But in the mirror of the laga, Chiri saw Juli’s face magnify and contort, thinking maybe about the boy, what they had come upon earlier. Maybe even of his father’s death. But most likely of his elder fuck-up of a brother, Solo, who they were meeting in Narok later. Solo, who had just come from the UK after seven years of doing fuck all.
A muster of storks resettled into the small acacia tree. Suddenly a big head emerged right in the middle of the laga. Then it sank into the water. After a few seconds, a few metres from their feet, the dog-like face with newborn-baby eyes split the water, the fish mouth puckering through the handkerchief.
The long boy broke out of the water, hanging out for all the plains to see – tall against the Datsun’s front, seemingly even longer than the car itself. Even when Juli stood up to full height, in his Safari boots, the long boy towered over him, as if in primal challenge. Chiri stepped back, almost bolting. Quickly Juli flicked his Sportsman in the long boy’s face, and then he reached out, tore the cloth from his mouth and slapped him hard with an open hand and raked hard in a downward motion over the long boy’s face. Juli raised his hand again and the baby eyes went wider than a Friesian’s. Without the cloth, the boy’s face was empty and slack and he started gushing at the mouth and eyes. He cowered under Juli, who lowered his hand and let the handkerchief drop. The long boy started bawling, making star jumps into the sky. His penis, like a fifth limb, jerked in all directions and then he bolted, an antelope on the plain. Juli picked up the handkerchief, went round, opened the car door, dipped his head and then came out, his face dark and triumphant. Chiri remembered the childhood Buru Buru fights, the same Juli look, the pointless violence.
‘Ero…’ Juli shouted. He hurled the Marie biscuits at the retreating figure. The packet made a long arc in the sky and then fell in the shallow water close to shore.
‘Now his people will know why their cows have no milk at the end of the day,’ Juli said to Chiri, picking up the white handkerchief and throwing it in the back of the Datsun.
Chiri stood at the edge of the laga and watched the unfortunate figure dip its fish mouth in the mud of the shoreside looking for the biscuits. When Chiri entered the car he did not look at Juli when he said into the windscreen: ‘But yaani out here the price of milk is a beating?’
‘Narok awaits,’ Juli said, now relaxed. ‘Time to plant.’
They chased down the dying sun, drained of energy and speech, sweeping past mostly trucks, the weed wearing off. When a Land Cruiser or Land Rover flew past them swiftly, Juli talked of its relative strengths, weaknesses.
Outside Narok town, they came to the commercial wheat farms, perfect like miniature Lego models, out of place against the acacias, the open grasslands, the National Geographic mud huts, the scrawny Zebus, stray jackal dogs and the omnipresent goats. Inside the endless fence there were rows of bright-red tractors and harvesters, and ploughed land dotted with young green shoots in furrows that went on as far as the eye could see.
Juli switched back to a monotone not unlike the voice-overs of the Western movies of their childhood explaining to Chiri how wheat was even in Bibilia, Old Testament, God’s crop. Wheat grew flat like Maa land – unlike maize, which did not allow herdsmen to survey the most important thing in their lives: the cows. Wheat allowed the herdsman to sense the approach of the charging bull buffalo. Wheat did not hide snakes like cane or sisal.
They drove into Narok, reviving slowly from the endless flatness of their last few days. Narok in the evening was small-town alive to the evening breeze, the promise of mbuzi, beer and sex. Juli did his Narok ritual whenever they were back in town, taking the perimeter, through the slum known as London, then around downtown Narok’s narrow streets that curved into the natural bowl that the town was built in, past the old market, the cattle sale still going on, the Diplomat Hotel where they did not recognise any of the cars outside. They came back full circle and someone shouted Juli’s clan name, Rotiken, and they stopped, waiting. Obergon, a first cousin and prosperous absentee agricultural officer, waddled up, sweating meat, full of afya. His broad face was all smiles till he peered into the cabin and saw Chiri. He spat on the ground and said something in Maasai. Juli grinned.
‘Habari, Kikuyu,’ Obergon now hailed Chiri who ignored him. ‘Habari mudu wa house,’ he repeated sneering at Chiri. All of them laughed now, and Obergon turned to Juli.
‘Lakini, let me ask,’ he said. ‘Tell me, you have finished planting?’ His stomach was still heaving from laughing at Chiri. Juli threw his head towards the back where all the wheat season preparations were stacked. Obergon nodded in disapproval. ‘Your mzee was always done by late July. Ni nini?’ Now he looked at the purchases. ‘Be careful. Do not leave anything in the open. Si you know there are a lot of Kikuyus hapa after the clashes.’
Juli nodded and said something in Maasai. Obergon said, ‘Ai what’s the hurry? Have you talked to Solo?’
‘Kwanini.’
Obergon looked at Juli for a long time and then said, ‘He has been drinking at Agip tangu lunchtime.’
‘Kawaida. We have been driving for three days. Nakuru tafuta-ing supplies.’
‘Listen. The Senyos are there. At Agip. The whole clan. You know what that means. Twende?’
And Obergon jumped into the back with surprising ease for one so heavy, hit the side of the Datsun and they drove off.
The Senyo clan sat in a semi-circle flank in the open-air part of Agip restaurant, like a large lion pride, potent with violence. Chiri whispered to himself the count – twenty-seven clan members. They had taken five tables – two doddering elders, talking with their gums with an ancient air of instruction to several men in their early thirties with hard faces. Some younger man-boys hovered around them. The women sat to the side in supplication, their cheeks ornamented with vertical scars, their litters of shy kids cowed by the men’s harsh voices. Goat bones lay littered around them, spread over tables. Obergon observed that only the peripheral side of the clan, troublemakers and idlers were present. At least none of them would be carrying guns. ‘But Lemeyian Senyo is here,’ Obergon muttered, leading Juli and Chiri clear to the other side of the bar. Solo was nowhere to be seen. They sat on stools and ordered from the barman who was imprisoned behind chicken mesh, haloed in the light of a small lamp spewing kerosene to keep away the flies from the booze. Obergon ordered a glass of milk.
‘See if you can find Solo,’ Juli told Chiri. ‘Avoid those animals.’
‘Scream if necessary,’ Obergon added. ‘Kama mwanamke Mkikuyu.’ Like a Kikuyu woman.
They heard Solo’s laugh, crazy confident, before they saw him. As he came into sight, his face was flushed – he was yet to lose all the paleness he had cultivated in England. Solo ignored Juli, acknowledged Obergon with a manly handshake. Then, showing that he had not lost any of his boxer’s speed, he quickly grabbed Chiri around the neck in a headlock, grinding his knuckles into his scalp. Chiri smelled the three-day booze, realised he had missed Solo. Juli and Obergon relaxed at seeing him, and looking over at the Senyos, signalled Chiri to finish his beer so they could take it elsewhere. But then they decided to have a second beer, Obergon and Juli exchanged a look confirming that Solo seemed in control. Juli and Chiri soon forgot all their concerns and shouted at the barman: ‘Tumefungua mfereji’ – the taps of our throats are open – and that is when Obergon shook his head and left.
Once Juli and Chiri re-started the conversation of their childhood, Solo inevitably wandered off. Then Juli and Chiri heard shouts and when they went to see what was happening, Solo was on the ground. He was bleeding from the mouth, rolling on his back laughing. There was a tall, burly individual pointing at him, shouting in Maasai. ‘Kaa hapo.’ Let me not see you with my eyes again. There was a girl next to him looking down at Solo with a perplexed look, as if she did not know what to do. Two of the Senyos appeared and greeted the man. ‘Soba. Ni nini.’ The tall man looked at Solo who was smiling from where he was on his