Petals of Blood (37 page)

Munira and Abdulla were one evening resting from the last stages of the busy harvest, talking about the coming ceremony of circumcision. Karega was teaching Joseph some algebraic sums. Munira was telling Abdulla how he had always felt a little incomplete because he had been circumcised in hospital under a pain killer, so that he never really felt that he truly belonged to his age-group: Gicina Bangi. Wanja suddenly sprang among them, micege and grass and maramata sticking to her skirt. Abdulla gave her a beer. Munira playfully admonished her: where has our proprietor been? Karega continued with his teaching. Wanja sat quietly on a low stool, her legs parted a little, her hands pressing down her skirt between her thighs. She looked at them all as if she was in deep meditation. Maiden from the fields, Munira thought, and now he remembered the bruises on their skins, sustained when gathering beanstalks into sheaves. They were all caught up in that atmosphere of indolence and relaxation from a fatiguing session of breaking maize in the sun which only needed a beer and a fire to send them to sleep. ‘Like she had come from another world,’ Munira continued with his line of thought. Was there anything she would do which could possibly make her less attractive? There was a fever-excitement in her eyes which would not go even when she laughed off the male concern in Munira’s eyes. Then she started talking almost to herself: ‘I’ve got it now, now I’ve got it. And you won’t believe it when I tell you of it. But I shall tell you, for you see – must we not redeem this village, bribe the troubling ghosts of those that went before us? Sometimes it pains, the memory. Must we not lure new blood to a forgotten village? Theng’eta is the plant that only the old will talk about. Why? It is simple. It is only they who will have heard
of it or know about it. It grows wild, in the plains, the herdsmen know it and where it grows, but they will not tell you. Nyakinyua says that they used to brew it before Europeans came. And they would drink it only when work was finished, and especially after the ceremony of circumcision or marriage or itwika, and after a harvest. It was when they were drinking Theng’eta that poets and singers composed their words for a season of Gichandi, and the seer voiced his prophecy. It was outlawed by the colonialists. He said: These people are lazy. They drink Theng’eta the whole day. That is why they will not work on the railway line. That’s why they will not work on our tea and coffee and sisal farms. That’s why they will not be slaves. That, says Nyakinyua, was after the battle of Ilmorog, and they said that these warriors must have been drunk: for how dared they put out their tongues and flex their muscles at the colonialists when they already knew what had happened to others who had resisted? So only the less potent stuff, Muratina, was now allowed. Even this was only licensed to the headmen and chiefs who had shown that they could secure more people to work on European farms – for according to her, people kept on running away. For how could a whole people leave their land to go and work for strangers? So that’s why the art of making Theng’eta was lost, except to a few. But it is a Gichandi player’s spirit: it is also used in fertility rites.’

Karega, who had stopped the teaching to listen to her monologue, asked:

‘This battle of Ilmorog. What did she say about it?’

‘Aah! she is always evasive. She will tell you a story without your asking and when you become curious she suddenly cuts it off. You had better ask her yourself.’

‘And Theng’eta,’ asked Abdulla. ‘Did she tell you how to make it?’

‘She said she would show us how to make it. Theng’eta . . . just a little spirit to bless the work of our hands.’

‘When?’ Munira asked.

‘Soon. It must be ready on the day of circumcision. When the elders are having their Njohi we too can join them with our Theng’eta.’

‘Why not? To celebrate! To say farewell to a season of drought,’ said Karega with boyish enthusiasm. ‘To celebrate a big harvest.’

‘Farewell to the drought in our lives,’ added Abdulla.

‘And for more sperms of God to fertilize the earth,’ Munira said.

‘A Village Festival,’ Abdulla agreed.

‘Time too, before the police post and the church are occupied,’ added Karega.

They started work on the idea with a playful religious fervour. Nyakinyua’s hut was the centre of action. The old woman took out some millet seeds, soaked them in water, and put them in a sisal bag. Every day at about five they all would pass by the woman’s hut to see if the seeds had started to germinate. On the third day they found Nyakinyua standing at the door, beckoning them to hurry up. She had sighted little shoots, she told them, with the eagerness of a child. It was true: as if peeping through numerous holes in the bag were yellowish greenish naked things. Lord watch over us. Wanja poured out the seedlings onto a tray and they all joined hands in spreading them out to dry. Munira’s fingers were trembling at the nearness of Wanja. Lord, breathe strength into our hands. Another three days of anxious waiting. The old woman supervised the grinding but it was Wanja on her knees, a cloth tied just above her breasts so that her shoulders were bare, who did it. This in itself was a kind of festival and children and even men came and sat around and watched the grinding with stone and mortar. She would put some seeds on a large, hard, flattened granite stone, inoro, and she used a smaller one, thio, to crunch-crunch the millet. The spectators stood or sat and moved their eyes with the forward–backward motion of her beautiful body, until the seedlings were one stringy velvet mass. She was sweating by the time she finished but her eyes were shining with suppressed elation.

