I came to Mombasa, Kenya looking for solitude. Away from the shifts and swings of London, I could bask in a year-long sabbatical of writing and be away from the influence of a London I had spent my entire life in. Dad came to visit me while I was out there, as he had been born in Mombasa. He left in 1966, never thinking he would ever return. When we had pressed him about going back, he had evaded our persistence with the edict that ‘there were too many new places in the world to discover. What was the point of revisiting the past?’ However, when I had gone out to Kenya, he became obsessed with my weekly blog, obsessed with everywhere I was visiting, obsessed with drawing out mental maps in his mind of the new gridlines and paths of a Mombasa forty years after he had known it. Unknowingly, I was walking in his footsteps, and he was tracing over them in his mind, trying to layer them over his own footsteps, like my feet were walking pavements made of tracing paper.

He was a child of the British Empire. I could never get my head around that. It sounded so archaic and quaint. He was 13 when Kenya gained independence. He left three years later. So much had changed in the time he’d been away, and halfway through my sabbatical, he was desperate to come visit me. He booked a flight and came over to show me where he’d grown up. Here I could truly learn who my father was, and explore that missing link of my dual [no, triple?] heritage, the African part. Neither of my parents had ever lived in India, so the culture they imparted on me, was not only a time capsule, it was a time capsule of what their parents had retained about the country of our origin. How had Kenya affected that, I wondered, and with dad in the country, I could start to truly understand his origins.

In the cab to his hotel, he immediately fell into the age-old act of haggling. However, his pidgin-Swahili haggling only confused the driver more, who must have thought him extremely old-fashioned. I helped out with universal English and we were soon on our way. He was silent the entire journey. I hadn’t seen him for 6 months and I was worried we’d have nothing to say to each other. He stared out the window at his old home, and I watched him take it all in. He pointed to objects and buildings straining to recall their significance in his autobiography. He laughed to himself at years-old in-jokes. He whispered words in Swahili till he was sure they existed then shouted them out to the taxi driver, who told him what they meant. As soon as he knew their meaning, he repeated them loudly as if he was testing the driver. We got out at the hotel and he haggled the cab driver down to a below sensible price for the journey. The cab driver smiled and told him, ‘Looks like you’ve finally come home…’ He looked to me and said, ‘Your father has brought you to your real home now.’ He drove off, satisfied that we had returned.

I watched dad on the beach. I sat on the wall at the edge of the sand. He stood up to his waist in water. The tide was gushing in, slapping against the girth of his beer belly. His stoic legs rooted themselves firmly in the seabed as the water perilously crawled higher up his body. He stared out at the Indian Ocean, as if he was searching for India itself, the country he’d never known but had seeping with heritage through his veins. He couldn’t see it. He turned back to the shore, looked at Mombasa for a few moments and strolled towards me. I gave him the beer I’d ordered for him, Kenyan Tusker beer. He swigged it, looked up at the sky and winked at me in absence of anything to say.

He was annoyed that the main road running through the centre of town was no longer called Salim Road. He was annoyed no one could remember it being called Salim Road. He couldn’t get used to its new name, Digo Road. We got off the matatu there [an overcrowded minibus ferrying people for pence and personality all over the country]. He looked up at the old market place and noted it still looked like it harboured dirt and grime and disease and the best vegetables in the world. He laughed. We walked inside. Men followed him, offering nuts, chickens and avocadoes. He waved them all off. He told them he was not a tourist. He was Kenyan, like them. They laughed at him and pointed at his camera and bumbag. ‘Tourist, tourist’, they laughed and pointed. ‘Kenyan, Kenyan’, he laughed. Eventually they left this ridiculous crazy old man alone. I was bemused. I was dressed more Western than him, but was more local now than he was.

‘Here I’m not Indian’, he said to me as we walked past a temple.

‘That confuses me even more, dad. Especially when you and mum raised me to be a good little Indian boy.’

‘I’m Kenyan, my friend’ he retorted and ducked into a café that used to serve the best ugali in the country.

He was surprised to find it was still there. He ordered a beer, I ordered a tea with cold milk and we sat; I watched the cricket, he watched the street.

‘It’s so different now.’

‘Well, are you surprised, dad? It’s been forty years…’

‘So much is the same though. It’s the people, they’re different… it’s more mixed, more African, more coastal now…’

‘You lived here during the empire. A lot must have changed. 40 years of your life is a sizeable chunk. 40 years of a city’s life is not. But it’s been through major changes since independence.’

‘I never want to go back to India ever again. It’s not my home. This is.’

‘Not Middlesex?’

‘This…’

We carried on walking, stopping regularly for more Tusker breaks from the heat. He led me up the main road into town, now a bustling shopping district with department stores, markets, street vendors, taxis, matatus and the smell of commerce and rotten vegetables fetidly milking the air. Soon the road bended round and became busier, more hectic, as people trampled over each other to get on to buses, sell items to people on buses and get off buses. In the eye of the chaos sat a homeless man, his hair thickly matted into one high-reaching dreadlock, green with paint, dirt and grime. He propped himself up against a green wall advertising a mobile phone package. He had become the wall. He wore green clothes to camouflage himself. He looked at the ground, tired of the noise around him.

