Juicy Zambaraos
P. Ochieng Ochieng
P. Ochieng Ochieng
The siren goes off at eight, its tired howl rising above the narrow locomotive sheds, past our gable roofed houses, and further on. As its sound recedes into the grey morning, a determined horn blares. A train’s maroon head lifts out from the fog, painfully hauling its winding cargo of bogies, interspersed with oil stained tankers, into the goods yard.
Tiding, tadang.
Tadang, tadang.
The train crunches hard against groaning metal tracks, fastened to blackened teak sleepers. Like a drunk dancer doing the Rumba, the train sways this way and that way, before grinding to a halt.
Who in Railways doesn’t know it’s the Mix, destined for land-locked Uganda. Always the first to limp into the goods yard, its’ load the top-priority.
I was awake in bed long before the siren went off and the ‘Mix’ announced its arrival. Kicking aside my wet sheets, I step onto the cold floor of my room. I’m wriggling out of my wet shorts when my sister Tatu’s big head peers through the door, a knowing smile on her face.
Again! He’s done it again.
Little baby.
Has wet his bed.
Again.
She keeps singing in that silly, sing song way girls love.
I scramble for a shoe or something to throw at her, but she’s gone. One of these days I’m going to knock off that big head. Then she’ll know who the little baby is.
It’s Sunday morning and the clank of pots and pans against the kitchen sink rises and falls with Apondi’s singing. Mama has left for church. I know this because Apondi is singing a Lingala song, Nyako Konya, and if Mama was still here Apondi wouldn’t sing such a song or sing so loudly. Apondi sings all the time. She sings when she is working, when she is bathing, and even when she is doing nothing. She sings church songs, kids’ songs, songs I heard at shaggs when we went for Grandma’s funeral, songs that blare out of the juke-box at the noisy bar next to the butchery where tipsy men lean on a wooden counter tearing chunks of roasted meat, and wash them down with gulps from elephant imprinted beer bottles. She even sings songs that advertise stuff on VOK radio:
Cafenal ni dawa namba one!
Cafenal, cafenal, pam pam.
Apondi only stops singing to quarrel. What do you people think I am, a machine? She will say, her chapped lips pursing. When she gets that way, we keep our distance. But for now, I’m really hungry, and my stomach is rumbling like one of those safari rally cars, so I head for the kitchen even though I know Apondi will hold out, until the very last moment, before letting me have anything.
Apondi likes it when we beg for stuff. I think it makes her happy when people beg for things. It’s the only time she smiles; exposing her big, white upper teeth and empty lower gums. She is missing some lower teeth. My brother Deno says they are six. That’s the number they traditionally pull out, he says.
Can’t you see I’m clearing this mess? Apondi says, without turning, even though I’ve not said a word. The only thing you people are good at is dirtying things.
I say nothing and she doesn’t like it. It really gets her mad when you say nothing. I continue standing there. Apondi continues hammering the pots and pans, seething. We stay that way for a long time; me saying nothing and Apondi hammering away and seething until I beg for breakfast and she pours out some tea, and snatches two slices of bread from the middle of a glossy Elliot’s pack and slaps them on my hand. She knows I badly want the hard crusted slices at each end of the packet, and I’m there before Tatu and Deno, but she doesn’t care. The pleading in my eyes, gets me nowhere.
It’s nine when I head for our favorite spot. An old rusted Zepher resting on stones, its tires long gone, grass under it, brown from sunlight starvation. Dado, Mose, and Odush are already there, hanging out. Odush clears his throat to catch our attention. He has undone the buttons of his shorts, and has his thing out in his hand. Gingerly holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he turns it up and down, beaming with satisfaction.
It’s cut! Mose says, and makes to draw closer, then shrinks away. All our eyes are now fixed on Odush’s thing.
Odush’s laughter comes out like a grownups; rolling inside his throat and bubbling out through his bared teeth. It is how you become a man, he says.
Must have been painful? I say, and immediately regret it.
You! I know you would poo in your pants, he says, grinning like he has just won the Charity Sweepstake.
Where is the piece they cut off? Dado asks. He is tossing rocks over the loco-shed fence.
Odush ignores him.
I’ve seen my cousin Bura’s thing when it was cut, and it didn’t look like yours, Dado says.
Odush turns and fixes him a – if you don’t shut your big mouth I’ll shut it for you – stare.
