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calling Saeed a Kyuke, the Europeans’ hate-filled term for the Kikuyu. For Sakina-dadi, Saeed’s mother and Dadi’s closest friend, was a full-blooded Masai. Such dark, exotic knowledge, portal to a forest of imaginings about the adult world, was obviously not deemed suitable for my sister and me, being brought up as Punjabi Hindus to the best of my mother’s abilities. But after that violent police visit, the secret couldn’t stay hidden for long.
    Sakina-dadi, as I had known her, like any Punjabi woman wore a shalwar-kameez and dupatta, spoke Punjabi fluentlyand perfectly, at least to my young ears, and cooked formidable kheer, karhi, and dahi-wada. And when she cooked goat, Papa went off quietly to partake of it—Mother staring anxiously after him, having instructed him not to overdo it—for we did not cook meat in our home.
    One day at breakfast Mother said, referring to Saeed’s beating by the police, Imagine mistaking a Masai for Kikuyu! Immediately realizing she shouldn’t have made that comment in front of the children, with a guilty look toward me she put an admonishing hand to her mouth and just as quickly removed it. Half Masai, Papa couldn’t help interjecting before he too realized his error.
    Is he, is he really a Masai ? I asked excitedly.
    Then why doesn’t he have a spear, Papa? Deepa asked.
    Next you will ask why doesn’t he go around wearing only a red shawl with his bum showing, Papa replied. Budhu! He only looks like a Masai—doesn’t he?
    But the secret door had been opened. One day, Dadi exclaimed, to something Deepa said about Saeed’s Masai looks, But his mother was such a beautiful Masai girl! There was a stunned silence, and then Dadi said quietly, Yes, Sakina-dadi was a Masai girl when Juma-dada married her long ago.
    It was so obvious afterwards: Sakina-dadi was distinct. She was taller than my dadi, skinnier and long-legged; her face was round and her eyes large. She was dark, though in a way some Indians were. I never saw her hair, it was always covered by the dupatta. And there was a reserve about her, for instance when I went to her house to call my dadi; I don’t recall her ever touching me. I have often wondered why.
    Juma Molabux, at the end of his indentureship with the railway, chose to settle in Kijabe, where he opened a store to sell blankets, beads, and copper wire to the Masai. Kijabe was also on the railway line, a thriving town full of Indians at the top of the escarpment and directly overlooking the Rift Valley. Masai women and girls would come to Juma’s shop, looking vigorous and free and happy, decked out in their latest fashionsfor this trip to the market. In his loneliness he must have found the maidens unbearably exciting, dressed so scantily compared with Indian women. They laughed at him, but not unkindly. One day a large Masai man, who called himself Jerom, came to Juma and said, You are staring at my women. You like them. You must marry one of them.
    The Indian was flabbergasted. The Masai roared with laughter, called a companion over from the doorway, then turned to Juma.
    What’s the matter, you don’t feel the urge to lie down beside a woman?
    The companion said, more insultingly, with the appropriate gesture, You don’t have that thing to shove into a woman?
    Arm in arm, the men swaggered out. Their red cloaks, pulled over the tops of their bodies, with nothing else underneath, showed off portions of their smooth buttocks as proudly as their supple limbs; their long hair was plaited and dyed red, their pierced earlobes dangled low to their cheeks. Were they serious, or laughing at him? And if they were serious? As if he would marry a primitive Masai who put sheep fat in her hair and red earth on her body and drank cow’s blood!
    Jerom returned the next day. Well? Have you decided? With him was a maiden who had caught Juma’s fancy several times—tall, smooth, and round-faced; she was beautiful, wearing discs of coloured beads round her neck,