Petals of Blood (31 page)

‘Were you also educated at Siriana?’ asked the lawyer, surprised, turning to Karega.

‘Yes,’ Karega said. It now occurred to him that he might have been unfair to Munira: the three had seen different Sirianas and different Fraudshams and maybe they were not moved by the same things: why should he have expected Munira to keep up with every happening at Siriana?

‘When was this?’

‘I left there . . . I was expelled . . . about a year and half back . . . about two years . . . almost three years. Time flies.’

‘Because of the strike? Were you involved?’ The lawyer was excited. Karega felt his heart quicken at the sympathetic curiosity of one who at least had heard about the strike.

‘I suppose you can say . . .’

‘It was a – how shall I – it was—’ the lawyer interrupted and fumbled for words. ‘You see, when I came back from America and saw that we were really worshipping the same monster, I was very depressed. Where did one begin, I asked myself? So I started my practice in the poor areas of the city. I would charge a small fee: but was I not also making money out of them? And was my training and my job, the fact that I practised, not in itself a justification for those very laws in the service of the monster – was I not, in a sense, making a living out of the very system that I abhorred? Then came that strike in Siriana and, reading between the lines, I thought I saw a new youth emerging, a youth freed from the direct shame and humiliation of the past and hence not so spiritually wounded as those who had gone before. So different from our time; so different shall I say, from those who had seen their strong fathers and elder brothers fold a kofia behind them in the presence of a white boy. I said to myself: here is our hope . . . in the new children, who have nothing to prove to the white man . . . who do not find it necessary to prove that they can eat with knife and fork; that they can speak English through the nose; that they can serve the monster as efficiently as the white ministers; and therefore can see the collective humiliation clearly and hence are ready to strike out for the true kingdom of the black god within us all: Mugikuyu, Mmasai, Mjaluo, Mgiriama, Msomali, Mkamba, Kalenjin, Masai, Luhya, all of us . . . the total energy, the spirit of the people, the collective we, working for us . . . sisi kwa sisi . . . Maybe I read too much into it, but it lifted me from my depression. I saw a glimmer that could be a light, and I said: Fraudsham, and all the black Fraudshams, you have had it.’

His every mood seemed to carry them with him and Karega succumbed to that encouragement.

‘There were actually two strikes, but most people know about the first one because it involved a European, I suppose. The second was equally serious and we were angry that it was so little publicized. But
they were two in one, because the dominating figures in both were Cambridge Fraudsham and Chui Rimui – and I am not,’ he turned to Munira, ‘referring to that early one in which you and Chui were the actors.’

‘Were you, Mr Munira, also expelled?’ asked the lawyer.

‘Yes,’ said Munira.

‘How strange . . . when?’

‘During the first strike . . . the Chui strike.’

‘With Chui? There was a man . . . a legend . . . we talked about him . . . told stories about him. It was because he had gone to America that we all wanted to go there. Fraudsham did not like America . . . said Americans spoke bad English . . . But because Chui had chosen America . . . it had to be good . . .’ The lawyer shook his head at his reminiscences.

‘He had promise,’ Munira agreed and turned to Karega.

Karega coughed, cleared his throat and started:

‘Well, as you know Cambridge Fraudsham was great in his own way: he could unsettle a face, however calm and sure. Whenever he went to the city to see the men in the Ministry, the other teachers would lounge about the yard, slow measured strides, or they would perch on the table cross-legged, smoke, talk, joke and laugh with us boys. But let them spy Fraudsham or his VW from a distance: they would tense up, quickly put out their cigarettes and throw the stubs out of the window or grind them to a pulp on the floor. But these people were white; how could Fraudsham make them piss into their calves? How could he so put the fear of the Lord into them? We would talk about this, lying on our Vono-beds in the dormitories: we would puzzle it out as we scrubbed the floor in the morning. We would discuss with heated voices the inner mettle of whiteness as we cold-showered our bodies at five in the morning. “Fraudsham is tough”; we all agreed. He would have been made a governor or something bigger than a headmaster, but he had refused, or so some knowing boys claimed. This increased our awe of the man. You should have heard us unravel the mystery around his life. We spun yarns and legends involving his life and love, though how anyone knew them
was itself a bigger mystery. But he was the cleverest man of his time at Cambridge, this we knew, and even how he used to correct the other lecturers. He was among the bravest, and he had fought in Turkey and Palestine and Burma and had held up a German tank all by himself: for this he had received a medal or something from the King. In Burma a shrapnel shell caught him in the thigh and he was given leave. What was he thinking as he went back home alive and a hero? We could picture him taking out his wallet and gazing in an ecstasy of unbelief at the image of her who had given him strength through all those campaigns in the Saharan sands, through the dense Eastern jungles, through the roar of guns, shells, bombs and rockets. The train clanged along the rails: his heart throbbed: his imagination flew ahead. She was in his arms, his arms, but . . . when he finally arrived, he only sat and wept. Then he went to church and prayed. He prayed until he heard an answering voice. He would go to Africa to serve God and die there, leaving maybe a tiny trail of spiritual heroism and glory. But he could never forgive the woman who had run away with another returning soldier: no, nor any woman. His true love was for dogs. The one he had in our time was a little dog called Lizzy. She was his constant companion to classes, to the chapel, to Nairobi, anywhere. The dog often dictated his moods. If she was ill, he became difficult and irritable and looked so alone and abandoned. Lizzy, the VW and Fraudsham: we called them the school’s three musketeers, because they seemed inseparable:

‘Lizzy died.

