Devil on the Cross Read online

  2

  It looked as if Mwaũra’s Matatũ Matata Matamu Model T Ford, registration number MMM 333, was the very first motor vehicle to have been made on Earth. The engine moaned and screamed like several hundred dented axes being ground simultaneously. The car’s body shook like a reed in the wind. The whole vehicle waddled along the road like a duck up a mountain.

  In the morning, before starting, the matatũ gave spectators a wonderful treat. The engine would growl, then cough as if a piece of metal were stuck in its throat, then it rasped as if it had asthma. At such times Mwaũra would open the bonnet dramatically, poke here and there, touch this wire and that one, then shut the bonnet equally dramatically before returning to the steering wheel. He would gently press the accelerator with his right foot, and the engine would start groaning as if its belly were being massaged.

  But the matatũ had a public relations officer in Mwaũra. People would ask him: Mwaũra, does this vehicle belong to the days of Noah? Mwaũra would laugh, shake his head, lean back against the car, then try to intoxicate his audience with proof of the car’s excellent qualities.

  “I tell you honestly, there is no modern car that can match the Model T Ford construction-wise. Don’t simply contrast the gleam of the bodywork. Beauty is not food. The metal from which modern cars are made—models like Peugeots, Toyotas, Canters, even Volvos and Mercedes Benzes—fall to pieces as easily as paper soaked in rain. But not the Model T Ford, oh no! Its metal is the kind that is said to be able to drill holes in other cars. I’d rather keep this old model. A stone hardened by age is never washed away by the rains. A borrowed necklace may cause one to lose one’s own. The new models come from Japan, Germany, France, America. They trot with vigor for two months, then they disintegrate and leave the Model T Ford right in the middle of the road.”

  Yet Mwaũra’s aim was to make money as quickly as possible in order to buy a bigger vehicle which would carry more passengers, so that more cash would flow more quickly into his pockets.

  Mwaũra was one of those who worshipped at the shrine of the god of money. He used to say that there was no universe he would not visit, no river that he would not cross, no mountain that he would not climb, no crime that he would not commit in loyal obedience to the molten god of money.

  But it looked as if his prayers were not heeded or even kindly received, because Mwaũra had never owned any vehicle but that matatũ, which had been left to him by a European they used to call Nyaangwĩcũ. Once in a while Mwaũra would bury himself in grief, asking himself: “Have I been on the road all this time, the fruits of success hanging here above my very eyes, only to find that when I stretch out my arms to pick them, I see them recede to a point so far distant that I can’t reach them even if I stand on my toes?”

  Mwaũra would tell people: “This money that has been brought here by Europeans is wholly evil. When you think that it was money that caused the Son of Mary to be crucified on the Cross, even though he was the first-born of the God of the Jews, what else can you say? As for me, I would sell my own mother if I thought she would fetch a good price!” People used to think that this was the idle boast of a lighthearted businessman. Only one man knew that Mwaũra never joked where money was concerned, but he never came back to tell the tale. He and Mwaũra had quarreled over five shillings. The man had refused to pay, and he had even taunted Mwaũra: “You will always make shift like a beetle in rain-soaked dung, and you’ll never acquire riches!” Mwaũra told him: “You have refused to pay me my five shillings, although you know very well that we agreed that you would hire the car for seventy-five shillings, just because you say I took on two other passengers. Were you hiring a seat or the whole car? I challenge you to make off with my money. The Mwaũra you see has not been sharpened on one side only, like a matchet.”

  One morning the man was found hanged in his own house. Near the body had been left a piece of paper on which these words were scribbled: NEVER PLAY WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S PROPERTY. We are the Devil’s Angels—Private Businessmen.

  But driving Matatũ Matata Matamu Model T Ford, registration number MMM 333, was the job for which Mwaũra was best-known.

  3

  There is a saying that when a bird in flight gets tired, it will land on any tree. When Warĩĩnga saw that there was no other vehicle bound for Ilmorog, she entered Mwaũra’s. And, seeing Warĩĩnga enter, Mwaũra added more embellishments to his songs and words:

  Young maiden, if I should beg,

  Don’t say you’ll get pregnant,

  For as I know how to brake a motorcycle,

  Do you imagine that I could not apply the brakes to you?

