Who Will Catch Us As We Fall (12 page)

Same road, similar car pulling to a stop before a younger version of himself. His fellow officer, David, knocking on the driver's window – a twenty-something African woman – asking her to open the rear door so that he could climb in. She had done as instructed and David had shouted over the hood of the Toyota to Jeffery, ‘Omondi, what are you staring at? You want me to leave you here?'

And Jeffery had disappeared into the cool interior of the car, sneaking a look back at the traffic they were meant to be directing and then casting his eyes upon the rearview mirror, where the driver was watching them uneasily. She was chewing down on her lipsticked mouth and getting doll-pink dye all over her teeth.
It's your right to refuse us entry into your car
,
he wanted to tell her, but was certain that David would disapprove. After all, this was being done for Jeffery.

‘Driver's license, ID.' David held out his hand as she shuffled through her glove compartment and handed him the documents. She pulled on her afro, which was so large it could have been a violation of traffic laws itself. Jeffery appreciated it; he didn't see many young women with their natural hair any more. Always braids or mermaid-like weaves, dressed for an affluent future, pretending to be independent but hunting for a rich man and never a Kenyan – mostly
mzungus
in bars and Nigerian tycoons.

He had read an article in the
Standard
newspaper about how Kenyan men could learn the art of romance from these flashy
ogas
from the west. How his fellow men here refused to go that extra mile to sweep their women off their feet and then acted insulted when these pretty ladies trotted off to some Nigerian businessman in a handmade suit, holding a big bouquet of roses.
Things cost money
,
he had wanted to write back to the editor.
It's not that we don't want to, but how can I spend five thousand shillings on dinner and flowers if it costs me m
ore than a quarter of my
monthly salary?

‘Drive,' David had commanded, shaking Jeffery out of his thinking. They were back in traffic, moving in silence except for David occasionally slapping the license against his thigh. Eventually he asked the girl, ‘Do you know why I pulled you over?'

She tightened her trembling grip on the wheel. ‘I didn't do anything wrong.'

‘That is incorrect.' David was pleased with himself. ‘In fact, you wrongly changed lanes. You moved from the left lane to the right and then back again, which is an offense. Perhaps you should have stayed in the right one, it would have taken you back into town.'

The woman treaded carefully in an effort not to aggravate him. ‘It was a broken white line, which means that I was allowed to change lanes as long as it was safe to do so, which it was. So you see, I haven't broken any laws.'

‘Surely you have.' David's manner was infuriatingly slow but beneath his smile, Jeffery had sensed a warning. ‘
Sisi-haturuhusu-watu-wabadilishe-lanes-hapo.
'

She spoke again, this time a buoyed confidence in her tone thanks to his lack of any sound argument. ‘I was perfectly within the law to change lanes and overtake a slower moving car and get back into my lane twenty meters before the intersection.'

His smile completely gone, David scooted forward. He spoke in an agonizingly sing-song manner, as if addressing a child. ‘Wedonot-allow-forchangeson-that-road,' he had repeated, glancing in Jeffery's direction but Jeffery had chosen to keep staring out of the window. He would hear about it later, no doubt, but in that moment, his first participation in breaking the very thing he had sworn to uphold, Jeffery was humiliated. Betrayed by the system and a government that forced him and so many others like him to so easily degrade themselves, to become starving vultures, beaking and grasping at whatever they could get their claws around.

‘
Sawa
.' David heaved a sigh and fell back against the seat once more. ‘Just drive to the traffic headquarters.'

‘Why?' Her voice had turned querulous.

David sneered. ‘I have to book you and ground your car until your case can be heard in front of a judge. We are the Kenyan Police – we don't allow for law breakers to get away so easily as that.'

‘I haven't done anything wrong.' The anger in her voice was replaced by a resigned helplessness. David snuck Jeffery a knowing look. Easy as that – threaten them with the staggering inefficiency of certain institutions of the country and they would be willing to pay an arm and a leg to get out of it.

