A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa (7 page)

‘I see. And
this … er … advice?'

‘What I'm looking for is local
knowledge. People who know how the system works, people who know the people who know the
right people. For instance, the first thing we're going to need is a
site.'

‘Site?'

‘A building site. Somewhere to build –
somewhere big, somewhere central.'

‘Oh,' said the minister.
‘Well, I happen to know that there will be tenders out soon for redevelopment of
some of the area around Kibera –'

‘Kibera – isn't that the slums?
With all respect, Minister, I'm not sure that's quite the place for a
five-star retail facility.'

Brian Kukuya smiled.

‘We prefer to call it
“unofficial housing”, Mr Khan. But I think I can see your point. Something a
little more central?'

‘Right. So what I'm really
asking is that if you do get any ideas, you give me a call. Like I said, for the good of
the country.'

‘I think I understand you,
Mr … Harry. Yes, I think I understand you perfectly.'

It has sometimes been said that Kenya is
not so much a nation as a collection of tribes. When nineteenth- and twentieth-century
European invaders decided to carve up Africa, the borders between their agreed spheres
of influence were not decided by nature or (strange thought) by
the
people who actually lived there. They were decided by merchants and soldiers and men
with maps in the faraway capitals of another continent. The border between British East
Africa and German East Africa was a straight line with a small kink round Mount
Kilimanjaro. The border between British East Africa and Italian East Africa similarly
owed more to geometry than geography. The result of this is that even today the Maasai
of Kenya have more in common with their brother Maasai of Tanzania than they do with
their fellow Kenyan Kikuyus, and the Cushitic speakers of the north converse more easily
with their Ethiopian cousins than with their Swahili-speaking coastal compatriots.

The Hon Brian Kukuya was a Luo man and, if
you could have delved into his soul, you would find that his loyalties were to his
family, his tribe and his country – in very much that order. Had you been able to delve
deeper still, you would have discovered that even above loyalty to family was a great
love of and concern for the well-being of Brian Kukuya.

‘Ah, there you are, Jonah. You have
shown Mr Khan out? Now, tell me, is there any more news about the
Evening
News
?'

‘Ha ha, news about the news, Minister.
The Minister is most clever and amusing.'

Yes, thought Brian Kukuya, he supposed he
was.

‘How is your –
our
– little
plan going? I suppose there is no chance that the editor will be able to produce this
certificate of registration?'

‘None whatever, Minister. You may be
sure of that. I have taken care of it. It is already in my personal
possession.'

‘Good, good. That will certainly be a
thorn removed from the flesh of the government's side.'

‘A most poetic and apposite analogy,
Minister.'

Apposite? Poetic? Yes, perhaps it was.

‘Well now, I have another little
matter I would like to discuss with you.'

By the time Jonah Litumana had left the
minister's office, he knew about the minister's brilliant plan for a new
megamall in Nairobi and was in no doubt that the building of this edifice would be good
for the country, the city and the people. It would also be good, he was quite sure, for
the minister. And he was sure that with a little constructive meditation he would think
of just the right spot to build it.

Benjamin Ikonya had grown up on a small
family farm many days' walk from Nairobi and been just sixteen when he first came
into Mr Malik's employ. He liked looking after Mr Malik's garden. He liked
the morning ritual of first selecting and cutting some twigs to bind to his broom
handle, then sweeping the lawn clean of the night's fallen leaves. He enjoyed
mowing the lawn, and pruning the shrubs and bushes. He especially liked making and
lighting the bonfire outside the front gate every afternoon (small bonfires are the main
rubbish disposal system of Nairobi, and give the city its special smell). For the first
time in his life he had his own room, with electric light and running water, and three
meals a day. And he could send money home and still have enough left over to buy bonbons
and Coca-Cola – every day, if he wanted.

It had taken him some time to get used to
city people. They had a strange direct way of talking – no respectful preliminaries,
they just got right on to the subject. His cousin Emmanuel said that was the way
wazungu
talked. Not only that, city people seemed surprised when you only
answered the questions they asked. It was as if they
really expected
you to be so disrespectful as to venture your own opinion, or to give information that
was not specifically asked for. Benjamin had been brought up much too well to ever feel
comfortable doing that. But Mr Malik was always polite to him. He didn't call him
a shamba boy; he said that Benjamin was his gardener. He always asked Benjamin's
opinion if he thought an old plant needed removing, or a new one should be planted.
Whenever anyone complimented Mr Malik on his garden he would always say that it was
Benjamin who should take most of the credit. And Benjamin not only looked after the
garden. From growing up in the country he was familiar with much of the wildlife of
Kenya and was once able to help Mr Malik when there was a birdwatching competition at
the club. In the course of this competition they visited Benjamin's home village,
and on the way back they'd been held up at gunpoint by Somali bandits. Benjamin
said that Mr Malik had saved his life, and Mr Malik said that Benjamin had saved
his.

