W2F001K
Dedan Kimathi duly received a letter from the secretary of Othaya Division, delicately asking him why there seemed to be some friction between him and Stanley Mathenge, or Kirema-Thahu. "Why this ill-feeling between you, and why aren't you giving Kirema-Thahu any promotion?"
Dedan Kimathi read between the lines, and knew that it was all part of the trouble that was besetting his new Parliament. The illiterates were at it again. Everybody was grumbling from here to Nairobi and Kiambu, questioning the legitimacy of this new Parliament. Many said it was not representational. Kiambu wanted members in it, and so did Nairobi. Muranga had only one member and wanted more. It made Dedan Kimathi groan, for the whole point of his Parliament had been to have a closely-knit group of intelligent people who could meet easily and make important decisions for the whole of Kenya; a small group that could draft letters to the Government, carrying the authority of the black people. To stretch it beyond the Aberdares would render it ineffective because of the difficulties in communication. Everybody would be where they were before.
Already his small compact Parliament, which consisted of energetic and bright people, had carried out a difficult task quite smoothly. General China, the man in charge of all fighting forces on Mount Kenya, had been captured and had written a letter to Kimathi dated 16.2.54, to say that he had been sentenced to death on the third of that month. "I appealed, but I don't know what the consequences will be. It doesn't matter much. I will let you know what will happen. I gave a letter to the Government delegates showing them the mistakes done to our boys when they come out of the forest to surrender, as laid down by the Government. I asked them if they made a mistake when writing this law. I showed them how bad it is to kill leaders in the forest when they arrest them, before finding out the reason for the fighting, and how it can be brought to an end. They asked me why I lead terrorists, and what prevents them from surrendering. I answered that if the boys come out of the forest, they might be killed by the <ea/>askaris of the Government. If you want my boys to surrender, you must remove your <ea/>askaris so the boys get a chance to come out, so that the war may be stopped, so that we may negotiate. There's one question they asked me. They asked if the security forces are removed from the reserves where will the persons you call barren go? Will you not kill them all? What will those who help the Government say? I was defeated by that question, and that is why I want you to tell me what we should do and what you think ..."
China suggested selecting four leaders, two from his Mount Kenya camp, and two from the Aberdares, to negotiate with the Government. He had been assured by the Government that those leaders would not be killed.
"Is it right for the war to stop on both sides so that we can negotiate?
"Is it right to send the four leaders?
"Is the Government trying to trick us?"
China's views were that negotiations should be started, for there might not be another chance. "Bear in mind that in this war we are killing mainly black people and not Europeans. Reply urgently. I know you know the importance of replying to all letters, whether bad or good. Elder, don't disappoint me!"
On receiving the letter, Dedan Kimathi had straight away called for an urgent session of Parliament to discuss this grave matter. The capture of China was a shattering blow, and he needed the twelve members to know how to proceed. After more than a year of fighting, the British Government had netted the first major leader, and were trying to use him to effect mass surrender from Mau Mau troops. As China had written to fifteen other leaders in the forest, action had to be taken quickly to avoid weak leaders taking the wrong decision on their own. After a year in the forest, a chance to call it off and surrender without being hanged could be too tempting for some.
Parliament met at the camp in Thaina with General Roy as the only absentee. Many other leaders were invited so that the decisions taken should not appear to be those of only a small select group. A document was produced, laying down in terse no-nonsense terms, conditions for peace. In effect, the document said that the freedom fighters would never come out of the forest until Kenya was granted full independence, and all the stolen land returned to the Africans. If this condition was not met, the freedom fighters were willing to fight to the last drop of their blood.
While the document was being drafted, Dedan Kimathi smoked fervently, his eyes shining and his chin firmly set -- the picture of a man not willing to give in an inch. As the document pointed out, the freedom fighters were doing very well, despite one hundred thousand troops being massed against them, aided by Harvard Lincoln bombers and artillery. To start negotiating with the Government, several conditions had to be fulfilled -- demolition of the new fortified villages, police posts and military bases; disarming of the homeguards; release of all prisoners; opening of Kikuyu Independent Schools, some of which had been turned into concentration camps; the participation of the three lawyers who had defended Jomo Kenyatta; and finally, a chance to consult with Kenyatta before negotiations.
Ndiritu Thuita and Karari Njama were chosen to attend negotiations any time His Excellency the Governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, and General Sir Erskine, East African Commander in Chief, were ready for negotiations.
Karari Njama drafted the document in good English. He had been to the famous Alliance High School. Dedan Kimathi, feeling satisfied, thanked his Parliament for a great job and then relaxed to enjoy a cup of coffee. It was a document that would make the Governor realise that it was not dealing with boys, but the toughest guerrilla army ever assembled.
To drive the point home, Dedan Kimathi drafted his own private reply to the Government:
"ANSWERS TO GOVERNMENT QUESTIONS
When the security forces go away from the reserves we will not kill those who are barren (non-supporters of Mau Mau. The reason is that there would be none if there had been no war. When the war comes to an end, the barren will follow suit. They are ours, they are of the same blood as us. There is a proverb which says, 'Blood is thicker than water.' There should be harmony. There is another proverb which says, 'Relatives should not be separate'. Our delegates will be mediators between the barren and the forest soldiers. This will be similar to what Dr. Aggrey does to make black and white people harmonise like the keys of a piano.
Africans who help the Government in this war long to see peace restored in the country. These people would go to heaven or hell after the war, if they knew they would get peace. People would live in harmony in Kenya if peace was restored to the country.
If there are some other races which help the Government such as Europeans, Indians, and Arabs, they will be represented on the Government side when we hold a conference for restoring peace in the country. This will be so if the people who live in Kenya will side with the Government. None will say that the Government has been defeated. They will only be happy to see that peace has been restored in the country.
I do not lead rebels, but I lead Africans who want their self-government and land. My people want to live in a better world than they found when they were born. I lead them because God never created any nation to be ruled forever by another nation. I also cannot allow anybody to deprive me of my share which was given to me by God. If anyone wants my share he has first to kill me. I know that God will give me my share, even if I die, when I go to heaven.
Terrorists are the people who commit evil deeds. There are always bad things done in a time of war. The Kenya Government has taught me to do evil things during this war. Strictly speaking the Government is the one which exercises terrorism and has taught me to be a terrorist.
My soldiers will never come out of the forest until all our demands are satisfied and those are PEACE and LAND. Another reason for not coming out of the forest is that when my people surrender, they are usually arrested and then killed. When some of my people surrendered on 24.8.53, they were all arrested and some of them were killed."
He had to write back to the Othaya Secretary to explain about himself and Mathenge. It was a more difficult task for he had not seen Mathenge for months or communicated with him. Their relationship was as bad as could be expected and Kimathi could see very little hope of reconciliation. The truth was that in any organisation, there could only be one supreme leader. Mathenge still believed he was that leader, and had not accepted the changes that had taken place in the forest during the past year. If he was a true leader, why did he fear coming to meetings and stating his point? He was fascinated with leadership, but lacked the skills to lead intelligently a serious revolt like Mau Mau. Things were moving fast, and the sun waits for no man. The mills would not stop grinding just to accommodate Stanley Mathenge Mirugi and his incompetence. Stanley was the odd one out. He couldn't get hold of him and fit him into the scheme of things. Now Parliament had already been elected. Where did Stanley expect to fit in? Kimathi was already President, and he knew that Mathenge hated second place. He had to be the boss or nothing. Kimathi was already thinking that perhaps the thing to do was create the Post of Prime Minister and leave the job of Field Marshal to Stanley. "Then he can run the army while I do the brain work." But even there, he doubted Mathenge's powers of organisation. He was a very poor communicator, and the whole success of this army depended on ingenious channels of communication, both within and out of the forest. There were people who liked Mathenge because he was a quiet peaceful man, but quiet peaceful men never liberated their countries. He had read about Hitler. He had read about Mussolini. He had read about Napoleon, and he knew that there were virtues in dictatorship when a country was in the throes of revolutionary change. You can't please everybody, and he knew he had enemies, the most powerful one being Mathenge. In his own Parliament, he was not sure about Kahiu-Itina and Kimbo.
"But why should I worry about jealous people? Why should I worry about Mathenge? Am I my brother's keeper?"
He went to the typewriter and wrote to the secretary Othaya Division, Nyeri. After a line of greetings he wrote:
"Here are my replies to your questions. Mr. Kirema-Thahu is holding the same rank as myself and therefore I cannot promote him without promoting myself. Both of us can promote the rest, but we cannot promote each other ..."
He paused to consider that statement. It seemed quite true. It was frustrating, but true. Mathenge still had a big following of warriors who considered him the true leader. There were two overall leaders in The Aberdares, neither of whom could promote the other. He hoped eventually to correct that situation through the power of Parliament. 
When Parliament caught on, Mathenge would just have to tow the line.
W2F002K
1975 was the most trying year of my youth up till then. I had completed form six the previous year and unfortunately I lacked the required combination of subjects to see me through to the university. I thought all my hopes were shattered, and because I so much hoped to go to the university, I had not thought of any other alternatives. When I received the information my entrance to the university was not feasible, I was dazed. I moved from my uncle's house and went to stay with my mother. For about three months, I refused to discuss my future plans with anybody. During that period, I read a lot of books. When my uncle was away during the day, I would go to his library and choose enough books to see me through the week. At the end of the three months, my uncle and Jerry Onyango gave me a pep talk that woke me up.
"You are being a fool Roiman," my uncle said. "You are like a child with a tantrum. When they're over, you'll find that you're hurting no one except your own self."
"Besides," Onyango said, "a man does not wallow in failure. No sooner do you fall than you are up. True, you didn't go to the university, but that is not the end of the road. You have good examples of those who did not go to the university, and are doing the next best thing. Look at Karane your friend. He has worked hard ever since he learned that he could not go to the university. Today he drives a benz, he has a good house and he is buying a farm soon. Those who were with him at form six and went to the university can only show degrees after their names, nothing of substance."
"What about Petita Legis his friend?" my mother chipped in as though she was educating the two elders. "You know the boy who has been visiting us Paul?"
"I know him," my uncle said, "What about him?"
"He also dropped out at form six," she said. "And I hear he is now a police inspector."
"Good. You see?" Onyango said.
At the end of the talk, I was convinced that I had to look for a job. It was not easy though. Many letters I wrote were not replied to. Most of those which were replied to were regrets. I was however called for three interviews but unfortunately I failed all. Then there appeared an advert for the post of trainee manager in a local firm Vipuri Ltd., that manufactured vehicle components. I had seen the tycoon that owned the firm who was well known for his riches. I applied and was invited for an interview.
On the day I received the invitation letter, I bumped into Karane in town. He was driving his new benz. When he saw me, he stopped and got out of his car. As we stood there talking, I told him of the invitation and to my delight he said, "I'm playing golf with the old man this afternoon. I will put in a word for you. But I had better let him win first." He chuckled and added, "He likes thinking that he's dealing with you from a position of strength."
He told me he had met the old man, owner of Vipuri Ltd., immediately he started business. He began borrowing small amounts from his money-lending business which he repaid at very exorbitant rates of interest. When he became a frequent and bigger borrower and all the time repaid promptly, the old man noticed him and enquired who he was and on being told he was an up-and-coming young businessman, he took an interest in him and started doing business with him. He even became a regular partner in golf tournaments. Karane filled me in with the extra information the day I visited him to enquire whether he had a chance to put in a word for me to the old man.
