of his face and disappearing into the

collar of his shirt. He smiled nervously, too long, his lips stretched too wide as I walked

towards him. When I got to the table, he reached across it and shook my hand.

He turned and hugged Julianne, “Thank you for bringing her.”

“Hakuna mtata,” she said, as she untangled herself from his hug, the way one

might attempt to sidestep a particularly bad patch of sidewalk. She put a hand on my

shoulder, either guiding me into my seat or holding me for a moment longer. “If you

need me, I’ll be waiting at that table there.”

“Thanks,” I told her and took the seat. I tried to notice everything about him so

that I could tell Rupa about it when I called upon my return home. She had offered to

come with me, but this I needed to do alone. Or as alone as possible.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 303 My father sat down nervously, carefully tucking his striped-yellow tie away from

the table. He had taken off his suit jacket and was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt

with cufflinks. He cleared his throat, “Adihambo.”

“Jacaranda, actually.” I started folding the hem of the tablecloth up under the

table where he could not see my hands fidgeting.

“Jacaranda,” he stuttered over my name, as if it were the first time he were

hearing the word. “You probably have so much you want to ask me about.”

“Not really.” I wanted to keep this conversation as short as possible. I looked

over his shoulder to where I could see Julianne sitting down at the bar. She was already

striking up a conversation with a complete stranger, and it looked like he was about to

buy her a drink. “I’m only here because Mum made me come.”

He swallowed nervously. He was drinking a Fanta Pineapple from a tall, thin

glass. “I’m Matthew Otieno.”

I wanted to laugh, suddenly having a vision of us being guests on Oprah.

Memsab considered Oprah’s show to be the worst of the imported shows on Kenya

Television Network, where it played somewhat grainy and probably pirated. I poured

water from the one-litre Kilamanjaro bottle on the table between us. It was cool, but not

truly cold. I drank it to keep from saying anything. I wondered if getting a serious drink,

something alcoholic, would help the situation.

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This is what my father told me: That he had named me Adihambo Grace after his

mother. That my grandmother came to Nairobi to see me the week that I had been born

and praised God and her ancestors, even though I was a girl. That she liked Sumar, even

though she was an mzungu wife and looked too thin to be truly healthy. She thought that

a woman like my mother would be certain to make sure my father finished his course

work for the law degree he had been working towards.

According to my father, he had only been a student leader, advocating for

financial assistance and better dormitory arrangements for married students. However,

after the 1982 coup, the government was paranoid and he was among the many arrested.

The bad dreams that had filled my nights began to make sense. The story came

together like the words of a properly done crossword puzzle. The special police had

broken down the door, a shrill whistle in the lips of the commander who then grabbed

him, passing him to the others to subdue him, though he had not resisted arrest that Mum

had been grabbed by her hair and tossed to the floor that she had curled around me,

taking the blows meant for me.

Without being told, I could never have remembered the whistle that shattered my

childhood, defining the forgotten before and everything that came after. After the whistle

came the chaos of shattered news reports and shifting secrets, the batons drumming

against doors, and the shots in the night. Afterwards, Mum ran to follow the police who

dragged her husband out of the apartment, she fell on the-steps tripping and falling with

me in her arms. She saw him put him in the back of a truck and close the doors closed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 305 About his years in prison, my father would tell me nothing, only that he tried to

write and that he never got any letters from us. I believed that Mum had never received

his letters. I wanted to say something in her defense, but I held my silence. I understood

without his saying it that the scars on his body were the result of those years. I did not

want my imagination to go through permutations of possibilities, to create the scenario of

what could be done to a man to create that fine-as-spider-web pattern of scarring. He

offered no hints.

When he was released he was beaten in body and in spirit. He had returned to his

village to recover. I imagined him in a village of mud-walled, thatched-roofed huts. In

my imagination he slept in the men’s hut with his father and went through rites of healing

-as if village life were set to the music of a finger-piano, gently clicking the same seven

notes over and over again until a harmony formed.

This is what my father told me: That he loved my Mum and trusted her to be

faithful, so he never divorced her. That he could not bring himself to sever that final tie

between them. That he worried about me. That he loved me. That he was proud of me

when he saw that I had started swimming, since he had given me my first lessons when I

was only two. As he said this, I realized that my treasured early memory of Mum holding

me in the water was wrong. I had used it for years to ward of nightmares, not

remembering that it had been him teaching me to blow the air from lungs.

His words garbled around my ears: My father told me he had married a second

wife. He told me that I had a sister. A half sister. That he wanted to be part of my life.

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That he wished things had been different. That he wished he could make things be

different.

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When Patrick died, it wasn’t a surprise. He had been sick for a long time, getting

thinner and thinner as if he were becoming a spirit first, dying later. One morning he did

not report to work. He had been missing a lot of work, but usually sent a message with

one of theaskaris that worked for our neighbours. Memsab waited until the afternoon

before calling the security company to send a replacement.

She sent Naomi to Patrick’s home to see if we could help. Naomi sulked when

Memsab gave her a ride to the nearestmatatu stop. I knew that she was afraid of being

associated with anyone infected, afraid that she might be suspected of having the disease

as well. She came back two hours later, her face lined with grief.

She sat down in the kitchen and began to make a keening sound. Memsab sat on

the other stool, and I noticed how wild and thin her hair had become. Both women

suddenly looked older, ancient.

Mum covered her mouth and rocked herself gently. In between my throat and

my heart, there was a lump the size of an avocado.

Outside, Kubwa sat in the guardhouse, snarling at the askarinew whenever he

tried to go into the shade. When I went to Kubwa, he licked my fingers a few times, but

would not leave the woody-shade of the guardhouse. Kubwa took Patrick’s death hard,

he stopped eating and waited by the gate for the familiar bicycle-bell ring. By the time

classes started, my dog was dead.

I did not have time to grieve before school started. Memsab took me to get

measured for new school uniforms, this time a royal blue colour. We went to Textbook

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 308 Centre to buy pencils, Bic pens, compasses, and protractors. She checked things off the

list as we went through the store, filling the hand-basket.

“What’s wrong?” Memsab asked, while we counted exercise books.

“Nothing. What does the list say?”

“It says tell me what happened with your father. You’ve been out of sorts ever

since you spoke to him.”

“Have not.”

“It says three exercise books and one tablet of graph paper.”

I put them into the too-heavy basket. “All those years, did you know my father

was alive?”

“Well I hadn’t heard that he had died,” Memsab said mildly. “Is that what your

attitude is about?”

“No, just wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

“What happened? Why he never even wrote a letter to Mum or me.”

“I think we’ve got everything on the list,” Memsab said, running her pen down

the sheet of paper. She put her pen back into her purse. “I’m sure there is a reasonable

explanation. There always is. But sometimes it is best to leave it all in the past.”

I stood in line behind her.

“After all these years,” she said. “What does it matter? We’ve been getting along

just fine without him.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 309 The year I started secondary school, Leakey startedSafina the party.Safina

meant ark, as in Noah’s ark, and the two-by-two imagery was captivating. While others

questioned the Richard Leaky motives and his ark-imagery, I was watching P.T. play

rugby every chance I got. Which wasn’t often, since most times his games clashed with

swim practice. Having Mum as my swim coach meant that I couldn’t skip practice at

will or claim to be too ill to swim. Sometimes though the other students begged and

bothered her until she let us all go watch the games.

