Pilgrims Way Read online

  He lay quietly and let the blood flow out of him. What the hell, there’s plenty more where that came from, he thought, feeling tough and hard-bitten. He smiled to think how these things all happened at once: like mosquitoes, misfortunes always came in battalions. After a while he shuffled to the edge of the bed and felt around on the floor, looking for the shirt he wore in bed when nights were chilly. He used it to mop his face, then covered himself with it, breathing in its familiar musk. Some of the blood had run down his neck on to one of the pillows. He wiped himself and threw the stained pillow off before lying down again.

  It had happened to him once before. They were queuing for tickets for a Gossage match between Kenya and Uganda. It must have been the excitement, or the crush of people. One minute he was standing in the line talking to his friends, the next everyone was backing away from him with horror, pointing at his bleeding face. Bossy had dragged him to the high bank on the side and bought him an ice-cold tamarind juice. Then they had pushed their way back to their place in the queue with Bossy as the trail-blazer, shouting and abusing the people who objected to his jostling progress.

  He was such a little father, Daud thought. He overdid it sometimes, and came close to being overbearing. It was like he was playing a role, bustling with the unnecessary kindness that he wished for from his own father. At his father’s death he mourned him correctly but refused to perform the anguish of the grief-stricken son. He had refused to shed the shocking tears of male mourning, which alone can testify to the grief beyond endurance at the death of a parent. During the funeral ceremonies in the Msikikit Mdogo, he calmly carried out the duties of the bereaved, as if he was marking the passing of a distant relation. He stood by a pillar in the mosque while mourners came to offer him their condolences. An old man went to him, overcome with grief and shaking with silent sobs. He held Rashid’s hand for a long time, saying something to him and shaking his head with grief. Rashid had been unresponsive, almost bored, staring at the old man with the steady gaze of cynical disbelief. The old man had walked away disappointed, still shaking his head, and wondering what had happened to young people to make them so unfeeling. He looked like a fisherman, and perhaps had been a special friend of Rashid’s father, had owed him something. Rashid had turned away without a second glance, waiting to shake the hand of the next mourner. The other mourners simply observed the form, gripping Rashid’s hand and whispering words of comfort. They were restrained out of politeness, perhaps, when their hearts would have burst with grief. It would have been unseemly to show greater grief than the bereaved, the owner of the corpse.

  How I wished through the prayers that he would shed a few tears, if not for himself then for those who cared and trembled at his father’s death. Not because they mourned the passing of a paragon, but because they too shuddered at the thought of the journey on which he had embarked. But Rashid’s face was hard and stubborn, with a stillness that promised not to yield. How can a sixteen-year-old go to his father’s funeral with a dry face? Afterwards he said that the old man who had shaken his hand was nothing but a layabout who used to come scrounging at their house, cringing for handouts and leftovers that they could ill afford themselves. And he had not cried for his father because he had felt nothing, he said. He had wanted to feel sad, to feel the arms of neighbours holding him by the elbows while he sobbed, but instead of sadness he had felt only an irritating responsibility. The burden of his family’s poverty would now be entirely on his shoulders. He said his father had been cruel to all of them, beating them and abusing them for no reason, as the whim took him. He had tried to stop Rashid from going to school, saying he would only learn the religion of the nasrani. Instead he had apprenticed him to a shopkeeper when he was six years old, in the time-honoured way. The shopkeeper was an old man, and in his senility gave full rein to his lechery. He had made Rashid share his sick bed, had fondled him and tried to persuade him to open his legs to the objects he wanted to introduce into his anus. Rashid had refused, sobbing and fighting the old pervert off The man locked him in a darkened store room for two days, coming to the door at times to whisper endearments and blandishments. Rashid had spoken of this time without embarrassment, listening to my exclamations of horror with patience, as if he was simply waiting for me to finish. He used to think me so innocent.