"Of course I did," he said. "I had to be a little cautious lest he thought I was pushing a worthless person into his firm. You will still have to do your best at the interview, for I am sure he will not be there, but I suppose he will push your name to whoever will be presiding. So there it is my brother. I've done my bit."
Karane was still the cheerful open-hearted companion I had known since we were small boys. But somehow I did not feel totally free with him any more. I had a sense of lagging behind, of being a non-achiever and non-starter in many things. Even though Karane was ahead of me in school, the difference of a few years did not seem to justify the leaps he had taken ahead of me. As we were talking, there was the sound of a child crying upstairs. Karane stood up and excused himself saying Mary Auma was not in the house and their son had woken up.
I was left alone in the cosy well-furnished sitting room, facing my own feeling of insufficiency. I got up and prowled about, looking at Karane's rich surroundings, the velvety curtains, the beautiful soft carpet, the colour television with a video cassette, the enormous <-/soft-cusioned> sofa sets, a Benz parked outside, and I despised myself even more. From Karane, my thoughts drifted to Ledama who was a district officer and then to Petita Legis who was a police inspector. My three friends, the only three friends I had ever had, all seemed almost without effort to pick up whatever they had wanted in life while I continued to wallow in misery.
When Mary Auma came in, she was happy to see me. She complained that I took too long to visit them. She went to collect the child from the bedroom and when she came back she sat on the arm of my chair. She was still the same kind old Mary Auma. And her wisdom was still with her. She, for instance, understood the frustrations I was going through, and although she had no solution to offer, it was comforting to feel that there was somebody who understood and cared.
"Karane," Mary Auma called her husband, "you have to put more effort into seeing that Roiman is fixed in employment."
"I've already done that," Karane said lighting a pipe, the latest additional sign of success.
"I know," Mary Auma said, "but you know how things are at the moment. Unless you talk to people who matter and follow it up with heavy handshakes, your person may never see the inside of an office."
"Put it plainly Mary," Karane said, "The ploughmen's hands must be greased."
Maybe that is why I failed three earlier interviews," I said sorrowfully.
"I'm sure if you told your uncle that one has to grease the hand of the employer's agent," Karane said, "he would be completely at a loss. They grew up and were employed when many things were straight. To be able to survive today, one has to have money. It's the life blood circulating and joining human beings. If you don't have any money, you become a constricted member who has to be cut off. Just like a limb that has been denied blood and eventually must be amputated." He threw his head back and laughed very loudly.
"I seem to disagree with that," I said seriously. "Does it mean all these moneyless people we see everyday in the streets are doomed, drying limbs to be amputated from our society?"
"Roiman, my own brother," he said making himself comfortable on the sofa. "You know the answer to your own question. I need not <-_to> elaborate. How did I get to know the old man? If I did not have money, he would not have touched me with a ten-foot pole. And the reason why you cannot today walk into his house or office is just because you have no money. Of course I'm not saying relationships must be bought with money but the saying that birds of the same feather flock together explains it." He once again threw his head back and laughed some more.
"I get you," was all I could say and I realised what a sheltered life I had lived under the wings of my dear uncle!
"Don't frighten Roiman," Mary Auma said. "There are still areas in life that have not been permeated by this cancer."
"A--A," Karane said shaking his head, "No, no, Mary, I would not call the need for money a cancer. Not as yet. When we have got our share and have stored it away where moths cannot touch it, then, and only then, shall we come back and call it a cancer."
"You mean you approve the greasing of hands and other fraudulent means crooks use to enrich themselves?" I asked anger rising in me.
"Not at all!" he said. "If I approve of anything it is the struggle to keep poverty at bay. And all the people you see all day in streets, in shops, in farms and all sorts of places are doing just that. They are fighting the poverty that threatens to engulf them everyday."
"You make it sound horrible," Mary Auma said grimacing.
"Of course it's terrible," Karane said. "That is the reason why we cannot rest until we have driven it into the sea. Poverty and disease are bedfellows and we cannot give them a chance in our life. As for me and my house, we declared war on poverty right from day one, and the weapon, my friend, is money. You must have a weapon to fight an enemy."
The following afternoon I walked to Karane's industrial area office to collect the 'weapon' to fight the enemies, who in that case were the employer's employment agents. Before we parted the previous day, he promised to give me a thousand shillings which he called 'weapon.'
The industrial Area office was the third office Karane had shifted to since he started his Kimka business. Each one he moved to was bigger than the previous although not tidier. He was then a licensed court broker, auctioneer, estate agent, general merchant and importer all rolled into one. No doubt Karane was successful as far as business was concerned, but as I observed when I visited him, his office was the most untidy and disorganised. I could not help concluding that the beautiful, tidy and well organised home he had, was the work of his wife the practical Mary Auma. When I knocked at the door of his office, it was Karane who came to open it. He had no secretary as such luxuries were unaffordable according to him.
"Come in," he said stretching out his hands to welcome me, "Welcome, brother, to this little den."
"Thank you," I said and looking around I added, "You must be a very busy man."
"Oh yes," he said emphatically and surveyed the various items that lay in stacks all over the room. There were cartons with all kinds of papers, plastics and tins all stuffed in them, and all were covered in thick layers of dust. There were files haphazardly placed on top of filing cabinets, on cupboards on the floor, on his desk and even on the window sill. In another corner there were what I thought were rejected items at auctions: broken chairs, an old perambulator with one wheel missing, dented steel jerry cans, three or four discarded manual typewriters heaped one on top of the other and many other bits and pieces. Nearer to his desk was an over-flowing ashtray and a waste-paper <-/basked>, equally full to the brim.
"Each of my clients has got a file," he said proudly. "And every matter concerning each client must be entered on a register and the correspondence filed."
"Tough job eh!" I said and meant it. "Why don't you employ one or two junior persons to assist you?" 
W2F003K
The young man standing at the gate of the stately residence could have been a black copy of an English nobleman paying a visit to a native home. His crisply starched tailcoat and trousers, the carnation and gold chain, a red bow-tie against a shimmering white shirt, white gloves and cylindrical black hat created the impression of something cut out of stone and decorated by an experienced artist. Such was the nature of Muriuki, the son of Chief Jonathan, the widely travelled graduate who was so keen on transplanting England into his motherland.
Beside him stood the chief himself, his elephantine structure squeezed in a grey tropical suit. His daughter, Wanja, radiant and trim, was swathed in a flowing dress. The trio greeted the arriving guests and showed them to their tables. But it was Muriuki who stole the show with his elaborate display of English urbanity, bowing and touching his hat when greeting a lady and repeating the magic words 'It's a great honour' every now and then.
Determined to identify himself with the ruling class, Jonathan's list of guests had a score of white settlers, the local Asian businessmen and a few worthy natives, mostly church leaders. Ten settlers had expressed their deep regrets at being unable to attend the dinner due to pre-arranged commitments, seven didn't bother to even acknowledge the invitation but three turned up, Robinson, Roger and a reluctant Newman.
Roger and Newman were the first to arrive accompanied by Roger's son and daughter. The seventeen-year-old Fred Roger and his fifteen-year-old sister, Marion, were in a European school in Nairobi. Robinson and his family came a short time later. Much as he despised the idea, Robinson had organised his family to suit the taste of the host. They wore dinner jackets and flowing gowns. He had never been conservative in his motherland where it counted and much less in Africa where the nearest neighbour was a crocodile and not a fair lady to kiss your cheek.
"It's a great honour, Mr Robinson," Muriuki droned and touched his hat for the benefit of Lilian. "Feel at home." Jonathan and his daughter shook hands with the guests. It was then that Robinson noticed something peculiar in the manner Mark, Muthami and Jonathan's daughter exchanged greetings. It happened in a flash, surreptitious grins of knowledge and conspiracy. Robinson knew instantly there was something behind those grins, something more intimate than knowing one another. It dawned on him that he had not kept up with the times. His adolescent sons were practising manhood. Now he knew why Muthami had brightened up when the visit to the Jonathans was mentioned. But he wondered whether the fun was only for Muthami or Mark was involved too.
"Your face," Jonathan was saying to Muthami, "did you fall off a horse or something?"
"He was messing with a bicycle," Robinson cut in to save Muthami the agony of explaining what had happened to his red eye and swollen lip.
"Take care," Jonathan joked. "We cannot afford to lose people like you on cheap adventures."
They were shown into the sitting room, furnished with huge sofas, teak-wood tables, reclining chairs, game skins and trophies on the walls and zebra-skin carpets. Jonathan had been overwhelmed by the splendour of the white men's houses, including that of Lord Delamere and the Governor, and resolved to compete with them. His residence was nicknamed 'The Chief's Palace'.
The usual atmosphere that always greeted the Robinsons prevailed, stifled murmurs and whispers. The guests were indiscriminately mixed but one could draw a vague line between the three separate groups ... the Asians, Africans and Europeans. They acknowledged the Robinsons' greetings with exaggerated warmth. The family seated themselves next to the Rogers' group and started exchanging pleasantries.
"I thought Christmas would never return since Hitler took it away," Roger quipped.
"Yeah," Newman agreed. "Turkey in a bomb is no delicacy. More wine, please."
They were served with all types of drinks before the main meal, a barbecue English style and specialities for vegetarians. The Jonathans joined the guests when it appeared that there were no more arrivals. The butler and his assistants, all garbed in English fashion, busied themselves to make the guests comfortable. Muriuki's dreams of importing England in his pocket were materializing. He had taken great pains to make the party an English success.
Jonathan formally opened the party with a brief speech in unpractised English: <non-standard"<non-standard/>
"Merry Christmas," the audience resounded.
They lapsed into murmurs while they tore at the meat and drank wines and spirits. The division of races was now prominent. The Asians rattled in Hindi, the Africans murmured in their mother tongues and Europeans drawled in English. Muriuki identified himself with the last group. He fell into a conversation with Roger while Newman maintained an observer's stand.
"You are considerably conversant with English law," Roger was saying. "How well does it suit your people?"
"The English law is suitable for the Englishman in general but too frail for our people."
"I thought you saw it the other way round as far as your people are concerned," Roger said. "The general opinion among your people is that the English law is harsh and biased."
"In one sense, yes," Muriuki put on an air of intellectual importance. "But the consumption of law depends on the maturity of a society. The British have so far failed to bring about maturity in their non-British subjects. Instead Britain has yielded to cultural opposition throughout her empire resulting to the formation of hybrid laws, the Indian law and the African customary law, incorporated into English law. So the English law loses credibility in the face of absurd cross-breeding. There should be one law for all."
"Are you suggesting that all British subjects, Indians, Africans and the others should be made to discard all their traditional values in favour of an entirely British system?"
"Yes. They should be forced to do so."
Roger sat back and exchanged grins with Newman.
"As they say, tradition dies hard," he said. "Nothing short of a total massacre can transform the whole British Empire into one ethnic group. You can kill a personality but not the person. You can't completely tamper with the variation of creation. Like making a mango from a banana."
"That's an unlikely comparison. People are people, no matter where they come from. They are naturally flexible whether by persuasion or force. In our case, force is the word."
"Then it would mean uprooting people from their origins."