It was awkward passing Mum in the halls, knowing that my other teachers spent

lunch-break with her. My reports went straight to her. Some days it seemed that every

time I turned in the hall, she was behind me. Seeing so much of each other at school

meant that by the time we got home, we were sick of each other. She was pleased that I

studied at Memsab’s house, and I seemed to get more done in Memsab’s study than I did

in our house.

Rupa called often, greeting Memsab cheerfully, before asking for me.

“Hello, Jacaranda. How’s the studying okay?”

“Studying? What’s that?”

I imagined her shaking her head in annoyance, making her braid jump on her

back. She always asked me about my studying, as if that was all there was to school.

“I wish we were in the same school so I could make sure you kept doing your

homework,” Rupa said.

“Fine. Though I think I’ll never be able to do maths.”

“You think about it too much,” she said. “Just do it.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 310 Through the phone I could hear a happiness that had never existed in her voice

before. She was at a school of academically brilliant students and teachers who cared

first about learning.

“Are you making friends?” I asked her.

“Of course,” she said, “So many good students.”

This was not the answer I was looking for: making friends had never been easy

for me, since I was the only child who grew up in a houseful of old women. The energy

and games of younger girls confused me. And, no one really knew how to be friends

with the teacher’s child. They were afraid of being reported on or that it would crack

their surface cool. I should have been able to make friends more easily in the swim team,

but for Mum. Her constant pressure on the team also meant that it was hard for me like

other students the same way after they had inevitably shouted at her. Without friends or

much of a social life, my marks should have improved, because I would have had more

time to study.

At school I could barely concentrate. If it wasn’t Mum around, it was P.T. Our

childhood friendship, our parents’ failed love affair, and his status as a top rugby player

all complicated our feelings toward each other. Sometimes, he came up behind me and

pulled one of my braids, friendly and boyishly. Or he would offer to carry my books,

gallant and charming. But sometimes, he would pass me by like he hadn’t seen me at all.

After a particularly hard day, I had told Mum there was no way I could make it to

swim practice. She felt my forehead with the cool of the back of her hand. I reminded

her that I had a history exam the next day that I needed to study for. She looked in my

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 311 eyes, but I could not tell if she was looking to see how I felt or if I was telling her the

truth. Finally she let me take the bus home.

I was sitting in the back of the bus, trying to read when P.T. sat down next to me.

“Hello, Tree,” he said.

“You talk to me now,” I hissed. It had been a long day and I was fighting back

tears of frustration. Barely. I was in secondary school now, and too old to be crying.

“What does that mean?” he asked, reaching to touch my hand.

“Forget it,” I said, shrugging away his hand.

We rode the bus in silence, the rough roads bumping us close, closer together.

“You aren’t going to swim practice tonight?”

“I have work to do. You’re not at rugby?”

“I have work to do, too. I can help you with maths,” he offered.

“I don’t need your help,” I replied.

“If you ever want to get out of here, go to university, you’ll have to pass your

subject exams,” P.T. said. “Helping you would help me. I’m studying for exams, too.”

“What makes you think I want to go anywhere?” I turned and looked out the

window at the traffic passing below us. “I happen to like Nairobi.”

“Fm your best friend,” he said, bumping my side with his elbow.

I glared at him, “That was kid stuff. You don’t have to pretend like it’s still true.”

“What makes you think I’m pretending?”

At his usual stop, P.T. just leaned back and folded his arms behind his head.

Sitting next to him, I realized that he was bigger than I’d imagined him as being. I read

my book and pretended to ignore him. When I got off at my stop, P.T. followed me off

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 312 the bus. On the comer, he put his hand over my shoulder, curling his fingers around the

strap of my bag that he pulled firmly from my shoulder. He carried my book bag,

walking beside me without saying anything. And I floated towards the house as light as a

feather.

I skipped swim practice the next Wednesday. P.T. skipped his mgby practice as

well and we road the bus home together, P.T. sitting with his arm thrown over the back of

the seat and circling my shoulders. I leaned against his chest, solid as a mountain below

my head. He smelled of sunshine and grass and bitter cigarette smoke.

He carried my books as if we were creating a tradition without realizing it. At

home, I poured him a glass of mango juice without asking. He drank it slowly, while

watching me unpack my school bag and open my books on the table. We sat close on the

settee, my textbook on his lap and a tablet of graph paper on mine. Slowly, he began to

walk me through the math problems, explaining each one slowly.

As we bent over my maths book, P.T. put his hand on my leg. His hand pressed

onto the bare skin of my thigh. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the algebraic

problem before me. I felt my chest constrict, my breath speed up. His finger felt rough

and ridged against the waxed-smoothness of my skin.

“So, in this case I have to take the x and. . . ” I said.

“Tree, forget x a moment,” P.T. said, his voice husky as he folded the book shut.

I looked up at him, “What’s wrong?” My voice high and nervous.

“Never mind,” he said. Reopening the book to the assignment page.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 313 Almost relieved, I turned back to the homework. I tried to ignore the tingling

softness of my leg where he had touched me. My thigh shook nervously, as I pressed a

fist against it, tryingto focus on the maths problems.

“How are you going to get home?” I asked him, when it got dark.

“I’ll take a m a ta tuhe said, shaking the change in his pockets.

“I thought they weren’t safe,” I protested. In the papers people were always dying

inmatatu accidents.

He laughed, running a hand through his hair in mock exasperation. “You’re so

sheltered. It’s rather charming.”

He kissed me on my forehead, as if I were only a child. I watched him walk out

of the house, but did not follow him. He did not turn back and wave. I reached across to

the counter and turned on the radio to fill the silence left by him, listening to a panel

discussion was on how water hyacinth was choking Lake Victoria, causing the fishing

industry to decline.

Mum came home from practice, her hair still wet. She opened my bedroom my

bedroom door without knocking. “Where were you?”

“I had homework to do,” I said not, looking up from my papers.

“I am counting on you to be there! The whole team counts on you! You can’t

just disappear like that!” Mum was shouting at me.

“Life is about more than swimming, Mum! I have work to do.”

“Tomorrow you will have to stay afterwards for an hour to do laps.”

“I am not going to practice tomorrow. Or the day after.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 314 “It’s about P.T., isn’t it?” Mum accused me, her voice cracking. askari “The told

me when he opened the gate. P.T. came over. You think you can sneak around behind

my back!”

“P.T. offered to help me with maths.” The half-truth slid brackish and warm from

my lips and my tongue.

Our angry, hateful words fell like single drop after single drop from a broken tap

onto an empty, upturned bucket. Each resounding drip drumming with its own force.

“I’m different from you!” The flood of words came from my lips and joined the

torrents that had already been said by so many others, words that I knew would cut her

deepest, “What would you have me do? Spend my life waiting for the coup to be

undone?”

“Jacaranda!” she shouted. “That’s enough.”

This stopped my next words already wet in my mouth. When I looked up she was

crying and I thought she might slap me.

