image: Sophia Balakian
Nam and the Old Man
P. Ochieng Ochieng
P. Ochieng Ochieng
We are skimming pebbles on the lake’s calm surface, Nam and I. Nam’s pebbles bounce off the water several times before sinking. He is stronger than me and throws with greater force. He tries to teach me how, but my pebbles just plop into the water and sink. We continue throwing, until our arms ache, then we sit on a shiny boulder that juts out from the ground.
Two boats float in the distance. An iridescent fishing net bursts out from the leading boat, spreads in the sunlight, then disappears into the silver water. The boat circles to draw the net in place.
“There aren’t many boats out, today,” I say.
Nam says nothing. His brow is knitted. He is often contemplative when he is near the lake. Mama says the two have a strange connection. It’s the reason they share a name.
“Bet you Achuth’s boat will return with a bigger catch,” I say.
“He will not return,” Nam whispers.
His words don’t count for much until evening, when the gathering dusk is shattered by loud wailing, as Achuth’s body is brought in by a distraught search party. Nam does not get out of bed. Delirious, he kicks, tosses, mutters things we can’t make out. Mama sits by his side dousing out his flaming fever with a wet cloth. At dusk he rises, heads for the wooden pier from where he stares out at floating pressure lamps that dot the water, attracting the tiny Omena fish into waiting nets.
“It resembles an upturned sky,” I say.
“Their catch won’t be much.”
“How can you tell?”
“I just know,” Nam says. I’m waiting for him to say something else but he just stares.
“A storm is brewing,” he finally says. “If I were them I would quickly come ashore.”
I sniff the air, and detect only the scent of fish and wood fire wafting from where market women fry the fish they buy, or at times get for the favors they advance virile, young fishermen. I’m about to tell Nam that I see no signs of rain or storm, when raindrops begin to spear down.
“We’ll be soaked,” I say.
Nam just stares ahead, his head tilted skywards. I turn my back to the heaving lake, bolt up the steep embankment and on home, the rain lashing at my face, the wind howling at my back.
The storm has blown over, the night is calm. We are at the lake’s edge, Mama and I, shouting out for Nam. Mama trips on something, bends to get a closer look and lets out a sharp scream. It comes from deep inside her, bursting out with the urgency of a cornered beast. It tosses her onto the wet ground, rocks her about until she folds up in a subdued heap next to where Nam’s Jacket and blue pati patis lie.
Two search parties slide their boats into the lake and row off; their flashlights’ beams dancing about the water’s oil black surface. When they return, their shirts are wet with sweat and water, dejection etched across their faces. They avert their eyes from Mama.
“Nam is like a young wife. You must sing her sweet songs as you dip your oars into her,” the old man whispers, a mischievous glint in his eye. He sucks his lips in and out, the way old people who have lost their teeth do. Soon his silence is replaced by soft snoring.
When I make to leave, he clears his throat to indicate he is awake again. He’s fallen into the habit of slipping in and out of sleep during conversation.
“When she is peaceful, her possibilities are infinite. She sustains us. But every so often, she turns quarrelsome, smothering the unsuspecting fisherman in her dark swirling waters,” he continues.
The old man would know. He’s lived alone in this musty rusty-roofed shack by the lake for as long as anyone can remember. Each day at dawn, he slides his boat into the lake, rows deep into her placid waters to cast his net. Often, his efforts are rewarded with a healthy catch. Sometimes he returns ashore, his boat empty. Undaunted, he sets out the very next morning, only for Nam to unleash her fury upon him; buffeting and battering his boat.
“Your brother, Nam, was special. You know that, don’t you? Tell your mother this time around Nam will not listen to reason. But there is always a way,” he says.
Though his sight is failing, his mind is still as sharp as Mama’s filleting knives. He talks of the lake and my brother interchangeably and I’m not certain I understand, but I nod, all the same. When I rise a second time, he does not react to the rustle of my feet against his floor. His bearded chin nestles against his sunken chest.
Mama has not moved. Her solitary, hunched figure is visible in the moonlight. She squats on her haunches by the lake, a lantern by her side. Six days and six nights she’s held vigil, entreating the lake’s impassive water to wash ashore Nam’s body, so we can lay him to rest.
She has not been alone, in her entreaties. The first day saw her fellow Legio Maria sect members—resplendent in flowing white robes, crimson crosses emblazoned on the front—drum, chant and sing out from dog-eared missals, as they stabbed the lake’s cold waters with their wooden crosses. With the passage of time, their fervent prayers and songs had simmered down to incoherent mumbles. Soon enough, they peeled off their Christian masks, reached for amulets, tucked in the folds of their robes, as they invoked the names of ancestors.