"That's right. Uprooting a poor origin to make space for a new start. Replacing a primitive seed with a productive one.
Robinson, who had been following the conversation from the next table pretended not to notice silent communication between his sons and Wanja. He did not know who the chief's daughter admired, Mark or Muthami, as the communication was spread between the three of them. After a short while Muthami requested to be allowed to take some fresh air outside. Permission was granted as the main part of the dinner was over and now most of the guests were drinking. The moment Muthami walked out Fred Roger shifted his seat to talk to Mark.
"How about joining us for a picnic tomorrow?" Fred offered.
"Where?" Mark asked absently.
"Near the intersection of River Kuu and Chania," he lowered his voice so that the others on the table could not hear. "This is a special request from my sister. I'll be having a girl too."
Mark lowered his head <-/embarrassedly>. He had never been close to the pretty Marion but they often saw each other when their paths crossed. She was rumoured to be curious and a rebel. Mark had proved this to be true by the way she had looked at him.
"How many are you?" Mark was aware of Marion watching them.
"Six if we included you."
"That will be seven if we include my brother."
Fred covered a frowning face with a false smile. "Must you ..."
"Yes," Mark snapped.
Fred floundered for words. "Don't you think he'll feel lonely ... I mean ...?"
"How can one feel lonely in a group of seven?"
"You know what I mean ..."
But Mark was not listening. His eyes were on Wanja as she walked out. The act escaped everybody's attention except the watchful Robinson. He was sure he saw the girl wink at Mark.
"Okay," Fred was saying. "I'll talk to the others and hear what they have to say about it. I'll tell you the decision tomorrow at nine o'clock." He broke into a murmur slightly above a whisper. "We'll need some drinks. Try to secure something heavy - gin, whisky or brandy."
Mark nodded absently, then said, "I'm feeling hot. Let me dash out for some fresh air." He strode out as if in a hurry.
"Me too, Papa," Lenon said. "I want to go out."
"And me too," Paulina joined in.
"<-/Alright>," Robinson said. "Don't take long lest we disappoint the host." He wore a lopsided grin which froze when he caught an embarrassed look on his wife's face.
"You know what I know?" he asked amusedly.
"Maybe more than you know," she said.
"Who is who in the racket?" he asked.
She sat back wearing a disturbed expression. "Anna told me about them but I couldn't believe it. It's awful to think about."
"What did she tell you?" Robinson was curious.
"That Mark and Muthami are naughty. She caught them sharing one girl ... <-/>ah ... it's not worth discussing."
"Tell me about it," Robinson insisted.
"Well, if you must know," Lilian was reluctant. "They were sharing a girl on the farm. They also shared the daughter of an American tourist who was camping near our farm. And eventually the chief's daughter."
"By George!" Robinson exclaimed. "And all this has been happening behind my back!"
"That is not all," Lilian added. "They smoke and drink."
"Good Lord! No wonder my bottles of whisky have developed invisible holes at the bottom. I've been sharing it with them without knowing. And may I know why you kept all this to yourself?"
"Your command," she said defensively. "It was your idea that they have things their own way."
"Including stealing my whisky?"
"That was your own making. Remember the two times you came home drunk and offered them whisky?"
"Oh, that one? I remember. What a naughty father I've been! Well, I think the boys are entitled to fun. Even stealing my whisky and sharing lovers. It's an encouraging indication that they would share the woes of life with equal zeal of unity."
"It's abnormal, though," she protested. "You ought to do something about it lest they'll be subject to public ridicule."
"We've always turned our backs on public speculations. An additional gossip won't make us any less dramatic.
Let's give the public more to talk about. We are the stars and they the audience." He laughed effervescently.
Lilian recoiled in silence. What could she say to a husband who could turn the ugliest situation into a big joke. A man with unwavering immunity to the oppositions of life. A carefree man not influenced by externals but with a voluntary flexibility to cope with any given situation. A man who joined natives in their beer parties in the morning and attended governor's cocktail parties in the evening. They had all failed to put him off. The natives worshipped him, and some whites, though reserved, respected him. He had a following on both sides. Yet, Lilian mused, she could never get rid of the awful feeling that Mixer Farm was a kind of zoo and the family was a collection of animals, human animals. Then he was right, she concluded. The family was a dramatic team. Whatever Mark and Muthami were doing would not make the family less dramatic.
Lenon came back followed by Paulina. "I didn't see Mark or Muthami outside," Lenon reported. "Don't know where they went to."
W2F004K
Eunice prevailed upon me that we visit Tala Inn. I had sworn never to go to Tala in a <ea/>matatu. My junkish KML 721, Ford Escort, was parked in my flat at the Registrars' village. I therefore saw no breach of the covenant that I would never go to Tala in a <ea/>matatu, if I agreed to drive in Eunice's BMW 32O.
We left on a Friday evening and entered Tala around 7.00 p.m. As we approached the town, fears of being seen with a sugar mummy assailed me. What would my mother think if she saw me with a lady nearly her age? I wondered, shuddering at the thought. Although Eunice was about ten years younger than my mother, her eleven years seniority to me, made her appear like a mother to me. She was a nice lady, very devoted to me, for reasons best known to herself. I was, however, getting concerned about the frequency of her visits. We had <-_began><+_begun> with Friday evening visits till 10.00 p.m. during which we, as a rule, slept for three hours. Later on, it became overnight stays on Friday evenings. A few weeks later, Fridays and Saturdays. Then one day, she started breaking the week with a Wednesday visit. It was then that I realised that she was exhausting me. I noticed that whenever she appeared on the Registrars' flat B 10, I would cringe inside and make the silent wail of "Oh no, not again! ... ..."
I left her sitting in the BMW which she now allowed me to drive, recognizing that male chauvinism required that I, rather than she, drove the car. Although I preferred her sitting in the back seat, she insisted on the front one making me appear a driver to her rather than the owner of the car.
"Have you got a room?" I asked the reception clerk.
"Yes, a double room."
"How much."
"Sixty shillings."
I paid without hesitation although I knew this would betray me further was Eunice to be noticed inside the car. I then asked for three White Caps, one roast chicken and a bottle of the Towers wine that Eunice drank. I collected the keys and the drinks making sure the waiters did not visit us lest they saw my companion. Eunice was a lovely woman. Her plumpness and age, however, made her appear a mother rather than the nice Kamba girl my mother wished me to marry. We were in Tala and I could not let the word go around that I was behaving in an antithetical manner to my mother's life-time wish.
We slept in Room 21 of Tala Inn, locked away from the bar and the restaurant. I feared she would argue over wearing Durex condoms but she surprised me by adeptly helping me into them. In Nairobi the need to hide from persons that would recognize her as the financial giant's wife, made us hide at the Nice People's Rendezvous or some suburban boarding and lodging house. It always pained me that I was a fugitive in my own city hence my hatred for all the times we socialized in Nairobi. In Tala the tables seemed turned. She burnt with anger, I could see, as we ate our chicken penned in the Tala Inn room for apparently no understandable reason. This time she failed to realise, how "dangerous" it would be for anyone to recognise us. It would accelerate my mother's march towards the grave and I did not want to be the one responsible.
Our best times were in Kisumu, Nakuru and Kitale. In these towns sugar daddies, mummies, girls and sugar boys were accepted phenomena, a thing I have puzzled over, to this day.
In the morning Mrs. Maimba surprised me.
"I must see your mother?"
"What?"
"We cannot come to Tala and I do not see your mother."
Although I was terribly afraid of letting the cat out about my relationship with Eunice, I felt a great urge to visit my birth place.
"Indeed, yes, we cannot," I agreed with her.
My home was only two kilometres from Tala township towards Kangundo. It was a normal four acre peasant <ea/>shamba from which we had obtained all our livelihood when growing up. There were four huts, one belonging to my mother (kitchen), my sisters' and brothers' huts and my father's which was corrugated iron-roofed, bigger and square unlike the other three that were round and grass-thatched. Saturdays were market days for Tala and we found our mother preparing to go and vend her <ea/>muthokoi, the kamba name for pestle-pounded maize with the testa removed. It is a very popular food with us. The whole household moved out to see the visitors with a beautiful BMW 320 that was intruding into their peace.
"It is Yosevu!" my sister Betty, screamed.
"He now has a car!" my brother, Muteti, shouted.
"We thought you had been swallowed by the city and would never set foot on Tala again," my mother complained shaking my hand and that of Eunice, askance.
"She is our matron. Came to buy some gourds, cow peas and <ea/>muthokoi," I explained, warding off the blow that my mother was sure to throw with regards to a non-Kamba woman in my life let alone an elderly one.
"Oh, thank you. Welcome to our humble home. I am glad you have come at the right moment. Your dad is not feeling very well but he may see you after you have rested," my mother advised as she led us to her kitchen and had us sit on her low stools next to the smoky three-stone fire that she cooked her meals over. Eunice was wonderful. She merged with my family extremely well, helping my mother cook her <ea/>muthokoi, constantly pushing in the firewood and effectively blowing into the fire whenever the wood required re-kindling. I left them to their devices and went to see my grandfather who was reportedly doing his last days on earth. The old man slept on his hard wooden rafters' bed out of which he now could not move. My mother had carried out all that was required for his feeding (which now involved liquid food only) washing and even his ablutions.
"Is that you Munguti?" his weak voice came to which I answered in the affirmative.
"You've come to see me before I go!" he continued.
"You are not going grandpa."
"I am going. Come here for your blessings."
I obeyed grandpa although protesting that he was not going.
He spat on my face, then spat into his chest, then commended me to his gods asking me to live an honest nice life. He died, I learnt later, that Saturday evening after we had returned to Nairobi.
Lunch was served in my father's hut. He, too, was askance when he met Eunice and I gave the same explanation about gourds, <ea/>muthokoi and cow peas. I knew, however, they had not been completely convinced. Mrs. Maimba made matters worse when she bought all the <ea/>muthokoi my mother had and gave each of them, (mum and dad) three hundred shillings. My parents took the rich lady's money. I cursed the gesture for it let out the secret about us, that I associated with a lady who could freely part with six hundred shillings, for apparently no good reason. We quarrelled over this money on our way to Nairobi because it had been produced as if it was a bridegroom price. Eunice protested that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her generosity to my parents. She did the same to hers and in her traditional setting in Banana Hill, no-one visited other people's homes empty-handed. Whenever we quarrelled, which was extremely rare, she drove me to the Nice People's Rendezvous, a lover's paradise in Pangani overlooking the Muthaiga River and Mathare Valley slums.
David Kambo had travelled extensively in the country in his younger days first as a bus conductor, then as a driver and later on as an inspector for the OTC, the bus company the Nairobians had nicknamed <ea/>Onyango <ea/>twende <ea/>choo (Onyango let us go to the toilet) and which now had extensive services all over the republic. In his travels he had seen the craving by visitors for clean premises with clean toilets, bed-sheets, rooms and the eating/drinking halls. He developed an obsession for cleanliness and when he set up this joint he personally supervised the cleanliness in the rooms. This earned his boarding and lodging house fame for few lodgers were able to forget the spotlessness of the accommodation it offered. He discriminated (by claiming the house was full against the cheaply dressed Mathare and <ea/>Majengo women who called to ask for accommodation for clients) then hiked the price for accommodation to bar the lower income groups. After this he closed the bar altogether. By 1978, the Rendezvous had become an exclusive lodging house for a siesta, overnight stay and even weekend honey-moon events.
