Burn My Heart Page 11

  He had just dropped off to sleep when Lance shot back into the room, waking him.

  ‘My dad’s come back! Says once he begins screening, he won’t have time to collect me. So I’m going with him now. We won’t see each other until after the hols, hey?’

  Mathew propped himself up, his elbow on his pillow, and managed a nod. Lance bent forward and brought his face up close. The blue web around each pupil tightened as if aiming through a gun sight.

  ‘You split on us, Mat, and I’ll cut you dead forever.’

  18

  Speechless

  Mugo knelt on the concrete floor, gripping his hands over his ears. Baba’s pain tore through him. Howls. Roars. Screams. Mugo had never heard any human being in such agony. He was alone in a small dusky room without windows and stale air next to the one in which the inspector and his men had taken Baba. They wanted him to hear. They wanted him to know that they could do anything. However hard he clenched his sweating palms over his ears, the painful sounds kept coming… rising and falling, rising and falling.

  When they came to him, Mugo could answer none of the inspector’s questions.

  ‘Who set fire to your bwana’s stables?’

  ‘Where is your older brother?’

  ‘When did you take the oath?’

  ‘Did your brother give you the oath?’

  ‘Where do you take him food?’

  Each time Mugo said he didn’t know – he hadn’t taken any oath and, no, he didn’t do these things – a red hat thrust his head into a bucket of freezing water. Each time they held him down longer. Fingers pressed on the back of his neck. A hand shoved his scalp backwards and forwards. He was suffocating, gulping, drowning.

  19

  Confession and confusion

  ‘…I’ll cut you dead forever.’ Lance’s threat reverberated in Mathew’s head. Lance meant it. If Mathew said anything that got Lance into trouble, he wouldn’t only cold-shoulder him in school. He would deny what Mathew had said. Perhaps he would claim that the fire had been entirely Mathew’s idea and that Mathew was now trying to spread the blame! Lance might pretend that he had been the sensible one… and that Mathew had been acting big and had refused to listen to his warnings. It would be Lance’s words against his! Everyone was sure to believe Lance. He was always so confident.

  Unable to go back to sleep, Mathew wandered into the passage. The burnt smell hovered everywhere and the house felt strangely empty. No Mercy making beds and dusting. No Josiah humming hymns in the kitchen. No Mugo sweeping the veranda.

  The door to the study was slightly open. Father was on the telephone.

  ‘That’s what I’m saying. I’ve no one. Only my Turkanas… No, I can’t use them. They’re my guards! I need new labour urgently… Smithers says I should get rid of the lot of them… Who should I contact?’

  Mathew felt a new wave of dismay. Earlier this morning, he had seen Father remain grimly quiet while the inspector had his say. ‘Once this has happened, you can’t trust any of them. You see that now, Jack, don’t you?’ Mathew remembered how Father had argued with Lance’s father in the club. Yet now Father was quoting the inspector and was not even prepared to wait for the results of the screening! No wonder Mugo, Kamau and everyone else looked so distressed. They knew that they were innocent! Shouldn’t he just go into the study and tell the plain truth? His shame and Father’s anger would be quite terrible. But if he were a truthful boy, that’s what he should do, shouldn’t he?

  ‘What are you doing, Mathew? I thought you were sleeping!’ Mother startled him from behind. ‘Since you’re up, you can come to the kitchen and help prepare some vegetables.’ She said nothing about his eavesdropping.

  He accompanied her, relieved to have something to do. It saved him from making a hasty decision. There were beans to be stringed, potatoes and carrots to be washed and peeled. It wasn’t nearly as easy as it looked when Mugo did it. Even Mother seemed a little clumsy when she offered to show him the best way to hold the peeler. Neither of them mentioned Josiah or Mugo. But however hard Mathew concentrated on his tasks, he couldn’t stop himself remembering Inspector Smithers’ barbed-wire prison. Did Mother and Father know about it? He dared not ask.