“I’m sorry.” My own voice was clogged with tears. “Mum, I am so so sorry.”

“Get out,” she said.

Memsab accepted my presence at her door.

“I heard the shouting.”

“You and the whole bloody street,” I said.

“Don’t curse unnecessarily, Jacaranda ” she scolded as she led me to the guest

room and gave me one of her nightgowns. It felt strange to feel the cool cotton slide

around my chest and legs and realize that it must have recently sheathed Memsab the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 315 same way. It smelled faintly of Memsab’s body lotion and perfume. As I sat on the bed,

looking around at the photographs in the spacious rooms, Memsab came into the room,

carrying a tea tray. She set it down on the bed between us and began pouring tea for me.

“Do you want to talk?” she asked.

I shook my head. I heard a car toot at the gate and it clanged open. Without

looking, I knew it would be Julianne coming to comfort Mum, always there during her

worst moments. Memsab heard it, too.

“I remember when Sumar was a teenager and came home from boarding school

for the holidays. We had the most horrible arguments. She said some things that hurt me

so much. And I would reply, saying things to her that I still wish I could take back.”

I did not say anything.

“She was upset when she heard about P.T. coming by?” Memsab asked. She was

affirmed when I wouldn’t look up and meet her steady gaze. So, Memsab continued,

“She just wants what is best for you. She does not want you to make the same mistakes

she made.”

“I am quitting the swim team,” I said.

Memsab smiled ironically and she set her teacup on the saucer with a slight ring.

“I had wanted Sumar to take ballet lessons. She quit them to take swimming lessons.”

I smiled at that.

“I don’t think you should quit. Just tell her you’re taking a break until your marks

improve.” Memsab gathered up the tray and stood to leave. “This will blow over. By

tomorrow she’ll let you back in the house.”

“Memsab?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 316 “Yes, Jacaranda.”

“Why didn’t you let us live here? Mum and I with you in this house?”

Memsab’s shoulders slumped under the weight of the questions. “It was not my

choice. Sumar wanted her own place. She chose the servant’s quarters.”

I looked at Memsab, but she looked at the tea in her cup. I waited for her to look

up, to look into my eyes, but it didn’t happen. Memsab set the tray on a side table and

helped me turn back the sheets. When I got under the covers, Memsab pulled them over

my shoulder and brushed my braids away from my face, as if I were still a child.

Love and the rainy season are forever bound together in my memory, as if one

brought on the other. P.T. got his driver’s license and started driving me home from

school, even though it was out of his way. Downtown traffic would be as clogged as the

storm drains, roads lightly flooding, and cars stalled along Kenyatta Avenue. He drove

Uncle Peter’s now-ancient Land Cruiser, windscreen wipers slowly brushing away the

rain. The water around us, the rain-drop silence, and the steamy glass made me feel as if

we were in an aquarium.

Neither of us had the forethought to carry an umbrella. So we ran from the

driveway to my house, our bags looped over one shoulder and drumming on our backs.

We arrived in the house, waterfall-wet and breathless. P.T. pulled his dark-dripping shirt

over his head. The dark hair on his chest was flattened by the rain. I had not seen him

shirtless since we were children, and then he was pale and thin. His ribs and spine were

now layered by ruby toughened muscles. I stopped, my arm outstretched passing him a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. towel. He took the towel from me and ran it over his chest and head to dry off, as

naturally as if he were alone after a shower.

“You’re going to catch your death of cold if you don’t dry off,” he said. He

pulled me close to him, gently raising my sweater over my head as my arms lifted with

his. My sweater fell to the floor with a wet-sponge sound and he began to unbutton my

soaked shirt. Then he reached behind me and released my bra. I wrapped the towel

around my breasts, trying to dry my back modestly.

“Let me help,” he said, his hands warm through the terry cloth. He was confident,

sure of himself. I did not want to think about how many girls from our school had fallen

for his rugby-star charm. I sensed his experience as he lured me to him, pulling both of

us onto the settee.

He leaned over and kissed me, his arms going around my body and pulling me

close. It had been a long time since anyone had held me so tightly. I kissed him back,

and P.T. pulled me closer until I was sitting on his lap and could feel his erection beneath

my thighs.

“Tree,” he whispered, making his name for me a tickle in my ear. “Have I ever

told you how beautiful you are?”

“P.T,” I said, not sure what I was going to say next. His lips searched my face,

going down my neck. He ran the rough stubble of his beard over my lips and chin. His

hands found their way along my body. Then, he stood me up so that he could look at me,

I found myself trying to stand straighter and thinner.

“You are so beautiful.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 318 I blushed. I could barely meet his gaze, his eyes seemed bluer than I remembered.

He wore his hair long and it fell around his face. With a finger I brushed it away, still

jealous of its straightness. He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it, then took each

finger into his mouth. As he gently sucked each finger, a warm tremour ran through my

body.

The rain kept coming down around us, hitting the roof in waves. With the lights

off the whole world became a gray cloud of mist and spray. It was cold, a chilly wind

coming from the grill door and the windows that never shut properly. He took off his

wool uniform trousers which were starting to smell of wetness. On his knee there was a

maroon scab from practice; it is the shape of Africa on him.

He lay over me on the settee, his heavy weight anchoring me. He traced the curve

of my breast with a single finger. The soft blonde hairs of his legs tickled mine, his legs

tanned darker than my own. But his torso was paler. The overlay of limbs against our

bodies created patterns like the plaid ofshuka. a

“Jacaranda Tree,” he said, pulling my face to his. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. Even then I knew that things would never be the same between us.

Tears were collecting in the comers of my eyes. I knew that he did not want to hurt me,

but that he would. Love affairs always ended badly for women in my family.

To hide my tears, I pushed him off suddenly. “I need to dry my hair or I’ll get

sick.”

I rubbed the towel over my braids as if drying my hair. He just kissed me again

and again, gently as if he would never break my heart. I could hear the rain hitting the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 319 wide banana leaves, which knocked against one another as if telling each other to be

strong, this too would soon end.

When P.T. stood up to dress, his clothes were damp, but drier. “Aw shit,” he said

as he looked out our door. Memsab, in full gardening regalia, was overseeing the

transplanting of a rubber tree. She held up a large, rainbow striped umbrella, as if this

were a gentle drizzle. As if everyone gardened in torrential rains.

I bit the laugh back and chewed on my bottom lip.

“Well don’t make me go out there alone,” he said. “She’ll probably give me

some kind of sex education speech.”

“Do you need it?” I started hiccupping with laughter. “I thought you passed the

health and fitness class.”

“This isn’t funny,” he protested, blushing.

“I think it is.” But, I pulled on my sweater over my naked body and straightened

my skirt. I found one of Mum’s umbrellas and shook it open, its broken elbow flapped

crookedly. We both crowded under its misshaped cover.

Memsab tipped up her head to see under the brim of her straw hat, she smiled and

waved at us with the machete that she gripped in a gloved hand. “Good afternoon,

Peter.”

“Hello, Mrs. Conway,” P.T. said, stepping over her plants to greet her.

“I have seen you around a lot lately.” She almost had to shout to make herself

heard over the overpowering roar of the rain.