By the time Eunice and I visited it, it was what could be described as a nuptial or coupling house. Men and women and, in particular middle-aged men with young women, visited the Rendezvous standing in pairs like in the Noah's Ark. They paid money at the counter, received a cake of soap, a towel and a key then proceeded without further explanations to their respective rooms.
In 1978, Kambo looked at his palace. He reflected on all the people who had patronised it - justices of the peace, permanent secretaries, bankers, house-wives, personal secretaries, registered nurses, headmasters, pilots, policemen, lawyers, Members of Parliament. All these people came for morning and afternoon sessions with their lovers. Others for overnight stays most of which ended at two or three in the morning so that the patrons returned to their spouses before dawn. He named it, "NICE PEOPLE'S RENDEZVOUS".
We had talked at length inside room eleven of the Nice People's Rendezvous. She had explained how neither she nor her husband, Maimba, had been born with silver spoons in their mouths. Banana Hill where she was born was poorer than Tala as most people had less than an acre of land to live on. For firewood they used maize cobs and stalks. To feed the family her father had to pull a hand-cart called <ea/>mkoko-teni in Nairobi from morning till evening and her mother had to pick coffee or tea in the European farms around Banana Hill. She had obtained a Kenya African Secondary Education Certificate from Kabete, trained as a typist then rose to a secretary through extremely rigorous efforts of scrubbing floors, cleaning office toilets and making tea for Asian and European managers with the Union Bank of South Africa. It was there that she met Godfrey Maimba, then a bank clerk and they thought (her words) that they were in love.
"We have to be going back now," she said, getting out of bed and proceeding with the ritual of showering, powdering herself, applying her make-up. I preferred bathing in my flat and so, other than dabbing my sweat off with a towel, I put on my clothes and shoes then walked down the steps that would take me out of Eunice Maimba's clutches for a few days. We had just handed over the keys to the receptionist when I saw a familiar figure coming out of a black Mercedes 280, one of the few cars of the type in the country. He opened the door and let out a slim looking young lady, not very much older than Dr GG's daughter, Mumbi. Eunice Maimba saw him and let out a curse.
"So he also knows this place .....? And he has a lover in addition to my maid!" she said, looking at her husband. I could have fainted when I recognized Godfrey Maimba, however, Eunice held my arm firmly and walked me away. Her husband took the arm of the little girl, no doubt his daughter's age and pulled her in the opposite direction towards the reception desk. . 
W2F005K
Philip! Philip!' she shook her husband awake, 'listen, somebody is knocking!'
'What?' asked Philip from his sleep.
'Somebody is knocking at the door!' she cried. 'Who could that be at this time of the night?'
It was after midnight and not many people welcomed knocking at that time. Thugs were on the increase in Nairobi and you could open up for robbers.
'That! That! D'you hear?' she was getting frightened. Theirs was a maisonette and the bedrooms were upstairs.
'Let me go down and see,' replied Philip 'Can't be a bad person.'
'But how could he have <AmE/>gotten over the gate?' she worried.
'This is it.... It could be Mbeke.' Mbeke was their housegirl.
'I hope so.... Otherwise, ask who it is before you open up, Philip. If they are robbers shout and I'll blow the whistle. Be careful, Philip.'
'Who's knocking?' asked Philip close to the door.
'Philip, it's me!' replied a voice. 'It's nobody but me, Philip,' repeated the voice and just then Philip identified the person. He couldn't believe it -- it was his boss's voice -- the Chairman of the Plastic Wayup Limited.
'Muasya,' cleared the voice. 'I've jumped over the gate.' He had a great sense of humour. 'Open up, it's damn cold out here.'
'What's the matter,' asked Philip on opening, 'is the factory on fire?'
Mr Muasya got in, delaying the answer. Upon hearing Muasya's name, Judith came down. She was clad in a white dressing gown. Philip was in his bluish pyjamas.
'No, the factory is not on fire,' he said. 'I thought of dropping in for a cup of tea -- shall I sit?'
'Of course!' cried Philip and Judith in unison. They still expected big bad news - perhaps a member of the staff had been involved with a fatal accident or had been arrested, or some bad <-/politics> were getting their hands into this thriving plastic manufacturing company. Mr Muasya hardly came to Philip's home unless there was something very serious.
'What shall I offer you Mr Muasya,' invited Judith, 'a beer?'
'No, thanks.'
She stared at him; Philip stared too, perching himself on the arm of the sofa. Whatever Mr Muasya wanted to say didn't come in straight waves. There was some hesitation on his face and in his voice. 'Sorry to disturb your sleep,' he said finally in a voice torn between what he was saying and another thought. Mr Muasya was a very busy man. He was a Permanent Secretary in one of the ministries. The fifty-four year-old jolly and extremely successful businessman was going to retire from the civil service the next year. The Plastic Wayup Limited was run by an Indian managing director whom Philip deputized. There was some friction between Mr Shukla, the managing director, and Philip. Shukla suspected that this electronic engineer was being recruited to head the company. Mr Shukla was an exceptionally hardworking man; but he thought he had the wrong colour and language to stay long in this company which he had built up from a very small enterprise with one machine to a big company with seven modern machines. The company was owned by five directors, Mr Muasya holding the majority of the shares.
Philip and Judith could not wait to hear what had brought this big man to their home at such an ungodly hour.
'Is Shukla <-/alright>?' asked Philip.
'Mine is a private matter,' Mr Muasya relieved them, 'if I could see you Philip just for a moment. I'm sorry Mama Mutinda,' he apologized to Judith whom he called by her first son's name.
'It's okay, you're very welcome,' she said. 'I'll leave you two and go back to bed. Pity that I can't offer you anything.'
'Bring me my dressing gown.' requested Philip.
A moment later Mr Muasya and Philip were sitting in Mr Muasya's Volvo.
'D'you know of a Swedish woman called Sonya?' asked Mr Muasya.
'Sona or Sonya? -- yes Sonya -- what about her?' lighting cut through Philip's stomach. This must be bad news -- was Sonya dead?
'Sonya, yes, that's the name.'
'Yes, I know her -- what has happened to her?'
'Nothing,' he chuckled and his tone defused most of Philip's fears.
'She's looking for you.'
'Looking for me -- where?'
'She's in Nairobi.'
That was really a bombshell.
'In Nairobi?' he said fearfully, now trying to hide his feelings from Muasya.
'Well, to cut it short, this is what happened. At about nine o'clock this evening, Shukla called me up from our office with the news... This Sonya is reported to have been brought to the office by some people or by a taxi or whatever. The watchman called up Shukla and informed him of this stranded white woman dumped at the gate. She arrived from Europe at about eight--I <-/din't> ask her the details. As Shukla did not know your house (by the way I have been promised you'll get your house phone next week) he asked for my advice. Well, what did I do? I came down and there was this Sonya with her big suitcase. He paused.
Within that short pause, Philip thought of a hundred and one things about Sonya and Judith. What kind of drama was in the making?
'I took her to my car and asked her some clearing questions. Apparently, she is looking for you desperately. There's something pushing her hard.... Now, with the information at hand, I thought it might be good for me to take up some responsibility on your behalf. She would have come with me right here with everything, but I booked her in at the Nairobi Heart Hotel, third floor, room 312. As soon as I had made sure that she was settled, you see me here now. So?'
Philip heaved a sigh. 'Yes,' his voice wavered automatically.
'Yes!' echoed Mr Muasya. 'This must be a friend or something -- that's what she sounded.'
Philip wondered how much she had told Mr Muasya.
'Yes, I used to know her when I was in Sweden,' he tried to play down the excitement in his voice.
'Oh yes?' he nodded in the dark. 'You were in Sweden, weren't you, now I remember.'
'For my Master's Degree, yes.'
'Were you married to her?' he crashed in. 'These things do happen, Philip.'
'No, but we were close friends.'
'Then you ran away from her,' he said and made a laugh.
'Did she tell you that?'
'Oh no, no -- pulling your leg.' Mr Muasya talked freely and jokingly to his employees. He was a pleasant man, but a bit on the tactless side.
'Well, at the end of my scholarship I left Sweden...'
'Back to Mama Mutinda.'
They cackled with laughter in spite of the seriousness of the matter.
'That's what I sensed.... Are you sure she was not a wife?'
'I'm telling you the truth.'
Mr Muasya didn't know much about Philip's background. All this was news to him. They had interacted at the office level only, the least in their private life.
'I vowed to her that I would not sleep until I had got her this Philip Ndimu. So I have, having jumped over the gate. She is expecting you now, and I promised that you would go to see her. Shall I apologize for the mess if I have made any?'
'First of all, I can't thank you enough, Mr Muasya ... You've <-/embarassed> me with all this <-/kindeness>; you have done the best that anyone can do.'
He took a heavy breath. 'You saved me a lot of embarrassment, if you don't know.'
'Forget it, Philip.'
'Really, you have.'
'Enough Philip.... Now, let's cut it short. Do you want me to take you there, or you want to leave her there until tomorrow?'
'I'd rather that. I can drive myself there, but I think I should leave her alone until tomorrow.'
'She's a nice woman, that one,' he challenged, feeling somewhat jealous. Mr Muasya, an old University of Makerere timer, had seen the world and, as they put it, 'eaten' life; but these young fellows seemed to really reach the greenest meadows!
He wouldn't take a white woman for a wife for whatever reasons; however, the brief experiences he had had with some foreign girls during his overseas trips, had been rather captivating. A foreign woman, like a new menu, was always welcome nonetheless.
'If I may put my dirty finger in your soup,' Mr Muasya broke the silence, 'what are you going to do with her?'
'Same question I'm asking myself.'
'She said too much within that short time.'
'Too much?' he worried.
Now he came straight, 'Sounded like a real wife you had out there ... Confesses great love for you.'
'You must have cross-examined her to -- '
'No, no, not me. Just some clearing questions as I said.'
That was a lie. In fact, Mr Muasya had played a good detective and Sonya had told him as much as possible after discovering that the man who had come to her rescue was the most important person in Philip's company. She had been that open hoping that he would be of some help and sympathy in whatever course she was going to take.
Mr Muasya drove off and Philip returned to his house. He closed the door behind him and kind-of lost his presence in the house for thoughts. Was it true that Sonya Gatan had come to Kenya? He regretted having written to her. Old scars should never be scratched when they itch....
There was no way he was going to find sleep if he returned to bed. He walked upstairs and got dressed. Now he had made up his mind to go to see Sonya. Judith was fast asleep. She didn't hear a thing when he was dressing until he woke her up, 'Judith, I've got to go to the office rightaway.'
'Where's Mr Muasya -- any emergency in the office?'
'He's gone already. There's an important report to be prepared before nine o'clock in the morning. It is badly needed by the directors.'
'Some fund misappropriation?'
'Kind of,' he said to terminate the conversation.
'How long is it going to take?'
'Probably two hours -- I can't tell.'
'Is it just you and Mr Muasya to prepare the report?'
'There are others.... Just take your rest.... Now we know what it is Mr Muasya wanted.'
He walked down in his dark blue suit.
