The White Masai Read online

  When I come back into the room a few minutes later I can hardly believe my eyes. Lketinga is sitting on one of the mattresses, his jeans down to his knees, pulling and tearing at them. Clearly he’s trying to get them off because we have to leave and he clearly can’t go on stage in European clothes. It’s all I can do to hold back the laughter. He can’t get the jeans off because he still has his trainers on and he can’t get them over them. As a result, the trousers are halfway down his legs and he can’t get them either up or down. Laughing, I bend down and try to pull the shoes out of the jeans. But he shouts: ‘No, no Corinne, out with this,’ pointing at the trousers. ‘Yes, yes,’ I reply and try to make him understand that he has to get back into them and then take his shoes off before he can get out of the jeans.

  The half hour is long gone, and we rush to the hotel. I like him a thousand times better in his usual outfit. He’s already got huge blisters on his heels from the new shoes, which he obviously wears without socks. We get to the show just in time, and I take a place among the white audience, a few of whom give me black looks. I’m still wearing the same clothes that I put on this morning and they certainly haven’t got any cleaner or more attractive. Nor do I smell quite as fresh as these white people straight from their showers, and that’s saying nothing about my long greasy hair. Even so, I am probably the proudest woman in the room. As I watch these men dance I am overcome once again by the familiar feeling of belonging.

  It’s almost midnight by the time the dance and show are over. The only thing I want to do is sleep. Back at the lodging I feel I really have to wash, but Lketinga comes into our room followed by another Masai and reckons his friend can sleep in the second bed. I’m not exactly overjoyed by the idea of sharing this ten-by-twelve room with a strange man, but I say nothing for fear of seeming impolite. So still in my clothes I squeeze into the small sagging bed next to Lketinga and, despite everything, fall asleep.

  In the morning I get to shower at last, even if it’s hardly luxurious with an intermittent water flow, and ice-cold at that. Despite the dirty clothes I feel a bit better on the trip back to the south bank.

  In Mombasa I buy a simple dress because we want to call by the passport office and see if we can get the forms. Today it works. After checking the provisional ticket and confirmation that the guarantee money has been lodged we are finally given an application form. But as we start trying to answer the rows of questions, I realize that I hardly understand most of them and decide to get the help of Ursula and her husband.

  After another five-hour journey we are at long last back at our little hut on the south bank. Priscilla has been very worried because she didn’t know where we spent the night. Lketinga has to explain to her why he’s wearing European clothing. I go to lie down for a bit because it’s really hot outside. I’m sure I’ve already lost several pounds.

  There are just six days left before I’m due to fly home, and I still haven’t spoken to Lketinga about our future together in Kenya. All our efforts are directed towards getting this stupid passport. I start thinking about what I could work at here. Living on these modest means certainly doesn’t require much money, but even so I need something to do and a bit of income. That’s when I get the idea of looking for a shop in one of the hotels. I could employ one or two seamstresses, bring in a few patterns from Switzerland and run a little dressmaker’s. There are more than enough fine fabrics to be had, good seamstresses too who would work for three hundred francs a month or so, and selling is what I do best.

  Excited by my idea, I call Lketinga into the hut and try to explain to him, but I soon realize that he doesn’t understand. But to me it’s important so I call Priscilla. She translates while Lketinga just nods now and again. Priscilla explains to me that, without getting married or a work permit, my idea is impossible. But the idea is good because she knows some people who make good money from made-to-measure clothing. I ask Lketinga if he might be interested in getting married. Contrary to my expectations, his reaction is restrained. With a certain degree of common sense, he says that if I have such a good business in Switzerland, I shouldn’t sell it but instead come to Kenya two or three times a year for ‘holidays’ and he would always be waiting for me.

  Now I’m a bit up in the air. I’ve been ready and willing to give up everything back home for him, and he’s talking about holidays! I’m disappointed. He notices immediately and says, correctly of course, that he doesn’t really know me very well, or my family at all. He needs time to think. And I should take my time too, and anyway he might come to Switzerland. I say simply, ‘Lketinga, when I do something, I don’t do it by halves!’ Either he feels the way I do and wants me to come, or I’ll try to forget everything that’s happened between us.

