Kandle quietly removed the white envelope from his pocket and placed the shillings, together with the contents of the large brown envelope, on Mr Guka’s desk.
Malasi reached for the documents and handed copies to everyone. Kandle spoke in a quiet voice.
‘Over the last year, my mother has lost her mind. Being the first-born, with my father’s constant absences, it has been up to me to look after her. My sister is in the US, and my brother lives in a bottle. Two months ago my mother left my father’s house in Buru Buru and moved to a nearby slum. At the same time, I started to get severe headaches. I could not eat or sleep, and even started hallucinating, as Dr Koinange, our family doctor, explains in one of these letters. He expressly told me that he would be in touch with the bank’s personnel department. That is why I haven’t been in touch. My doctor has.’ There were tears in Kandle’s eyes.
Guka sat back in his seat and glared at the ceiling. He tucked his top lip into the bottom, re-enacting the thinking Kikuyu man’s pose. The Kikuyu Lip Curl.
Malasi looked up from the documents. It was time to end this, he thought.
‘Yes, I can see that Personnel received letters from your doctor. I also see there are letters here sent to us from your lawyer. Why go to such lengths if you were truly sick?’
‘I thought about resigning, because I did not see myself coming back to work unless my mother got better. But my lawyer advised that that wasn’t necessary.’
One tear made it down his left cheek. Kandle wiped it away angrily.
‘Do you still want to resign?’ Malasi asked, somewhat hopefully.
‘I’d like to know my options first.’
‘Well, it won’t be necessary to bring in your lawyer. No. It won’t be necessary. We will review your case and get back to you. In the meantime, get some rest. And you can keep the money, the loan, for now. You are still an employee of this bank.’
He turned to everybody. ‘Mr Guka?’
The manager glared at Kandle with a small smile on his face. He remained quiet.
‘Mr Karoki, you are free to leave,’ Mr Malasi said.
As they all trooped out, leaving Mr Guka and Mr Malasi in the office, Kandle realised that he had just completed one of the greatest performances of his young life.
He hummed Bob Marley’s ‘Crazy Baldhead’ and saw himself back in Zanze till the early hours of the morning.
‘Can I see you for a minute in my office?’
It was Ocuotho. Before Kandle followed him down the hall, he shook Kimani’s and Koigi’s hands and whispered, ‘I’ll be at Zanze later.’ Then he walked after Ocuotho, into the glass-partitioned office right in the middle of the bank floor.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about your problems?’ Ocuotho said, when they were inside. ‘I thought we agreed you would come to me. I know people in Head Office. We could have come to an arrangement. You know Guka does not understand young people.’
‘Thank you, Sir. But don’t worry. It is taken care of.’
‘You now have some time. Think carefully about your life.’
‘That is exactly what I am doing, Sir.’
Ocuotho sighed, and looked at him. ‘I have a small matter. A personal matter. My daughter is sick and I was wondering whether you could lend me something small. Maybe Ksh 10,000?’
‘No problem. The usual interest applies. And I need a blank cheque.’
‘Of course.’ Ocuotho wrote a cheque and handed it over.
Kandle reached into his back pocket and counted out twenty 500-shilling notes from the furniture-loan money.
‘Well, I suspect we won’t be seeing you around here, one way or the other,’ Ocuotho said, with some meaning. ‘We’ll miss …’ But even before he finished the two started laughing. And it was from the liver and in it lay a national desperation. But it was a language that they each understood.
WE ARE HERE BECAUSE WE ARE HERE
Komora Kijana Wito sat outside his grandfather’s hut watching Ozi village in its daily moments of morning wazimu, idleness, and petty quarrels. It was a week before the War between Tsana and Indian Ocean. His grandfather, Komora Mzee Wito, had come in with the first cockcrow after the meeting of the Gasa and was asleep in the main hut, so there was little for Komora Kijana to do before the old man awoke. It was early in planting season and outside the gate of their compound Komora Kijana now saw a few of the men going to the farms; some women singing while they cleaned their compounds; girls running off to the river to fetch water; young men beating the animals heading off towards the swamp and the forest.
Not for the first time Komora Kijana wondered what it felt like to have a baba, mama, sisters and brothers. The people of Ozi thought his grandfather, currently the most senior elder of the Gasa, was teaching him to become a mganga. The boys he had grown up with now spent most of their time watching Premier League DVDs in the small social hall, dreaming that they would one day play for Manchester United. After being cut they all now lived in their designated camp near the mangroves. His former headmaster, Mr Fito, had even stopped coming to look for Komora Kijana to convince him that he needed to go to university, so that option was also closed. All this was because of the Book that he was helping his grandfather write about his life. Komora Kijana could not do the things of other young men.
In another time he would already have started planning the trip upriver to steal a girl from beyond Shirikisho in a Malajuu village. Komora Kijana now remembered Mariam, the girl he had grown up closest to. She was the only one of his age who was not married because she was going to university. All the other girls of their age already had children. After he and his grandfather had started the Book, Komora Kijana and Mariam stopped seeing each other and when he saw her at the market recently there were no words, just an exchange with the eyes.
Now he wondered where his grandfather’s breakfast was. It was getting late. Every week a different family was assigned to bring food for the elders of the Gasa. Komora Kijana remembered that this week it was the wife of Ukonto assigned to the Gasa’s feeding. Looking into the sky he realised that she was already late. Komora Kijana was relieved, if only for her sake, that his grandfather was asleep. Not that the old man ate anything more than a few bananas and pounded pumpkin leaves every day. Ukonto’s wife was nowhere to be seen and Komora Kijana stood up and decided to get on with the day before his grandfather woke up and demanded his attention.
He could hear the more active children already running around the homesteads – when he looked over the fence he saw the older ones release the chickens from their coops. The clucking birds complained about being cooped inside all night and immediately started scratching and pecking the ground. Cats of all shapes and sizes slunk from the newly open hut doors and stretched and lingered near the hearths. When the women of the houses emerged their cats circled them; some purred from beneath their mistress’s kikois.
Older boy-children snatched the long cylindrical calabashes from the rafters of their mothers’ huts and took to their heels to deliver their fathers’ breakfasts to the shambas. The girls wandered out of huts that sat next to their mothers’ and stood there scratching themselves with sleep till their mothers placed faded yellow plastic containers before them and barked a few commands. The girls reached for the ropes that held each yellow plastic container and slung it on their heads. They headed to the river chattering – more and more girls joining the line from all the homesteads. They all wore red gingham Ozi Primary School dresses. Some wore blue school sweaters, faded at the elbows. The girls all somehow managed to keep talking, some chewing leftovers from last night’s dinner – a piece of cassava, yam, arrowroot, fried banana. Some even carried tin cups