The White Masai (26 page)

P
eople get impatient when they’re hungry. For more than a month the shops have been empty, but every day people come to our house to ask us when we’re going to open up again. For the moment, however, I don’t see how I can go back to work. I’d have to go to Maralal and organize a lorry. I’m afraid that in our car I’d get stuck somewhere with the baby. The gearbox has only been patched up, the ignition lock is wrecked, and there’s a lot of other work that needs doing.

One day the little boss man comes to us complaining that people are hungry. He knows there are still a few sacks of maize meal in the shop and asks us at least to sell these. Reluctantly I go into the shop to count the sacks. My husband comes with me but when we open the first sack I’m almost sick. The top is covered with fat white maggots with little black beetles scurrying amidst them. We open the other sacks, and it’s the same story every time. The boss man roots around in the sack and says it’s not so bad beneath the top layer. But I refuse to serve it in that state.

In the meantime, however, people seem to have got wind of the fact that we have meal, and there are more and more women in the shop willing to buy it. We talk it over, and I offer just to give it away. The boss man says no because before long we’d have people committing murder, the best thing is to sell it cheap. By now there are fifty or more people outside with cloth and plastic bags. I can’t face putting my hands into these sacks and having the maggots crawl over them. And in any case, I’m holding Napirai. I set off to fetch Lketinga’s big brother from Mama’s. He’s there and comes back with me. I give Napirai to Mama. We’re just in time. Lketinga is serving, but the little boss has to stop people from storming
the shop. Each person is allowed a maximum of six and a half pounds. I put the weights on the scales and take the money, while the two men dole out the unappetizing maize meal. We work like mad and are glad that the boss man somehow manages to keep order. By eight p.m. all the sacks have been sold and we’re exhausted, but at least there’s some money in the till again.

Selling the meal and realizing how necessary our shop has become occupy my thoughts a lot that evening. But I don’t have much time before I’ve got to get back home to my baby. Worried, I hurry to the
manyattas
in the dark. For more than six hours now my baby hasn’t had any breast milk, and I’m expecting to find her in total despair. But when I get closer to the
manyatta
I don’t hear a chirp from her, just the sound of Mama singing. I creep in and am amazed to see my baby sucking on Mama’s big, long, black breast. I can only stare in astonishment. Mama laughs and holds out my naked baby to me. When Napirai hears my voice she cries out immediately, wanting my breast, but I’m amazed that Mama could keep her quiet for so long with her empty breast.

A little later my husband turns up, and I tell him about it. He laughs and says it’s normal here. Even Saguna did the same thing as a little baby, because it’s usual. The sons’ first baby is given to their mother as housemaid. I look at my baby and, even though she’s filthy and stinks of smoke, I’m quite content, although I know that I’d never hand over her to anyone.

We drink
chai
with Mama and then go back to our house. Lketinga carries Napirai proudly. The little boss is waiting at the door. Of course I have to make tea for him too, even though I don’t want to. Suddenly Lketinga gets up, takes two hundred shillings from our box of money and hands it to the chief. I don’t know why but say nothing. After he leaves I learn that he demanded the money for his crowd control work. I’m annoyed by that because he forced us into it all. He was determined we should open the shop and it was his duty to keep order, that’s what the government pays him for. I try gently to tell this to Lketinga and am pleased to note that he agrees with me and is cross too.

After that the shop stays closed. The boy who Lketinga brought into the shop comes by often. He doesn’t pay any attention to me, which annoys me, but from his conversations with Lketinga I gather he’s after something. My husband dismisses it, saying he’s demanding his last lot of
wages, which he’s already been paid. I keep out of it; I was in Maralal and at the hospital and know nothing about it.

Life goes on quietly and Napirai grows into a proper little podge. I’m still not supposed to show her to strangers, and when anyone comes near Lketinga hides her head under the baby blanket, which she hates.

One day we’re on our way back from the river and are about to go to the
chai
-house when an old man comes up to Lketinga. There’s the usual conversation, then Lketinga tells me to wait and he goes over to the little police post. There I see the proper chief officer, the game warden and the boy from the shop. From a distance I watch the conversation with growing concern. Napirai is asleep in a kanga at my side. When Lketinga hasn’t come back after fifteen minutes, I amble over to the men.

