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tee Ngugi
I remember very well when the odd couple moved into the house next door. My matriculation results had just come out, and I was waiting to join the university the following year. So, meanwhile, I had taken up a teaching job at a nearby school. I remember the day too. It was on the Sunday after my 19th birthday, and we all (my father, mother and sister) sat in our front yard looking out into the street.
The man was about sixty years old, with a flowing mane of hair and beard, whitened by the passage of time. He stooped slightly and walked with a hurried shuffle. His wife, a copious matron, perhaps ten years his junior, seemed to have an angry scowl permanently knitted on her brow. She wore a polka dot head-kerchief and on her feet, a pair of men's boots. The man regarded us with a pair of shifty red eyes as if, by just sitting in our yard, we had done him a great injustice. My father, in anticipation of a greeting, assumed a friendly posture, but the old man's eyes had darted to the "To Let" sign hanging on the fence. He yanked it with surprising strength and threw it angrily to the ground and then, with his wife following closely behind, proceeded to walk towards his new residence. We learned from Old Juma, who once taught my father in primary school, and who - it seemed - knew everything, that the couple originally came from an island near South America and were of Red Indian blood with, perhaps, a sprinkling of Spanish and Negro blood. According to Juma, the man had been a well- to- do merchant of the sea but misfortune had rendered him almost bankrupt. But that was all even he, Juma, knew about them. For a week we observed them for far, intrigued by their hostile attitude. They were odd really; they talked to no one and ignored all attempts to befriend them. They moved about their business showing by their manner that they expected everyone else to mind theirs. My father, a Councilman, who valued and preached good neighbourliness, was not a little put off by the behaviour of our new neighbours. "Respect and good neighbourliness are at the heart of civil society," he had lectured me innumerable times. As a Councilman, he presided over weddings, burials, birthdays - you name it - with the attitude of a man performing his duties to society for which it should eternally be grateful to him. "Neighbours," he would begin during such ceremonies, "we are gathered here to witness the wedding of this our child bla, bla, bla..." My father liked to stand on ceremony, believing in the value of correct procedure and deportment. People passing by the street in front of our house would call out respectfully to him: "How are you, Councillor?" And my father, with just a hint of condescension, would call back, "Very well, Sir" or if he knew the name of the person, which he usually did, would say, "Very well Mr so and so." Now, perceiving the new neighbours' rude reticence a slight on his position as a Councilman, and injurious to the noble principle of good neighbourliness, my father decided to pay them a visit. When he asked me to accompany him on this mission, I voiced by reservations. But my father, once decided on something, was a hard man to make change his mind. So one evening after supper, we set out for our neighbour's. My father knocked several times on the door but received no response. And then a gruff voice from inside called out, "Who is it?" "Eh, your neighbour from next door," my father answered, his dignity suffering a little at this interrogation. There was a clinking of chains and bolts and a face appeared in the small space between the door and doorframe. "What do you want?" demanded the face. "We thought, eh, of making your acquaintance, seeing as we, eh, have not had occasion to …". The door slammed shut in our faces. For a brief moment we remained silent, shocked by this most emphatic of rebuffs. Then my father, with as much dignity as he could recover, straightened his jacket, shrugged and said, "Strange people, really strange". We watched the couple from the corners of our eyes, their clandestine manner stoking the fires of our curiosity. On weekdays, they would leave the house early in the morning, first the man shuffling along with a well-worn leather bag on his shoulder, and then his wife following closely behind, only to return at sunset. They looked so stern, so unreal - like characters from a mystery novel - that they captured our imagination. We wondered if the two ever talked or laughed, whether they had family, friends … were they, perhaps, sitting with a secret from a sinful past? There was no end to questions in our minds. One night, we heard weird laughter coming from our neighbours. We looked at each other, not quite believing what we had heard. But there it was again - a staccato of shrill peels of laughter. There was something grotesque about it, and my flesh crawled. We tried to figure out who it could have belonged to, the man or the woman. On another night, we heard loud banging sounds from next door, like someone was hammering on a nail. "What are they building this time of the night?" my sister asked. A coffin, I thought, but kept silent. Later, in bed, I wondered why I had thought of a coffin. Why, they could have been repairing a chair. But the idea of a coffin refused to budge. In my mind, I could see Old Shuffle, hammer in hand, bending over an unfinished coffin, some timber planks and a saw lying on the floor. As far as we could make out, no one ever visited the Shuffles. They were so disconnected from the world, and so