Dreams from My Father (Adapted for Young Adults) Page 22

  The man nodded. “No problem. This bus is first-class.”

  An hour later, Auma was sitting on my lap, along with a basket of yams and somebody else’s baby girl.

  “I wonder what third-class looks like,” I said, wiping baby drool off my hand.

  * * *

  —

  WE MADE IT to a village called Ndori and spent the next two hours sipping on warm sodas and watching stray dogs snap at each other in the dust, until a matatu finally appeared to take us over the dirt road heading north. Along the way a few children without shoes waved at us, and a herd of goats ran across the road to get to a stream. Finally we stopped at a clearing. Two young men were sitting under a tree, and their faces broke into smiles as they saw us. Roy jumped out of the matatu to gather the two men into his arms.

  “Barack,” Roy said happily, “these are our uncles. This is Yusuf”—he pointed to the slightly built man with a mustache—“and this,” he said, pointing to the larger, clean-shaven man, “this is our father’s youngest brother, Sayid.”

  “Ah, we have heard many great things about this one,” Sayid said, smiling at me. “Welcome, Barry.”

  We followed Yusuf and Sayid down a path and entered a large compound. In the middle of it was a low, rectangular house with a corrugated-iron roof and crumbling concrete walls, with flowers climbing along one side of it. Across the packed earth was a small round hut lined with earthenware pots and a few chickens pecking the ground. I could see two more huts in the yard behind the house. Beneath a tall mango tree, a pair of bony red cows looked up at us.

  Home Squared.

  “Eh, Obama!” A big woman with a scarf on her head strode out of the main house. Her face was smooth, with sparkling, laughing eyes. This was Granny. She hugged Auma and Roy as if she were going to wrestle them to the ground, then grabbed my hand in a hearty handshake.

  “Halo!” she said, attempting English.

  “Musawa!” I said in Luo.

  She laughed, saying something to Auma.

  “She says she has dreamed about this day, when she would finally meet this son of her son. She says you’ve brought her a great happiness. She says that now you have finally come home.”

  Granny pulled me into a hug before leading us into the house. Small windows let in little of the afternoon light, and there wasn’t much furniture—a few wooden chairs, a coffee table, and a worn couch. On the walls were various family mementos, including the Old Man’s Harvard diploma. There were also two yellowing photographs, the first of a tall young woman with smoldering eyes, a plump infant in her lap and a young girl standing beside her; the second of an older man in a highbacked chair. The man was dressed in a starched shirt and a large cotton cloth called a kanga; his legs were crossed like an Englishman’s, but across his lap was what appeared to be some sort of club, its heavy head wrapped in an animal skin. He had high cheekbones and narrow eyes. Auma came up beside me.

  “That’s him. Our grandfather. The woman in the picture is our other grandmother, Akumu. The girl is Sarah. And the baby…that’s the Old Man.”

  I studied the pictures for some time, until I noticed another picture, of a white woman with thick brown hair and slightly dreamy eyes. I asked what it was doing there and Auma relayed the question to Granny.

  “She says it is a picture of one of our grandfather’s wives,” said Auma. “He told people that he had married her in Burma when he was in the war.”

  Roy laughed. “She doesn’t look very Burmese, eh, Barack?”

  I shook my head. She looked like my mother.

  After we unpacked our bags, Roy gestured for me to follow him out into the backyard. At the edge of a neighboring cornfield, at the foot of a mango tree, I saw two long rectangles of cement jutting out of the earth. They were graves. On one was a plaque that said Hussein Onyango Obama, B. 1895. D. 1979. The other was covered with yellow bathroom tiles, with a bare space on the headstone where the plaque should have been.

  It was the grave of my father.

  Roy bent down and brushed away a train of ants that marched along the edge.

  “Six years,” Roy said. “Six years, and there’s still nothing to say who is buried here. I tell you now, Barack—when I die, you make sure that my name is on the grave.” He shook his head slowly before heading back toward the house.

  * * *

  —

  HOW CAN I explain the emotions of that day? I can summon each moment in my mind. I remember Auma and myself joining Granny at the afternoon market, full of women who sat on straw mats, their smooth brown legs sticking straight out from under wide skirts, and the nutty-sweet taste of a sugarcane stalk that one of the women put into my hand. I remember the rustle of corn leaves and the concentration on my uncles’ faces as we mended a hole in the fence on one side of the property. I remember how a young boy named Godfrey chased a big black rooster through the banana and papaya trees and the look in his eyes when finally Granny grabbed the rooster and, without warning, drew her knife across the bird’s neck—a look of astonishment that I remembered as my own from back when I arrived in Indonesia.

  In each of these moments I felt joy, but it was more than that. I had the sense that everything I was doing carried the full weight of my life; that a circle was beginning to close, so that I might finally recognize myself as I was, here, now, in one place.

  Night fell quickly in the compound. Bernard, Roy, and I went to a water tank and bathed ourselves in the open air, our soapy bodies glowing from the light of an almost full moon. After dinner, Roy left, muttering that he had some people he wanted to visit. Yusuf brought out an old transistor radio that he said had once belonged to our grandfather, and fiddled with the knob until he picked up a scratchy British newscast. A moment later, we heard a strange, low-pitched moan off in the distance.

