Arap Meina, one time when he had drunk quite a lot, told several people that he and I had been to Mecca together in the old days. The devout Mohammedans knew this was not true. Charo had wished to convert me to Islam some twenty years before and I had gone all through Ramadan with him observing the fast. He had given me up as a possible convert many years ago. But nobody knew whether I had actually ever been to Mecca except myself. The Informer, who believed the best and worst of everyone, was convinced that I had been to Mecca many times. Willie, a half-caste driver who I had hired on his story that he was the son of a very famous old gun bearer who, I found, had not sired him, told everyone in strictest confidence that we were going to Mecca together.
Finally I had been cornered by Ngui in a theological argument and while he did not ask the question direct I told him for his own information that I had never been to Mecca and had no intention of going. This relieved him greatly.
Mary had gone to take a nap in the tent and I sat in the shade of the dining tent and read and thought about the Shamba and Laitokitok. I knew I mustn’t think about the Shamba too much or I would find some excuse to go there. Debba and I never spoke to each other in front of the others except for me to say “Jambo, tu,” and she would bow her head very gravely if there were others than Ngui and Mthuka present. If there were just the three of us she would laugh and they would laugh too and then the others would stay in the car or walk in another direction and she and I would walk a little way together. The thing she liked best about public society was to ride in the front seat of the hunting car between Mthuka, who was driving, and me. She would always sit very straight and look at everyone else as though she had never seen them before. Sometimes she would bow politely to her father and her mother but sometimes she would not see them. Her dress, which we had bought in Laitokitok, was pretty well worn out now in the front by sitting so straight and the color was not resisting the daily washing she gave it.
We had agreed about a new dress. This was to be for Christmas or when we got the leopard. There were various leopards but this was one which had a special importance. He, for reasons, was as important to me as the dress was to her.
“With another dress I would not have to wash this one so much,” she had explained.
“You wash it so much because you like to play with soap,” I told her.
“Perhaps,” she said. “But when can we go to Laitokitok together?”
“Soon.”
“Soon is no good,” she said.
“It’s all I have.”
“When will you come to drink beer in the evening?”
“Soon.”
“I hate soon. You and soon are lying brothers.”
“Then neither of us will come.”
“You come and bring soon too.”
“I will.”
When we rode together in the front seat she liked to feel the embossing on the old leather holster of my pistol. It was a flowered design and very old and worn and she would trace the design very carefully with her fingers and then take her hand away and press the pistol and its holster close against her thigh. Then she would sit up straighter than ever. I would stroke one finger very lightly across her lips and she would laugh and Mthuka would say something in Kamba and she would sit very straight and press her thigh hard against the holster. A long time after this had first started I found that what she wanted, then, was to impress the carving of the holster into her thigh.
At first I only spoke to her in Spanish. She learned it very quickly and it is simple if you start with the parts of the body and the things one can do and then food and the different relationships and the names of animals and of birds. I never spoke a word of English to her and we retained some Swahili words but the rest was a new language made up of Spanish and Kamba. Messages were brought by the Informer. Neither she nor I liked this because the Informer felt it his duty to tell me exactly her feelings in regard to me, which he learned at second hand from her mother the Widow. This third-party communication was difficult, sometimes embarrassing but often interesting and, at times, rewarding.
The Informer would say, “Brother, it is my duty to inform you that your girl loves you very much, truly very much, too much. When can you see her?”
“Tell her not to love an ugly old man and not to confide in you.”
“I am serious, brother. You do not know. She wishes you to marry her by your tribe or by hers. There are no costs. There is no wife price. She wishes only one thing, to be a wife if Memsahib, my lady, will accept her. She understands that Memsahib is the principal wife. She is also afraid of Memsahib as you know. You do not know how serious this is. All of it.”
“I have a faint idea,” I said.
“Since yesterday you cannot conceive how things have been. She asks me only that you will show a certain politeness and formality to her father and her mother. The case has been reduced to that. There is no question of payment. Only of a certain formality. There are certain ceremonial beers.”
“She should not care for a man of my age and habits.”
“Brother, the case is that she cares. I could tell you many things. This is a serious thing.”
“What can she care for?” I said, making a mistake.
“Yesterday there was the matter of you catching the roosters of the village and then putting them to sleep by some form of magic and laying them asleep in front of her family’s lodge. [Neither of us could say hut.] This has never been seen and I do not ask you what magic was employed. But she says you sprung at them with a movement that could not be seen almost like a leopard. Since then she has not been the same. Then she has on the walls of the lodge the pictures from Life magazine of the great beasts of America and of the washing machine, the cooking machines and miraculous ranges and the stirring machines.”
“I am sorry about that. It was a mistake.”
“It is because of that she washes her dress so much. She is trying to be like the washing machine to please you. She is afraid that you will become lonely for the washing machine and go away. Brother, sir, there is tragedy. Can you do nothing positive for her?”
“I will do what I can,” I said. “But remember that putting the roosters to sleep was not magic. It is a trick. Catching them is only a trick too.”
“Brother, she loves you very much.”
“Tell her there is no such word as love. Just as there is no word for sorry.”
“That is true. But there is the thing although there is no word for it.”
“You and I are the same age. It is not necessary to explain so much.”
“I tell you this only because it is serious.”
“I cannot break the law if we are here to enforce the law.”
“Brother, you do not understand. There is no law. This Shamba is here illegally. It is not in Kamba country. For thirty-five years it has been ordered removed and it has never happened. There is not even customary law. There are only variations.”
“Go on,” I said.
“Thank you, brother. Let me tell you that for the people of this Shamba you and Bwana Game are the law. You are a bigger law than Bwana Game because you are older. Also he is away and his askaris are with him. Here you have your young men and warriors such as Ngui. You have Arap Meina. Everyone knows you are Arap Meina’s father.”