Dad led me through the throng, finding a natural ebb and flow to the dancing of the bodies around us. On the other side of this balletic thrust of people, he stopped and looked up at a newly painted peach terrace above us.

‘I was born in that flat.’

I looked at him and at the flat and I ran up to its front door. Dad hesitated, mumbled something about imposing and followed me anyway, having said the sensible fatherly thing but actually not caring that much about disturbing a household. I banged on the door.

Stairs clomped behind it. The door opened. A middle-aged man peered out at me squinting at the sunshine glinting off cars behind us, possibly casting us in a ring of celestial beauty.

‘Hi! My dad [point at dad] used to live here 40 years ago and he hasn’t been back to the country since. Can he come and see the flat, for old time’s sake?’

The man ushered us in and slowly clomped back up the steps. We followed, shrugging in surprise. He was incredibly trusting of these two strange men with bumbags. We clomped up the wooden stairs and entered an open air foyer with access to all the flats. Kids gathered at windows to watch the strangers with cameras and bumbags. I snapped. Dad looked around reliving fragments of his past, watching himself crawling, falling, playing, eating, existing all around us like ghosts. He took mental postcards of multiple moments from his short life here, turned to the man who lived here now, thanked him and left. That was all he needed.

Outside, he looked back up and then at me and told me I was cheeky for press-ganging our way in there. Across the street was the shop my grandfather used to own, selling cheap rations. For years I thought it had been called ‘Chip Ration Store’ and imagined it looking like some bizarre African slice of Americana. ‘Cheap Ration Store’, however, stood tall, and still. It looked exactly the same as 40 years ago. It sold the same products. You could see the old signage under the peeling paint of the new sign proudly inviting you to shop at ‘Citizenship Bookshop.’ Inside, the owner watched us looking about and photographing the shop, bemused. He eventually asked if we needed any help. Dad recounted his prodigal son story with the same enthusiasm he had thus far delivered it to everyone. The owner asked his name. He mumbled it a few times, turning it over in his brain till he said he had bought this shop from my grandfather. He knew my grandfather. He had bought the shop 40 odd years ago and was still running it, exactly the same shop as during my grandfather’s days as a working man.

He showed us around the shop and sent his grandson upstairs to fetch his wife. She came downstairs, a plump old lady, hobbling and hurrying to greet the foreigners with bumbags. She and the husband conversed in Urdu and she disappeared, returning with a tray of sweets and tea. Dad accepted the tea and I told him to sip it sparingly as the sweet masala chai oozed with the glucose pheromones that might trouble a diabetic such as papa. We drank the tea and dad made tiny talk about what the family had done since the move. The shopkeeper remarked that we could see what he had been doing in the last 40 years. He gestured to the shop around us. He worked here everyday and he lived upstairs and he rarely escaped. He had never left Mombasa. The shop was exactly the same, dad remarked and it confounded me that this shrine to my family should still exist intact, ignoring the progress and evolution other shops around it had experienced.

We left an hour later after fifteen minutes of no tiny talk. I murmured something sarcastic about the weird situation we’d been in and dad gave me a look as if to say, don’t ruin this, sonnyjim.

After lunch, we found ourselves sat on the steps of a big Swami Narayan temple behind dad’s Salim Road and my Digo Road. The welcome shade meant a shady draft was blowing over the sweat patches in our every crevice, sending much-needed shivers over our overheated bodies. I sipped water and dad longed for more Tusker. I remarked that his constant craving of beer made him sound like a Brit Abroad. He told me about the temple:

‘Your grandfather moved to Mombasa when I was 2. He hated Nairobi, it was too cold for him and he wanted the easier life on the coast. So he came here. He took no money from his brothers, left your grandma and me with them and came here to make his fortune. He had no luck for 6 months and was running out of money and was ready to pack it in and go back to Nairobi. He was sat on these steps here, about to go in and pray, and a man walked up to him and asked why he was troubled. They talked, the man admired his spirit and lent him money to buy Cheap Ration Store. You see? I always tell you, what is your objective, how will you achieve that objective. He did that.’

‘But all he did was borrow from a money lender.’

‘You’re too cynical for this place, my son. You truly are from London.’

We sat there. Dad reflected. I was embarrassed. I was ruining his trip with my sardonic sense of humour. It was ruining the atmosphere and we had already bonded more in an afternoon than we had ever done in a lifetime. I kept quiet and let him talk.

‘Your grandfather asked me to come here and give a tribute to this temple. It saved our family. We would not have ended up where we were… see how life unravels in tiny tapestries, each thread takes you on a new journey.’

I loved my dad’s poetical mixed metaphors. It had been years since he’d said one. London life had beaten language out of him. Here, in the lazy wink of Mombasa, with the sun parading above, the cacophony of memories celebrating below, he was rediscovering a zest for life. He was definitely becoming more sentimental in his old age, this stoic man of my childhood, obsessed with objectives and targets, business and commerce. He had this big stupid grin on him as he walked into the serene holy grounds of the temple. We walked around the main worshipping stage. He pointed at things that had arrived in his absence and told me what had existed before.