  “The night runners must be out tonight,” Auma said.

  “What are night runners?” I asked.

  “They’re like warlocks,” Auma said. “Spirit men. When we were children, these people here”—she pointed at Granny and Zeituni—“would tell us stories about them to make us behave. They told us that in daylight the night runners are like ordinary men. You might pass them in the market, or even have them to your house for a meal, and never know their true natures. But at night they take on the shape of leopards and speak to all the animals. The most powerful night runners can leave their bodies and fly to faraway places. Or hex you with only a glance. If you ask our neighbors, they will tell you that there are still many night runners around here.”

  “Let me tell you, Barry,” Zeituni said in the flickering light of the kerosene lamp, “when I was young the night runners caused people many problems. They would steal our goats and even our cattle. Only your grandfather was not afraid of them. I remember one time he heard his goats bleating in their pen, and when he went to check on them, he saw what looked like a huge leopard standing on its hind legs with a baby goat in its jaws. When it saw your grandfather, it cried out in Luo before running into the forest. Your grandfather chased it deep into the hills, but just as he was about to strike it with his machete, the night runner flew up into the trees. Luckily, it dropped the goat when it jumped, and the goat suffered only a broken leg. Your grandfather brought the goat back to the compound and I cared for it myself until it was healthy again.”

  We became quiet; the lamplight grew low and people drifted off to bed. Granny brought out blankets and a twin-sized cot for Bernard and me, and we arranged ourselves on the narrow bed before blowing out the lamp. My body ached from exhaustion. As I drifted off to sleep I was thinking of the yellow tiles on the Old Man’s grave.

  * * *

  —

  IN THE MORNING, Sayid and Yusuf gave Auma and me a tour of the lands. We followed them down a dirt path, through fields of corn and millet, along a brown stream and across more fields. In front of some huts, we saw wom
en sorting through millet and stopped to talk to one, a middle-aged woman in a faded red dress and red sneakers with no laces. She told us she remembered our father—they had herded goats together as children. When Auma asked how life had been treating her, she shook her head slowly.

  “Things have changed,” she said in a flat voice. “The young men leave for the city. Only the old men, women, and children remain. All the wealth has left us.” As she spoke, an old man with a rickety bicycle came up beside us, then a skinny man smelling of liquor. They, too, complained about the hardness of life and about the children who had left them behind. They asked if we could give them something to tide them over, and Auma dropped a few shillings into each of their hands.

  “What’s happened here, Sayid?” Auma said after we were out of earshot. “There never used to be such begging.”

  “You are right,” he said. “I believe they have learned this thing from those in the city. People come back from Nairobi or Kisumu and tell them, ‘You are poor.’ So now we have this idea of poverty. We didn’t have this before. My mother will never ask for anything. She has always something that she is doing. None of it brings her much money, but it is something, you see. It gives her pride. Anyone could do the same, but many people here give up.”

  Perhaps Sayid was right that the idea of poverty had been carried in from the city, like measles. The people we’d just met had heard that some people had indoor toilets or ate meat every day. They couldn’t ignore these things any more than the children of Altgeld could ignore the fast cars and fancy homes that flashed across their television sets.

  But maybe they could fight off the notion of their own helplessness, as Sayid had. He didn’t have enough money to go to college like his older brothers, and after three years with the National Youth Corps, assigned to development projects around the country, he had spent his last two holidays knocking on the doors of businesses in Nairobi without success. Still, he seemed certain that persistence would pay off.

  “To get a job these days, even as a clerk, requires that you know somebody,” Sayid said as we approached Granny’s compound. “Or bribe someone. That’s why I would like to start my own business. That was your father’s error, I think. For all his brilliance, he never had something of his own.”

  He thought for a moment. “Of course, there’s no point wasting time worrying about the mistakes of the past. Like this dispute over your father’s inheritance. From the beginning, I have told my sisters to forget this thing. We must get on with our lives. They do not listen to me, though. And in the meantime, the money they fight over goes where? To the lawyers. How does the saying go? When two locusts fight, it is always the crow who feasts.”

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT DAY Roy told me that he was hitching a ride to Kendu Bay with the principal of a nearby school. He said that I should come, too, and pay my respects to the family there. Sayid and I went to gather a change of clothes and piled into the principal’s old jalopy along with Kezia, Roy, and Bernard.

  It was a very long journey, and by the time we got there it was nearly evening. After dinner, we set off down a narrow footpath, under a full moon, and arrived at a small house where the shadows of moths fluttered against a yellow window. In a small back room, in front of a kerosene lamp, I was introduced to what looked like the oldest man I had ever seen. His hair was snow-white, his skin like parchment. He was motionless, his eyes closed. I thought perhaps he was asleep, but then the old man’s head tilted in my direction, and I saw a mirror image of the face I’d seen the day before in a faded photograph on Granny’s wall.

  Roy explained who I was, and the old man nodded and began to speak in a low, quaking voice.

  “He says that he is glad you have come,” Roy translated. “He was your grandfather’s brother. He wishes you well.”