“I am helping Tree with her school work.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 320 “Wonderful! You must stop by for tea one afternoon. Though I know that you

are probably more interested in spending time with a lovely young woman like Jaci,” she

said, with a mischievous smile.

I wondered what she knew about stolen moments and the pleasure of young love.

She smiled at me again. Then she went back to ordering aboutshamba the boy’s digging.

The poor guy was soaked to the skin, his blue uniform black with water. Evenaskari the

looked put out that he had to open the gate.

Mum continued to coach the swim team after school. Coming home later and

later, to avoid running into P.T., who she knew still came home with me sometimes to

help me with my maths. We did not talk about my schoolwork, though I was doing much

better. Nor did we talk about her swim team, which was not doing so well.

At the end of the semester, Mum asked me if I passed maths. I had.

“It seems that your study sessions with P.T. helped.”

“He invited me to his send-off party,” I replied. “He has chosen a university in

England.” I did not have to tell her that she would not be welcome.

“Are you going?” she asked, giving me permission, as if it was still hers to give.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 321

Harambee.

According to national mythology, Jomo Kenyatta was on the run from the

colonial government: a rebel, a leader, and a criminal. He was hungry, unwashed, and

in need of help when a group o f Indians on a spiritual revival came upon him. They were

chanting something that he heard Harambee. as They helped him up, took him with them

and fed him from their own food. He thanked them and turned Harambee into the

political motto of post-Independence Kenya.

According to historical records colonial porters, carrying heavy burdens packed

up like donkeys, coined the term harambee. It meant "let us all pull together. ” Only later

was it used as a political slogan struggling against colonial rule and still later any self-

help group. It was a calling to help one another and to be self-reliant.

Harambee. It was how the president used guilt to make rich politicians to reach

into their pockets and make donations. Like supply-side economics and trickle-down,

harambee worked in theory as a voluntary tax to disburse the wealth, iftoa-kiti-kidogo

was the demanding side o f corruption that claimed bringing-a-little-someth ing got one

through roadblocks and over bridges, then Harambee was its generous reverse. Files

had to be given, read, filled-out, stamped, and filed by underpaid civil servants who had

open palms and schools fees to pay. They Harambee kept forms for school fees and

funerals, pre-wedding Harambees, and wedding Harambees in their top drawers and a

generous contribution guaranteed generous assistance.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 322 8

Harambee parties were the tradition for all students going to university, especially

university abroad. But P.T. didn’t really need one. He had gotten a rugby scholarship to

cover most of his school fees and Uncle Peter could afford the difference. It was just a

good-bye party and a chance to show-off that he was leaving.

I told myself I wasn’t going to go. I told Mum I still hadn’t decided and talked it

over with Julianne. I told Memsab he was inviting me just to be nice, because we were

friends.

“You’re crazy if you go,” Rupa told me, shaking her head. The gold stud in her

nose flashed, she had pierced her nose recently. “I still can’t believe you like him. All

rugby players are dogs.”

I shrugged. The slang expression sounded strange coming from her.

“I didn’t say I was going to go.”

“Pu-lease,” Rupa said, sounding like a character in an American sitcom. “If he

asks, you will go. You’re in love and that’s what women in love do.”

“Not women in my family,” I told her. I did not have to remind her of how Mum

had first left my father then Uncle Peter. She had heard the story from me before and

kept my secret. But she also knew me well, and she had guessed right.

“It would mean so much if you would come,” P.T. said, lowering his long straw

eyelashes at me. “Please come.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 323 So I agreed and Mum leant me a dress. It was a beautiful, blue, silk gown that

clung to my curves. I wondered how such an elegant thing managed to survive life in

metal sanduku in our house.

“I wore this when I was a little older than you are now,” she said as she zipped up

the back for me. I watched our reflections in the mirror and was surprised to realize that I

was a little taller than she. I borrowed a lilac lipstick and my lips looked full and pouty.

“You look beautiful,” Mum said.

She kissed my cheek. “Have a good time.”

I had a horrible time. P.T. was too busy to pay attention to me. His mother glared

at me every time she saw me. Only Uncle Peter made me feel welcome.

“You have grown into a beautiful woman,” he said, offering me a glass of wine.

“Veiy beautiful.”

“Thank you, Uncle Peter,” I said, accepting the drink, which I was technically still

too young to accept. I sipped it delicately, familiar with alcohol’s slight bite from Mum’s

drinks.

“Is P.T. treating you well?” he asked, changing tactic and blushing.

I choked on my drink. “How did you know?” I demanded. “Did P.T...”

“I saw your mother in town last week,” he said changing tactic again. “At the

Thom Tree Cafe, I waved, but I don’t think she saw me.”

Mum had told me that she had seen him. He had parked the car and when it

looked like he was going to join her at the Cafe, she paid her bill and left. I realized that

it might have been only a matter of months that separated P.T. and I as half-brother, half-

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 324 sister. We would have both had straight blonde hair, blue-eyes, and our kiss would have

been incest, instead of just half-friend, half-shame.

“Excuse me, but I think I need to mingle,” I told Uncle Peter.

What I needed was another drink. I went to the bar where a catered waiter in a

white shirt and second-hand bowtie was pouring drinks. Sweat marks grew under his

armpits. I held out my glass and he filled it with chilled, white South African wine. My

preference was for mixed drinks, learned from Mum. South African wine always brought

back memories of the party when I tried to drown P.T. But, I drank the wine quickly,

trying to look graceful. A few of my schoolmates came up and talked to me, and the

guys looked at me twice -once in surprise, once with desire. When one of his teammates

tried to chat me up, P.T. came and put his arm around my waist, the silk of my dress

melting under his warmth so it felt like we were skin-to-skin.

P.T. kissed me on the cheek as I was leaving. I went home and threw myself in

my bed to cry. Mum came in, offered me two aspirin, and gently rubbed my back. It felt

like I cried constantly until P.T. left for England then I waited for him to come back.

The airmail letters came from P.T. without any pattern. Always unexpected and

erratic in condition and content. Sometimes long, longing letters. Other times just quick

notes jotted and smeared on the back of postcards with tourist-destinations on the front.

I imagined PT becoming like a regular Englishman, as cold as the English

weather. In my imagination, his eyes turned gray, like the overcast English skies.

Alternately I pictured him as a shy, studious type wearing tweed coats and growing out a

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 325 tidy, tweed mustache. I imagined him falling in love with Twiggy women, like my Mum

- blonde and fair.

My maths scores dropped again, but I sent him cheerful letters about Kenya and

kept him filled in on the latestSheng and gossip. He had left a few sweaters at my house

and I wore them while I studied, drinking Milo mixed with milk or eating it crunchy and

sweet straight from the can. Mum started teaching a health and fitness class, so she had

grading and lesson plans to do while I wrote.

I restarted swimming for competition. My tan got darker again, as I spent hours

alongside the pool. Mum welcomed me back on the team with endless laps of

punishment, my lazy muscles protesting for days. Coach Samson was impressed with

how my once-stagnant times began to drip downwards again.