  He paused. He heaved a sigh. He surveyed the people who had now surrounded him. He smiled, standing with his hands on his hips. Then he shook his head and said: “A loafer’s brakes are false brakes. There are no brakes to match the strength of those that belong to Matatũ Matata Matamu Model T Ford. . . .”

  People were beside themselves with laughter and whistled loudly. Mwaũra went on touting for passengers. “. . . Limuru, Naivasha, Rũũwa-inĩ, Ilmorog! Let’s go now. Remember: your ways are my ways. . . .”

  That Saturday Mwaũra had been up and down the Limuru–Nairobi route without picking up enough passengers to cover even the cost of the petrol. It was late in the afternoon when he decided to go to Nyamakĩma to see if he could pick up a few passengers to pay for the petrol for Ilmorog. That’s why he was now shouting so vigorously. “. . . Remember: This is your country! This is your matatũ! Forget all about those Peugeots that bounce along the road, causing our women to have miscarriages. Crawl but arrive. . . .”

  Another passenger got into the car. He had on blue overalls, which were worn out at the knees and elbows. His shoes were covered with ashy dust. He sat down facing Warĩĩnga. Mwaũra also climbed in, sat down in the driver’s seat and revved the engine a little. Then, leaving it running, he went outside again. He felt as if everything would come to nothing. Just the two passengers. . . .

  Irritably, he wondered: Am I really going to end up dying, bleating like a sheep? Will there never come a time when I’ll be able to afford a new car like other men? Today people with pushcarts and donkey carts, the shoeshine boys, those who roast maize and those who sell rabbits and fruit and sheepskins to tourists by the roadside will take home more money than I will. What will eventually become of me, Robin Mwaũra? I’d better give up these night journeys. I’ll rent a room in Nairobi and go to Ilmorog tomorrow morning.”

  But remembering the loss he had already incurred over the petrol, Mwaũra felt as if a sharp knife were being driven into him. Mwaũra was one of those men who can never leave a shining coin lying in their path—even a five-cent piece. He would rather fall into a pit in an attempt to reach it. He said to himself: Me, sacrifice the fares of these two? No! Before I get to Limuru I may find passengers stranded on the road at night, or some who normally wait for the OTC buses at the Mũtarakwa stage, and I can win them over with sweet words. Besides, I’d really like to spend tonight in Ilmorog so that tomorrow I will be among the first there. He who searches carefully never fails to find.

  His hope of riches instantly revived, his heart began to beat hard, and he shouted with great gusto: “You’re about to be left behind! You’re about to be abandoned by Matatũ Matata Matamu! I am your servant. Give me the order to speed you to God’s or to Satan’s place! Let there be peace! We’d better be off. You should get yourselves to Ilmorog so that afterward you won’t have to depend on hearsay. You ought to be in Ilmorog to see for yourselves and to hear for yourselves. . . . Fortune may be hiding just on the other side of the bush! Let this matatũ take you around the bush that now stands between you and good fortune! Now is the hour—we must be off to Ilmorog, for good fortune can change to ill fortune, and good luck never makes an early visit twice. . . .”

  “Is he going to start, or is he going to keep us here all night with his stories?” the man in t
he blue overalls asked.

  “A matatũ is the home of gossip, rumor and idle talk!” Warĩĩnga replied.

  Mwaũra climbed into the vehicle, revved the engine, hooted and then began to pull out.

  Suddenly on every side the crowd broke into a chorus of high and low-pitched whistles, warning the driver to stop. Mwaũra braked.

  A young man with a suitcase ran up to the vehicle, panting, and climbed in to join Warĩĩnga and the man with the blue overalls. “Is it going to Ilmorog?” he asked still breathless.

  “Yes, yes, home to Ilmorog!” Mwaũra said, in a jovial mood.

  “Ah, I almost missed it!” the man with the suitcase said, but nobody responded. There was a pause.

  “Were you with another passenger?” Mwaũra asked.

  “No!” the man with the suitcase replied.