‘Something in Fraudsham snapped. He could not teach; he could not preach. The lines on his face suddenly deepened, his eyes greyed, he would talk or not talk as if his mind was elsewhere. He was really so alone that we felt a certain pity. But we could not understand this. Dogs had died in our villages: dogs had died on the roads: we had chased dogs across fields and terraces and whenever you hit one with a stone and it yelped you laughed to tears. Good dogs were those for hunting rabbits and antelopes: brave dogs were those that guarded cattle and homes from marauding hyenas and thieves. But Lizzy was not any of these: how could she make a man lose himself so?

‘He assembled the school. We thought it would be another session during which he would lecture us on scouting, England, Cambridge and the history of the world from the Celtic times to the birth of the new nations in Africa and Asia. But what he said made us want to laugh: my ribs pained me as I tried to hold in my laughter. He talked of the place of pets in human life: that in all civilized countries learning to care for pets and animals enriched one’s appreciation of human life and God’s love. Then suddenly the whole school was one thunderous laughter. Fraudsham swore and fumed and said that Africans had no feelings. But we went on laughing through his fury because how could we understand it, how could we believe our ears? I mean who ever heard of a dog being given human burial?

‘He asked the school captain to select four boys from each class who would get jembes to dig a pit and make a coffin for Lizzy. He also wanted pall-bearers. The captain asked for volunteers. There was another outburst, with our heads bent down in fear of being selected. No volunteers and the captain named a few. They refused to go. We all refused to go. Fraudsham woke up to the present rebellion.

‘He expelled the boys selected.

‘We all went on strike.

‘The whole school shivered with unbelief. There had been one strike in the history of the school and Fraudsham had won. Now he stormed and shouted and threatened. He claimed that we had refused to obey orders. In any civilized society there were those who were to formulate orders and others to obey: there had to be leaders and the led: if you refused to obey, to be led, then how could you hope to lead and demand obedience? Look at heaven: there was God on a throne and the angels in their varying subordinate roles: yet all was harmony. But he had opened our eyes.

‘Yesterday he had been white and big and strong; but it was no longer the same. Yesterday he had been white and strong and invincible, a rock that could not be moved, but now, it was no longer the same. And all the things, all the cracks, all the contradictions that we had often whispered about but which had never been part of our conscious minds came to the fore. He tried to compromise: only one would be expelled. We still refused to go back to our classes. OK,
only a simple punishment: four canes each and cutting grass for a day. We saw his unease. We made new demands.

‘We wanted to be taught African literature, African history, for we wanted to know ourselves better. Why should ourselves be reflected in white snows, spring flowers fluttering by on icy lakes? Then somebody shouted: We wanted an African headmaster and African teachers. We denounced the prefect system, the knightly order of masters and menials. That did it. And imagine. The newspapers took up this aspect of the crisis and denounced us. Since when did students, a mob, tell their teachers what they ought to teach? If the students were so clever and already knew what they ought to be taught and who was fit to teach them, why had they bothered to enrol in the school? And a school with such a record! A headmaster whom even the very best school in England, like Eton, would have been proud to have in their midst? They counted the money spent on a student and compared it with the income of the poor peasants.

‘But we were adamant, despite the divisive hate campaign. Chui, Chui, somebody cried. Chui, the name had been alive, a legend. We wanted him to come and lead the school. Down with Fraudsham: down with the prefect system: down with whites: Uuuuuuup with Chui, shake them . . . Black Power!

‘Well . . . the people in the ministry came. One was an old boy of the school. They appealed to us to go back to our classes. Our demands and our grievances would be looked into: the four boys would accept a simple punishment of cutting grass for a day and having their heads shaven clean.

‘We went back to our classes. But something had happened: the rules of the game had been questioned and everything had been altered. We knew this, Fraudsham knew this, and almost a month later he resigned and soon afterward followed Lizzy. We were proud and thrilled and saw ourselves anew. We vowed that should we get an African headmaster we would give him the utmost obedience; we would work even harder, so as not to shame him and ourselves. No more prefects. We would elect our own leaders. We called ourselves African Populists and we wanted a populist headmaster.

‘It was Chui – it was Chui. We waited for him with bated breath.
None of us had ever seen him or knew anything about him outside the school’s legend and folklore. But we sang with hope: a new school, a new beginning, a new people. But among the white teachers, there was only gloom and uncertainty: one or two did in fact resign. Apprehension and jubilation; despair and hope; sullen lips and radiant smiles: these battled in the air as we waited for Chui’s arrival.

‘Well, he did come, finally: we lined up the route from the gate to the office. He waved at us once and we replied with a heart-rending cry: Chuuuuuui!

‘The first assembly . . . we went to the hall almost one hour before the time. We sang and clapped and made a few speeches. The white teachers stood outside and talked nervously.

‘Chui arrived. Deathly, sepulchral silence. He climbed the steps . . . up . . . up . . . to the foyer. Our eyes were glued to the scene before us. He had khaki shorts and shirt and a sun helmet: a black replica of Fraudsham. We waited for words that would somehow still the doubt and the fear. He spoke and announced a set of rules. He thanked the teachers for the high standards and world-wide reputation of the school. It was his desire, nay his fervent prayer, that all the teachers should stay, knowing that he had not come to wreck but to build on what was already there: there would be no hasty programme of Africanization, reckless speed invariably being the undoing of so many a fine school. There had been a recent breakdown in discipline and he vowed that with the help of all he would resolve it. Far from destroying the prefect system, he would inject it with new blood. Obedience was the royal road to order and stability, the only basis of sound education. A school was like a body: there had to be the head, arms, feet, all performing their ordained functions without complaints for the benefit of the whole body. He read a passage from William Shakespeare.