I swam with competitive thirst. Standing at the edge of the pool, on diving blocks

sent a rush through me like a waterfall of peace and urgency. My father began to come to

my swim competitions. Like a salt-and-pepper shaker set, he and Mum sat close to one

another while they cheered for me. They were cautious of one another and kept their

separate charts of my times and records. Julianne she sat a distance away as if disgusted

by the way my parents occasionally smiled at one another.

“You’ve become a co-wife,” she told Mum when she followed us home.

“It isn’t like that,” Mum said.

“What is it like, then?”

“It is legal for a man to have up to five wives.”

“Sometimes, I think you’ve become an African.”

Mum laughed. “I think it’s better than being a mistress.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 326 “I’m not so sure,” Julianne said. “Jaci, what’s it like having a father in your life

again.”

I was stretching in my room, listening to them through an open door. “It’s not my

choice.”

Sometimes, Matthew brought Chiro, my half-sister. She was a small-boned child,

shy and too weak to ever be a good swimmer. If the meet went well and I had energy,

my father would take us all out to dinner together. Sometimes I wanted to call him Dad

with the ease that Chiro did. Other times, I wanted to tell him to go to hell.

At night, I would count the days until P.T. came home for the holidays. I would

be able to talk to him about this fracturing and reknitting of our family. He would be able

to make me laugh about our childhood.

P.T. came home for the Christmas holidays, and he came to my house the day

after his arrival. Memsab waved at him from in the garden. Mum shrugged on her jacket

and picked up her car keys. She walked out quickly, only giving him a nod before she

waved at the askari to open the gate again.

“Tree,” he said, pulling me up from the settee and hugging me. He kissed the side

of my cheek. “I’ve missed you so much.” Then he kissed me on the mouth, his lips

salty.

“How much?” I asked.

“This much,” he said squeezing me to his chest, as if he could to press me into

himself. “Come out with me tonight.”

“I can’t,” I told him. “Exams aren’t finished yet.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 327 “Since when did you become so studious?” he teased me. “Everyone goes out on

Friday night.”

When I called Rupa and told her P.T. was in town, she huffed, “Well that’s the

end of your studies for the term.”

“Just tonight,” I promised her. I was already dressing to go to Carnivore’s Simba

Salon.

In the dim, darting lights I strained my eyes to pick out P.T. from the crush of

dancing bodies. Occasionally, the crowd would part and I could see him, still dancing

with Margery. Once, his hand was around her waist and holding her close to him.

Another time, her naked knee was between his denim legs.

I looked around for a waiter, suddenly needing a drink. I saw a woman in

uniform serving drinks to a table of American Marines across from me. Their table was

crowded with bottles and glasses, which the waitress started collecting, flustered by their

orders and demands that were pinned together with bright smiles and jokes. When she

finished and turned to leave their table, I waved to get her attention. She pretended that

she did not see me. I knew she was pretending, because of how she suddenly turned her

head away and her back stiffened. P.T. had left a half-empty Tusker bottle on the table

and I took a sip from it. The lukewarm beer tasted heavy and sour because it was not

what I wanted. My too-pink lipstick left a shadow of colour on the rim of the bottle,

which I smeared away with my finger. I looked at the crowd again searching for P.T.,

but I couldn’t see him.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 328 “What is a beautiful woman like you doing alone?” a voice that was startlingly

American and masculine asked. Later, much later, I would learn that his accent was

Southern, Black, something he had spent most of his years in university trying to disguise

and twist into standardized English. The voice belonged to one of the Marines, who was

now taking P.T.’s chair. After his voice, the first thing about him that I noticed was his

colour. He was darker than me, a colour tinged with red like tamarind. Then, I noticed

his size: he was large and the seams of his shirt were strained by his muscles. His

forearms on the table between us were smooth and hairless, glowing in the disco lights.

He leaned conspiratorially close and I could smell alcohol on his breath, but he did not

look drunk. His large, dark eyes were steady.

“I am here with a group,” I stammered, shy under his gaze.

“Looks to me,” he said, his eyes still not wavering, “like white boy left you.” His

voice dropped even deeper, though I would not have thought that possible. It seemed to

vibrate with anger.

“His name is Peter,” I said, stupidly because I did not know how to respond to the

insult and challenge in his voice. I looked away toward the dance floor but could not see

P.T. I could see the table of marines watching us, probably betting on the outcome of the

conversation. I knew I should have sent him back to his table with a few harsh words.

“Pm more interested in your name,” he said, smiling to reveal brilliant, straight

teeth.

“Jacaranda,” I replied automatically.

“Like that purple tree?”

I nodded.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 329 “Is that your real name or you just messing with me?”

“My real name.”

“Jacaranda, what you want to drink?” he asked, while summoning the waitress

with one hand. It was the same waitress who had been serving his table earlier. The

same one who had ignored me. This time she came quickly and stood at attention.

uDawa I said, it was the traditional home brew of the bar. Strong.

While the American Marine was placing his order, I saw P.T. He was dancing on

the stage. Or rather, he had been - with Margery. Now, Timmy was whispering in his

ear and they were both looking in my direction. P.T. was frowning, pulling his arm away

from Margery who was still trying to dance with him.

“You’d better go,” I said suddenly to the American. “It has been nice meeting

you.”

“I just ordered drinks.”

“I’ll have the waitress send you the drinks,” I said, pushing on his shoulder to get

him moving. I might as well have been leaning on an elephant. P.T. and Timmy were

already making their way off the stage, headed towards our table. Margery was

following, telling friends she passed what was happening. It looked like the Marines

from the other table could see what was happening, because they were starting to stand

and come towards us. “Please, just go.”

Just then, P.T. reached the table and put his hand on the American’s shoulder to

get his attention. The Marine shrugged it off, keeping his eyes on me.

“Don’t touch me,” he said, his voice deeper and dangerous again.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 330 “What do you think you’re doing?” P.T. asked him, but really just looking at me.

“Was this man bothering you, Jaci?”

“No,” I said, smiling. “We were just talking. He’s leaving just now.”

“Then you had best be leaving now,” P.T. said to the American.

“I’ll leave when we finish our conversation,” the Marine said, unhurriedly still

turned towards me. He smiled as if he were not aware of the tension building around us,

and he winked at me, as if we had a secret between us. “I was enjoying getting to know

Jacaranda.”

P.T. visibly bristled. I could tell he was about lose his temper.

“P.T., please, don’t do this,” I pleaded.

“Stay out of this,” P.T. said to me. Then, turned to the American, before I could

say anything and hissed, “Get out of here!”

“Are you ordering me to leave?” he asked. “Because I don’t take orders from

anyone. Least of all from,” a half dozen options clearly played across his mind. He

settled for, “You.” He spat the word, making it sound like a slur.

As he spoke, another Marine, bigger and darker, came and stood behind my

Marine. His arms were folded across his chest, his eyes narrowed. His size was

frightening, and even P.T. pulled back a little. The man smiled when he saw this,

revealing his equally strong-looking gapped teeth.

“What a gorilla,” Timmy whispered, half in awe - half in fear.

Unfortunately, the second Marine heard this. “What did you say?” he roared, his

entire bulk turned to Timmy. Timmy drew back, but balled his fists.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 331 “Better be careful,” said a skinny, white Marine who was leaning on the table

waiting to be part of what was happening next. “No slut is worth trouble with Dirk!”

