Kirinyaga Read online

  Ndemi studied her for a moment “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose you can carry firewood.”

  “I'm glad I meet with your approval,” she said.

  “But you will need a new name,” continued Ndemi. “Wanda is a European name.”

  “It is just a name,” I said. “Changing it will not make her more of a Kikuyu.”

  “I have no objection,” she interjected. “I'm starting a new life; I ought to have a new name.”

  I shrugged. “Which name will you take as your own?”

  She smiled at Ndemi. “You choose one,” she said.

  He furrowed his brow for a long moment, then looked up at her. “My mother's sister, who died in childbirth last year, was named Mwange, and now there is no one in the village of that name.”

  “Then Mwange it shall be,” she said. “Mwange wa Ndemi.”

  “But I am not your father,” said Ndemi.

  She smiled at him. “You are the father of my new name.”

  Ndemi puffed his chest up proudly.

  “Well, now that that's settled,” said Nkobe, “what about our luggage?”

  “You will not need it,” I said.

  “Yes we will,” said Mwange.

  “You were told to bring nothing of Kenya with you.”

  “I've brought some kikois that I made myself,” she said. “Surely that must be permissible, since I will be expected to weave my own fabrics and make my own clothes on Kirinyaga.”

  I considered her explanation for a moment, then nodded my consent. “I will send one of the village children for the bags.”

  “It's not that heavy,” said Nkobe. “I can carry it myself.”

  “Kikuyu men do not fetch and carry,” said Ndemi.

  “What about Kikuyu women?” asked Mwange, obviously reluctant to leave the luggage behind.

  “They carry firewood and grain, not bags of clothing,” responded Ndemi. “Those” he said, pointing contemptuously toward the two leather bags, “are for children.”

  “Then we might as well start walking,” said Mwange. “There are no children here.”

  Ndemi beamed with pride and strutted forward.

  “Let Ndemi go first,” I said. “His eyes are young and clear. He will be able to see any snakes or hyenas hiding in the tall grass.”

  “Do you have poisonous snakes here?” asked Nkobe.

  “A few.”

  “Why don't you kill them?”

  “Because this is not Kenya,” I replied.

  I walked directly behind Ndemi, and Nkobe and Mwange followed us, remarking upon the scenery and the animals to each other. After about half a mile we came to an impala ram standing directly in our path.

  “Isn't he beautiful?” whispered Mwange. “Look at the horns on him!”

  “I wish I had my camera with me!” said Nkobe.

  “We do not permit cameras on Kirinyaga,” I said.

  “I know,” said Nkobe. “But to be perfectly honest, I can't see how something as simple as a camera could be a corrupting influence on your society.”

  “To have a camera, one needs film, and one must therefore have a factory that manufactures both cameras and films. To develop the film, one needs chemicals, and then one must find a place to dump those chemicals that haven't been used. To print the pictures, one needs photographic paper, and we have barely enough wood to burn in our fires.” I paused. “Kirinyaga supplies us with all of our desires. That is why we came here.”

  “Kirinyaga supplies you with all of your needs” said Mwange. “That is not quite the same thing.”

  Suddenly Ndemi stopped walking and turned to her.

  “This is your first day here, so you are to be forgiven your ignorance,” he explained. “But no manamouki may argue with the mundumugu11

  “Manamouki?”she repeated. “What is a manamouki?11

  “You are,” said Ndemi.

  “I've heard that word before,” said Nkobe. “I think it means wife11

  “You are wrong,” I said. “A manamouki is a female.”

  “You mean a woman?” asked Mwange.

  I shook my head. “Any female property,” I said. “A woman, a cow, a sow, a bitch, a ewe.”

  “And Ndemi thinks I'm some kind of property?”

  “You are Nkobe's manamoukill said Ndemi.

  She considered it for a moment, then shrugged with amusement. “What the hell,” she said in English. “If Wanda was only a name, manamouki is only a word. I can live with it.”

