Part 19 (2/2)

The Church Army had its own plans for the coming time of changes. A few nights later, as I went to the choo, I overheard Pastor Elezeke and my father talking in the Pastor's study. I put my torch out and listened at the louvers.

”We need people like you, Jonathan,” Elezeke was saying. ”It is a work of G.o.d, I think. We have a chance to build a true Christian society.”

”You cannot be certain.”

'There are Tacticals ...”

”They are filth. They are vultures.”

”Hear me out, Jonathan. Some of them go into the Chaga. They bring things out-for all their quarantine, there are things the Americans want very much from the Chaga. It is different from what we are told is in there. Very very different. Plants that are like machines, that generate electricity, clean water, fabric, shelter, medicines. Knowledge. There are devices, the size of this thumb, that transmit information directly into the brain. And more; there are people living in there, not like primitives, not, forgive me, like refugees. It shapes itself to them, they have learned to make it work for them. There are whole towns-towns, I tell you-down there under Kilimanjaro. A great society is rising.”

”It shapes itself to them,” my father said. ”And it shapes them to itself.”

There was a pause.

”Yes. That is true. Different ways of being human.”

”I cannot help you with this, my brother.”

”Will you tell me why?”

”I will,” my father said, so softly I had to press close to the window to hear. ”Because I am afraid, Stephen. The Chaga has taken everything from me, but that is still not enough for it. It will only be satisfied when it has taken me, and changed me, and made me alien to myself.”

”Your faith, Jonathan. What about your faith?”

”It took that first of all.”

”Ah,” Pastor Elezeke sighed. Then, after a time, ”You understand you are always welcome here?”

”Yes, I do. Thank you, but I cannot help you.”

That same night I went to the white chapel-my first and last time-to force issues with G.o.d. It was a very beautiful building, with a curving inner wall that made you walk half way around the inside before you could enter. I suppose you could say it was spiritual, but the cross above the table angered me.

It was straight and true and did not care for anyone or anything. I sat glaring at it some time before I

found the courage to say, ”You say you are the answer.”

I am the answer, said the cross.

”My father is destroyed by fear. Fear of the Chaga, fear of the future, fear of death, fear of living. What is your answer?”

I am the answer.

”We are refugees, we live on wazungu's charity, my mother hoes corn, my sister roasts it at the roadside; tell me your answer.”

I am the answer.

”An alien life has taken everything we ever owned. Even now, it wants more, and nothing can stop it.

Tell me, what is your answer?”

I am the answer.

”You tell me you are the answer to every human need and question, but what does that mean? What is the answer to your answer?”

I am the answer, the silent, hanging cross said.

”That is no answer!” I screamed at the cross. ”You do not even understand the questions, how can you be the answer? What power do you have? None. You can do nothing! They need me, not you. I am going to do what you can't.”

I did not run from the chapel. You do not run from G.o.ds you no longer believe in. I walked, and took no notice of the people who stared at me.

The next morning, I went into Nairobi to get a job. To save money I went on foot. There were men everywhere, walking with friends, sitting by the roadside selling sheet metal charcoal burners or battery lamps, or making things from sc.r.a.p metal and old tires, squatting together outside their huts with their hands draped over their knees. There must have been women, but they kept themselves hidden. I did not like the way the men worked me over with their eyes.

They had shanty-town eyes, that see only what they can use hi a thing. I must have appeared too poor to rob and too hungry to s.e.xually hara.s.s, but I did not feel safe until the downtown towers rose around me and the vehicles on the streets were diesel-stained green and yellow buses and quick white UN cars.

I went first to the back door of one of the big tourist hotels.

”I can peel and clean and serve people,” I said to an un dercook in dirty wellies. ”I work hard and I am honest. My father is a pastor.”

”You and ten million others,” the cook said. ”Get out of here.”

Then I went to the CNN building. It was a big, bold idea. I slipped in behind a motorbike courier and went up to a good-looking Luo on the desk.

”I'm looking for work,” I said. ”Any work. I can do anything. I can make chai, I can photocopy, I can do basic accounts. I speak good English and a little French. I'm a fast learner.”

”No work here today,” the Luo on the desk said. ”Or any other day. Learn that, fast.”

I went to the Asian shops along Moi Avenue.

”Work?” the shopkeepers said. ”We can't even sell enough to keep ourselves, let alone some upcountry refugee.”

I went to the wholesalers on Kimathi Street and the City Market and the stall traders and I got the same answer from each of them: no economy, no market, no work. I tried the street hawkers, selling liquidated stock from tarpaulins on the pavement, but their bad mouths and lewdness sickened me. I walked the five kilometers along Uhuru Highway to the UN East Africa Headquarters on Chiromo Road. The

soldier on the gate would not even look at me. Cars and hummers he could see. His own people, he could not. After an hour I went away.

I took a wrong turn on the way back and ended up in a district I did not know, of dirty-looking two-story buildings that once held shops, now burned out or shuttered with heavy steel. Cables dipped across the street, loop upon loop upon loop sagging and heavy. I could hear voices but see no t one around. The voices came from an alley behind a row of shops. An entire district was crammed into this alley. Not even in St. John's camp have I seen so many people in one place. The alley was solid with bodies, jammed together, moving like one thing, like a rain cloud. The noise was incredible. At the end of the alley I glimpsed a big black foreign car, very s.h.i.+ny, and a man standing on the roof. He was surrounded by reaching hands, as if they were wors.h.i.+pping him.

”What's going on?” I shouted to whoever would hear. The crowd surged. I stood firm.

”Hiring,” a shaved-headed boy as thin as famine shouted back. He saw I was puzzled. ”Watekni. Day jobs in data processing. The UN treats us like s.h.i.+t in our own country, but we're good enough to do their tax returns.”

”Good money?”

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