Читать книгу The Cape Cod Bicycle War - Billy Kahora - Страница 9

ZONING

Outside on Tom Mboya Street, Kandle realised that he was truly in the Zone. The Zone was the calm, breathless place in which he found himself after drinking for a minimum of three days straight. He had slept for less than fifteen hours in strategic naps, had eaten just enough to avoid going crazy, and had drunk enough water to make a cow go belly-up. The two-hour baths of Hell’s Gate hot-spring heat had also helped.

Kandle had discovered the Zone when he was seventeen. He had swapped vices by taking up alcohol after the pleasures of casual sex had waned. In a city-village rumour-circuit full of outlandish tales of ministers’ sons who drove Benzes with trunks full of cash; of a character called Jimmy X who was unbeaten in about 500 bar fights going back to the late 80s; in a place where sixty-year-old tycoons bedded teenagers and kept their panties as souvenirs; in a town where the daughter of one of Kenya’s richest businessmen held parties that were so exclusive that Janet Jackson had flown in for her birthday – Kandle, self-styled master of the art of seventy-two-hour drinking, had achieved a footnote.

In many of the younger watering holes in Nairobi’s CBD, he was now an icon. Respected in Buru Buru, in Westlands, in Kile, in Loresho and Ridgeways, one of the last men standing in alcohol-related accidents and suicides. He had different names in different postal codes. In Zanze he was the Small-Package Millionaire. His crew was credited with bringing back life to the City Centre. In Buru he was simply Kan. In the Hurlingham area he was known as The Candle. In a few years, the generation of his kid brother Giant Rat would usurp his legendary status, but now it was his time.

The threat of rain had turned Tom Mboya Street into a bedlam of blaring car horns, screaming hawkers, screeching matatus and shouting policemen. People argued over parking spaces and haggled over underwear. Thunder rumbled and drowned it all. A wet wind blew, announcing a surreptitious seven-minute drenching, but everybody ran as if a heavy downpour threatened. Even that was enough to create a five-hour traffic jam into the night. The calm and the wise walked into the bars, knowing it would take hours to get home anyway.

Zanze patrons walked into Kenya Cinema Plaza and a group of girls jeered at Kandle because he was going in the opposite direction, out into the weather. Few could tell he had been drinking since noon. Kandle was not only a master at achieving the Zone, he was excellent at hiding it. The copious amount of alcohol in his blood had turned his light-brown skin brighter, yellow and numb and characterless like a three-month-old baby’s. The half-bottle of Insto eye drops he had used in the bathroom had started to take effect. He had learned over time that the sun was an absolute no-no when it came to achieving a smooth transition to the Zone. Thankfully, there was very little sunshine left outside, and he felt great.

‘Step into the p.m. Live the art of seventy-two hours. I’m easy like Sunday morning,’ he muttered towards the friendly insults. A philosopher of the Kenyan calendar, Kandle associated all months of the year with different colours and hues in his head. August he saw as bright yellow, a time when the year had turned a corner; responsibilities would be left behind or pushed to the next January, a white month. March was purple-blue. December was red. The yellow haze of August would be better if he were to be fired from his job at Eagle Bank that evening.

Kandle had tried to convert many of his friends to the pleasures of the Zone, with disastrous results. Kevo, his best friend, had once made a deep cut into his palm on the dawn of a green Easter morning in Naivasha after they had been drinking for almost a week. He had been trying to impress the crew and nearly bled to death. They had had to cut their holiday short and drive to Nairobi when his hand had swollen up with an infection days later. Kandle’s cousin Alan had died two years ago trying to do the fifty-kilometre Thika-to-Nairobi highway in fifteen minutes. Susan, once the late Alan’s girlfriend, then Kandle’s, and now having something with Kevo, stopped trying to get into the Zone when she realised she couldn’t resist stripping in public after the seventy-two-hour treatment. After almost being raped at a house party she had gone into a suicidal depression for weeks and emerged with razor cuts all over her body and twenty kilograms off her once-attractive frame.

Every month she did her Big Cry for Alan, then invariably slept with Kandle till he tired of her and she moved on to Kevo. The Zone was clearly not for those who lacked restraint.