self-contained in their secret one that the idea of someone calling on them seemed ludicrous. While most of us find some kind of sustenance from kinship with the community, they seemed shun it, to ignore its existence. But the Shuffles would have yet another surprise for us. One day after supper, Fanta, my sister, ran back inside the house from feeding the dogs, hardly able to contain her excitement. "The Shuffles have a visitor!" she gasped. We all, including my father, rushed out on to the veranda. In our neighbour's yard, a young lady of about seventeen or eighteen years old walked about watering the flowers. Her long black hair fell on her shoulders and reached just above her waist. She moved her tall curvaceous body in a flowing rhythm as if in response to some music woven in the night. There was an unreal quality in her beauty, a goddess-like finesse of features, posture and movement. The yard, flooded with light from the electric lamp and the moon, took on the softness of fantasy. We watched her, enchanted, not daring to breathe lest we transgressed on this celestial drama. The lady, without as much as looking in our direction, continued with her task, then turned and disappeared into the house. The following day, the same time, we trooped to the veranda. Again she was there going about her business as if she were the only creature in the world. For a whole week, we gave ourselves up to this spectacle of an angel among the flowers. During the day, we would wait for the evening with the impatient excitement associated with waiting for something pleasurable. Then she stopped coming. We sat in the living room nursing a little void in our lives. Although it had only lasted for a week, we had become attached to the evening ritual as if it had been a family tradition for generations. Who was she? A sister to one of the Shuffles? A niece? A daughter? Maybe their ward? I lay in bed one night puzzling over this mystery. Since the disappearance of the girl two months ago, my life had become a hopeless continuum of longing, waiting and wondering. While the rest of my family had sort of readjusted to their earlier life, for me, the encounter with the girl had left a painful yearning that grew with each passing day. I wanted to see her, to experience the soothing consciousness of her presence. "Where are you, Aztec princess?" I whispered into the darkness of my room. I let myself dream. I saw myself with her, seated in Aztec ruins, experiencing uncannily, if pleasantly, the grandeur, beauty and cruelty of the ancient civilization. She looked at me with her deep black eyes, her moist lips slightly parted, and primal sensations coursed through my veins. The shivers of desire startled me from my dream. I got up from bed, walked to the window and stared into the quiet of the night. The distant church clock chimed one o'clock in the morning. I felt an urge to go out into the open. The room felt restrictive and suffocating. I slipped quietly out of the house and stood on our side of the chest-high fence of white timber planks looking longingly into the yard in which, some nights ago, the most magical of dramas had been enacted. In the calm of the night, I could hear the sound of the Indian Ocean a kilometre or so away. The sound of the ocean and the slight rustle of the leaves of the little palm tree in our yard enhanced my sehnsucht. I was so lost in this world of subtle sounds and contours, of calm and poignant emotions, that the snap of a door latch rang sharp and discordant in my ears. Before I could start to wonder, an angel carrying a bucket in one hand walked into the yard. I held onto the fence with my hands, mistrustful of the willingness of my knees to support my weight. I watched her go from flower to flower. Then she came close to the fence. The fragrance of the oils of the daughters of Pharaoh wafted into my nostrils. Although she was now less than a metre from where I stood, she showed no sign whatsoever that she was aware of my presence. It was an infinitely humbling experience. I was reduced to an existence of no import, a nothing. I was desperate to do something, to make a sound so as to reaffirm my existence but I stood still, choosing, instead, to wallow in my humiliation. Every night at the chime of the magical hour, I would be out by the fence. I would watch her float from flower to flower. Sometimes she would bend over one, guide it to her nose with her slender arms and inhale deeply once or twice. There seemed to be some kind of bond between her and the flowers. I envied the flowers of this touch that I imagined as soft as silk. I envied them of the touch of her lips that must awaken virile tremors. I envied them of this silent love affair. One night as I kept my vigil by the fence, she looked straight into my eyes with (God is great!) a slight suggestion of recognition. She walked right up to the fence so that I could now feel her warm breath on my face. I drowned in the gaze of the dark eyes and in the wafts of ancient smells. "You always watch me." The voice, clear as crystal, echoed in my consciousness, its meaning less important than the way it felt. "Who are you?" I asked, after a while. My strength was waning in her proximity. She smiled and her teeth gleamed in the moonlight. She beckoned me to come closer. I felt her warm mouth on mine and then something hot and soft began probing into my mouth. I trembled violently. I closed my eyes, happy to be lost in this dream. Then she pulled away, picked up her bucket and disappeared inside the house. I stood still, dazed and weak, my brain no longer able