Through the Informer, who was acting as interpreter, I told the elders that as far as I was concerned it was better for the young men to exercise at the use of their spears than to drink Golden Jeep sherry in Laitokitok. But that I was not the law and the father must take his son and present him to the police in that village. He should also have the wounds checked there and should be given penicillin.
After receiving this message the two elders spoke together and then to me and I grunted knowingly throughout their speech with that peculiar rising inflection grunt that means you are giving the matter your deepest attention.
“They say, sir, that they wish you to give a judgment on the case and they will abide by your judgment. They say all that they say is true and that you have already spoken with the other Mzees.”
“Tell them that they must present the warrior to the police. It is possible that the police will do nothing since no complaint has been made. They must go to the Police Boma and the wound must be checked and the boy receive penicillin. It must be done.”
I shook hands with the two elders and with the young warrior. He was a good-looking boy, thin and very straight but he was tired and his wounds hurt him although he had never flinched when they were cleaned out.
The Informer followed me to the front of our sleeping tent where I washed up carefully with blue soap. “Listen,” I said to him. “I want you to tell the police exactly what I said and what the Mzee said to me. If you try anything fancy you know what will happen.”
“How can my brother think I would not be faithful and do my duty? How can my brother doubt me? Will my brother loan me ten shillings? I will pay it back the first of the month.”
“Ten shillings will never get you out of the trouble you are in.”
“I know it. But it is ten shillings.”
“Here is ten.”
“Do you not want to send any presents to the Shamba?”
“I will do that myself.”
“You are quite right, brother. You are always right and doubly generous.”
“Bullshit to you. Go along now and wait with the Masai to go in the truck. I hope you find the Widow and don’t get drunk.”
I went in the tent and Mary was waiting. She was reading the last New Yorker and was sipping at her gin and Campari.
“Was he badly hurt?”
“No. But the wounds were infected. One pretty badly.”
“I don’t wonder after being in the Manyatta that day. The flies were really something awful.”
“They say the fly blows keep a wound clean,” I said. “But the maggots always give me the creeps. I think while they keep it clean they enlarge the wound greatly. This kid has one in the neck that can’t stand much enlarging.”
“The other boy was hurt worse though, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. But he had prompt treatment.”
“You’re getting quite a lot of practice as an amateur doctor. Do you think you can cure yourself?”
“Of what?”
“Of whatever you get sometimes. I don’t mean just physical things.”
“Like what?”
“I couldn’t help hearing you and that Informer talking about the Shamba. I wasn’t overhearing. But you were right outside the tent and because he is a little deaf you talk a little loud.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did I say anything bad?”
“No. Just about presents. Do you send her many presents?”
“No. Mafuta always for the family and sugar and things they need. Medicines and soap. I buy her good chocolate.”
“The same as you buy me.”
“I don’t know. Probably. There’s only about three kinds and they are all good.”
“Don’t you give her any big presents?”
“No. The dress.”
“It’s a pretty dress.”
“Do we have to do this, honey?”
“No,” she said. “I’ll stop it. But it interests me.”
“If you say so I’ll never see her.”
“I don’t want that,” she said. “I think it’s wonderful that you have a girl that can’t read nor write so you can’t get letters from her. I think it’s wonderful that she doesn’t know that you are a writer or even that there are such things as writers. But you don’t love her do you?”
“I like her because she has such a lovely impudence.”
“I have too,” Miss Mary said. “Maybe you like her because she’s like me. It could be possible.”
“I like you more and I love you.”
“What does she think of me?”
“She respects you very much and she is very much afraid of you.”
“Why?”
“I asked her. She said because you have a gun.”
“So I have,” said Miss Mary. “What does she give you for presents?”
“Mealies, mostly. Ceremonial beer. You know everything is based on exchanges of beer.”
“What do you have in common, really?”
“Africa, I guess, and a sort of not too simple trust and something else. It’s hard to say it.”
“You’re sort of nice together,” she said. “I think I’d better call for lunch. Do you eat better here or there?”
“Here. Much better.”
“But you eat better than here up at Mr. Singh’s in Laitokitok.”
“Much better. But you’re never there. You’re always busy.”
“I have my friends there too. But I like to come into the back room and see you sitting there happily with Mr. Singh eating in the back room and reading the paper and listening to the sawmill.”
I loved it at Mr. Singh’s too and I was fond of all the Singh children and of Mrs. Singh, who was said to be a Turkana woman. She was beautiful and very kind and understanding and extremely clean and neat. Arap Meina, who was my closest friend and associate after Ngui and Mthuka, was a great admirer of Mrs. Singh. He had reached the age when his principal enjoyment of women was in looking at them and he told me many times that Mrs. Singh was probably the most beautiful woman in the world after Miss Mary. Arap Meina, who for many months I had called Arab Minor by mistake thinking it was an English public school type name, was a Lumbwa, which is a tribe related to the Masai, or perhaps a branch tribe of the Masai, and they are great hunters and poachers. Arap Meina was said to have been a very successful ivory poacher, or at least a widely traveled and little arrested ivory poacher, before he had become a Game Scout. Neither he, nor I, had any idea of his age but it was probably between sixty-five and seventy. He was a very brave and skillful elephant hunter and when G.C. his commanding officer was away he did the elephant control in this district. Everyone loved him very much and when he was sober, or unusually drunk, he had an extremely sharp military bearing. I have rarely been saluted with such violence as Arap Meina could put into a salute when he would announce that he loved both Miss Mary and myself and no one else and too much for him to stand it. But before he had reached this state of alcoholic consumption with its attendant declarations of undying heterosexual devotion he used to like to sit with me in the back room of Mr. Singh’s bar and look at Mrs. Singh waiting on the customers and going about her household duties. He preferred to observe Mrs. Singh in profile and I was quite happy observing Arap Meina observing Mrs. Singh and with studying the oleographs and paintings on the wall of the original Singh, who was usually depicted in the act of strangling a lion and a lioness; one in either hand.
If there was anything we needed to make absolutely clear with Mr. or Mrs. Singh or if I had any formal talks with local Masai elders we would use a Mission-educated boy who would stand in the doorway to interpret, holding a bottle of Coca-Cola prominently in his hand. Usually I tried to use the services of the Mission boy as little as possible since he was officially saved and contact with our group could only corrupt him. Arap Meina was allegedly a Mohammedan, but I had long ago noticed that our devout Mohammedans would eat nothing that he, Arap Meina, halaled; that is, made the ceremonial throat cut that made the meat legal to eat if the cut was made by a practicing Moslem.