There’s something up, I can tell from my husband’s expression. He’s furious, and there’s an argument going on while the boy just looks off casually to one side. I keep hearing the words ‘
duka
’ and ‘shop’. As I know the chief speaks English I ask him what’s going on. I get no answer; instead everyone shakes hands, and Lketinga slopes off in a bad mood. In a couple of paces I’m alongside him and grab him by the shoulder to find out what’s happened. He turns round to me wearily and says he has to give the boy five goats for his work in the shop or else the boy’s father will report him to the police, and he doesn’t want to go to jail. I’ve no idea what this is all about.

I ask my husband forcefully whether the boy got his pay every month or not. ‘Yes, Corinne, I don’t know why they want five goats, but I don’t want to go again in prison, I’m a good man. The father of this boy is a big man!’ I believe Lketinga did pay the money. To threaten him with prison for absolutely nothing is really the last straw, particularly when this boy is the cause of it. In a furious temper I rush back to him and shout: ‘What do you want from me?’ ‘From you nothing, only from your husband,’ he smiles at me stupidly. I can’t take it anymore and lash out at him with hand and foot. He tries to dodge me, but I grab his shirt and pull him over cursing at him in German and spitting.

The men standing round restrain me, and Napirai starts screaming her head off. Meanwhile Lketinga has come over and says angrily: ‘Corinne, you are crazy, go home.’ ‘I’m not crazy, really not crazy, but if you give goats to this boy, I don’t open again this shop!’ The boy’s father has to restrain him to stop him attacking me. Furiously I tear myself free and run
back to the house with Napirai howling all the way. I don’t understand my husband, why he lets himself be cowed like this, and I don’t understand the chief either. From now on I’m going to take the money myself for every handful we sell. Nobody will get a lift in the car unless they’ve paid first. People stare at me as I rush past, but I couldn’t care less. I’m aware that I’ve deeply offended the boy and his father because here it’s men who beat women, not the other way round.

Before long Lketinga and the chief appear at the house. They immediately demand to know why I did what I did. My man is upset and horrified, which makes me even angrier. I produce our credit book and lay it on the table, so the chief can see how many thousands of shillings we’re out because of the boy. And he himself owes us three hundred shillings. And now he’s demanding five goats, the equivalent of half a year’s pay. Now even the chief frowns and apologizes for his ruling, but we’ll have to sort it out with the old man because Lketinga has already accepted the verdict with his handshake.

Out of politeness I’m obliged to make
chai
for the chief. I light the charcoal in our little stove and set it outside so that the air can get the coals glowing more quickly. It’s a clear starry night, and I’m just about to go back into the house when I see a figure with something shining. Immediately I sense danger and go back into the house to tell my husband. He goes out with me close behind him. The chief stays in our hut. I hear Lketinga ask who’s there and shortly afterwards recognize the voice and the figure of the boy with a machete in his hand. Angrily I ask him what he’s doing here. He says brusquely he’s here to settle accounts with the ‘
mzungu
’. Immediately I rush into the house and ask the chief if he’s heard. He nods and comes out too.

The boy is shocked and goes to run away, but Lketinga holds on to him and takes the dangerous machete off him. I look at the chief triumphantly: now he’s witnessed an attempted murder. He should arrest him, and tomorrow we’ll all drive to Maralal. I don’t want this idiot danger to the community around us anymore. The chief goes off with the boy. My husband disappears too, and for the first time I lock and bolt the house door.

A bit later there’s a knock and after cautious questioning, I open to the vet. He’d heard the noise and wants to know what happened. I offer him
chai
and tell him. He says what I want is right and offers to help me. He
says he never understood why we let this crazy kid work for us in the first place because his father’s already had to get him out of more than one tight spot. While we’re talking, my husband comes home. He’s somewhat taken aback and looks at me and then the vet. The vet starts to talk to him, and I say good night and creep under the mosquito net to Napirai.

