Weep Not Child (21 page)

Njoroge came to the place. He was glad that she had agreed to meet him. For the fear that she might ignore him was the one thing that had made him keep away from her all those months. He did not know what he would tell her, for the knowledge that Jacobo had been killed by his brother weighed heavily on him. But she now meant to him more than anything else. It was late in the afternoon when he reached the spot. Mwihaki was there before him, a little farther down than the place where they had met before. He saw that she had grown thinner. Her former softness seemed to have hardened so that she appeared to have all of a sudden grown into a woman. Mwihaki looked at Njoroge. She saw frustration and despair and bewilderment in his eyes. But she was determined to have no pity. So she just eyed him.

Njoroge looked down for a moment. Then at the plain below. The silence between them was embarrassing. He did not know how to begin or even what to say.

‘I have come,’ were her first words.

‘Can’t we sit down?’

‘You can tell me what you want to say while we are standing.’ When, however, he went and sat down, she followed him but sat far from him. He took a piece of dry stick and broke it. She watched him stonily and then all of a sudden a tear ran down her face. She quickly rubbed it. He did not see.

‘Mwihaki, it is strange that you and I should meet under these circumstances.’ He now raised his eyes and faced her boldly. ‘I have known you for all those years when I was young and foolish and thought of what I could do for my family, my village, and the country. I have now lost all – my education, my faith, and my family. It’s only now that I do realise how much you had meant to me and how you took an interest in my progress. Because of this it makes it all the more painful
what my people have done to you. I, alone, am left. Hence the guilt is mine. I wanted to meet you and say that I am sorry.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Njoroge, surely you could have dropped me at least a warning–’

‘I say I am guilty. But God – he – I knew no more about your father’s death than you did.’

‘Do you want to tell me that you – No!’ She knew full well that it had been she who had asked him to go with her to her home.

She kept quiet. He looked away.

‘Mwihaki, I don’t want to pretend that I would have warned you if I had known about it. But I assure you that I am deeply sorry. Please accept what I am telling you, for I love you.’

At last he had said it. For now he knew that she was his last hope. He did not turn round to face her even when she had stayed for quite a time without saying anything.

‘Njoroge!’

He moved his head slightly. Her eyes had softened. He almost broke down.

‘Mwihaki, you are the one dear thing left to me. I feel bound to you and I know that I can fully depend on you. I have no hope left but for you, for now I know that my tomorrow was an illusion.’

He still spoke in an even voice. Her eyes had a distant look in them. Njoroge thought she was ignoring him and looked away again.

It was only when she had called him again and he saw tears in her eyes that he felt encouraged.

‘I am sorry for having thought ill of you,’ she said.

‘No, Mwihaki, I must take on the guilt and you have all the cause to hate me,’ he said, moving nearer to her. He held her left hand in his. She did not resist him, and neither did she resist the tears that now flowed freely down her face. She tried to speak but something choked her throat. She struggled within herself. She must not lose control. Yet it seemed hopeless because she wanted him to go on holding her by the hand and lead the way.

‘Don’t! Don’t!’ She at last struggled to say. She knew that she had to stop him before he went very far. Yet she felt unequal to the effort and she blamed herself for having come.

And Njoroge went on whispering to her, appealing to her with all his might. ‘Mwihaki, dear, I love you. Save me if you want. Without you I am lost.’

She wanted to sink in his arms and feel a man’s strength around her weak body. She wanted to travel the road back to her childhood and grow up with him again. But she was no longer a child.

‘Yes, we can go away from here as you had suggested when–’

‘No! no!’ she cried, in an agony of despair, interrupting him. ‘You must save
me
, please Njoroge. I love you.’ She covered her face with both hands and wept freely, her breast heaving.

Njoroge felt sweet pleasure and excitedly smoothed her dark hair.

‘Yes, we can go to Uganda and live–’

‘No, no.’ She struggled again.

‘But why?’ he asked, not understanding what she meant.

‘Don’t you see that what you suggest is too easy a way out? We are no longer children,’ she said between her sobs.

‘That’s why we must go away. Kenya is no place for us. Is it not childish to remain in a hole when you can take yourself out?’

‘But we can’t. We can’t!’ she cried hopelessly.

Again he was puzzled. As a child Mwihaki had seemed to be the more daring. She saw the hesitancy in him. She pressed harder.

‘We better wait. You told me that the sun will rise tomorrow. I think you were right.’