Stripping in public, cutting one’s palm, thinking you were Knight Rider – these were, to Kandle, examples of letting the Bad Zone overwhelm you. One had to keep the alcohol levels intact to stay in the Good Zone, where one was allowed all the wishful thinking in one’s miserable life. The Bad Zone was the place of all fears, worries, hatreds and anxieties.

Starting off towards Harambee Avenue, Kandle wobbled suddenly, halting the crazy laughter in his chest. Looking around, he felt the standard paranoia of the Zone start to come on. Walking in downtown Nairobi at rush hour was an art even when sober. Drunk, it was like playing rugby in a moving bus on a murram country road. Kandle forced himself back into the Good Zone by going back to Lenana School in his mind. Best of all, he went back to rugby-memory land, to the Mother of All Rugby Fields, Stirlings, the field where he had played with an abandoned joy. He had been the fastest player on the pitch, a hundred metres in twelve seconds easy, ducking and weaving, avoiding the clueless masses, the thumbless hoi polloi, and going for the girl watching from the sidelines. In his mind’s eye the girl was always the same: the Limara advert girl. Slender. Dark because he was light, slightly taller than him. The field was next to the school’s dairy farm, so there were dung-beetle helicopters in the air to avoid and mines of cow-dung to evade.

He could almost smell the Limara girl and glory a few steps away when a Friesian cow appeared in the try box. It chewed cud with its eye firmly on him, unblinking, and as Kandle tried to get back into the Good Zone he saw the whole world reflected in that large eye. The girl faded away. Kandle put the ball down, walked over to the cow, patted her, and with his touch noticed that she was not Friesian but a white cow with some black spots, rather than the other way around. The black spot that came over her back was a map of Kenya. She was a goddamn Zebu. All this time she never stopped chewing. With the ball in the try box he took his five points.

Coming back to, he realised he was at the end of Tom Mboya Street. A fat woman came at him from the corner of Harambee Avenue, and just when she imagined that their shoulders would crash into each other Kandle twitched and the woman found empty space. Kandle grimaced as she smiled at him fleetingly, at his suit. At the corner, his heightened sense of smell (from the alcohol) detected a small, disgusting whiff of sweat, of day-old used tea bags. He stopped, carefully inched up against the wall, calculated where the nearest supermarket was, cupped his palm in front of his mouth, and breathed lightly. He was grateful to smell the toothpaste he had swallowed in the Zanze toilets. The whiff of sweat was not his. That was when Kevo came up to him.

‘Fucking African,’ Kandle said. ‘What time is it?’

‘Sorry we were late, man. Here’s everything. Susan’s upstairs. We just got in and Onyi told us you’d left.’

‘I’m starting to lose that loving feeling for you guys,’ Kandle said, taking the heavy brown envelope from Kevo, who began doing a little jig right there on the street, for no sane reason, jumping side to side with both feet held together. Passers–by watched with amusement.

‘Everything else was sent to Personnel,’ Kevo said, still breathless. ‘So good luck.’

‘Were you kids fucking? That’s why you were late?’ Kandle grinned, seeing that the envelope held everything he needed.

Kevo smiled back. ‘See you in a bit.’

As they were parting ways, Kevo shouted to him.

‘Hey, by the way, Jamo died last weekend. Crashed and burned. They were coming from a rave in some barn. Taking Dagoretti Corner at 8 a.m. at 160 – they met a mjengo truck coming from Kawangware. Don’t even know why they were going in that direction. Motherfucker was from Karen.’

‘Which Jamo?’

‘Jamo Karen.’

Kandle rolled his eyes. ‘There are about five Jamo Karens.’

‘Jamo Breweries. Dad used to be GM.’

‘Don’t think I know him.’

‘You do. We were at his place a month ago. Big bash. You disappeared with his sis. Susan was mad.’

‘Ha,’ Kandle said.

‘Anyway, service in Karen. Burial in Muranga. Hear there are some wicked places out there. Change of scene. We could check out Danny and the Thika crew. You know Thika chicks, man.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘You look good, baby,’ Kevo said, and waved him off.

Kandle suddenly realised that he had forgotten his bag. It meant he was missing his deep-brown stylish cardigan, his collared white shirt, his grey checked pants, his tie. He should have asked Kevo to pick it up for him. Feeling tired, he almost went under again.

