Matigari Read online

  The guard sat on a stool. He wore a khaki uniform and a red fez with a black tassel. On the jacket were the words ‘Guard, Company Property’. At his feet was a tin with charcoal. Why on earth has he lit a fire in this heat? Ill perhaps? Then he saw that the man was only roasting sweet potatoes. The guard, he felt, would be the right person to ask how to go about finding his family in the factory. With so many people in this place, there was bound to be somebody; or perhaps the watchman himself might actually know the children... his people.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of children’s screams and shouts. He turned and saw a whole battalion of children running about in the middle of the road. Why are they running like this? He saw the red tractor making its way back from the market. The trailers were now heaped with more rubbish from the market. But why are the children running away from the tractor? My children...!

  He did not even talk to the guard. He quickened his pace and followed the children and the tractor. His heart beat wildly. Let me hurry and tell them that I’m back. Let me tell them that the years of roaming and wandering are over. We shall all go home together. We shall enter the house together. We shall light the fire together. (After all, the struggle was for the house, wasn’t it? A home... a shelter... with children playing on the veranda or in the open air,., Sharing what little we have... Joy after all that suffering... cold... hunger... nakedness... sleepless nights... fatigue... And how often did we come close to death? Victory is born of struggle. There is no night so long that it does not end with dawn.

  He could not believe what he saw. Could such things be possible in this day and age in a country like this? Was this happening in broad daylight?

  The children raced the tractor to the garbage yard, a huge hole fenced around with barbed wire. Some vultures perched on the barbed wire, while others sat on branches of trees nearby. Hawks hovered dangerously in the sky, A pack of stray dogs walked about, sniffing here and there at the rubbish. Two men stood at the only entrance to the yard, arranging the children into a queue.

  I wonder what they are queuing for! The tractor drove into the yard, with the vultures now hovering over it and dogs running alongside, sniffing in anticipation. A terrible stench filled the air.

  The driver tipped the rubbish in three heaps. No sooner had he finished than the dogs, the vultures and the children went scrambling for the heaps of rubbish.

  He now understood what was going on. Each child had to pay a fee to enter, A ticket to enable them to fight it out with dogs, vultures, rats, all sorts of scavengers and vermin, for pieces of string, patches of cloth, odd bits of leather, shoe soles, rubber bands, threads, rotten tomatoes, sugarcane chaff, banana peels, bones... anything!

  He stood there, shocked.

  My children?

  The two men left together with the tractor as it drove away, leaving behind the din of the children and animals as they scrambled for the rubbish from the market and the factory.

  ‘I’ve found a radio! I’ve found a radio! ’ a boy shouted, jumping up and down with joy.

  Within minutes, not an inch of rubbish had been left unturned. Each child now carried a small bundle — bits of thread, papers, plastic sheets, pipes and patches of cloth of all descriptions. Some of the children had stuffed their mouths with rotten tomatoes, while others were busy cleaning bones with their teeth, hoping to find a scrap of meat still clinging to them. And then he saw two boys struggling over a bundle of shoelaces, with the others standing around cheering. The bigger boy knocked down the smaller one, sat on top of him and held him by the throat, strangling him. The smaller boy kicked about wildly but all the time clinging to the bundle of shoelaces.

  The man grabbed a stick and ran towards the children. The bigger boy saw him approaching, quickly got off his victim and ran away, stopping at a distance. The little one sat up, felt his neck and looked at the man with gratitude. But when he saw that the man held a stick, this boy too took to his heels.

  The man just stood outside the garbage yard. Remembering that he wore the belt of peace, he threw away the stick and followed the children.

  He found the two policemen with the dog, the tractor driver and the two men who had collected money from the children in conference behind a bush near the road. They held their heads close together, and money jingled between them. So these five were busy dividing among themselves the money they had taken from the children? So a handful of people still profited from the suffering of the majority, the sorrow of the many being the joy of the few?

  It was questions like these which had led him into the forests and the mountains. But that was then. What of today?

  A vision of his house appeared before him. He had not been there, he had not yet been home. The urge to go and look at his house seized him with the force of thirst and hunger of many days. But he reminded himself that he had not yet found his people. He could not go home alone.

  He hurried after the children.

  6

  The smaller boy was still afraid of the bigger one. He walked slowly, at a distance behind the others. The man soon caught up with him. The boy was unaware of him until he was right next to him. He was startled.

  ‘Don’t be afraid. I’ve thrown the stick away, ’ the man said.

  They walked side by side in silence. The boy’s clothes had patches all over them, and his toes could be seen peeping out of the holes in his shoes.

  ‘Why are you following us? ’ he asked the man. ‘Do you also want to steal from us the things we found? These are our gains, you know! ’

  ‘Gains? ’ the man asked, not understanding what the boy meant.

  ‘Yes.,, these are our gains, the things we found in the pit, ’ he said, showing him the little bundle of shoelaces.

