Softly Calls the Serengeti (4 page)

‘This time it will be different, I tell you.'

‘This time will be the same. I'm older than you. You can't remember the last elections. You were just a snot-nosed kid, playing games in…' Kwazi stopped, realising his insensitivity too late.

Joshua's mouth opened, but the words would not come. He gaped at his friend. Kwazi frantically searched for a means to redeem himself; to retrieve his unintentional cruelty.

Finally, Joshua spoke. ‘I remember it too.' Then he turned and walked quickly through the storeroom doors.

Kwazi wanted to call him back, but couldn't. There was nothing to say. He watched Joshua walk out into the compound, square-shouldered and head up. He was soon lost in the golden sunrise.

 

Joshua was full of rage as he strode along the back roads of the industrial area. Taking a short cut across the Railway Golf Course, he ignored the shouts of abuse from a group of early-morning golfers. He was still fuming when he reached the Adams Arcade parking lot and scaled the stairs to the mall two at a time. It wasn't until he approached the small supermarket that he controlled his aggressive demeanour, recalling the watchful eyes of the arcade's security guards.

Inside the supermarket, he spent a great deal of time studying the shelves of canned vegetables. The guard who had followed him in tired of his procrastinations and returned to his post at the front of the shop.

In the fruit section, Joshua pulled a banana from a bunch, peeled and ate it as he walked, then tossed the skin under a display cabinet. He went to the magazine rack and fingered through the various sports titles, before choosing a popular football magazine, which he shoved down the front of his trousers.

At the register, he thrust a packet of Tic Tacs and a coin at the young check-out girl. The security guard scowled as Joshua theatrically popped a Tic Tac into his mouth and strolled out.

At the Safaricom counter he bought the cheapest top-up card and keyed the code into his mobile phone, which was held together by two bands of grubby tape. He wandered through the arcade, checking his messages. When he looked up, he realised he'd come to a stop outside the travel agent's window.
It held posters of the great cities of the world: Hong Kong and London; Sydney and New York.

They reminded him of the poster that had had such an enormous impact on him as a child. It had advertised a place so exotic, so unlike his home in Kibera, that he could barely believe it existed. The colours in the grass, which seemed to sway in an invisible breeze, were mesmerising; the immense herds of animals—outlandish creatures with stripes or horns; the unimaginable breadth of the blue sky. He'd believed he could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin; even taste the air. It had gladdened his heart to know that such a place existed, no matter how remote it might be. He remembered sobbing when his mother had dragged him away from the window.

The poster remained in the agency's window for many years, gradually losing its vivid colours in the harsh tropical light. By then he knew—because he had learnt to read English—that it showed the Serengeti National Park, located in a remote part of the neighbouring country of Tanzania.

Then, one day, the poster was gone and its disappearance left a void inside him. The poster had been his refuge—a place to go to restore his soul when life in the slums brought anger or sadness. Still, a child in Kibera quickly learns how to deal with disappointment, and soon a far greater tragedy was to occur that surpassed all previous losses.

He realised he was so angry now because of Kwazi's insult; the insinuation that being the son of a Kikuyu mother and a Luo father somehow made him less than normal. Inadequate.

The insult had stung because it touched the very centre of Joshua's pain. It wasn't so bad that he was the child of a mixed marriage, of a Kikuyu and Luo. The tragedy for him was that he belonged to neither tribe. When his mother died, he lost any chance of becoming a Kikuyu, and because of his father's stubborn refusal to share his Luo ancestry, he was excluded from becoming a real Luo. Despite that, Joshua still chose to call himself Luo. For it was a group of Kikuyu boys who had
burnt down his family home that terrible night in October 2002, killing his mother and sisters. He had felt an intense hatred for all Kikuyus from that day on.

Simon Otieng had spent the morning hanging on the gate wire of yet another building site hoping for work, but again with no luck. Now he wandered aimlessly along the rutted roads of the industrial area, kicking at stones and pondering the endless run of bad luck that continued to assail him.

The single greatest disaster in his life was the fire that had taken almost everything he had, including the lives of his wife and their three daughters. It had happened during the elections of 2002, when Kikuyu youths were howling through Kibera in support of Mwai Kibaki, their candidate for president. Much blood had been spilt that terrible, turbulent night, and Simon's shack had been set alight.

Simon felt it was not surprising that Joshua had hated Kikuyus with a passion since that night. Now he seemed to be intent on waging war on them during the build-up to these new elections. Simon knew he could change the way Joshua thought about the Kikuyu people by revealing one horrendous truth. But the truth always has consequences, and he was worried that revealing it could worsen the situation between him and his son.

The thought of death brought him back, as always, to what he believed was the cause of all his bad luck, and again he wondered about his decision to flee his Luo homeland.

 

In 1983, Simon and his friend Nicholas Odhiambo were just thirteen. They had been rivals for as long as either could remember. At school they competed against each other in every sport. While at play in their village they tried to outdo each
other in spear-throwing and bird-catching and climbing and fire-making. There wasn't a contest or pastime that didn't incite them to a continuation of the battle for supremacy.

This time the object of their battle would be the formidable Sergeant Mutua.

