Weep Not Child (15 page)

One Saturday, Njoroge followed the long and broad road to the African shops where Kamau worked. Njoroge was lonely and wanted to find companionship. He always admired the big, strong muscles of Kamau as he held the saw, or the hammer, or the smoothing plane. He looked sure as he hammered in a nail here and sawed a piece of wood there…Njoroge often wondered whether he himself could ever have been like this. This time Njoroge found Kamau not working. There was an uneasy calm over the whole town.

‘Is it well with you, brother?’

‘It’s just well! How is home?’

‘Everything in good condition. Why are you all so grave?’

Kamau looked at Njoroge.

‘Haven’t you heard that the barber and – and –? Six in all were taken from their houses three nights ago. They have been discovered dead in the forest.’

‘Dead!’

‘Yes!’

‘The barber dead? But he cut my hair only – Oh, dead?’

‘It’s a sad business. You know them all. One was Nganga.’

‘Nganga on whose land we have built?’

‘Yes!’

Njoroge remembered that Nganga’s wives had gone from one homeguard post to the next asking to be allowed to see
their husband whom they said had been called from bed by a white man.

‘Who killed them really, the white men?’

‘Who can tell these days who kills who?’

‘Nganga really dead!’

‘Yes. And the barber.’

It was almost ridiculous to think that one would never see the six men again. Four of them had been some of the richest people and quite influential in all the land. Njoroge wondered if these were the Mau Mau. For only that could explain why the government people had slaughtered them in cold blood. Would his home be next? Boro was said to have gone to the forest. Njoroge shuddered to think about it.

Two days later. He was on his way home from the marketplace. He cut across the field as he did not want to follow the tarmac road. The deaths of the six men had created a kind of charged stillness in the village. Although there had been several deportations from the village and a few deaths, this was the first big direct blow by either Mau Mau or
serikali
to the village community. Njoroge could now remember the carpenter whom at childhood he detested and who had befriended them at the hour of their trouble with stronger affection than he had ever felt when the carpenter was alive.

‘Njoroge!’

He did not hear it and would have gone on except that now she was coming towards him. Mwihaki was tall, slim, with small pointed breasts. Her soft dark eyes looked burningly alive. The features of her face were now well defined while her glossy mass of deep black hair had been dressed in a peculiar manner, alien to the village. This immediately reminded Njoroge of Lucia, Mwihaki’s sister, who was now married with two children.

He himself was tall with rather rough, hardened features, which made him look more of an adult than he actually was. He had always had about him a certain warm reserve that made him attractive and mysterious. At first he was shocked
into a pleasant sensation and then later was embarrassed by the self-possession and assurance of this girl. How could she be Jacobo’s daughter?

‘I am sorry. I’d have passed you. You have changed much.’ That was how he rather hesitantly excused himself after the usual greetings.

‘Have I? You have changed too.’ Her voice was still soft. ‘Last week when I passed near your home I did not see you.’

Again he felt embarrassed. While he had for years been deliberately avoiding a meeting with her, she had at last taken the initiative to seek him out.

‘It’s a long time since we last met,’ he said.

‘Yes. And much has happened in between – much more than you and I could ever have dreamed of.’

‘Much has happened…’ he echoed her words. Then he asked, ‘How’s boarding school?’

‘Nice. There you are in a kind of cloister.’

‘And the country?’

‘Bad. Like here.’

He thought he would change the subject.

‘Well, I hope you’ll enjoy your holidays,’ he said, preparing to go. ‘I must go now. I must not delay you.’ She did not answer. Njoroge looked up at her.

‘I’m so lonely here,’ she at last said, with a frank, almost childishly hurt voice. ‘Everyone avoids me.’

His heart beat tom-tom. His sense of gallantry made him say, ‘Let’s meet on Sunday.’

‘Where?’

He paused to think of a suitable place.

‘In the church.’ That was where everyone went these troubled days.

‘No! Let’s go there together. It would be like the old days.’

He did not resist the suggestion.

‘All right. I shall be waiting for you near my home. When you come, we shall go together. My home is on the way.’

‘Go in peace.’

‘Go in peace.’

Njoroge felt a small awareness stirring in him. And yet as he went home he blamed himself for accepting this arrangement. He almost turned round to call her back and cancel the whole thing.

