Dexter Petley Empty Bottles

Kidogo was coming soon, they said. Snooty tarts who could see he didn’t have any cash and left him alone, standing outside the pub with no name. Two cold, pink palms blindfolded him from behind.

– Are you Austen’s friend? Kidogo said.

Kidogo means small in Swahili. She was like the insides of half a gutted herring. There was nothing on her thicker than his wrist. Beaded hair straightened, round face, yellow eyes, yellow teeth, white plastic trousers, knee boots clocking back and forth under them like big wellies on old widows feeding hens. Her johns were all Europeans, back door knockers, which is why she walked like Pinocchio.

The inside of The Pub was like fly-paper. Tabletops sticky with beer, spit, bottletops, bluebottles. Kidogo was suspicious and thought his posing was a come-on, that he was really after the usual. No, he said for the fifth time. He wanted to meet the women who smuggled maize. She said the smuggling girls weren’t really prostitutes. They didn’t come in The Pub.

They dithered drinkless at a table. Her smile flitted like a spasm. He was supposed to buy her a drink and act fat and walleted like all the other jeep-driving wheel-tappers boozing their way to chancroids. AIDS was still a year or two away. She paid for and drank a Pepsi. He lit up a Rooster and tried to keep Kidogo’s attention on his project but her eyes were dancing from corner to corner, looking for companions to relieve the embarrassment he caused. Finally she said tomorrow, he could meet another girl to go with if he didn’t want to go with her.

– No, he said. I want to meet magendo women.

– Yes, tomorrow.

Next day Kidogo took him The Pub again. Even at 2pm the whites with their pappy skin and beer bellies under both eyes lurched into tables and sprayed cigarettes every time they flipped the packet open. It was like a booze parlour in a western. Kidogo introduced him to Magdelen who was all wet-look and slick with cosmetic glamour. She was carrying a three month old baby with light brown skin. He said she didn’t look like a smuggler.

– How dare you, she said. I’m not a goddam smuggler.

She said it in a fake beauty queen accent, Miss Got the Wrong Boat. She was married to Drew or Drury, he didn’t hear, from Westport, Virginia, but he was in Saudi working. She’d met him at The Pub, her old pitch. Now she came for the company and didn’t go with anyone. All the other girls copied her. The headscarves, the wet lips, the leopard-skin velvet and imported earrings. Hair straightening and skin-lightening creams with their mercury poisoning and purple patching.

– So, where are the smugglers? he said.

– After, Kidogo said.

– After what?

– Kidogo’s buying my bed, Magdelen said. We’re going to my flat to see it.

They crammed into a matatu, the backs of their necks flat against the roof, a mouthful of heads and shoulders. The other passengers were angry with the conductor and driver who ignored them, so they turned on the mzungu. A hundred Kenyans a week were slaughtered in overcrowded matatu accidents. Matatus were just Toyota pick-ups with escape-proof cages on the back. Twenty passengers were squashed in till the tyres sunk. They said he should buy a Mercedes if he wanted to ferry girlfriends out to Ngara.

They went to Kidogo’s old room. Kidogo said she lived out at Westlands now. Magdelen lived in a luxury apartment and was moving into a bigger one. But there was the bed and he assumed this’d been Magdelan’s knocking shop too. The room was fifteen foot square and opened into a courtyard with an open drain, flies and rubbish. Magdelen’s old bed was a dark brass bugbear with collapsed springs and skewed castors taking up too much corner. There were four bunkbeds too and a sofa, two chairs, a long table and two cupboards. Kidogo took bananas and peas from a cupboard and they sat at the table under a picture of Jesus, eating with the flies while Kidogo explained where he had to take the bed.

– How? he said. On a matatu?

– No, they said. With transport.

– Will I meet some smugglers today?

– Yes.

