On shore, there were whole communities of several thousand people where the children didn’t go to school, just as (Aleke complained when Bray got back to Gala) the men didn’t pay taxes. “While you’re about it, up there, perhaps you could think of something we can do about that.” Aleke spoke in the dreamy humour of a man slightly dazed with problems. “The government tells me that after the miners, those fellows are the biggest money — earners in the country, but they don’t want to know about income tax. All you can get out of them is that they’ve always paid hut tax. Income tax is something for white men to pay. Must they become white men just because we’ve got our own government? Good God, man, what sort of thing is this independence!” Thinking of the fishermen, Bray laughed rather admiringly. “Well, they’re self — employed, illiterate, and extremely shrewd — quite a combination for an administration to beat.” “I mean, how can you assess their earnings? It’s not a matter of keeping two sets of books. It’s all in here”—Aleke poked a finger at his temple— “what auditor can get at that?” “Organize them in cooperatives,” Bray said, still amused.
“Well, there is the big trawler company.”
“Yes, but that’s a foreign company, the men who work on the trawlers are just employees. I mean the people who fish and trade for themselves. Oh, it’ll come, I suppose.”
“Those people? They don’t want to hear from us what’s good for them!”
“Never mind, Aleke, the president favours free enterprise.” They both smiled; this was the way in which Mweta gave poker — faced reassurance to the mining companies, without offering direct affront to members of the government who feared economic colonialism.
“D’you bring any fish?” Aleke asked, shoving papers into drawers; Bray had walked in as he was going home for lunch.
“Didn’t think about it! But I’ll remember next time. What does your wife like? I saw a magnificent perch.”
“Oh she’s from town, she wouldn’t touch anything out of the lake. But I won’t have the kids the same. I told her, they must eat the food that’s available, there where they live. So she says what’s wrong with meat from the supermarket?”
“I’ll bring you a perch, next time.”
“Yes, a nice fish stew, with peppers, I like that.” He had taken up a nailfile and was running the point under the pale nails of his black hands as if he were paring a fruit. “I’m full of carbon. I have to do my own stencils, even. I shouldn’t really go home to eat today, the work’s up over my head, man. Honestly, I just feel like driving all the way and kidnapping a decent secretary from the Ministry.” Grumbling relaxedly, he left the offices with Bray; one of his small sons had come down on a tricycle to meet him and was waiting outside, nursing a toe that had sprung a bright teardrop of blood: while they examined the hurt the drop rolled off the dusty little foot like a bead of mercury. The boy had ridden against the low box — hedge of Christ — thorn that neatly bordered the bomas entrance. All bomas in the territory had Christ — thorn hedges, just as they had a morris chair to each office and a standard issue of inkpots. “Look at that,” Aleke said in Gala. “It’s gone deep. What a plant.”
“Why not have it dug out, get rid of it,” said Bray.
Aleke looked uncertain a moment, as if he could not remember why this was unlikely. Then he came to himself and said in English, “You’re damned right. I want this place cleared.”
“You could have mesembryanthemums — ice-plant,” Bray said. But Aleke had the tricycle, hanging by a handlebar, in his one hand, and was holding his child under the armpit with the other, urging him along while he hopped exaggeratedly, “Ow, ow!”
You had only to leave a place once and return to it for it to become home. At the house Bray came through the kitchen and asked Mahlope to fetch his things from the car; Mahlope had a friend sitting there who rose at once. Bray acknowledged the greeting and then was suddenly aware of some extraordinary tension behind him. His passage had caused a sensation; he made an involuntary checking movement, as if there were something shocking pinned on his back. The face was staring at him, blindly expectant, flinching from anticlimax. The anticlimax hung by a hair; then it was knocked aside: “Kalimo!” The man started to laugh and gasp, saved by his name. The face was one from another life, Bray’s cook of the old time, in the D.C.’s house. The salutations went on for several minutes, and then Kalimo was in perfect possession of the occasion. He said in English, “I’m here today, yesterday, three day. No, the boy say Mukwayi go Tuesday, come back Friday. I’m ready.” Bray’s eyes followed into the labyrinth of past commonplace the strings of Kalimo’s apron, tied twice under his arms, in the way he had always affected. “How did you find me?”
“Festus he send me. He send me say, Colonel he coming back, one month, two month, then go to Gala. I’m greet my wife, I’m greet my sons. They say where you go? No, I’m go to Gala. Colonel him back. No, I go. I must go.”
They began to talk in Gala, which was not Kalimo’s mother tongue — since he came from the South where he had first begun to work for the Brays many years ago — but which, like Bray, he had learned when he moved with the Brays to Gala. They exchanged family news; Bray fetched the picture of Venetia’s baby. The pleasurable excitement of reunion hung over his solitary lunch, with Kalimo bringing in the food and being detained to talk.
But later in the afternoon, when he had sat for an hour or two writing up his notes on the lake communities, he came to the problem of Mahlope: what was to be done about Mahlope? Kalimo had taken over the household as of right; Bray felt the old fear of wounding someone whom circumstances put in his power. It was out of the question that he should send Kalimo away. He belonged to Kalimo; Kalimo had come more than a thousand miles, out of retirement in his village, to claim him. The thought appalled him: to cook and clean for him as if his were the definitive claim on Kalimo’s life.
He went into the kitchen where Kalimo, hearing him begin to move about, was making tea. Bray had seen Mahlope through the living-room window — put out to grass, literally: swinging at it with a home — honed scythe made of a bit of iron fencing. “Kalimo, did you talk to Mahlope about the job?” He spoke in Gala. “Mukwayi?’” I took on Mahlope to look after the house, you see.”