Mama had also secured the services of Ajuoga. Ankles and arms adorned with trinkets that let out a soothing trill, the medicine man had trooped about the water-shore, a beaded gourd in his right hand, a flywhisk in the other. Executing a comical jig, his huge bare feet had slapped hard against the wet ground. Everyone had held their breath when he squatted to play out his cowries. Divination complete, Mama had dutifully reached into the folds of her dress to pull out some money, which promptly disappeared into Ajuoga’s monkey-skin purse.
Ogolla Opot, a nyatiti-player of great renown, had been next. Strumming his lyre to the beat of his tapping feet and the accompaniment of a lute, played by a wiry man in a dirty white T Shirt, the husky-voiced singer from Masiro had crooned out praise-songs to soften the lakes stubborn resolve. His head bobbing up and down, he’d thanked the lake for her magnanimity while beseeching her to have pity on a bereaved mother. His act complete, he’d picked his lyre and departed.
Unmoved by all their entreaties, the lake had stubbornly failed to yield Nam’s body.
It’s seven days since Nam disappeared. Today, Mama and I are alone by the lakeshore. A lazy sun claws its way up a soft sky. If the lake does not yield Nam’s body today, we will bury a big ripe yago so his spirit will rest. Mama sucks in her lower lip and it arches at the point where her teeth have been pulled out, which means she’s deep in thought.
“You should go on home now. There isn’t much we can do,” she says.
I nod, but I do not move. I peer down at the tranquil lake. It’s hard to believe this is the same lake that heaved and roared in the storm the night Nam went missing.
Someone is moving in between the reeds. Could it be the old man? I move in that direction, and sure enough it’s him; a broken oar in one hand, a reed fish trap in the other.
“Is it not me you have always wanted? I am here now. Let the poor woman bury her son by his father’s side,” he says to no one in particular. He is ankle deep in water. It laps at the hems of his corduroy trousers. Staggering slightly, he takes another step further in.
“I’m here. I am yours,” he shouts, as a gust of wind slaps his hat off his head and into the swirling water, exposing his lintwhite hair. He still has his oar and fish trap and is shouting, though the wind now drowns out his words. The water is rising, reaching up to him, swirling around his hips. He turns and looks past me.
Mama’s words reach me the very moment I tense to rush in to try and save the old man. “Obuogo!” she shouts above the whistling wind, the urgency in her tone freezing me. “Don’t go there. You have no place in all this.”
There is now an inviting glow to the water. The old man is quiet. A faint smile plays across his face. He makes a stabbing motion with his oar, and sinks his fish trap into the effervescing water. With one final sweep, it sucks him in, carries him off.
No one launches a search. Everyone agrees the old man’s life was the lake, and the lake his life.
It’s the screams of women fleeing from where they gut fish that draws us to the place where Nam’s body has floated out. Mama reaches under his arms and pulls him out of the water. She smiles. Everyone marvels at how the lake has preserved Nam’s body. His eyes stare out into the sky until mother draws back his eyelids.
“He has joined the ancestors,” someone says, rousing the ire of the Christians, who huddle together to close their eyes and pray.
We wear our best clothes for Nam’s funeral. Everyone is joyous, and we heap praise on the lake for her graciousness for conceding Nam’s body. Mama does not cry. She just plods about our compound like a zombie, busying herself with things that do not require her attention. She’s aged these few days; her face is haggard, her eyes bloodshot.
Four boys trail a Legio-Maria priest. Their shiny black sinews are taut from the weight of Nam’s box. Mama and I maintain a slow pace behind. Tucked under my arm is Nam’s framed photo, where he wears his wet-look jacket and a radiant smile. Every so often we stop for the priest to chant out prayers, then we are off again. Our long procession snakes up a leaf-strewn path to a shaded spot under a cluster of mango trees. We stop by a gaping hole, where Nam is to be laid to rest.
“From dust, to dust,” the priest intones, tossing a handful of soil into the hole. “Do not allow yourself to be cowed by death’s termination of this useless shell,” he says slapping his bible against his chest. “The boy in there only sleeps. Come judgment day, he will resurrect with all the others.”
In no time the hole is filled. Dry-eyed mourners walk off to a makeshift shelter to dig into huge mounds of Ugali, which they dunk into hot stew, stuff into their mouths, shake their heads in wonder at Nam’s send-off.
The old man was at the funeral. I saw him under the shade of the mango tree. He still had his straw hat, a broken oar and a reed fish trap. He stood behind us. Were it not for that musty smell I’d long grown accustomed to, I never would have noticed. I turned, and there he was with a mischievous smile.