  His father had come for him on the Friday afternoon to take him to the mosque for Juma’a prayers, and had found him lying in filth, weak with hunger and fatigue. He had taken a stick to the old man at once, but Rashid had never forgiven him the terror of that week. So he said that he was really quite pleased that the old bastard was dead even if it made him sound unfeeling. I said it did. It made him sound as if he lacked compassion, as if his father did not deserve forgiveness. I said you can’t hold that kind of thing against a dead man, not after all this time has passed. Who should he hold it against then, he asked me, playing the smiling, tolerant big brother? Sometimes I don’t know why I like you, I shouted at him, stung by his manner. You should pray for him. A dead man, especially a father, needs our prayers. Honour your fathers after me, God has told us. But Rashid only smiled and shook his head. He said prayers would not do the old fucker any good at all. The angels of Hell would’ve been rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of his arrival, he said. I told him it was wrong to talk of his father like that. He thought I did not understand because my own father was kind and cared for us. And he is kind, I said, but he can get very mean if you ask him for a shilling to go to the cinema. It was meant as a joke, and Rashid smiled briefly, but I felt sudden pangs of guilt at my disloyalty. Anyway, I said quickly, not wanting to think about the way I had slandered my father, it still didn’t seem right to want your father to go to Hell. That was no joke, consuming fires and endless tortures. He was silent for a long while, as who would not be at the thought of that limitless pain. But I knew that he was just refusing to answer, letting me have my way.

  It was not really true that his father’s death suddenly brought this responsibility on him. He worried all the time about his mother and little Amina. Whenever we talked about leaving and about the future, our plans always foundered on the fear of what would happen to his family. That was what annoyed him that day on the boat, although at first I thought it was boredom with my conversation about the town.

  ‘What will they do?’ he asked after his long silence. ‘It frightens me just to think about it. That’s God’s truth! I feel like I’m doing something terrible even thinking about it. Some nights I can’t sleep once I start . . . Ma hasn’t said anything but I know she worries. But what is there here? What can I do here?’

  ‘You won’t be gone for ever,’ I said, trying to reassure him and myself. Suddenly the sail snapped in the breeze and made the boat stagger. Bossy brought it back under control easily, and looked at the sail to check that there had been no damage. He frowned at it, slightly irritated by its wilfulness.

  ‘What was that?’ I asked him.

  ‘The beginning of Kaskazi,’ he said, smiling at my terror. ‘The musim. It will get like this for a few days before it steadies. You’re so ignorant. It comes every year in December and you’ve never even noticed. The tides get higher, the winds fresher and the sea a little choppier . . . and then it settles into the musim. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I’m not worried about it,’ I said. ‘Anyway, it’s not as if you’ll be gone for ever. You’ll be back to take care of them.’

  ‘You’re too trusting,’ he said, looking away.

  I disliked that in him, the way he turned away when he thought I was saying something naive. I too could see the signs of the times, could see the dangers that threatened us. I just did not understand how imminent they were.

  ‘Things are going to happen here now that Independence has come. I’ve heard some terrible talk,’ he said. ‘And anyway, Ma’s getting old . . .’

  ‘You mean riots and things like that?’ I asked, alarmed as always by the familiar predictions of violence.

 
; ‘I don’t know,’ he said, shrugging with feigned indifference. ‘But suppose something happens while I’m away.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, wanting him to say it.

  He raised his eyes to heaven, praying for patience. ‘Killings! There are going to be killings here! Look at the way things are. The Arabs and the Indians own all the land and all the businesses. The blacks are the skivvies and the labourers. You and I, a bit of this and a bit of that, doing well out of it. How long do you think that’s going to last? Don’t fool yourself like all these nationalists. One of these days, these people that we’ve been making slaves of for centuries will rise up and cut the throats of their oppressors. Then the Indians will go back to India and the Arabs will go back to Arabia, and what will you and I do?’

  ‘What will we do?’

  ‘We’ll get slaughtered,’ he said. ‘Who’ll care that we feel we belong here more than they do? They will tell us that this is Africa, and it belongs to them, however much longer we’ve been here than them. There are people still alive who were born into slavery, whose parents were tom away from their land and brought here in chains. What will we do? We’ll get slaughtered.’