It was his job to wrestle the bed into the street and guard it while they went off and haggled for transport. They came back in an old taxi with a roof-rack trailing string and rags for tying beds on. The driver said the bed was good for all four of them. It wasn’t a joke, he was serious, and the haggling began again till he pissed off in a cloud of blue smoke. The next taxi driver made a date with Kidogo but didn’t have a roof rack. The bed was balanced on the roof. String and rag knotted together went through one window and out the other. As they drove off everyone put an arm each out the window and hung onto the bedstead.

Westlands was a protected suburb. Businessmen, the international community, tourists. A modest, two-car luxury. The poor housing was tucked away in pockets, old buildings with courtyards, the residents all servants or gardeners. This was where cars got stolen and diplomats hi-jacked. Little fat rich boys sat at cafes eating chips with pink ketchup. Streets were swept, rubbish collected, shrubs pruned and flowerbeds watered.

Kidogo’s room had a concrete floor with rush matting. They put the bed in the corner and drank tea. Magdelen said she was going to the Jacaranda Hotel. It was obvious Kidogo wasn’t meant to go. It was a social barrier. Magdalen flaunted her status, however flimsy it might be. Kidogo was just a scarecrow on half-pay and when they were alone in her room she looked for a hiding place. She still didn’t understand what he wanted. As far as she was concerned he was another mzungu sent by her friend Austen for some poke.

There was sweeping in the courtyard and someone put a Jim Reeves record on. I Hear the Sound, pom-pom, of Distant Drums. A woman cackled outside the door and Kidogo pulled the woman in by the sleeve.

– This is Unice who I said with you. She is tekking the magendo to Kisumu.

Elburgon was a one street shanty town on the main road. Bars, dives, a ten-bob hotel. The bar had a fluorescent purple strip inside and the hi-life came jangling through the air as dusk fell and mobs of women dragged sacks out of huts and shacks. Unice had told him right. This was Port Magendo, home of the maize pirates. The boss who’d hired him for the job, Austen of the Maize Marketing Board, had said he shouldn’t go alone. Poisoned maize in the food chain. It could be a nutcase, it could be organized. There’d been an attempted coup only months before. The maize had killed hundreds of Luos in Kisumu District, and the government had blamed the Luos for the coup.

In ten minutes it was so dark he couldn’t see his hands unless he turned and faced the township. A chill descended off the Mau Escarpment. The old women were lighting fires from shavings outside the woodyard gate.

– Hey mzungu. Where are you going?

A young woman sitting on a sack.

– Kisumu, he said.

– Wait here with us. There are many buses coming soon, some of which I hope to God they take us.

He said he wanted egg and chips in the café.

– They are just having the goat meat. You are welcome to be eating with me and my friend. What is your name please?

She was Agnes. She sucked her teeth and cleaned her right ear with her little finger. She offered him a sack to sit on. It felt like a sack of maize.

– Yes, Agnes said. It is maize. We are tekking maize to Kisumu.

– When do the buses come?

– They are coming very late. Sometimes in six and seven o’clock.

You counted from sunset. Six was midnight. Another Rooster and a swig from his water bottle. Just an inch left slapping in the bottom. All he’d eaten since Kikuyu Junction was one paw-paw. He wasn’t sharp enough for the job.

– Where is your friend? he said.

– That is Mary. She is preparing the supper.

He stubbed out the Rooster and finished the water. He was feeling sour and tired. He should’ve just gone to eat goat meat then found a bed. It was cold enough to fish his jumper out and tuck the scarf in. The old women were getting under sheets and chucking more shavings on the fires.