“I told you there was always a way,” he whispered, munching his lower lip.
I started to say something in response but he was gone, and only Mama was there by my side, eyeing me, like she knew.
Two boats float in the distance. An iridescent fishing net bursts out from the leading boat, spreads in the sunlight, then disappears into the silver water. The boat circles to draw the net in place.
“There aren’t many boats out, today,” I say.
Nam says nothing. His brow is knitted. He is often contemplative when he is near the lake. Mama says the two have a strange connection. It’s the reason they share a name.
“Bet you Achuth’s boat will return with a bigger catch,” I say.
“He will not return,” Nam whispers.
His words don’t count for much until evening, when the gathering dusk is shattered by loud wailing, as Achuth’s body is brought in by a distraught search party. Nam does not get out of bed. Delirious, he kicks, tosses, mutters things we can’t make out. Mama sits by his side dousing out his flaming fever with a wet cloth. At dusk he rises, heads for the wooden pier from where he stares out at floating pressure lamps that dot the water, attracting the tiny Omena fish into waiting nets.
“It resembles an upturned sky,” I say.
“Their catch won’t be much.”
“How can you tell?”
“I just know,” Nam says. I’m waiting for him to say something else but he just stares.
“A storm is brewing,” he finally says. “If I were them I would quickly come ashore.”
I sniff the air, and detect only the scent of fish and wood fire wafting from where market women fry the fish they buy, or at times get for the favors they advance virile, young fishermen. I’m about to tell Nam that I see no signs of rain or storm, when raindrops begin to spear down.
“We’ll be soaked,” I say.
Nam just stares ahead, his head tilted skywards. I turn my back to the heaving lake, bolt up the steep embankment and on home, the rain lashing at my face, the wind howling at my back.
The storm has blown over, the night is calm. We are at the lake’s edge, Mama and I, shouting out for Nam. Mama trips on something, bends to get a closer look and lets out a sharp scream. It comes from deep inside her, bursting out with the urgency of a cornered beast. It tosses her onto the wet ground, rocks her about until she folds up in a subdued heap next to where Nam’s Jacket and blue pati patis lie.
Two search parties slide their boats into the lake and row off; their flashlights’ beams dancing about the water’s oil black surface. When they return, their shirts are wet with sweat and water, dejection etched across their faces. They avert their eyes from Mama.
“Nam is like a young wife. You must sing her sweet songs as you dip your oars into her,” the old man whispers, a mischievous glint in his eye. He sucks his lips in and out, the way old people who have lost their teeth do. Soon his silence is replaced by soft snoring.
When I make to leave, he clears his throat to indicate he is awake again. He’s fallen into the habit of slipping in and out of sleep during conversation.
“When she is peaceful, her possibilities are infinite. She sustains us. But every so often, she turns quarrelsome, smothering the unsuspecting fisherman in her dark swirling waters,” he continues.
The old man would know. He’s lived alone in this musty rusty-roofed shack by the lake for as long as anyone can remember. Each day at dawn, he slides his boat into the lake, rows deep into her placid waters to cast his net. Often, his efforts are rewarded with a healthy catch. Sometimes he returns ashore, his boat empty. Undaunted, he sets out the very next morning, only for Nam to unleash her fury upon him; buffeting and battering his boat.
“Your brother, Nam, was special. You know that, don’t you? Tell your mother this time around Nam will not listen to reason. But there is always a way,” he says.
Though his sight is failing, his mind is still as sharp as Mama’s filleting knives. He talks of the lake and my brother interchangeably and I’m not certain I understand, but I nod, all the same. When I rise a second time, he does not react to the rustle of my feet against his floor. His bearded chin nestles against his sunken chest.
Mama has not moved. Her solitary, hunched figure is visible in the moonlight. She squats on her haunches by the lake, a lantern by her side. Six days and six nights she’s held vigil, entreating the lake’s impassive water to wash ashore Nam’s body, so we can lay him to rest.
She has not been alone, in her entreaties. The first day saw her fellow Legio Maria sect members—resplendent in flowing white robes, crimson crosses emblazoned on the front—drum, chant and sing out from dog-eared missals, as they stabbed the lake’s cold waters with their wooden crosses. With the passage of time, their fervent prayers and songs had simmered down to incoherent mumbles. Soon enough, they peeled off their Christian masks, reached for amulets, tucked in the folds of their robes, as they invoked the names of ancestors.