If they really cut it show us the piece, Dado persists.
What a silly thing to say. How am I to know what the old man did with all the pieces? There were twenty or so of us.
Maybe he made Samosas with them, Dado says, suppressing a snigger.
One of these days I’ll bash his silly head in, Odush says, gesturing at Dado with his free hand, and slipping his thing back in.
My mother promised she would take me to the doctor to get mine cut, I lie.
That’s not the same thing. It must be done by the river with nothing for the pain. No frilly hospital stuff. And anyway you people don’t even cut, you just pull out teeth.
Mum says it is primitive, going to the river and all. You could bleed to death, or get ‘Tetenus’.
Tete-what?
It’s what you get when you have a wound and don’t get a jab, Dado says. His mum is a nurse at the Railway dispensary and he knows such stuff.
What does your muuum know about getting cut? Odush says, glowering at me. She’s got nothing to cut.
Some women also get cut, Dado says, still tossing rocks over the fence, knowing he could hit someone on the other side.
We all look at him funny, then laugh until tears fill our eyes.
What is there to cut? Odush asks, still laughing.
I don’t know, but I’ve heard, some of them get cut.
I’ll bet you screamed your head off, I say to Odush just to take the flak off Dado, and when Odush averts his eyes, I know it’s true.
You must have cried for your mother, I dig on.
I’m no cry baby like you, and I don’t wet my bed.
They are all laughing now. Dado is still laughing after the others have all stopped. He thinks he is smart but he is nothing. He lives alone with his nurse mother. She is everything grown-ups don’t like – beautiful, well dressed, and worst of all, single.
She is too independent to be of good character, that dispensary woman. And where is the father of that broody son of hers? I’ve heard mama say about Dado’s mother. I want to tell Dado all this, to make him feel bad, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
And you, what are you laughing at? I turn on Mose who appeals to me with his eyes. You open your mouth again and I knock out all those rotten teeth.
His eyes now cloud with hurt. Maybe I shouldn’t have said what I said. But why does he have to go and laugh at people?
But everyone laughed, Mose mumbles, as though reading my thoughts. His hand is clamped tight against his mouth.
Now you shut your dirty mouth, Dado tells him.
Slowly the tension ebbs and we head for the over-pass leading to the Muhindi side. No one has suggested it but we just go, kicking and raising dust as we run.
Mose rushes up the top of the steep stairs of the rail overpass, slides down the metal handrail, then rushes up again. He does this over and over until we are on the other side, then he sprints to catch up.
Where is Roba today? Odush asks.
My father says Roba’s father is now management. I guess he can’t be seen with people like us.
Then why don’t they move? Management people stay up the hill, in those gated compounds with dogs and stuff. They even have a room for cars.
It’s called a garage.
Since you know so much about them, why don’t you move up there and live with them? Odush says, glowering at me.
Papa will be in management soon. I know because I’ve heard him say so. There was this day he walked in, kicked off his dusty shoes and plunked into his favorite chair, next to the wood-cased Grundig record-player, and said:
How would you people feel if we moved up the hill?
Mama had continued with her crocheting, acting like what papa said wasn’t of consequence, but her face told otherwise. Her eyes were not watching Papa but I knew she was watching. Click, twist, click, twist, she went on, not missing a beat with her crocheting. When papa did not say more, she stopped and locked her eyes on him. Then papa had no choice but to tell us of his impending promotion to management. And so I know we will be moving up the hill, though I don’t know when, and I don’t say because I know Odush will say I’m lying and then he’ll laugh.
Maybe akina Roba shouldn’t move until they buy more stuff. All the stuff they own can fit in the bathroom of those huge management houses, Odush says.
No one laughs.
One day I will join Railways and be management, Dado says, taking us all by surprise. He peers skyward as though it is portended there; as if what he says is written in the silver sky.
See who wants to join Railways, Odush sneers.
I’ll be in management and more. Maybe even super-management.
We all gaze at Dado and then at each other, with wonder.
So where do super management people live? Mose says.
Way past the hill. Dado’s arms are raised like Moses’ in the Ten Commandments. Only Dado has no bushy beard like Moses in the film.
Must be somewhere in heaven, someone says, and then we are laughing, and slapping palms, and laughing even more. Afterwards we troop to Desia Street, on to the Muhindi side.