Mary lived in a shack behind them. Dirt floor, dirt compound. She’d cooked outside on the charcoal and they ate in her one room. Agnes and Mary on tiny stools, him side-saddle on the iron bed. She had a wardrobe, a powder puff mirror hanging on string, a plastic water jug, a paraffin lamp. There was a crucifix over the bed and a cardboard picture hanging from a ribbon. Snow-covered mountains off a jigsaw box or a packet of Scottish oatcakes. Mary couldn’t cook. He couldn’t eat what she couldn’t cook. Spinach boiled in oil with flecks of UFO. Posho in a stainless steel cooking pot which must’ve cost more than the shack. Agnes and Mary clawed at the posho, pushing it into their spinach and dropping it into upturned mouths. Even their fingers seemed to chack like you were walking through mud. He asked for a spoon and the spinach slid down his throat like eels slithering into the bottom of a boat. He thought talking might staunch the discomfort and the growing realization he could he was sick. Too bad, he had to know about that maize. Mary was yawning and rubbing her eyes. She said they didn’t grow the maize. They bought it in Elburgon to sell in Kisumu. Agnes was a shop assistant in Mombassa.

– It is my holidays. I have come to join my friend, isn’t it. I can make a little money for my holiday.

He washed his fingers in a bowl of scum and they went outside for tea from one of the old women.

– These ones have been waiting here for one week.

– What for?

– For the bus. These kzee, they are not strong enough to push. It is very hard these days to get the maize on the bus. We have only been to Kisumu two trips in five days.

There were fifty women at the roadside. Twenty of them were these old tea bottles, huddled under sheets on verandahs or hidden among their sacks. Half a dozen kept the fires stoked and the tea kettle hot.

Agnes said they bought the maize for 120/– a sack and sold it for 260/–, that week’s price. Over twenty buses a night passed through Elburgon from Nairobi and Mombassa. Some were half-empty and didn’t stop. Some stopped but refused to let the maize on board and drove away. The hardest thing was to get them to stop. Then you had to persuade them. You flirted, bantered and bribed. The law said you weren’t supposed to travel with more than two bags of maize without a license. But the bye-law only covered maize for personal use. This was smuggling, bypassing the Maize Marketing Board and selling direct. The driver and conductor would decide who to take and they fixed the price. The latest price was 35/– a bag. Agnes took three bags a trip. The bus fare was 35/– there and back. She could buy three more bags back in Elburgon and make a profit of 270/– each trip.

The spinach wanted out.

– Excuse me, he said and stumbled off the road to the ditch.

The bars were closing, the music had stopped. The men staggered down the road drunk and the women laughed at them.– Mzungu anatapika, an old tea bottle said as his retching cranked away. The spinach must’ve turned to glue because nothing came up but saliva.

– Are you sick? Mary said.

– Bad water, he said.

She went to the shack and came back with two aspirin. His head was starting to thump so he swallowed them. He was out of water. The second one stuck and he threw it up in his hand, thought of the headache and re-swallowed it.

– I need a bed.

– Yes. There are no baids. You can sleep on the bus.

The flickering light from fires made grotesque shadows. He closed his eyes and must’ve dozed a few minutes. His head snapped back and he wiped the long dribble with his scarf. Everything had changed. The women surged into the road as a bus turned the bend five hundred yards away and charged up the slope, blaring horns and klaxons. Everyone shouted and waved their arms. The bus accelerated and skimmed through. The lights in the bar went off. The dogs were slinking behind them. It was midnight and he started to shiver.

The fourth bus stopped. Jambo Rider, decked in Christmas tree lights. The passengers were not pleased. They shouted at the driver and conductor. The conductor was mobbed and used his bare feet to push the women back. His price was 50/– a bag and 50/– the fare. The women were angry. Then he said only two bags and there were no seats, you had to stand. The old tea bottles hadn’t bothered standing up. They weren’t strong enough to push or quick enough to shout. The conductors wouldn’t look at them. The driver pulled away without any warning.

The tea bottles couldn’t afford to go now. Agnes said if the first bus wanted 50/– pocket price, they all wanted 50/–. Another night and their sweaty maize’d go bad.

– What do you mean, bad? he said.

