Softly Calls the Serengeti (34 page)

Joshua slept badly. Early the next morning, he thumbed the text message to his team-mates and supporters, giving instructions about the time and place to meet. He set up the broadcast call but his finger hovered over the
Send
option. He had no heart for continuing the battle. He and his fellow Odinga supporters were not achieving what they wanted. While there were thousands legitimately involved in protests against the actions of the government, there were many more who simply used the confusion to loot, rape and destroy indiscriminately.

He knew his team-mates would follow him into the bloody situation that Koske wanted at the KICC that night, but it would almost certainly mean more deaths. For Mayasa's sake, he felt compelled to do as Koske demanded, but it would be a cowardly retreat for him.

He deleted the text message.

Once he had made up his mind, he knew he had to act swiftly. When Riley didn't answer his mobile, he called Charlotte.

‘I must speak to Mr Mark,' he said.

‘He told me he was taking the car to a garage for some repairs. But are you okay? I've heard terrible news about the riots and looting.'

‘Yes. I am, but…'

‘Yes…?'

‘I am worried about Mayasa.' He told her about Koske's threats. ‘We need to find somewhere to hide outside Kibera. Can you help us get out?'

There was silence on the line for several heart-stopping moments.

‘I might be able to do something, but let me make a few calls first, then I'll find Mark and we can come and get both of you
out of there. Text me later and tell me where to meet you. Is Mayasa with you?'

Joshua sighed. ‘No, and I don't know where to look.'

‘Just be calm. Think. Where could she be?'

Joshua clenched and unclenched his fists. ‘I've asked Kwazi to find where she is.'

‘When will you hear from him?'

‘I don't know, but if I don't find her before tonight, I don't think I'll ever find her.'

 

Mayasa was only half awake, dozing in the heat of mid-morning, when the mobile phone rang. It made her start. She'd not heard it ring in all the time she'd been confined in the orphanage. Somehow she knew the call would be about her.

Bull took the call and immediately sat up straight in his chair. Mayasa kept her eyes half closed and listened, but Bull made no comment other than an occasional nod and grunt of acknowledgement. She watched him scratch his head and wrinkle his brow. He turned in her direction as the call ended, but remained seated for a moment, still scratching his head. Then he stood, straightened his shoulders and went to the door.

The Jackal followed him back inside, and, as usual, his eyes went directly to Mayasa. She kept her eyelids hooded to feign sleep and listened as the two men began to talk.

Bull said he needed to go out and that the Jackal should remain inside until he returned. He took the long, naked-bladed
panga
from the younger man, who had apparently been using it to slash the weeds in the compound, and placed it on the meeting table. At the door, he turned back to glance at Mayasa, who now sat up, pleading with her eyes that he not leave her alone with the frightening Jackal.

Bull turned away and pulled the door closed behind him.

The Jackal grinned.

Joshua unbolted the door and Kwazi entered, merely nodding to Joshua's greeting of ‘
Habari
'. He did, however, take Simon's hand in the respectful African way, his two hands encircling Simon's in an encompassing grasp.

Joshua noticed Kwazi's eyes. They were flint-hard, and he took time to move to the chair where, without waiting for the customary invitation, he took a seat. From years of observing Kwazi's almost impenetrable moods, Joshua knew his friend was in pain.

‘Where's your wheelchair?' he asked.

‘It's gone. Last night someone threw me from it and stole it.'

‘Ah, ah, ah,' Simon said, shaking his head. ‘They must be from outside.'

‘Maybe, but the whole of Kenya has gone mad,' Kwazi said. ‘Anyway, what good is a wheelchair in Kibera alleys?'

‘There are so many of these young thugs running about, making trouble,' Simon added. ‘I don't know who can stop them. It was lucky you had no money or it would be gone.'

‘Did you hear anything about Mayasa?' Joshua asked Kwazi impatiently.

‘Do you know the old building behind Toi Market?' Kwazi asked. ‘The one sometimes used as an orphanage?'

‘No,' Joshua said. ‘Is that where she is?'

Kwazi nodded.

Joshua knew the implications. It was Kikuyu territory. He hesitated before asking the inevitable question. ‘Will you take me there?'

‘No,' Simon interjected. ‘It is not safe. You know the Mungiki will be watching for any Kalenjin or Luo who enters there.'

The Mungiki, a largely Kikuyu group modelled on the Mau Mau, had been accused of beheading opponents in a number of well-publicised incidents.

‘I must go,' Joshua said.

‘No.'

‘Don't you understand? I must go for Mayasa. It's Koske's men who have her, and now that I have defied him he will use her to make me pay.'

‘I will go,' Simon said defiantly. ‘The Mungiki will pay no attention to an old man.'

‘The Mungiki have no respect for anyone,' Joshua said heatedly.

He wasn't angry at his father, but at himself. He had been foolish to think he could accept Koske's help without paying a price. How could he have believed he might win a position in the national football competition on his own merits?

He softened his voice. ‘Thank you, but I must do it. I will go alone.'