  The man laid the suitcase across his knees. Warĩĩnga glanced at it briefly and saw that the lid of the suitcase bore both his name and his address: Mr. Gatuĩria, African Studies, University of Nairobi.

  The university! Warĩĩnga sensed an unpleasant sinking feeling in her belly.

  Mwaũra drove off with his three passengers, Warĩĩnga, Gatuĩria and the man with the blue overalls. He passed the Macaakũ and railway bus stops without picking up any other passengers. He drove along Haille Sellasie Road, then joined Ngong Road. He had given up all hope of finding any more passengers.

  The man called Gatuĩria opened his suitcase and took out three books, The Lives of the Great Composers, by Harold C. Schomberg, Introduction to Kamba Music, by P. Kavyu, and Musical Instruments of East Africa, by Graham Hyslop, looked at each, then began to read The Lives of the Great Composers.

  What is fated to be yours will always belong to you. When Mwaũra reached Dagoretti Corner, near Wanyee’s Clan’s place, he was stopped by a woman wearing a kitenge upper garment that covered a sisal basket she was carrying. She wore no shoes.

  “Ilmorog?” she asked.

  “Step right inside!’ Mwaũra said, happily. “Mother, come in. We’re off. Is there anyone else?”

  “No,” the woman said, getting into the car. Once seated, she cupped her chin in her left hand. Mwaũra drove on, whistling.

  At Sigona bus stop, near the Golf Club, Mwaũra picked up another passenger, bringing the total to five. He was a man in a gray suit and a tie with a pattern of red flowers. In his right hand he held a small, black, leather suitcase with a shiny aluminum lining. His eyes were shielded by dark glasses.

  Mwaũra felt his heart swell. After we have traveled a little further, I may get another five to make ten and that will give us enough for petrol, he counseled himself.

  But when he got to Mũtarakwa, at Limuru, despair seized him. There was not a soul going westwards. Doubts and indecision repossessed him. Should I go on to Ilmorog in the dark just because of five passengers? he mused. Shouldn’t I lie to them, tell them that the vehicle has broken down and that we will have to sleep at Kamĩrĩĩthũ and resume the journey tomorrow? But another voice told him: “Mwaũra, don’t snub good fortune. While you sleep, fortune can change her mind. Don’t look down on a fragment of a coin. The volume of a fart is increased by the seat. In the belly one small portion joins another to form a whole meal. Single cents gather together to make whole shillings in the pockets of a property hunter.”

  Mwaũra stepped on the accelerator and headed toward Ilmorog with his five passengers: Warĩĩnga, Gatuĩria, the man in the blue overalls, the woman with the kitenge garment and the basket and the man with dark glasses.

  Traveling is what makes a journey.

  4

  The woman with the garment and the basket was the first to speak. The matatũ had passed Nguirũbi and was just coming to Kĩneenĩĩ when the woman cleared her throat. “Driver!” she called out.

  “Call me Robin Mwaũra,” Mwaũra told her jovially.

  “Friend, let me pour out my problem to you before we have gone too far.”

  “Knock and it shall be opened,” Mwaũra replied, thinking that the woman wanted to start the kind of conversation that is usual in a matatũ. “Wisdom hidden in the heart can never win a lawsuit,” he added.

  “That is the spirit, friend. In this world there is nothing as important as helping one another. I am riding in your vehicle, but I haven’t so much as a cent that I can offer you as the fare,” the woman said sadly.

  “What?” Mwaũra shouted.

  “I can’t pay the fare!”

  Mwaũra braked abruptly. On the side where the man with the dark glasses was sitting the doors opened. It was only the quick reflex of the man in the blue overalls that saved the man with the dark glasses from being thrown out on to the Kĩneenĩĩ slopes, for it was he who saw the danger and sprang forward to grab the other man.

  Mwaũra stopped by the roadside.

  “Why are you taking this one to Ngong?”* the man in the blue overalls asked Mwaũra. “Have you been bribed by his enemies?” he added. The man with the dark glasses did not have a chance to say anything—to rebuke Mwaũra or to thank the man in the blue overalls.

  “It is all this woman’s fault!” Mwaũra replied quickly, and he turned to her. “I do not want any wrangling between us. This vehicle does not run on urine.”

