Finally we had everything stowed and four women with their bags, bundles, gourds and mixed loads were in the back, three more sat on the second seat with Keiti at the right of them, and myself, Mwengi and Mthuka in front. We started off with the Masai waving and I opened the cold bottle of beer still wrapped in the newspapers and offered it to Mwengi. He motioned for me to drink and sank lower in the seat to be out of sight of Keiti. I drank and handed it to him and he drank deep using the side of his mouth to not tip the big quart bottle into sight. He handed it back to me and I offered it to Mthuka.
“Later,” he said.
“When a woman is sick,” Mwengi said.
Mthuka was driving very carefully getting the feel of his load on the steep dropping turns. Usually there would have been a Masai woman between Mthuka and me; one we knew was proof against roadsickness and two more being tested out between Ngui and Mwengi in the second seat. Now we all felt three women were being wasted on Keiti. One of them was a famous beauty who was as tall as I was, built wonderfully, and with the coldest and most insistent hands I had ever known. She usually sat between Mthuka and me on the front seat and she held my hand and courted Mthuka lightly and purposefully with her other hand while she looked at us both and laughed when there were reactions to her courtship. She was very classically beautiful with a lovely skin and she was quite shameless. I knew that both Ngui and Mthuka gave her their favors. She was curious about me and loved to provoke visible reactions and when we dropped her off to go to her Manyatta someone almost always dropped off with her too and made their way to camp later by foot.
But today we were riding down the road looking out on all our own country and Mthuka could not even have any beer because of Keiti his father sitting directly behind him and I was thinking about morality and drinking beer with Mwengi; we having torn a mark in the paper covering the bottle to mark the place below which the beer all belonged to Mthuka. According to basic morality it was perfectly all right for two of my best friends to go with this Masai woman but if I did so while I was on probation as a mkamba and while Debba and I felt seriously about each other it would have proved me to be irresponsible and profligate and not a serious man. On the other hand if I had not responded, visibly, when in unsought contact or when incited it would have been very bad all around. These simple studies in our tribal moeurs always made the trips to Laitokitok pleasant and instructive but sometimes, until you understood them, they could have been frustrating and puzzling except that you knew that if you wished to be a good mkamba it was necessary never to be frustrated and to never admit that you were puzzled.
Finally they called out from the back of the car that a woman was sick and I signaled to Mthuka to stop the car. We knew Keiti would take advantage of this halt to go into the brush and urinate so when he did with great dignity and casualness I passed the quart of beer to Mthuka and he drank his share rapidly leaving the rest for Mwengi and me.
“Drink it before it gets hot.”
The car loaded up again and with three unloadings we were relieved of our passengers and across the stream and going through the park country toward camp. We saw a herd of impala crossing through the woods and I got out of the car with Keiti to head them off. They looked red against the heavy green and a young buck looked back as I whistled almost silently. I held my breath, squeezed the trigger softly, and broke his neck and Keiti ran toward him to halal as the others leaped and jumped floatingly into the cover.
I did not go up with Keiti to see him halal so it was a question of his own conscience and I knew his conscience was not as rigid as Charo’s. But I did not want to lose the buck for the Mohammedans any more than I had wanted to shoot the meat up so I walked forward slowly over the springy grass and when I came up he had cut the impala’s throat and was smiling.
“Piga mzuri,” he said.
“Why not?” I said. “Uchawi.”
“Hapana uchawi. Piga mzuri sana.”
10
THERE WERE PEOPLE all under the trees and out behind the lines, the women with their lovely brown heads and faces in their bright cloth top covers and beautiful wide bead collars and bracelets. The big drum had been brought down from the Shamba and the Game Scouts had three other drums. It was early yet but the Ngoma was starting to take shape. We rode past the people and the preparations and stopped in the shade and the women got out and children came running to see the animals unloaded. I handed the rifle to Ngui to clean and walked over to the mess tent. The wind was blowing quite hard from the Mountain now and the mess tent was cool and pleasant.
“You took all our cold beer,” Miss Mary said. She looked much better and more rested.
“I brought one bottle back. It’s coming in the bag. How are you, honey?”
“G.C. and I are much better. We didn’t find your bullet. Only G.C.’s. My lion looks so noble and beautiful when he is white and naked. He’s dignified again as when he was alive. Did you have fun at Laitokitok?”
“Yes. We did all the errands.”
“Make him welcome, Miss Mary,” G.C. said. “Show him around and see that he’s comfortable. You’ve seen an Ngoma before haven’t you my good man?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “And we have them in my own country too. We are all very fond of them.”
“Is that what they call baseball in America? I always thought that was a form of rounders.”
“At home, sir, our Ngomas are a sort of Harvest Festival with folk dancing. It’s rather like your cricket, I believe.”
“Quite,” said G.C. “But this Ngoma is something new. It’s going to be danced entirely by natives.”
“What fun, sir,” I said. “May I accompany Miss Mary as you call this charming young lady to the Ngoma?”
“I’ve been spoken for,” Miss Mary said. “I’m going to the Ngoma with Mr. Chungo of the Game Scouts Department.”
“The hell you are Miss Mary,” G.C. said.
“Is Mr. Chungo that very well built young man with the mustache and shorts on who was fixing ostrich plumes onto his head, sir?”
“He looked a very good sort, sir. Is he one of your colleagues in the Game Scouts Department? I must say, sir, you have a magnificent body of men.”
“I am in love with Mr. Chungo and he is my hero,” Miss Mary said. “He told me that you were a liar and had never hit the lion at all. He said all the boys know you are a liar and Ngui and some of the others only pretend to be friends of yours because you give them presents all the time and have no discipline. He said look how Ngui had broken your best knife that you paid so much money for in Paris that day when you came home drunk.”
“Yes. Yes,” I said. “I do remember seeing old Chungo in Paris. Yes. Yes. I remember. Yes. Yes.”
“No. No,” G.C. said absentmindedly. “No. No. Not Mr. Chungo. He’s not a member.”
“Yes. Yes,” I said. “I’m afraid he is, sir.”
“Mr. Chungo told me another interesting thing too. He told me that you had been using Kamba arrow poisoning on your solids and that Ngui makes it for you and that all this risasi moja business of one shot kills is the effect of the arrow poisoning. He offered to show me how fast the arrow poisoning would run up a stream of blood dripping from his own leg.”
“Dear, dear. Do you think she had best go to the Ngoma with your colleague Mr. Chungo, sir? It may all be absolutely tickety-boo but she still is a Memsahib, sir. She still comes under the White Man’s Burden Act.”
“She’ll go to the Ngoma with me,” G.C. said. “Make us a drink, Miss Mary; or no, I will.”