Neat houses peer from behind kai apple hedges. Fruit trees sway in the slight breeze. A Muhindi, darker than all of us opens one of the gates, and starts to approach us, changes his mind and disappears behind his ochre painted gate. Not long afterwards, he reappears with a muscled man in Khakis, and points in our direction. We do not stop to find out their intentions.
Let’s raid the deserted corner house, the one with Ghosts, Odush says. He is already running in that direction. We follow.
I’ve never known why Muhindi courtyards are full of fruit trees: Loquats, mangoes, pomegranates, zambaraos, you name it. They are all there in the Muhindi compounds, just hanging and waiting to be pecked by birds, or picked by us, or fall and rot on the ground. I love zambas the most; those shiny fruits that stain the mouth and tongue a deep purple, just like the GV mum dabs on our sores. We stand outside the rusted gate salivating at the bunched, purple fruits, gleaming in the sun’s morning rays.
You climb! Odush says. He is looking my way. They are all looking my way.
We toss! I say.
No one says anything, but they are all still looking. They all know I’m the best climber.
Alright! I’ll climb, I say and slither in through a gap in the hedge. I wrap my arms and legs firmly around the zambarao tree’s rough, grey trunk and haul myself up, inch by strenuous inch. My eyes never leave the door to the white house below. Scary thoughts of turbaned-demons and sari-clad ghosts flap through my head. Any minute now they will burst out and soar up to drag me into the decrepit, silent house, where a man burnt his wife, and no one has the guts to move into. When this does not happen, I work my way to the top and soon Mose and the others are howling for fruit. They stretch out their shirts to trap the zambaraos I toss down. The purple stains will not be easy to remove, and there will be hell to pay when they get home, but for now all that matters is the fruit.
To your left, a little higher to the left! Get the juicy ones to the left, Mose shouts, like he is in his mother’s living room. Surely, with so much noise some of the ghosts must appear. Nothing happens and I edge higher and slowly move up to where I know I shouldn’t. I’m reaching out for a mouthwatering bunch, when with a sharp cracking sound the branch gives, and I’m hurtling down with leaves, branches, and all manner of things whizzing past, slapping at my face. I slam against the corrugated iron roof of the ghost house, and onto the hard ground. I barely remember rising, or squeezing through the hole in the hedge, but I’m on the street running, with Dado by my side, asking if I’m okay. Odush and Mose are nowhere to be seen.
We thought you were smashed to pieces, Odush says when we catch up with him and Mose at the overpass. I’m out of breath and my sides ache like when Teacher Focus used the black-board ruler on me.
I didn’t know you could fall from so high up and not…, Mose does not finish. He is terrified of the word.
Aha! So you thought he was dead? Dado asks. That’s why you scampered off like two scared rabbits.
Mose looks down and sketches on the dust with his foot. Odush gazes at nothing.
What if the Muhindi ghosts with hair sticking out of their ears got me? I say, laughing, and suddenly everyone is laughing.
Those ghosts don’t scare me, Odush says, spitting hard on the ground and rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth, like we’ve seen loaders do at the Railway Go-down. Black bare backs and sinews glistening with sweat, they often spit hard against the cemented floor littered with spilled sugar. When I once told mama about their strength, she fixed me a stern stare and warned: you will fall into the same pitiable state if you don’t take books seriously.
Odush clears his throat and lets fly more spit, and furiously rubs his mouth. Taking up his dare, Mose spits, and so does Dado. I try to spit, but my mouth is sore and my spit comes out red. I run my tongue over a gash in my mouth and flinch at the pain. Odush, Dado and Mose have etched a line in the dust and stand behind it spitting. The idea is to see who will spit furthest. If my mouth did not ache so much I would be second. Only Dado can out-spit me. They spit and spit until their mouths are dry. Dado wins and Odush sulks, then we go our separate ways.
I’m at the Railway Dispensary. My left arm is swollen and aching like hell. Mama, sphinx-like, is by my side. There are other much smaller children with their mothers. We are seated on the polished wooden benches of the waiting room. I don’t see any fathers, just mothers and their coughing, crying babies. I guess the fathers are at work, or they just don’t like hospitals. There is this strong smell, like the stuff Apondi uses in our toilet. It settles in the back of my throat and stays. A nurse in a neat, white uniform and a hat that looks like someone sat on it keeps shouting: next. Every time she shouts a mother and a child rise and disappear behind a door, and the rest of us slide along the benches, inching closer to the door marked, Examination. I want to ask Mama what will happen when we get in there, but I don’t. She is still mad at me and stares straight ahead. When it’s finally our turn, I’m right there behind her, my left arm cradled in my right palm.
