“It was a pleasure,” Mr. Singh said. “I learned much Unknown Tongue. If you like, I would be very happy to enter your service as an unpaid volunteer,” Mr. Singh said. “At present I am informing for three government services none of whom coordinate their information nor have any proper liaison.”
“Things are not always exactly as they seem and it is an Empire which has been functioning for a long time.”
“Do you admire the way it functions now?”
“I am a foreigner and a guest and I do not criticize.”
“Would you like me to inform for you?”
“With carbons furnished of all other information delivered.”
“There are no carbons or oral information unless you have a tape recorder. Do you have a tape recorder?”
“Not with me.”
“You could hang half Laitokitok with four tape recorders.”
“I have no desire to hang half Laitokitok.”
“Neither do I. And who would buy at the duka?”
“Mr. Singh, if we did things properly we would perpetrate an economic disaster but now I must go up to where we left the car.”
“I will walk with you if you don’t mind. Three paces to the rear and on your left.”
“Please don’t trouble yourself.”
“It is no trouble.”
I said good-bye to Mrs. Singh and told her we would be by with the car to pick up three cases of Tusker and a case of Coca-Cola and walked out into the lovely main and only street of Laitokitok.
Towns with only one street make the same feeling as a small boat, a narrow channel, the headwaters of a river or the trail up over a pass. Sometimes Laitokitok, after the swamp and the different broken countries and the desert and the forbidden Chulu hills, seemed an important Capital and on other days it seemed like the Rue Royale. Today it was straight Laitokitok with overtones of Cody, Wyoming, or Sheridan, Wyoming, in the old days. With Mr. Singh, it was a relaxed and pleasant walk which we both enjoyed and in front of Benji’s with the gas pump, the wide steps like a Western general store and the many Masai standing around the hunting break. I stopped by it and told Mwengi I would stay with the rifle while he went to shop or drink. He said no that he would rather stay with the rifle. So I went up the steps and into the crowded store. Debba and the Widow were there still looking at cloth, Mthuka helping them, and turning down pattern after pattern. I hated shopping and the rejection of materials and I went to the far end of the long L-shaped counter and began to buy medicines and soaps. When these were stacked into a box I began to buy tinned goods; mostly kipper snacks, sardines, silts, tinned shrimp and various types of false salmon along with a number of tins of local tinned meat which were intended as a gift for my father-in-law and then I bought two tins each of every type of fish exported from South Africa including one variety labeled simply FISH. Then I bought half a dozen tins of Cape Spiny Lobster and, remembering we were short of Sloan’s liniment, bought a bottle of that and one half dozen cakes of Lifebuoy soap. By this time there was a crowd of Masai watching this purchasing. Debba looked down and smiled proudly. She and the Widow could still not make up their minds and there were not more than a half a dozen rolls of cloth to be inspected.
Mthuka came down the counter and told me the car had been filled up and that he had found the good posho that Keiti wanted. I gave him a hundred-shilling note and told him to pay for the girls’ purchases.
“Tell them to buy two dresses,” I said. “One for the cambia and one for the Birthday of the Baby Jesus.” Mthuka knew that no woman needed two new dresses. She needed her old one and the new one. But he went down and told the girls in Kikamba and Debba and the Widow looked down, all impudence replaced by a shining reverence as though I had just invented electricity and the lights had gone on over all of Africa. I did not meet their look but continued purchasing, now moving into the field of hard candies, bottled, and the various types of chocolate bars both nutted and plain.
By this time I did not know how the money was standing up but we did have the gas in the car and the posho and I told the relative of the owner who was serving behind the counter to load everything and box it carefully and I would return to pick it up with the bill. This gave Debba and the Widow more time to select and I would drive the hunting car down to Mr. Singh’s and pick up the bottled products.
Ngui had gone to Mr. Singh’s. He had found the dye powder we wanted to dye my shirts and hunting vests Masai color and he and I drank a bottle of Tusker and took one out to Mwengi in the car. Mwengi had the duty but next time it would be different.
In the presence of Ngui Mr. Singh and I again conversed in Unknown Tongue and non–flying pigeon Swahili.
Ngui asked me in Kamba how I would like to bang Mrs. Singh and I was delighted to see that either Mr. Singh was a very great actor or that he had not had the time or opportunity to learn Kamba.
“Kwisha maru,” I said to Ngui, which seemed sound double talk.