Mama had also secured the services of Ajuoga. Ankles and arms adorned with trinkets that let out a soothing trill, the medicine man had trooped about the water-shore, a beaded gourd in his right hand, a flywhisk in the other. Executing a comical jig, his huge bare feet had slapped hard against the wet ground. Everyone had held their breath when he squatted to play out his cowries. Divination complete, Mama had dutifully reached into the folds of her dress to pull out some money, which promptly disappeared into Ajuoga’s monkey-skin purse.
Ogolla Opot, a nyatiti-player of great renown, had been next. Strumming his lyre to the beat of his tapping feet and the accompaniment of a lute, played by a wiry man in a dirty white T Shirt, the husky-voiced singer from Masiro had crooned out praise-songs to soften the lakes stubborn resolve. His head bobbing up and down, he’d thanked the lake for her magnanimity while beseeching her to have pity on a bereaved mother. His act complete, he’d picked his lyre and departed.
Unmoved by all their entreaties, the lake had stubbornly failed to yield Nam’s body.
It’s seven days since Nam disappeared. Today, Mama and I are alone by the lakeshore. A lazy sun claws its way up a soft sky. If the lake does not yield Nam’s body today, we will bury a big ripe yago so his spirit will rest. Mama sucks in her lower lip and it arches at the point where her teeth have been pulled out, which means she’s deep in thought.
“You should go on home now. There isn’t much we can do,” she says.
I nod, but I do not move. I peer down at the tranquil lake. It’s hard to believe this is the same lake that heaved and roared in the storm the night Nam went missing.
Someone is moving in between the reeds. Could it be the old man? I move in that direction, and sure enough it’s him; a broken oar in one hand, a reed fish trap in the other.
“Is it not me you have always wanted? I am here now. Let the poor woman bury her son by his father’s side,” he says to no one in particular. He is ankle deep in water. It laps at the hems of his corduroy trousers. Staggering slightly, he takes another step further in.
“I’m here. I am yours,” he shouts, as a gust of wind slaps his hat off his head and into the swirling water, exposing his lintwhite hair. He still has his oar and fish trap and is shouting, though the wind now drowns out his words. The water is rising, reaching up to him, swirling around his hips. He turns and looks past me.
Mama’s words reach me the very moment I tense to rush in to try and save the old man. “Obuogo!” she shouts above the whistling wind, the urgency in her tone freezing me. “Don’t go there. You have no place in all this.”
There is now an inviting glow to the water. The old man is quiet. A faint smile plays across his face. He makes a stabbing motion with his oar, and sinks his fish trap into the effervescing water. With one final sweep, it sucks him in, carries him off.
No one launches a search. Everyone agrees the old man’s life was the lake, and the lake his life.
It’s the screams of women fleeing from where they gut fish that draws us to the place where Nam’s body has floated out. Mama reaches under his arms and pulls him out of the water. She smiles. Everyone marvels at how the lake has preserved Nam’s body. His eyes stare out into the sky until mother draws back his eyelids.
“He has joined the ancestors,” someone says, rousing the ire of the Christians, who huddle together to close their eyes and pray.
We wear our best clothes for Nam’s funeral. Everyone is joyous, and we heap praise on the lake for her graciousness for conceding Nam’s body. Mama does not cry. She just plods about our compound like a zombie, busying herself with things that do not require her attention. She’s aged these few days; her face is haggard, her eyes bloodshot.
Four boys trail a Legio-Maria priest. Their shiny black sinews are taut from the weight of Nam’s box. Mama and I maintain a slow pace behind. Tucked under my arm is Nam’s framed photo, where he wears his wet-look jacket and a radiant smile. Every so often we stop for the priest to chant out prayers, then we are off again. Our long procession snakes up a leaf-strewn path to a shaded spot under a cluster of mango trees. We stop by a gaping hole, where Nam is to be laid to rest.
“From dust, to dust,” the priest intones, tossing a handful of soil into the hole. “Do not allow yourself to be cowed by death’s termination of this useless shell,” he says slapping his bible against his chest. “The boy in there only sleeps. Come judgment day, he will resurrect with all the others.”
In no time the hole is filled. Dry-eyed mourners walk off to a makeshift shelter to dig into huge mounds of Ugali, which they dunk into hot stew, stuff into their mouths, shake their heads in wonder at Nam’s send-off.
The old man was at the funeral. I saw him under the shade of the mango tree. He still had his straw hat, a broken oar and a reed fish trap. He stood behind us. Were it not for that musty smell I’d long grown accustomed to, I never would have noticed. I turned, and there he was with a mischievous smile.
“I told you there was always a way,” he whispered, munching his lower lip.
I started to say something in response but he was gone, and only Mama was there by my side, eyeing me, like she knew.
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.