It had been Mr Malik's inspiration
that Benjamin go along on the safari. ‘Ah, Benjamin,' he said to him one
morning as Benjamin came sweep-sweep-sweeping past the veranda. ‘I've had an
idea.'

At these words Benjamin's heart sank.
This was not the first time he had heard one of Mr Malik's ideas. Only a couple of
weeks ago Mr Malik had come up with the theory that if Benjamin shook each tree every
day before he swept beneath it, he would have less work to do.

‘Any loose leaves will fall down, you
see, so you won't have so many to do the next day.'

To Benjamin it was clear that in the long
run this would
make absolutely no difference. The number of leaves
falling from any tree was dependent on the natural leaf cycle of the tree, and no amount
of shaking would change that. But he went along with it. He liked Mr Malik, and he
wanted him to be happy. Then there had been the idea that instead of burning the garden
rubbish every day he could save time by letting it build up for a week and have one big
bonfire. Which Benjamin did, with the result that instead of a very little smoke curling
up into the Nairobi sky every afternoon there was an enormous plume on Friday that sent
hadadas screeching from the trees and brought all the neighbouring askaris rushing round
with buckets of water. But Benjamin tried his best to be an optimist. Perhaps this idea
would be different.

‘As you may know, Benjamin, I have
agreed to once more organize the annual Asadi Club safari. This year I have arranged a
surprise, but I will need some help to set it all up.'

Benjamin was not sure about surprises. There
was, he thought, a lot to be said for a life without surprises.

‘I'll show you what to do, then
I'd like you to go on ahead to the campsite and get it ready. It's in the
garage.'

Benjamin had indeed been wondering what was
inside the two large crates that had been delivered the day before.

‘I realize that this will mean working
on Sunday, but I thought that in exchange you might be willing to take Monday and
Tuesday off – and Wednesday too, if you like. Perhaps we could drop you off at Embu on
the way back. Then you'd be able to get the bus from there to your village and
visit your family. How does that sound?'

Benjamin's mother and father – not to
mention any
number of brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts and
both grandmothers – still lived in the village where he had grown up, and he never
seemed to get home often enough. A few days with his family was a tempting offer.

‘But, Mr Malik, what about the
wedding? I must get the garden ready.'

‘Benjamin, the garden is as ready as
it possibly can be. You have been working very hard all month. It has never looked
better.'

‘Thank you, Mr Malik,' he said.
‘In that case, I think your idea is a very good idea.'

‘Excellent, Benjamin. You have eased
my mind.'

And he took Benjamin into the garage and
showed him exactly what he wanted him to do.

Rose Mbikwa flicked through the stack of
LPs, still in the box beside the sofa. The house was just as she'd left it. For
most of the time that Rose had been away it had been let, staffed and furnished, to a
Canadian entomologist researching army-worm control in maize crops. The woman seemed to
have spent most of her time in her laboratory or in the field – so the staff had had
little to do, except keep things just as they had always been. Elizabeth polished and
dusted, Reuben pruned and mowed, and the three askaris took turns to guard the house and
garden from thieves and rascals. Now Rose was home again, and all that remained of her
tenant was the faintest smell of naphtha and balsam.

Elizabeth had said dinner would be ready in
an hour. What would it be – Chet Atkins, Anita O'Day, Peggy Lee? Rose paused,
pulled a vinyl disc from its sleeve and put it
on the turntable. The
orchestra swelled, and from the stereo speakers came a sweet, slightly breathless voice.
Rose flopped down on the old sofa and looked up at the portrait hanging over the
fireplace. A handsome black face smiled back at her. It was her husband Joshua.

Rose Macdonald had been twenty-five when she
first came to Kenya from Scotland and twenty-six when she walked down the aisle of the
Holy Family cathedral in Nairobi to wed the handsome aspiring politician Joshua Mbikwa.
Those were turbulent years. Just before their only son Angus turned eighteen and was due
to start university at St Andrews, Joshua was dead – killed when the light plane he was
in fell out of a blue sky. By now on the Opposition front bench, he had been returning
to Nairobi from a political meeting in Eldoret to vote on a censure motion against the
government. Though the Prime Minister (who, by a single vote, survived the motion)
ordered an immediate and thorough enquiry, the Minister of Aviation was unable to
deliver a definitive result to parliament. The cause of the crash is still officially
unknown.