Since childhood, Kandle had always hated physical contact. This feeling became especially extreme when he’d been drinking. It had been worsened by an incident in high school – boarding school. One morning he’d woken up groggily, thinking it was time for pre-dawn rugby practice, and noticed that his pyjamas were down around his knees. He was hard. There were figures in the dark, already in half-states of readiness, preparing for the twelve-kilometre morning run. Nobody seemed to notice him. He yanked his smelly shorts on, and while his head cleared he remembered something.

Clutching hands, a dark face. He never found out who had woken him up that morning, and after that he couldn’t help feeling a murderous rage when he looked at the faces in the scrum around him, thinking one of them had abused him.

Over the next few months, during practices, he looked for something in the smiling, straining boyish faces, for a look of recognition – he couldn’t even say the word ‘homosexual’ at the time. With that incident he came to look at rugby askance, to look at Lenana’s traditions with a deep, abiding hatred. Then one day he stopped liking the feeling of fitness, the great camaraderie of the field, and started feeling filled with hate when even the most innocent of tacklers brushed by him. He took to cruelty, taking his hand to those in junior classes. He focused on his schoolwork, became supercilious and, maybe because of that, ever cleverer, dismissive of everyone apart from two others who he felt had intellects superior to his. He became cold and unfeeling. His mouth folded into a snarl.

In spite of a natural quickness, he’d never succeeded in becoming a great rugby player. Rugby, he discovered, was not for those who abhorred contact. You could never really play well if you hated getting close. Same with life and the street, in the city – you needed to be natural with those close to you. As he went up Harambee Avenue, he realised he was well into the Bad Zone. Looking at his reflection in shop windows, he felt like smashing his own face in. And then, like a jack-in-the-box that never went away, his father’s dark visage appeared in his mind’s eye, as ugly as sin. He wondered whether the man was really his father.

After completing third form he had dropped rugby and effaced the memory of those clutching hands on his balls with a concentrated horniness. He became a regular visitor to Riruta, looking for peri-urban pussy. One day, during the school holidays when he was still in form three, he had walked into his room and found Atieno, the maid, trying on his jeans. They were only halfway up, her dress lifted and exposing her thighs. The rest of those holidays were spent on top of Atieno. He would never forget her cries of ‘Maiyo! Maiyo! Maiyo!’ carrying throughout the house. God! God! God! After that he approached sex with a manic single-mindedness. It wasn’t hard. Girls considered him cute. When he came back home again in December, Atieno wasn’t there; instead there was an older, motherly Kikuyu woman. His father took him aside and informed him that he would be getting circumcised in a week’s time. He also handed him some condoms.

‘Let’s have no more babies,’ was all he said after that.

On Harambee Avenue, three girls wearing some kind of airline uniform came towards him in a swish of dresses, laughing easily. He ignored their faces and watched their hips. One of the girls looked boldly at him, and then, perhaps for the first time that day, a half-stagger made him realise how drunk he actually was, though it would have been hard for anyone apart from his father to tell.

And so the Bad Zone passed on. He quickly fished into his jacket pocket and came out with a small bottle of Smirnoff Red Label vodka, swigged, and returned fully to the Good Zone. Ahead of him was Eagle Bank. He smiled to himself. He forced himself to calm down and breathe in. The usually friendly night watchman, Ochieng, was frosty.

‘You are being waited for,’ he said in Kiswahili, shaking his head at the absurdity of youth.

Inside he was met by the manager’s secretary, Mrs Maina, a dark, busty and jolly woman. She too was all business today.

‘You are late, Kandle,’ she said. ‘We have to wait for the others to reconvene.’

This was the first time she had ever spoken to him in English. She had lost that loving Kikuyu feeling for him.

Kandle, who knew how to ingratiate himself with women of a certain age, had once brought Mrs Maina bananas and cow innards mixed with fried nundu, cow hump, for her birthday. She had told him later that they were the tastiest things she had ever eaten, better than all the cards she’d received for her birthday. Even the manager, Guka, coming out of his office and trying some, commented that he wished his wife could cook like that.

Mrs Maina blurted out another few words as Kandle waited outside the manager’s office. She sounded overcome with exasperation.

