Leading the Night

Parallel degrees and a treebook

136 Leading the Night Parallel degrees and a treebook As she stepped out onto the pavement on Kimathi Street, two men both in corduroy trousers of the same beige color and green khaki shirts stopped right in front of her. At first they seemed to stop still, almost get paralysed simultaneously. Then they both took three steps back and fell on their knees. Rika was not looking at a TV screen. They bowed their heads in unison till their foreheads almost touched the ground. The street was silent and Rika was utterly surprised. Her mind quickly dashed to the men in scripture who fell before Christ after asking him who he was and taking steps backwards. But this was Nairobi, the city in the sun, and she could see well. Chink, chink, went a familiar double click of a camera. But now, everyone was paralysed too, with fear. Something made her realize she could not call out or turn her head in another direction. This awareness was instinctive. The sound of many cameras clicked again.That was the only sound that seemed to be allowed and like the lonely cry of a wagtail bird invading a lonely afternoon it came and went. For one strange moment, even the traffic and all noises lapsed into silence. Everything came to a silent standstill. Was this the silent noon of self realization? The tension built up fast. Tension transformed everything.The sounds of the clicking cameras turned into the sound of clashing machetes. Rika suddenly saw a woman in blue standing in front of her. She looked cool and isolated but loving and compassionate. This was someone she had never seen before. Rika stared at her as the woman held up a recording mobile phone camera. She expected a bullet to ring through the silent air and lodge in this nun- like fleshy woman with a brilliant and shining face. No shot rang, no change happened. Still there was tension in the air and it was rising like a high mountain. It was at this point that Rika came face to face with the only person that was standing and walking freely. It was a smartly dressed and well known Leader of the militia who had for a few weeks denounced the Leading the Night 137 gang becoming a choir leader only to abandon the choir again. She knew him. She did not know if he recognized her. After he passed, the men in corduroy rose up and began to walk again. The Leader walked with an air of confidence. His clean swept face was clear of all doubts. He gave the impression that he was alive to each minute of his life in a very deliberated way. He was sharp in focus. He had a mission. Rika crossed the road and went back to her office. She knew as she applied a little hand cream to her shaking hands, that this had been no dream. She pressed the tips of her fingers against one another and made a wide fan like shape with them. Her elbows on the table, her fingers touched her nose. She looked down at her chest and saw her heart beat raising her top gently up and down. All that had happened in broad daylight. The cops had stood there in motionless and in utter silence. You could not arrest humans for worshipping or revering whom they chose to, she supposed. The next day, the national police uniform was changed.They would not wear green anymore but brown suits and skirts. The power of the Sabasaba Defence Force was real and it had possessed and stilled that main street for those seconds; like it had done to the country. No color change could reverse that. Would Sabasaba Defence Force someday paralyse all of Nairobi and hold all at ransom, she wondered? Mystery and power were embedded in all the gang did. Rika thought how their burial ceremonies which were like no other, straddled between Christian burial and the traditional ways. Burial of bodies instilled fear and mystery at a time when most humans felt quite vulnerable. As the corpse lay there in a casket that only they could touch, their own home made incense went up from a locally made burner placed in the hole dug for the casket. The casket was installed into the wall at the bottom of the hole as if in a shelf. Church leaders, chiefs and police shrunk back in horror. People mastered...