Free The Lunatic Express by Carl Hoffman Page B

tale. “She would be down in the dirt for me,” he said, smiling, remembering. “On her knees. She cooked and cleaned and I lived like a king. But I wanted to go to Kenya to trade. It is in my blood, as it was in hers. I must trade. I asked her to come with me. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t speak the language and I cannot read, and I have a brother in London.’ I had given her shares, and by then she had four thousand dollars in her account. From trading charcoal! I bought her a ticket to London and she went.”
    Fechner paused. Wiped his brow with a damp paper napkin. Took a breath and then a long swig of beer. “If I close my eyes I can see her,” he said, looking at me, holding my gaze. Memories, years, deep human yearnings, regret—I could see them in his eyes. No matter the inequality of their relationship, no matter his insistent and constant roaming, he had paused and loved for a time. “I am with her. She was so good to me.” He grew silent again. Took another swig. And then said, “I heard she’s married now to a British guy.”
    It was nine o’clock; hours had passed and Fechner’s bus was leaving at ten. He had to go. “But let me tell you something,” he said, leaning close. “In Nairobi I have an old rusty shipping container. I haven’t opened it in two years. It sits in a yard with many other containers under floodlights and walls and towers and men with guns. I keep things in it. It is safe, safer than a bank. In Africa you must take care of everything.”
    W AITING ON THE TRAIN , I decided to find a beach north of Mombasa. A travel agent said one called White Sands was the closest, and the next day I was squished into the Hungry Vulture—one of the thousands of minibuses that careen through the streets of Kenya’s cities and are the only public transportation for two-thirds of Kenyans. Called matatus , after the Swahili word for the three ten-shilling coins that a ride originally cost, they were some of the most dangerous and crowded conveyances in the world. The country’s former president Daniel Arap Moi once called them “agents of death and destruction.” Mombasa’s streets were so thick with them you could walk around town on their rooftops. Officially known as PSVs—passenger service vehicles—their accident rate climbed so high—3,000 deaths a year and 11,989 accidents in the first eleven months of 2004—that the transport minister forced a law that year requiring speed governors and seatbelts. Just the day before, the insurance industry had rescinded a 15-percent premium break given after the law was imposed. The minister who pushed the law was gone, and the Transport Licensing Board told the Daily Nation newspaper that most of the matatus’ speed governors had been “tampered with,” and that “most PSVs were moving at speeds between 140 and 160 kmh, instead of the stipulated 80 kmh.”
    “Travelers on Kenya’s roads,” the licensing board’s chairmen told the Nation , “are increasingly being put at risk because of the matatu madness.”
    Mad but efficient.
    We were nine, and then in rapid succession ten, twelve, and fourteen, plus driver and boy.
    “Malindi, Malindi, Malindi,” the bus boy—who was a man, not a boy—shouted so fast it was all one singsong word. He rode with his head and shoulders out of the open door window, scanning the crowded streets. He wasn’t just collecting money and operating the door, he was actively selling, cajoling, sniffing for the slightest sense of someone, anyone, waiting for a ride. Two hard bangs with his knuckles and the matatu swerved to the curb; the door slid open and out he jumped. A woman leapt in, stepped on my feet—wide hips and thighs pushing against my shoulders—and squeezed into the seat behind.
    Two more hard, fast raps and the matatu was off. The boy swung in, slid the door forward with a bang, soiled bills folded lengthwise between his pinky and ring finger. A tap—he didn’t even make eye contact—and