‘
Shuari yako
.' David had inspected the dirt beneath his fingernails. ‘It's your problem now. Continue driving, please.'

Her eyes darted from the road to the rearview mirror, where she looked at the two officers in disbelief. ‘You're stopping me for some rule you just made up so you can get some money!'

‘Also another reason,' David's lips had twitched. ‘Visual pollution. This car is dirty!
Aieesh!
'

‘What kind of people are you?' The woman was muttering to herself. ‘Supposed to stop thieves but instead you are too busy stealing yourselves.'

‘Madam, please watch your tone.' David was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Or will I have to put you in jail for harassing a police officer?'

‘But I've done nothing!'

‘
Nipe
five thousand.' David was suddenly impatient with this silly game they were playing. ‘Five thousand and I will allow you to pass,
sawa
?'

‘You must be joking.' Her indignation was unconvincing. ‘I don't have that kind of money.' She was planning on what to do next – Jeffery saw it in the quick scurrying of her eyes back and forth from her purse – she was wondering how low she could take him.

‘
Ninasikia njaa
,' David had told her, then addressing Jeffery, ‘Aren't you hungry also?'

His mouth remained a vacuum for words, his lips stiff. With a yelping sigh, the woman pulled into the next petrol station she saw. As she dug through her wallet, David nudged his friend.

‘I only have one thousand.'

David took it. ‘Come on,
Mama
. I know you have some little bit more.' Despite the wink, the mischievous smile, she knew he was serious.

‘Here's five hundred more. But really, that's all I have.'

It was blind robbery, done in the manner of a simple transaction – she was a willing participant so Jeffery could not feel sorry for her. He knew that if she had agreed to follow the law, to take them to the traffic headquarters, David would have told her to drop them off. He refused to waste his time with paperwork when he could be out on the road making money. It was people like her, Jeffery concluded with a bone-deep resentment, who kept corruption going.

She pushed the remaining shillings into David's hand. ‘Get out now. I'm late for a meeting.'

‘
Asante
, madam.' David thanked her, pushing Jeffery out of the door. Once both policemen were back on the road, David tapped on the window and said cheerfully, ‘Have a good day.'

She was gone in a squeal of tires and David let out a low sigh. ‘Too bad she wasn't a
muhindi
or a
mzungu
,
that's where the money is to be made. Though sometimes the Americans cause too much trouble. They become offended very quickly.' He stretched out the five hundred shilling note, its metallic stink rising up to their nostrils. ‘Remember that – always a woman because they're more scared and it's the
muhindis
who keep lots of cash in their pockets.'

‘What about my share?' Jeffery had asked.

David had folded up the money into the breast pocket of his uniform. ‘For what? Sitting there like a
mjinga? Sikia
,
I did that to teach you a lesson. Eat or be eaten – this is no place for your conscience.'

He told the boy the same thing that day, having climbed out of the car pocketing two thousand shillings.
Prices are going up, have to adjust
,
not wanting to admit that he had become extremely adept at recognizing how much people were willing or able to spend and extracting just a little more from them. ‘If you want a job that values honesty and integrity then go somewhere else,' he said, a threat-covered warning.
It's not too late
,
is what he really wanted to say.
This is no place for young Kenyans.
How many new officers had he seen joining the force, suddenly infected with the extortion and bribery vice? He was a prime example. It was too late for him, but if he could help others Jeffery took it as an opportunity to balance out his multiple sins, hoping that in some way it might restore his old faith, his naivety. Yes, the money had raised him from the muddy, shit-stained slums of his childhood, away from depravity and death, but had filled him with something infinitely worse.

A year in as a junior constable, Jeffery's senior officer had called him into his office.

‘Omondi, Omondi,' his voice loud and gruff, petering into a
tsk-tsk
note of dissatisfaction. ‘You wanted to speak with me.'

Standing at attention – with everything at stake, Jeffery moved and spoke with the greatest detail. ‘Yes, sir.'

