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The spider's Web 2
paper? Mrs Njogu, alias queen, wasn't she more likely to want
Wambui brushed behind the ear? Or was she now coming to
ask him why the rope lay at the door while Wambui ran about
untied?
With his bottom towards memsahib's door, Kago assumed
a busy pose and peeped through his legs. But memsahib
wasn't bothered about him. At least not yet. She stood at the
door legs askew and admonished Ngotho about the corn-flakes.
Kago breathed a sigh of relief and took a wild sweep at the
broom. He saw Ngotho back against the wall of their servant's-
quarters and suppressed a laugh. After taking a torrent of
English words, Ngotho seemed to tread carefully the fifty
violent paces between the two doors, the irreconcilable gap
between the classes. As he approached Mrs Njogu, he seemed
to sweep a tactful curve off the path, as if to move up the wall
first and then try to back in slowly towards the master's door
and hope memsahib would make way. For her part, the queen
flapped her wings and spread herself luxuriously, as good as
saying, You will have to kneel and dive in through my legs.
Then she stuck out her tongue twice, heaved her breasts, spat
milk and honey onto the path, and disappeared into the hive.
Ngotho followed her.
Kago scratched his big toe and sat down to laugh.
Breakfast for memsahib was over. Ngotho came out of the
house to cut out the painful corn in his toe with the kitchen
knife. He could take the risk and it pleased him. But he had to
move to the other end of the wall. Mr Njogu was flushing the
toilet and he might chance to open the small blurred window
and see the otherwise clean kitchen knife glittering in the sun
on dirty toe nails.
Breakfast. Couldn't memsahib trust him with the sugar or
milk even after four years? Must she buzz around him as he
measured breakfast-for-two? He had nothing against corn
flakes. In fact ever since she became suspicious, he had found
himself eating more of her meals whenever she was not in
sight, also taking some sugar in his breast pocket. But he had
come to hate himself for it and felt it was a coward's way out.
Still, what was he to do? Mrs Njogu had become more and
more of a stranger and he had even caught himself looking at her from an angle where formerly he had stared her straight in
the face. He had wanted to talk to her, to assure her that he was
still her trusted servant, but everything had become more
entangled and sensitive. She would only say he was criticising, and if he wasn't happy what was he waiting for? But if he
left, where was he to go? Unemployment had turned loose
upon the country as it had never done before. Housewives
around would receive the news of his impertinence blown
high and wide over Mrs Njogu's telephone before he
approached them for a job, and set their dogs on him.
Ngotho scratched at his grey hair and knew that respect for
age had completely bereft his people. Was this the girl he once
knew as Lois back in his home village? She had even been
friends with his own daughter. A shy, young thing with
pimples and thin legs. Lois had taught at the village school and
was everybody's good example. She preferred to wear cheap
skirts than see her aging parents starve for lack of money.
'Be like Lois,' mothers warned their daughters and even
spanked them to press the point. What they meant in fact was
that their daughters should, like Lois, stay unmarried longer
and not simply run off with some young man in a neat tie who
refused to pay the dowry. Matters soon became worse for such
girls when suddenly Lois became heroine of the village. She
went to jail.
It was a General Knowledge class. Lois put the problem
word squarely on the blackboard. The lady supervisor who
went round the schools stood squarely at the other end,
looking down the class. Lois swung her stick up and down the
class and said,
'What is the Commonwealth, children? Don't be shy, what
does this word mean?'
The girls chewed their thumbs.
'Come on! All right. We shall start from the beginning. Who
rules England?'
Slowly, the girls turned their heads round and faced the
white supervisor. Elizabeth, they knew they should say. But
how could Lois bring them to this? England sounded venerable enough. Must they go further now and let the white lady
there at the back hear the Queen of England mispronounced,
or even uttered by these tender things with the stain of last night's onions in
their breath? Who would be the first? They knit their
knuckles under the desks, looked into their exercise books,
and one by one said they didn't know. One or two brave ones
threw their heads back again, met with a strange look in the
white queen's eye which spelt disaster, immediately swung their eyes onto the blackboard, and catching sight of
Lois's stick, began to cry.
'It is as if you have never heard of it.' Lois was losing
patience. 'All right, I'll give you another start. Last start. What
is our country?'
Simultaneously, a flash of hands shot up from under the
desks and thirty-four breaths of maize and onions clamoured.
'A colony!'
Slowly, the lady supervisor measured out light taps down
the class and having eliminated the gap that came between
master and servant, stood face to face with Lois.
The children chewed at their rubbers.
Then the white queen slapped Lois across the mouth and
started for the door. But Lois caught her by the hair, slapped
her back once, twice, and spat into her face. Then she gave her
a football kick and swept her out with a right.
When at last Lois looked back into the class, she only saw
torn exercise books flung on the floor. Thirty-four pairs of legs
had fled home through the window, partly to be comforted
from the queen's government which was certain to come, and
partly to spread the formidable news of their new queen and
heroine.
Queen, she certainly was, Ngotho thought as he sat by the
wall and backed against it. Cornflakes in bed; expensive skirts;
cigarettes. Was this her? Mr Njogu had come straight from the
University College in time to secure a shining job occupied for
years by a mzungu. Then a neat car was seen to park by Lois's
house. In due course these visits became more frequent and
alarming, but no villager was surprised when eventually
Njogu succeeded in dragging Lois away from decent society.
He said paying the dowry was for people in the mountains.
As luck would have it for Ngotho, Mr and Mrs Knight left
and Mr and Mrs Njogu came to occupy the house. He was glad
to cook and wash a black man's towels for a change. And, for a
short time at any rate, he was indeed happy. Everybody had
To be continued |
