Napirai soon makes friends among the girls in our new neighborhood and little by little our old ties fade away. She feels at home with her childminders and her grandmother's house is directly on her way to school. I'm really feeling fulfilled in my job. By now I'm going back to several dental practices and getting a friendlier and more relaxed reception.
In the continuing number of courses and further education classes we have to go to we're now even sitting in on certain dental operations. Not everyone finds it easy to stomach the sight of blood and drilling into bone, but having lived with the Samburu is to my advantage. After all, I've seen the men slaughter an animal and drink its blood to increase their own strength. After a hard school like that, the everyday sight of blood hardly troubles me.
One evening just as I'm doing my daily report for work the phone rings, and I recognize the voice of the publisher from Munich. Oh God, I had completely forgotten about that manuscript. So many things have changed over the past six months, what with the new job and new flat. The act of committing all my past experiences to paper seems itself a distant memory now. Now I hear the publisher say: ‘Things are looking good for your gripping life story. But before we make a final decision we'd like to meet you in person.’
I'm rather taken aback. Nine months ago I'd probably have been jumping up and down but right now I'm not sure if I've got room in my new life for this. Nonetheless I accept his invitation to come and meet him. If I don't get on with the publishers I can always withdraw my manuscript.
A few weeks later I'm on the train to Munich, not at all sure that I'm doing the right thing. The publisher comes to meet me at the station and I find I get on with him straight away. A group of other people are waiting to meet me at the office, including a lively press lady who I immediately get on with really well.
On the train home after this encouraging meeting I begin to feel a little thrill of anticipation about what might come of it. A few days later I get a definite positive decision from them and details of a contract. There's no stopping me now. I ring up everyone who gave me moral support while I was writing, to get the news off my chest. They're all delighted but none of them really knows what happens next.
Christmas is getting close now and for the first time I can invite all the family to come round to our big flat. We have a really good, happy, quiet family Christmas, the harmony broken only by the arrival of a letter from Kenya.
Because of the continuing conflict the family still can't go back to the village. But thanks to the money we sent them they have at least been able to buy food and some goats which James has divided out between the family members. At last we also have photos of Napirai's half-sister. She's a pretty little girl too, but with her shaven head she doesn't look much like Napirai. But both girls definitely have the same eyes. There are also pictures of James at the ceremony marking him of marriageable age and for the first time I see him with the traditional face paint and wearing just a kanga. He looks strangely unfamiliar, as up until now I've only seen him in his school uniform or in his ‘normal’ clothes. These few photographs we receive remind me every time that my emotional contact to Kenya remains undiminished.
Publishing Sensation
I sign the contract for my book, The White Masai, on 1 February 1998, without realizing that I've just done something that within six months will have changed my life completely and will unleash a chain of events that will hit me like an avalanche.
Spring and summer pass quietly enough. I feel securely in the saddle at work now and sales are going well as I'm getting more and more regular customers. I love my work and make good money doing something I enjoy; in short I'm extremely satisfied with my way of life. I can't help making the comparison with how hard my life would be if I had stayed in Kenya.
In the middle of August I get a package from my publishers. My hands are already shaking as I start to open it as I know the only thing it can be is a copy of my finished book. And indeed, there it is in front of me. I'm speechless. It feels so wonderful to hold it in my hands that I simply can't let go of it. I'm absolutely thrilled. It's almost as if I've given birth to another child. It's simply overwhelming. I make an excited phone call to my boss, whom I'd told about the book just a few weeks ago, and gush over the phone to him. All my girlfriends are infected by my rush of euphoria and we end up having a spontaneous party at home that evening. Everyone comes by to admire the ‘great work’ and tell me it's bound to be a huge success.
When the last guests finally drift away around midnight I just sit there staring at The White Masai in awe. That very night I write a long letter to James telling him about the book I've written to tell people about his tribe, about my great Kenyan love and its sad ending. I realise it's not going to be easy for him to explain all this to his family and the people from the village.
Towards the end of August the first story about my life and the book appears in a women's magazine. I've had nothing to do with it; they simply took pictures out of the book. But that same day, just as I've visited my last dental practice out in Utzwil my mobile starts ringing in the car. When I access my voice mail I can just make out someone gushing on about ‘Bio chat show producer’, ‘great love’, and ‘TV appearance’, but there's a telephone number at the end. I ring up straight away and find myself talking to someone from the production team on Alfred Biolek's TV chat show.
The woman on the other end tells me she's just received a copy of my book from the publishers and has read it at a single sitting. Next Tuesday, the topic on the chat show is to be ‘great loves’ and one of the people scheduled to appear has canceled, so she wants to know if I could leap in at the last moment and chat with Mr Biolek about my experiences. I couldn't get better publicity. I agree immediately. The producer tells me that she'll come to Zurich in two days time, on Sunday, to make sure I'm ‘TV-material’. She'll fix up all the rest with the press office. I put down the phone and shout for joy, if only to release my nervous tension. My fingers are shaking as I dial the number of my publisher to tell him the news. I also take the opportunity to suggest that the first edition of 10,000 might be too small a print run. He laughs and tells me: ‘Let's see how they go first. Remember you're an unknown author and we're just a little publishing house.’
Well, let's wait and see how it goes on Sunday. I spend Sunday with Andrea practicing speaking in a good German accent instead of my Swiss dialect so I sound good on TV too. At the same time she uses her hairdressing skills to give me a new hairdo. As it turns out, Sunday goes well and my appearance on the chat show is agreed.
There's a limousine waiting to meet me at Cologne airport to take me to a really posh hotel. Two hours later I'm sitting in make-up getting my hair seen to and my face powdered. Obviously I'm all excited but I keep telling myself: ‘Corinne, just pretend Herr Biolek is one of your dentist customers but instead of talking to him about fillings or moldings, you're telling him about your life in Kenya.’