The Mzungu Boy (4 page)

“But it is good fish,” he told me.

I wanted to be his friend, I told him, but I could not accept the fish. They would skin me alive if I did.

“Who would skin you alive?” he wanted to know.

“Everyone,” I told him. My father, my mother, my brother Hari, the whole lot of them. And Bwana Ruin too, if he ever found out I had eaten his fish.

“Tell them I gave you the fish,” the white boy told me. “Here, take it. Go on, it's yours.”

There was no arguing with him. He didn't know what a terror the life of a village boy was. I was not supposed to see anything, hear anything, say anything or do anything without first asking permission from the grownups.

I accepted the stick of fish to make him happy, and we walked together along the path from the river.

“How do you eat it?” I asked him.

The white boy turned to me, surprised.

“Have you never eaten fish before?” he asked.

My experience with fish stopped at catching it. One day Hari had caught, cooked and eaten a whole trout by himself. He would not let me have any, because he said it had sharp bones that were dangerous if swallowed.

“You eat it like chicken,” the white boy told me. “Like chicken.”

“What about the bones?” I asked.

“Your cook will take them out for you.”

My mother knew even less than I did about eating fish. The smell of it made her want to throw up. After Hari had cooked his fish, she had made me clean her pots for two days before she would use them again.

“What's your name?” the white boy asked, when we came to the fork in the path. The path to the left led to the farmhouse, while the one on the right led to the village.

“Kariuki.”

“Carrookee?” he said. “It was nice meeting you.”

We shook hands and he went on his way.

I waited until he was out of sight. Then I swung the fish over my head and hurled them as far as I could into the bush. I was not foolish enough to believe I could convince my father that a strange white boy had given me the fish. Then I turned and froze.

Coming behind me, along the river walk, was Bwana Ruin. He was accompanied by the fierce dogs the whole village dreaded, the Alsatian attack dogs called Salt and Pepper. They had once killed a leopard all by themselves, torn it to pieces between them with their strong teeth. They were trained to attack anyone Bwana Ruin did not like. And Bwana Ruin did not like village children.

The dogs charged up to me. Bwana Ruin barked an order and they stopped and went back to him. I stood frozen with terror as they walked slowly up to me. He was even bigger and more frightening close up. It was rumored that he could see in the dark like a cat.

“
Toto
.” He called all village children toto. “What was that you threw away when you saw me coming,
aye
?”

“Nothing, Bwana,” I answered.

“Nothing,
aye
?”

“Nothing,
aye
.”

He took me by the ear and pinched hard.

The dogs growled at me. They could hardly wait for orders to tear me to pieces.

“Fetch,” he ordered.

They said he could also see into people's heads and tell what they were thinking. He was a truly formidable man.

I went into the bush after the fish. And, just in case I thought of running away, the dogs came with me, sniffing at my heels and growling.

It was nearly dark now and it took me a while to find the fish, still on the stick. I brought it back to him.

“Nothing,
aye
?” he said, taking me by the ear again. “Just a spot of poaching,
aye
?”

I was too frightened to utter a word. Bwana Ruin took me by the ear and walked me to the farmhouse. He took me round to the kitchen door and called my father.

My father nearly died when he saw me with the fish.

“Kariuki,” he spoke softly, though there was murder in his eyes. “What have you done?”

“Nothing,” I told him.

He was about to start rapping my head right away when Bwana Ruin ordered him to ask me if I knew that it was forbidden to fish.

“I'll skin you today, I promise,” my father told me instead.

Bwana Ruin did not understand our language.

“But, Father…” I started.

“You want me to lose me my job,” he said.

“No, Father.”

“
Kira
,” he ordered. “Quiet!”

Everything my father said to me was an order. I could not remember ever having a friendly conversation with him.

“How many times have I told you not to fish?” he asked me.

“I don't know,” I said.

“How many?” he barked.

“Many times?” I said.

“You never listen, do you?” he asked.

“But, Father…”

“Do you?” he repeated.

“No, Father.”

I was expecting a rap on the head with the knuckles, but the slap caught me by surprise. The force of it knocked me into the flower bushes. I lay there pretending to be dead, but he knew my tricks. He hauled me out by the ears and finally gave me a painful rapping on the head with his knuckles.

“Why did you catch fish?” he demanded.

“I did not catch any fish,” I cried. “The boy gave it to me. The
mzungu
boy gave it to me.”

The next slap left my ears ringing. He was in an enraged mood and would have beaten me senseless if Bwana Ruin had not intervened.

“Enough,” said Bwana Ruin. “Call his father here and tell him he is fired.”

My father turned gray. The expression on his face was terrifying to see. I had never seen him so angry and confused.

“Bwana!” he said to Bwana Ruin. “This boy is my boy.”

“Your boy,
aye
?” Bwana Ruin stopped and came back. “He is your son? Why didn't you tell me that before?”

Father said nothing.

Bwana Ruin looked from me to him and shook his head.

“I have told him not to fish, Bwana,” my father said. “I have told him many times not to catch fish. But I will teach him a lesson today. He will never fish again, Bwana. I promise he will never again catch any fish.”

Seeing that they would not give me a chance to defend myself, I decided to take the risk and speak up.

“The
mzungu
boy gave me the fish,” I said to Bwana Ruin.

“Which
mzungu
boy,
aye
?” he asked me.

“He means the Bwana Kidogo,” my father said. “The little master from England.”

“Nigel gave you the fish,
aye
?” Bwana Ruin asked me.

“Yes, Bwana,” I said.

“Nigel,” he called into the house. “Nigel, come here.”

While we waited for him, my father rapped me on the head with his knuckles, saying, “You will explain all this when I come home tonight.”

