Free In the House of the Interpreter by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o Page A

would not mind going to Limuru with me on the next Nairobi Saturday. And was it really true that Loreto Girls School was not too far from where I lived? But since I could not count on somebody being at the new home, I always deflected the hints. I did not want to walk a guest the ten or fifteen miles and back on hungry stomachs. Besides, I could not conjure up another Loreto visit, which was obviously the main attraction.

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    In the second term, on another Nairobi Saturday, I broke my self-imposed restraint and invited Johana Mwalwala. Johana, a Mtaita, and I were classmates, he in B and I in A, but both residents in Dorm Two, Livingstone House. He was always polite and considerate, and this drew me to him. I confessed to him that I had no way of alerting home about the visit, that we were chancing it, and he understood. I think he just wanted to get away from the compound on a Nairobi Saturday.
    We set out after breakfast, and by the early afternoon we could see Kamĩrĩthũ. I was confident that if my mother was at home, she would find a way of feeding us her roasted potatoes at least. We would eat quickly, drink some porridge or tea, and walk back to school. This time there was no expectations of another person’s car: we were going to rely on our feet. And there was no question of visiting Loreto or indulging in any other distraction. If we stayed within these parameters, everything would work out as hoped, and the nearer we got to Kamĩrĩthũ, the more certain I was of a good outcome. But our plans never came to be.
    Just before we reached the turn to my new home, we were caught up in a military dragnet. Armed black and white soldiers in camouflage, red berets, and green military vehicles and Land Rovers surrounded a huge crowd squatting in the sun in the plain below the village. I had hoped the Alliance uniform would make us invisible, but it didn’t, and wewere forced to join the captives. Mwalwala, being a Mtaita, was allowed to leave, but I had a long wait, weighed down by the anxiety I always carried: that my connection with a guerrilla fighter might keep me from returning to Alliance, ever. Every time I seemed to conquer that fear, other events would crop up to mock me with, Not so fast.
    Eventually my turn came. I had learned my lessons from the past and answered all the questions about my brother and whether I knew his contacts, calmly pleading sincere ignorance to most of them, shielding myself behind being away at Alliance, a boarding school. Despite all my bravado about not letting fear rule me, I could not believe that this was happening to me on the only Saturday I had brought a visitor home by myself. Finally, they released me.
    Wisely, Mwalwala had already headed back to school. I hurried home to tell my family what had happened, but they already knew. My mother said that it was really not necessary to come home before the end of the term. I grabbed whatever food there was and left. Shaken and disappointed, I walked back to school in the dark, alone. I was late, very late. I had committed the same offense twice. On Monday I was called to the principal’s office.

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    I was sure that I was going to be caned, even expelled from the school. Since my admission, I had always wondered how long it would be before the fact of my brother beingin the mountains caught up with me. Somehow, after that Churchill speech, I could not get rid of the image of Carey Francis as a defender of the British Empire. After all, he was an OBE. The image of the empire loyalist and the legend of the disciplinarian were in my mind as I entered the office.
    He was in his eternal khaki wear. I stood before him, and his eyes pierced me the whole time. Why had I broken the school rule so badly that I had returned to school at midnight? This was the second time. Did I know how serious this breach of school rules was? Nairobi Saturday did not mean breaking rules. He appeared calm, but it seemed to me that he might, at any time, start