The old woman now set to work. She mixed the crunched millet seedlings with fried maize flour and put the mixture in a clay pot, slowly adding water and stirring. She covered its mouth with the mouth of yet another pot through which she had bored a hole. A bamboo pipe was fixed into the hole and its other end put in a sealed jar over which she placed a small basin of cold water. Then she sealed every possible opening with cowdung and when she had finished she
stood back to survey her work of art and science. Karega exclaimed: ‘But this is chemistry. A distillation process.’ She now placed the pot near the fireplace.

After this it was simply a matter of waiting for the brew to get ready. It would take a number of days, she told them. But their attention was now taken by the preparations for the ceremony. People were already beginning to sing and dance in groups in rehearsal for the eve of the ceremony. It would also be the eve of Theng’eta drinking and celebration.

Karega could hardly wait for Saturday. He had always liked the dances connected with the ritual of circumcision and the singing, especially when two or more good singers happened to be present and faced one another in a kind of poetry contest. Then his heart would be lifted to lands far and beautiful where people were held together by a common spirit.

The main venue was at Njogu’s house because Njenga, one of his sons, was going to be circumcised. Muriuki too, and a few others were going to face the knife, as they would say.

The dances on the eve of circumcision attracted people from ridges near and far. Even the builders came to participate so that both the hut and the compound of Njogu’s place were full. Karega took part in some of the more general dances like Mumburo. But he, like Munira, did not know how to do the mock fight. At times it really looked as if somebody would really throw another into the fire, and Karega’s stomach tingled with fear of expectation. But all the same, he was soon drawn into the dance, and after a while, he was sweating.

Wanja was amused to see Karega laughing and jumping about, completely absorbed in the atmosphere. He was normally so serious that at times Wanja wanted to tickle him under the armpit just to see him laugh or relax that earnest face.

Munira liked the dances: but it always made him sad that he could not take part, that he did not really know the words, and his body was so stiff. So he only watched, feeling slightly left out, an outsider at the gate of somebody else’s house.

And the house tonight belonged to Karega and Abdulla and Nyakinyua.
Nyakinyua especially. She was good at singing and she threw erotic abuse, compliments, or straight celebratory words with ease. She would make up words referring to anybody, any event, without breaking the tune or the rhythm. Most of the dance songs had a refrain and everybody could join in the chorus. But it was Njuguna and Nyakinyua who provided the dramatic tension in the opera of eros. They all, young and old, women and men, had formed a circle, and they moved round, feet raising a little dust, in rhythm with the songs:

Njuguna is now a visitor, standing at the gate of the homestead. He pays compliments to the house but demands to know who the owner is so that with his permission Njuguna can throw himself to the ground and bathe in the dust like the young bull of a rhinoceros. Nyakinyua answers him and says he is welcome so should feel himself at home:

Wanja is pulled to the centre of the circle. All fingers point at her as Nyakinyua replies that this is the bride, ‘truly ours and not the other one, belonging to a different neighbourhood, for whom I was being abused’.

Njuguna’s tone suddenly changes. He puts contempt on his face:

Nyakinyua’s voice comes in strong accepting the challenge and swearing to abuse him and even extend the abuse to his clan:

Njuguna is not at a loss for words but comes back to the attack with the prideful authority of a choosy lover:

It is now a full battle in an erotic war of words and gestures and tones suggestive of many meanings and situations. The crowd of dancers is getting more and more excited, waiting to see who will be the first to give way, to crack under the weight of the other’s abuses and allusions. Nyakinyua is now on top and she presses home her advantage:

Njuguna gives way. Why, he asks, should children from the same womb fight one another, with the enemy at the gate? He is now
pleading to his mother. He is really her warrior returning weary but victorious from wars:

All the women now ululate the five Ngemi for a boy newly born or one returning from wars against the enemy of the people.

Under the emotion of the hour, Munira suddenly tried a verse he thought he knew. Njuguna and Nyakinyua were making it sound so easy and effortless. But in the middle he got confused. Njuguna and Nyakinyua now teamed up against him:

But Abdulla came to the rescue:

Nyakinyua’s voice now drifted in, conciliatory, but signalling the end of this particular dance. She asked in song: if a thread was broken, to whom were the pieces thrown to mend them into a new thread? Njuguna replied, turning to Karega: it was thrown to Karega for he was a big warrior, Njamba Nene.

All looked to Karega to take up the broken thread. The school children laughed not only at his inability to take up the challenge, but also because of the reference to Njamba Nene. It was Abdulla who helped him out. He sang that when the old thread was broken, it was time for the whole people to change to another tune altogether, and spin a new and stronger thread.

In response as it were to Abdulla’s call for a change of threads, they
now sat down. They listened to Nyakinyua as she sang Gitiro. At first it was good-humoured, light-hearted, as she commented on those present to a chorus of laughter.