  “I hope so,” I replied in Swahili, “for you will have to.”

  She turned to me. “I know we are the first immigrants to come to Kirinyaga, and that you must have your doubts about us—but this is the life I've always wanted. I'm going to be the best damned man-amouki you ever saw.”

  “I hope so,” I said, but I noticed that the wind still blew from the west.

  I introduced Nkobe and Mwange to their neighbors, showed them their shamba where they would grow their food, pointed out their six cattle and ten goats and recommended that they lock them in their boma at night to protect them from the hyenas, told them how to reach the river to procure water, and left them at the entrance to their hut. Mwange seemed enthused about everything, and was soon engaged in animated conversation with the women who came by to look at her strange outfit.

  “She is very nice,” commented Ndemi as I walked through the fields, blessing the scarecrows. “Perhaps the omens you read were wrong.”

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  He stared at me. “But you do not think so.”

  “No.”

  “Well, I like her,” he said.

  “That is your right.”

  “Do you dislike her, then?”

  I paused as I considered my answer.

  “No,” I said at last. “I fear her.”

  “But she is just a manamouW he protested. “She can do no harm.”

  “Under the proper circumstances, anything can do harm.”

  “I do not believe it,” said Ndemi.

  “Do you doubt your mundumugus word?” I asked.

  “No,” he said uncomfortably “If you say something, then it must be true. But I cannot understand how.”

  I smiled wryly. “That is because you are not yet a mundumugu”

  He stopped and pointed to a spot some three hundred yards away, where a group of impala does were grazing.

  “Can even they do harm?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But how?” he asked, frowning. “When danger appears, they do not confront it, but run away from it. Ngai has not blessed them with horns, so they cannot defend themselves. They are not large enough to destroy our crops. They cannot even kick an enemy, as can the zebra. I do not understand.”

  “I shall tell you the tale of the Ugly Buffalo, and then you will understand,” I said.

  Ndemi smiled happily, for he loved stories above all things, and I led him to the shade of a thorn tree, where we both squatted down, facing each other.

  “One day a cow buffalo was wandering through the savannah,” I began. “The hyenas had recently taken her first calf, and she was very sad. Then she came upon a newborn impala, whose mother had been killed by hyenas that very morning.

  “ ‘I would like to take you home with me,’ said the buffalo, ‘for I am very lonely, and have much love in my heart. But you are not a buffalo.’

  “ ‘I, too, am very lonely,’ said the impala. ‘And if you leave me here, alone and unprotected, I surely will not survive the night.’

  “ ‘There is a problem,’ said the buffalo. ‘You are an impala, and we are buffalo. You do not belong with us.’

  “ ‘I will become the best buffalo of all,’ promised the impala. ‘I will eat what you eat, drink what you drink, go where you go.’

  “ ‘How can you become a buffalo? You cannot even grow horns.’

  “ ‘Then I will wear the branches of a tree upon my head.’

  “ ‘You do not wallow in the mud to protect y
our skin from parasites,’ noted the buffalo.

  “ ‘Take me home with you and I will cover myself with more mud than any other buffalo,’ said the impala.

  “For every objection the buffalo raised, the impala had an answer, and finally the buffalo agreed to take the impala back with her. Most of the members of the herd thought that the impala was the ugliest buffalo they had ever seen,”—Ndemi chuckled at that—”but because the impala tried so hard to act like a buffalo, they allowed her to remain.

  “Then one day a number of young buffalo were grazing some distance from the herd, and they came to a deep mud wallow that blocked their way

  “ We must return to the herd,' said one of the young buffalo.

  “ ‘Why?’ asked the impala. “There is fresh grass on the other side of the wallow.”

  “ ‘Because we have been warned that a deep wallow such as this can suck us down beneath the surface and kill us.’

  “ ‘I do not believe it,’ said the impala, and, bolder than her companions, she walked out to the center of the mud wallow.