  The next day we go to the hotel to find Ursula and her husband to fill out the form. But we miss them because they’ve gone off on a safari for several days. Once again I curse my poor command of English. We look for someone else to translate for us. Lketinga will only have a Masai; he doesn’t trust anyone else.

  We go back to Ukunda and spend hours in the teahouse until a Masai turns up who can read, write and speak English. His attitude of superiority annoys me, but he sits down with Lketinga and fills it all out. His opinion, however, is that nothing here works without bribery. Since he shows me his own passport and has apparently been twice to Germany, I have to believe him. He adds that my white skin will push the size of the bribe up at least fivefold. For a little compensation he will go to Mombasa with Lketinga the next day and fix everything. I agree with bad grace, but I’m gradually losing my patience and can’t face arguing with that arrogant passport official anymore. For just fifty francs he will sort everything out: even go with Lketinga to the airport. I hand over a bit of extra cash for bribes, and the pair set off to Mombasa.

  At long last I retire to the beach and spoil myself with a lie in the sun and good hotel food that of course costs ten times what you’d pay in a local restaurant. In the evening I go back to the hut and find a furious Lketinga waiting for me. I ask him excitedly what happened in Mombasa, but all he wants to know is where I’ve been. I answer with a laugh: ‘On the beach and at the hotel for a meal.’ He wants to know who I talked to. I think nothing of it and say Edy and a couple of other Masai with whom I exchanged a few words on the beach. Only slowly does the dark cloud disappear from his face, and he tells me matter-of-factly that the passport will take three to four weeks.

  I’m pleased and try to tell him about Switzerland and my family. He lets me know he likes Eric but doesn’t know about other people. I reflect that I’m not exactly sure how the people in Biel will react to him either. And he’s going to be confused by the traffic in the streets, the exotic pubs and restaurants and the general luxury.

  My last few days in Kenya are spent somewhat more quietly. We stroll into the hotel from time to time, or along the beach or spend the whole day in the village with different people, drinking tea or cooking. When the last day dawns I’m sad and try hard to keep my composure. Even Lketinga is nervous. Lots of people bring me little presents, mostly bits of Masai jewellery. My arms are draped in bangles almost up to my elbows.

  Lketinga washes my hair for me once more, helps me pack and keeps asking: ‘Corinne, really you will come back to me?’ He doesn’t seem to believe that I’ll come back. He says lots of white women say that but never come back, or if they do, they go off with another man next time. ‘Lketinga, I don’t want another man. Only you!’ I repeat again and again. I’ll write lots, send photos and tell him when I’ve settled everything. I still have to find someone to buy the shop from me and take over my flat and all the furniture.

  He should let me know via Priscilla when he plans to come, if he gets his passport. ‘If it doesn’t work out or you decide you don’t want to come to Switzerland, just tell me,’ I say to him. I will need about three months to deal with everything. He asks me how long three months is: ‘How many full moons?’ ‘Three full moons,’ I reply, laughing.


  We spend every minute of the last day together and decide to go to the Bush Baby Disco until four in the morning and not sleep but make the most of our time. We talk in language, signs and signals all night long and it’s always the same question: will I really come back? I promise for the twentieth time and realize how genuinely worked up Lketinga is too.

  Half an hour before my departure we turn up at the hotel, accompanied by two other Masai. The whites waiting for us, tired from the early start, look at us with obvious irritation. With my suitcase and the three Masai with their rungu clubs we must make a curious picture. Then it’s time for me to get on board the coach. Lketinga and I fall into each other’s arms one more time and he says: ‘No problem, Corinne. I wait here, or I come to you!’ And then – I can hardly believe it – he kisses me on the mouth. I’m moved. I climb on board and wave goodbye to the three figures vanishing in the darkness.

  Burning Bridges

  Back in Switzerland, I immediately begin looking for someone to take over the shop. A lot of people are interested, but only a few are suitable and they don’t have the money. Obviously I want to make as much as possible on the deal because I don’t know when I’m going to start earning again. You can live for two days in Kenya easily enough on ten francs. So I’ve become very stingy, putting aside every franc for my future in Africa.