The man leaned back in his chair, which groaned as a complaint of his weight. ‘You are asking for a raise?'

That morning, Jeffery had left his mother on a pile of maize leaves beside her bed. She was heaving, unable to move and slicked in her own sweat, urine and feces. He had taken off all her clothes and covered her with a thin blanket, leaving a plastic bag beside her in case she found the strength to use it. She whimpered after him as he left, ‘Help me, Constable. Help me, my son.'

Seventeen thousand shillings a month was enough to buy him drinks at Mama Lucy's and the occasional sandwich from Uchumi but it wasn't enough to save a life. Not enough to save the only life he cared about.

On the
matatu
, Jeffery had scrawled down his request, listing his credentials and merits, which he was sure entitled him to better pay. Clean to the bone – no bribes or misdemeanors, bringing in violators of traffic including drivers of public vehicles that were all well below the safety requirements for transporting Kenyan citizens. It hadn't been easy, considering how inclined they were to pay him off.

‘I've been working here for almost a year. In that time, I've made the roads better and safer for Kenyans,' he said, trying not to beg but finding his body arching over the desk, hands clasped desperately.

A loud laugh ensued, papers scuffling as the senior officer rubbed his belly in amusement. ‘I will give you a raise,' he conceded, and Jeffery bolted upright.
He knew it.
Wait until he told the other officers, thieves all of them, who laughed in the face of his steadfast values.
Goodness always wins. Patriots are richly rewarded.
‘I will give you a raise but only if you bring in six
vayhacles.
'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Allow me to finish. Six
vayhacles
at five thousand shillings per car.'

Jeffery's confidence waned, terror and grief climbing up into his chest. ‘You want me to bribe someone?'

The officer expertly avoided the question. ‘Six
vayhacles
for five thousand each makes it thirty thousand. Try for ten thousand for one and I will give you ten percent.'

‘But we're supposed to be fighting—'

‘Listen here carefully,
kijana
. I am not in the business of selflessly helping you. You give me something, I give in return.
Sawa
?'

Jeffery protested weakly, ‘You remember the motto,
Utamishi…
'

‘Values cannot give you food. They cannot buy you a house or look after your wife and children.' The officer heaved as if in pain. ‘Or in your case, your mother.'

‘How did you know?'

‘They talk.' The large man waved his hand in the direction of his door. ‘Everybody here talks except for you.'

As the officer ushered him out, Jeffery tried one last time. ‘I need the money today. If you loan it to me, I will bring you six cars, even seven! I won't take anything. You can keep it all.'

‘Do you think I am a bank?' barked the man. ‘Go find someone else to help you – six cars in one day is easy.' He waved Jeffery away, no room for discussion. ‘You heard me,
sindiyo
?
Six and no less.'

Jeffery got up from the chair and moved toward the door, confused and hurt because all of his hard work had amounted to nothing. He left the senior officer's desk angry, determined and goaded on by the only option he had and went straight to the man he knew could help him – David.

Already on his way out for the afternoon's work, the man hopped down the stairs of the station, smiling. ‘Don't worry, brother,' he had said, with menace in his voice. ‘I know the place exactly.'

One afternoon, the rain was so relentless it forced everyone indoors and the drain that ran along the side of the street overflowed. Leena left her brother and Michael sitting at the small table in the muggy shadows of the kitchen, where the heat of the downpour collected like steam and caused her T-shirt to stick to her skin. She dashed the short distance to Tag's house, the rainwater rippling out onto the tarmac like a shallow river and wetting her socks.

‘My mother won't like it if you dirty our carpet,' he told her, standing guard at his door.

So she flipped her hair over one shoulder and squeezed the water from it, roping it around her palm. Before she stepped in, while removing her shoes and socks, she squinted back at her house. She heard her brother laugh and the sound pricked her chest. She had said goodbye when leaving but he was so engrossed in his conversation he had barely glanced back at her. But Michael had paused, flicked his eyes above Jai's head and she had tried not to scowl while he struggled to keep his grin hidden.