Nostalgia turned to thirst and he instructed me to find this bar he used to dream about one day going to in his teens, cos all the sailors went there and it was a legendary hotspot. I found the place on the map, not thinking to read the blurb about it in my travel guide nor heed previous advice given during my early days. We arrived at a thatched open-plan bar that advertised snooker, beer and dancing. We sat near the door and ordered Tusker. We had loads to talk about, finally feeling like we were connecting as father and son. It had been quite the journey for ol’ dad to bring me here. I understood him more. It made sense to me that there was this African element to him that didn’t quite synchronise with the Indianness I had been taught was my heritage my entire life. I was now knowingly walking in his footsteps.

At this point, it would have been wise for us both to notice the line of girls at the bar staring expectantly as us, and only us, the only ‘patrons’ in the bar. Alas, a few moments of nostalgia delayed our realisation till the beers arrived and then it was too late.

She sat down next to me, plonking down a drink that splashed cold sticky motor oil alcohol over my fingers. She looked into our discarded half-eaten plates of food. She had huge eyes that darted from corner to corner, unable to focus. We had watched them all watching us from the bar, waiting for us to make a move.

The friskiest, least subtle of the lot, had sat down on a stool, placed her high heeled legs on the bar and waved her privates at us, winking and laughing seductively, while we strained to look like we weren’t looking. Now, their ringleader had joined us.

She started crying.

Dad asked what was wrong. She told us about her life and about how the tourist trade kept alive the single women of this city. But she, she was too old and ugly now, she said, so acted as a friend to these girls, introducing them to tourists like us. Gone was dad’s pathos as soon as he heard the word ‘tourist’.

‘Excuse me… but we’re not tourists… I’m Kenyan.’

She looked at us. I was sat in a trendy Spider-man t-shirt. Dad had on a baseball cap and sunglasses even though it was overcast. He also wore the most ill-advised bumbag in the world. She laughed, and for a second, she was humanised for us, someone still capable of finding humour and laughter in the unlikeliest of dark places.

‘You sure, bwana?’ she asked, patronisingly called him the Swahili for ‘mister’ or ‘mate’ as a test.

‘I have just returned for the first time in 40 years. My son lives here now, and I wanted to show him how he is Kenyan like me.’

‘But you are Indian, yes?’

‘No. My mother and father are Indian. My son is British. I am Kenyan.’

She mulled this over for a few seconds and smiled and nodded. She stayed silent for a while. Dad and I continued our interrupted conversation where I was complaining about something trivial about my sister. The woman bowed her head silently, halfway between listening to us and falling asleep. She lifted a hand up to her glass and swilled it. Her hands were scarred, dry, peeled and burned. She wore her autobiography in her fingers. Whereas mine have adapted for guitars and keyboards and comic books, hers had adapted to a life at this bar, introducing ‘tourists’ to her ‘friends.’

She looked up when we reached a cadence in our conversation and said, ‘So you’re Kenyan yes? You like Kenyan girls? Most beautiful in the world…’

She pointed to the bar where they were displayed for us, like breathing over-sexed mannequins, hoping to be picked. They cared not that the potential punters were a 57 year old fat man and his young son. They wanted business. It was a slow humid day. Dad made the mistake of agreeing with the woman, that they were indeed beautiful. She told him he could have any one he wanted. He laughed and shook his head. He told her he was married. She laughed as if that was the flimsiest excuse in the world. I interrupted and started conversing with dad about something or other, not letting the conversation lull for even a pregnant second. The woman eventually got bored and left, not before downing her drink, pulling out the ice cubes on to the table and leaving them to melt on the table near my fingers.

‘You’re not Kenyan,’ she snarled as her parting remark. ‘You’re not even Indian. You have no home.’

Dad passed this off as the drunk rambling of a strange pimp, but I was mortally offended for him. To be called rootless when he had imparted the strength of three continents in me was a huge insult to the legacy of their cultures combined in his muscle memory. We sat in silence, listening to the echoes of ridicule hurled our way by the display board of women at the bar. Eventually, the one waving her privates at us, placed her heels over the floor, shimmied herself off her high stool and walked over to us smiling.

‘So, big daddy, we going to sleep together or what?’

‘………’

‘Go on baby, my sexy big daddy. Come with me.’

‘No thank you.’

‘Why not? Am I not pretty?’

‘Hey, we’re fine thank you…’

‘I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to big daddy.’

‘Yes you’re pretty. But we have to be somewhere in half an hour.’

‘Baby, big daddy, ten minutes is all you need with me…’

‘………….’

I ushered dad out of the bar and we thanked everyone for providing us with such seedy lunchtime entertainment and we walked back towards the main road.

‘So, all the sailors went there, did they?’ I asked and dad laughed in embarrassment, apologising for taking me there. I told him it was fine, not to worry. He said he was tired and asked if we could go back to his hotel.