  A month passes quickly, and I hear nothing from Lketinga. I’ve already written three letters. Now, somewhat worried, I write to Priscilla. Two weeks later I get a letter from her that confuses me. Two weeks after I left Lketinga vanished and she hasn’t seen him since; he’s probably living back on the north bank again. Things aren’t going well with his passport and with good intentions she advises me that I’d be better off staying in Switzerland. I’m knocked sideways and write a letter straight away, addressing it to the P.O. Box on the north bank where my first letters reached Lketinga.

  After two months back home a girlfriend decides to take over the shop at the end of October. I’m delighted that at least this big problem has been solved. Theoretically, therefore, I can take off in October but unfortunately I still haven’t heard a word from Lketinga. I reckon there’s no point in him coming to Switzerland now that I’ll be back in Mombasa soon and continue to believe in our great love. Another two confused letters arrive from Priscilla, but with my faith intact I go into the travel agent’s and book a flight to Mombasa for the fifth of October.

  That leaves me with two weeks to get rid of the flat and my cars. The flat is no problem: I sell the lot, furnished, to a young student at a knockdown price. That way at least I can remain in the flat until the last minute.

  My friends, business colleagues, everyone who knows me think I’m crazy. It’s particularly hard for my mother, although I have the impression that she understands me better than most. She hopes and prays that I will find what I am looking for and be happy.

  I sell the soft-top on the very last day and have the purchaser drive me to the station. Buying a ‘single’ ticket to Zurich Airport excites me. With a tiny piece of hand luggage but a huge suitcase packed with T-shirts, underwear, simple cotton skirts and a few presents for Lketinga and Priscilla, I board the train and wait for departure.

  When the train starts moving I could jump for joy. I lean back glowing like a lantern and laugh to myself. I’m overcome with a wonderful feeling of freedom. I could shout aloud and share my happiness and plans with everybody on the train. I’m free, free, free! I have no more obligations in Switzerland, no letterbox filled with bills, and I’m escaping the miserable grey winter weather. I don’t know what’s waiting for me in Kenya, whether Lketinga got my letters and, if he did, whether anyone translated them properly for him. I know nothing except that I’m enjoying an ecstatic feeling of weightlessness.

  I’ll have three months to settle in before I need to apply for another visa. My God – three months! Time to work things out and get to know Lketinga better. I’ve worked on my English, and I’ve packed some good textbooks with lots of pictures. In fifteen hours’ time I will be in my new home. With that thought in my mind I board the plane, lie back and peer through the cabin window for a last look at Switzerland. Who knows when I’ll be back? To celebrate my departure and a new beginning, I order champagne and don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  A New Homeland

  From Mombasa Airport I can take a hotel bus as far as the Africa Sea Lodge, even though I haven’t booked a room. Priscilla and Lketinga ought to know when I’ll get there. I’m in a real tizzy. What if nobody turns up? But barely have I had time to think about it before I’m at the hotel, look around and see there’s nobody there to welcome me. All of a sudden, standing there with my heavy case all my excitement gives way to immense disappointment. Then out of nowhere I hear my name, and when I turn round to look up the path there’s Priscilla charging towards, me her enormous bosom wobbling. Tears of joy and relief flood into my eyes.

  We embrace and of course I have to ask about Lketinga. A cloud passes over her face and she turns away from me to say: ‘Corinne, please! I don’t know where he is!’ She hasn’t seen him since shortly after I left, more than two months ago. She’s heard stories but doesn’t know what’s true and what isn’t. I want to hear everything, but Priscilla says we should go back to the village first. I pile my heavy case on top of her head, and with me carrying just my little piece of hand luggage off we go.

  But my God, I’m thinking to myself, what happened to my dreams of great love and happiness? Where on earth is Lketinga? I can’t believe he’s simply forgotten everything. In the village I meet another woman, a Muslim. Priscilla introduces her as a friend and explains that for the moment at least the three of us have to share her accommodation because this woman doesn’t want to return to her husband. The little house is not very big but for now it will do.