A Muhindi man in a white coat slouches behind a big desk. A smile plays under his jet-black moustache. He gestures Mama into the only empty chair. How did you break that? He asks, pointing at my aching hand. Football? He concludes, not waiting for my reply.
I nod.
It looks like a fracture, and will require a cast, he says, standing up. He is taller than he looks slouching behind his desk. I keep wondering what this ‘cast’ is all about, until they take an X- ray and fix a brand new plaster on my left arm. After that the doctor talks to me like we’ve always been good friends. He tells me how he broke his arm twice as a kid, but I don’t believe him. I know he just wants to know how I really broke mine. I don’t know if he already knows I fell from a tree at the ghost house. Maybe he knows and is toying with me. He jokes about the plaster and says it will be one dirty mess when I return to have it removed, one month later. It might even have lice on the inside, he says, and Mama makes a laughing sound. She is mad at me for getting my hand broken and not telling anyone about it until it got swollen like one of those sweet potato tubers we carry back from shaggs when we are on holiday. She is making the laughing sound only because the doctor is there. If he wasn’t there she’d smack me, broken hand or not.
We pass by the pharmacy and hand the prescription to a beady eyed man in a white dustcoat. He hands us medicine in a khaki packet, and mumbles something like, one tablet, twice a day. Or is it, two, once a day. I don’t get him, but I know Mama does. We walk out and she storms ahead, as if she just remembered something urgent she has to do. I follow from a safe distance, a sling around my shoulder.
By noon I’m out at the back showing off my sparkling white plaster. It’s kind of heavy, but the sling does all the carrying.
It’s as hard as a rock, Mose says, tapping it: tock, tock. Wish I could get one like that so no one messes with me.
You’ll have to break your arm if you want one.
Painful?
I nod.
Is it really broken, or just twisted?
Of course it’s broken. They even took an X-ray.
You mean the big, black pictures that show broken bones?
Another nod and then we say nothing and just stare. Sometimes it feels great staring and saying nothing.
A green Grasshopper leaps out from the grass like something is after its life. It lands on the Zepher’s bonnet, glides to the ground and vaults off into the browned grass. Lost in our thoughts we still stare and say nothing. I can’t tell what Mose is thinking, but my mind is on the time a big brown hopper leaped into class and landed on a girl’s lap. Leaping off her seat she yelled so loud that Teacher Focus ran with his weird limp all the way from the staffroom thinking we were under attack. Leaning on his shorter left leg he surveyed the class like he was seeing it for the first time. When he learnt it was a hopper that had caused the ruckus, he had us stay in during break as punishment.
Mose is now saying something, but I can’t hear what.
The day you fell off the zamba tree, Odush said you were finished, I finally hear him say. He swipes his forefinger across his neck to show what he means.
And you, what did you think?
I don’t know, he says, shrugging. But you are really lucky you only broke your arm.
Yah.
He is silent now, eyes fixed to the ground. A kite swoops downwards then lifts off into the clear sky. Effortlessly, it glides across the clear sky, its wings tilted. What fun it would be to go where you please with so little effort.
You are smiling, Mose says.
I ignore him and continue staring, this time at a jet plane slicing through the blue sky above. It leaves a long, fluffy, white trail in its wake. I once saw some jets from the waving bay at Embakasi. Real huge monsters. When the pilot turned on the engine, I felt it right in my gut. Better and bigger than stupid trains, those jets.
We continue saying nothing and staring, Mose into the dust, and me into the blue sky. The jet is barely visible now. It floats on and on like it doesn’t have a care in the world, and is in no hurry to get to its destination. I wish I could be in there, soaring in the sky. I wonder if those in it are going away for good, or just for a while. Me, when I get into one of those I will go and go, far away from Railways and the noisy siren and trains that never let you sleep; away from Apondi’s singing and Tatu’s teasing; away from the Muhindis that won’t let us near their fruit even when they don’t eat it themselves. I’ll just float away and never come back. Of course I’d miss the juicy zambaraos, the old Zepher, Mose and maybe even Dado, but Odush I would not miss.
