God of Hunger Read online

In Grahamstown, the Township, where the black majority lives, was on the other side of the valley, within sight of, but hardly proximate to, the wide jacaranda lined main street leading to the gardened campus.

  Rhini township housed the university’s servant class and the servants of white folk in houses bearing plaques about their historic connection to the white settlers whose history is celebrated in a huge fortress like building built as a monument to their trials and tribulations, Nearby is the Settlers’ Inn where until recently white kids swam in the pool while their parents drank beer on the verandah overlooking the manicured gardens. Black kids and their families were just beginning to make their appearance there at the time Daudi joined the history department. All was sweet with showy tolerance as white mums held beautiful black youngsters on their knees whenever they could catch one going from the pool to the bar or toilet; wet dresses and forced smiles were but a small price to pay for the privilege; the privilege of being white in Grahamstown and still the largest group within the comfortable class whose members now included a small number of the political majority. Things they were a changing, but only slowly, year by academic year.

  *

  After the poetry readings Daudi and Samantha joined a group of black undergraduates for drinks under the central marquee. Conversation turned to the topic of the University’s name. It was being mooted that it should change from Rhodes to Ruth First.

  “Why Ruth First? Why another white person? For goodness sake we know this place as neighbouring the site of a great battle fought by the Xhosa against the British. Here. Just above Rhini Township at Makana’s Kopje. It is high time for a renaming. Rhini Town for Grahamstown. No more Cecil Rhodes or Horatio Nelson but Makana University, on Mandela Avenue, Samora Machel Street, Julius Nyerere Close, Comrade Bob Road. Let us knock down the signs of alien domination at the Settlers’ Monument and re-name it Rhini Social Club to give the people of the township somewhere decent to socialize. And get rid of the heritage aura of the town; return it to the people. Make any house that comes up for sale available first to a township family and use the university’s reserves to provide mortgages.’

  ‘It is still all wrong. The balance of advantage must swing in favour of the majority. And here, in our audience tonight is a new employee of the university, a black man, born in Tanzania, educated in Uganda … and what is he to teach? European History ….. We demand historians to teach the history of our tribes. Our indigenous peoples have a long and proud history ….’

  *

  The place erupted. Daudi knew his time was up; time to get off the fence or opt out.

  He decided to opt out. Why get involved? The fever of his earlier identification with the Russian intelligentsia had subsided. His mind returned to cool analytical thought: There was trouble brewing and he could chart its course. The question of national identity would be fought over and there would be conflict. If not tribal, then a class war; between the poor and the wealthy; between the townships and the suburbs. Eventually a Strong Man would take control and a God of Hunger would rule the land. These were highly probable outcomes in the search for the nationhood of the great forgotten majority. Strange to think that the continent’s most advanced economy was yet its least developed nation. Even stranger to recognize just how anomalous was the position of his country of birth; one of the poorest on the continent yet a model of social, political and cultural integration; of forged nationhood.

  Of democracy, on the European model, Daudi’s system of choice, there seemed slender hope. Where one party rule predominated or where one party forever held the majority, there was little room for the smaller party. The exception that proved the rule was in the Western Cape which was held by the only opposition party in parliament. Once the ANC took over this last bastion of multi-racial hope and multi-gender practice, as it surely must, that would be the end of dreaming upon a rainbow. The constitution would change by the atrophy of all the delicate clauses inserted by the chattering class at the height of its influence during the interregnum between Botha and Mandela, when both were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The liberal regulations of the constitution would remain enshrined just for appearances sake just as it was in that most liberal of all constitutions, the one devised by Stalin.

  Whether or not this was a bad thing, Daudi was unwilling to say outside the lecture hall and seminar room where he got to know his students well; even those who pointed the finger at him in the auditorium during the festival.

  And what he learnt of them, especially the vocal ones, was that their sincerity on matters social and political was as meagre as that year’s rains. In a word they were poseurs.

  This he learnt more and more as he met them at more and more campus parties.

  “Come now, Daudi, we are modern men. Men of the globalised world. We will seek our fortunes wherever opportunities arise. Sam here is already making a fortune in mobile phones. Winnie has an internship at First National.’

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘The Congo my dear boy. There are fortunes to be made there in minerals.’

  ‘And what about the people?’

  There you go again professor.

  The people will benefit by the wealth we create.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Taxation.’

  ‘What was that, Sam?’

  ‘Well, at least the bit we cannot avoid to pay. Ha. Ha.’

  ‘Winnie?’

  ‘Truth is, I may not stay here. I want to travel and maybe work in New York, or London. After all we are modern women and men of the world.’

  ‘And what of the poor?’

  ‘Do not concern yourself too much about them. They understand.’

  ‘They understand?’

  ‘Yes. They understand that first we must grow fat and rich after which it will be their turn. It has always been the case. And our people understand. It is in our tradition.’

  ‘Modern or Traditional?’

  ‘Hahaha, Daudi… Turn off your brain and enjoy yourself, you sweet man.’