But five buses came blazing in, horns, klaxons, flashing lights, drivers shouting. Rasta Raider and The Eagle Has Returned said they’d take them. Three bags, the conductor said. The women started pushing each other about. He was top heavy with his rucksack on his back, lurching and spinning.

– Help us, quickly, Agnes said, but he couldn’t bend to drag the sacks because his rucksack impeded him in the crush. Everyone impeded each other and the shouting turned nasty. Two sacks were hoisted onto the roof. The driver shouted, the conductor threw the bags off and the conductor banged on the roof. Rasta Rider pulled away and the conductor scaled into the open door like a cowboy on a bullion train. The women all blamed each other. The Eagle Has Returned followed suit. Only two women got on.

Everyone turned on the tea bottles. They should sell their maize and go home. The haggling was ruthless. The old women couldn’t get more than half-price for their bags because it was bad with the buses that night. No one had much sympathy, even though these kzee kept the fires going, the tea hot, and even helped the younger women load their own sacks, without bitterness.

– Those girls who get on the bus, Agnes said. They go every day because they give the favours.

– Is it always like this?

– Every night. It is tribal.

– Why don’t you hire your own transport?

– We tried to hire transport once but there were too many arguments so now it is every woman for herself.

It was half-two in the morning when Leyland Victory 2 stopped. He was by the door. The conductor saw him first.

– Mzungu, get on.

– Nine bags. Three passengers, he said.

They bought his three bags off the tea bottles. They even helped load them, screaming and shouting, clawing at anyone pushing by him or Agnes. He beat the driver down to 40/– pocket price. The bus was still half-empty. He found a row of empty seats and made a pillow of his jumper. He was sure he’d found them, three bags of poisoned maize. Another case solved by the East African Bloodhounds Detective Agency. He spent the next hour slavering into his scarf, head kicked in by thumping, piston-like clamour of the brain.

The sun was up when they made Kisumu. You could feel the fever off the lake packed into the wide streets, slowing and slurring everyone to a shamble. The sour unbreathable smells woken by rising heat. He felt like he’d come to halfway through surgery, pulled the tubes out and found the exit. He craved water, gallons of water, but he’d managed to unlock that fear as a cast iron rule. There was a Pepsi seller standing there as he came down the bus steps, ten bottles miraculously clamped between his fingers. He could take and fold a note, lever the cap off and give change without a single awkwardness from his glass fingers.

He said he was too sick to go with Agnes and Mary to sell the maize. He had to find a bed, take the bags with him then find a working telephone and get someone to send the Police out to Elburgon before the old women poisoned the next consignment. The tea bottles were doing it to spite the young girls. Had to be.

It was too early to get a bed so he looked for a porter to carry the bags. A few lodge-keepers were standing in their doorways spitting, chewing a toothstick and flicking bogies. They couldn’t be bothered with it yet. The new stench of night soil was on the brew. A few tea kettles were coming to the boil. Agnes said the Luo were lazy and dirty. She said it with poison. But all border tribes were hated, only the Luo nurtured their difference carelessly. The men were uncircumcised. They were more intellectual than the Kenyans in power. President Moi had found it easy to blame the attempted coup on the few Luo officers in the air force. Luo railwaymen were always blamed for crashes. Spells, witchcraft. They were pale, unathletic, slow and sickly. Anyone’d be all those things if they had to live up the stagnant, malarial swamp end of Kenya wouldn’t they? This crocodile-infested shore of Lake Victoria, source of all those chic handbags made in Paris.

Agnes was running towards him, her face bent in panic.

– You must sell your maize here. You cannot tek it with you...

– Why not?

– Because ... it is for the Luo pipple.

He’d been an idiot and it’d nearly killed him.

– I’m not going to die, he said. You didn’t put enough in my posho. Come on, who are you? A Minister’s niece?

As Agnes ran across the bus park Mary stood up and took her shoes off, preparing to run herself. The sack of maize she’d been sitting on fell over. The Pepsi seller held up ten empty glass fingers which played a silent tune.