  I said that I was happy to see him, and the old man nodded again.

  “He says that many young men have been lost to…the white man’s country. He says his own son is in America and has not come home for many years. Such men are like ghosts, he says. When they die, no one will be there to mourn them. No ancestors will be there to welcome them. So…he says it is good that you have returned.”

  The old man raised his hand and I shook it gently. As we got up to leave, he said something else, and Roy nodded before closing the door behind us.

  “He says that if you hear of his son,” Roy explained, “you should tell him to come home.”

  Later that evening, Sayid told me that my father had been very popular in these parts. “Whenever he came home, he would buy everyone drinks and stay out very late. The people would tell him, ‘You are a big man, but you have not forgotten us.’ Such words made him happy, I think. I remember once, he took me to Kisumu town in his Mercedes. On the way, he saw a matatu picking up passengers, and he said to me, ‘Sayid, we will be matatu drivers this evening!’ At the next matatu stop, he picked up the remaining people and told me to collect the regular fare from them. I think we squeezed eight people into his car. He took them wherever they needed to go. And when each of them got out, he gave them all their money back. After we were done, we went to the bar, and he told the story to all of his friends. He laughed very well that night.”

  Sayid paused, choosing his words carefully.

  “This is what made my brother such a good man. But I think also that once you are one thing, you cannot pretend that you are something else. How could he be a matatu driver, or stay out all night drinking, and also succeed in writing Kenya’s economic plan? Even though he prided himself on his independence, I think my brother was afraid that if he changed too much he would no longer belong with those he’d grown up with.”

  “I don’t want to be that way,” Bernard said.

  Sayid looked at his nephew with something like regret. “I did not mean to speak so freely, Bernard. You must respect your elders. They clear the way for you so that your path is easier. But if you see them falling into a pit, then you must learn to what?”

  “Step around,” Bernard said.

  “You are right. Depart from that path and make your own.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The next day I made the trip back to Home Squared with Sayid and Bernard. We found the women gathered on straw mats under the shade of a mango tree, Granny braiding Auma’s hair, Zeituni braiding the hair of a neighbor girl. I sat down beside them and asked Granny, with Auma translating, to start at the beginning. How did our great-grandfather Obama come to live in Kendu? Where did our grandfather work? Why did the Old Man’s mother leave?

  And under the shade of a mango tree, our voices ran together, three generations tumbling over each other like the currents of a slow-moving stream…

  First there was Miwiru. It’s not known who came before. Miwiru sired Sigoma, Sigoma sired Owiny, Owiny sired Kisodhi, Kisodhi sired Ogelo, Ogelo sired Otondi, Otondi sired Obongo, Obongo sired Okoth, and Okoth sired Opiyo. The women who bore them, their names are forgotten, for that was the way of our people.

  Okoth lived in Alego. Before that, it is known only that families traveled a great distance, from the direction of what is now Uganda, and that we were like the Masai, migrating in search of water and grazing land for great herds of cattle. In Alego, the people settled and began to grow crops.

  As the land in Alego became crowded, Opiyo decided to move to Kendu Bay. He had no land, but it was the custom of our people that a man could use any that was not taken. He worked in the compounds of other men and cleared the land for his own farm. But he died very young, leaving behind two wives and several children. One wife was taken in by Opiyo’s brother, as was the custom then—she became the brother’s wife, her children his children. But the other wife also died, and her oldest son, Obama, was orphaned when still a boy. He, too, lived with his uncle, but the family was poor, and Obama began to work for other men as his father had done before him.

/>   The family he worked for was wealthy, but they came to admire Obama, for he was enterprising and a very good farmer. When he sought to marry their oldest daughter, they agreed. And when this daughter died, they agreed that Obama could marry the younger daughter, whose name was Nyaoke. Eventually Obama had four wives, who bore him many children. He became prosperous, with a large compound and many cattle and goats. And because of his responsible ways, he became an elder in Kendu, and many came to seek his advice.

  Your grandfather, Onyango, was the fifth son of Obama and Nyaoke.

  Even as a boy, Onyango was strange. He would wander off on his own for many days, and when he returned he would not say where he had been. He was very serious always—he never laughed or played games with the other children, and never made jokes. He was always curious about other people’s business, which is how he came to sit in the hut of an herbalist, a man who turned plants into medicine, and to learn his art.

  When your grandfather was still a boy, we began to hear that the white man had come to nearby Kisumu town. It was said that these white men had skin as soft as a child’s, but that they rode on a ship that roared like thunder and had sticks that burst with fire. Before this, no one in our village had seen white men—only Arab traders who came to sell us sugar and cloth. But even that was rare, for our people did not use much sugar, and we did not wear cloth, only a goatskin that covered our genitals. So the elders advised the men to stay away from Kisumu until this white man was better understood.

  Despite this warning, Onyango became curious and decided that he must see these white men for himself. One day he disappeared, and no one knew where he had gone. Then, many months later, while his brothers were working the land, Onyango returned to the village. He was wearing the trousers of a white man, and a shirt like a white man, and shoes that covered his feet. The small children were frightened, and his brothers didn’t know what to make of this change.