  A little later, Father called them to the car. He was on his way to the dairy and needed their help with the morning milking. Before all this Mau Mau business, they would have walked to the dairy through the grove of pepper trees. But nowadays, Father drove even the shortest distances. Their route took them past the labour lines. Usually, there was some activity down there, even when the labourers were out in the fields. A woman or two would be busy washing clothes and always a handful of near-naked, pot-bellied little children would be playing between the long rows of wooden buildings. But today the lines were unnaturally silent. Only a couple of thin, mangy dogs lifted their heads and barked at the car. They looked hungry, roving around for food.

  The Turkana guards saluted as they opened the gate to the dairy enclosure. Father stopped the car alongside the boma, where the cows stood restlessly waiting to be taken into the milking shed. There was no sign of Wamai, the old dairyman. Mathew hadn’t seen him being herded on to one of the trucks, but his short, bent figure could easily have been submerged in the crowd.

  ‘This is going to take us forever!’ Mother sighed as she climbed out of the car. Father was already striding ahead and didn’t hear. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve done this – and then it was for fun.’ Mathew noticed how her right hand hovered close to her pistol holster.

  Inside the milking shed, Father showed them the buckets and cloths for washing the cows’ udders and teats, the milking pails, and the cooler cans into which the fresh milk had to be poured.

  ‘Watch me do the first one,’ said Father. ‘If you make the cows nervous, the milk is affected.’

  ‘You can show Mother. I know how to milk. I’ve done it with Mugo.’ The moment that Mathew mentioned Mugo’s name, he regretted it. Before Father could reply, he set off to bring in his first cow. If only he could work quietly in a far corner of the shed, on his own.

  He talked to his cow as he had seen Mugo do when Wamai had let the two of them help him. Wamai had a Kikuyu name for each animal, like ‘The one who was born early’ or ‘The one with the crooked leg’. But without Wamai, he didn’t know his cow’s name. However, Mugo’s voice inside his head directed him. ‘Be gentle with her. Tell her she is very good! Pull the teat like this. Two fingers, now all of them… squeeze!’ Mathew laid his head against the cow’s flank, listening to the mild rumble in her stomach. He kept one foot against the pail just in case she took fright and kicked it.

  He worked slowly, trying to get a steady rhythm in bringing out the milk and not being distracted by his parents and their fumbling. Even Father didn’t seem to be doing as well as him. By just talking to the cows, one by one, Mathew could feel himself becoming calmer… and as long as he only remembered Mugo in the milking shed, he could push away the eyes and voice that said, ‘You betrayed me.’

  They milked for over two hours. Waiting for Mother and Father to finish with the last two cows, Mathew walked outside and wandered to the back of the milking shed. A scurrying movement caught his eye, something small disappearing behind a bush. A child’s foot? He was going to call Father but on an impulse decided to look himself. He stepped cautiously, however, towards the bush. A young boy, about six or seven years old, stared up at him in terror, crouched in the long grass.

  ‘Habari?’ Mathew asked. The child didn’t reply. Did he not understand Swahili?

  ‘Wĩ mwega?’ Mathew remembered how Mugo had taught him ‘How are you?’ in Kikuyu. His captive looked so terrified that he wanted to reassure him. The child’s mouth opened but he remained speechless.

  ‘It’s OK. Come with me.’ Mathew reverted to English and to signs. The boy trembled as Mathew accompanied him into the milking shed.

  Father immediately recognized him as a herd boy and, speaking in Kikuyu, he finally got him to talk. The
boy had brought in the cows yesterday evening but he had been scared to return home because he was in some kind of trouble with his father. He had slept under a bush behind the milking shed, hidden from Wamai. In the early morning he had heard the commotion and realized something bad was happening. From his hiding place, he had seen the police take away the dairyman. The Turkana guards frightened him and he didn’t know what to do. Father translated between the boy’s short, nervous outbursts. Mother meanwhile poured some milk into a canister and gave it to him. He drank in long hungry gulps.

  ‘What are you going to do with him?’ Mother asked.

  Father hesitated. ‘I’ll let Smithers know. I expect it depends what happens to his family. In the meantime, I’ll ask the guards to feed him and keep an eye on him here. Until my new labour comes, at least he can help with the milking.’