Even before the weight of the insult hit completely, I saw P.T.’s fist fly out from

his side and, as if in slow motion, arc towards the Marine. It landed squarely on his nose.

In the distance, I could hear Timmy start to cheer, but that was cut off with a grunt and

crash of furniture.

What I did hear, much closer, was P.T.’s voice, ragged and husky, “She’s not a

slut!” before another marine pushed him from behind and he fell forward.

I froze, looking at P.T. whose eyes met mine before he turned to regain his

balance and face his attacker. The fight was erupting around me and I could hear the dull

thud of fists meeting flesh. I bent, meaning to reach for P.T., who was already on the

floor with a marine above, but stopped when a beer bottle crashed at my feet.

“Damn,” my marine said.

I felt him grab me by the arm and push me out of the way. I fell into the spectator

ring, forming around the collapsed table. When I turned to see what had become of my

marine, he was in the middle of the fight. I could see P.T. trying to reach him, but unable

to separate himself from another black marine. Most of the Marines were black, so it was

easy for me tell them apart from our group, other friends having joined in to the fight

already. Timmy was taking on the thin marine, and in the dim lighting I could not tell his

limbs from those of the white marine he faught. Margery was next to me, rubbing an arm

that had probably had been bumped as the fight got started.

The bouncers came from the various exits, but when they saw it was the marines

they hesitated, unsure whether they would be able to break up the fight. A second table

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 332 crashed as Timmy was thrown into it. He grabbed a bottle and held it over his head like a

scene in a movie. One of the bouncers grabbed him from behind, as the overhead lights

suddenly flashed on.

We were all blinded by the sudden light. The fighting stopped long enough for

the bouncers to gather up the courage to begin breaking up the fight. They quickly

grabbed P.T., Timmy, and others of the crew. The marines, rendered momentarily docile

by their sudden blindness, were shepherded out gingerly by the largest of the bouncers.

The next day, P.T. came by the house in the afternoon. I had just finished my laps

for the day and was sunning by the pool. I opened my eyes when I felt his shadow

hovering over me, blocking the warmth.

“You look like shit,” I told him.

“Thanks,” he said, gingerly fingering his bruised eye and swollen jaw line. “What

a welcome home. Bloody Americans.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t worse,” I told him. I had heard of drunken brawls with

American soldiers that ended with people in the ICU at Nairobi hospital. In Uganda, the

American ambassador was so embarrassed by their carrying on that he had put out a

public announcement asking them to act better.

I shifted my legs and P.T. sat down on the end of the bench. He took my feet into

his lap and began rubbing them gently. I was glad that I had taken the time to get a

pedicure and painted my nails a deep pink colour.

“How’s the swim season?”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 333 “Excellent,” I said. I was ranked third in the nation for women in my age group.

Tthe other two girls lived in Mombasa and competed more than I did. “I don’t take it so

seriously though.”

“Have you given any thought to trying out for the Olympics?”

“No,” I whispered. I had decided in my family it was bad luck and I didn’t want

to tempt the fates. Or God. Or political trends, not in an election year.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are?”

I shook my head, “You must be confusing me with all the beautiful women in

England.”

“None as beautiful as you,” he promised, but he did not deny their existence.

A chasm of silence, with a flowing river of memories widened between us: the

many nights at Carnivore restaurant and night club, the days of avoidance at school,

rugby games, the afternoons in shadowed light of my room, the accusations by his

mother, cheering for the Harambee Stars together, Mum’s longing whispers and sudden

silences, and even that day in the pool when I tried to drown him.

He stripped off his shirt and jeans. He had worn his swimming costume

underneath, as if he had been planning this along. He stood up and stretched, his entire

body pale and lusterless, but his muscles still flexed easily. He picked me up easily and

carried me in his arms to the pool.

“Don’t you dare, P.T.!” I shrieked. Theaskari came out of the guardhouse to see

why I was screaming, but he just smiled and went back inside. “Fm finally dry! I don’t

want to get wet again. Put me down...”

I felt him gather his strength. “You don’t feel dry to me.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 334 “You shouldn’t get your eye wet,” I told him.

He just laughed and I tightened my grip around his neck and shoulders. I refused

to be the only one getting wet. As he threw me out into the pool, I pulled him in with my

momentum.

“Jaci! I shouldn’t get my eyes wet!”

We tumbled into the water, a glorious splash sending a spray around the pool.

The dogs we had gotten for security after Kubwa had died were attracted by the noise and

laughter stood at the edge of the pool and barked, trained just well enough that they

didn’t dare jump in after us. We were so close to the edge of the pool that it was a

wonder we did not crack our heads open.

I had forgotten that he had once been a strong swimmer. We treaded water

looking at each other, him squinting against the chlorine stinging the abrasions on his

face. He kissed me, not caring that Memsab might be watching from the upstairs window

no caring that Mum might come home any minute. I felt like I might drown.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 335 9

In December o f1997, the country was in the last stages ofpreparation for yet

another Christmas season and general elections. Pockets of violence disrupted the

festivities and the wave of car-jackings continued unabated. Rumours were the police

supplemented their salaries by renting their guns to criminals, on the condition that they

were never fired. They could be used to threaten and intimidate, but bullets from police

guns could be tracked.

Everyone talked fearless politics in the streets. People cheered and greeted one

another with one-finger, two-finger, or fist to indicate their political party. A dozen

mimeographed and poorly-printed newspapers sprung up, declaiming the tactics of other

parties. There was New Year optimism that this election would be different, that the

opposition would finally take Mutukufu out ofpower. No one remembered that in the last

five years most of the opposition members had realigned themselves with KANU and

divided among one another. Party-in-Power politics determined the day.

New radio stations sprung up like mushrooms, offering different aspects of

election campaign coverage and interviews with candidates. KBC faithfully continued its

steady and boring reports. Sundowner still played in the evenings, and often P. T. and I

would listen to it while we hung out together, often in the Nairobi Game Park or over the

Rift Valley watching the sunset. I was too young to vote and he wasn't registered, so that

weekend he packed up the car and spent a week at Lake Naivasha camping and watching

flamingos, pink as candy-floss. He made me dance with him in the sticky mud while the

music from a battery radio in our tent filled the night around us.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 336

Mutukufu won the election. Again. Again international donors were confused

and horrified. People trickled back into Nairobi slowly and everyone seemed

disappointed. The New Year tinsel sagged in the store windows and the storeowners

quickly washed the painted decorations from the windows.

Julianne took me to lunch at the Thom Tree Cafe to celebrate the end of term,

because she said we did not spend enough time together any more, though I was still the

closest thing she had to a daughter. The waiters recognized her and gave us a table in the

shade outside. They brought her a cup of coffee immediately.

“So?” she started. “What is the story with P.T.?”

“No story. We’re just friends.”

“You sound like a KBC reporter,” she said. “He is over at the house almost

everyday. You go out and come back late. And I heard there was a bit of an altercation

at Carnivore. What’s the real story? I won’t tell...”

“Just some Marines,” I said, knowing she couldn’t keep a secret from Mum.

“You be careful,” Julianne warned me. “The city is dangerous at night.”

