The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (20 page)

Deepa would sometimes wake up at night in terror, imagining intruders outside trying to break into our house. Once, in a delirious fever, she even called me Mau Mau, much to my astonishment. I believe she wet her bed a few times, which my mother tried to keep from me lest I tease her.

Papa gave up his Tuesday night Home Guard duties partly due to Deepa’s fears, which were heightened when he went away and Mother had only her gods to whisper to in their corner and her tremulous voice in which to tell us to go to sleep.

For my part, however, I recall a tranquil period. Mother would chide me that I was becoming too quiet. I am not sure if she quite meant it, because I had developed a slight stutter, which quite visibly disconcerted Papa when he was not watchful, and Mother would then have a pained look in her eyes. I was taken to several doctors, including a European specialist in Nairobi; I saw a pandit and a Muslim wahid recommended by Juma Molabux. The only remedy that worked was to remain calm and not get excited or emotional when speaking. That remedy still works.

A year after the Bruce incident our parents told us that for the sake of our schooling, and to forget the terrible events we had experienced, they had decided that we would move to Nairobi.

Joseph has gone. Seema came and picked him up this morning and drove him to Toronto. I can take comfort in the fact that if I could not get close to Njoroge’s son, as Deepa desired and I came to wish, at least I found for him someone else whom he trusts, who hopefully will keep him on track, away from the hazards of fruitless and deadly politics.

PART 2.

The Year of Her Passion.

TWELVE.

One day a rather tall and lean-looking young African man stepped somewhat hesitantly into the reception room of Mayfair Estate Agents in Nairobi’s Indian Bazaar and asked to see Mr. Lall. The secretary, unimpressed by his deportment, told him curtly to wait, Mr. Lall was busy. The young man sat down, picked up a magazine, and waited what must have seemed an unreasonable time without being announced, and so when the door to the inner sanctum opened one more time in his presence, and the office boy emerged languorously from it bearing another meagre bit of correspondence, the visitor stood up, walked past him, and barged inside. Papa looked up impatiently from his desk.

The year was 1965 and Kenya had finally achieved independence. Great changes had taken place since the stroke of midnight announced freedom eighteen months earlier. Jomo
Kenyatta, former political prisoner, was President and father of our nation and his portrait beamed kindly from the walls of every shop and office. The sun shone more brightly than before, and even the sounds of the streets rang different. My father’s line of business put him in the midst of the shakeups of Nairobi’s many segregated neighbourhoods and allowed him to profit from them. The country’s freedom had come as a personal boon to him as it had done to many others. European settlers and civil servants were departing, leaving for easy pickings their homes in the posher areas of the city. Indian civil servants were abandoning to the unfriendly market their properties in modest Eastleigh, which African cooperatives were quickly buying up. International visitors arrived in droves, sporting sun wear and cheerful optimism, and if they were not tourists, they needed rental housing. Papa worked hard at his job. He managed for the new landlords as he had done for the old; he worked hard for sellers even if they were already resettled in Sialkot, Punjab, or Southall, England. This is the time, Sheila, he would say to Mother, if I play it smart, I can make my fortune.

But today was Friday, his short workday, and he was planning to leave for a late lunch at home, then a short siesta, followed by a night of cards at the club. And so the presence of the brash intruder in his office was annoying in the only way it could be in newly independent Africa—you couldn’t say a cross word. Sensitivities ran high in the country, the humiliations of colonial rule still smarted; you could be denounced and deported as a racist almost overnight. So my father waited patiently, watching the young man, who was grinning at him insanely with wide eyes.

Good morning Mr. Lall, the visitor said finally.

Hardly morning, Papa thought, it’s lunchtime and not the time to walk into people’s offices. He sized up the fellow—modestly dressed, wearing a grey jacket that could have been bought second-hand from Abdulla Fazal, a street away. Not only property but also clothes were changing hands—or bodies.

Young man, he said, having gotten up and come around his desk, there is no vacancy here, the position that was advertised three months ago in the
Standard
was filled long ago, a notice was sent and was printed to that effect. But you seem to be educated, you should have no problem finding something—

Papa had his arm extended to lead the visitor to the door when, prompted by a long exchange of looks with the man, the revelation finally hit him. Like a brick, he would later say.

Njoroge? he exclaimed, in his utter astonishment. Njoroge of Nakuru, grandson of Mwangi? After all these years…I can’t believe it.

Yes, it’s me, Mr. Lall, Njoroge said with a touch of tenderness. He thought my father would faint from the shock. They shook hands and Njoroge held on to Papa’s hands.

How are you, my dear young man, it’s been a long time…your letters stopped coming…

You had moved, sir. And how is your wife, and how are Vic and little Deepa?

That last inquiry, as I imagine it, earnest, pointed. How
were
we, what had we become?

Fine, fine—we moved to Nairobi, as you see, in early 1955 after that—that terrible tragedy. What a time that was, I am glad it is over and now it’s uhuru.

He stared at a silent Njoroge, who towered over him.