  I could feel tears stinging my eyes as I listened to him talk, not out of fear for myself but for our land and our people. Bossy flashed warning eyes at me, telling me to bear up and not to be pathetic, then smacked my thigh as a kind of reassurance. He leant forward and took both my hands in his. ‘What’s the use of me going away for five or six years to become a forestry officer or something only to come back and find that my mother’s dead and my sister’s a whore?’

  Daud sat up on one elbow, his head cocked to one side. He had suddenly realised that the sound of footsteps had stopped under his window. Lloyd had come back to walk up and down his pavement. He waited, but the silence stretched out for so long that he began to wonder if he had imagined the sound in the first place. It was still early and his bedroom light was on, inviting Lloyd to knock. He could imagine him returning just to avoid having to give explanations to his parents. Daud grimaced when the knock came, but his body was already poised to rise from the bed.

  Catherine was standing on the pavement. He stared dumbly for a second and then sighed with relief. He opened the door wide to let her in, grinning at the unexpected pleasure. She smiled at the welcome and made an embarrassed face. As she started to move forward, she saw the blood on his chest and the blood-stained rag in his hand. He had forgotten about that. She looked into his face with a frown.

  ‘Nose bleed,’ he said.

  On her face was a look of mock horror, she who daily lathered stumps of amputated legs with disinfectant. She came into the house and embraced him. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked, whispering as she leant against him.

  ‘Not a bit,’ he said, thrilling at her voice as it rumbled through his body.

  ‘You’re so brave!’ she said.

  He pushed her gently away in the end, afraid that the blood would stain her clothes. She sat down at the table, sighing with tiredness.

  ‘Have you just come off duty?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘Paula left me a note. She said you came round one night while I was out. Is everything all right? Are you all right?’

  She sighed, as if she wished herself playing a different scene. A less complicated one, he guessed. From the way she glanced at him he assumed that he was expected to be mature and reassuring, and not scream curses and abuse about boyfriends. ‘All right?’ he asked, on the point of clapping his palms together in great good health. ‘Sure I’m all right. I’m fine! Apart from all this blood. Let me make you some tea.’

  ‘I don’t want any tea,’ she said, frowning. ‘Why did you come to see me? Has something happened?’

  Her sharpness confused him at first. Perhaps she was just tired, he thought. Or she was irritated that he had gone round after she had discouraged him from calling on her during the week. He saw her eyes going back to the spatters of blood on his chest. ‘I came to see you because I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to see you,’ he said.

  ‘What about?’ she asked.

  ‘Why are you so annoyed?’ he asked, smiling because she expected him to act hurt. That was why she was bristling, he guessed, annoyed that she could be thought a cheat. ‘I just came to see you. I had a letter from someone at home and it brought back a lot of things. I thought if you were free you might come out for a drink . . . and maybe we could talk.’

  She sighed, then nodded. ‘Tell me,’ she said. He saw that she was beginning to lose the struggle to control herself.

  ‘I didn’t know things were complicated for you,’ he said.

  ‘What did you come to tell me?’ she asked as tears began to run out of her eyes. ‘Oh, why do women have to be so pathetic!’ She brushed the tears from her face and sniffed furiously, trying to bring herself under control. He hurried to her and knelt beside her. Her head dropped on his shoulder, and her voice came muffled through his body. He made some tea anyway, and drank her cup as well as his while he waited for her to come back from the bathroom.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there,’ she said when she came back.

  ‘Who is he?’ he asked, not wanting to be kept waiting with something that would not hurt quite so much as it should.

  She sighed and sat at the table facing him. ‘Don’t you want to tell me about your letter? I never let you talk. I’m always so full of dramas of my own.’ He said nothing, waiting with a sick half-smile for what she would say. ‘His name’s Malcolm. I’ve been seeing him for about six or seven months now. I was going to tell you.’

  ‘You didn’t mention him. I had no idea . . .’

