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29
- LANGAA RPCIG
- Chapter
- Additional Information
191 29 ver since Sam and Wanja were separated, he had plenty of time to think—from his childhood to his current state of affairs. Though it was to his formative years, he returned repeatedly, or every now and then. Whenever he sought to find meaning in his life, he thought about his grandfather. Such was the case when one day, as he sat in solitude, Sam recalled an incident that happened long time ago. That was when he was still under the tutelage of the Old Man—his moral guardian. It was about an important man who had been killed. Sam was still too young to understand the gravity of the assassination. On the day in question, the Old Man returned home with a long tired face. He looked so disheveled—with clothes soiled—as though he had been in a terrible fight. As he walked, he took short sluggish steps, as though he had been in a scuffle and had lost all his will power to his opponent. Yes, he walked listlessly into the house, took off his coat, and walked back outside. He made his way to his favorite chair under the shade of the gum tree. He dropped his lethargic body into his wicker chair like a log and withdrew into silence. He leaned his head to the back of the chair and closed his eyes. That must have been 4:30 p.m., and the sun was not too hot; an occasional drifting wind passed, soothing his brow. Sam watched the Old Man with dismay, not daring to probe his mind with useless childish questions of what nagged him. Instead, he observed proper decorum—of knowing his proper place as a young lad—and he did know his place. Because his grandmother had gone off to the market, it was only noble when Sam offered to make the Old Man some tea. “Guga, would you like some tea?” he asked the Old Man, hoping a steaming cup of tea would sooth his troubled mind, but loathing the hardships that accompanied its preparation. The Old Man did not respond as though he had not heard the young man’s request. He neither stirred nor moved a muscle. E 192 A rooster, which was loitering around, crowed. The Old Man unwillingly pushed his eyes half-open, took a quick glimpse at the fowl and then let his eyelids fall back into place, sealing any glimmer of hope for interaction between him and his grandson. The young man watched him silently. “Guga, would you like some tea?” the young man persisted, not knowing what else to do. Hearing that, the Old Man, once more, forced his eyelids half open. From the corner of his eyes, he stole a peek at the young man, an act that reminded him of his intrusiveness. He rolled them towards the direction of the rooster, but it had slightly moved further away. Then, as though on second thought, he nodded his head with a wink. The young man smiled. The Old Man’s facial expressions remained unchanged—emotionless. The boy turned, hoping to make his way to the kitchen. But, before he could take his first step, before he could decide whether to get milk from the main house for preparing tea or start the fire first, he heard the Old Man say gruffly, “Could you please bring me the radio first?” the statement was a cross between a command and question. The boy turned to looking at the Old Man, but his eyes were completely shut. The boy turned away from the Old Man as he made his way towards the house. After he took a few steps, he stopped abruptly in his trucks and simply shifted his entire body to take a second glance at the Old Man. His posture was unchanged. His massive body was pushed deep into the chair as though, with that one simple act, he would vanish from the face of the world. His head face-up was tilted toward the back of the chair. And his arms were crisscrossed slightly above his abdomen; while his legs were lazily spread apart. “Whatever happened to him, only God knew,” the young man mumbled as he turned to go on his errand. Needless to say, he walked into the house and reemerged in pronto dangling, in his right hand, an old beat-up dusty blue Sanyo radio. The air outside was cool, breezy, and soothing. The rooster from a...