And thus Njoroge came back into our lives—not obtrusively, that was typical of him. He did not want to presume upon us, he told my father, a lot of time had passed since he knew us. Papa stared at the tall young Kikuyu and couldn’t have agreed more. An age had passed since Nakuru. But he said, Arré what are you saying? Come home with me right now, I’m going home myself, and Deepa and Vic and my wife will be delighted to see you!

Njoroge declined, saying, Not today, Mr. Lall, I have to be away this afternoon—but do you think Vic and Deepa could meet me in the city tomorrow? I would love to see them.

That afternoon, and again in the evening when Papa had returned home from his club, Deepa and I (but she more so) plied him with questions: What did he sound like? How tall is he? Does he have a high forehead? What does he
look
like, Papa?

Don’t forget, Mother said to Deepa, you knew him as a child; he’s a grown man now. Don’t go and make a fool of yourself tomorrow.

He’s a very serious young man now, Papa affirmed.

Nobody can change all that much, Deepa replied, irrepressible and, I thought then, childish as always.

I was somewhat apprehensive about the meeting, as it appeared Njoroge too was. In the past too we both had tended to be more circumspect than my sister. How would the three of us respond to what we had become, as young adults in a vastly changed world? Our meeting was arranged at the Café Rendezvous on the recently renamed Kimathi Street; and as we hastened toward it the next morning, having driven downtown with our father, I had to do all I could to keep up with Deepa weaving in and out between the Saturday throngs. The café had once been a hangout for European teenagers; now tourists and locals of all races overflowed out of its wide doors. Inside was packed and steamy, the latest pop music from England came blaring out. The Beatles had recently become popular. We had stood hardly a few moments at the entrance when Deepa shrieked at the handsome tall youth coming smiling toward us.

Oh my God…Njo! It’s really you! It’s been such a long time, and you stopped writing!

It was as if all these many years she had been waiting for him, to chide him about just that matter.

She rushed forward to embrace him, and held on to his hands and gaped at him, smiling, laughing, and tugged at his arms, back and forth and sideways, as if to make sure he was real. Everyone at the chic Rendezvous had looked up at this wild, unorthodox Asian girl, at the joyous embrace and its aftermath. Independence was here, yes, and Kenyatta our
leader had forgiven the sins of the past and we were all citizens of a new multiracial, democratic nation, but still, this was taking integration too fast, too far even for Nairobi!

Did she really recognize him instantly that morning as we stood at the café entrance and he walked over to us, beaming? Did she see in the tall, lanky African with hair parted on the left, wearing an oversized grey jacket and red tie, the boy we had known so many years before? Had she missed him so badly, in private, quietly, all this time?

She was a lovely dark beauty, petite, with sparkling eyes, a long face, and straight hair down to her shoulders; she wore that day not her usual Punjabi shalwar-kameez but a full-length green kikoi dress with a matching dupatta round her neck.

At the table he took both her hands into his, searched her eyes with his, and in that deep voice that was so new and charming to us said, But I wrote to you, Deepa!

Sio! No you didn’t. How could you have? I never received anything.

Even her voice seemed changed in this new presence, before this returned avatar of our former friend. The odd bit of Swahili from her—sio—was charming and Njoroge and I both laughed. He took out an old address book from his pocket, pages yellow and curling at the corners, and read aloud: P.O. Box 3312, Nakuru, wasn’t that the box number?

Yes it was, I answered.

And I even wrote once—to you both—in Nairobi, someone from Nakuru gave me the address. So?—you didn’t reply, Deepa!

They were in love.

They had picked up that spontaneity, the familiarity, in an instant despite all those intervening years of adolescence, in which we had grown up into Nairobi’s typical suburban Asian youth. Their closeness simply left me by the wayside, open-eyed with wonder, heavy-hearted with envy. I wonder now that I did not already fear for her.

He had completed primary school in Eldoret, after which
he was sent as a promising student to the elite Alliance High School for Africans outside Nairobi, where he had made many friends, some of whom were leaders in government now. He was in his second year at Makerere University in Kampala. Deepa was finishing high school and I was attending university in Dar es Salaam. We were all on school holidays. We carefully avoided delving at length into our days in Nakuru, or mentioning the two friends we had lost. He agreed to come home with us later to see Mother and have lunch with our family.

Life had not been easy for my family when we arrived in Nairobi. Initially Papa opened an Indian grocery store in the busy Ngara shopping area, in partnership with his cousins. But he was alien to the business, and he found it demeaning. He who had sold Gorgonzola, Wiltshire and Camembert to European customers, and once even brought caviar for them, could never get used to the idea of sitting next to mounds of whole turmeric and garlic, his body marinating in a sweaty blend of a dozen spices by the end of the day (when they cremate me, he would complain to Mother, I’ll smell like chicken tandoori), telling people that yes, Monkey Brand charcoal tooth powder was better than Colgate and sat-isab-gol was a traditional remedy for indigestion recommended by ancient Indian yogis and infinitely superior to Eno’s Fruit Salts. The only consolation to his misery behind that shop till was the sweetmeat vendor next door, from whom he could order tea and jelebis. Within a year, as he would put it, the money he had brought from Nakuru was all eaten away.