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    ‘You sent me to an empty school. No teachers.’
    ‘I thought you wanted a place of peace? A challenging place?’
    ‘No pupils even.’
    ‘I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with that school. No teacher wants to stay there. One year, two years, and they leave. If you should find a teacher, even UTs, we shall certainly employ them.’
    ‘But . . .’
    ‘I’ll shortly be coming there, I’ll shortly be coming round. Do you have good roads? You know these damned cars – a real nuisance, the true black man’s burden – believe me, Mr eeh, eeh — Munira – a bicycle is so much less trouble.’
    He now glanced at Munira, his lips split into an ironic smile as if to say: You should have known – trying to escape . . . but then, thought Munira, how could Mzigo have known? And suddenly, remembering the lorries and the matatu drivers who had forced him into the bush on his way here, he saw great wit in Mzigo’s condescending compliment on bicycles. His inward rage gave way to laughter. He laughed until his ribs pained and he felt better, lighter inside. ‘You don’t believe me, eh?’ Mzigo was asking. Munira was now thinking of Abdulla, the cripple; Nyakinyua, the old woman; the children who preferred herding cattle and climbing up miariki trees to going to school. He contrasted their direct approach with this pomposity; their atmosphere of curiosity with the fear behind the faces that sat in the back corners of sleek Mercedes Benzes, behind the walls of the oncefor-Europeans-only mansions and private clubs; their sincerity with the bellies pregnant with malice and cunning that walked the length of a golf course negotiating business deals, and recalling Abdulla’s words he felt kindly toward Ilmorog.
    Maybe he had not understood Nyakinyua, Abdulla, Njogu, Njuguna, Ruoro and all the others, he now reflected. He did not say a word about resigning or asking for a transfer. He collected chalk, exercise books and some writing paper.
    ‘Mr Mzigo, are you serious . . . do you mean what you said just now? That I could recruit UT help?’
    ‘Yes, Mr Munira, provided you bring them to me for formal appointment. I want to see that school grow. I would like to see all the classes going.’
    He stayed the night at Furaha house in Ruwa-ini. The following day he crossed over into Kiambu District. He wanted to spend a day or two at his home in Limuru before pedalling back to Ilmorog.
    He had until now practically lived all his life at Limuru. After leaving Siriana in 1946, he had taught in many schools around Limuru: Rironi, Kamandura, Tiekunu, Gatharaini and for the last six years or so at Manguo. Hence he felt his heart quicken at his return to a seat of his past. But it pained him that he still depended on his father for a place in which to set a home. He had always thought of striking out on his own but he had remained circling around his father’s property without at the same time being fully part of it. This was unlike his more successful brothers. The one following him had even gone to England and returned to a successful career with the banks. The other had just finished Makerere and was PRO with an oil company. Yet another was in Makerere doing medicine. The first two sisters had successfully completed their high schools: one was in England training as a nurse: the other was at Goddard College, Vermont, USA, taking a BA in Business Administration. One, Mukami, had recently died and he still felt deeply saddened at the memory because, although she was much younger than himself, yet he felt that she somehow sided with him, and did not look upon him as a failure. She was of a lively, rebellious spirit: Mukami had once or twice been beaten for joiningthe children of the squatters in stealing plums and pears from her father’s fruit farm. Often, even after she had been admitted to Kenya High School, she would, while on leave, join the gang of workers and she would help in picking pyrethrum