  ‘I was going to tell you. I wasn’t sure when,’ she said and laughed.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘He was coming round for me tonight,’ she said. ‘We’d arranged to go out for a drink. To the Black Dog probably. We often go there. I didn’t tell you that either. We’re going away together at the beginning of August, driving around France and camping.’ She looked blankly at him, inviting him to say his worst, already cringing from his contempt.

  ‘Does he have a blue sports car?’ he asked, wanting the truth in its full ugliness.

  ‘A white Mini,’ she said, frowning.

  ‘Is he a farmer?’ he asked, beginning to smile. ‘I imagined him a rich young farmer driving a blue sports car when you mentioned the Yacht Club.’

  ‘I only went there once,’ she said. Her frown deepened but he assumed that was only surprise. He could already see a sparkle of amusement in the very depths of her eyes. ‘He’s a doctor at the hospital. And he’s young and rich, and attractive. Every young nurse’s dream. And he chose me out of all the others. How could I resist him?’ She spoke again after a long silence. ‘Say something,’ she said.

  ‘They’ve dropped Close and Edrich. They made them stand there and take that battering last time out and then just dropped them. It’s the work of that Boer. What does he understand about the spirit of Khartoum? The Fourth Test starts this week,’ he explained when he saw the incomprehension on her face. ‘Will he still be waiting at your house? Do you want to go to him?’

  She leaned towards him and took his hand. When she spoke, after a long moment, she was irritated, annoyed with her own indecisiveness. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Everything’s happened so quickly.’

  He nodded, encouraged by her confusion.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked, asking to be persuaded.

  ‘Stay,’ he said. ‘He’ll come back tomorrow. Stay now.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding.

  In the distance we saw a steamer, he told her. Coming from the town. Even from that far away it seemed old and clumsy. We watched it approach but it seemed to be going across us, heading north. As it drew near, we saw the women ranged along the sides. They were too distant for us to recognise them but it was obvious from their dress that they were the daughters of the rich. Rashid chuckled softly as the eng
ine hiccuped and the women moved from the side in a panic. There were some men on the boat and they stood out in their velvet blue waistcoats and dark-green metal-rimmed sun-glasses. They waved to us from their ancient perambulator, and we cupped our hands to our ears to hear what they were shouting to us. Behind them was a small group of ragamuffins who would serve the sweetmeat and coffee. The women were still wearing their buibui even so far away from land. Out for the day with muscular chaperons and camera-clicking siblings.

  We sailed serenely on, rarely speaking, seeking the shadow of the sail in turn to get away from the sun. Eventually Rashid began to sing again, mixing Kiswahili with English songs. He managed one verse of ‘Rule Britannia’ before I silenced him with a gourdful of sea water.

  At the island. Improvised crouch in the bush for temporary lordosis with bent knees, Bossy claimed, playing the dictionary game that we loved. He had looked up the words and had them ready for such a visit to the bush. Grunting and heaving, he managed to achieve a state of bliss sooner than I. Hasty dunking on the treacherously sand-banked beach to wash the crumbs away and depart for the crumbling fortress of a bygone empire.

  ‘Bygone by name,’ Bossy declaimed, quivering with insincere emotions. ‘We are pathetic victims of neo-colonialism, as we will be for a long time. The day will yet arrive when the barbarian master-race will once again depart its fog-bound northern islands to come and repossess its destiny by these shores.’

  We recalled the romantic Royal Navy officer, who had etched his name into history by an unprovoked and entirely one-sided shelling of our town with the famous water-front. Exhausted by this courageous act, he had sought to soothe his shattered nerves by going rambling on the green, off-shore island that was unmarked on his map. It was the same island on which we now found ourselves, but he had been the first European to stumble on it, discovering it. Well-guarded by his marines, he roamed its gentle hills. Its potential as a prison immediately struck him. He considered himself a bit of an archaeologist, and his brief studies on the island convinced him that the site had been used immemorially as a place of confinement. Later, he wrote a very brief monograph on the subject, which was published by the Universities Mission for Central Africa and attracted attention in the reading rooms of the Royal Geographical Society.