The In-Between World of Vikram Lall (32 page)

In spite of the sweets the mood was grim, we hardly spoke. We descended the valley first onto Grogan Road with its rows of motor spare parts shops and parked trucks, some of them with their guts spilled out on the ground. According to local legend, you could come and buy a tire rim or headlight on this street, to replace your stolen article, only to find yourself inspecting your own property in the first place. If you were fool enough you would also lose your second headlight while you waited. This was Grogan Road, air reeking of oil and dust,
unknown to tree or plant, the sun now beating down on broken pavement and street. At the end of the street was a Hindu temple; a low-caste was sweeping the sidewalk, the priest in singlet and dhoti sitting at the door threshold, expectant. His stare, and Pedro’s, trapped me in a moment of guilt and I had no choice but to go inside and pay my respects to Rama and Krishna and Ganesh.

Further down from Grogan Road we came to the Dhobi Ghat at the river, full and burbling now, where not many years ago Indian washermen in the scores came to wash clients’ delicate cotton clothes. Now two women were washing sheets and saris, beating them upon rocks, hanging them out on a line, as a long, frothy trail of suds drifted slowly downstream. We had to cross the river. Why didn’t you tell me we were coming so far, I grumbled, isn’t there a bus? It’s not far, Bwana, reassured the constable; even if you take the bus you have to walk afterwards. We are taking a short cut, he said, this is where the workers from Pumwani, Kariakor and Bondeni walk everyday, across the field, to go to the city. They do? I said, but I knew I had no right to complain, I would have gone anywhere on earth this guide took me. This is what I had entreated the gods: Take me to my sister, please…and I will put up a temple for you. I don’t know in what spirit I meant that promise then, but I have been able to keep it.

We crossed the river at a shallows, stepping on a path of large smooth and slippery rocks, and began a long climb up the other side. The constable, my guide, was tall and bony, with an oscillating, camel-like gait; intermittently he would look back at me and smile. He had the proud but kindly look that came from knowing he was assisting someone in dire need. We were on a sparse, desperate terrain, an unfriendly no man’s land connecting two parts of our city, a poor Indian and a poor African quarter. It was strewn with sticks and whorls and pellets and splatters of human turd, and dark bottles of beer and home brew, and carpets of yellow and white cigarette stubs; pages of newspapers flew about, yesterday’s
news idly skimming the ground; we passed by stenches of urine and alcohol-spiked vomit, a mountain of rotting rubbish attacked by dogs, and at the end of our path, a heap of condoms like dead white worms in a patch of dead grass. And finally the grey street bordering the valley we had crossed.

We walked awhile then turned into one of a bunch of smaller streets. It contained dilapidated settlements along its length, interspersed with makeshift beauty salons and hotels. On one such street, beside a carpentry shop exhibiting garish red-varnished furniture up to the edge of the road, we came to Our Kimathi Hotel, Bar and Dancing Club, the name painted on a board above the door and also, more prominently, on the wall beside it. All three of us went in. The lobby was so dark that, walking in from outside, suddenly and for a few moments I was totally blinded. Gradually a young man with parted hair and wearing a jacket became visible behind the counter. A few women sat around, one walked out stylishly in high heels, wearing a cloud of perfume. I could well imagine what the dancing at this club was in aid of.

Do you have an Indian girl staying here, I asked with a beating heart, uncertain whether to hope for a yes or a no.

Bhaiya…, she called out softly behind me.

She was at a table in the far end of the room with a bottle of Fanta, looking small and sad and lost.

She came forward and I took her in my arms. Sis, what hell you’ve put us through.

She had made friends with a female street vendor outside her school and asked her to recommend a place to stay. The hotel keeper had given her a room in the knowledge that she would eventually bring in a profit. I paid him a handsome three hundred shillings, well deserved because he had not harassed my sister, and we left in a taxi.

I stayed a few days at home after I brought Deepa back from her little exile, so I could be with her during her transition back to normal life. I let Njoroge know she was safe, and I
wrote a letter thanking CI Soames for his assistance; I even spoke to him on the phone. But the sister I brought home was not the happy, exuberant girl of before; some vampire had sucked all the joy, the life out of her. All her movements were now carefully subdued, as expected of a woman; no longer would she dash off to the phone or the door or the car, share a joke with a waiter, tell jokes at family gatherings, argue with the men.

When I returned to university in Dar es Salaam, I had missed more than two weeks of classes, and my exams were at hand. But nothing seemed important after what I had recently experienced. Yasmin was deeply shocked by the news I brought with me. It was difficult for her to accept that the spunk (as she had described it to me before, with admiration) and defiance she had seen in Deepa could have been so completely crushed.

I always knew that if either could be convinced to break their romance up, it would be he, she said.