Mutua was a Wakamba, a tribe more famous than any other as safari porters in the days when an eighty-pound tusk carried to the ivory markets in Mombasa could return a small fortune. Other tribes engaged in the trade, but the Wakamba were known to be able to turn around the next day to repeat the journey.

The District Commissioner had chosen Sergeant Mutua to head the local administrative police post over several more highly qualified local men because he believed that appointments from within the local community led to rampant cronyism.

Mutua was not known for his hard work, but he climbed the ranks of the administration police nevertheless. He was a dour, hard-headed disciplinarian who employed his considerable physical bulk to intimidate not only the miscreants who crossed his path but also any fellow policemen who disagreed with him.

Being an outsider, Mutua became a person of interest to the children. If he'd allowed this natural curiosity to run its course, the children would have soon tired of him, but he tackled the situation with characteristic belligerence. He scowled and threatened them, once or twice catching a child and giving him a cuff. His face went blue with anger on such occasions, giving rise to further curiosity. Just how blue could the sergeant's face become?

Most children were frightened off by Mutua's physical reprisals, but a few of the very daring continued to tease him. For Simon and Odhiambo, this was a sport demanding bravery, cunning and skill—the essential attributes of Luo warriors.

The two boys were approaching their
muko lak
, when their six lower front teeth would be removed in the ceremony that initiated them into manhood, and so were constantly
endeavouring to emulate the bravery of their older cousins before joining their ranks. Instead of baiting lions to prove their bravery and readiness for battle, the boys decided to bait the next most ferocious beast in their realm—Sergeant Mutua.

Mutua was very proud of his policeman's jacket of navy blue. To keep it in pristine condition, he would remove it whenever there was a risk that it might be soiled, and always hung it on the broken limb of a tree while having his midday meal at the small
duka
near the village.

Odhiambo conceived a plan to use
siafu
ants to test the extent of the sergeant's anger. The army ant, or
siafu
in Swahili, is an extremely aggressive species that can strip meat from a carcass in a matter of hours. It is said that the soldier class of
siafu
ants prepares its assault on an enemy by waiting until large numbers are in position before launching a coordinated attack using its powerful mandibles. A
siafu
ant would be torn apart before relinquishing its vicelike hold.

Odhiambo collected a great many
siafu
soldier ants in a calabash and, on the designated date, when his friends were in situ ready to witness the event, he emptied the ants into the sergeant's coat pockets and closed the flaps.

When Mutua returned to the tree and donned his jacket with a flourish, the ants came storming from their incarceration. Within seconds, Sergeant Mutua was dancing, screaming and slapping at himself—to the huge enjoyment of Odhiambo, Simon and their friends. In his frenzy, Mutua tore the coat from his back, ripping off a sleeve in the process. His precious coat was ruined.

Some days later, Odhiambo was missing from the clearing where the boys regularly played their games. When Simon learnt he was in the mission hospital, he hurried to see him. A nurse directed him to a bed at the end of the ward.

Odhiambo lay in the hot semi-darkness under an insect net. When Simon lifted it, he couldn't believe what he saw. Odhiambo was unrecognisable. His brow had been opened to
the bone, and his eyes were swollen into two slits. His nose was flattened against his face. Although his jaw was lightly bandaged, it sat at an odd angle, and when he painfully tried to smile through his swollen and split lips, he revealed a bloody mess where his six lower front teeth had been brutally removed.

Simon rushed from the ward and vomited onto the dirt.

It took him many months to come up with a plan to make Sergeant Mutua pay for the beating he'd given Nicholas Odhiambo.

He and Odhiambo agreed it was unlikely they could inflict a comparable degree of physical violence upon Mutua, so their best chance was to humiliate him, preferably in front of the entire community. Simon thought it wise to exclude any plans that involved serious injury and possible death. One idea was to hitch a bullock to Mutua's tin shack and pull it down with Mutua inside. But a bullock was a high price to pay if Mutua extracted himself from the wreck in time to seize the animal.

The harvest festival offered an opportunity too good to miss. The 1984 crop had exceeded all expectations and the Luo community planned an exceptional celebration. The council of elders, who presided over all local matters, decided to invite all the administration officers and encouraged them to wear their respective tribal costumes. For the first time that anyone could recall, Sergeant Mutua appeared not in police uniform but in the colourful paraphernalia of a Wakamba warrior. Nobody was in any doubt that it was the District Commissioner who had insisted Mutua attend.

No one noticed as Simon and Odhiambo released the old he-goat from its tether and led it away to the police compound, which consisted of a small timber-clad office where Mutua spent his daytime hours, an attached sheet-iron lockup, and a third building, Mutua's hut, where he spent the remainder of his time.

The he-goat belonged to Odhiambo's uncle. It was well known within the village for consuming almost anything that
came within its reach, and for that reason it was always tethered. It was also old and useless and, therefore, in Simon's and Odhiambo's eyes, expendable to their cause.

Having locked the goat in Mutua's hut, Simon dashed back to the harvest festival while Odhiambo gathered items to set a smoky fire.

‘Fire! Fire!' Simon yelled, pointing to the pall of smoke rising above the trees.

