|
The spider's Web 3
sworn that they were going to build something together,
something challenging and responsible, something that would
make a black man respectable in his own country. He had been
willing to serve, to keep up the fire that had eventually smoked out the white man. From now on there would be no
more revenge, and no more exploitation. Beyond this, he
didn't expect much for himself; he knew that there would
always be masters and servants.
Ngotho scratched himself between the legs and sunk against
the wall. He stared at the spider that slowly built its web
meticulously under the verandah roof. He threw a light stone
at it and only alerted the spider.
Had his heart not throbbed with thousands of others that
day as each time he closed his eyes he saw a vision of
something exciting, a legacy of responsibilities that demanded
a warrior's spirit? Had he not prayed for oneness deep from
the heart? But it seemed to him now that a common goal had
been lost sight of and he lamented it. He could not help but feel
that the warriors had laid down their arrows and had parted
different ways to fend for themselves. And as he thought of
their households, he saw only the image of Lois who he dared
call nothing but memsahib now. She swam big and muscular
in his mind.
Ngotho wondered whether this was the compound he used
to know. Was this part connecting master and servant the one
that had been so straight during Mrs Knight?
Certainly he would never want her back. He had been
kicked several times by Mr Knight and had felt what it was like
to be hit with a frying pan by Mrs Knight as she reminded him
to be grateful. But it had all been so direct, no ceremonies: they
didn't like his broad nose. They said so. They thought there
were rats under his bed. There were. They teased that he hated
everything white and yet his hair was going white on his head
like snow, a cool white protector while below the black animal
simmered and plotted: wouldn't he want it cut? No, he
wouldn't.. Occasionally, they would be impressed by a well-
turned turkey or chicken and say so over talk of the white
man's responsibility in Africa. If they were not in the mood
they just dismissed him and told him not to forget the coffee.
Ngotho knew that all this was because they were becoming uneasy and frightened, and that perhaps they had to point the
gun at all black men now at a time when even the church had
taken sides. But whatever the situation in the house, there was
nevertheless a frankness about the black-and-white rela-
tionship where no ceremonies or apologies were necessary in a
world of mutual distrust and hate. And if Mrs Knight scolded
him all over the house, it was Mr Knight who seemed to
eventually lock the bedroom door and come heavily on top of
her and everybody else although, Ngotho thought, they were
all ruled by a woman in England.
Ngotho walked heavily to the young tree planted three
years ago by Mrs Njogu and wondered why he should have
swept a curve off the path that morning, as memsahib filled
the door. He knew it wasn't the first time he had done that.
Everything had become crooked, subtle, and he had to watch
his step. His monthly vernacular paper said so. He felt cornered. He gripped the young tree by the scruff of the neck and
shook it furiously. What the hell was wrong with some men
anyway? Had Mr Njogu become a male weakling in a fat queen
bee's hive, slowly being milked dry and sapless, dying? Where
was the old warrior who at the end of the battle would go home
to his wife and make her moan under his heavy sweat? All he
could see now as he shook the tree was a line of neat houses.
There, the warriors had come to their battle's end and parted,
to forget other warriors and to be mothered to sleep without
even knowing it, meeting only occasionally to drink beer and
sing traditional songs. And where previously the bow and
arrow lay by the bed-post, Ngotho now only saw a conspiracy
of round tablets while a Handbook of Novel Techniques lay by the
pillow.
He had tried to understand. But as he looked at their
pregnant wives he could foresee nothing but a new generation
of innocent snobs, who would be chauffeured off to school in
neat caps hooded over their eyes so as to obstruct vision. There
they would learn that the other side of the city was dirty. Ngotho spat right under the tree. Once or twice he would have
liked to kick Mr Njogu. He looked all so sensibly handsome
and clean as he buzzed after his wife on a broken wing and-a
spot of jam on his tie-said he wanted the key to the car.
He had also become very sensitive and self-conscious.
Ngotho couldn't complain a little or even make a joke about
the taxes without somebody detecting a subtler intention
behind the smile, where the servant was supposed to be on a
full-scale plotting. And there was behind the master and the
queen now a bigger design, a kind of pattern meticulously
fenced above the hive; a subtle web, at the centre of which
lurked the spider which protected, watched and jailed.
Ngotho knew only too well that the web had been slowly,
quietly in the making and a pebble thrown at it would at best
alert and fall back impotent on the ground.
He took a look at the other end of the compound. Kago had
fallen asleep, while Wambui ran about untied, the rope still
lying at the door. Kago wore an indifferent grin. Ngotho felt
overpowered, trapped, alone. He spat in Kago's direction and
plucked a twig off one of the branches on the tree. The tree
began to bleed. He tightened his grip and shed the reluctant
leaves down. Just what had gone wrong with God?
The old one had faithfully done his job when that fig tree
near Ngotho's village withered away as predicted by the tribal
seer. It had been the local news and lately, it was rumoured,
some businessman would honour the old god by erecting a
hotel on the spot. Ngotho hardly believed in any god at all. The
one lived in corrupted blood, the other in pulpits of hypocrisy.
But at least while they kept neat themselves they could have
honoured the old in a cleaner way. How could this new
saviour part the warriors different ways into isolated compartments, to flush their uneasy hotel toilets all over the old one?
Ngotho passed a reverent hand over his wrinkled forehead
and up his white hair. He plucked another twig off the
dangerous tree. Something was droning above his ear.
'What are you doing to my tree?'
The buzzing had turned into a scream.
'I-I want to pick my teeth,' Ngotho unwrapped a row of
defiant molars.
The queen flapped her wings and landed squarely on the
ground. Then she was heaving heavily, staring at him out of
small eyes. He tried to back away from her eyes. Beyond her,
in the background, he caught sight of Mr Njogu through the
bedroom window polishing his spectacles on his pyjama
sleeve, trying desperately to focus--clearly-on the situation outside. A flap of the wing and Ngotho felt hit right across the
mouth, by the hand that had once hit the white lady. Then the
queen wobbled in midflight, settled at the door, and screamed
at Mr Njogu to come out and prove he was a man.
Mr Njogu didn't like what he saw. He threw his glasses
away and preferred to see things blurred.
'These women,' he muttered, and waved them away with a
neat pyjama sleeve. Then he buried his head under the blanket
and snored. It was ten o'clock.
Ngotho stood paralysed. He had never been hit by a woman
before, outside of his mother's hut. Involuntarily, he felt his
eyes snap shut and his eyelids burn red, violently, in the sun.
Then out of the spider's web in his mind, policemen, magistrates and third class undertakers flew in profusion. He
opened up, sweating, and the kitchen knife in his hand fell
down, stabbing the base of the tree where it vibrated once,
twice, and fell flat on its side, dead.
Then with a cry, he grabbed it and rushed into the house.
But Mr Njogu saw him coming as the knife glittered nearer and
clearer in his direction, and leapt out of bed.
Suddenly the horror of what he had done caught Ngotho.
He could hear the queen at least crying hysterically into the
telephone, while Mr Njogu locked himself in the toilet and
began weeping. Ngotho looked at the kitchen knife in his
hand. He had only succeeded in stabbing Mr Njgou in the
thigh, and the knife had now turned red on him. Soon the
sticky web would stretch a thread. And he would be caught as
he never thought he would when first he felt glad to work for
Lois.
He saw Wambui's rope still lying in a noose. Then he went
into his room and locked the door.
End |