He looked at her tears and wanted to wipe them. She sat there, a lone tree defying the darkness, trying to instill new life into him. But he did not want to live. Not this kind of life. He felt betrayed.

‘All that was a dream. We can only live today.’

‘Yes. But we have a duty. Our duty to other people is our biggest responsibility as grown men and women.’

‘Duty! Duty!’ he cried bitterly.

‘Yes, I have a duty, for instance, to my mother. Please, dear Njoroge, we cannot leave her at this time when – No! Njoroge. Let’s wait for a new day.’

She had conquered. She knew now that she would not submit. But it was hard for her, and as she left him she went on weeping, tearing, and wringing her heart. The sun was sinking down.

Njoroge’s last hope had vanished. For the first time he knew that he was in the world all alone without a soul on whom he could lean. The earth went round and round. He saw everything in a mist. Then all of a sudden, he fell on to the ground and cried, ‘Mwihaki, oh Mwihaki!’

Sunday
. Njoroge left his two mothers and wandered alone. Nyokabi watched him go out. She did not want to ask him where he was going. And she and Njeri did not speak about his going because they feared…

Njoroge’s trousers fluttered in the wind. The path was fa-miliar and yet long and strange. He dragged his feet along. He met women, some going home from their various places before darkness came. Njoroge avoided their contact. He avoided their looks because he did not want their never-ending sympathy and pity. They would see only despair in his eyes.

He kept on saying, ‘I would have done it! I would have done it!’ But he had wanted to see the two women and sleep under the same roof for the last time. He recalled Ngotho, dead. Boro would soon be executed while Kamau would be in prison for life. Njoroge did not know what would happen to Kori in detention. He might be killed like those who had been beaten to death at Hola Camp. O, God – But why did he call on God? God meant little to him now. For Njoroge had now lost faith in all the things he had earlier believed in, like wealth, power, education, religion. Even love, his last hope, had fled from him.

The land stretched on, unfolding its weird plainness to the eye. There were many who were now beyond the call of the land, the sun, and the moon – Nganga, the barber, Kiarie, and many others…

The path eventually led him to the big and broad road. He followed it.

The voice was still urging him:
Go on!
He quickened his steps as if this would hurry the vanishing hours of day. It was night that was now welcome to him. The voice became more:
Go on!

But he said, ‘Wait for the night.’

He came to the bend of the road and instinctively looked up. It was there, there, that she had left him after declaring her love. The plain was on his right. He moved from the road that had no beginning and no end and went to the slope that extended from the road to the plain. He sat on a rock. He took out of his pocket the carefully folded cord. He felt a certain pleasure in holding it. For the first time he laughed alone. And he sat there waiting for darkness to come and cover him.

He knew the tree well. He had been there a number of times, for the voice had often spoken to him many times after his father’s death. The only thing that had restrained him was the hope that he might find an anchor in Mwihaki…He had prepared the rope.

‘Njoroge!’

He stopped. He laughed to himself hysterically. The rope hung from a tree and was still in his hands. He heard again the voice, full of anxiety.

‘Njoroge!’

This time the voice was clear. And he trembled when he recognised its owner. His mother was looking for him. For a time he stood irresolute. Then courage failed him.

He went towards her, still trembling. And now he again seemed to fear meeting her. He saw the light she was carrying and falteringly went towards it. It was a glowing piece of wood that she carried to light the way.

‘Mother.’ He felt a strange relief.

‘Njoroge.’

‘I am here.’

Nyokabi clung to him. She did not ask anything.

‘Let’s go home,’ she commanded weakly.

He followed her, saying nothing. He was conscious only that he had failed her and of his father’s last words when he had told him to look after the women. He had failed the voice of Mwihaki that had asked him to wait for a new day.

They met Njeri who too had followed Nyokabi in search of a son in spite of the curfew laws. Again Njoroge did not speak to Njeri but felt only guilt, the guilt of a man who had avoided his responsibility for which he had prepared himself since childhood.

But as they came near home and what had happened to him came to mind, the voice again came and spoke, accusing him:

You are a coward. You have always been a coward. Why didn’t you do it?

And loudly he said, ‘Why didn’t I do it?’

The voice said:
Because you are a coward
.

‘Yes,’ he whispered to himself, ‘I am a coward.’

And he ran home and opened the door for his two mothers.

Northcote Hall

July 1962