Ngui had gone to Mr. Singh’s. He had found the dye powder we wanted to dye my shirts and hunting vests Masai color and he and I drank a bottle of Tusker and took one out to Mwengi in the car. Mwengi had the duty but next time it would be different.
In the presence of Ngui Mr. Singh and I again conversed in Unknown Tongue and non–flying pigeon Swahili.
Ngui asked me in Kamba how I would like to bang Mrs. Singh and I was delighted to see that either Mr. Singh was a very great actor or that he had not had the time or opportunity to learn Kamba.
“Kwisha maru,” I said to Ngui, which seemed sound double talk.
“Buona notte,” he said and we clinked bottles.
“Piga tu.”
“Piga tu.”
“Piga chui, tu,” Ngui explained just a little beerily, I thought, to Mr. Singh, who bowed in congratulations and indicated that these three bottles were on the house.
“Never,” I said in Hungarian. “Nem, nem, soha.”
Mr. Singh said something in Unknown Tongue and I made signs that he give me the bill, which he proceeded to write out, and I said to Ngui, in Spanish, “Vámonos. Ya es tarde.”
“Avanti Savoia,” he said. “Nunaua.”
“You are a bastard,” I said.
“Hapana,” he said. “Blood brother.”
So we loaded up with the help of Mr. Singh and several of his sons. It was understandable that the Interpreter could not help since no Mission boy could be seen carrying a case of beer. But he looked so sad and he was so obviously troubled by the word nunaua that I asked him to carry the case of Coca-Cola.
“May I ride with you when you drive?”
“Why not?”
“I could have stayed and watched the rifle.”
“You don’t start on your first day watching the rifle.”
“I am sorry. I meant only that I could have relieved your Kamba brother.”
“How do you know he is my brother?”
“You addressed him as brother.”
“He’s my brother.”
“I have much to learn.”
“Never let it get you down,” I said laying the car alongside of Benji’s front steps where the Masai who wanted to ride down the Mountain were waiting.
“Fuck ’em all,” said Ngui. This was the only English phrase he knew or at least the only one he used, since for some time English had been considered the language of the hangman, government officials, civil servants and Bwanas in general. It was a beautiful language but it was becoming a dead language in Africa and it was tolerated but not approved. Since Ngui, who was my brother, had used it I used it in return and said, “the long and the short and the tall.”
He looked at the importuning Masai that had he been born in the older times which were still within the span of my life, he would have enjoyed dining on, and said in Kamba, “All tall.”
“Interpreter,” I said and corrected to say, “Peter, will you be so good as to go into the duka and tell my brother Mthuka that we are ready to load?”
“How will I know your brother?”
“He is Kamba tu.”
Ngui did not approve of the Interpreter nor of his shoes and he was already moving with the compact insolence of an unarmed Kamba through the spear-carrying Masai who had gathered hopeful of a ride, their positive Wassermanns not flying like banners from the spear shafts.
Finally everyone came out and the purchases were loaded. I stepped out to let Mthuka take the wheel and to let Debba and the Widow in and to pay the bill. I made the bill with ten shillings to spare and I could see Mwindi’s face when I came home with no money. He was not only the Secretary of the Treasury but also my self-appointed conscience.
“How many Masai can we take?” I asked Mthuka.
“Kamba only and six others.”
“Too many.”
“Four others.”
So we loaded with Ngui and Mwengi choosing and Debba very excited and stiffly proud and unlooking. We were three in the front seat and five in the back with Kamba only and the Widow riding with Ngui and Mwengi and four second favorites seated on the sacks of posho and the purchases in the rear. We might have taken two more but there were two bad places in the road where the Masai always became seasick.
We came down the hill which was the term we used for the lower slope of the big Mountain and Ngui was opening the beer bottles which are as important in Wakamba life as any other sacrament. I asked Debba how she was. It had been a long and, in some ways, a hard day, and with the shopping and the change of altitude and the curves she had more than a full right to feel any way she was. The plain was laid out before us now and all the features of the terrain and she took hold of the carved holster of the pistol and said, “En la puta gloria.”
“Yo también,” I said and asked Mthuka for snuff. He passed it to me and I passed it to Debba who passed it back to me, not taking any. It was very good snuff; not as powerful as that of Arap Meina but enough snuff to let you know you had snuff when you tucked it under your upper lip. Debba could not take snuff but she passed the box, in her pride and in our descent of the hill, to the Widow. It was excellent Kajiado snuff and the Widow took it and passed it back to Debba who gave it to me and I returned it to Mthuka.
“You don’t take snuff?” I asked Debba. I knew the answer and it was stupid of me and the first undelighting thing that we had done all day.
“I cannot take snuff,” she said. “I am unmarried to you and I cannot take snuff.”
There was nothing to say about this so we did not say anything and she put her hand back on the holster which she truly loved, it having been carved better in Denver than anyone had ever been carved or tattooed, by Heiser & Company, in a beautiful flowered design which had been worn smooth with saddle soap and lightened and destroyed by sweat, still faintly incrusted from the morning of this day, and she said, “I have all of you in the pistol.”
And I said something very rude. Between Kamba there is always impudence by the woman carried into insolence and far past it if there is no love. Love is a terrible thing that you would not wish on your neighbor and as, in all countries, it is a moveable feast. Fidelity does not exist nor ever is implied except at the first marriage. Fidelity by the husband that is. This was the first marriage and I had little to offer except what I had. This was little but not unimportant and neither of us lived with any doubts at all.
15
IT TURNED OUT to be rather a quiet evening. In the tent Debba did not wish to bathe and neither did the Widow. They were afraid of Mwindi, who had to bring the hot water, and they were afraid of the large green canvas tub on its six legs. This was understandable and understood.
We had dropped some people off at the Masai Manyattas and we were past the bravado stage and things, in the dark and in a definite place, were a little bit rough and there was no repeal nor any thought of any. I had told the Widow to leave but since I was protecting her I did not know whether, under Kamba law, she had the right to be there. Any rights she had under Kamba law I was prepared to grant her and she was a very nice and delicate woman with good manners.
The Informer had turned up during the period of unquietness and both Debba and I had seen him steal the bottle of lion fat. It was in an empty bottle of the Grand MacNish and both Debba and I knew that it had been adulterated with eland fat by Ngui before he and I had decided to be brothers. It was like eighty-six proof whisky instead of one hundred proof and we came awake to see him steal it and she laughed very happily, she always laughed happily, and said, “Chui tu,” and I said, “No hay remedio.”
“La puta gloria,” she said. We did not have a great vocabulary and were not great conversationalists and had no need for an interpreter except on Kamba law and we went to sleep for one or two minutes with the Widow, fiercely, on guard. She had seen the Informer steal the off-shape bottle with the too white lion fat that we all knew well and it had been her cough which had called our attention.