‘What? What do you want? Do you think you’re too good for the bank?’

‘No. I don’t want much. I think I want to become a chef.’

She couldn’t help it. They both laughed. Kandle excused himself and went to the bathroom.

When he was alone he removed a white envelope from his jacket pocket and counted the money inside again. Sixty thousand shillings, which he planned to hand over to the accountant to pay for the furniture loan he had taken out before he went on leave. Back in the bank, Mrs Maina told him that the committee was ready, and Kandle was ushered into Guka’s office.

There was a huge bank balance sheet in the centre of the desk. Guka Wambugu, the branch manager, was scowling at the figures. The man was dressed like a gentleman farmer, in his perennial tweed jacket with patches at the elbows and a dull, metallic-grey sweater underneath, over a brown tie and a white shirt. All he needed were gumboots to complete the picture. Kandle noticed that the old fool wore scuffed Bata Prefect shoes. Bata Mshenzi. Shenzi type. Kandle held down the laughter that threatened to burst out of his chest.

Some room had been created on each side of the desk for the rest of the committee. Mr Ocuotho, the branch accountant, sat on Guka’s right, looking dapper and subservient as usual, his face thin and defined, just shy of fifty and optional retirement. He was famous in the branch for suits that hung on his shoulders like they would on a coat hanger. He was a costcutter, the man who stalked the bank floors like a secretary bird, imagining the day he would have his own branch to run. He had once been the most senior accountant at the largest Eagle branch in Kenya, and had been demoted to the smaller Harambee branch only after a series of frauds occurred under his watch. As a result, though he was here representing the bank’s management, he was partly sympathetic to the boy in front of him. He had been in the same position, albeit at a managerial level.

Next to Ocuotho, at the far-right corner of the desk, was a bald-headed man, Mr Malasi, from Head Office Personnel. He was wearing designer non-prescription spectacles. Kandle thought he recognised him from somewhere. At the far left, representing the union and, in theory, Kandle, was the shop steward, Mr Kimani, a young-looking, lanky, forty-year-old man with soft Somali hair and long, thin hands that he cracked and flexed continually. He also happened to be Kandle’s immediate boss. He was the man behind the yearlong deals in the department. On Kimani’s right was a younger man, the deputy shop steward at the branch, Mr Koigi, a youth with a rotund belly and hips that belied his industry. He had had an accident as a child, and was given to tilting his head to the right like a small bird at the most unlikely moments. Like Kandle, he had worked at the bank for a year, and was considered a rising star. He was also Kandle’s drinking buddy.

There was a seat right in front of the desk for Kandle. Just as he was lowering himself into it, sirens blared, and everyone in the room turned to watch the presidential motorcade sweep past, out on the street. The man, done for the day, heading home to the State House. Kandle grinned, and remembered shaking the President’s hand once when he was in primary school, as part of the National Primary School Milk Project promotion. There was an old photo of Kandle drinking from a small packet of milk while the President beamed at him. The image had been circulated nationwide, and even now people stopped Kandle on the street, mistaking him for the Blueband Boy, another kid who had been a perpetual favorite in 1980s TV ads.

When the noise died down, Guka turned to him.

‘Ah, Mr Karoki. Kandle Kabogo Karoki. After keeping us waiting you have finally allowed us the pleasure of your company. I am sure you know everybody here, apart from Mr Malasi, from Personnel.’ Guka stretched his arm towards the bald-headed man in the non-prescription spectacles. His back was highly arched, as usual; his eyes were those of an old tribal elder who brooked no nonsense from errant boys. Kandle suddenly remembered who the bald-headed man was. He was the recruiter who had endorsed him when he had first applied for his job.

Guka turned to the shop steward. ‘Mr Kimani, this committee was convened to review Mr Karoki’s conduct, and to make a decision – sorry, a recommendation – to Head Office Personnel.’ He gave Kandle a long, meaningful look. ‘This is not a complex matter. Mr Karoki decided he was no longer interested in working for Eagle, and stopped coming to work. Before me, I have his attendance record, which has of course deteriorated over the last two months. Prior to this, Mr Karoki was an exemplary employee. We have tried, since this trend began, to find out what was wrong, but Mr Karoki has not been forthcoming. What can anyone say? I am here to run this branch office, and eventually, as the Americans say, something has to give.’ He paused, cleared his throat, and looked out the window with self-importance. Then he turned back to Kandle.