‘You will not.' Now it was Kwazi who spoke sternly. ‘You don't even know where you're going. I will come with you.'

 

Kwazi was exhausted by the time they reached the burnt-out remains of Toi Market. He'd been forced to trot behind Joshua's hurried strides. Now, Kwazi's hip sent fireballs of pain down his leg and his back was in spasm.

‘Is that it?' Joshua asked as they stood at the end of the badly potholed road. A hundred metres away was a cement-block building behind a stand of lop-eared banana plants.

‘It is,' Kwazi replied, panting.

‘I don't see anything. Maybe it's not the place?'

‘It's the place. My friend has seen Koske's men coming and going, but there is never a time when there is no one here. They must be inside. With Mayasa.'

‘Let's go!' Joshua said.

Kwazi grabbed his arm. ‘Wait! What are you doing?'

‘I'm going to get Mayasa, of course.'

‘Look, my friend, I have heard about these fellows. They are Koske's thugs. They do the work that even Koske won't do. They are big, and very bad.'

‘What can I do? I have to get her out of there.'

‘Do you think you'll be invited in when you get there? No. So let's do this. We go down and ask if Mr Kirangi is around—he's the caretaker. We make like we're looking for a job. But we check to make sure Mayasa is there and see how many men are inside with her. Then we come back here and think before we do anything.
Si ndiyo?
'

Joshua hesitated for an instant, nodded and turned to go.

‘Wait, wait,' Kwazi pleaded. ‘Charlotte. You've forgotten to tell Charlotte where we will meet her.'

Joshua pulled out his mobile phone, thumbed in a text, then set off down the pock-marked bitumen to the hall. Kwazi hobbled behind him as quickly as possible, cursing his aching hip and back.

 

Charlotte hung up from her call to Dr Gilanga. Mark still had not returned from the garage. She called him, but received his cheerless recorded voice suggesting the usual options.

When she clicked off, her message alert peeped. It was Joshua, saying they would meet her in the Nakumatt car park in Ngong Road.

At the hotel reception desk she enquired about a courtesy car. The hotel clerk advised that, owing to the security risk, all hotel cars were temporarily unavailable.

She asked the concierge to call a taxi, but no one would agree to take her anywhere near Kibera.

In desperation, she walked to the lower section of the car park where the taxis congregated, moved boldly through the gathered drivers, found a driverless taxi with the keys in the ignition and stole it.

 

Mayasa avoided eye contact with the Jackal, but she knew he was watching her as he made much of sharpening his
panga
on the unpainted cement-block wall.

She alternated between concern about being alone with the Jackal for the first time and the reason why Bull had found it necessary to desert her. Both actions were unprecedented. She caught the Jackal staring at her again and decided to get off the camp stretcher she used as a bed.

She started to pace the length of the wall with the shuttered window. Each time she passed she carefully examined the shutter's slide bolts, trying to establish if the bolts she could see were the only ones that kept it locked.

‘You must not look out the window, ah?' the Jackal said with a crooked smile from across the breadth of the room.

‘I…I'm not. I'm just…walking.'

On the third pass, she decided they were not fastened other than with the two slide bolts. There was a chair further along the wall that would serve as a stepladder to reach the bolts. If she were quick enough, she thought, she could scramble onto the chair, slide the bolts and open the window before the dim-witted Jackal could react.

On the next stroll past, she casually reached down to the chair and lifted it.

Suddenly she felt a presence behind her. Before she could swing around, the Jackal grabbed her around the waist. She struggled to loosen his grip and in the process he spun her around, his twisted smile now inches from her face.

 

Joshua heard a scream when halfway to the orphanage. He broke into a sprint, leaving Kwazi in his wake. The door was locked, but he threw his shoulder at it with all his weight. There was a splintering sound and the door burst inwards.

Mayasa was on the floor. Straddling her was a young man, tearing at her tee-shirt. A
panga
lay on the floor beside them.

Joshua bellowed and charged across the room, but the young man quickly leapt to his feet with the
panga
pointed towards Joshua like a sword. He was grinning like a fool, his teeth yellowed and broken.

Joshua circled him, trying to get between him and Mayasa, but the man with the
panga
moved to block the only escape route.

Just then, Kwazi came stumbling and cursing through the door.

The Jackal spun about. In horror, he saw the face of a demon leering at him. He screamed and lashed out with his
panga
again and again until the ghost of the Nubian soldier lay bleeding on the floor.

In another moment, howling like a madman, the Jackal was gone.

 

Joshua stood frozen in the seconds it took for Kwazi to arrive and for the
panga
to fall on him. The first blow felled his friend where he stood, and now he lay almost at Joshua's feet, the blood still flooding from his mutilated body. His neck appeared to have been broken by the force of the
panga
blow, and his face, frozen in the moment death had laid its cold hand on him, was twisted even beyond the ruin he'd carried with him through life.