  We drink tea, but I’m awash with unanswered questions. I ask about my Masai, and Priscilla with no little hesitation tells me what she’s heard. One of his fellow warriors is supposed to have said he’d gone back home, sick and unhappy because he’d had no letter from me for such a long time. ‘What?’ I explode. ‘I wrote at least five times.’ Now even Priscilla looks surprised: ‘Really? Where to?’ she asks. I show her the P.O.Box address on the north bank. Ah, she says, no wonder Lketinga didn’t get any letters. This P.O. Box apparently belongs to all the Masai on the north bank, and any of them can take whatever they want out of it. Given that Lketinga can’t read, someone else has probably taken them.

  I can hardly believe what Priscilla is telling me: ‘I thought all the Masai were friends, almost like brothers. Who’d do a thing like that?’ That’s when I find out for the first time about the jealousy among the warriors living here on the coast. When I left three months ago, some of the men who’d been on the coast a long time had teased and hassled Lketinga, saying things like: ‘A woman like her, young and pretty, with lots of money, isn’t going to come back to Kenya for a black man with nothing.’ According to Priscilla, because he hadn’t been living here long and hadn’t received any letters, he’d probably believed them.

  I ask Priscilla curiously where, then, is home for Lketinga. She’s not certain, but somewhere in the Samburu District: a three-day journey away. I shouldn’t even think of it. Now that I’m here, she’ll find someone to go out there in the near future and get a message through. ‘Give it time, and we’ll find out what’s happened. Pole, pole,’ she says, which means something like ‘slowly, slowly’. ‘You’re in Kenya now, you need time and patience.’

  The two women fuss over me like a child. We chat amongst ourselves a lot. Esther, the Muslim woman, tells me about the hard time she’s been having with her husband and warns me never to marry an African. She says they’re unfaithful and treat women badly. My Lketinga is different, I think to myself but say nothing.

  After the first night we decide to buy a bed. I didn’t get a wink of sleep. Priscilla and I shared a narrow bed, while Esther slept on another but, given that there’s
a lot of Priscilla, I had hardly any room and had to hang onto the edge of the bed to stop myself continuously rolling into her.

  So it’s off to Ukunda where we trail from one dealer to another in temperatures of 40 degrees C in the shade. The first doesn’t have a double bed but could produce one in three days. But I want one now. At the next place we find a magnificent carved bed for eighty francs, and I want to buy it immediately, but Priscilla is indignant: ‘Too much!’ I can’t believe my ears. Such a superb double bed, handmade, for that price! But Priscilla has stormed off: ‘Come, Corinne, too much!’ That’s the way it goes half the afternoon until at last I’m allowed to buy one for sixty francs. The carpenter takes it to pieces, and we carry it all to the main road. Priscilla gets hold of a foam mattress and after an hour’s wait in the boiling heat on the dusty street we take a matatu back to the hotel, where we unload it all. So there we are standing with the pieces, all of which are made of solid wood and very heavy.

  We look around us helplessly until three Masai appear from the beach. Priscilla has a word with them and immediately these normally work-shy warriors give us a hand to carry my new double bed to the village. I have to bend double with laughter for the whole thing looks hilarious. When we finally get to the village I want to set to work immediately, screwing the bits of bed together, but I don’t get the chance because each of the Masai insists on doing it for me. By now there are six men working on my bed.

  It’s still late before we can all sit down tired out on the edge of the bed. There’s tea for everyone who helped, and the conversation lapses once again into the Masai language I don’t understand a word of. Every now and then one of the warriors gestures in my direction, and I hear the name ‘Lketinga’. After an hour they all leave us, and we women get ready for bed. That means washing outside the house, which is fine because it’s pitch black and no one can see us. Even a late-night pee has to be done in the open because it’s too dark to cope with the chicken ladder. I fall back onto my new bed exhausted, and this time I don’t come into contact with Priscilla because the bed’s wide enough. That said, there’s not much space left in the hut, and anyone who comes to visit now has to sit on the bed.