The Mzungu Boy (13 page)

Father was home, pacing the yard and talking distractedly to himself. For a moment he did not seem to remember me. Then he recognized me and pounced on me. He lifted me off my feet and shook me violently.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“Nowhere,” I told him. “Put me down.”

He put me down. But he did not let go of my collar. His eyes were wild, his face old and contorted.

“Where have you been?” he demanded.

“In the forest.”

He raised his fist to strike me. Then he saw Mother watching from the doorway and stopped. He lowered his fist but held onto my collar.

“We did not sleep at all last night,” he told me. “Your mother was so worried about you and Hari.”

I told him that I had seen Hari. He was on his way to the mountains with his friends from the forest.

I had never seen my father so angry and confused. And under the anger and the confusion I saw fear. The fear of new and unknown terrors. The fear that had first invaded the village with the disappearance of Bwana Ruin's gun and the arrival of the white soldiers. Fear of something so large and so terrible it had neither face nor name.

I had finally lost him his job. I wanted to drown myself.

“You must not tell the soldiers about Hari,” he told me. “You must not talk about the people of the forest to anyone. Do you understand? You must not tell them about your brother Hari.”

But I already had. We had told the soldiers in the forest exactly where to find him.

Father's face collapsed when he heard this news. His eyes lost all the life in them, and his hand slipped from my collar and flopped dead by his side.

I was petrified. To alleviate the pain, I reported that I had found the boy.

“Found the boy?” he asked. “What boy?”

“Nigel,” I told him.

“Najo?”

He tried to remember where he had heard the name.

They had treated him cruelly in jail. Much later, when he was no longer so afraid and could talk about it, I learned that they had tortured him to reveal his connections with the mau-mau. Someone had told them that he was the leader of the mau-mau. Someone had told the police that my father conducted oathing ceremonies at night and gave food to the mau-mau. The soldiers had tried to make him confess to things he knew nothing about. They had also tried to make him admit to murdering the white boy.

“Who is Najo?” he asked.

“The white boy,” I told him. “The Bwana Kidogo.”

It took a lot of effort to remember. But he finally did. He seemed revived by the information.

“You found the boy?” he asked doubtfully.

“Yes, Father.”

“Where did you find him?”

“In the forest.”

He paused thoughtfully.

“Is he dead?”

“No, Father,” I told him. “Nigel is alive.”

He rapped my head with his knuckles. Why had I told him the little white man was dead? I hadn't. They must have scared him a lot when they locked him in prison.

“The white boy is alive,” I said to him.

“Where is he?” he demanded.

“He went home.”

He turned and rushed off to see for himself. I was left stranded in the yard between the hut and the grain store, uncertain which way to go. My mother watched me from the doorway of the hut. Her eyes were full of sadness and pity.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

I was not hungry.

“I'll make some ugali,” she said.

After a while, my father came back and told me not to worry, that they had found the white boy. Bwana Ruin had said that my father could now go back to work in the kitchen.

He did not seem to know what else to say to me. He raised his hand absent-mindedly over my head. I braced myself for a rapping with the knuckles. His hand opened up and landed palm down on my head.

“Good,” he said, patting me gently on the head. “Good.”

Then he turned and walked away.

I sat there for a long time and tried to understand what was happening to my quiet life. I had found Nigel and brought him safely back to his grandfather. I was only now beginning to realize what it all meant. As soon as Nigel told them how, and by whom, he had been kidnapped, the soldiers would come back and take us all out and hang us.

Jimi saw I was miserable and crawled from under the grain store to lie by my side. We sat quietly for a long time.

Then Nigel suddenly showed up in our yard. Mother nearly collapsed from anxiety when she saw him. Father came to talk to him, but the words would not leave his mouth, and he went away muttering to himself in a language the white boy could not understand.

“Rookie,” Nigel said, “why is everybody so sad?”

“I don't know.”

His grandfather wanted to talk to me, he told me. To thank me for saving his grandson's life. I was not entirely happy about the whole thing, but I went with him.