He drove down the Lang'ata Road slowly, typhooned by all kinds of thoughts, still blaming himself for having replied to her letter and given her his address. But how could he have thought something like this could happen? It took twelve minutes to get to the hotel. He parked the car nearby and walked to the receptionist with an increasingly pounding heart. It was a cold night but he was sweating. His hand was virtually trembling while he wrote down Sonya's name and room number then passed the note over to the receptionist who dialled to the room there and then.
'There's Mr Philip Ndimu to see you Madam,' the receptionist told the mouthpiece. 'Shall I ask him to come up?'
The receptionist signalled Phillip to go.
Oh my god! he thought as he proceeded to take the lift. Now he blamed himself for not having waited until the next day. Here I am going to see her, he worried, without knowing what to tell her!
The lift yawned for him and he got in, all by himself. He pressed the button and waited, leaning against the wall. He just walked like a robot. This was one moment in his life when he felt a force from within and behind him propelling him forward. The lift arrived faithfully and went open and he stepped out into the empty corridor. The place looked so lifeless and it was a miracle, he thought as he walked looking for the room, that somewhere in one of those rooms was Sonya. 
W2F006K
When I finished writing the letter to Liza, I put my head down on the floor, and began to weep. It seemed to me as if now I was truly giving up my family.
Suddenly, our cell door was opened by the hangman, who walked in rumbling cheerfully. "Come on, boys, make room for one more!" We all protested. It was not possible since we were already five in a cell meant for only two inmates, we told the hangman. But 'Man-Man' merely gave the new man a push and locked the door behind him. He was in no mood for argument.
I recognised the newcomer at once. He was one of the prominent politicians I had admired during my days of freedom. He was an Assistant Minister for Education at one time, and a member of parliament for a constituency in the Rift Valley. He had just been sentenced to death after being found guilty of murdering his political opponent.
His brilliant and at times grandiloquent lectures opened a new world to me. The world of politics. Each evening after meals, we sat silent, and listened to his endless lectures in politics.
One day I asked this fellow what he thought about capital punishment from a political point of view. His candid response was that he deplored the termination of human life in the name of the Law. "God is the giver of human life, and that life belongs to Him alone. It is therefore God alone who should reserve the right of depriving mankind of life, if He so wishes. It is surprising when a president, who says he is a Christian, signs the death warrant of a fellow human being, the image of God. It is even more surprising that nearly half of the Christians who say that they believe in God, do not believe in the sanctity of life.
"In the context of East Africa, the essential human right is the right to life itself, a right which has been violated in this region. Leaders denounce the intrinsic evil of discrimination based on race and colour, and the flagrant injustices consequent on apartheid, while they ignore such abuses in their own countries. Amnesty International attacks efforts by governments to manipulate public opinion - by covering up torture and killing, while making political propaganda about such abuses in other countries. Many crimes are being committed by governments while their own officials pay lip-service to human rights in international arenas such as the United Nations."
When I asked the former Assistant Minister, one day, if he believed the government of Kenya was going to hang us, or whether we should expect a mass amnesty, he told me that he had learned a lot about "Moi's style in the past five years". The former politician went on to tell me how Moi was a practical man and a true Christian who believed strongly in the sanctity of human life. The man reminded me that despite the fact that there were over one hundred condemned inmates in Kenya, there had not been even a single execution "in the last five years".
He supported this argument by stating further that on the contrary, the death cells were full to capacity. "I have reason to believe that no more Kenyans will be dragged onto the gallows," he asserted, adding, "The death sentence will always be there in writing, but those sentenced to death will always have their sentence commuted to life imprisonment ... I also believe that on the 12th of December, when Jamhuri Day comes, there will be a mass amnesty for all condemned prisoners and detainees. A few weeks to go, and we will all be free to live with our families again."
The man's trenchant and dogmatic speeches, the floods of erudition he poured out upon the timid heads of his cell-mates, made him the best hated inmate in the condemned block. Yet against all logic and common sense, the condemned prisoners in Kamiti Prison had become convinced that there would be a general amnesty on Jamhuri Day - December 12, 1983. But I - the pessimist among us - could not believe that any amnesty would be on anything like a mass scale, or that it would be anything other than the release of drunkards and a few detainees.
As the day drew nearer, the whole condemned block was gripped with feverish excitement. Food became completely tasteless for my cell-mates.
Ogollah told us it had been revealed to him in a dream that we would all be released by the President in his speech during the Jamhuri Day celebrations. For a week or so he lay awake riding on tenterhooks of anticipation. On the night of December 11, my comrades were completely unable to sleep, hope climbing on hope.
They exchanged addresses and confidences, and made promises of future meetings. Now they were talking as though the death cells were things of the past.
Ndambuki and I were the only condemned prisoners who had neither curiosity nor illusions. We were waiting for a call that would take us to eternity, the silent stillness of death!
Then came the long awaited day. The sound of prison bells announced the beginning of a new day. The whole condemned block was charged with emotion. I watched Ogollah as he washed his face, folded his blankets and packed his luggage - all the precious little things that one accumulates in prison - ready for freedom.
We waited the whole morning but there was not the slightest sign that anything would happen.
Then the afternoon came, and there was no miracle. By evening the faces of my cell-mates defied description. They were figures out of a nightmare.
There were no more cell stories, and no more singing. Dreams of freedom had given way to nightmares of a much longer stay in prison.
We told one another that there would definitely be a mass amnesty the following year, that we were waiting for Madaraka Day or the Jamhuri Day of 1984. But in our hearts we knew perfectly well that none of this would happen, that we were waiting for something quite different. We were waiting for death.
During such periods, prisoners began to behave like lunatics. The condemned block became a madhouse. Prisoners did things which decency scarcely provides the words to tell. Some found their comfort in homosexuality. They even began to kiss along the corridors. Inmates had become so desperately insecure and lonely that they had to have contact. They were all affection junkies! In these kissings, the inmates found ways of demonstrating degrees of affection for one another. But whenever the authorities caught them in the act, they were taken out and punished.
Though I did not share the behaviour of my comrades, I still maintain that the authorities should not have punished them. These men with strange tastes were sick men, and it was as silly and cruel to punish such men as it would be to punish, mock or ridicule a lame beggar or a hunchback.
I was as much shocked as frightened. The death cells became a theatre of dishonour and ignominy. But I never allowed myself to be trapped in the prison regime. My sense of survival had always been great.
Those of us who did not succumb to such strange tastes, formed another camp. Instead of abandoning ourselves to the horrors of our situation, we played a game of chess or draughts, or else we would stand by and watch the proceedings from afar - trying to stay sane.
"I must not go mad, anything sooner than that, I prayed. "Oh God! Don't let me go mad. Better prison, poverty, or even death, but not madness."
The death cells of Kamiti Maximum Security Prison offer a rich field of research for the psychologist and the sociologist. That is the place where you find some of the most <-/imbalanced> imaginations of the diseased mind.
As the New Year drew closer, we looked forward to it with impatience. Superstitiously, we felt as though the nightmares of 1983 might be blown away by the fresh wind of 1984.
But I was already experiencing the first sign of approaching madness: a longing to howl on one sustained note. I had experienced a similar feeling when I was in the Nairobi Remand Home, but this time I was dreaming of slaughtered prisoners all night long. Was I going mad? Or was it a warning of the horrors I would face in 1984?.
"I must conquer madness," I told myself. "I must put my mind to work. When the mind is busy it keeps its balance."
This was when Ndambuki introduced me to his friends, the birds.
Ndambuki was a strong, genuine human being. What could he have in common with criminals? How on earth had he got here?
Two years ago he had been sentenced to death for the murder of an Asian couple in Mombasa, an offence, he emphatically denied. I was convinced that he was innocent and even today I still remain convinced.
After the dismissal of his appeal, his world had fallen apart. His thoughts and plans all counted for nothing. But he had immediately set about keeping himself busy with anything and everything within the four walls of the death cell, just to fill his time until he could be reunited with his Maker in heaven.
During that period of sorrow, Ndambuki looked outside and began to take notice of the birds - the sparrows. He suddenly realised that they had been there all that time, and it had been up to him to take notice.
The birds perched on the iron bars of our window. Their tails twitched comically. Their cheerful voices greeted us every morning at 10 a.m., just as our lunch was being served. They would fly away and come back again in the afternoon during our supper.
Ndambuki seemed to have an understanding of them better than any other human being. Every morning while we were having our lunch, he would throw bits of <ea/>ugali through the iron bars of the window. Again 3 p.m., while we were out basking in the sun, he would take great care to feed his friends. He would throw bits of <ea/>ugali left after supper on the roof of the gallows for the more timid, while those of a brave and more confident nature would actually fly to his hands, hurriedly pecking at the tasty pieces laid out for them.
The bond between Ndambuki and the birds seemed to grow as their numbers increased. They would rear their young, and then the growing birds would follow their parents to be fed by the kind gentle prisoner.
Ndambuki used to wonder just how lonely his life would be without the birds.
"What Kindness we perform to a common, sparrow, will never be forgotten in heaven," he told me one day. It pleased me to see such devotion and care.
I decided to keep my mind busy and in balance by helping Ndam-buki with feeding the birds. By March, 1984, their numbers had increased tenfold. They flocked to us in droves, making a terrible din and even flying past the iron bars into our cell and filling it with excited chirping which aroused a corresponding joyful excitement among us.
This caught the attention of the hangman; he was the custodian of the condemned cells in Kamiti.
"This is not a health resort," he roared, "and all contact between birds and prisoners is strictly <-/fordibben>." But the birds did not hear this. They came in the tens and in then hundreds.
Early on the eighth day of May 1984, a Tuesday morning, the sparrows perched on the iron bars at the window of our cell. Their cheerful voices greeted the new day. As Ndambuki played with his birds he felt that they had brought him 4 messages. "It is unusual for the birds to come so early," he murmured. 
W2F007K
Chipota woke up feeling as if he had been run over by a train. Although his joints were no longer swollen, they still ached and so did his muscles. His buttocks still smarted and hunger gnawed at his stomach. He had not eaten anything the previous day. He could remember vaguely that he had heard a voice at night telling him to wake up and eat. However, he could not respond to that voice.
He did not know what time it was or whether it was day or night since he had no watch and no natural light flowed into his underground cell. He rose up with difficulty and stretched his arms. He could hear a groan from somewhere in the building. He did not know who was groaning. Some consistent coughing by another person inside the building confirmed that he was not alone in this building.
He walked to the door and pressed the switch near it hoping to hear a bell ringing somewhere. After all, he reasoned, the switch had the word press inscribed on it and was meant for calling for attention.
Even after his thumb had been on the switch for about half a minute, there was no response. He felt annoyed because he wanted to go to the toilet and to have a drink of water. After waiting for some minutes and seeing nobody come to his aid, he banged the door with his fists and soon he heard footsteps approaching. The door opened and there, facing him, was one of the policemen who had arrested him the previous day.
"What do you want?" he snapped.
"I wish to go to the toilet and also to have some water to drink," Chipota said trying to get a glimpse of what was outside the door but unable to do so since the policeman had blocked the view.
He was told to get out and was led towards the end of the corridor where the toilets were. Even while out there, he could not tell whether it was day or night. The corridor was just like his room, dimly lit. He could, however, not fail to notice that the corridor was lined by several doors that resembled that of his cell. He concluded that they were all underground cells and wondered how many people were there.
