Weep Not Child (7 page)

This morning he walked along the road – the big tarmac road that was long and broad and had no beginning and no end except that it went into the city. Motorcars passed him. Men and women, going to work, some in the settled area and some in the shoe factory, chattered along. But Ngotho was not aware of anything that went by him. Why had he behaved like that in front of all those children? The voice of Boro had cut deep into him, cut into all the lonely years of waiting. Perhaps he and others had waited for too long and now he feared that this was being taken as an excuse for inactivity, or worse, a betrayal.

He came to the Indian shops. Years ago, he had worked here. That was long before the second war. He had worked for an Indian who had always owed him a month’s pay. This was
deliberate. It was meant to be a compelling device to keep Ngotho in the Indian’s employment permanently. For if he left, he would lose a month’s pay. In the end, he had to lose it. That was the time he went to work for Mr Howlands – as a Shambaboy. But at first he did everything from working in the tea plantations to cleaning the big house and carrying firewood. He passed through the African shops, near the barber’s shop, and went on, on to the same place where he had now been for years, even before the second big war took his two sons away to kill one and change the other.

Mr Howlands was up. He never slept much. Not like Memsahib who sometimes remained in bed until ten o’clock. She had not much else to do. There was something in Howlands, almost a flicker of mystery, that Ngotho could never fathom.

‘Good morning, Ngotho.’

‘Good morning, Bwana.’

‘Had a good night?’

‘Ndio Bwana.’

Ngotho was the only man Mr Howlands greeted in this fashion – a fashion that never varied. He spoke in the usual abstract manner as if his mind was preoccupied with something big. It was at any rate something that took all his attention. His mind was always directed towards the
shamba
. His life and soul were in the
shamba
. Everything else with him counted only insofar as it was related to the
shamba
. Even his wife mattered only insofar as she made it possible for him to work in it more efficiently without a worry about home. For he left the management of home to her and knew nothing about what happened there. If he employed someone in the house, it was only because his wife had asked for an extra ‘boy’. And if she later beat the ‘boy’ and wanted him sacked, well, what did it matter? It was not just that the boys had black skins. The question of wanting to know more about his servants just never crossed his mind.

The only man he had resisted the efforts of his wife to have sacked was Ngotho. Not that Mr Howlands stopped to analyse
his feelings towards him. He just loved to see Ngotho working in the farm; the way the old man touched the soil, almost fondling, and the way he tended the young tea plants as if they were his own…Ngotho was too much a part of the farm to be separated from it. Something else. He could manage the farm labourers as no other person could. Ngotho had come to him at a time when his money position was bad. But with the coming of Ngotho, things and his fortune improved.

Mr Howlands was tall, heavily built, with an oval-shaped face that ended in a double chin and a big stomach. In physical appearance at least, he was a typical Kenya settler. He was a product of the First World War. After years of security at home, he had been suddenly called to arms and he had gone to the war with the fire of youth that imagines war a glory. But after four years of blood and terrible destruction, like many other young men he was utterly disillusioned by the ‘peace’. He had to escape. East Africa was a good place. Here was a big trace of wild country to conquer.

For a long time England remained a country far away. He did not want to go back because of what he remembered. But he soon found that he wanted a wife. He could not go about with the natives as some had done. He went back ‘home’, a stranger, and picked the first woman he could get. Suzannah was a good girl – neither beautiful nor ugly. She too was bored with life in England. But she had never known what she wanted to do. Africa sounded quite a nice place so she had willingly followed this man who would give her a change. But she had not known that Africa meant hardship and complete break with Europe. She again became bored. Mr Howlands was oblivious of her boredom. He believed her when she had told him, out in England, that she could face the life in the bush.