He put on his best, a cheap nylon shirt and a well-pressed clean pair of khaki shorts. With khaki stockings and brown shoes made from the factory near his hometown, he looked very smart. But now that he had slept off the excitement of meeting Mwihaki, he was afraid. He kept on saying, ‘I’m a fool, I am a fool.’ But her voice, soft and clear, rang appealingly.
I am so lonely here
. Who could have thought of Mwihaki from her physical appearance as being lonely or troubled at heart? He prepared himself early and went to stroll on the path near his home. Then she came. Her white, low-necked blouse and pleated light brown skirt made him feel ashamed of his clothes. They moved on in silence. Only when she talked there was a little suppressed excitement in her voice.

It was a long time since she had met Njoroge. The memory of their hours together at school were still fresh in her mind. Mwihaki was not one to forget a small kindness, even if rendered so early in childhood. The dumb consolation this boy had tried to give her so early in her life had made an indelible impression on her. Again, Njoroge was different from the other boys. He had always held a fascination for her. He gave her peace and assurance. Much had happened between their two families. She knew that her father, at least, hated Ngotho. He did not care to hide the fact. His open hatred, she knew, had stemmed from Ngotho’s public humiliation of Jacobo. Mwihaki could never tell the rights and wrongs of the affair. On the whole, she knew that her father must be right and Ngotho had behaved badly towards his benefactor. But she saw this only as a Jacobo-Ngotho affair that had nothing to do with her relationship with Njoroge. Her world and Njoroge’s world stood somewhere outside petty prejudices, hatreds, and class differences. She thought that Njoroge was of the same mind about these things and so had never come to
realise that their many years of separation were not all that accidental. The declaration of emergency had not meant much to her. Yet as the years went and she heard stories of Mau Mau and how they could slash their opponents into pieces with pangas, she became afraid. She had heard that Boro, Njoroge’s brother, had gone into the forest, but she could not quite believe this. To her, the Mau Mau were people who did not belong to the village and certainly were not among the circle of her acquaintances.

The old preacher was in the pulpit. He spoke of the calamity that had befallen the Gikuyu people, a tribe that long ago walked with God, a tribe that had been chosen by God himself who had given it a beautiful land. Yet now blood flowed there freely, covering the land with deep, red sin. He talked of the young men and women who would never be seen anymore. His face was dark as he talked of the many who were lying in the detention camps. Why was this so? It was because people had disobeyed the Creator, the Giver of Life. The children of Israel had refused to hearken unto the voice of Jehovah. They would be destroyed in the desert where they would be made to wander for forty years.

‘Our people, what shall we do to escape the greater plague that is to come? We must turn to God. We must go on our knees and behold the animal hung on the tree yonder. Then all our wounds will heal at once. We shall be washed by the blood of the Lamb. Our people, what is said in the Holy Scriptures is what I will tell you now…

‘Let’s pray…’

They all knelt down and prayed for the land. Some cried – crying for those whom they would see no more.

A short man went onto the pulpit. Njoroge looked at him closely. His face seemed familiar. The man began to speak. And then Njoroge remembered. This was the worldly teacher they used to call
Uuu
. His moustache was not there. Teacher Isaka had gone to Nyeri the year Njoroge finished the first school. Since then, Njoroge had not heard of him. Isaka now looked distinctly holy. This was what it meant to be a Revivalist.

‘Turn to the Gospel according to St Matthew, chapter 24, and begin to read from line 4.’

There was a shuffle of leaves.

‘Let’s begin…’

‘And Jesus answered and said unto them. Take heed that no man deceive you.

‘For many shall come in My name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

‘And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

‘For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places.

‘All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name’s sake.

‘And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

‘And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

‘And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

‘
But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved
…’

He read on. But when he came to verse 33, he stopped and stared at all the people in the church. Then he raised his voice and went on:

‘Verily I say unto you. This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled…’

It was as if darkness too had fallen into the building and there was no one to light the way.

They went along in silence. It was late in the day, for the service had taken many hours. It was Mwihaki who quickly whispered, ‘Let’s follow the old path.’

Njoroge agreed. The old path was the one they used to follow on their way from school.

‘Do you think what he said was true?’

‘What? He said many things.’

‘That Jesus will come soon?’

Njoroge started. He too was thinking about what their old teacher predicted about the world. He had been impressed because it all looked so true. War, diseases, pestilence, insecurity, betrayal, family disintegrations – Njoroge had seen all these. Oh, yes, he was inclined to agree with the teacher. But he did not like the teacher’s voice as he cried, hysterically, ‘Repent you know. For the Kingdom of God is near.’

Had the country really been reduced to this? Would the Second Coming see to the destruction of all life in this world?’

‘I don’t know,’ he at last said.

‘Dear Jesus,’ she murmured to herself.