As he walked back to his cell, the policeman right behind him, Chipota heard the groan again. It was coming from behind one of the doors. It was more like the sound of an animal in pain, a deep mournful cry of a subdued creature.
Chipota cringed, detesting the thought of what reduced the groaner to that. He got the feeling that the groaning could be coming from a person in the same situation as his. He remembered that he had been told the previous evening that he had the choice of either freely recalling certain events that he did not know about or being forced to do so by the men he had faced.
He knew that the men meant business as his bruises could tell. He had a vision of the groaning man: a battered mass of flesh, wracked with pain and groaning with pain. Chipota was in a dilemma because he did not want to contemplate a situation which could reduce him to a groaning mass of bruised bones and flesh.
He looked back at the encounter he had with his interrogators and did not know what to make of it. They had confronted him and levelled accusations that were false; and yet they looked determined to prove the falsehood true by hook or crook. He could not figure out how they had come to their conclusions.
Chipota searched his past to try and find out whether there was any time he had been associated, even very remotely, with the dissident Movement he was supposed to have belonged to.
He drew a blank. He knew Professor Kigoi had been named by politicians as the leader of the July 10 Movement. But so far they had not produced any evidence of anti-government activities on the part of the professor before he left the country.
Chipota recalled the friendship that had grown between him and the professor during the former's first year at the university. The friendship grew out of Chipota's love for reading outside his field of study and the professor's eagerness to loan him books. Gradually the two began sharing ideas and engaged in involving debates on national and international issues.
Chipota sometimes found the professor too sentimental on some issues, particularly those to do with the distribution of national resources. He would hammer and hammer the point home that some prominent people were behaving like pirates in the high seas. He would lament that those rich people were riding on the skill and labour of the poor on their way to wealth. He saw a solution in the weakening of the capitalistic stranglehold that denied the poor a chance to make a reasonable living.
However, while in the university, the professor had never professed any ideas that bordered on calling for revolution; lately, though, he had been doing so from exile. Chipota was sure that the professor had been radicalised by his experiences just before running away from the country. He had been consistently harassed by the police who said that he was preaching Marxist doctrines in his classes. He was arrested thrice and kept in police custody for long hours without any charges being made against him in court. He decided that the next thing would be detention and he, therefore, ran away while the going was good.
Abroad, he had joined the ranks of people who had run away for their covert actions against the government. There, the professor had not spared any efforts to condemn the government at home. He called for revolutionary change.
Chipota was puzzled that the police knew about the friendship between him and the professor. He was even more puzzled that anybody had associated him with the July 10 Movement. One thing that he was sure about now was that somebody had told lies about him to the police. That is why they had searched his house hoping to find something that would associate him with the dissidents.
No wonder the policemen had been excited whenever they came across publications in his house that mentioned the word revolution. He wondered what point they would make by seizing such books.
At the back of his mind, however, Chipota suspected that anything could happen to him including going to jail and detention. In recent months he had read enough stories about people who had been sent to prison after pleading guilty to all kinds of charges to do with sedition. There were a few facts about the convictions that were strange, he thought.
For one, only about four of the hundred or so people who had appeared in court had denied the charges against them. They came to court and pleaded guilty even though they knew that they would get long sentences.
Out of the four who denied their charges, two of them reappeared in the same court in the afternoon of the same day to change their pleas of not guilty to pleas of guilty. It struck some people including Chipota as strange that a person could plead not guilty in the morning and change his plea later in the day.
It also occurred to him that none of the accused had engaged lawyers although most of them were well-educated people holding good jobs before their arrest. It was strange that none of them sought legal help despite the seriousness of the charges facing them.
Chipota also recalled that those who were charged with sedition were brought to court rather late in the afternoon and appeared before the same magistrate. It was odd that they were normally brought to the magistrate at 5 p.m, half an hour after office hours. Normally the audience in those cases consisted of policemen and the press only.
As he prepared to spend his second day in the cell, Chipota remembered that those who had been charged with sedition appeared in court weeks and sometimes months after their arrest. He had never given thought to what happened to those people between the time they were arrested and when they were charged in court. But now he had begun to have an idea about where they were held.
Chipota resolved that whatever happened, he would not be brow-beaten into submission. He believed that his innocence would speak for him although he remembered that he had read somewhere that: "Put innocence against brutality and innocence will lose." He hoped that this statement would not have validity in his case.
The door of the cell opened and the same policeman thrust a plastic cup at him. It was three quarters full with lukewarm tea. He gulped it down and it made him have a warm sensation in the stomach. The tea made him assume that it was morning and he was sure that was the hour because he could hear some voices speak towards the end of the corridor where there was an office but he could not discern what they were saying. He was anxious to see how the day would turn out now that he was supposed to have remembered all the things that his captors wanted to know.
An hour later, footsteps stopped at his door and he heard the key turn. He was told to put on his shoes and no sooner had he done that than Inspector Ummure clamped a blindfold around his eyes. As he was being led out by the arm, he expected to be led to the lift and up to the interrogation room. But after a short walk, he was ordered to stop. The hands that were leading him turned him around and he was told to sit.
Chipota expected to slide on a chair but his groping hands touched metal. When he sat, it was on the edge of something hard.
"Start crawling in, your head first," he was ordered.
He obliged and found that he was climbing into the back of a jeep.
Once gain, his captors had come up with another surprise. They ordered him to lie on the floor and stay like that. Then the vehicle started moving after a sliding gate had been opened.
Chipota was surprised when, after a few minutes, he felt hands untying the blindfolds. Hope engulfed him since he could not see any other reason why they would remove the blindfolds unless they were releasing him. It felt good to watch the world again after so many hours in darkness. He could not believe that only a few minutes before, he was a lonely man in a cell that could have been anywhere in the basement of a city building. He could now see the familiar places in the city and total freedom seemed within reach. He surveyed the faces of the other people in the jeep to see whether they betrayed any emotions that would tell him what was coming. The faces did not show anything. They were as blank as those of the policemen who had arrested him the previous day. Apart from Inspector Ummure, the other policemen were total strangers. The two who sat with him at the back of the jeep were young men of around thirty while Inspector Ummure sat in front with the driver.
The only thing that made him doubt whether they were going to release him was the fact that they had not returned his belongings which they had taken away from him before he was thrown into the underground cell. After a while, however, he concluded that they must have carried them with them to hand them over to him later or they had just forgotten to take them. Whatever the case, what mattered to him at that moment was the possibility of freedom. 
W2F008K
"It is good we have travelled well, our Maker is in heaven," said an old woman sitting three seats behind the driver of the minibus which was carrying Kanaya. "Dawn is the best time for a person returning home for the last time."
"You have spoken the truth, Sandeere," said a second old woman sitting beside the first one. "It is good that we have returned the spirit of this child safely to the place where her umbilical cord was buried, to lie there and be reunited with it for the journey back to those who have gone before us. How many such journeys have we heard of where the spirit of the dead one refused to be returned home? How many?" No one answered the second woman's question. Those who had heard her clearly gazed at her in astonishment for a brief moment and then turned their faces to look elsewhere. Nyamai was a respected woman from Kanaya's village, but her tongue had crossed the boundary of things to say this time. What did she want to remind Kanaya of these other possibilities for?
They were now approaching the main local market which served a cluster of five adjoining villages including Seboa, Kanaya's village. It was some minutes to five o'clock, and early birds were already singing in nearby bushes. Every now and then, a cock filled the air of dawn with a spirited <onom/>griguguuguu, announcing the arrival of the morning, and when it finished, another took over and passed on the same message to its own section of the village. Sometimes two or more cocks cried out at the same time, as if an invisible manipulator had switched them on simultaneously.
At the shopping centre, all the vehicles in the cortege from the city stopped to observe a new custom. It was now a generally accepted practice, since the advent of automobiles, that as soon as the cortege got to the border of the village from which the deceased came, the spirit of the dead should be let alone to find its own way home. No other vehicle was therefore allowed to precede the one in which the deceased was carried. So all the vehicles in the funeral procession were stopped at the local market to allow the minibus which was carrying Kanaya to move to the front. The shopping centre was about four miles away from Kanaya's actual home.
The journey from the city to the village had been incident-free and all the people, especially the old women from Seboa, were pleased with Kanaya. She had demonstrated in no uncertain terms that hers was a clean heart. Having got this far, some of the passengers now remembered vividly incidents when a sulking dead had caused fatal accidents along the way. Some of them even recalled close relatives who had lost their lives that way. But they were happy and greatly relieved that their Kanaya was not like that. The young woman had remained calm and allowed them to return her to her place of birth before daybreak.
They had left the city as the sun went down after the funeral service at the Lutheran Church. People had filled the usually spacious church and had spilled into the open spaces outside. Many friends and relatives had wanted to accompany Kanaya home, but there was not enough space in the vehicles which were travelling to Seboa. The University had provided two large buses and a minibus to take staff and students to the funeral. But these and the many private vehicles which were also travelling home were still not enough to meet the demand of all those who desperately wanted to travel. Boge, Kamonya, Dora and Billy Kanzika travelled in Nancy with Headmaster at the wheel.
After the driver of the minibus had manoeuvred it to the front of the funeral procession, all the other vehicles lined up behind it in preparation for the final <?/>murram road stretch to Kanaya's home. It had rained heavily the previous night and the road was fairly slippery, but the vehicles appeared to have mastered the wet condition of the road and were moving smoothly along it. Suddenly, very suddenly, as if scared by something in the road ahead, the minibus began to sway this way and that way across the narrow road. The driver applied emergency brakes and the vehicle skidded into a nearby ditch and stopped. Total silence followed the screams of the few women who had been scared by that crazy dance of the minibus. The driver tried to reverse into the road but the more he tried the more the wheels dug a deeper and deeper home in the mud and settled in it. The driver switched off the engine and jumped out to check the extent of his misfortune. It was no use trying without help. He had to be pushed out of the ditch and the mud.
Some male passengers from the minibus followed the driver out and were immediately joined by others from the vehicles which were trailing them. Soon there was a full-scale conference on how to get the minibus out of the mud. In that kind of situation most people took refuge in democracy. Even those who knew absolutely nothing about driving offered their advice and had the benefit of being listened to briefly before the ridiculousness of their suggestions became apparent to all present.
"This is nothing," said a hefty man who had just arrived at the scene from further down the road. "Come, let us push. The only problem as I see it will be with the big buses. This one here is nothing." The others took him seriously and asked the driver to go back inside and be pushed. Men and one or two women laid their hands on the minibus and pushed as hard as they possibly could, but the small bus did not budge an inch. What was wrong? The people rested and tried again several times with the same lack of results. The same hefty man who had first suggested pushing spoke again. "What kind of road is this?" the man thundered. "Who is the MP for this area?"
"Hon. Mbagaya," someone volunteered an answer, "the Director of Broadcasting." There was silence. The silence of fear, of disgust and disappointment. Fear that the sun would come up and find the cortege still trapped at that section of the road. Disgust and disappointment because Hon. Mbagaya, the man whose voice was always talking about progress and development over the radio and on television, was partly to blame for that uncomfortable delay.
