Free Who Will Catch Us As We Fall by Iman Verjee Page B

political posters throughout the city, moving like a superhero. No one could catch him.’
    â€˜Must have been exciting,’ Raj mused.
    â€˜But also very dangerous. See, for all his troubles, Pio was detained in 1954. But you wouldn’t remember – you were only a young boy.’
    Raj gripped the plastic covering of the dining table, steam clouds of heat beneath his fingers. ‘For how long?’
    â€˜He was released five years later but do you think that stopped him?’ Dilip Uncle shook his head. ‘Of course not. He continued fighting to set Kenyatta free, and after that was achieved he helped ensure the KANU victory in the 1961 elections.’ His uncle scooped up handfuls of white rice and dal,pausing to contemplate. When he spoke again, flecks of yellow lentils hopped out between his words. ‘I met him once, you know. Ran into him on the street, just like that. So unassuming he was, but very clever. I could tell he was special straight away, just by looking at him.’
    â€˜Take me to meet him.’
    At that, Dilip Uncle had howled. Dropped his mouth open so wide that Raj had glimpsed the pinkly quivering tonsils. ‘ Uh-reh! He’s a very busy man. Why on earth would he want to meet you?’
    So after discovering that Pinto lived in Westlands, Raj rode his bike to the bustling district and parked inside the scratchy lantana bushes crowding the gate, hoping to sight the white Saab motor vehicle the man was known for driving.
    Blackened with age, Pinto’s house ran long and low across a tangle of undergrowth and from the doorway to the gate there weaved a narrow driveway of flattened mud. From his position, Raj caught movements in the window and detected faint outlines of a living room, smelled roasted coffee and eggs and his stomach growled.
    He was there every day for the next three weeks, an apple in his pocket or an omelette sandwich wrapped in tin foil. One day he took leftover fish curry along with a piece of thick white bread and ate it cold as he learned the man’s routine off by heart, tracked through his scratched toy binoculars.
    Breakfast at seven thirty, seated in the kitchen nook surrounded by falling sunlight, Pinto engrossed himself in the newspaper until the sounds of his family distracted him; a wife and three daughters. At their voices, he would fold the paper in his lap and wait as they came up, one by one, for a morning kiss. Pinto would then disappear upstairs and his youngest daughter would come out of the house, bundled up for the chilly morning in a woolen sweater. She would play on the driveway, squat down on her haunches and search for whatever treasure her young mind conjured up, her delighted shouts disturbing the still air.
    Some days, Pinto would join her early, dressed for work in an ironed white shirt and pressed trousers, always completed with a button-down sweater vest. His hair would be slicked back and he would pick up his daughter – ‘How about we go for a ride today?’ – and put her in the front seat of his Saab. They would drive the short, winding distance to the gate and back again. Pinto would repeat this several times – sometimes he would keep going until his wife came out looking for him.
    â€˜We’re going to be late.’
    And his daughter would be plucked from the car by her nanny, still clinging to her father’s fingers as Pinto’s wife waved goodbye in the rising tire dust, the couple making their way out onto the main street. There Raj would be, huddled behind the itchy leaves of the lantana bush, ducking bees and swatting mosquitoes.
    Twenty-one days passed in this manner until, one morning, Raj was digging at an elbow scab and waiting for Pinto to leave at eight thirty, just as he always did, when the car slowed down more than usual. Raj looked up and, to his nervous surprise, saw the driver’s window roll down as it approached his hiding spot. He saw the man he had been