Tiding, tadang.
Tadang, tadang.
The train crunches hard against groaning metal tracks, fastened to blackened teak sleepers. Like a drunk dancer doing the Rumba, the train sways this way and that way, before grinding to a halt.
Who in Railways doesn’t know it’s the Mix, destined for land-locked Uganda. Always the first to limp into the goods yard, its’ load the top-priority.
I was awake in bed long before the siren went off and the ‘Mix’ announced its arrival. Kicking aside my wet sheets, I step onto the cold floor of my room. I’m wriggling out of my wet shorts when my sister Tatu’s big head peers through the door, a knowing smile on her face.
Again! He’s done it again.
Little baby.
Has wet his bed.
Again.
She keeps singing in that silly, sing song way girls love.
I scramble for a shoe or something to throw at her, but she’s gone. One of these days I’m going to knock off that big head. Then she’ll know who the little baby is.
It’s Sunday morning and the clank of pots and pans against the kitchen sink rises and falls with Apondi’s singing. Mama has left for church. I know this because Apondi is singing a Lingala song, Nyako Konya, and if Mama was still here Apondi wouldn’t sing such a song or sing so loudly. Apondi sings all the time. She sings when she is working, when she is bathing, and even when she is doing nothing. She sings church songs, kids’ songs, songs I heard at shaggs when we went for Grandma’s funeral, songs that blare out of the juke-box at the noisy bar next to the butchery where tipsy men lean on a wooden counter tearing chunks of roasted meat, and wash them down with gulps from elephant imprinted beer bottles. She even sings songs that advertise stuff on VOK radio:
Cafenal ni dawa namba one!
Cafenal, cafenal, pam pam.
Apondi only stops singing to quarrel. What do you people think I am, a machine? She will say, her chapped lips pursing. When she gets that way, we keep our distance. But for now, I’m really hungry, and my stomach is rumbling like one of those safari rally cars, so I head for the kitchen even though I know Apondi will hold out, until the very last moment, before letting me have anything.
Apondi likes it when we beg for stuff. I think it makes her happy when people beg for things. It’s the only time she smiles; exposing her big, white upper teeth and empty lower gums. She is missing some lower teeth. My brother Deno says they are six. That’s the number they traditionally pull out, he says.
Can’t you see I’m clearing this mess? Apondi says, without turning, even though I’ve not said a word. The only thing you people are good at is dirtying things.
I say nothing and she doesn’t like it. It really gets her mad when you say nothing. I continue standing there. Apondi continues hammering the pots and pans, seething. We stay that way for a long time; me saying nothing and Apondi hammering away and seething until I beg for breakfast and she pours out some tea, and snatches two slices of bread from the middle of a glossy Elliot’s pack and slaps them on my hand. She knows I badly want the hard crusted slices at each end of the packet, and I’m there before Tatu and Deno, but she doesn’t care. The pleading in my eyes, gets me nowhere.
It’s nine when I head for our favorite spot. An old rusted Zepher resting on stones, its tires long gone, grass under it, brown from sunlight starvation. Dado, Mose, and Odush are already there, hanging out. Odush clears his throat to catch our attention. He has undone the buttons of his shorts, and has his thing out in his hand. Gingerly holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he turns it up and down, beaming with satisfaction.
It’s cut! Mose says, and makes to draw closer, then shrinks away. All our eyes are now fixed on Odush’s thing.
Odush’s laughter comes out like a grownups; rolling inside his throat and bubbling out through his bared teeth. It is how you become a man, he says.
Must have been painful? I say, and immediately regret it.
You! I know you would poo in your pants, he says, grinning like he has just won the Charity Sweepstake.
Where is the piece they cut off? Dado asks. He is tossing rocks over the loco-shed fence.
Odush ignores him.
I’ve seen my cousin Bura’s thing when it was cut, and it didn’t look like yours, Dado says.
Odush turns and fixes him a – if you don’t shut your big mouth I’ll shut it for you – stare.
If they really cut it show us the piece, Dado persists.
What a silly thing to say. How am I to know what the old man did with all the pieces? There were twenty or so of us.
Maybe he made Samosas with them, Dado says, suppressing a snigger.
One of these days I’ll bash his silly head in, Odush says, gesturing at Dado with his free hand, and slipping his thing back in.
