The In-Between World of Vikram Lall Read Online Free PDF Page B

and father, all the adult males except Dada, had begun another of those quarrels, episodes involving far too much talk and erupting in shouts and abuses, which always began by startling us children and ended up amusing us.
    There they go again—Dadi cried out shrilly, turning to all the women present, especially Mother. Politics , why do theydiscuss politics, what problems have they solved for the world with all their politics ? Dada said nothing, looked both pained and peeved; he would suffer this one out, as he had done all the other ones. As usual, Mahesh Uncle, haughty, opinionated, and far more educated than the rest, wound up as the butt of his brother-in-laws’ jibes. He had spoken in support of African rule in Kenya, an idea extreme and idiotic to my father and his brothers. I remember him finally, big and burly as he was, pushing himself out of his chair, ready with raised fists to have it out with puny Om Uncle, and the slightly larger Mohan Uncle standing up ready to defend his brother, while my father looked up at the ceiling in mock helplessness and my mother screamed, Stop it, I tell you!
    He dared call me a monkey, Mahesh Uncle spluttered, to which Mother replied, Why do you have to get into arguments with ignorant folk who know nothing? Om and Mohan Uncles stormed out of the house with their families.
    They’ll come around, Dada said to my mother, and looked at her brother Mahesh with some distaste. Mahesh Uncle went to wash his hands and retired to my room, which he used as his base when he was around. Dadi said she was going to look in on Sakina-dadi. Dada retired to his armchair and, as on every Sunday, gave the children sweets, but this time there were only two of us, and so having given us double shares he leaned back and closed his eyes.
    Not long afterwards the police raid on our area began.
    There were two English officers in khaki drill, large tan holsters slapping at their belts. The African askaris were about twenty in number, in their khaki shorts and blue sweaters, some carrying rifles, and they proceeded to round up all the servants from their quarters. Out, out, out, toka nje! Any oaths given here, any Mau Mau hiding here? The Mau Mau recruited collaborators by ritually having them swear an oath in secret, and the police were perpetually on the search for those who had taken the oath and especially for those who had administeredit. In a frenzy of angry, impatient activity, the suspects—for all black men were suspect—were pushed and jostled, slapped for replying, kicked in the behind for tardiness. I watched the gardener, Njoroge’s grandfather Mwangi, pick himself up from the ground with a wince. He was a short, stout man with a strongly lined face and some grey in his hair, a dignified man who always moved and spoke with deliberation. How could these men and women we knew, who spoke softly and served us so gently, who held our hands and looked after us when we were left in their care, be the dreaded Mau Mau? How could Mzee Mwangi, with the worry lines on his forehead and holes in his ears and a front tooth missing, be one of those killers who stalked the nights? He had made the toy weapons Njoroge and I played with, the pistol in particular carved and grooved smoothly and applied with black bicycle paint. He would sometimes call Deepa over and silently put in her hair a white and pink champeli flower plucked from our tree. I wanted to call out to them and say, Polé sana, I am your friend, I trust you all.
    A patronizing attitude—how could I have helped it, risen above that? An Indian boy in shorts and a bush shirt, in socks and shoes, hair oiled and combed, secure in the bosom of a doting family, with a magnanimous thought for the pathetic servants—“boys,” as they were called, however old they were—rounded up and demeaned in front of him. I would like to defend myself against that charge, give a finer shade of meaning, a context, to my relationship with the Africans around me.