  ‘Do people steal them from you, then? ’

  ‘But of course! When they see that we’ve found things like shoes, belts, pieces of leather or cloth in good condition, they pretend to get angry, and they growl at us: Where did you get these things from, you little thieves? ’

  ‘Who are these people? ’

  ‘Adults, people like you or others, ’ the boy replied. Then he giggled a bit and added, ‘Not so much now, though. ’

  ‘Why? ’

  ‘Oh, we have learned how to deal with them. We pelt them with stones, or wait until we get one of them on their own, and beat them up. ’

  ‘Why do you pay to enter the garbage yard? Is it a council tax? ’

  ‘Of course not. The two men you saw have taken it upon themselves to tax us. ’

  ‘What happens if you don’t pay? ’

  ‘Oh, they beat us up. ’

  ‘Why don’t you all beat these two up, or pelt them with stones, or even take them to the police station? ’

  ‘The police station? Are you joking? What police? The police and these bandits work together. They are as inseparable as these fingers on my hand, ’ the boy said, holding his hand out to the man. ‘If we don’t pay, the police come after us claiming that we are thieves, or they forbid us from going into the pit under the pretext that we will catch cholera and pass it on to other people. Sometimes they drive us away from our houses and call us vagrants. ’

  ‘Where do you live? ’

  ‘In our houses. ’

  ‘Your houses? Where? ’

  ‘Do you want to see them? ’

  ‘Yes. ’

  ‘Come with me, then. ’

  They walked past the market-place to their left, and on through the shopping centre of storeyed buildings to their right. They walked past Barclays Bank, American Life Insurance and British-American Tobacco. They went across an open yard next to an Esso filling-station.

  ‘How come there are so many cars parked in this yard? the man asked the boy.

  ‘These? They are nothing to speak of. If you came here sometimes, you would be surprised. This car-park sometimes fills up with Mercedes-Benz's; you would think that this is where they are manufactured. Their owners drink at the New Sheraton Hotel. ’r />
  Indeed, much further on one could see a huge four-storeyed building surrounded by pine trees and by flowers of all colours of the rainbow in full bloom,

  ‘This wasn’t here when I was last here, ’ the man said. ‘What do you really want? ’ the boy asked him again. By now the other children had disappeared.

  ‘I am looking for my children, ’ ‘Your children? Have they run away from home? ’

  ‘No, it was the other way round. I first lost my home; then my children were scattered all over the country. ’

  ‘When was this? ’

  ‘Oh, a long, long time ago. ’

  ‘Where have you been all this time? Why didn’t you look for them before? ’

  His heart skipped a beat. How was he going to tell this boy that he had spent all his life struggling for a shelter? That he had spend many years fighting Settler Williams for the sake of his children?

  He thought of telling the boy the story of his life’s struggle with Settler Williams, in the forests, mountains, valleys, ditches, caves, plains, rivers, hills, all over the country.

  ‘I started looking for them long ago, ’ he told the boy.

  ‘But would you recognise them? ’

  ‘They look Like you, like all the others. You look as if you all came from the same womb... same mother, same father. ’

  ‘I have no father, ’ the boy said. ‘I hear he was killed fighting for independence. ’

  ‘Death of a patriot... ’ he said, like one in a trance. ‘Martyred for our land, our industries, our homes. ’

  ‘Where are they? ’ the boy asked, with no hint of irony or sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘Yes, where are they? ’ the man echoed, as though he too wanted to know the answer to that question.

  The boy interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘You can stop now. Those are our houses. ’

  They were now standing in an open space. They had left the storeyed buildings behind them. In front of them was a scrapyard where cars of all makes were heaped — Ford, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Peugeot, Volvo, Fiat, Datsun. A scrap-yard, no, a graveyard for motor vehicles: some dented, others so completely wrecked that only their frames remained to tell the tale that here was once a car. Yes, a true vehicle cemetery!

  The very badly damaged ones were stuffed with pieces of cardboard, plastic, papers, sacking, cloth, almost anything. Some stood on stones. Others had grass growing inside them.

  ‘That is our village! ’ he said again.

  ‘These wrecks? ’

  ‘Yes, they are our houses. Each one of us has his own house. Mine is a Mercedes-Benz, ’ he announced proudly, as if to say that his house was better than all the others.

  Then and now... the past and the present... yesterday and today... What curse befell us? The present and the past ... His heart beat in rhythm with his thoughts. He wanted to embrace all the children and take them to his house that very moment. Yes, he wanted to take them to that house over which he and Settler Williams had fought for many years, chasing each other through all the mountains and forests of the country. What was that song we used to sing?... We would share even the bean which fell on to the ground, the bean that we toiled for...? He saw a vision of himself and his children entering their house together, lighting the fire together and working together for their home, smoke drifting from the roof of their common home. The children would come out of this graveyard into which their lives had been condemned. They would build their lives anew in the unity of their common sweat. A new house. A paradise on this earth. Why not? There is nothing that a people united cannot do. Still carried away by his vision, he began walking towards the wrecks, to bear the glad tidings to the children. A new heaven on a new earth.

  At the factory, the siren wailed announcing the lunch break. ‘Don’t! ’ the boy warned. ‘Visitors are not allowed beyond that point. ’

  Perhaps he did not hear the boy’s warning. He continued towards the children’s village.