Nigel emerged from the house and greeted me again.

“Hallo,” he said, smiling. “You haven't taken your fish home?”

Bwana Ruin looked from him to me. “Do you know this native boy?” he asked.

“I met him by the river,” Nigel said. “He helped me with my line and fell in the river. That's why he is all wet.”

“And you gave him the fish?” Bwana Ruin asked him.

“He didn't want it,” Nigel said. “I made him take it. For helping me.”

“Go in the house and change,” Bwana Ruin said to him.

“Can I go fishing with him tomorrow?” Nigel asked.

“I don't think so,” said Bwana Ruin. “We must not encourage the boys to fish. They will poach the rivers dry if we do, won't they? Now come along and change. It's nearly dinnertime.”

They went into the house, leaving us standing there together. My father looked devastated.

“Go home,” he ordered. “We shall discuss this when I come home.”

Halfway back to the village, I realized I was still carrying the stick with the fish. I swung it over my head and hurled it as far into the bush as I could.

Then I ran home to face my mother.

Four

THE FOLLOWING DAY
, Nigel came looking for me. He found me up to my neck in the chores my mother had invented just to keep me busy and out of trouble.

“Let's go fishing,” he said.

I reminded him of the night before and showed him the bruises I had suffered. He could not understand how all the fish in the river belonged to his grandfather.

“It can't be,” he said. “The river is so big.”

I had tried reasoning that way once with my father. I could go far upstream or downstream, I had said. Surely one man could not own a whole river and all the fish in it.

That time too, my reasoning had earned me a rapping on the head.

“Let's go swimming,” Nigel said.

“I can't swim.”

“I'll teach you,” he said.

The idea appealed to me. But I still had wood to chop and several other things to do for my mother. He offered to help.

I gave him the ax and showed him the wood to chop. He had never used an ax before. It was a big, heavy ax and I had to show him how to hold it.

The very first chop was a near disaster. He swung the ax at the loose piece of wood. The piece of wood leapt up at him. He ducked. The wood shot past his right eye and nearly killed Hari's dog sleeping on the dust behind us.

The dog yelped and crawled under the grain store.

“Not like that,” I said to Nigel. “Like this.”

I showed him how to hold the wood down with his foot so it would not snap back and knock his head off. Then I stood back and watched him nearly chop his boot off with the second swing of the ax. He found it all very amusing.

We were having a merry time of it when Hari showed up. He regarded the white boy with surprise and asked me who he was.

“He is my friend,” I told him.

I asked him what he was doing back home at this time of day. In reply, he asked me if I had seen anyone on my way from school the day before.

“No,” I said.

He took me by the ears and lifted me off my feet. He carried me out of Nigel's hearing.

“Did you see anyone on your way from school yesterday?” he asked again.

“Yes,” I said, remembering.

He put me down then. He had a habit of hitting me whenever I did something he did not like. He had a terrible left and right combination that left my brains fairly scrambled. The left knocked me to the right and the right bounced me back. I complained often about it to my mother, but the most help I ever got was the advice to stay away from Hari. He was a grown-up man now, she told me. He had no time to play with boys.

The worst thing about Hari's beating was not the force itself, which was enough to knock me unconscious. It was knowing that the right slap was coming after the left and there was nothing I could do about it. Once I had made the mistake of ducking and Hari's hand had knocked a hole the size of a boy's head in the mud wall of the hut. That time he had nearly beaten me senseless.

“Did they give you anything for me?” Hari asked.

“Yes,” I said.

I was giving the right answers, so the next left-right caught me quite unawares. I was half deaf by now. I heard Hari repeat the question from miles away as he reached into my pocket for the letter the man had put there.

The shirt had been dried overnight by the fireplace, and the letter had dried out with it. It fell apart as Hari opened it, and he looked at me for an explanation.

“I fell in the river,” I told him.

He looked from the letter to me. I considered running away — far, far away to the land of the Dorobo — and never coming back.

“Stay still,” he warned.

Slowly he unfolded the letter. The ink had run all over it. It looked like a page from one of my school books after the rain caught me halfway between home and school and found the books under my armpit where I carried them to keep them dry. The headmaster had nearly killed me that time too.

The expression on Hari's face warned me to get out of there fast. I stepped back, tripped over the piece of wood the mzungu boy was chopping and went crashing into the dust. Hari kicked me hard and went away very angry.

Nigel was totally amazed by the encounter.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Hari,” I said. “My brother Hari.”

“What did he want?”

“Nothing.”

“He whacks you like that just for fun?”

“It doesn't hurt much,” I said and smiled.

“Can't you report him to your father?” he asked.

The last time I told my father that someone had beaten me up in school, my father had called me a coward and gave me a rapping too. So I went back to school and walloped the bully right back. The bully's mother complained to my mother. She reported it to my father, and I got another beating for that.

I had long given up trying to understand the world of adults.

Nigel could not understand the brutality that dogged the everyday life of a village boy.

“Doesn't your father ever beat you?” I asked him.

“No,” he told me. “Never.”

“And your mother?” I asked.

She never beat him either.

“What about your big brothers?” I asked him.

He had no brothers.

And the teachers? I asked him. Didn't the teachers whack him all the time?

“Never,” he told me.

I could not help envying him. I told him how the life of a village boy was difficult. Everyone beat the fun out of you. There was no hope of peace until you were grown, circumcised and became a man. Then no one would touch you, not even your mother.

The wood-chopping business was getting nowhere. Nigel suggested we give it up and do something less tiring. We could go down and explore the forest along the river.

I called Hari's dog, Jimi. He was lying on the dust under the grain store playing dead. He opened one eye, regarded me for a moment.