Joshua couldn't move. He couldn't bring himself to reach out to touch Kwazi in case the action confirmed his worst fears.
As Mayasa knelt beside Kwazi's body, sobbing, he felt an almost unbearable urge to flee the building, the blood and the
panga
, and the tragic sight of Kwazi's pitiful body.

At that moment, he was once again a twelve-year-old with eyes of ice and a stone in place of his heart, staring at the incinerated bodies of his mother and three young sisters.

 

Simon could not sit at home alone while his son faced such danger. He headed towards Kibera Gardens Road and as he dashed through the Nakumatt car park, he saw Charlotte sitting in a taxi. Oddly, she was in the driver's seat. She flinched when he tapped on the window.

‘Charlotte,' he said when she'd rolled it down, ‘what are you doing here? It's not safe.'

She told him about Joshua's arrangements and he hurried on. Reaching the orphanage, he spotted Joshua and Mayasa from the garden. They were standing in the doorway.

‘Joshua!' he hissed from the cluster of banana plants. ‘This way! Charlotte is there. She's waiting.'

He knew they would have precious little time to escape Kibera before the local Mungiki gang heard of the Luos invading their territory.

Neither Joshua nor Mayasa made a move.

He hurried to them. ‘We must be quick!' he said, this time more insistently. ‘They will be coming!'

He tugged at Joshua's arm, then followed his gaze to the body lying on the ground like a broken and bloodied shell.

‘
Haki ya mungu
,' he whispered. ‘What have they done?'

Simon stepped between Joshua and what remained of Kwazi and hugged his son to him fiercely. ‘Oh, my son,' he said. ‘What have they done to this poor boy? This poor, poor boy.'

Mayasa, tears streaming down her face, joined them. They
stood in silence until the clamour of voices from behind the first row of shacks alerted them to the approaching mob.

‘Come, Joshua,' Mayasa pleaded. ‘We can do nothing for him. The…the gang. They're coming.'

Joshua stooped to Kwazi's lifeless body.

‘No,' Simon said, stopping his arm. ‘There is no time for that. We must run!'

‘No time?' Joshua cried, his eyes now ablaze. ‘I have caused all this. How can I leave him here?'

‘It will do nothing to help Kwazi if the Mungiki catch us,' Simon responded.

Mayasa tugged at his arm. ‘Joshua! We must hurry!'

He stared at her, conflicting emotions twisting his face.

‘Please,' she added.

‘My son, we must leave. For Mayasa's sake if not for your own. You know what they will do to her.'

This time Joshua understood. He grabbed Mayasa's arm and, with Simon following, dashed up Kibera Gardens Road.

The voices followed them, but they made it to Charlotte and the taxi. She threw the car into gear and they fled down Ngong Road towards the hotel.

Simon sat in the back seat beside Joshua, tightly holding his son's shoulders. Nobody spoke. They were driving through what could have been a war zone, and Charlotte, who still knew nothing of Kwazi's death, was absorbed in avoiding the debris and piles of burning wreckage that littered the road.

Mayasa, red-eyed, sat on the other side of Joshua, who held his clenched fists in his lap.

She reached for his hand to hold it close, but he kept his fingers tightly closed. Mayasa persisted, prising at his fingers. Joshua finally let them uncurl and tears fell on his bloodstained palms.

 

‘Good evening, this is “The Week in Revue”, with Jephta Maraga.

‘The violence that has swept Kenya in recent days has shocked us all; indeed, it has shocked the world. Not since Rwanda have right-minded people been so outraged.

‘This week's story is from Kiambaa—a small community about four hours north-west of Nairobi.

‘A dispute arose in this village between two groups of people. I won't resort to the common practice of defining them by their tribal group. Let's just say they were from opposite ends of the current political spectrum.

‘The dispute might have been solved by the elders in the usual peaceful manner, but the community split along political lines. A member of one group wounded a person from the other with an arrow. The others retaliated. Reinforcements came from neighbouring towns, and the violence escalated.

‘One group, overwhelmed by superior numbers, fled to safety in havens such as churches, police stations and mosques.

‘We now know that the people who fled to the church at Kiambaa on 1 January 2008 were not safe at all.

‘The assailants piled petrol-soaked mattresses and blankets at the doors and windows of the church, then set them alight. The flames quickly leapt to the roof and the church became an inferno. Men, women and children screamed for mercy. Those who tried to escape were forced back with clubs and spears. People who came to their rescue were hacked to death with machetes, shot with arrows, or pursued and then hacked to pieces. The death toll for this horrific incident stands at twenty-eight. Fifty-four others were seriously injured.

‘Sadly, this is only one of many tragic stories that have happened throughout Kenya this week. We don't know the extent of the deaths and injuries as yet, but early estimates say there are somewhere between one and two thousand people already dead from this post-election violence.

‘I imagine we will hear the phrase “post-election violence” quite a lot during the coming weeks and months. It will become a euphemism for the type of atrocities that happened at Kiambaa this week—atrocities committed by Kenyans against Kenyans.

‘Ladies and gentlemen…what is happening to our country?'