  A stone just missed his left eye. The second stone landed at his feet. It was not until the third stone whizzed dangerously close to his face that he realised that they were aimed at him. The bully boy stood on the frame of a Mercedes, telling the others that the man was out to rob them of the things they had found among the garbage.

  He stopped in his tracks.

  The stones now came flying from all directions. He groped around his waist where he usually had his pistol, but then he remembered he was girded with the belt of peace. He also realised that these were mere children, his children and not the enemy. He stood on the spot stupefied. My children!

  The little boy was the first to react. He rushed to him and took him by the hand, pulling him away.

  The man followed the boy.

  When the children saw him leaving, they jeered and threw more stones with renewed vigour, edging him towards the factory gate. His head and shoulders drooped in sadness. His face creased with age. But he seemed to be protected by a powerful charm, because not a single stone touched him.

  Cars carrying European, Asian and African occupants drove by. Some stopped by the roadside to give the passengers a chance to enjoy the scene of children pelting an old man with stones. Some of them stayed inside the cars and watched the drama through the windows. Others sat on the boots or leaned against their cars, sipping their Cokes or puffing their cigarettes. They were not the only observers. Shopkeepers and their customers crowded the doorways or stood in little groups outside.

  ‘Why are they beating that lunatic? ’ some asked. Others shook their heads and said, ‘Children and madmen hate each other like Satan and the Cross. ’

  The man did not alter his pace; nor did he seem perturbed in any way by the danger he was in. He shifted his coat from one shoulder to the other.

  The factory gateway filled up with the stream of workers filing out for their lunch break. The boy ran in that direction.

  The man was now all alone at the centre of the three groups: the children, the spectators and the workers.

  It was very hot.

  Many questions flashed through his mind, but no answer seemed to offer itself. They all culminated in one big question: What curse has befallen us that we should now be fighting one another? That children and their parents should be fighting while our enemies watch with glee?

  The magic charm that had earlier protected him seemed suddenly to leave him. A stone caught him on the right ear. He felt his ear-lobe. His fingers were covered in blood. Another stone knocked off his hat, which fell behind him. He turned around and bent to pick it up. But as he made to straighten up, yet another stone landed on the bridge of his nose. His hat and coat fell off.

  He felt his bladder and bowels nearly give way as the excruciating pain shot through his body. Blood flowed from his nose, his mouth and his ears. Like hounds which had smelt blood, the children now pelted him harder with a hail of stones. His head reeled. He sank to the ground and lost consciousness.

  The workers streamed past him. All at once the children stopped throwing stones and returned to their village. The car owners too continued on their way. The shopkeepers went about their business, and the workers walked by, talking about the factory, and particularly about the strike they were going to stage that day. They were not interested in an old man lying on the grass.

  The boy, who had by now disappeared among the workers, held one of them by the hand and showed him the injured man,

  ‘Why is he bleeding like that? ’ the worker asked, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing at the man’s face and ears to remove the blood.

  The man opened his eyes. He met the eyes of the boy, filled with pity.

  ‘My child, you didn’t forsake me? ’ he asked.

  -‘No, ’ the boy replied, his eyes cast down at the spot where the man’s blood had dripped.

  ‘You will be remembered, ’ the man said. Then he noticed, the worker who bent over him, wiping blood off his face.

  7

  ‘And who are you, my son? �
� he asked the man.

  ‘Who, me? ’ the worker said. ‘My name is Ngaruro wa Kiriro.

  ‘Ngaruro? Of the Kiriro clan? Thank you. A day will come when we will get to know each other better and stop throwing stones at one another. Would you kindly show us a place where we can shelter from this scorching sun? A place where we could perhaps have a bite, that is, me and..

  ‘Muriuki. My name is Muriuki. ’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, a place where Muriuki and I can find something to eat. Or do you prefer to return to your village? ’

  Muriuki hesitated. He could see that the man was really in pain but was trying hard not to betray it.

  ‘I don’t know, ’ the boy answered, ‘If I go back there, the big boy will surely beat me up and steal my things. He is such a big bully. But even the others will punish me for showing you, a stranger, the way to our village, and for allowing you to go beyond the boundary line. I’ll have to keep hidden for two or three days until they forget what took place today. ’

  ‘Do you live in the children’s village? ’ Ngaruro asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s where I live, ’ the boy replied.

  ‘Don’t worry, ’ the man said, and he sprang abruptly to his feet as though he had recovered such youthful strength as to overcome all the pain. He picked up his things, his eyes shining brightly as if he could see far into the future.

  ‘I will take you to the house. We will go home together so that you can see that it was not for nothing that I spent all these years struggling against Settler Williams..

  Ngaruro and Muriiiki looked at each other, wordlessly asking the same question. What had happened to the man’s wrinkles?

  ‘What is your name? ’ Ngaruro wa Kiriro asked him. ‘Matigari ma Njiruungi. ’

  ‘Matigari ma Njiruungi? ’

  ‘Yes, that is my name. ’

  They walked towards the market-place in silence.

  ‘Matigari ma Njiruungi, ’ Ngaruro repeated. ‘The patriots who survived the bullets? ’1