  ‘Modern or Traditional?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Very modern man. Or at least you will be by the time I have finished with you! Do you want to dance? Do you, do you want to dance?’

  And she swept him off his feet.

  Kandowere

  While Daudi was dancing the night away in Grahamstown, a tragedy occurred at home, in Arusha; KK had died. There was no one to witness the event. And this caused a problem. Blame would be apportioned. Scape-goats would be found and sacrificed and, unless well handled, the death of this man of importance would result in nothing but problems for his major domo, Kicheche Kandowere.

  This man about the farm had a healthy regard for figures of importance even when they were dead and the corpse of John Kostas Kokopoulos was no exception to this primary rule of survival.

  Kandowere demanded to be well briefed on the event and soon discovered that it was only when Martini came into the house to prepare breakfast that KK was found seated on the side of his bed, dead.

  When alive, that’s where he was each morning: On the side of his bed contemplating the hour and the contents of his trolley table.

  Each night Martini would set it out with a thermos of tea and a plate of Marie biscuits. Leaning up against the trolley, whose wheels were locked, stood KK’s loaded twelve bore. At the point the barrel touched the trolley stood a torch on the tray. Also a box of cartridges. These items were a just in case the Somali gangsters who had been terrorizing the area should wish to interrupt KK’s wakeful night. He mainly slept during the day in his armchair. On the verandah. Overlooking the estate and the two mountains: Meru close by and Kilimanjaro in the distance.

  He did not keep awake at night for fear of intruders. KK was fearless and so were his pack of dogs. The shotgun and torch were a long established habit forged over decades in the bush. Threatening things could happen in the night; dogs were poisoned or carried off by leopard or hyena. Thieves took their chance
s. Murderers and assassins prowled in the thin light of stars. Mischief was abroad. Yet never had he felt threatened. But just in case some danger came close it would find hot lead in greeting. Many was the time at his farms in Dongobeash and Magara that he would sense a prowler and shoot through the door in anticipation of an attack. And each time the dawn would reveal a corpse of a once deadly animal; though never a human, Man had more sense than to test KK’s senses in the dark.

  *

  Martini found him in death as he was in life at that time of day. Sitting on the side of his bed by the trolley. Words were never exchanged as Martini took the tray away to the kitchen. KK rarely looked up at his servant. But he would give a cough; the cough of an inveterate Nyota smoker. But this morning there was no cough and Martini paused to examine his master.

  The stillness was not strange but the silent chest was a puzzle as was the lack of a lit cigarette. The head, large, large as in life was set low on massive shoulders and faced out across the room towards the mesh door which overlooked rows of coffee.

  His hair was not as neat as usual; the thin waves of grey and white revealing only a hint of skull were normally brushed by now. His eyes were open and opaque as usual and his pua (nose), an object to be admired for its mass, best described by Poles as a kulfon, was no less admirable that morning. Yet it lacked its usual redness, as did the full lips. And the master had not shaved, which was most unusual. Still, best remove the trolley from beside his knees. And it was the subsequent stillness that made Martini look again more closely at his master who, after the trolley’s move, appeared to lean to one side in a most uncomfortable posture.

  “Bwana Kosta. Habari zako leo. Mbona una ka hivyo vibaya?” … Why are you sitting so uncomfortably?

  No reply. Just more of a lean. And then a slump of the top half onto the bed, and with the knees bent, KK’s legs up went up into the air, his feet in the mosquito net.

  “Mungu Mkubwa! Great God. Bwana Kosta! ….. Ume kufa? Have you died! Mungu wangu! Ame kufa! Oh my God! He has died!

  Martini left the trolley in the middle of the room and went out to call Kandowere.

  This took some time because the farm’s foreman was unused to being roused so long before the workers’ parade at seven-thirty, still a good hour away. And there was a matter of protocol. Here was a question of status and Kandowere, as senior manyapara, was number one after KK. So he did not reply to Martini’s knock at the door. And anyway he was nursing a particularly pleasurable sensation that early morning.

  And then came another knock and then a call from Martini.

  The shenzi, (mongrel) thought Kicheche. Typical houseboy, sure to be complaining about something a woman would have dealt with in silence, daring not to unsettle the big man from continuing with his business.

  With regret he desisted from further manipulation and eventually replied: “Yes, what do you want, Mpishi – boy. (Cook.)

  “Haraka, Kandowere. Njo sasa hivyo! Mze ali kufa!”(Quickly. Come at once! The old man has died.)

  Kandowere looked down along his belly to check that was not the case. But it was becoming so because his brain began to engage with the message coming through the door.

  ‘Nini? Una sema kweli?’ (What? Are you sure?) And with that he piled out of bed and was out of the door as soon as his thoughts had cooled sufficiently so as not to make a tent of his kanga.( Wrap-around shawl).

 

  Together, the two men walked back into the house. And sure enough, the Mze was as dead as Martini had said; loud enough for every hut in camp to decamp into the morning mist which was soon dispersed by the hot breath of a growing chorus of ullalating women, barking dogs, cackling hens, bleating goats and mwelling children.