My mother promised she would take me to the doctor to get mine cut, I lie.
That’s not the same thing. It must be done by the river with nothing for the pain. No frilly hospital stuff. And anyway you people don’t even cut, you just pull out teeth.
Mum says it is primitive, going to the river and all. You could bleed to death, or get ‘Tetenus’.
Tete-what?
It’s what you get when you have a wound and don’t get a jab, Dado says. His mum is a nurse at the Railway dispensary and he knows such stuff.
What does your muuum know about getting cut? Odush says, glowering at me. She’s got nothing to cut.
Some women also get cut, Dado says, still tossing rocks over the fence, knowing he could hit someone on the other side.
We all look at him funny, then laugh until tears fill our eyes.
What is there to cut? Odush asks, still laughing.
I don’t know, but I’ve heard, some of them get cut.
I’ll bet you screamed your head off, I say to Odush just to take the flak off Dado, and when Odush averts his eyes, I know it’s true.
You must have cried for your mother, I dig on.
I’m no cry baby like you, and I don’t wet my bed.
They are all laughing now. Dado is still laughing after the others have all stopped. He thinks he is smart but he is nothing. He lives alone with his nurse mother. She is everything grown-ups don’t like – beautiful, well dressed, and worst of all, single.
She is too independent to be of good character, that dispensary woman. And where is the father of that broody son of hers? I’ve heard mama say about Dado’s mother. I want to tell Dado all this, to make him feel bad, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
And you, what are you laughing at? I turn on Mose who appeals to me with his eyes. You open your mouth again and I knock out all those rotten teeth.
His eyes now cloud with hurt. Maybe I shouldn’t have said what I said. But why does he have to go and laugh at people?
But everyone laughed, Mose mumbles, as though reading my thoughts. His hand is clamped tight against his mouth.
Now you shut your dirty mouth, Dado tells him.
Slowly the tension ebbs and we head for the over-pass leading to the Muhindi side. No one has suggested it but we just go, kicking and raising dust as we run.
Mose rushes up the top of the steep stairs of the rail overpass, slides down the metal handrail, then rushes up again. He does this over and over until we are on the other side, then he sprints to catch up.
Where is Roba today? Odush asks.
My father says Roba’s father is now management. I guess he can’t be seen with people like us.
Then why don’t they move? Management people stay up the hill, in those gated compounds with dogs and stuff. They even have a room for cars.
It’s called a garage.
Since you know so much about them, why don’t you move up there and live with them? Odush says, glowering at me.
Papa will be in management soon. I know because I’ve heard him say so. There was this day he walked in, kicked off his dusty shoes and plunked into his favorite chair, next to the wood-cased Grundig record-player, and said:
How would you people feel if we moved up the hill?
Mama had continued with her crocheting, acting like what papa said wasn’t of consequence, but her face told otherwise. Her eyes were not watching Papa but I knew she was watching. Click, twist, click, twist, she went on, not missing a beat with her crocheting. When papa did not say more, she stopped and locked her eyes on him. Then papa had no choice but to tell us of his impending promotion to management. And so I know we will be moving up the hill, though I don’t know when, and I don’t say because I know Odush will say I’m lying and then he’ll laugh.
Maybe akina Roba shouldn’t move until they buy more stuff. All the stuff they own can fit in the bathroom of those huge management houses, Odush says.
No one laughs.
One day I will join Railways and be management, Dado says, taking us all by surprise. He peers skyward as though it is portended there; as if what he says is written in the silver sky.
See who wants to join Railways, Odush sneers.
I’ll be in management and more. Maybe even super-management.
We all gaze at Dado and then at each other, with wonder.
So where do super management people live? Mose says.
Way past the hill. Dado’s arms are raised like Moses’ in the Ten Commandments. Only Dado has no bushy beard like Moses in the film.
Must be somewhere in heaven, someone says, and then we are laughing, and slapping palms, and laughing even more. Afterwards we troop to Desia Street, on to the Muhindi side.
Neat houses peer from behind kai apple hedges. Fruit trees sway in the slight breeze. A Muhindi, darker than all of us opens one of the gates, and starts to approach us, changes his mind and disappears behind his ochre painted gate. Not long afterwards, he reappears with a muscled man in Khakis, and points in our direction. We do not stop to find out their intentions.
Let’s raid the deserted corner house, the one with Ghosts, Odush says. He is already running in that direction. We follow.