I hailed a taxi and we climbed in and dad finally had his pregnant pause for the afternoon as he looked back on the streets he was born and raised in, watching ghosts of his younger selves and my present selves trace footsteps all over the streets of his past. Time had passed and things had changed. But it certainly looked a lot like home.

Nikesh Shukla is a writer, and rapper caught between the cityscapes of Bombay and the land of London. His writing has been featured on BBC2, Radio 1 and 4, Resonance fm, and he has performed at the Soho Theatre and Glastonbury in his quest to destroy the perfect metaphor. He recently completed his first collection of short stories, ‘I’ve Forgotten My Mantra’.

We played He-Man and Hopscotch

one tomboy

one ballerina

both grass knee stained

and Marmite mouthed

by the end of the day

at Christine’s house

always so well behaved!

exclaimed mothers of others

as their offspring screamed

and smacked each other

we stood soberly by

hand in hand

silent agreement

never to make mum

deserve the stares

as they looked at

her hair and our hair

her eyes and our eyes

the bold ones

with questions of adoption

the others whispering

black men

loose morals

and African goldmines

we walked home in the rain

sometimes

and never complained

that mum didn’t drive

because she was always

the last to leave

and first to arrive

Some said she was mad

when she sold all her records

and everything she had

everything

except her wedding ring

to go to Nigeria

and live with dad

we went of course

bright eyed

and bushy afroed

yanked tight

into cainrows

when we skipped

off the plane

by aunty that mum said

still uses bleaching cream

and screams at her children

for just being

children

At school

we learnt algebra

a new history

and not to cry at the cane

skipping rope games

with Femi, Hope and Blessing

that we were white

(Oyinbo)

which was strange

since we were

half-caste

in the past

not all that much changed

because

children are adaptable

as mum said

to grandma

when

she cried

on the phone

and sent us

toiletries and other things

she thought

we couldn’t buy in Africa

Mum bought batik table cloths

and ethnic bowls

for friends that had moved

when she came home

and when she came home

things weren’t the same

so she didn’t

contact them anyway

she never unpacked

and all of those things

are still in a suitcase

mouldy like memories

of strange disease

TB, leprosy and

children with pot bellies,

of corruption

armed robbers

and police brutality

of dad away

on business

for weeks

it all seems so long ago

because children tend

to forget these things

As you grew lanky

and I got acne

we grew apart

somehow

sibling rivalry

replaced childhood sweetness

cruel words stuck and stayed

arguments

not so easily forgotten

with a mud pie

to the face

or the distraction

of a dragonfly

now we were teenage

things started to change

back in England

you covered for me

as I discovered boys

and climbed out of windows

your boyfriend was sensible

mine always

a bit too old

mum didn’t know

divorced now

and drinking heavily

she blamed dad for everything

dragging her to Nigeria

she drank to forget

the things we had seen

When you moved

away to London

I realised how close

we had been

you became my hero

as you lived out

ballerina dreams

I came to visit often

with the money

that you sent

we went to shows

ate Thai food

and laughed the same

as siblings do

summer times were

picnics on Primrose Hill

we played

different games now

and walked home

hand in hand

as the sun went down

both grass knee stained

now red wine mouthed

by the end of the day

at your new house.

Katy Ideh is an entertainment critic.  She writes live music reviews for spoonfed.co.uk and putmeonit.com and has returned this year from a trip to South America where her work was published in Vos Magazine (Buenos Aires).  She lives in London and is currently working on her first novel which is set in London and Nigeria.

I was seven years old. I was outside Mama’s hut with the clothes that I had carried up from the stream. Piles of clothes, which I had wrapped in such a tight bundle it was hard like one of the footballs you used to make.

I took them from my head and began to unfold them, ready to lie in the hot African sun to dry.
Mama called from inside.
“Leave the clothes, I’ll do them. Go to the shop to buy some oil.”
I went inside her hut and she was bent over a cooking pot, scrubbing it clean. The folds of her kanga were draped like curtains over her round bottom. She craned her neck to look at me, and extended a soapy hand. I took the empty bottle and the grubby money.
“That’s enough for the oil. Now hurry,” she said.
Mama’s frown made me restless. An unsettling feeling in my stomach, as though nothing would ever be right. I didn’t know why she wasn’t happy. I assumed I must be lazy, too slow. I ran to the store, clenching the note in my fist. The stones hurt my feet, but I ignored them. To wear my sandals that were too big and with a broken strap would have delayed me. The sun was hot on my head and there was no breeze. I felt the sweat on my back, running down my breastless chest.

At the store, I waited in line, then I handed in my plastic bottle to be filled. It came back to me, grease slopping around the rim and down the sides, and I twisted the cap and held it with both hands as I walked away. I felt grown-up, making stately, exaggerated steps over the uneven ground. I kept my face solemn, not responding to the shouts of the other children around me.