Jimi followed us as far as the gate to the big farmhouse. Then he remembered that Salt and Pepper lived there, and he ran back to the village.

Bwana Ruin met us on the veranda of the house. He took my arm and patted me gently on the head the way my father had done. He showed us to the end of the veranda where tea was set for two and went away.

Mamsab Ruin served us tea and cakes and sat back to watch us eat. She studied me just as closely as the villagers had studied Nigel when he ate ugali at my mother's house. It was almost as though she expected me to find it revolting.

She was older than Bwana Ruin and more frail and all gray. I had heard it said that she was the real owner of the farm and that Bwana Ruin had married her because she was rich.

Nigel told me the bodies of the dead dogs had been recovered and brought back to the farm. They had been buried in the family graveyard by the orchard. Then Nigel gave me back the toy gun the soldiers had taken from under my bed. I took the gun, but I knew that I would have to throw it in the latrine when I got back home.

As I left to go back to the village, Bwana Ruin came to inform us that the soldiers had returned. The search for the terrorists had been called off for the moment. The soldiers had completely lost their quarry. But they had found one terrorist and wanted our assistance in identifying him.

He took us to the auction pen where the dead man lay half naked and spread-eagled on the grass. He was covered in blood and mud and was a ghastly sight to see.

We stepped forward to look at his face.

My body was suddenly numb.

“Do you recognize this man?” the officer in charge asked us.

There were tears in my eyes. I could neither see nor speak.

“Do you know this man?” the officer asked again, raising his voice.

I choked on the reply. Nigel looked helplessly at me.

“Nigel?” his grandfather warned.

“Yes,” Nigel said. “We saw him.”

“Was he one of them?” the officer asked.

“I don't know,” Nigel said nervously.

“Nigel,” Bwana Ruin barked. “Answer the officer's question properly. Was he or was he not one of the terrorists?”

The officer glanced at Bwana Ruin with disapproval.

“Nigel,” he said gently. “I want you to think very hard before you answer this question. Was this not one of the men who kidnapped you?”

“No, sir,” Nigel said right away.

“Think, Nigel,” the officer said patiently. “Think. You have just told me that you know this man.”

“Yes, sir,” Nigel said.

“From where do you know this man?” the officer asked.

“From here on the farm,” Nigel said. “He is the man who runs the dairy.”

Bwana Ruin grunted angrily. The officer glanced at him, then back at Nigel.

“Nigel,” he said. “Was this man in the forest at all when you were there?”

“Yes,” Nigel answered. “He is the man who set us free.”

“Nigel.” Bwana Ruin sounding impatient. “The truth, Nigel. Nothing but the truth.”

“That's the truth, Grandpa.”

“But you told me that your… that this native boy rescued you,” Bwana Ruin said.

“Yes, Grandpa,” Nigel told him. “First my friend found me and set me free. Then they caught us and took us back to the cave and tied us up again. Then this man came and set us free.”

“How did he find you?” the officer asked.

“He did not say, sir,” Nigel answered.

“Did he tell you what he was doing there in the forest?” the officer asked.

“We did not ask, sir,” Nigel answered.

The officer was not at all satisfied. He turned to glare at me. He took me by the shoulder, squeezing hard, and asked me if I knew the dead man.

I clenched my teeth and bit back the sobs that were rising up inside me.

“Answer me,” the officer barked.

I could only nod.

“Do you know his name?” he asked.

“Hari,” I sobbed. “He is my brother Hari.”

Then I turned and ran off back to the village. I skirted my mother's house and ran through the bush down to the river.

Only then did I stop running. My foot was on fire and my head was in turmoil.

What had I done? What should I do? What would happen now that everything was in chaos and it was all my fault?

I limped along the river path I had walked so many times with Hari when he taught me how to bait the hooks with live worms and grasshoppers. Seeing nothing and hearing nothing, I walked slowly up the path until I came to the duck pool where I had first met the people of the forest. Where they had first given me a message for Hari. Where they had warned me never to tell the soldiers about them.