I’ve never known why Muhindi courtyards are full of fruit trees: Loquats, mangoes, pomegranates, zambaraos, you name it. They are all there in the Muhindi compounds, just hanging and waiting to be pecked by birds, or picked by us, or fall and rot on the ground. I love zambas the most; those shiny fruits that stain the mouth and tongue a deep purple, just like the GV mum dabs on our sores. We stand outside the rusted gate salivating at the bunched, purple fruits, gleaming in the sun’s morning rays.
You climb! Odush says. He is looking my way. They are all looking my way.
We toss! I say.
No one says anything, but they are all still looking. They all know I’m the best climber.
Alright! I’ll climb, I say and slither in through a gap in the hedge. I wrap my arms and legs firmly around the zambarao tree’s rough, grey trunk and haul myself up, inch by strenuous inch. My eyes never leave the door to the white house below. Scary thoughts of turbaned-demons and sari-clad ghosts flap through my head. Any minute now they will burst out and soar up to drag me into the decrepit, silent house, where a man burnt his wife, and no one has the guts to move into. When this does not happen, I work my way to the top and soon Mose and the others are howling for fruit. They stretch out their shirts to trap the zambaraos I toss down. The purple stains will not be easy to remove, and there will be hell to pay when they get home, but for now all that matters is the fruit.
To your left, a little higher to the left! Get the juicy ones to the left, Mose shouts, like he is in his mother’s living room. Surely, with so much noise some of the ghosts must appear. Nothing happens and I edge higher and slowly move up to where I know I shouldn’t. I’m reaching out for a mouthwatering bunch, when with a sharp cracking sound the branch gives, and I’m hurtling down with leaves, branches, and all manner of things whizzing past, slapping at my face. I slam against the corrugated iron roof of the ghost house, and onto the hard ground. I barely remember rising, or squeezing through the hole in the hedge, but I’m on the street running, with Dado by my side, asking if I’m okay. Odush and Mose are nowhere to be seen.
We thought you were smashed to pieces, Odush says when we catch up with him and Mose at the overpass. I’m out of breath and my sides ache like when Teacher Focus used the black-board ruler on me.
I didn’t know you could fall from so high up and not…, Mose does not finish. He is terrified of the word.
Aha! So you thought he was dead? Dado asks. That’s why you scampered off like two scared rabbits.
Mose looks down and sketches on the dust with his foot. Odush gazes at nothing.
What if the Muhindi ghosts with hair sticking out of their ears got me? I say, laughing, and suddenly everyone is laughing.
Those ghosts don’t scare me, Odush says, spitting hard on the ground and rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth, like we’ve seen loaders do at the Railway Go-down. Black bare backs and sinews glistening with sweat, they often spit hard against the cemented floor littered with spilled sugar. When I once told mama about their strength, she fixed me a stern stare and warned: you will fall into the same pitiable state if you don’t take books seriously.
Odush clears his throat and lets fly more spit, and furiously rubs his mouth. Taking up his dare, Mose spits, and so does Dado. I try to spit, but my mouth is sore and my spit comes out red. I run my tongue over a gash in my mouth and flinch at the pain. Odush, Dado and Mose have etched a line in the dust and stand behind it spitting. The idea is to see who will spit furthest. If my mouth did not ache so much I would be second. Only Dado can out-spit me. They spit and spit until their mouths are dry. Dado wins and Odush sulks, then we go our separate ways.
I’m at the Railway Dispensary. My left arm is swollen and aching like hell. Mama, sphinx-like, is by my side. There are other much smaller children with their mothers. We are seated on the polished wooden benches of the waiting room. I don’t see any fathers, just mothers and their coughing, crying babies. I guess the fathers are at work, or they just don’t like hospitals. There is this strong smell, like the stuff Apondi uses in our toilet. It settles in the back of my throat and stays. A nurse in a neat, white uniform and a hat that looks like someone sat on it keeps shouting: next. Every time she shouts a mother and a child rise and disappear behind a door, and the rest of us slide along the benches, inching closer to the door marked, Examination. I want to ask Mama what will happen when we get in there, but I don’t. She is still mad at me and stares straight ahead. When it’s finally our turn, I’m right there behind her, my left arm cradled in my right palm.