  “Quickly. Let us get him properly into his kiti (armchair) before they all come to stare and before someone makes an entry..”

  The two of them, one at the shoulders and the other at the knees lifted KK into the armchair. Martini lent the old man’s head carefully onto the antimacassar, remarking to himself how flat the back of KK’s head was. He had not before noticed this quality of the bwana’s skull. But close friends and family knew it well; the head of a poor Greek, flattened at the back by sleeping on a stone floor; so it was said of all whose heads were flat at the back; every single one of them according to Kleo: “Because they were all so poor in their mountain villages, not being able to afford mattresses or pillows, let alone beds. Unlike ourselves from Anatolia who were always better off than any other Greeks and princes in comparison to such paupers.” “Tfoo, tfoo.” (She would end such statements with a little theatrical spitting to emphasise the point made in favour of her own family and tribe; always, in her mind, superior to other Hellenes. And, in any case, she never did care much for Kokopoulos who had demanded her daughter’s hand in marriage by brandishing a pistol at her beloved John’s head. “Theos sihorestou.” (God forgive him: John, her late husband, not, Kokopoulos who outlived her by more than a decade. Theos sihorestou.)

  *

  Kandowere treated the lower body with less care, his mind racing to try to turn the situation to his own advantage.

  “Now listen Martini. Let no one else into the room. Draw the curtains and lock windows and the door.”

  “What! I am not staying with him in the dark!”

  “No, you pumbafu! (Fool). Funga dirisha na mlango.. Alafu ngoja karibu mlango la nyumba kama korokoni.” Shut the room up and wait by the front door of the house like a night watchman.”

  This Martini did, whilst Kicheche Kandowere went around the back of the house to address the gathering throng.

  He spoke as their leader. Which he was. And corrupt though he was, he held the camp’s respect as head foreman, likely father of many of it’s children, lover to most of its women and regular supplier of pombe (beer) to its men. This was the key to his hold over the camp. And it was a golden key ever since he had come into considerable wealth as first link in the long chain that smuggled the gemstones (which KK had named Tanganite) from the mine near the farm to Misha’s fishing operation on Zanzibar. And from there to gem cutters in Iran, India, Holland and Hatton Garden.

  Kandowere stored the gems in the plant pots on KK’s verandah until one day, when the regional commissioner and his party climbed out of three brand new long wheel base Land rovers, swept across the lawn and stepped up to see the old man on the verandah and inadvertently knocked one of the pots off its pedestal and down onto the herbaceous border at the front of the house below the raised verandah.

  Kandowere saw this happen from his vantage point in the coffee bushes. He wet himself on the spot where he crouched rooted in fear of giving himself away.

  KK, within Kandowere’s range of hearing said to his visitors: ‘Please think no more of it. They are only geraniums which I will ask the gardener to repot. The pot itself seems to be intact as it has landed on the soft earth of the bed. Si kitu. It is nothing. Karibu, karibu, karibuni wote. …. Welcome. Welcome all. Martini, chai tafazali. … Martin, tea please.’

  As soon as the party left, Kokopoulos summoned the gardener.

  Kandowere appeared instead, telling his master that the gardener was on the cho (loo) and that he, Kandowere would put things right immediately and in an instant he had the downed pot’s cache of gems, which was in a draw string pouch made of a bulls scrotum, safely in his soiled trouser pocket.

  “Thank you, Kandowere. What’s that smell? It stinks of shit. What is it?”

  “One of the dogs seems to have buried a rat here in the bed beside the fallen pot which brought it to the surface. I will go and get a spade and bury it deep and far away.”

  “Thank you. You smelly old Kicheche! (Skunk).”

  “Thank you bwana.”

  And with that he ran to the mill race, bathed, took the pouch to his hut and came back to finish the job just when the gardener had finished his business in the choroni.

  *

  Though Kandowere was not a hairy man, he would have said to himself that
the episode was a close shave.

  Then, as luck would have it, Kokopoulos died in the night.

  Kicheche, who understood gearboxes very well went into overdrive. Or rather his mind did so.

  The dead Kokopoulos brought opportunities which multiplied in Kandowere’s rich imagination; the corpse was a godsend. Kandowere would become Head Mganga. He would preserve the body as he had countless times preserved trophies. Kokopoulos had taught him, using the skills of ancient Egypt in which he was well versed. Together they went to Lake Natron, in Masailand, to collect the same type of salts called by the same name (natron in Masai; magadi in Swahili) as used in pharaonic mummification.

  Kokopoulos had, as Kandowere and many others knew, a hypothesis that Nilotics, like the Masai, were just that, Nilotics, who made the link with Upper Egypt and Meroe down the Nile and along the rift to Lake Natron in Masailand. It all fitted perfectly, but when he presented the scenario in a paper to the editor of The Tanganyika Record his article was rejected. Rejected by the leading light of the country’s paleohistory.

  He was also the local District Officer who made KK’s early life in the Territory a misery by ordering the evacuation of KK’s first farm at Dongobesh where he and Martini and Kandowere had started farm-life together inside a baobab tree.