Free Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Moses Isegawa Page B

movement of the plane and also its shadow that so swiftly crossed over many fields, over Ilmorog ridges and into the plains. Abdulla’s donkey hee-hawed, frightened, and its voice jarred against the sound of the small plane. Peasants emerged from the fields of maize and grouped in twos or threes in the open paths to look at the aeroplane and gossip about it: what did it want with Ilmorog that it kept on coming back? Wanja walked across to the school and asked Munira the same question. What did it want? Munira did not know but he felt it good that she had come over to seek his opinion. Maybe sightseeing, he pronounced, as the plane now flew straight across and disappeared into the white-blue cloudy distance. It was the first time that she had called on him at school since their first encounter and as she now walked away, he watched, entranced by her slightly swaying buttocks. He felt irresistibly drawn toward her.
    And then she started appearing to him in dreams: breasts would beat on breasts, body frames would become taut with unspoken desire, eyes would hold onto eyes as they both stood on Ilmorog hill, hideaway from school, away from Cambridge Fraudsham who had fumed, frowned and ground his teeth with anger because of the perfumed garden that was her body. They would start wrestling, but instead of falling on the ground they would tumble into fleecy clouds, waltzing in slow motion over Ilmorog hills and valleys, thighs to thighs, warm bloodpower surging for release and suddenly he could not hold himself. In the morning he saw dry pools on the bed and he felt immeasurable sadness. He was now in danger. What is happening to me, a spectator? he moaned. For a day or two he would hold himself stiff and aloof in her presence. He walked about Ilmorog hill in the twilight, puzzling out the meaning of this new emotion: wherewas his man’s courage? Was he to go through life trembling on the brink because he was afraid of the chaos in the abyss?
    Not so many days after the plane visit, other men in khaki clothes came to Ilmorog in a Land Rover. They walked through the fields, pulling a chain on the ground, and planting red sticks. They were besieged by the whole community who wanted to know who they were and what they were doing trespassing on other people’s lands. But they were also fascinated by the men’s instruments of chains and theodolite and the telescope hanging from one of the men’s neck and through which he constantly peered. People argued that the telescope could see from where they were to the end of the world. Munira stood at a distance from the group. Wanja came over and stood by him but her eyes were on the officer-in-charge of the team. The officer walked to Munira and asked for water. Munira sent one of the children to the school to fetch water and glasses . . . Munira asked him: What was that all about?
    ‘I am an engineer,’ he said. ‘We are making a preliminary survey for a proposed road across Africa.’
    ‘To?’
    ‘Zaire, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco – all over Africa,’ he explained and went back to his workmates.
    When Munira turned to Wanja he saw her hurrying away, almost running away as if she had been stung by a bee. Later at Abdulla’s place almost the whole countryside came to ask Munira what the man had talked about and whether it was the long promised waterway they had come to measure. But Wanja was not among them. Strange, he thought, as he tried to concentrate on the chatter and speculation.
    ‘I hope they will not take our lands away,’ Njuguna voiced their fear after Munira had talked about the road.
    ‘They would only take a small piece,’ Abdulla suggested, ‘and they would pay compensation.’
    ‘A lot of money and other lands,’ somebody else added.
    ‘And it is good to have a proper road. It will make our travel easy and we can send our goods to markets far away instead of giving it tothese scorpions who visit us from the city,’ Njuguna now enthused over the