Read Online Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Moses Isegawa - Free Book Online Page A

than bright, or out-Jesus . . . eeh . . . Mr Christ. To be sure I was never prominent in anything. In class I was average. In sports I had not the limbs — I had not the will. My ambition and vision, unlike that of Chui, never would carry me beyond what the Lord had vouchsafed to me. Ambition, the same Chui used to say, quoting from an English writer called William Shakespeare, ambition should be made of sterner stuff. He himself was made of a different stuff from most of us. He was a tall youth with prominent cheekbones, a slightly hardened face, and black hair matted but always carefully parted in the middle. He was neat with a style all his own in doing things: from quoting bits from Shakespeare to wearing clothes. Even the drab school uniform of grey trousers, a white starched shirt, a blue jacket and a tie carrying the school motto,
For God and Empire
, looked as if it was specially tailored to fit him.
    It was Chui who first introduced the tie-pin to school: it became the fashion.
    He was the first to wear sports-shorts with the bottoms turned up: it became the fashion.
    He was the star in sports, in everything: Chui this, Chui that, Chui, Chui, Chui everywhere. The breezy mountain air in which English settlers had found a home-climate had formed his sinewy muscles: to watch him play football, to watch that athletic swing of his body as he dribbled the ball with sudden swerves to the left or to the right to deceive an opponent, that was a pleasure indeed. Shake, shake, shake the ball, the looking-on crowd would shout themselves hoarse. He was a performer, playing to a delirious gallery. Shake, Shaake, Shaaake . . . spear the ball somebody added. And Shakespeare he remained until, again through him, we heard of Joe Louis and his feats in thering. He then became Joe, especially when our school was playing against some European teams. Joe, Joe, shake them, shake them: if you miss the ball, don’t miss the leg. That was his best moment. His footwork would then be perfect. I believe that in such moments he was us, playing there against the white colonists.
    Now when I come to think of it, it was strange that with all the hate we had for white people, we hardly ever thought of the Rev. Hallowes Ironmonger as a white man. Or maybe we thought of him as a different sort of white man. He was, despite his name, a gentle old man who looked more a farmer than a missionary headmaster. He was rather absent-minded and he would often forget his gold-laced black gown in the classroom or in the chapel. Walking across the grass lawns hand in hand with his bow-legged wife – we used to say that if she were to be made a goalkeeper, all the balls would go through her legs – they looked as if they were pilgrims resting on earth for a time, before resuming their journey to heaven, where they would eternally plough cotton-white fields, drink milky tea and eat vanilla cream chocolates. Rev. Ironmonger liked Chui and used to call him Shakespeare (but never Joe Louis) affectionately to the amusement of us all. They used to take him for long rides in the country in their choking Bedford. They also took him to musical concerts and puppet shows in the city. He was probably the son they had never had. We were not surprised when Chui, in his third year, was made the school captain, previously a prerogative of those in the fourth forms.
    That was just before the Ironmongers retired to their home somewhere in England to wait for death, as some students rather ungraciously remarked, and a Cambridge Fraudsham came to the scene. Before we had any time to know him, he changed our lives. Fresh from the war, he already had firm notions how an African school had to be. Now, my boys, trousers are quite out of the question in the tropics. He sketched a profile of an imaginary thick-lipped African in a grey woollen suit, a sun-helmet, a white starched stiff collar and tie, and laughed contemptuously: Don’t emulate this man. There was to be no rice