Dust (23 page)

And then a period came that was woven from sorrow alone. Petronilla Ajany, his mother, died—snakebite when she was washing in the river. Nyipir’s uncle took over the family’s goods and lives. He commanded Nyipir to tend to his baby sister, Akoth.

One night, six months after his mother had died, Akoth, who had been restless and hot, coughed, looked at him, and, even as he clung to her, became very, very still.

Uncle took Nyipir away from school, told him to herd the family livestock. Nyipir reread old schoolbooks, prayed, and waited for his father and brother to come home. They did not, not with the men marching back home from war fronts. Changed men like Baba Jimmy, who brought a Spanish guitar that he plucked like the
nyatiti
. Baba Jimmy was a giant with a hoarse, tearing voice, a descendant of musicians who make the lyre weep. Gangrene had eaten Baba Jimmy’s toes during the war, and now he hobbled. He never explained why his body lurched in twisted angles as he moved.

Nyipir had run to him:
“Ere baba, ere Theo?”
Where are they?

Baba Jimmy shuffled ahead, his guitar swinging on his back, told Nyipir to direct his questions to God. He relented. “
Gi biro
.” They are on their way.

Nyipir heard the condensed sadness in Baba Jimmy’s voice, the source of music.

“Come, boy, sing,” Baba Jimmy suggested. He wanted to stop Nyipir’s no-answer questions. From within the army coat he still wore, he dug out a brown-and-silver mouth organ. Baba Jimmy dangled it on the tips of his fingers and let it fall into Nyipir’s open hands.

“Inhale, exhale.” Hollow laugh, cheerless eyes.

Nyipir counted sixteen holes before lifting the instrument to his lips, eyes on Baba Jimmy.

“Breathe in, breathe out.”

Nyipir did.

“Open your mouth, whistle. With your lips, cover these holes; don’t move until you know the name of the sound.”

They had turned old stories into songs without words.

It was the evening of a cold day in Kisumu; Nyipir milked the animals and settled them in for the night. He went to his hut. And then his uncle came to count the Oganda animals. Two goats that had eaten poisonous weeds died that evening. Uncle returned with
boka rao
. He raised the length of whip. It connected with the side of Nyipir’s face the first time. By the second blow, Nyipir had picked up the hoe next to his mat and swung it at his uncle. The hoe hit its mark with a crunch. Maybe it split Uncle’s head, because there was a small, spurting fountain of blood, which in the dimness looked very black, and Uncle whimpered.

Nyipir did not wait.

He ran. And when he stopped, he found he had crawled into Baba Jimmy’s granary. The next afternoon, when Baba Jimmy found Nyipir hiding there, he said nothing, closed the door, returned with a calabash of water, and closed the granary door again.

Three days later, Baba Jimmy told Nyipir a story, which they would turn to melody:

“Listen.… 
Chon gi lala
, a greedy hyena, had a brother. The brother was a warrior and went on a journey. This hyena opened its big mouth to swallow his brother’s home. He also tried to swallow the brother’s son, except this son was bigger than the hyena’s open mouth.…”

Baba Jimmy played. Nyipir listened, he cried, and then he wiped his face with his arms.

“Thu tinda …”
concluded Baba Jimmy. The end.

“Baba Jimmy, how do I go to Burma?” Nyipir asked seconds later.

Two weeks later, Baba Jimmy and Nyipir left for the Catholic Mission Orphanage and School that was in a village in Kisii. Dressed in their Sunday best, Baba Jimmy wearing his two war medals, footsteps on dusty roads. They walked for four hours to meet the blue bus. Nyipir walked backward, ahead of Baba Jimmy, staring at the gleaming medals.

They had approached a forested patch, the green so different from the dust of the plains that it caused Nyipir to tremble.

He told Baba Jimmy, “I want to go back home with you.”

“You want to go to Burma?” Baba Jimmy demanded.

“Yes!” Nyipir yelled.

“Boy”—he pulled away his hands—“when you get out of this bus, after your feet reach the ground, don’t look back. Only a hyena travels the same road twice.”

18

AJANY READS THAT IN 2006 ENGINEER JEREMIAH MUSALI OF
Tich Lich Engineers received the Gedo Award—a red-and-green rhino-horn-shaped protuberance—for regional engineering excellence and innovation. Ajany rereads the bronze plate in the pale-yellow-and-rust-red T. L. Associates Engineering offices in Lavington.