I was almost back at the hut when I stumbled. It was a loose stone on the path, which caught my big toe. I went over in an arc, my nose over my knees. Before I knew it, the can was on the ground, the cap was off, and there was the glug glug of oil on the red earth forming a dark trickling stream like urine. I picked up the can, but it was already empty. The oil was gone. The tears stung in my eyes and I lifted my hand to my forehead. It could just have well have been liquid gold running away from me. I feared Mama’s reaction; I feared her scolding look, and my guilt; the hardship we’d all have to go through now. But I wasn’t prepared for the worst.
“Without mafuta, I can’t cook,” Mama said.
I hung my head and mumbled an apology.
Mama’s face looked tired as well as angry. It was a quiet rage, with few words that were cold in my heart.
“You must do what you need to do to get the money,” she said.

Now, Majuto, I don’t remember what I felt, as I went to the bar in the late afternoon after my chores, and talked to Mama Barbara, who wore the purple kanga and smelled of peanuts, who found the man with the fat belly and the wonky smile and rancid breath. I don’t remember if my feelings were muted by the sense of duty, or if I was terrified; if my limbs and lips shook and the hairs stood upward and stiff on my arms, as I watched the sun go down behind the hill and the dark night hit me, sharp.

What I do remember is the cold of the stone wall on my back, as the man with the belly pushed himself into me, heaving and puffing, his sweaty chunky hands clutching my frail child’s shoulders. And I remember that I had to ask him, afterwards, in a tiny voice, for the money, after he rammed my shoulders down and peeled his flesh away, tutting, saying that he’d expected better with a virgin.
I never had to do it again, because I won a rare grant to go to school, but some of my friends weren’t so lucky. They had to do what I did, not once, but many times. They had to be shoved against grimy walls or on bug-ridden mattresses; touched by clumsy, rough fingers, so that they could sit in lessons and learn how to think and reason, and turn knowledge into women’s wisdom. We all knew about our suffering, but our education let us talk about it. This is what the last generation never had. This is what Mama never had. But you, Majuto, you would have had this opportunity. You could have been a man who was kind; who respected women and didn’t beat his wife or exploit young girls for sex. The world needs people like you for it to change.

But you’re gone, Majuto; my brother is gone. A nine year-old boy vanished and never came back. When you disappeared, Mama cried for three days. Her hair was unbrushed and her face swollen, and she stayed inside her hut. The men were out for a day and a night, searching along the stream where the children had seen you last. They came back, heavy hands stiff by their sides and fists clenched. For two days, everyone talked in hush hush whispers around the huts, so as not to upset Mama more. I was the only one who went into her hut to take her beans and rice, which she chewed over for many hours; or sweet tea, which she gulped like a thirsty camel in the desert.

After Mama’s mourning was done, the switch in her behaviour was sudden, like the change in the weather from the dry to the rain. She put on her best clothes and sat outside on a bench, greeting all who came by and letting the wind freshen her skin.

We never forgot you, but there were chores to do, animals to tend and babies to feed. We have to move on, Majuto, we all have to move on.

In the long grass, Isack held his breath.

The men wore green and brown to camouflage themselves. They moved slowly around the tree and the cable trap, shifting the blades of grass to the side and checking for snakes on the ground. A bite from a black mamba would kill a man in half an hour.

Bado, the man at the front, signalled for them to stop moving.

Isack crouched. Blood was throbbing in his ears. Never had he heard such perfect silence as out here on the flat plain. The air was solid and still. The sky was still hazy and pink with dawn. The sun was squashed against the horizon, which shimmered like glass. There was a smell of something baked. Baked earth. Baked animal.

A rustling sound. Isack’s stomach tightened. Bado turned around to face the men with his finger to his lips, and the noise became louder.

Then an almighty roar. Isack looked up quickly, through the grass. An elephant in the trap, its tough grey skin bulging at the neck where the cable had tightened. The ivory tusks gleamed, pearly-white. Those tusks would buy treatment for malaria for a long time. For Isack’s daughter. His hands gripped the axe, hard. The axe to hack off the tusks.

“We got him. Elephant! Tembo!” Bado said.

Isack was frozen, staring at the bellowing giant struggling in its noose. It was stately, rolling from side to side, swishing against the long grass.

No one spoke. Isack’s heart was pounding and beads of sweat were dripping down his forehead. His hands seemed rooted to his side. One hand held the axe steady, horizontal, on the ground. Ready.

Yet no one moved. Why hadn’t they pulled their triggers? Why hadn’t Bado given the command? The men were as silent and transfixed as Isack, cemented like statues in a circle around the frail animal.

The elephant thrashed its trunk.

There was a click. Bado flicked his safety catch. The other men did the same. Click click click, in sequence, like a percussion band.

Thrash, thrash, thrash. The elephant was moving its trunk high in the air, its head in a figure of eight. It was moving its legs, bold steps. Moving away from them. Tembo had escaped. Trundling fast, clumsy, maimed, into the bush. The cable hung from the tree, swinging like a dead man’s noose.

“He got away. Ka!” said Bado.

There was a silence. Not even the slightest breeze.

One of the other men spoke. A bold voice, chiming, echoless.

“I can get him.”

“No Lumbwi,” said Bado.

“Why not?” said Lumbwi.

Isack shifted in the grass. His feet were tingling from hovering on them.

“Because,” said Bado, “You won’t get him while he’s moving. You have to wait until there’s one in the trap again.”