Her eyes flicked behind me and I sensed someone standing behind me.

“Excuse me, Jacaranda,” he said. His accent drew my name out, seemed to make

it softer. “I never got a chance to properly introduce myself. My name is Deon.”

Julianne’s eyebrows drew together like the newly formed opposition party.

“I’m sorry about what happened the other night.” His hand reached out to me,

then to Julianne. “I never had the chance to apologize, and didn’t have any way to get in

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 337 touch with you. So I thought I would try this.” He pointed to the acacia tree note-system

with a folded piece of paper. “They say it used to work.”

“Still does. My name is Julianne,” she postured herself like she was my mother.

He smiled at her again, a confident, attractive smile. An American smile that reminded

me of Lara, my childhood swimming competitor.

“What did the note say,” Julianne asked.

He blushed, his skin turning an even darker red. “Just an apology.”

“For what?” As if it were any of her business.

I cleared my throat, “Thank you. Apology accepted.”

“Friends, then?”

“Friends,” I agreed, accepting the note that he slipped into my hand.

“Do pull up a seat and join us,” Julianne suggested.

He shook his head. “I wish I could, but I’ve got friends double-parked, waiting

for me to get back.”

“Thank you,” I said. He winked at me and my heart sped up.

Before he was out of hearing range, Julianne said, “He’s very attractive. And

clearly he likes you. Come on open the note and see what it says.”

“Shh.” I scolded her.

“P.T. lives in England,” she reminded me. “It would be good for you to have

someone here.”

“What makes you think I’m looking?”

She didn’t answer but only laughed. “I’ll bet he left his number.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 338

He did. I turned the note over and over, carrying it in my pocket for days.

When I told Rupa, she scolded me. “Have you no sense about men?”

“At least my parents aren’t going to arrange my marriage,” I said.

“I’d sooner die!” she said, and I had no doubt she told her parents the same thing.

“But better an arranged marriage than a love match with rugby player. And now an

American Marine! Do you know anything about Marines?”

“He’s so cute,” I told her. “He’s taller than P.T. and strong.”

“Marines invade other countries. They have to be strong.

“He has the nicest smile,” I told Rupa. “Even Julianne thought he was cute.”

“I was watching this show on KTN about a woman who was married to an

American Marine and he beat her,” Rupa said in her school-teacher voice.

“It was a police officer,” I told her, since I had watched the same show.

“I can’t believe you kept his number and actually think about calling him.”

“What you thinking about,” P.T. asked, his finger tracing a pattern in my

forehead. It had a hypnotizing affect on me.

I was thinking about P.T. leaving, about how lonely it would be. “Nothing.”

Disbelief made his throat rumble. “Nothing?”

“Nothing.” I was still thinking about Deon, his handsome smile and the fact that

he was going to leave a note at the Thom Tree. I still had his number in my dresser

drawer at home and I wondered if I should call him, although I knew that I would.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 339 Something like fidelity made me wait until PT returned to England before I called

Deon’s number. It was January.

“Wassup?” Deon asked, when he took the phone.

“Ah, hello. This is Jaci. Jacaranda.”

“Like the tree,” he said with a laugh. “But even more beautiful.”

“Yes,” I laughed with relief, I was afraid that he would have forgotten me. I felt

myself blushing. In the next room, Memsab was talking with one of her friends. I knew

she was getting deaf and was no longer able to overhear conversations in the next room,

but I still whispered.

“You took a long time to call back. I thought you weren’t interested.”

“Not so long,” I protested, though my protest was a lie. “I traveled during the

holidays with my family.”

“You go up-country to your village?”

“No,” I said. “Matthew, my father I mean, we aren’t so close.”

“Apparently not,” he said. “Don’t feel bad, I’m not so close with my pops either.

But I do try to send him a card each year. He left my mom and remarried.”

“Mine, too.”

While we talked, the receive became hot in my hands and Memsab walked by

twice after her company left, looking at me curiously and wondering who I could still be

talking to. When I finally hung up, it was dark outside. The side of my face was tingling

from the pressure of the phone, and I was blushing. He was going to take me out that

weekend.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 340 It was with Deon that I saw Nairobi, as an adult, as If for the first time. Poor.

Dirty. Ugly corruption gathered in the street comers like the trash piles, any potential

was like women with their potato-and-carrot vegetable stands. True capitalism is an

African Market, everyone selling the same things side by side. Easy entry, easy exit.

Similar produce.

“How do you know who to buy from?” he asked, his head spinning from the calls

of the hawkers. They called himBwana, knowing despite his brown skin that he was

paid in American dollars, that meant a lot of Kenyan shillings.

In the Hawker’s market, I followed the patterns set by Memsab: Mdosi sold me

bananas and mangos. Mama Wambui, eggs. Passion fruit, from anyone who sold it

cheapest. Ochieng was the man who cut the oranges wide open so that we could taste

them before buying a whole kilo.

Deon took the slice, biting into the local bitterness. His face twisted as the

sourness slipped under his tongue and sat on the comer of his jaw.

“Sweet?” Ochieng insisted. “Sweet!”

“Are you crazy man?” Deon asked. Everyone laughed, loving his loud American

accent. “That thing’s nasty. It must’ve burned out your tongue! What else you got?”

Deon bought a kilo of the expensive South African oranges, sweeter than juice

and perfect in their colour and shape. I peeled one and fed them to him, using my fingers

while he drove me home. With each bite, he kissed my hands.

Letters from P.T. went unanswered, piling on my dresser. I sent him half-finished

letters, claiming I was busy with the swim team or that I was studying hard for my

secondary school exams. I had to pass to get into university, I reminded him.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 341

I showed Deon two Nairobis: the one that was around us and the one that was

there when I was a child. When I was child, there were only two Uchumi’s in Nairobi I

told him as we went through Westlands Roundabout and I pointed out one of the original

ones. It had once been a simple supermarket with a general store section upstairs. It used

to only carry locally produced goods. Now there were large Hyper-Uchumi’s all over the

country and they carried everything from South African Maple-flavoured ice cream to

Italian LG washing machines and clothes dryers. I showed him trees that had been cut

down and buildings that were new.

He told me about growing up in Washington, D.C., going to schools with metal

detectors at the door. I told him about Braecrest and he visited the campus with me. At

least his school got field trips to the endless museums. We went to the National Museum

and the attached Snake Park. The old stone buildings still reeked of colonial intentions,

but it was the only real museum in Nairobi.

“These haven’t changed much” I told him. There was no money to improve them,

and so they only looked a bit more run down. More grass was growing in between the

pavement stones. A large reproduction of Ishamel stood in the center of one room, across

from his skeleton.

“What is that?”

“The elephant with the longest tusks that ever lived in Kenya,” I said. “During

that time the poaching was really bad, so Kenya Wildlife Service had armed guards with

him all the time to protect him until he died of natural causes.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. His tusks, the real ones, were still with his reassembled bones. Everything was

bolted together and only a small rope barrier separated us from his ancient glory. Deon

reached in and ran his hand along the tusk.