to distinguish reality from fantasy. I walked slowly back into the house, somnambulistic. The only real thing was the taste of a goddess in my mouth. The next night I went and stood by the fence waiting for the chime of my life. Bordering our residential area was a forest and, beyond it, was the beach. There were times at night when I would walk through the forest to the beach. I would sit on the sand, a lone figure in the night, contemplating the dark sea and, above me, the dark canvass bespattered by a million stars. The sensation of this darkness around me, and the primordial murmuring of the sea would infect me with a sweet melancholia. Now, as I waited by the fence, hearing the sound of the sea and seeing the stars in the skies, I thought of walking to the beach, but I was not in a mood for it. I could not desert my sentry post. The clock chimed one o'clock and my heart missed a beat. But the senorita was nowhere to be seen. I waited and waited. Every minute without the familiar sound of an opening door seemed to suck some vitality from my life. When a distant cock crowed announcing deep dawn, I gave up and went to bed. I was miserable, angry and, oh, so tired in the soul. Why was she playing these games with me? Tomorrow, I promised myself weakly, I would tell her what I thought of this sadistic cat and mouse game. But when she finally appeared after three days of waiting in vain, it was all I could do not to scream in joy. She watered the flowers then came and stood at the fence. "Where were you?" I asked. I hated the pining supplication in my voice. She smiled and said nothing. "Tu eres bonita," I heard myself say in the little Spanish I had picked up from sailors at Kilindini harbour. She put her hand between the spacing of the fence and touched my crotch. The action was so unexpected that I let out a little whimper of surprise. She groped for my zipper and pulled it down, a sly smile playing on her lips. I felt an infinite softness and warmth encircle my sex. Everything around me, the stars, the night, the sound of the sea receded to the dimmer reaches of my consciousness. I only sensed the warmth of sweetness in my loins. Then, an intensity of primal sensations exploded into spasms of ecstatic agony. The seed came long and violently, soiling the white planks of timber. I opened my eyes and stared, zombie-like, as she tilted the bucket and washed her hands. Then, without as much as saying goodbye, she walked away from the fencing and disappeared into the house. I sat there on the cool grass trying to give the dream a concrete form but it stretched on and on. I saw naked nymphs walking towards the river and, who, who was this leading them, one hand holding a white lily to her nose … ah, the senorita. I called out to her, "Yo te amo senorita. Yo te amo senorita". I felt cold and started from my sleep. For a moment I struggled with a sense of total disorientation. Where the hell was I? Then I remembered; I had fallen asleep by the fence. I dragged myself inside the house and sunk into a deep slumber. Every night I would slip out of the house for a rendezvous with a dream. I would succumb to the silk touch and the fragrance of the oils of ancient queens. But after some time, I began to tire of this nocturnal eroticism that seemed an end in itself. After the spasms of pleasure, I would sit on the grass feeling guilty and emotionally unfulfilled. There was a feeling of debauchery about the whole thing. I longed for friendship, for an emotional relationship, for good old-fashioned love. I wished we could walk hand in hand on the beach, or go to Kilindini harbour and watch sailors from different parts of the world kissing their sweethearts goodbye, or sit at a side-walk café in Old Mombasa sipping tea laced with Swahili herbs. "Why don't you speak to me?" I asked her one night. "I don't even know your name." She smiled and said nothing. I so much wished she would say something to me. And the fence between us oppressed me so much. "Can I come over the fence?" She shook her head. "Let's go to the cinema, to the beach, to Old Mombasa, Lamu?" I was becoming desperate and without really thinking, blurted out, "Let's go drink palm wine". She laughed, a soft laugh from the chest and it resonated in my soul. "I can't," she said. I feared the worst. "Are you engaged... married?" "No," she said with an amused chuckle and started to walk away. "Hey, senorita, wait," I cried over the fence. But she disappeared inside the house. The following night she did not come. Then the next. A whole week. I moved about like one possessed of the devil. I prayed, I cursed. I would sit by the fence waiting, killing time by reliving in my mind the subtle touches, and the smells of pharaoh's daughter. One night, as I sat by the fence lost in misery, I heard a voice singing sweetly. The melodious rendition of a Swahili love song touched my consciousness like a nightingale singing in a dream. chozi lanitoka chozi lanitokaa aa nikimkumbuka aa wangu my dear Was it in my mind, I wondered. But when I looked up, I beheld its angelic author walking towards the fence. I died and lived in a deluge of rapture. "Where were you?" I asked. She smiled and the question seemed trivial, irrelevant. I succumbed to the touch, to the spasms of ecstasy. I watched her washing her hands. "Will you come tomorrow," I asked, my voice weakened by hope. She nodded and disappeared inside the house. From now on, I resolved, I would make no more demands. I would be content with what I got and the way I got it. Why did I want to impose my understanding of love on her? Maybe