  “ ‘You see?’ she said. ‘I have not been sucked beneath the surface. It is perfectly safe.’

  “Soon three of the young buffalo ventured out across the mud wallow, and each in turn was sucked beneath the surface and drowned.

  “ ‘It is the ugly buffalo's fault,’ said the king of the herd. ‘It was she who told them to cross the mud wallow’

  “ ‘But she meant no harm,’ said her foster mother. ‘And what she told them was true: the wallow was safe for her. All she wants is to live with the herd and be a buffalo; please do not punish her.’

  “The king was blessed with more generosity than wisdom, and so he forgave the ugly buffalo.

  “Then, a week later, the ugly buffalo, who could leap as high as a tall bush, jumped up in the air and saw a pack of hyenas lurking in the grass. She waited until they were almost close enough to catch her, and then cried out a warning. All the buffalo began running, but the hyenas were able to catch the ugly buffalo's foster mother, and they pulled her down and killed her.

  “Most of the other buffalo were grateful to the ugly buffalo for warning them, but during the intervening week there had been a new king, and this one was wiser than the previous one.

  “ ‘It is the ugly buffalo's fault,’ he said.

  “ ‘How can it be her fault?’ asked one of the older buffalo. ‘It was she who warned us of the hyenas.’

  “ ‘But she only warned you when it was too late,’ said the king. ‘Had she warned you when she first saw the hyenas, her mother would still be among us. But she forgot that we cannot run as fast as she can, and so her mother is dead.’

  “And the new king, though his heart was sad, decreed that the ugly buffalo must leave the herd, for there is a great difference between being a buffalo and wanting to be a buffalo.”

  I leaned back against the tree, my story completed.

  “Did the ugly buffalo survive?” asked Ndemi.

  I shrugged and brushed a crawling insect from my forearm. “That is another story.”

  “She meant no harm.”

  “But she caused harm nonetheless.”

  Ndemi traced patterns in the dirt with his finger as he considered my answer, then looked up at me. “ But if she had not been with the herd, the hyenas would have killed her mother anyway”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Then it was not her fault.”

  “If I fall asleep against the tree, and you see a black mamba slithering through the grass toward me, and you make no attempt to wake me, and the mamba kills me, would you be to blame for my death?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Even though it would certainly have killed me had you not been here?”

  Ndemi frowned. “It is a difficult problem.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “The mud wallow was much easier,” he said. “That was surely the ugly buffalo's fault, for without her urging, the other buffalo would never have entered it.”

  “That is true,” I said.

  Ndemi remained motionless for a few moments, still wrestling with the nuances of the story.

  “Yon are saying that there are many different ways to cause harm,” he announced.

  “Yes.”

  “And that it takes wisdom to understand who is to blame, for the foolish king did not recognize the harm of the ugly buffalo's action, while the wise king knew that she was to blame for her inaction.”

  I nodded my head.

  “I see,” said Ndemi.

  “And what has this to do with the manamoukiV I asked.

  He paused again. “If harm comes to the village, you must use your wisdom to decide whether Mwange, who wants nothing more than to be a Kikuyu, is responsible for it.”

  “That is correct,” I said, getting to my feet.

  “But I still do not know what harm she can do.”

  “Neither do I,” I answered.

  “Will you know it when you see it?” he asked. “Or will it seem like a good deed, such as warning the herd that hyenas are near?”

  I made no reply.

  “Why are you silent, Koriba?” asked Ndemi at last.

  I sighed heavily. “Because there are some questions that even a mundumugu cannot answer.”

  Ndemi was waiting for me, as usual, when I emerged from my hut five mornings later.

  “fambo, Koriba,” he said.

  I grunted a greeting and walked over to the fire that he had built, sitting cross-legged next to it until it removed the chill from my aging bones.

  “What is today's lesson?” he asked at last.

  “Today I will teach you how to ask Ngai for a fruitful harvest,” I answered.

