Read Online A Fool's Knot by Philip Spires - Free Book Online Page A

English and only a little Swahili, scoffed and left in a temper without waiting for Janet.
    John watched her leave, shook his head and said, “I am sorry, Miss Rowlandson, but I simply cannot do it. These are simple people …” he began, raising his arms to signify what Janet interpreted to mean all people outside the confines of his office, “and it is difficult to explain the law to them because they have no concept of how it works.”
    They are not the only ones, thought Janet, scathingly.
    â€œCome to the hearing on Friday with the boy’s mother and we will see what can be done then.” There was a finality about his tone.
    Janet got up and left the office, bidding John Mwangangi a curt goodbye and not offering a handshake. John placed the wad of papers in a file and locked it in his cabinet. As he closed the office door, pulling it hard to ensure the latch engaged, his thoughts passed from Nzawa School and came to a rueful rest on contemplating the half-hour of his lunch break he had just lost.
    After rejoining Mwanza and Munyolo’s mother outside, Janet suggested they go into town and find a teashop. She felt disinclined to talk about what had happened, regretting most of all the waste of a whole morning and the necessity to devote perhaps another whole day on Friday. The three of them took lunch together. Janet spoke very little Kikamba and so could communicate with the boy’s mother only via Mwanza, who revelled in his position as interpreter.
    â€œThe woman is saying, Miss Rowlandson, that the man is doing something very wrong because in Kikamba the names Munovo and Munyolo are the same.”
    Janet’s impatience was obvious. “He’s obviously just another of these jumped-up government employees sitting in his office and creating bureaucratic complications to help justify his position. He has to do that, otherwise he would have nothing to do!”
    For once Mwanza remained silent, Janet’s tirade being beyond his translation skills. When he did speak, Janet’s attention wavered at first, as it always did when Mwanza piped up, thinking that he might be changing the subject and starting to gossip in his usual way, but she soon began to register what he meant and was deeply shocked.
    â€œMiss Rowlandson, I would love to ride a motorcycle like Father Michael’s. I have a friend who can sell me one at a very fair price. He has bought it, but does not have enough money to buy petrol for it, so it just sits at his house not being used. He has asked me several times if I want to buy it, but I have said no, and I have said no because of one reason. I have enough money to buy the motorcycle, but I do not yet have a licence to ride it and I would not be able to afford to pay the bribe needed to get one. This man today is not making trouble because he feels that there is any difference between the names. He is using the policeman’s mistake to ask for a bribe. There is no difference between the names.”
    Janet felt suddenly enlightened, but not comforted. “If that’s true, then he might not even grant bail on Friday if I do not bribe him.”
    â€œThat is true,” Mwanza agreed. “Let me tell you the experience of a friend of mine…”
    Janet nodded from time to time but was not listening.
    The journey home to Migwani was hotter and stuffier than ever. The bus waited a full hour in Mwingi market while more than two hundred people jostled and pushed to get on. Though she had travelled on such packed buses many times, her unacknowledged desire to preserve a personal space, and her deeply felt though unconscious revulsion when it was not granted, added to produce a sum of great embarrassment and discomfort. She was lucky in that, as usual, the crowd parted at the first sight of her white face to allow her to get on first, a favour which on most occasions she refused with a sharp but polite shake of the head. But today she simply