Dreams from My Father

a big house and a big car, and everybody was impressed with him because he was so young but he already had so much education from abroad. And he had an American wife, which was still rare—although later, when he was still married to Ruth, he would go out sometimes with my real mum. As if he had to show people, you see. That he could also have this beautiful African woman whenever he chose. Our four other brothers were born at this time. Mark and David, they were Ruth’s children, born in our big house in Westlands. Abo and Bernard, they were my mum’s children, and lived with her and her family upcountry. Roy and I didn’t know Abo and Bernard then. They never came to the house to see us, and when the Old Man visited them, he would always go alone, without telling Ruth.
    “I didn’t think about this much until later, the way our lives were divided in two, because I was so young. I think it was harder on Roy, because he was old enough to remember what it had been like in Alego, living in the village with our mum and our people. For me, things were okay. Ruth, our new mother, was nice enough to us then. She treated us almost like her own children. Her parents were rich, I think, and they would send us beautiful presents from the States. I’d get really excited whenever a package came from them. But I remember sometimes Roy would refuse to take their gifts, even when they sent us sweets. I remember once he refused some chocolates they had sent, but later in the night, when he thought I was asleep, I saw him taking some of the chocolates that I had left on our dresser. But I didn’t say anything, because I think I knew that he was unhappy.
    “Then things began to change. When Ruth gave birth to Mark and David, her attention shifted to them. The Old Man, he left the American company to work in the government, for the Ministry of Tourism. He may have had political ambitions, and at first he was doing well in the government. But by 1966 or 1967, the divisions in Kenya had become more serious. President Kenyatta was from the largest tribe, the Kikuyus. The Luos, the second largest tribe, began to complain that Kikuyus were getting all the best jobs. The government was full of intrigue. The vice-president, Odinga, was a Luo, and he said the government was becoming corrupt. That, instead of serving those who had fought for independence, Kenyan politicians had taken the place of the white colonials, buying up businesses and land that should be redistributed to the people. Odinga tried to start his own party, but was placed under house arrest as a Communist. Another popular Luo minister, Tom M’boya, was killed by a Kikuyu gunman. Luos began to protest in the streets, and the government police cracked down. People were killed. All this created more suspicion between the tribes.
    “Most of the Old Man’s friends just kept quiet and learned to live with the situation. But the Old Man began to speak up. He would tell people that tribalism was going to ruin the country and that unqualified men were taking the best jobs. His friends tried to warn him about saying such things in public, but he didn’t care. He always thought he knew what was best, you see. When he was passed up for a promotion, he complained loudly. ‘How can you be my senior,’ he would say to one of the ministers, ‘and yet I am teaching you how to do your job properly?’ Word got back to Kenyatta that the Old Man was a troublemaker, and he was called in to see the president. According to the stories, Kenyatta said to the Old Man that, because he could not keep his mouth shut, he would not work again until he had no shoes on his feet.
    “I don’t know how much of these details are true. But I know that with the president as an enemy things became very bad for the Old Man. He was banished from the government—blacklisted. None of the ministries would give him work. When he went to foreign companies to look for a post, the companies were warned not to hire him. He began looking abroad and was hired to work for the African Development Bank in Addis Ababa, but before he could join them, the government revoked his passport, and he couldn’t even leave Kenya.
    “Finally, he had to accept a small job with the Water Department. Even this was possible only because one of his friends pitied him. The job kept food on the table, but it was a big fall for him. The Old Man began to drink heavily, and many of the people he knew stopped coming to visit