More men came out from the other vehicles and waded their way to where the minibus was stuck. Some had ropes while others came with treasured cables from their cars and tied them on to the bus to help pull it out of the mud. They tried out many schemes but their efforts went unrewarded. The bus still lay on its stomach in the mud, like a tired toad, its rear jutting out into the road. Panic seized some of Kanaya's closest relatives as it suddenly dawned on them that she might have to be carried on people's shoulders to her home. Tears began to form in women's eyes as they searched each other's faces for an explanation. The stillness and silence of the morning began to gnaw at their hearts. Only the muffled croaking of sleepless frogs in nearby ponds and marshes broke the silence, ironically making it thicker and more unbearable. It was now a good half hour since the minibus got stuck in the mud.
Sandeere, the woman who had spoken first as the procession approached the shopping centre, spoke again and this time her words attracted considerable attention, especially among those who understood their implication.
"She is shy," Sandeere said. "She doesn't know how to meet her grandmother with her eyes closed. They should send someone home to ask Nyamusi to speak, to ask her to welcome her granddaughter home."
"Sandeere is right. Do you people know that?" another woman spoke. "What about Minayo here? Is she not the youngest from that womb? Let her speak to Kanaya on behalf of Nyamusi. Kanaya will hear Minayo's words." Soon there was general agreement among the women who had travelled in the minibus that Minayo should speak to Kanaya and appeal to her to release the wheels of the bus. Minayo agreed to speak to Kanaya on behalf of her eldest sister and was subsequently briefed on what to say by a few older women. She walked to the back of the <-/mini bus> where the coffin had been carefully placed and spoke to Kanaya.
"Kanaya, granddaughter of my eldest sister, it is me, Minayo, speaking to you." Minayo spoke softly but with a grave firmness in her voice. "It is me and no one else speaking to you. People are beginning to wonder whether it is you we are carrying or someone else. Where we have come from is far, but where we are going is just here. Release the wheels of the bus and let it take you to your grandmother who must now be tired of waiting. She has been waiting for you since four days ago when you left us. Kanaya, it is me, Minayo, talking to you. Do not let me beg you a second time. Release the legs of the bus and leave your borrowed shyness here. What is it you are fearing at your father's home? Or do you want the eye of the sky to stir and find us here? Remember, our daughter, that your grandmother is now tired of waiting."
"<-/Alright>, tell them to tell the driver to try again," Sandeere instructed her listeners after Minayo's concluding words.
The driver, not at all amused by this madness of talking to the dead, reluctantly resumed his position behind the wheel. He was from a region where such practices were unheard of.
"When you start, go straight into second gear," instructed the hefty man with renewed confidence in his voice. "That will make the bus lighter." Now he turned to the other people and demonstrated how they should push the bus in order to get it out of the ditch without getting too much mud on their clothes.
The driver switched on the engine and the bus began to quiver. He clutched and moved the gear lever into second gear. Then he stepped on the accelerator pedal and released the clutch slowly. The bus protested, splattering the pushers with mud. But it did not budge an inch.
"Shouldn't we be pushing it the way we did before, backwards?" Someone suggested the obvious and was immediately supported by others. The hefty man kept quiet. The driver went into reverse. People laid their hands on the bus and pushed hard. Sandeere prayed silently. Minayo, driven by an illogical spirit of co-operation, had got out of the bus and was actually pushing one of the men who were pushing the bus. The vehicle swayed a little this way, then that way, and as if lifted by an incredibly powerful hand from underneath, jerked itself out of the ditch and back on to the road. A few people, having forgotten the sad reality of the situation, clapped their hands briefly before nature returned lines of sorrow to their faces. Kanaya had agreed to be taken home at last!
The mourners went back into their respective vehicles, and one by one the vehicles came and crossed the muddy stretch where the minibus had been stuck. Not even the two large buses had any difficulty in crossing that section of the road. It was an experience that Headmaster and his four companions and indeed most of the other people in that cortege would remember for a long time. Headmaster made a mental note that when he got the opportunity, he would interview a few old people on the subject of what had just happened at that muddy stretch of the road. 
W2F009K
The intercom buzzed when I was preparing to go to the bathroom. The shrill voice of the porter came through.
"Telephone for Vaveru! Can Vaveru from Kenya please come down to the porter. Anyone hearing this please pass the word to Vaveru."
Abacha lay in bed facing the wall. He turned over and looked at me.
"Telephone for you."
"I'm not deaf."
"She said anyone hearing should pass the message."
"I wonder who could be ringing at this time."
"Erika? "
I slowly shook my head. It was the second Friday since the fateful weekend. I'd hoped against hope that Erika would one day ring or make an appearance but so far nothing. Every time I was called to the phone I'd raced down the stairs like I was now doing, willing the caller to be her but it always turned out to be someone else.
I reached the porter panting slightly.
"A Kis Lany on the line, Vaveru."
"Thank you, Erzsi Néni. Hello?"
"Hi."
"Hello, Waweru speaking."
"It's Zsuzsa."
"Zsu-hi! How are you?"
"Surprised?"
"I didn't expect you so early in the morning."
"I'm in the office early. The others have not come yet. I'm ringing to see how you are."
"That's very nice of you. I'm very well, thank you. And you?"
"I'm also well, but have a bone to pick with you..."
"Oh?"
"...for running away and leaving me to face the music alone."
"You see..."
"On top of that, since you are responsible for my breaking up with Kovacs, the least you can do is to see to it that I'm not lonely."
"I'm sorry I didn't know you've <./>bro--"
"Why not do something about it instead of being sorry?"
"Anything within my power Zsuzsi, I..."
"In that case let's meet tomorrow at Felszabadúlás tér at six. You've not already arranged anything for then, I hope?"
"No, nothing. I'll be all yours."
"I hope so. Look, I have to hang up. The others are coming. See you tomorrow."
"Wait. Where do we meet in Felszabadúlás tér?"
"At the Egyetemi Preszo."
"Good. See you then."
"Bye."
"Bye."
I hung up.
"You've got yourself a date, Vaveru."
"Yes, Erzsi Néni."
"Don't mess this one up. Remember one is as good as the other."
Erzsi Néni took a motherly interest in the affairs of the students. She always had a word of consolation or advice for whoever cared to talk to her. I sometimes preferred talking to her instead of to Abacha who saw every problem as a black-white question and refused to consider the individual human aspect of the issue. On the Sunday I broke up with Erika, after I'd narrated to him what had happened, he declared: <non-standard_>"She threw you out like dat because you're black."<non-standard/> I tried to explain to him that I was the one who was wrong but he laughed <-/if> off. <non-standard_>"We are Africans, my frien'. Since our fo'faders we've always 'ad several women at a time. A black girl wouldn't do dat to you. Even if she go leave you she de go do it wid respect."<non-standard/> I wondered how any girl could leave you with respect after she had found you screwing her best friend's girlfriend, but I didn't pursue the matter. He could be very stubborn on some subjects, this Abacha.
Erzsi Néni's husband was killed in the 1956 Revolution. Her only son defected to Canada a few days after the father's death. He sent a letter on arrival at Montreal and it was the last she heard from him. "I don't know whether Laci is dead or alive," she'd tell me with much sorrow. Now she lived with her three cats, a Pekinese dog and a man she couldn't bear children to because, first, she considered herself too old, and, second, the man was impotent.
All this she told me during the long hours of the nights I spent talking to her in her booth when I couldn't sleep, especially the week following the break up with Erika. I was surprised at how much I felt free with her. I told her things I thought I'd never tell anybody. She listened patiently, attentively, making intelligent comments here and there, never wasting words on pity. Instead she advised where she could. I knew she genuinely cared and I developed a great liking for Erzsi Néni.
"It was Zsuzsa," I said in answer to Abacha's questioning look. He had got off the bed and was regarding his beard in a mirror.
"When will you be back?"
"After the practical physics lecture."
"When will that be?"
"Around twelve. Why?"
"I want you to take me to town to look for a new pair of shoes. Spring is coming, you know."
"Let's meet here then. We can go at two."
"Okay, thank you."
"These shops here are all the same," I observed. "I remember in Nairobi I used to walk from shop to shop before making a decision because you could find the same item sold at varying prices in different places."
"Same in Lagos. You can be offered something at half the price of what you were asked for in a neighbouring shop."
We were walking along Budapest's main street. We entered the Corvin supermarket and rode the escalator to the second floor.
"Yes sir, can I help you?" a teenage salesgirl with a flat chest, and such hairy legs and arms that one could hardly see the skin, approached us. She smiled professionally, showing rows of cigarette stained teeth.
"I'd like some shoes for the summer, please," Abacha said.
"What size do you wear, sir?"
"Forty two."
"Come this way."
We followed her to a shelf containing rows of shoes. She waved her arms. "All these, from here to here." Abacha groaned.
"Not these, please. I'm not in the army and I don't need sandals. What I had in mind was ..."
"I'm sorry but this is all we have."
"But last week I saw on display some very nice shoes for 300 Forint."
"Oh. We sold the last pair of those yesterday. They were selling like hot cakes. Imported, you know."
"I know, that's why I want them. Wouldn't you know where I can get some?"
She shook her head. "Not in the big supermarkets. Maybe you can try the private shops, but it's very unlikely they'll have them because the licence to import was awarded to the government supermarkets only. Why don't you buy a pair of these anyway? They are relatively cheap and will last for many summers..."
Abacha grimaced. "They look like army boots."
"Yes, they're locally made and are quite comfortable and durable."
"It's not durability I'm after. I don't mind buying new shoes every summer if they're fashionable, but these ..."
"Since you'll be wearing them here nobody will notice whether they're fashionable or not," I put in, to further irritate my friend who I could see was already rather annoyed at not finding what he wanted...
The girl shrugged apologetically and moved away to attend to some customers who had just come in.
"It's just last week I saw them on display," Abacha complained.
"You heard her say they were selling like hot cakes. Come. Let's look at some other place."
We combed all the large supermarkets in town looking for the kind of shoes Abacha had seen but everywhere we went they were all sold out.
At last he settled for a poor imitation of Italian style shoes at a private shop a few blocks from Corvin where we had started.
"Should do until I travel to London and get proper shoes."
By the time we reached the hostel it was dark and we were tired, and hungry. We bathed, then went for supper.
"I'll turn in early tonight."
"What are you doing tomorrow?"
"Study during the day, then I'm meeting Zsuzsa at six."
"Is that why she rang?"
"Said I'm responsible for the break up with her boyfriend and the least I can do in way of compensation is to see to it that she's not bored."
"Boy, that sounds promising. One thing I like about these white girls is that they don't beat about the bush."
"Don't assume too much. Maybe she's really lonely and only needs somebody to walk her back home from the cinema."
"Whom are you fooling? It's a foregone conclusion you'll be in her bed before you know what's happening or, to put it more precisely, before she knows what is happening knowing you the way I do."
How right he was....
Six o'clock Saturday evening found me already seated at the Egyetemi Preszo, sipping coffee. I sat facing the entrance and looked up every time someone entered, expecting to see Zsuzsa any time. Thirty minutes passed before she showed up. She was surprised at seeing me.
"You're here already!"
"Of course. We were supposed to meet thirty minutes ago, remember?"
"And you were here then?"
"Ten minutes earlier, in fact. Why?"
"Somebody thoroughly convinced me that Africans never ever keep time, so I delayed for half an hour to give you time."
"Sit down and have some coffee. Who's this who thoroughly convinced you of such a silly thing?"
"He's an engineer working in Mozambique or Tanzania, I don't know which. He's here on leave. He says they always start working late instead of the official time of eight because the Africans are always late."