A Muhindi man in a white coat slouches behind a big desk. A smile plays under his jet-black moustache. He gestures Mama into the only empty chair. How did you break that? He asks, pointing at my aching hand. Football? He concludes, not waiting for my reply.
I nod.
It looks like a fracture, and will require a cast, he says, standing up. He is taller than he looks slouching behind his desk. I keep wondering what this ‘cast’ is all about, until they take an X- ray and fix a brand new plaster on my left arm. After that the doctor talks to me like we’ve always been good friends. He tells me how he broke his arm twice as a kid, but I don’t believe him. I know he just wants to know how I really broke mine. I don’t know if he already knows I fell from a tree at the ghost house. Maybe he knows and is toying with me. He jokes about the plaster and says it will be one dirty mess when I return to have it removed, one month later. It might even have lice on the inside, he says, and Mama makes a laughing sound. She is mad at me for getting my hand broken and not telling anyone about it until it got swollen like one of those sweet potato tubers we carry back from shaggs when we are on holiday. She is making the laughing sound only because the doctor is there. If he wasn’t there she’d smack me, broken hand or not.
We pass by the pharmacy and hand the prescription to a beady eyed man in a white dustcoat. He hands us medicine in a khaki packet, and mumbles something like, one tablet, twice a day. Or is it, two, once a day. I don’t get him, but I know Mama does. We walk out and she storms ahead, as if she just remembered something urgent she has to do. I follow from a safe distance, a sling around my shoulder.
By noon I’m out at the back showing off my sparkling white plaster. It’s kind of heavy, but the sling does all the carrying.
It’s as hard as a rock, Mose says, tapping it: tock, tock. Wish I could get one like that so no one messes with me.
You’ll have to break your arm if you want one.
Painful?
I nod.
Is it really broken, or just twisted?
Of course it’s broken. They even took an X-ray.
You mean the big, black pictures that show broken bones?
Another nod and then we say nothing and just stare. Sometimes it feels great staring and saying nothing.
A green Grasshopper leaps out from the grass like something is after its life. It lands on the Zepher’s bonnet, glides to the ground and vaults off into the browned grass. Lost in our thoughts we still stare and say nothing. I can’t tell what Mose is thinking, but my mind is on the time a big brown hopper leaped into class and landed on a girl’s lap. Leaping off her seat she yelled so loud that Teacher Focus ran with his weird limp all the way from the staffroom thinking we were under attack. Leaning on his shorter left leg he surveyed the class like he was seeing it for the first time. When he learnt it was a hopper that had caused the ruckus, he had us stay in during break as punishment.
Mose is now saying something, but I can’t hear what.
The day you fell off the zamba tree, Odush said you were finished, I finally hear him say. He swipes his forefinger across his neck to show what he means.
And you, what did you think?
I don’t know, he says, shrugging. But you are really lucky you only broke your arm.
Yah.
He is silent now, eyes fixed to the ground. A kite swoops downwards then lifts off into the clear sky. Effortlessly, it glides across the clear sky, its wings tilted. What fun it would be to go where you please with so little effort.
You are smiling, Mose says.
I ignore him and continue staring, this time at a jet plane slicing through the blue sky above. It leaves a long, fluffy, white trail in its wake. I once saw some jets from the waving bay at Embakasi. Real huge monsters. When the pilot turned on the engine, I felt it right in my gut. Better and bigger than stupid trains, those jets.
We continue saying nothing and staring, Mose into the dust, and me into the blue sky. The jet is barely visible now. It floats on and on like it doesn’t have a care in the world, and is in no hurry to get to its destination. I wish I could be in there, soaring in the sky. I wonder if those in it are going away for good, or just for a while. Me, when I get into one of those I will go and go, far away from Railways and the noisy siren and trains that never let you sleep; away from Apondi’s singing and Tatu’s teasing; away from the Muhindis that won’t let us near their fruit even when they don’t eat it themselves. I’ll just float away and never come back. Of course I’d miss the juicy zambaraos, the old Zepher, Mose and maybe even Dado, but Odush I would not miss.
P. Ochieng Ochieng is a graduate of Economics and Law, and resides in the lakeside town of Kisumu, Kenya. He has been shortlisted for the 2010 Golden Baobab writing prize, has published in Munyori Literary Journal, was longlisted for the African Roar 2012 and won the Peculiar Kenyan short story writing prize. He is currently working on a novel.