One of the many surprises awaiting the young
bride Rose Mbikwa when she moved into the house in Hatton Rise with her husband was to
see that his record collection contained every disc that Doris Day had ever recorded.
Doris Day? That American epitome of all things nice and normal? That blonde-haired,
pink-lipped, tightly corseted symbol of fifties domestic womanhood? Rose (who as a
sixteen-year-old pupil of Edinburgh Presbyterian Ladies' College had made a point
of reading
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
though it was banned at school, who in
her bedroom had rocked to Little Richard and
rolled to Chubby Checker,
and who had made it a point of teenage honour to hitch her skirt up at least four inches
above her knees as soon as she was out of the house on a Saturday night) had always
thought of herself as more of a Ruth Brown girl. But once she'd got over the shock
of discovering that someone younger than forty could actually like the sight and singing
of Doris Day, she mellowed. And now whenever she found herself in a nostalgic mood she
would put one of the old LPs on the turntable and find herself back in those happy,
hectic days of her marriage to Joshua Mbikwa.

Mr Malik pulled back the garage doors of
Number 12 Garden Lane.

‘There you are, Ally. Mind out,
though, they're heavier than they look.'

Ally Dass ordered his truck to back up and
his men to load the two wooden crates, each about seven-foot square by two-foot deep,
that were lying on the floor. From the dents and scratches that covered them, they were
clearly not new. The men heaved them into the truck, finding just enough room for them
behind the blackened gas range and assorted crates of food and kitchen equipment.

‘Benjamin's coming up with you.
He'll show you what to do with them when you get there. As I mentioned to you at
the club, Ally, it's going to be my little surprise for this year's safari.
Now, Benjamin, have you got everything you need?'

‘I have remembered all that you showed
me, Mr Malik. First the erection cranks, then the draw-bar extender screws, then the
spirit adjustment.'

‘Good. And remember that there's an
instruction book in the left-hand case if you need it. Oh, I nearly forgot –
here's something for you all on the journey.'

Mr Malik handed Benjamin a large round tin
on whose side were colourful sketches of lions, giraffes and elephants. On the top was
printed in large lettering: J
OLLY
M
AN
A
SSORTED
B
ONBONS
.

I once spent a Christmas in Australia,
where I was surprised not so much at the novelty of sitting down in a hundred degrees in
the shade to an alfresco
lunch of hot roast turkey with all the trimmings and plum
pudding to follow, as being asked by my bikini-clad hostess to pull her bonbon. It was
only when I noticed the beribboned paper tube in her hand that I finally caught on and
was rewarded with a bang, a paper hat and a joke – about a chicken, I seem to remember
(though now I come to think of it, it may have been the one about the cockatoo). At home
we had always called them ‘crackers', you see. I suppose that to Americans
crackers would be what we called ‘fireworks' – or perhaps even
‘biscuits'. And they would think a biscuit was a ‘scone' and –
oh, the complexities of the tongue that binds us. When it comes to edible confectionery,
things get even more confusing. What are ‘sweets' in England are
‘candy' in America and ‘lollies' in Australia and New Zealand.
In Kenya they have always been ‘bonbons' – but wherever you are and whatever
you call them, these small lumps of flavoured sugar have long proved a hit with young
and old. Equipment to manufacture these delights is not complicated to make or operate,
and the items produced are easy to pack, store and distribute.
Among
the confectionery manufacturers of Kenya, few take their business more seriously than
the Jolly Man Manufacturing Company.

Like many a commercial enterprise in Kenya,
the Jolly Man Manufacturing Company has been through many ups and downs. Begun by Mr
Malik's father in the 1930s as a maker of cigarettes, it was badly affected in the
1940s by wartime tobacco restrictions, then by competition from cheap imports from the
US. When Mr Malik Senior had made the move from cigarettes to cigars, the company had
done well, mainly as an exporter. Since Mr Malik had taken over the running of the firm
on his father's death in 1964, it had continued to prosper. But about three years
ago Mr Malik began to notice orders drying up. The problem, as his daughter Petula soon
discovered, was China.

‘They are cutting into our markets,
Daddy. I've been looking into it – similar product, cheaper price. It's the
labour costs, you see.'

‘But can't we –?'

‘Improve our product? There's
only so much you can do with rolled-up leaves, Daddy, and I think you'll have to
agree that we've done it.'

‘What about –?'

‘Cutting costs? We can't compete
on wages, so the only way we can cut costs is to improve efficiency. The only way we can
do that is to shed labour and invest in new plant.'

‘Shed labour? You mean, sack
people?'

At the last count the Jolly Man
Manufacturing Company had 132 people on the payroll, each of whom Mr Malik considered as
more or less part of his larger family.

‘Out of the question. Isn't there
something else we can do?'

Petula thought.

‘What we might be able to do, Daddy
dear, is diversify.'