  “When we get to Ilmorog, I won’t fail to find someone to lend me the fare.”

  “Nothing is free in Kenya. Kenya is not Tanzania or China.”

  “Elderly one, I have never lived by the sweat of another. . . . But if you only knew what I have seen and been through in this Nairobi of yours. . . .”

  Mwaũra cut her short. “I don’t want any tales about one-eyed ogres. Cough up the money or get out.”

  “You really mean to leave me here in the wilderness?”

  “Woman, you must get out and continue to Ilmorog on foot. I repeat, this car does not run on urine.”

  “I am telling the truth when I say that I fought for this country’s independence with these hands. Am I now supposed to spend the night here, sharing the dark forest with wild beasts?” the woman asked with a heavy heart, as if posing a problem with which she was familiar, but to which she had so far failed to find an answer.

  “These days the land rewards not those who clear it but those who come after it has been cleared,” Mwaũra told her. “Independence is not tales about the past but the sound of money in one’s pocket. Don’t joke with me. Get out or let us hear the sweet sound of coins so that we can continue.”

  It was the man in the blue overalls who settled the dispute. “Let us go on, driver. No animal cries out in pain unless it has been hurt. I’ll pay for her.”

  The man called Gatuĩria spoke up: “Yes, start the engine and let’s move. I will also contribute a few cents to her fare.”

  “I would like to contribute as well,” Warĩĩnga said quickly, remembering that she too would have been without money for the fare if her handbag had been lost in River Road.

  “We can divide the amount by three to make the load lighter. A large task becomes a burden only when people refuse to do their share,” the man in the blue overalls said.

  Mwaũra started the car and drove away from Kĩneenĩĩ.

  They traveled a short distance in silence. It was the woman who broke the silence with words of gratitude.

  “I’m very happy. But there is nothing I can do to let you know how I feel about your help. My name is Wangarĩ. I come from Ilmorog—Njeruca village. When we get to Ilmorog, I’ll try somehow to get the money to pay you back. But I have showered a little saliva on my breast. May you always cultivate fertile fields.”

  “Don’t worry about my share,” the man in the blue overalls told her. “If we don’t help each other, we’ll become like the beasts. That’s why in the days of Mau Mau we took the oath, swearing: ‘I’ll never eat alone. . . .’”

  “Even mine . . . I mean, mine also, forget it�
��sorry, I mean, forget about my share,” Gatuĩria said. Gatuĩria was always ashamed of mixing English and Gĩkũyũ words, and he tried hard not to do it. “As for me, I agree with what this man says,” Gatuĩria added. “But what is your name, so that I can stop calling you ‘this man’? My name . . . I mean mine is Gatuĩria.”

  “And I am called Mũturi,” the man in the blue overalls replied. “I’m a worker. I specialize in carpentry, stone-working and plumbing—I’m a plumber, carpenter and mason—but I can do anything that involves using my hands. Work is life.”

  “What about you, young lady?” Wangarĩ asked Warĩĩnga.

  “I am called Warĩĩnga, Jacinta Warĩĩnga, and I come from Ilmorog.”

  “Which part?” Wangarĩ asked.

  “From the village called Ngaindeithia near New Jerusalem Njeruca,” Warĩĩnga replied.

  “You know, what you were saying . . . ,” Gatuĩria began, directing his words at Mũturi. He paused, cleared his throat, then asked Mũturi: “Can you please tell me, I mean, can you tell me . . .” He paused once more, as if he did not quite know what he wanted to ask. He tried again. “Can we say that the idea of Haraambe has its roots in the goals and aims of the Mau Mau?”

  “Haraambe?” Mũturi said, laughing a little. “Haraambe? Haven’t you heard what the Nyakĩnyua dancers sing?

  The Haraambe you now see,

  The Haraambe you now see

  Is not for gossipers and rumor-mongers.

  “So it isn’t proper for me to gossip and spread rumors about anything to do with modern Haraambe. Modern Haraambe? H’m! I’ll shut up, for it is said the people from the land of silence were once saved by silence. But if I were to be asked my advice, I’d tell the Nyakĩnyua dancers to sing this:

  The Haraambe of money,

  The Haraambe of money