A cursory glance. In an alcove, a glimpse of a blown-up picture. Ajany moves closer. Five men in white-and-yellow hard hats. Behind them, the Kiambere power plant. In the middle, a man taller, broader, more muscular, and darker than all the others, with a thin mustache, his hair cropped close to the skull, his coat stretched over his body. Moses Ebewesit Odidi Oganda in a charcoal-gray suit, with a gap-toothed grin.

“Odidi!” Ajany cries.

She stands dry-mouthed. Hears a car slowing down outside.
Petrol engine, four-liter engine
. Smell of sprayed-on, bottled newness everywhere. The photograph. Odidi.

A woman in a flowing green dress walks in.

“Hello,” she says. “May I help you?”

Ajany grabs her arms, points at the picture. “My b-brother …”

“Sorry, madam?”

“Moses Odidi Oganda. I’m his sister!”

The woman pulls away.

“
Eh
 … wait here.” She points at green chairs nearby, seizes a handset, and spits into the receiver.

Ajany stands next to the chair, gripping the armrest, eyes focused on the photograph, her heart beating.

A turbaned man of medium height in a tight German suit hurries in. The receptionist calls to him. They exchange quiet words, and he turns toward Ajany. “Odidi’s sister?” He rushes over to pump her hand. “I’m Joginder. Uh, you know, uh … he left … maybe two years … maybe … ago. He … uh … hasn’t, uhhh, called since.…”

Ajany stares.

He says, “Uhhh … wait.”

He turns. Neat, hurried steps down a corridor.

Ajany’s hands are damp. She wipes them on her skirt. The receptionist is answering phone calls.

Coffee appears.

Ten minutes.

Half an hour.

At four-twenty-two, Engineer Jeremiah Musali appears. He is not as thin, highly strung, or twinkly as he used to be. There are, however, traces from the past. Musali practically leaps into Ajany’s arms. High-pitched voice, more fashion than steel; well-oiled, short hair with little waves. Manicured hands. Still handsome, he wears round glasses, like Gandhi’s. Copper skin, ocher highlights. A brace around his neck.

“Arabel ‘A. J.’ Oganda!
Ei!
Let me see you,” He looks her up and down. “Such a ka-lady! Brazil! You went
faaaar
!”

Ajany takes two steps back. “Yes … uhm … Musali, was wondering about my b-brother?”

Musali’s eyebrows make small movements across his forehead. They are subtly plucked. His facial bones hold his muscles close to their structure. And, like an old person’s, his ears are longer than his nose. Time seemed to have rubbed out the tiny lights that used to make his face a most mobile presence, fascinating to watch. Still, his would be a curious face to sculpt. Musali exhales hard, looks at the carpet. “Hasn’t he contacted you?”

“Should he have?”

“Sit down.… Tea?”

Tea, the national balm of Gilead
. She sits. “Your neck?” She watches his face.

“Some stupid
jamas
tried to jack me. I was lucky. Cops
twanga-ed
them.”

Ajany studies the floor, biting inner lips.

Musali looks away, tea in hand; he says, “Odi, man. I’ll tell you.”

Silence.

“That
jama
, man, AJ, everything black and white for him.
Shit
, look, I feel bad. Y’know, we started this thing together. After campo.” He glances over his shoulder.

“Where’s my brother?”

“Don’t know, man.”

“Your friend?”

“Long ago.”

“What, friendship?”

Musali sighs. “There was a deal.”

A time in the life of Kenya when the long and short rains failed. El Niño. Odidi had chased after a contract for the repair of the nation’s dams. He had lobbied, argued, and dazzled. Their company, Tich Lich Engineers, had won the contract with the power company. A two-hundred-and-seventy-five-million-shilling job.

They had “made it.” Doing what they loved, designing with water. They had signed the bottom line, signed nondisclosure agreements—part of the procedure. Dated everything. Received a quarter of the money. Bought guzzling cars and started to dredge the dams. One day, they were summoned for an urgent meeting. They waited in the boardroom for half an hour until a senior magistrate came in.

They were given a paragraph to recite. An oath of secrecy, subject to the Official Secrecy Act. A man in the proverbial black suit witnessed it all. A week later, Odidi, as chief engineer, received top-secret instructions to silt the dams. Contract to “service the turbines”—in other words, render them incapable of delivering power to the public.