  Father took him to the Turkana guards at the gate. Neither the boy nor the guards looked happy at Father’s arrangement but it was, nevertheless, agreed.

  After lunch, Mathew helped Father clear out one of the barns to use as temporary stables. The horses were fretful and on edge. As Mathew listened to Father trying to put them at ease, he couldn’t help thinking how Kamau would calm them. The stallion was always the most difficult. But Kamau knew how to say Jafari’s name in a deep rolling way that made the stallion’s ears prick up and his dark eyes steady. Kamau always talked to the horses in Kikuyu. Once he had told Mathew that they especially liked long Kikuyu stories. Kamau’s eyes had laughed and Mathew had laughed too. Yes, Kamau’s stories had always been the best. Without warning, Mathew was sobbing, face buried in his arms on a pile of hay.

  ‘What is it, Mathew? What’s the matter?’ Father’s questions came like rapid gunfire, dull at first then getting nearer. ‘We’re all upset, Mathew. We’ve just get to get on with it.’

  He felt Father’s hand brush over his head. But his sobs had taken hold of him.

  ‘You – don’t – understand! It’s – all – my fault!’

  ‘No, I don’t understand!’ Father sounded tired and irritated. Jafari was snorting in the background. ‘You’re overwrought and unsettling the horses. Go back to the house. If you’ve got something to explain, it will have to wait.’

  Mathew forced himself up. With pieces of hay sticking to his clothes and his eyes blurred with tears, he fled. He had messed up everything and with everyone.

  Later, faced with Father’s questions in the study, he confessed. Father leaned against his desk and Mother sat in the winged armchair beside him. Both were silent while he blurted out the whole story. Mathew dared not look at their faces. Mother’s would be anguished, while from Father he expected terrible rage. Instead, when his father finally spoke, his voice was cold and detached.

  ‘This is all too late, Mathew. My stables and fields are burnt. You’ve done the damage and I’m left without labour.’

  ‘But you have to tell Lance’s father that Mugo and Kamau didn’t start the fire! They’re innocent!’

  ‘Not according to the inspector.’

  Mathew’s forehead creased. Whatever did Father mean?

  ‘Kamau never told me that his boy Gitau didn’t go back to school this term,’ Father said bitterly. ‘Didn’t say a word!’

  ‘Lance’s father suspects that he has joined a Mau Mau gang on the mountain,’ Mother added with a heavy sigh.

  ‘How does he know?’ Mathew cried.

  ‘Information from the home guards,’ Father said tersely.

  ‘Apparently they’ve spotted Gitau in the area and say he must be coming down here to get food from his family,’ Mother explained. ‘The inspector thinks Kamau and the others are part of a supply chain. Even Mugo might even have been smuggling food out of the kitchen!’

  Mathew stared, dumbfounded, as Mother’s right hand fiddled with the lapel of her shirt, then swooped to her lap where it rested on her pistol holster. It all sounded crazy. How would Mugo have got anything past Josiah?

  ‘So you see, Mathew, the inspector would have been coming for them anyway,’ Mother said in her wrapping-up tone.

  ‘Smithers was right. I’ve been too trusting!’ Father’s fingers impatiently tapped the desk beside him. ‘He reckons they’ve all taken the oath, the whole damn lot.’

  Mathew’s head hurt. His conscience had made him tell the truth. Yet Father was now telling him that Mugo and Kamau were guilty anyway. Loyal Kamau whom Father relied on more than any other worker… and Mugo, who had always looked out for Mathew… taken care of him… who had even tried to save him from disaster just yesterday! It was far too confusing. Mathew wanted to escape to his room, but Mother reminded him that there was still work to do. The cows were waiting for their afternoon milking. Any more delay and they wouldn’t be finished at the dairy until after sunset when they should be securely indoors with everything bolted.

  20

  Breaking

  When next Mugo opened his eyes, he was trembling on the hard concrete floor. He didn’t know how long he had been there. An hour, a day… or more? A red hat was standing over him.

  ‘Get up! You’re lucky. The inspector is letting you go.’

  Mugo didn’t move as he struggled to take in what the man was saying.

  ‘Haraka! Haraka!’