‘The British, whom I worked for when I joined the bank, would have said Queen and Country come first. Eagle next. At that time, when I joined, I was a messenger. The only African employee at Eagle. I worked for a branch manager named Mr Purkiss, a former DC who made me proud and taught me the meaning of duty. I have been here for forty years. I turn sixty next year. It seems that young men no longer know what they are doing. When I was your age, Mr Karoki, no one my age would have called me Mister. I was Malasi’s age, thirty-six, before anyone gave me a chance to work in Foreign Exchange. I was already a man, a father of three children. Now look at you. You could have been in my seat, God forbid, at forty. It is a pity that I did not notice you before this, to straighten you out.’ He paused again. ‘But before we hear from you, let us hear from the branch accountant, Mr Ocuotho.’

By now everyone from the branch was trying to hide a smile. Mr Malasi had a slight frown on his face.

‘Thank you, Mr Guka,’ Ocuotho said, clearing the chuckle from his throat. He spoke briskly.

‘Mr Karoki is a good worker, or was a good worker. But after he received his June salary, which was heavily supplemented by the furniture loan he took, he never came back. We received a letter from a Dr Koinange, saying that Mr Karoki needed a week off for stress-related reasons. After that week, he did not appear at work again. This is the first time I am seeing him.’

Mr Malasi shifted in his seat at the mention of Dr Koinange. Kandle was looking at his boss, Kimani, who wore a grave expression. Feeling Kandle’s eyes on him, he gave the most imperceptible of winks.

‘What was the exact date of this doctor’s letter?’ Guka asked. Everyone waited as Ocuotho referred to his diary.

‘Friday, 24 June.’

‘Today is Thursday, 15 August. So not counting his sick and annual leave, Mr Karoki has been away for two weeks with no probable reason. And after eight weeks, he doesn’t seem to have solved his problem.’ Mr Malasi coughed, but Guka ignored him. The manager stretched and stroked his belly. ‘Let us hear from the shop steward, Mr Kimani.’

Kimani straightened up. ‘I have worked with Kandle for a year,’ he said, ‘and in all honesty have seen few such hardworking boys of his age. A few weeks ago he failed to appear at work, as Mr Ocuotho has mentioned. He called in later and said he wasn’t feeling very well, and that something had happened to his mother. He said he would be sending a doctor’s letter later in the day. I didn’t think much of it. People fall sick. Kandle had never missed a day of work before that. I told him to get it to the accountant, give the department a copy, and keep one for himself. Then, of course, he went on leave. When he didn’t come back as scheduled – I was to go on leave after him – I got worried and tried to get in touch. When we spoke, he told me his problems weren’t done and that he claimed to have talked to Personnel. I told him to make sure that he kept copies of his letters.’

Mr Guka was getting agitated. It was obvious he was not aware of any contact with Personnel, with whom he’d already had problems. After he had accused the legendary Hendrix of insubordination, Personnel had decided otherwise and transferred the man to Merchant Services, which was a promotion. Hendrix was now Eagle’s main broker. Guka had been branch manager for eight years; his old colleagues were now executive managers or had moved on to senior positions at other companies.

Guka loosened his tie. He remembered that he was due to retire at the end of the year. He wished he were on the golf course, or out on his tea farm, and reminded himself that he needed to talk to Kimani later, to find out whether there was any chance that the currency deals would start up again. It had been two months since he had received his customary Ksh 20,000 a week. He needed to complete the house he was building in Limuru. This was not going the way he had expected.

‘I am not aware of any such documents or communication,’ Mr Malasi offered.

‘But as you all know, we are a large department. It’s certainly possible we overlooked something. I will check up on that.’

Guka cleared his throat. ‘I think the facts are clear –’

Malasi interrupted him. ‘I think we should hear from Mr Karoki before we decide what the facts are.’ Head Office Personnel had paid out millions of shillings to ex-employees for wrongful dismissal, and Malasi was starting to wish he had stayed away from this one and sent someone else. It was looking like one of those litigious affairs. For one, the boy seemed too calm, almost sleepy. And what was the large sheaf of documents he had in his lap? The reference to one of Nairobi’s most prominent psychiatrists, Dr Koinange, had introduced a whole new element.