Isack looked up at an eagle soaring in the sky.

“I’m going to go after him,” said Lumbwi.

Isack’s insides were churning. He pressed the axe, the only axe, firm against the earth.

“If I kill him,” Lumbwi said, his tone raising a notch. “I’m gonna keep those tusks.”

“Perhaps you’d better ask Isack if you can borrow his axe then?” said Bado.

All eyes turned on Isack. Isack’s hands trembled as he stared first at Lumbwi, then at Bado.

Lumbwi lifted a hand slowly and held it out to Isack. He was in reaching distance of the axe.

Isack tried to read Bado’s expression. It was a cold, stern look, which didn’t give much away. But Isack knew. Bado was testing Isack. Testing his loyalty.

Lumbwi’s hand was still extended. Isack looked back at Lumbwi, but kept his arms by his sides. The sweat was raining from his brow but he resisted the urge to wipe it dry. The sun was in his eyes but he tried not to squint.

“Isack,” said Lumbwi. “Give me your axe.”

Lumbwi raised his gun and pointed it right at Isack’s head.

Over the top of the long grass, Isack saw some elephants in the distance, blurred because of the hot air. Could he hear them too? – a faint trumpeting sound, majestic beasts trampling their territory.

But that was far away. Here, under the tree, there was a gun barrel in his face.

“I will count to three,” said Lumbwi. “One…two…thr…”

A gun shot shattered Isack’s eardrum and shook his body. He closed his eyes and waited, numb, for death. But when he opened them, he was still crouching in the grass and there was a flock of birds, squawking and flapping across the sky.

It was Lumbwi collapsed on the ground. His position was grotesque; his limbs were spread and bent.

There was a black gash on his head, oozing thick red blood.

Bado stood up in the grass like a young giraffe getting up for the first time. He looked around at the men.

“No more trouble, alright?” he said. “Now, we’re going to say he was killed by an elephant, OK?”

Isack understood. In this country, if the police found out you had killed, they would kill. You kill, you get killed.

Still holding his weapon, Bado walked over to the dead man. He picked up Lumbwi’s gun, which was lying on the ground, detached from his grasp when he fell into the soil.

He lifted the guns high in the air and then he hit the body. One side then the other. Hard blows which pelted the body to a pulpy mess. A flat, stamped-on body, moist and weeping.

When he had finished, Bado wiped his forehead with his wrist and spat into the grass.

“Let’s get out of here, man.”

The men stood up, and Bado started to run. The men followed him, panting like big cats. Isack picked up the axe and followed them. He was clumsy and his legs felt heavy; he didn’t even bother checking for snakes. Now it was hotter than ever and the air was close around him like a cumbersome cloak.

And the men ran. They would be back at the village by the time the sun was halfway up in the sky.

I know a place in Africa

Where I can feel the sun on my back

And the sand between my barefoot toes

Where I can hear the gulls on the breeze

And the waves crash on the endless shore

I know a place in Africa

Where the mountains touch the skies of blue

And the valleys shelter vines of green

Where the trees spread out a cloth of mauve

And the bushveld wears a coat of beige

I know a place in Africa

Where I can hear the voice of thunder gods

And watch their lightening spears thrown to earth

Where I can breathe the scent of rain clouds

And taste the sweet dew of dusty drops

This is the place of wildness

Of evolution and dinosaurs

Where life began and mankind first stood

Of living fossils and elephants

Where lions roar and springbok herds leap

This is the place of struggle

Of desert plains and thorn trees

Where pathways end and hunters track game

Of horizons and frontiers

Where journeys start and sunsets bleed red

This is the place of freedom

Of exploration and pioneers

Where darkness loomed and light saw us through

Of living legends and miracles

Where daybreak came and hope now shines bright

My heart is at home in Africa

Where the sound of drums beat in my chest

And the songs of time ring in my ears

Where the rainbow mist glows in my eyes

And the smiles of friends make me welcome

My mind is at ease in Africa

Where the people still live close to the soil

And the seasons mark my changing moods

Where the markets hustle with trading

And Creation keeps its own slow time

My soul is at peace in Africa

For her streams bring lifeblood to my veins

And her winds bring healing to my dreams

For when the tale of this land is told

Her destiny and mine are as one

Wayne Visser is the author of ‘I Am An African: A Selection of Africa Poems’. He is Senior Associate and Internal Examiner at the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership, where he previously held positions as Research Director and External Examiner. He currently lives in London. www.waynevisser.com

My walls grow fur, plush velveteen.

Come, brush your palms down my lush passageway.

The fridge hums greenly. Om. A mossy stone.

No chrome, no gloss. Soft emerald coat,

inside, a crystal frost. Such sprouting surfaces.

Footsteps are muffled here. Take off your shoes.

Walk softly. Let the nap and pile of unswept floors

caress your feet.

It’s only human, dust. A drift of it, snow settling, pollenfall.

My razorblade blunts quietly, rust blossoms on its edge.

My armpits lose their line, grow dark and tender foliage.

The body’s smoothness shadowed, all angles made diffuse.