  The red hat’s foot began to dig into him. It took an effort to lift himself off the floor.

  ‘Is my father coming?’

  ‘You think the inspector is a fool? You won’t see your father for a long, long time.’

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Mugo cried.

  ‘Detention.’

  ‘Detention?’ Mugo whispered in horror. Detention camps were the same as prison! There were stories of starvation, beatings and worse. It was said a person might disappear forever there.

  ‘When the British soldiers get him, they’ll find out everything he didn’t tell the inspector.’

  ‘But Baba isn’t Mau Mau!’

  ‘Ha! That’s what they all say.’ The red hat prodded Mugo with his baton towards the door. Mugo blinked at the light. The sun seemed to strike from behind a wooden watchtower that loomed high above the compound. The red hat pointed his baton at a truck parked beneath the watchtower, with people clustered in the open carriage at the back.

  ‘Haraka! They are waiting for you.’

  Mugo sprinted towards it, his legs unsteady. Drawing nearer, he saw the faces of his brother and sister staring down at him from the truck like scared, open-mouthed little masks either side of Mami. He recognized a few other labourers from Bwana Grayson’s farm. Were they the only ones being sent back? Arms stretched down to help him clamber up. His brother and sister clutched at him and pulled him towards Mami.

  ‘I thank Ngai that I see you. How is your father?’ Mami’s usually steady voice spilt like water from a breaking pot. Mugo heard her fear and hung his head. How could he describe Baba’s awful cries?

  ‘The red hat says Baba is going to detention, Mami.’

  ‘I do not see him with the others.’

  His eyes followed hers. On the left of the low building where he had been locked up, enclosed in barbed wire, rows of men sat squatting on the ground with their hands stuck to their heads. Mugo’s stomach cramped. Gitau had once told him how his teacher punished children by making them crouch like this. If you fell over, you were thrashed. Instead of the teacher with his stick, there were guards with guns encircling them. Were all these people going to this ‘detention’? He would hate seeing Baba humiliated like a school child but it was even worse not knowing where he was.

  ‘What have they done with your father?’ Mami wrung her hands. ‘No one here has seen him.’

  Mugo glanced around him. There were mainly women and children and a few elderly men who looked withdrawn and dazed. Behind them, he glimpsed Mzee Josiah and Mama Mercy. Mzee Josiah sat on the floor with his head bowed with Mama Mercy leaning against him. Her eyes were closed and legs loosely splayed. Mugo hurriedly looked away.

  ‘Mami, Baba was –’ Mugo
faltered. He had to tell Mami what he had heard, but the words stuck in his throat. Suddenly the engine spluttered and the whole truck shuddered. He had to show her the last place he had seen Baba before it was too late.

  ‘See there, Mami!’ He pointed to the line of doors in the building from which he had been released. One door was open but it was too dim to see inside. Had that been the room in which they had locked him? Could Baba still be lying in the one next to it?

  ‘They put him in there, Mami!’ He forced out the words as the truck shook its way towards the side of the building. All of a sudden other words were screaming out of him.

  ‘You can’t have Baba! Give him back!’

  His cries were drowned by the roar of the engine. The truck was veering towards the right side of the building. They lost sight of the people being sent into detention. At the back of the building was a small courtyard with some huts on the far side. Two red hats were emerging from one of them. They were pulling something, someone… dragging someone between them. The figure’s legs scraped along the ground. The head hung down, face to the ground… unrecognizable… but the jacket was unmistakably Baba’s. Mami pulled the younger children close to her, turning their heads so they would not see. The shock seemed to run through her like lightning in a soundless storm. Tears surged mutely down her cheeks. Mugo buried his head against her. Grief and anger swelled inside him.

  21

  Cries at the Fence

  Father’s new labour took several days to arrive. He had instructed the labour agent that he wanted workers who weren’t Kikuyu and had been obliged to wait for people to be brought down from the north. Father informed Mathew that he was no longer needed to help with the cows, hens, horses and vegetable garden, but he still had to assist Mother in the house. She had not been satisfied with anyone who said they could cook or do housework. Mathew suspected Father was only half listening as she complained at the breakfast table.