Dr Koinange happened to be on Eagle Bank’s board of directors. The belligerent hubris of one old manager would be, in the face of such odds, ridiculous to indulge. Even if they managed to dismiss the boy, Malasi decided he would pass on word that Mr Guka should be quietly retired. As the oldest manager at Eagle, he was well past his sell-by date. Malasi decided he would recommend Ocuotho as a possible replacement.

Guka cleared his throat again. ‘Young Mr Karoki, you have five minutes to explain your conduct.’ His easy confidence had become a tight and wiry anger. ‘Before you start, maybe we should address the small matter of the furniture loan you took out.’

Kandle quietly removed the white envelope from his pocket and placed the shillings, together with the contents of the large brown envelope, on Mr Guka’s desk.

Malasi reached for the documents and handed copies to everyone. Kandle spoke in a quiet voice.

‘Over the last year, my mother has lost her mind. Being the first-born, with my father’s constant absences, it has been up to me to look after her. My sister is in the US, and my brother lives in a bottle. Two months ago my mother left my father’s house in Buru Buru and moved to a nearby slum. At the same time, I started to get severe headaches. I could not eat or sleep, and even started hallucinating, as Dr Koinange, our family doctor, explains in one of these letters. He expressly told me that he would be in touch with the bank’s personnel department. That is why I haven’t been in touch. My doctor has.’ There were tears in Kandle’s eyes.

Guka sat back in his seat and glared at the ceiling. He tucked his top lip into the bottom, re-enacting the thinking Kikuyu man’s pose. The Kikuyu Lip Curl.

Malasi looked up from the documents. It was time to end this, he thought.

‘Yes, I can see that Personnel received letters from your doctor. I also see there are letters here sent to us from your lawyer. Why go to such lengths if you were truly sick?’

‘I thought about resigning, because I did not see myself coming back to work unless my mother got better. But my lawyer advised that that wasn’t necessary.’

One tear made it down his left cheek. Kandle wiped it away angrily.

‘Do you still want to resign?’ Malasi asked, somewhat hopefully.

‘I’d like to know my options first.’

‘Well, it won’t be necessary to bring in your lawyer. No. It won’t be necessary. We will review your case and get back to you. In the meantime, get some rest. And you can keep the money, the loan, for now. You are still an employee of this bank.’

He turned to everybody. ‘Mr Guka?’

The manager glared at Kandle with a small smile on his face. He remained quiet.

‘Mr Karoki, you are free to leave,’ Mr Malasi said.

As they all trooped out, leaving Mr Guka and Mr Malasi in the office, Kandle realised that he had just completed one of the greatest performances of his young life.

He hummed Bob Marley’s ‘Crazy Baldhead’ and saw himself back in Zanze till the early hours of the morning.

‘Can I see you for a minute in my office?’

It was Ocuotho. Before Kandle followed him down the hall, he shook Kimani’s and Koigi’s hands and whispered, ‘I’ll be at Zanze later.’ Then he walked after Ocuotho, into the glass-partitioned office right in the middle of the bank floor.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about your problems?’ Ocuotho said, when they were inside. ‘I thought we agreed you would come to me. I know people in Head Office. We could have come to an arrangement. You know Guka does not understand young people.’

‘Thank you, Sir. But don’t worry. It is taken care of.’

‘You now have some time. Think carefully about your life.’

‘That is exactly what I am doing, Sir.’

Ocuotho sighed, and looked at him. ‘I have a small matter. A personal matter. My daughter is sick and I was wondering whether you could lend me something small. Maybe Ksh 10,000?’

‘No problem. The usual interest applies. And I need a blank cheque.’

‘Of course.’ Ocuotho wrote a cheque and handed it over.

Kandle reached into his back pocket and counted out twenty 500-shilling notes from the furniture-loan money.

‘Well, I suspect we won’t be seeing you around here, one way or the other,’ Ocuotho said, with some meaning. ‘We’ll miss …’ But even before he finished the two started laughing. And it was from the liver and in it lay a national desperation. But it was a language that they each understood.