At the same time, news of the sudden flooding of the lower reaches of the Tana River. Traveling to the dam site, they found the dam gates opened.

“We knew what was happening. Told that
jama
to back down and shut up. Why be martyrs, man?”

Odidi had insisted on talking to the managing director, who was in another meeting. Odidi had left a note, setting out what he had seen and asking for an explanation.

“Who did he think he was? It wasn’t rugby, y’know?”

A few days later, the managing director was on national television, showing journalists how low the levels of water in the dam had fallen. In sorrowful tones he announced an imminent power-shortage emergency and the enforcement of a power-rationing plan. As if by coincidence, obsolete diesel generators from Europe and Asia happened to be aboard cargo ships on their way to Kenya. They would take care of the shortfall in power at 3,000 percent above the usual cost. A company to administer the supply of power from these generators had already been registered. Tich Lich had been contracted to install and service the equipment.

Odidi barged into the minister of energy’s offices the next day.

“Something’s wrong,” he shouted.

Musali smiles as he remembers.

“The minister listened, then said, ‘put it in writing.’ ”

So Odidi wrote a letter to the minister headed
Acts of Treason Against the People and Nation of Kenya
, backed with data and evidence, dates and figures.

When there was no response from the minister’s office, he circulated it to the dailies. It was not published. Musali grimaces when he recalls Odidi rushing to record a statement with the police. “He even wanted to see the president.” He wipes his eyes.

A minor functionary told Odidi to record another statement, and as he did so, more diesel generators were brought into the country. Tax-free. To cope with the national emergency caused by the power shortages.

“We were offered five percent of profits for ten years, y’know?” Musali says. “Odidi called a board meeting to demand that we resign the job and expose everything.”

Musali sips his tea. “I told him, ‘We have to survive. This thing of mahonour ama patriotism, man—you must be practical. Mortgages,
mbesha
. Y’know?” Musali rubs the edge of his bandages.

“This was big. Really big. When you see something like this, man, you say yes or you die, y’know?”

Ajany reads in Musali’s shiftiness the extent of her brother’s isolation.

“What happened?”

“We voted.”

“And?”

“Opted to stay with the job. Odi took it badly, man.” Musali leans over. “Went crazy!”

Ajany flinches.

Odidi broke into the office of the managing director, having driven through the company gates in his new green Prado. He shouted that this was treason. Everyone who gathered to hear him watched and did nothing. The managing director’s bodyguards hustled Odidi out, tearing his shirt in the process. In an hour’s time, a board meeting was called.

“The chairman called for a vote. We voted out Odidi.” Silence. “He was being difficult. Wouldn’t listen. We’re talking billions, man. Y’know?” Musali pushes out his lower lip.

Tich Lich’s partners received instructions to reregister the company under a different name if they still wanted the contract. Within two hours, an oily Ivy League university–graduated lawyer who represented the establishment personalities turned up with relevant documents extracted from his brown, black, and gold python-leather case. As they looked through the documents, the lawyer played classical music from a small device, hummed musical phrases, and witnessed the signing of the company reregistration documents.

“That man,” Musali says, giggling. “Insane! After we sign, he speaks
mara
Beethoven
mara
Heili-Heiligenstadt Testament. Imagine.” Musali adds that he had looked up the testament and learned to say
Heiligenstadt
properly.

Tich Lich was renamed T. L. Associates Engineering.

Odidi was no longer a partner.

Ajany’s whole body has been shivering; her teeth chatter.

Musali touches her shoulder.

Ajany shrugs his hand away, ducking her head.

Musali asks, “Which Kenya did Odi grow up in? That
jama
could be so, so, so stupid, y’know?” Ajany hisses. “Sorry, man, just that, you know …” Musali shrugs, a practical man.

When he showed up for work, it was Musali who told Odidi what they had done.

“Tough day, that.” Musali shivers at the memory of Odidi’s look.

He had told Odidi to leave the premises. Urged him to take a break
until the contract was serviced. Promised him that when it was over Tich Lich would return. “You know what he said?”

Ajany glances up.

“Nothing.”

Musali stares at the carpet.

“He just left.”

Ajany asks, “Where’s my b-brother, Musali?”