Why do you say that?

I got to know her, didn’t I, she replied, with a wise, knowing nod. Njoroge was much too nice and reasonable—he could be convinced.

Before I left for the holidays, we promised to write regularly to each other. I promised her also that I would invite her to come to Nairobi; she could come with a friend or a cousin, and I would show them around Kenya.

It was summer in England, and Dilip came home, and he and Deepa went out regularly on dates; their engagement was announced on July 4, a day I remember because after the ceremonies the three of us all went to a fete organized by the United States Information Services in Uhuru Park. Dilip knew that she had come to him on the rebound, and from her looks and manner also that she had suffered terrible unhappiness. Always the gentleman, he showed patience and understanding. It was Deepa he wanted, above all the other girls
Meena Auntie paraded before him. I never got to know him intimately, I wish I had. I think of him now as a tragic figure, in the way a second best in love always is, gnawed at constantly by that fact. But then, at that time, I didn’t see that in him. We all watched a lot of cricket that holiday, because he had been recruited into the Asian Gymkhana team, and in his ducks he cut a dashing figure, striding to the crease, or fielding in slip, his thick dark hair ruffled by the wind. I once heard Meena Auntie say, at the cricket field: He could have the Nawab of Pataudi’s sister if he wanted!

Njoroge phoned one Sunday at our home and spoke to Deepa. They had a lengthy chat, during which Mother remained on the edge of her seat, her eyes wide with anxiety. We had just finished lunch, and Dilip too was present. Deepa gave a gurgle of laughter once and Mother’s fork fell on her plate; otherwise our table had become quiet. Then Deepa returned from the phone and announced: He’s getting married. She looked happy, that was the wonder of it.

Njoroge’s wedding ceremony took place at All Saints’ Cathedral on a Saturday morning in September. The bride, Mary, was a lovely Kikuyu girl, a student at the university and daughter of Njoroge’s boss, cabinet minister Joseph Kamau. Deepa, Dilip and I went to pick the present which Papa had suggested and bought, a Queen Anne chair from Mutter and Oswald, and the three of us attended the reception on the terrace of the New Stanley, where among the guests, though briefly, was the President of the country, Mzee Kenyatta. As the stocky Old Man, in a black suit and beaded cap and surrounded by a small retinue, made his entrance at the far distance from where we were sitting, Deepa’s eyes briefly met mine, then turned away.

Deepa and Dilip married December of that year and she went to live with him in England.

I was now quite alone in my life. For by this time I too had accepted the inevitable, the unhappy resolution to a relationship that I was unable to consummate.

Earlier in the year, after the holidays, on the first day of term at Dar es Salaam, I set out to look for Yasmin, taking a route we had often walked together. It led out of the women’s dining hall and I expected she and I would have lunch together. I was looking forward to seeing her again. When I saw her, from a distance, she was standing chatting with someone. Her single long braid was flipped forward, in front of her, and in the crook of one arm, characteristically, were a couple of books. She was smiling. Her companion I recognized as a Dar boy from her own community. Her fleeting, guilty glance in my direction as I approached them made me lose a step; slowly I arrived, and with a slight blush she introduced the boy to me. It was more than evident to me that the two had hitched up in the holidays, during which I had written her but one letter.

I was saddened considerably by my loss. I realized then that I had lost a chance as good as I would get for real happiness. But I could hardly regret that outcome or be too surprised by it. Although we had belonged so much together, that spark of love for which I had so long waited had refused to ignite in me. I was unable to make my commitment to her, while she had been under constant pressure from her people to find someone of her own kind. She did well for herself, ultimately, for I was to understand over the years that she was a happily married woman, who ended up, like Aruna Auntie and many others, in Toronto.

I had a nightmare recently. Joseph appeared, a tall and bony caricature of himself, wearing dreadlocks and a bright yellow shirt. Pointing a long accusing finger, he said: You stole the country from us! All of you! Instead of waiting to be enlightened—whom was he speaking to?—I opened my mouth to defend myself. But no words would come out, however hard I
tried. It was as if I was caught at the start of an endless stutter. Seema appeared on the scene at this point, a detective-woman with white hair, and apparently sitting in a rocking chair, in her lap an open book or a piece of knitting. She looked at me with a demented smile and mouthed voicelessly something I couldn’t quite catch.

I woke up in a sweat and angry at myself.

Easter is here, but the long-promised spring is yet to arrive. All looks dead outside, the lake grey, the sky cloudy, the trees barren. I have reached a stage in my recollections when I often wonder, considering my existence here, if there was a certain moment in my life, a single turn I took, which determined that I would end up precisely here, now. I was never much for predestination, you see.

PART 3.

The Years of Betrayal.

TWENTY-ONE.