"Tell him you've met one who's punctual."
"I will, I will. So, how are you otherwise?"
"Very well. That blouse goes well with your hair."
"Thank you. You didn't know I broke up with Kovacs?" 
"I'd guessed you would but didn't know you'd actually done it. You know I broke with Erika on that same day so I have no way of knowing."
"Oh, how come she knew so quickly?"
"She saw everything."
"She did?"
"Didn't you know! She was there in the crowd when I opened the door."
"No!..."
"Honestly. That's why I left."
"But after you left she came with Kovacs and was acting quite normal. They asked me if I'd seen you and I said no. It's then that she looked sad but I thought it was because she didn't know where you were."
"It must have been all an act because she saw us very well when I opened the door. When she got home she immediately packed all my things, then called a taxi."
"I'm sorry it was so hard on you." She placed a comforting hand on mine.
"No need to be. I don't think it was any easier on you."
"No. I think Erika must have told him later. He confronted me and I gave him the boot."
"You did?" I was surprised.
She nodded.
"That was unfair."
"It was the best thing to do otherwise I wouldn't have heard the last of it. You don't know Kovacs."
"But you loved him!"
"I still do ... at least I think so, but I don't want him. Oh, let's talk about ourselves instead. What are we doing this evening?"
"I told you I'm all yours."
"I thought we could go to the cinema, then to a disco later on. What do you say?"
"I say we go to the cinema, then to a disco later on."
"Thought you would."
"But isn't it already too late to go to the cinema?"
"Not if we hurry. We can still catch the main feature." We watched TAX-FREE MARRIAGE, a HungarianFinnish release. It was going to eight thirty when it ended.
"It's still too early to go to the disco," Zsuzsa said. "Let's have a drink."
"You seem to be reading my mind."
We entered a nearby cafe.
"I feel a bit excited," she said as we sat.
"Why?"
"First time I'm dating a black boy. Everyone seems to be looking at us."
"It's something we blacks have to live with here, being stared at. After <-/sometime> you get used to it and hardly notice.
"But it's unpleasant. I hate being stared at."
"Then you refrain from walking with me."
W2F010K
Exactly where Mutiso the goatherd had come from no one really knew. He said he came from the eastern land where honey grew on trees and the people were famous for, among other things, their virility and their powers with real bows and arrows. However, this was not accepted by the people of Thome for only they were capable of fathering dignified and upright men, sages for all time.
Exactly when Mutiso came from wherever he claimed to have come from was also another mystery, a detail that would never be put straight on record for, not having ever been to school himself, he could not enlighten the curious on this subject.
Those who were old enough to, for example, remember when God spoke to people in their own tongue, way back before there was such a thing as a white man, could remember, vaguely, a time when there was no Mutiso the goatherd. But they too could not swear that he did not even then exist among them as an unknown and unsung novice goatherd. Some tried to explain his existence among them as a war loot from the glorious days of the tribal wars and cattle raids. Even these were quick to concede that the land and the people he claimed to have come from were too far away from the Aberdares to have had any such contact with them in the days before maps and <ea/>matatus were invented.
But those who could remember no farther back than the Mau Mau war and the departure of the white man could not remember a time when Mutiso was not on the hillside with his goats. A dark phantom in a heavy greatcoat and a floppy hat, standing on one leg, leaning on the time-worn herdsman's cane while his goats swarmed over the hillside around him.
He had, in fact, become an old relative to many, like an uncle or a grandfather whom one had little to do with but was, nonetheless, there in case they were ever needed; a familiar landmark like an old thorn tree or a rock on a hill that was not of much use but whose presence at the same spot day after day, year after year, was encouraging and gratifying.
Sometimes he sang to his goats in a language only they understood. But most times he just sat and stared off into the horizon and pondered among other things, the after-life and the existence of vast green pastures, with goats as big as cows, where old herdsmen retired after death and where it was always sunrise or sunset, whichever was the herdsman's favourite time of day.
For Mutiso, sunset was his favourite time of day when, in his mind at least, he drove home hundreds of thousands of goats and cattle along old cattle trails in a vast flat land where the dust in their wake turned to gold in the rays of the dying sun, and the evening birds called out a warning, as jackals and hyenas stalked the lambs, and the crickets tuned their instruments for their fantastic night-long recital. He could just imagine this sort of thing going on forever, a setting sun that never set and a cattle drive that never ended. This was his, and surely God's, idea of heaven.
He had discussed this vision with a few of the people who sought him out from time to time to tell him their woes or just to sit with him and watch over the plains and think with him the solutions to their many problems; his presence somehow giving them the clarity of mind they needed to find their own way.
Once Njara, the mechanic, had told Mutiso of a land beyond the place where the earth met with the sky, that was all water and fruit trees. People there did nothing but lie in the sun all day for food was plentiful and they did not have to work to eat. But Mutiso knew this to be impossible, for such a wonderful world was only possible in the fantasies of idlers.
'I read it in a book,' insisted Njara.
Which was an experience Mutiso had never had and was, therefore, of no use in judging the authenticity or even the likelihood of the story.
They sat on the hill overlooking the Pesa property, the homestead, the valley below, the Laikipia plains and the world. In his hand, Mutiso held the tiny round gourd from which he took pinches of snuff as he listened to Njara, a man who admitted having never travelled any farther than Kambi Village, tell him just how big the world was.
Below them, they saw Baba Pesa's God-given car pull out of the drive and roll heavily along the dusty road. The rain for which the village had slaughtered so many goats had come and gone long before they had even ploughed. About half-way down to the Ngobit river crossing, a woman emerged from the bush and flagged down the car. The door opened, the woman got in and the car sped off down the hill.
'Who was that?' wondered Njara aloud.
Mutiso, whose age and character did not allow for gossip and speculation, shrugged and took another pinch of snuff. Presently, he started to sing, a low lament in a language as strange as the language of the trees. Njara, who had spent an exhausting afternoon hunting in the thorny undergrowth for roots and herbs to sell to the root doctor, fell asleep and slept for a long, long time.
He was on his tenth nightmare, the one in which he got the Mercedes and the tractor engines mixed up during an overhaul, and Baba Pesa was chasing him round the yard with his shotgun, when Mutiso jabbed him awake with the tip of his cane.
<ea/>'Amka <ea/>twende,' said the old man. 'It is time to go back.'
The sun was going down, the Aberdare chill creeping stealthily down the hills. They picked up their things and followed the goats home.
Soon, they could hear the mooing and the cow-bells and the general commotion of milking time while far, far below, they saw Juda and Confucias on their way home, roaring drunk.
Half-way down the hill, the men parted company. Njara took a short-cut to the village, while Mutiso drove the goats home. He was in the process of herding them into the goathouse when Mama Pesa came by with the household milk and saw him.
'Mutiso?' she called him.
'Mama?'
'Come to the house,' she said. 'I am going to make some tea.'
<ea/>'Ndiyo <ea/>mama,' said Mutiso. 'Yes, mother, I shall come.'
They were having tea on the veranda a few moments later when Juda staggered up the driveway and across the lawn to them, having had a thoroughly riotous Saturday market day. He had started five fights, stopped three and wasn't certain if he had won any of them. Confucias, his day done, went round to the back of the kitchen to terrorise the cats and to find out what else was new.
'Mother of Elija,' said Juda tiredly. 'I have come.'
'You have found us,' said his mother. 'Come sit down.'
Juda sat on the low veranda wall and, looking hard to focus on Mutiso, said, 'Mutiso?'
'Yuda?' said Mutiso.
<ea/>'Wapi <ea/>mbuzi? asked Juda jokingly. 'Where are the goats?'
They laughed heartily. Juda turned to his mother and wondered where her husband had gone driving like a mad <ea/>matatu driver in his God-given car.
'He almost ran us over,' he said. 'I thought it was you sitting next to him.'
'Me?' wondered Mama Pesa. 'Going where with your father?'
'I thought he might finally have realised you are the best thing that ever happened to him and decided to give you a treat!'
Mama Pesa laughed.
'That will be the day, child,' she said.
'I'll never understand why you ever married him,' Juda told her.
'Your grandfather died wondering,' laughed his mother.
'And so might I,' he said.
Mama Pesa seemed slightly puzzled by this but she blamed it on her son's <-/drunkeness>. Mutiso, who hailed from an age when men were sane and honourable, looked down on his tyre sandals and his gnarled feet and concentrated on drinking from the enormous cup nicknamed <ea/>mugambo, the big voice, and told himself that he was mistaken though he knew he was right.
'Come have some tea,' Mama Pesa said to her son.
'It might kill me sooner,' said Juda.
Then catching sight of Elija passing by with a bundle of freshly chopped firewood, he called out, 'Brother, can you spare ten shillings? I will give it back to you when I am rich and important.'
Elija ignored him and went about his chores.
'It seems I might have to drink your tea after all,' said Juda to his mother.
Then he sat in his father's rocking chair and, swinging his legs onto the low wall, fell asleep before his mother could round up another <ea/>mugambo of tea for him. 
When she tried to wake him up hours later, having failed the first and second times, he told her to leave him alone as he did not want tea, milk, food or to go to bed. He just wanted to sit there and think about the many things he had to think about.
It was full moon again. Dogs called new-moon greetings at each other from across the hills and down in the plains and, with this canine serenade going on all over the world, it seemed a good time indeed to be doing some serious thinking.
Leaving Juda alone, Mama Pesa went to her room. She sat in bed, read the daily chapter in the Bible and prayed that Juda would think up something good and sensible to do with his life for, this far, it had been an absolute waste. Then she turned off the kerosene lamp, electricity wouldn't make it to Thome for another century or so, if the prophesies of her son Juda were to be taken seriously, and listened to Confucias' barking contest with another dog somewhere in the distance.
'Confucias!' bellowed Juda angrily. 'Shut up, dog! We have decisions to make here.'
Confucias whined, slunk under the chair and wondered if he should let off a party-breaker. He decided Juda was in no mood for such fun and went for a stroll instead.
Down at the Baru place, Chui went on barking for a while longer expecting a reassuring bark from Confucias and suffered instead a burning piece of firewood, hurled at him by Moses to shut him up.
Inside the Baru hut, the family was settling down to a belated dinner of salted <ea/>githeri, human food that even Chui sometimes wouldn't eat, and calabashes of fermented porridge. The hut was dark and smoky, lit only by a small tin lamp, ingeniously made out of an old cocoa tin by the very clever hands of their son Moses.
'Leave the dog alone,' said Baru to his son.
He came from the old school that believed even a dog should have an opinion and a right to express that opinion if it so wished.
He sat across the fire from his wife, chewing slowly, thoroughly, on his <ea/>githeri and, from time to time, sipping from the calabash at his feet. The fact that the sour porridge was unsugared and the <ea/>githeri over-salted made the meal a particularly unpalatable fare and even Chui the dog, thought Baba Baru, had every right to refuse to eat it.
'Did you give your daughter some sugar to take to her grandmother?' he said to his wife.
'I had little money,' said Mama Baru. 'But I did remind her to ask her to visit us for Christmas.'
'She may be dead by then,' Moses observed quietly.
Mama Baru glared at her son in a way that left no doubt an explanation was expected.
'Mother, old people die,' he said. 'Very, very old people die suddenly, without warning.'