Still Sings the Nightbird

Arrival

167 A Arrival abi could hear again the terrible scream of the little boy who fell on the rails of the train. He was thrown down in the mad rush for boarding the train. He yelled hard. The boy was lucky the train did not move. Kabi had seen his mother’s anxious face as his grandma helped bandage his foot with a rag. He had fallen on iron with two green bottles in his hand. Pieces of glass had been well pressed into his stomach flesh. The boy cried as they were pulled out before the rag bandage was wrapped completely to stop the bleeding. Kabi recalled more faces she saw there. They seemed to zoom through her mind with the rhythm of the train. It was like a fast close up movie. Every face told a story. Hungry children, women and men, crying old and young; all were suffering beings in the family tree of a society she was part of. Rape of a nation again, the nightjar wept. The train sped on. They people felt cold, she thought, but they couldn’t unfold their ragged and smelly mattresses for there was no room. Of some of them she remembered only one thing. That on the train they looked like they were trying to convince themselves that indeed they were going somewhere, perhaps were on a freedom train. Their puckered eyebrows and staring eyes dared not move. Where would they go when the train stopped at the last railway station? When the engines finished playing their part in taking the people somewhere, then what would they do? Where had reason fled to during the nights of unending violence? Then she saw again the image of the girl who struggled with sleep on the rude Third Class benches. Her neck was bent with sleep. Kabi saw her head slide onto the shuka covered chest of a man with a long neck. He wore swinging colored bead earrings. He began to sing gently. He protected a child, a child like his own. He turned her back against his chest. She folded her little arms together. His long beaded K 168 ears swung with the rhythm of the train. The girl was transported to a world of dreams consoled by his guttural hum. Looking at Joe yawn and fold his right arm across his chest touching his shoulder, Kabi saw a fleeting image of Will in her son. This little experience that Joe could not have been aware of, beckoned Kabi out of the deep cave in herself. It promised to keep her above the storm in her heart. She relished how Will became a father to Jugus too. Will had wanted so much that his youngest son was named Amani and Amani he was called as if by a prophetic father who knew what his children and the country would need most in their lives was amani, peace. For Kabi, Amani was a child of peace that is tested by injustice. “Did you finally sleep Mum?” asked Joe “Yes, I finally did,” answered Kabi taking down her last drop of tea from her flask. “It was a short night!” Said Amani. “I heard Joe and Mum speaking for long at night,” Said Jugus. In Jugus and Amani too, Kabi could see Will in many little ways. It was as if he was coming back in all of them as they grew. She saw him in her trinity. It was in little gestures of her children that she caught glimpses of Will’s ways. She remembered when Jugus first put on Will’s big shoes and pulled his feet around the house. The train was fast approaching Nairobi. Joe, Amani and Jugus were standing at the window counting scattered trees and shrubs. The train ground to a halt at the Kibera Station. They had one more to go to the Central Railway Station. Excitement rushed through the children’s veins. Kabi was also happy. The long journey was over. Soon Kabi was back and busy with her children. They packed ready to travel from the train station. “Mum! At last we are here!” An exhausted Jugus shouted with delight. The fifteen-hour rumble in an old train ended in a smooth taxi ride through Waiyaki Way and into Lavington Green. Riiiiiiiiing! Went the gate bell. Ariani, the elderly but lovely assistant came to welcome them in. They boys loved her. They [18.118.137.243] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 12...