But she soon had a woman’s consolation. She had her first child, a son. She turned her attention to the child and the servants at home. She could now afford to stay there all the day long playing with the child and talking to him. She found sweet pleasure in scolding and beating her servants. The boy, Peter, was followed by a girl. For a time, the three – mother, daughter,
and son – made home, the father appearing only in the evening. It was lucky that their home was near Nairobi. The children could go to school there. Her pride was in watching them grow together loving each other. They in their way loved her. But Peter soon took to his father. Mr Howlands grew to like his son and the two walked through the fields together. Not that Mr Howlands was demonstrative. But the thought that he would have someone to whom he could leave the
shamba
gave him a glow in his heart. Each day he became more and more of a family man and, as years went by, seemed even reconciled to that England from which he had run away. He sent both children back for studies. Then European civilisation caught up with him again. His son had to go to war.

Mr Howlands lost all faith – even the few shreds that had begun to return. He would again have destroyed himself, but again his god, land, came to the rescue. He turned all his efforts and energy into it. He seemed to worship the soil. At times he went on for days with nothing but a few cups of tea. His one pleasure was in contemplating and planning the land to which he had now given all his life. Suzannah was left alone. She beat and sacked servant after servant. But God was kind to her. She had another boy, Stephen. He was now an only son. The daughter had turned missionary after Peter’s death in the war.

They went from place to place, a white man and a black man. Now and then they would stop here and there, examine a luxuriant green tea plant, or pull out a weed. Both men admired this
shamba
. For Ngotho felt responsible for whatever happened to this land. He owed it to the dead, the living, and the unborn of his line, to keep guard over this
shamba
. Mr Howlands always felt a certain amount of victory whenever he walked through it all. He alone was responsible for taming this unoccupied wildness. They came to a raised piece of ground and stopped. The land sloped gently to rise again into the next ridge and the next. Beyond, Ngotho could see the African Reserve.

‘You like all this?’ Mr Howlands asked absentmindedly. He was absorbed in admiring the land before him.

‘It is the best land in all the country,’ Ngotho said emphatically. He meant it.

Mr Howlands sighed. He was wondering if Stephen would ever manage it after him.

‘I don’t know who will manage it after me…’

Ngotho’s heart jumped. He too was thinking of his children. Would the prophecy be fulfilled soon?

‘Kwa nini Bwana. Are you going back to–?’

‘No,’ Mr Howlands said, unnecessarily loudly.

‘…Your home, home…’

‘My home is here!’

Ngotho was puzzled. Would these people never go? But had not the old Gikuyu seer said that they would eventually return the way they had come?

And Mr Howlands was thinking, would Stephen
really d
o? He was not like the other one. He felt the hurt and the pain of loss.

‘The war took him away.’

Ngotho had never known where the other son had gone to. Now he understood. He wanted to tell of his own son: he longed to say, ‘You took him away from me’. But he kept quiet. Only he thought Mr Howlands should not complain. It had been his war.

At school Njoroge proved good at reading. He always remembered his first lesson. The teacher had stood in front. He was a short man with a small moustache that he was fond of touching and fondling. They called him Isaka. This was his Christian name, a corruption of Isaac. The children rarely knew a teacher’s surname. Many stories went around about Isaka. Some said that he was not
a good Christian
. This meant that he drank and smoked and went about with women, a thing that no teacher in their school was expected to do. But Isaka was a jovial man and children loved him. Njoroge admired his moustache. It was claimed that Isaka folded his moustache mischievously whenever he was talking with the women teachers. It was a source of constant gossip to the boys whenever they were alone in groups.

When the teacher had come in he made a strange mark on the board.

‘A’. This was meaningless to Njoroge and others.

One felt the corrugated iron roof would crack.

That sounded nice and familiar. When a child cried he said, Eeeee, Eeeee.

The children laughed. It was so funny the way he said this. He made yet another mark on the board. Njoroge’s heart beat fast. To know that he was actually learning! He would have a lot to tell his mother.

Another letter:

There was laughter.

A boy shot up his arm. But before he could answer, the class had burst out ‘a dog’. Again there was laughter and a little confused murmuring.

Here there was disagreement. Some shouted that it said, U-u-u-u-u, while others simply declared that a dog barked.

From that day the teacher’s name had become U-u.

Njoroge loved these reading practices, especially the part of blabbering and laughing and shouting as one liked. At first when he reached home, he had tried to teach Kamau. But Kamau resented this, and Njoroge had to give up the idea.