  “But we did that last week.”

  “And we will do it next week, and many more weeks as well,” I answered.

  “When will I learn how to make ointments to cure the sick, or how to turn an enemy into an insect so that I may step on him?”

  “When you are older,” I said.

  “I am already old.”

  “And more mature.”

  “How will you know when I am more mature?” he persisted.

  “I will know because you will have gone an entire month without asking about ointments or magic, for patience is one of the most important virtues a mundumugu can possess.” I got to my feet. “Now take my gourds to the river and fill them with water,” I said, indicating two empty water gourds.

  “Yes, Koriba,” he said dejectedly

  While I was waiting for him, I went into my hut, activated my computer, and instructed Maintenance to make a minor orbital adjustment that would bring rain and cooler air to the western plains.

  This done, I slung my pouch around my neck and went back out into my boma to see if Ndemi had returned, but instead of my youthful apprentice, I found Wambu, Koinnage's senior wife, waiting for me, bristling with barely controlled fury

  ufamboy Wambu,” I said.

  “farnbo, Koriba,” she replied.

  “You wish to speak to me?”

  She nodded. “It is about the Kenyan woman.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes,” said Wambu. “You must make her leave!”

  “What has Mwange done?” I asked.

  “I am the senior wife of the paramount chief, am I not?” demanded Wambu.

  “That is true.”

  “She does not treat me with the respect that is my due.”

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “In all ways!”

  “For example?”

  “Her khanga is much more beautiful than mine. The colors are brighter, the designs more intricate, the fabric softer.”

  “She wove her khanga on her own loom, in the old way,” I said.

  “What difference does not make?” snapped Wambu.

  I frowned. “Do you wish me to make her give you the khanga}1” I asked, trying to understand her rage.

  “No!”

  “Then I do not understand
,” I said.

  “You are no different than Koinnage!” she said, obviously frustrated that I could not comprehend her complaint. “You may be a mundumugu, but you are still a man!”

  “Perhaps if you told me more,” I suggested.

  “Kibo was as silly as a child,” she said, referring to Koinnage's youngest wife, “but I was training her to be a good wife. Now she wants to be like the Kenyan woman.”

  “But the Kenyan woman,” I said, using her terminology, “wants to be like you.”

  “She cannot be like me!” Wambu practically shouted at me. “I am Koinnage's senior wife!”

  “I mean that she wants to be a member of the village.”

  “Impossible!” scoffed Wambu. “She speaks of many strange things.”

  “Such as?”

  “It does not matter! You must make her leave!”

  “For wearing a pretty khanga and making a good impression on Kibo?” I said.

  “Bah!” she snapped. “You are just like Koinnage! You pretend not to understand, but you know she must go!”

  “I truly do not understand,” I said.

  “You are my mundumugu, not hers. I will pay you two fat goats to place a thahu on her.”

  “I will not place a curse on Mwange for the reasons you gave me,” I said firmly.

  She glared at me for a long moment, then spat on the ground, turned on her heel, and walked back down the winding path to the village, muttering furiously to herself, practically knocking Ndemi down as he returned with my water gourds.

  I spent the next two hours instructing Ndemi in the harvest prayer, then told him to go into the village and bring Mwange back. An hour later Mwange, resplendent in her khanga, climbed up my hill, accompanied by Ndemi, and entered my boma.

  “fambo,” I greeted her.

  “fambo, Koriba,” she replied. “Ndemi says that you wish to speak to me.”

  I nodded. “That is true.”

  “The other women seemed to think I should be frightened.”

  “I cannot imagine why,” I said.

  “Perhaps it is because you can call down the lightning, and change hyenas into insects, and kill your enemies from miles away,” suggested Ndemi helpfully.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  “Why have you sent for me?” asked Mwange.

  I paused for a moment, trying to think of how best to approach the subject. “There is a problem with your clothing,” I said at last.