hers was a different kind. A dreamlike touch in the night. A sensual, erotic communication. Her love was instinctual and mysterious. It made no demands; its meaning and purpose were contained in the moment. Everything else was extraneous to that moment. I would no longer make demands, wanting to lock up love in mundane proprietorial-ness. To possess it so that I could choose when to have it and, if I tired of it, when to dispose of it. Her love could never be owned and could never be disposed of. No, from now on, I would lay back and enjoy the dream. She came the following night and the next. Every night for three months, I would wait for her touch. I did not ask questions. As she rubbed my sex, I would close my eyes and float in the dream that climaxed in sweet convulsions. Maybe this was what the lady was teaching me; to experience love another way, to feel a love free from the suffocation of demands and ownership. One night at the spot where we met, I found a red ribbon fastened to the fence. I was sure she had tied it, but I could not think of the message she wanted to convey. She won't come tonight? She has gone? She is (oh, my God!) in danger? This last probability was insistent. It fed on suspicious of villainy of the Shuffles ingrained in my brain. Now, I thought she had always looked frightened. She was afraid of the sinister Shuffles. Maybe they kept her here against her will. And now, they had discovered her nightly escapades and murdered her. I looked over the fence and saw Old Shuffle levelling some earth under a tree in his yard with a rake. He didn't seem to have seen me yet and I cowered behind the fence. He looked really sinister in a big overcoat and a hat pulled low over his face. He has buried her, I thought in horror. Old Shuffle raised his head, looked in my direction and then, like a criminal from the scene of a crime, shuffled quickly inside the house. Now, I was sure my suspicious were right. The old criminal had murdered an innocent girl. How many more, I wondered, had he killed? I went back inside the house overwhelmed by a maddening sense of loss. My whole body was cold. I felt sick. Early the next morning, I told my father everything; how frightened the young woman had always looked, the mysterious red ribbon, the sinister activity I had witnessed under the tree. In the evening, my father and I went to the Police station and reported our suspicion. Accompanied by a Jeep-full of grave-looking detectives, we rode back to Old Shuffle's house. We jumped over the gate, which was secured by locks, and walked to the door of the earlier infamy. The police knocked violently on it. "This is the police, open up!" The door opened and Old Shuffle stood eyeing us with as much contempt as he could possibly summon. "Sir," said one officer, "we are looking for a girl we believe has been living with you. If you don't mind, Sir, we shall come in." "Adolphius?" asked Old Shuffle. He let us into a sparsely furnished living room. At the fireplace, sat the cross matron knitting something, and a little away from the fire sat the young lady reading a book. My heart exploded with relief. The two females stared at us as one might a pest one is about to kill. I looked at Adolphius, thinking she had not seen me properly, but she might as well never have laid eyes on me. We stood there, all of us feeling stupid. "We apologise for this intrusion, Sir," said my father. We went out into the yard and the door slammed shut behind us. "Is that the tree?" asked one of the officers. I nodded. When we came to the tree, we saw that what I had imagined to be a grave was a prospective nursery. I wished for the earth to open up and swallow me. I was crushed by shame. "Fantud," my father called when we were back inside our house and the police officers had left. I knew how much I had embarrassed my father and I felt wretched. "Yes." "Do you know that you are a very stupid young man?" I stood there not knowing how to answer. "I am sorry," I said and went to my room. The following night, I stood by the fence waiting for Adolphius. "Why did you leave the cloth here," I asked her when she finally showed up. "I thought you were in danger." She beckoned me to bring my face close to hers. Again my anger and concerns were robbed of their relevance. I felt the probing warm softness in my mouth. I put my hands over the fence and held her neck and then her shoulders. I put my fingers through her hair and then on her arms and her stiffened breasts. "Senorita," I said kissing her everywhere on her face. "Let's go away from here, to Zanzibar, Pemba". I could never learn her version of love well. She pulled away. "Will you come tomorrow?" I pleaded. She shook her head. "Why?" I cried in abject desperation. "Hasta la vista, amigo," she said and walked away. I watched her disappear into the house knowing it was the last time I was going to see her. In my heart, I felt an incredible sadness, like one would feel at one's own funeral. "Adios, angel," I whispered with the breath of a dying man. Early next morning I was woken up by the sound of a truck. I went outside in time to see it leaving our neighbour's compound, its load of furniture reaching to the sky. With it went my soul. We heard that the Shuffles had gone back to their home on the Island off the coast of South America. Others said they had emigrated to the Islands of Java in South East Asia. But I would never hear of them again. It had been a sweet dream, like no other before or after, and from which I would never quite recover. |
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