The villagers raced en masse towards what appeared to be a conflagration.

At the police barracks they gathered, wondering how so much smoke could arise from such a small pile of rubbish.

Mutua was among the last to arrive and quickly realised the smoke was nothing but a diversion. He hurried towards his hut and re-emerged moments later, rear-first, tugging on a leg of his navy-blue trousers. The he-goat came reluctantly from the hut, doggedly holding onto the other leg. After a spirited tug-of-war, the trousers split asunder, sending Mutua sprawling in the dirt.

The villagers roared with laughter.

Mutua sat in the dirt, an expression of utter mortification on his face.

Simon laughed so much, tears rolled down his face. He searched for Odhiambo but couldn't find him in the large crowd.

Turning back to Mutua, he found the sergeant's eyes fixed firmly on him. There was no longer any sign of embarrassment. Instead, the sergeant's face was suffused with fury.

 

Simon knew that Mutua might suspect him, but he could not charge him over the fire. Odhiambo reminded him that Mutua didn't need any charges to dole out brutal punishment.

‘You must keep to the village, my friend,' he told Simon. ‘Never be alone in a place where he can find you.'

‘I am quick. Mutua is slow.'

‘I am quicker than you, but he caught me.'

‘Who says you are quicker than me?' Simon retaliated.

‘Never mind that. We will learn soon enough in the coming games who is stronger and faster. What I am saying is to take care until Mutua gets his transfer.'

After the fake fire when Sergeant Mutua had lost his trousers and then applied for a transfer, the boys in the village had learnt that the
muko lak
had been approved by the council of elders and would be held in the coming weeks. They had decided to conduct a series of contests of their own to select a leader of their graduation group. It was necessary to keep the games secret as the council disapproved of anything that might involve injury in the lead-up to the sacred ceremony.

Simon and Odhiambo were among the six organisers who met in a grove to agree the format of the games. All were keen to include in the contests the ancient art of the spear. Target throws were the usual practice, but Simon wanted something more realistic.

‘Did our ancestors prepare for battle by throwing spears at a tree?' he demanded. ‘No, they fought each other in mock battles, wearing ostrich-feather headdresses and capes of leopard skin. So we must take our lead from them. We should have a mock fight with shields and blocked spears.'

‘What do you mean, blocked spears?' someone asked.

‘As the warriors did. We use the gum of the euphorbia to make a ball that will set hard on our spear tips. This allows you to be forceful, as in a real battle, but your spear will do no more than remind your opponent of the strength of your arm.'

All agreed to Simon's suggestion and the matches were held far from the village, in a clearing hidden within a copse of acacias.

A series of elimination bouts were fought. The fighter who ‘fatally wounded' his opponent by spearing him with sufficient force in a vital part of the body immediately won the bout and advanced to the next round.

Another path to victory was to win three stones. A non-lethal strike won the attacker one stone. A defender who deflected a thrown spear with his shield or was able to avoid it in some other way gained himself a stone.

Inevitably, at the end of the day, it was Odhiambo and Simon who were pitted against each other in the final bout. The fourteen other boys watched, acting as referees and judges.

The two fighters parried and thrust for several minutes. Odhiambo feinted to his left, exposing his flank. Simon fell for the trap and let fly with his spear. Odhiambo easily batted it away with his buffalo hide shield, winning cries of appreciation from the watchers.

Simon cursed his impatience and settled down to fight more cautiously. He successfully used his spear to deflect a halfhearted thrust from Odhiambo, but in the follow-up his friend scored another stone with a glancing blow to Simon's calf muscle. He gave his lopsided grin in answer to Simon's protests that it was a contemptible tactic.

Two stones behind, with Odhiambo needing only one more lucky strike to win, Simon called on all his concentration as they circled one another. Sunlight glinted through the acacia branches, throwing pools of light onto the clearing. Simon manoeuvred Odhiambo towards one such patch, carefully concealing his strategy by making short, darting motions while remaining safely behind his shield. In the instant that the sun fell on Odhiambo's left side, Simon lunged sharply to the right and flung his spear at the glint of light behind his opponent's shield.

Odhiambo fell like a stunned ox.

The onlookers gasped, but no one moved.

After a moment of stunned disbelief, Simon rushed to his fallen friend and carefully removed the bloodied spear that had pierced Odhiambo's left eye. The block had been lost in the clash of spears immediately before Simon launched it.

His friend was dead before his body hit the moss-covered ground.

Simon had known that his life among his people was over too.

 

Simon thrust the disagreeable memories from his mind. His experience with Mutua and the later, much worse, calamity had been the reason he hadn't taught his son the ways of the Jo-Luo—the Luo people.

In the early days, he was tempted to keep to the traditions for his son's sake. He arranged to have the
muko lak
performed on him, but was afraid where it might lead. The traditional removal of the six lower front teeth would stamp Joshua forever as a Luo. Simon stopped the ceremony a moment before the teeth were removed. It was the last time he was tempted to respect the old ways.

Now, ironically, he faced the risk of his son's death in a tribal war—a tribal war in the heart of Kenya's biggest urban slum.