Leading the Night

Mathare

Leading the Night 225 The little boy looked anxious. He was frustrated. He tugged at his glue bottle as he gazed for long on the face of this woman. It was as if his image wanted to stick on hers but was falling off. He would never guess it was this woman’s breast that fed him in his first days of life. All he knew is that from time to time, she seemed to care for him. He wanted so badly to be held close by her for long. He wanted her to squeeze his little cheeks upon her big ones. But she never did that. She kept her distance and was kindly. But the little boy was lucky; he survived on her odd care and a playful smack on his back. He always felt as if that woman had something she owed him. He did not feel like that about anyone else in the city. Now he had escaped from a children’s home with a strong feeling to just come and be near her and see her face. He always found himself gently staring at her, but she would often only call his name and give him work. He knew she only allowed him to be there a while, and then she would chase him out to go to the middle of town with the rest of the ‘herd’. She said he belonged there with the rest. “Don’t be backward!’ She would shout. “Go to the city lights, like all other boys who are like you!” He always wondered what was like him in other boys. He would hang his head to one side and start walking. He would be like a Mwogli in a city pavement jungle. He alone and searched forever for his mother’s face with deep yearning. People did not talk too much about mothers who rejected their own children but they were puzzled. They knew what kind of bribe men planted in such women for nine months every new season of the woman’s body. Mathare Babs knew just as well as Fundi did that people who had never gone beyond Eastleigh were afraid to be in Mathare. Even journalists never let down their guard when visiting. They feared many things. The possibility of sudden violence was always so alive! 226 Leading the Night But Babs still went. He used to say that we lie to ourselves often. The biggest lie, he would say after asking you to name it and you tried five times and failed, is that we are in control of our lives. Humans live on this sense of false security, Babs said. Rei and Rika were daring, as was Babs. Once you learned to, being in difficult places became necessary. But today, Rei and Fundi feared unseen eyes watching from behind the shacks nervously. Somehow too, the eyes of the plain clothes cop whom they had not identified remained with them and their bodies felt them. Unseen eyes were indeed looking through the cracks in the shacks. These eyes in their turn feared two strangers walking together. They were a bit relieved when they saw the big cross on the reverend’s dress. They immediately knew that his companion was a harmless assistant. Then they calmed down. Messages stopped flying from house to house like locusts flying from tree to tree. They assumed, he was a new or visiting priest going to see a sick member of his own flock. It was most surprising when a man run behind the two with a ballpoint- Rei’s expensive one- telling them they had lost something and handing it back. This gave them a little more confidence and they relaxed as they walked on. All Rei wanted to see was the area, a few ‘houses’ and life in the slums, he had said. He saw, heard, felt and touched a lot. Life in the slums was alive. It seemed to rise and touch all his senses too. He saw many men and women drinking local brew; but in larger glasses than the ones he had seen anywhere in the world. He saw women dash off from little shack kiosks as soon as they saw them coming but learned later that they were running away from the man who was about ten meters behind them. He had no idea why but the women knew without any doubt that the man was a policeman. Motooooo! Fireee… Uuuuuuuu! Flames burst out of...