I can’t get the incident out of my head and find it hard to get to sleep. A bit later Lketinga comes to bed too and tries to make love to me but I’m not in the mood and Napirai is lying between us. He simply wants sex. We have a go but it just hurts me, and in extreme pain I push him away and ask him to have a bit of patience. Lketinga doesn’t understand me and accuses me angrily of having just done it with the vet. When he hurls that at me, I’ve really had enough for one day. After everything that’s happened for him to throw that one is too much, and right now I can’t stand the sight of him. So he finds somewhere to sleep in the front room. During the night I have to feed Napirai two or three times and then change her nappy.

At six in the morning, when the baby’s already demanding attention again, there’s a knock on the door. It must be the chief, but after my row with Lketinga I’m not in the mood to drive to Maralal. Lketinga opens the door to find the boy’s father standing there with the chief. While I’m putting on my skirt they start arguing. Half an hour later my husband and the chief come into the house. The men almost make me feel sorry for them. The chief gives me an apology from the boy and his father and says that if we don’t go to Maralal, the father will give us five goats. I respond that that won’t mean I’m out of danger, perhaps he’ll try again tomorrow or the day after, whereas in Maralal he’ll be put behind bars for two or three years.

The chief tells the old man my fears, and he promises to take the boy away to relatives for a while. He agrees to my insistence that his son never comes closer than five hundred feet to our house. After the chief has given me this assurance in writing I agree, and Lketinga goes with the old men to fetch the goats before they leave the corral for the day.

I’m pleased he’s gone and in the afternoon I go up to the Mission to show them my daughter. Father Giuliani hasn’t seen her since Wamba, and Father Roberto doesn’t know her at all. Both of them are pleased to see me, and Father Giuliani is really entranced by my pretty little girl who stares curiously at his white face. When he hears that my husband has
gone off, he invites me to stay for lunch. They feed me homemade pasta and salad. How long has it been since I’ve had a salad?! It’s like being transported to heaven. Over the meal, Giuliani tells me that he’s about to leave for three months’ holiday in Italy. I’m happy for him but not so happy to lose him for three months, especially when I think how many times he’s rescued me from the brink of disaster!

We’ve just finished eating when my husband turns up. Immediately there’s tension in the air: ‘Corinne, why do you eat here and not wait for me at home?’ He takes Napirai from me and leaves. I quickly thank the missionaries and hurry after Lketinga and the baby. Napirai is crying. When we get home he gives me the baby and asks: ‘What do you have made with my baby, now she cries only when she comes to me!’ Instead of answering, I ask him why he’s back so quickly. ‘Because I know you go to other men if I’m not here!’ Furious that he keeps making such allegations, I curse and call him crazy. ‘What do you tell me? I’m crazy? You tell your husband he is crazy? I don’t want see you again.’ And with that he gathers up his spears and leaves the house. I’m left sitting there like a statue, incapable of understanding why he keeps suspecting me of having affairs. Just because we haven’t had sex for a long time? I can’t help that I was sick and then in Maralal for so long. In any case the Samburus don’t have sex during pregnancy.

Our love has already taken a few knocks, and it can’t go on like this. I pick up Napirai in despair and go off to Mama. I try as best I can to explain the situation to her, tears rolling down my face. She doesn’t say much, just that it’s normal for men to be jealous. I shouldn’t pay any attention. This is hardly the advice I wanted to hear, and I sob even more. Now she gets cross with me and says there’s no reason to cry, it’s not as if he’s beaten me. There’s no sympathy for me here, and so I go back home again.

That evening my neighbour, the vet’s wife, looks in. She seems to have got wind of our row. We make
chai
and chat hesitantly. The warriors are all very jealous, she says, but that doesn’t mean I should call my husband crazy. That’s dangerous.

When she leaves, I feel very alone with Napirai. I’ve eaten nothing since lunchtime yesterday, but at least I’ve an abundance of milk for the baby. I’m slowly beginning to worry that he really has left me. The next morning I feel miserable and can hardly get out of bed. My neighbour
drops in again around lunch, and when she sees I’m in a bad way, she looks after Napirai and washes all the nappies. Then she fetches meat and with the last of my rice cooks me a meal. I’m moved by her gesture. This is the first friendship in which it’s not me, the ‘
mzungu
’ on the giving end, but a friend helping me without being asked. She’s already eaten, she says, and won’t have anything. When she’s finished all my chores she goes home to start on her own.