Would they know that I had told? What would happen to me then?

I climbed down the bank to the water's edge. The river had gone down a little but the water was thick with driftwood and red mud from the mountain floods. I could just make it to my special place under the cliff and sit down by the pool.

The water roared and frothed. It rushed leaves and branches down river in a mad frenzy and lapped at my toes as it passed under me.

Any minute now a flash flood would come and wash me down the river along with the driftwood and drown me. I sat on the wet rocks and waited for it to happen.

It was then that the tears came. I cried till my chest hurt and there were no more tears left to shed. Unable to stop myself, I went on weeping, sobbing hard, dry sobs. The pain in my heart was greater than any pain I had ever experienced. Worse than any beating I had ever endured from Hari or anyone else. Many times worse than anything I had ever received from Lesson One.

A family of colobus monkeys came swinging through the trees, their babies clinging to their bellies. I saw them pass but I did not care, and they went away up the river, eating their way through the mokoe trees and wondering why I did not call out to them today.

Then Nigel found me. He came crashing down from the bank and hopped from rock to rock and sat down next to me.

We were silent for a long time and let the river do the talking. We did not utter a single word until it was nearly dark and the cold rose from the river like smoke from a dying fire.

“Rookie,” Nigel said finally. “I'm sorry about your brother.”

I nodded. When I tried to smile, tears came back to my eyes. I shut my eyes tight and saw Hari lying dead on the ground with bullet holes in his chest. The sobs came again and I clenched my teeth until they had passed.

“He was my best friend,” I said to Nigel.

I had told him everything about me and Hari. Hari had taught me to fish. Hari had taught me to hunt. Hari had taught me everything I knew.

Then Nigel put his arm around my shoulder and the dam burst. I cried uncontrollably. It took me a long time to calm down.

We sat and listened to the river roar. The level was rising and my feet were now under the cold, numbing water. The pain had subsided.

Then the ducks came floating down the river, as silent as the leaves, and we turned to watch them. There were only three of them now, the mother duck and two of her ducklings. They moved around the pool, looking apprehensively over their backs as they fed on the few insects they could catch. They had never seen Nigel, and they were nervous. But Nigel did not throw stones at them. Like me, he just sat and watched.

I told him about the duck family. I told him how we had been friends for a long, long time. I had known the mother duck long before the ducklings were hatched and she had always trusted me. I wondered what had happened to the father duck and the other ducklings. The pool was not the same without them. The forest was not the same without them.

Everything had changed. The forest was now full of new and strange shadows and sounds that I could not understand.

After a few swims round the pool, the mother duck led her surviving ducklings away down the river, floating on the water and letting the current carry them.

“Rookie,” Nigel cried suddenly. “The river.”

The water had risen up to our knees without us noticing. We heard a loud rumbling up river as the floods swept down from the mountains. We scrambled from there and clambered up the bank to the fishermen's path.

We got out of the water just in time. The flood rounded the bend, roaring like thunder and crashing down everything that stood in its path. It swept past where we stood terrified, carrying dead animals and logs and debris downstream. The forest watched and trembled. Nothing was safe any more.

“Lean on me,” Nigel said.

I put my arm around his shoulder. He lifted my side and took the weight off my injured foot.

That was how we returned to the village, shoulder to shoulder, down the fishermen's path with the flood waters roaring furiously below us.

Publisher's Note

The Mzungu Boy
is a work of fiction that takes place in Kenya, Africa, in the early 1950s. At that time the country, a British colony, was faced with an uprising that became known as the Mau Mau Rebellion. Much of Kenya, including the best farmland, was in the hands of European settlers. At best, native Kenyans were allowed to work on the land as tenant farmers, under exploitative and demeaning conditions. The rebels wanted the white settlers to leave the country so native Africans could have their independence. As the uprising gained momentum, British rulers declared a state of emergency. Troops set out to arrest Mau Mau leaders, and rebel groups took to hiding in the forests.