I am a slow, warm creature in a secret house.

The white facade blinks at the sun.

My forests sway.

Come in, there is no spirit level here.

Isobel Dixon grew up in South Africa, where her prize-winning debut Weather Eye was published. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The Guardian, The Manhattan Review and Southwest Review, among others. Her work is included in several anthologies, including The Forward Book of Poetry 2009.  Her latest collection A Fold in the Map is published by Salt. www.isobeldixon.com

“Let’s go to the market before going back,” smiled Janet, setting her cup on the saucer with a clatter. It meant she was done and ready to leave – now. She glanced at David’s half-finished tea and a flicker of impatience passed her eyes. She sat there, rigid, and stared at his glass until he was forced to gulp down the contents. At once, the smile returned to her face and she walked out of the café into the sunshine.

David sighed and tried to shade his eyes from the fierce sunlight. The heat was making his head swim. Rivulets of sweat coursed down his back and tickled him. This holiday was bearing down hard on him. Didn’t Janet realise they were not young anymore? He followed his wife out of the café and reminded her of the evening cruise down the Nile.

“Just a quick wander, and then we’ll rest”, she promised him and held his hand tight.

They weaved in and out of the shops and stalls in the marketplace. The shops sold everything: from ancient papyrus scrolls to alarm clocks that belted out Elvis Presley hits. Janet came across a perfumery that sold most of the well known brands, locally made, of course. Janet sniffed and declared loudly that she only used the real stuff. David averted his eyes from the shopkeeper who looked rather insulted. Working in the perfume counter at Boots gave her a substantial discount. David swallowed a smile. She would buy her own Christmas gifts with her discount card, gift wrap them and then he would ‘gift’ them to her. No, she didn’t mind this strange system. She was very practical minded for that.

David was rather proud that his wife was not the sort who craved after shopping and presents, like her sister. Always into bargains and sales and then into debt. No, his Janet was far too intelligent for that. She spent her money on cultural and educational things, like learning the Indian head massage, or this Egyptology course she was enrolled in back in Cardiff.

“Look,” said Janet, pointing to a tiny shop under a bougainvillea thicket. “It’s an antique shop. Let’s go in and explore.” She strode in, pulling David by his coat sleeve. He sighed. He really wanted to go back to the hotel and have a cool shower.

“Let’s be quick. We need to be fresh for the evening,” he reminded her again. But she was already lost inside the cavern like shop. It was dark and cluttered. Damp and mothy, David thought and smiled. He used to say that as a child, whenever he visited his grandmother’s place. There was a tiny window at the other end of the room and the sun streamed in from there. Dust motes danced and spiraled in their spot lit space. There were the usual papyrus paintings and jewelry. There were terracotta pottery and bronze statues of Egyptian Gods and pharaohs. The walls were covered in animal skins and there was even a perfect head of a stag.

Janet gasped and walked around the shop. She studied some of the hieroglyphics on the paintings and could decipher a couple of words. Her eyes shone with excitement. She held one painting up and told David what it symbolised. The shopkeeper nodded in appreciation and David beamed with pride.

“You are very clever, madam,” said the shopkeeper, his voice a deep baritone.

Janet tittered and fluttered her eyelashes.

“You are a very lucky man, sir,” he bowed and smiled at David. He caressed his hands and played with a huge ruby ring on his little finger. The stone winked at them when it caught the sunlight.

“Oh, she is a clever old thing, my wife is,” said David, taking her hand. “But she’s very modest. Won’t let you on to it, will you, love?”

The shop keeper cleared his throat politely and bowed to them again. He was a large man and he towered over them.

“Have a look around, my friends. Everything here is a hundred percent genuine.”

“Ta,” said Janet. “We’ll be here for a while.”

They wandered around, until Janet came to a glass cabinet opposite the window. She gasped as she looked inside. “Oh look, darlin’” she called out. This is absolutely amazing.”

David came around, and he too stepped back in amazement. On the shelves sat a dozen glass blown animals. They were small, about the length a finger, but they were exquisitely made. Each little animal seemed to be frozen in action. The artisan had captured the very essence of their being.

Janet pointed at the leopard. A golden sheen came through its translucent body. She could feel the fluidity of its movement. It was in a stalking position. The eyes mere slits, its gaze fixed upon the prey. The mouth was open just enough for a low growl. The tension in the limbs was apparent. It was ready to spring at the animal that stood sharing the same space. A deer. Long limbed and graceful. Innocently grazing, unaware of its doomed future. A llama looked on at the scene. Its wise eyes were sad. It knew what was to become of the deer. On another shelf there were a few zebras and wildebeests. They mingled together, but one kept a wary eye towards the lion, which lay languidly on his side. He had just had a big meal. You could tell that by the look of content in his eyes. There were some exotic parakeets, and a pair of sarus cranes engaged in a courtship dance. Their necks were entwined and their eyes half-closed in ecstatic rapture.

“These are beautiful,” Janet whispered. “But what an extraordinary mix of animals. They’re not all from Egypt, well, not even from Africa.”