“I was at the ivory burning,” I told him. But he looked at me blankly, and I knew

he had never heard of it. Instead of explaining, I took his hand and lead him into the

cave-like prehistoric room. The bones of the first humans and their stone tools were

displayed up behind glass boxes. A few of the stones in a sand bath, just chained down

so that they couldn’t be stolen.

“These are tens of thousands of years old,” Deon said, his voice light with

wonder.

“Something like that,” I said, rather bored. I had grown up in the museum. Every

class field trip came here and we had to pass the stone tools around.

“In America, you could never touch these.”

It took us only two hours to go through the whole museum. Back in his car, he

slid in a mixed tape of heavy hip-hop music. It was the sort of music I only heard at the

second-tier nightclubs: Bubbles, Cosmo, Gypsy’s. The music opened-and-closed the way

lights flashed on-and-off.

I was shy of taking him home to my small house, with Memsab in her big house

surrounded by askaris,the the shamba boys, and Naomi. But, he told me about his own

childhood and slowly I came to realize that he wasn’t rich. According to him, only the

poor joined the military though he didn’t seem poor to me.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 343 Mum loved Deon. And he loved her. She reminded him of his own white

mother, and he told her this. He brought her flowers and compliments and Mum insisted

he meet my father. Matthew loved him, too, shaking his hand man-to-man and talking

about politics and race and the dehumanization of life in prison. Chiro had a little-girl

crush on him, was tongue-tied and sweet.

“He’s sexy,” Julianne said. She had never said that about a man before. “And he

seems nice. But he is so American.”

That was all Memsab saw: his American-ness.

I talked and begged and pleaded until Rupa came out with us one Friday night. I

promised that Deon and his Marine friends would be able to protect her reputation, and

that I would give her a ride home. Finally, she gave in and wore a pair of tight, low-rise

jeans and a sari top. A bindi dropped like a jeweled tear between her large, kohl painted

eyes. Deon’s friends thought she was gorgeous and flirted until she turned shy and

radiant. But, he had eyes only for me.

“He’s nice,” she said that night. “Very sweet.”

“Maybe the American isn’t so bad,” I teased her.

“Maybe.”

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 344 11

August is not a good month for Nairobi:

1950: MauMau was declared unlawful by the colonial government

1978: Jomo Kenyatta died

1982: An attempted government coup, failed.

1983: Mutukufu was reelected as president in a queue-voting, single party system

1990: United States cancelled half of its military aid to Kenya

1992: A law was passed that a president must have at least 25% of votes in five of

the eight provinces, this guarantees the relection of Mutukufu.

1997:100 bandits assault Likoni police station, the police lose the attack

7 August, 1998: A bomb went off just outside the US embassy in Nairobi.

The blast was heard as far away as the Jomo Kenyatta Airport

247 People are killed and 5,000 injured.

Simultaneously a bomb went off in Dar es Salaam - 10 dead, 75 wounded

Al Queda and Osama Bin Laden are blamed.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 345 12

I was at home, getting ready for a date with Deon when the windows shook with a

dull thud. Something rumbled distantly, like the earth had clapped open a moment. Half

dressed, I threw a shirt over my shoulders and ran to Memsab’s house. Naomi was in the

yard, surrounded by the dogs who were barking like mad.

“What happened?” I asked.

Memsab was scratching her left hand nervously, but she asked me, “What

happened?

Memsab had BBC on one radio and KBC on the other. She turned on the

television. It was Capital FM, one of the new music stations, that explained a bomb

exploded in city center at the United States Embassy. My heart stopped in my chest.

“I have to go,” I told Memsab. I knew that Deon was on duty at the American

Embassy. “Call Mum and tell her to stay at school.”

“Take my car,” Memsab said, handing me the keys.

Cars were streaming away from Nairobi with an eerie order, as if it were ordinary

traffic, except that all the drivers were talking on their cell phones. I was headed into the

fray, but only got as far as the museum before I had to pull of to the side of the road and

park. I got out and joined the thousands of people walking, dazed and confused. We

asked one another what happened. What happened?

As I got closer to town, there were sirens and alarms. All the ambulances in the

city were on call, I did not even know that Nairobi had so many emergency vehicles. I

followed their noise, the thick smell of cement dust and ash and blood. People walking

towards me had splatters ofblood on them.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 346 “They’re shooting at people. They’re shooting at people.” One woman insisted,

talking to herself and shaking her head. “Turn back. They’re shooting at people.”

No one asked if this was another coup. No one wanted to know.

“Who’s shooting?” I asked. But she walked by without answering.

When I got to the US Embassy, or what was left of it, Marines were posted

around the perimeter. They had guns out, their heads shaded by camouflage, khaki

helmets. I saw Deon giving commands to two other Marines as they crawled over the

rubble. Kenyans pressed onto the building, willing to dig out the victims, compatriots

and Americans trapped in the rubble, with their bare hands. Blood seeped from open

sores of the hands that clawed with curved fingers, pulling back the shattered brick.

“Get back. Get back,” the Marines said. I could see the edges of their guns

shaking, and I stepped back, even though I was still far from the crowd. Kenyan police

officers and army trucks were pulling in, taking away the wounded along with the

ambulances. I watched the chaos until dust coated my face. A woman passed me, her

face dusty and a river of tears falling from each eye washing a path of skin. I turned and

blended in with the anguished crowd.

When I got home, Mum, Memsab and Julianne were waiting for me in the living

room. They all had plasters on the inside of their elbows, marking them among the

thousands who went unbidden to hospitals to give blood. Memsab was carefully folding

sheets and towels into a box.

“Did you get there?” Mum asked.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 347 I nodded. I took a towel from the top of the donation pile and took it into the

kitchen where I ran it under cold water, wiping it over my face.

Mum had the television on in the background, and KBC was showing video

footage of VOA announcers reading about the tragedy. Hearing a woman with a gentle

Americanized voice read about the chaos downtown was like an out-of-body experience,

as if I were floating above the room, unable to control my body as it moved around.

“What did you see?”

I shrugged. “It’s bad. Very bad.”

“Deon?” Julianne asked, daring to say what no one else could.

“He’s fine,” I said. “But he didn’t see me.”

“Your father called.” Mum said. “You should call him back.”

“Later,” I promised. I joined the women folding the towels and getting canned

food from the pantry to take to the rescue workers in town. Naomi was using the

oversized pot to cook ugali. She turned the thickening paste over and over, her forearms

crying sweat over the pot.

Memsab helped me fill up the car and we drove as close to town as we could.

Nairobi at night was usually quieter. But there were drills and trucks rumbling through

the city. We joined the convoy of civilians offering what we could.

When I got home, Mum was waiting for me. “Deon has called for you.”

I nodded, too tired to think. I was not yet ready to call him back. I wasn’t sure if

I would ever be ready to call him back.

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This is what I know: That next year the Jacaranda trees will bloom.

It will be October when their blossoms start exploding suddenly after the short

rains. We will all stop during our busy days, resting from our worries and our ambitions

and admire them. They give us freely a sense of wonder.

This is what I know: The lavender blossoms will fall like forgiveness over the

city. We will have forgotten about them until then. They will surprise us with their

beauty and resistance. With their plentitude.

I know that each year, for always, the Jacaranda trees will bloom.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.