Keiti killed it in the name of his loyalty to the Bwanas, to the tribe and to the Moslem religion. He had the courage and the good taste not to delegate to anyone his order and he knocked on the tent pole and asked if we might speak. I might have said no, but I am a disciplined boy. Not with twelve of the best as Pop disciplined but with the implacable discipline of all of our lives. He said, “You have no right to take the young girl violently. [In this he was wrong. There had never been any violence, ever.] This could make great trouble.”
“All right,” I said. “You speak for all the Mzees?”
“I am the eldest.”
“Then tell your son who is older than I am to bring the hunting car.”
“He is not here,” Keiti said and we knew about that and his lack of authority over his children and why Mthuka was not a Moslem but it was too complicated for me.
“I will drive the car,” I said. “It is not a very difficult thing.”
“Please take the young girl home to her family. I will go with you if you like.”
“I will take the young girl, the Widow and the Informer.”
Mwindi was standing, in his green robe and cap, beside Keiti now since it was torture for Keiti to speak English.
Msembi had no business there but he loved Debba as we all did. She was feigning sleep and she was the wife that we would all wish to purchase, all of us knowing we would never own anything that we had bought.
Msembi had been a soldier and the two heavy elders knew this and were not unconscious of their treason when they became Moslems and, since everyone becomes an elder eventually, he threw quick against their complacence and with the true African litigational sense, using titles, which had been abolished, and his own knowledge of Kamba law, “Our Bwana can keep the Widow since she has a son and he protects her officially.”
Keiti nodded and Mwindi nodded.
Putting an end to it and feeling too bad about Debba who in her sense of glory had eaten the meal and slept the night as we were not permitted to sleep but as we slept so many times without the judgment of the splendid elders who had attained their rank uniquely, no, that was not just, by seniority, I said, to the interior of the tent, “No hay remedio. Kwenda na Shamba.”
This was the beginning of the end of the day in my life which offered the most chances of happiness.