“Indeed, they are not,” the shopkeeper intervened. “These are a very special collection. They are known as the beasts of Eden.”

“Oh, why’s that?” Janet asked, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the animals.

“Well, the story goes like this. About a hundred years ago, there was a woman whose husband was a sea-captain and she was very lonely. You see, he was sailing most of the time and she had no company to keep. So the husband, every time he came back from a voyage, he would present her with an exotic animal that she could keep in a cage to amuse herself with. Her collection grew and her menagerie became quite famous. But unfortunately these animals could not survive in this hot climate and they began to die. The woman became hysterical. She could not part with her animals. So to calm her, the husband brought a famed glass blower all the way from Italy to recreate them in glass. And here you can see his masterpieces. They only need a breath of life to awaken them.”

“What a story. What a history,” whispered Janet. “But then why would the family that owned them, give them away for sale? I’d never be able to part with them if they were mine.”

“True, true,” the shopkeeper agreed. “But then, you see, the lady was so possessed by her glass mementoes that she laid a curse on them before she died. She said that one must always look after them and cherish them as if they are alive, or else the family that owns them will have bad luck. But if they look after them, there will only be good fortune for the family.”

David rolled his eyes. Of course, one had to go along with the whole mumbo jumbo to keep the interest going. The shopkeeper sensed David’s scepticism and turned to face him.

“It’s true, sir. These animals were owned by 7 generations. They were all extremely lucky. Except the last two. They neglected their duties and great misfortune befell them. So much that the last family is now on the streets. They sold these animals to me and that is the only bit of money they have left for themselves to survive.”

“Oh,” Janet’s eyes widened. “What special looking after do they need?”

“Well, I am told to advise the buyer that they must buy it only if they respect these animals. They have a heart inside them. They must be fed and cleaned and revered everyday. You must offer them milk and honey twice a day, and keep them in a special place in the house. Facing the East, so that the first ray of sunshine falls on them at the break of day.”

“How much does this leopard cost?” Janet asked.

“Oh madam,” the shopkeeper shook his head apologetically. “They cannot be sold separately. They must be placed in this exact same order on the shelves. One cannot disturb their auras.”

“Ok, so how much?” she asked impatiently.

“One thousand US dollars.”

“Well, I never…” David started, shaking his head violently. “This is rubbish, this is a set up, Janet. Don’t get into this.”

The shopkeeper looked at his feet and kept quiet.

“Four hundred,” said Janet quietly.

“Jeez. Love, we cannot afford this.”

Janet brushed David’s arm away. She stared fixedly at the shopkeeper, her lips a thin line.

“Eight hundred, madam, no more. I’m sorry.”

“Four-fifty. It’ll be one burden off your shoulders.” Janet pressed on. “Also, I can look after them very well. I study Egyptology and I know how to honour the culture and traditions.”

“Where are we going to keep them?” David whispered urgently. “They need a special place.”

“Why,” she said sharply. “The nursery. We don’t have any use for that, do we?”

She always does this, thought David wearily. He shuffled on his feet and then reached for his wallet.

“Five hundred, and no more,” he said firmly to the shopkeeper and handed him his Mastercard.

“Oh, darling,” Janet hugged him and kissed his damp shirt collar.

The shopkeeper smiled. “The beasts are known to find the right master for them.”

Changes had to be made to their terraced house on Inverness Street. The ‘nursery’ that had waited with baited breath for its tiny occupant was quickly revamped into a sacred space. The Winnie the Pooh wallpaper was stripped off and a glass showcase bought from Ikea was installed by the eastern window. Janet started buying incense sticks from the Asian shop and organic whole milk from Sainsbury’s to offer to the animals. The beasts themselves seemed quite at home and they went around their business looking fierce and exquisite to all who came to visit. They were a big hit with the Egyptology class. They even had a session at home where Janet delivered a lecture on the history of the glass animals and the impact of Italian art in Egypt.

David never entered the room. Every time he passed it, he was reminded of all the money he had spent, wasted, on the animals and their upkeep. He let Janet meditate in that room for hours and clean them meticulously and feed them and hoover and change the flowers every day. It gave him the opportunity to watch TV undisturbed, and he was not complaining. She had given up watching Eastenders. It clashed with their evening tea, she told him. Amazing.

Then one day Janet was pregnant. At last, by God’s grace, wept David in sheer delight. Or maybe even relief. She hugged him and whispered that it was by the grace of the magical beasts of Eden that it happened, for sure.

David looked at her and laughed. “C’mon love, give me some credit. It wasn’t the leopard, for sure.”

Janet rebuked him, telling him not to make fun of the beasts. They were here for a reason. She believed in them and it paid off. Her prayers had been answered.

“You have to accept them into your life, David. They have blessed you with this baby. David, after seven futile years, a result finally. Can you not believe in it?”

David remained silent. It was better not to upset her now. But he would have to stop this nonsense from getting into her head. She would have to concentrate on his baby rather than all the mumbo jumbo she was involved in.

The pregnancy wore on. But at forty, it was difficult to get by each day without feeling her age. It became more and more difficult for Janet to carry on with the daily routine. Morning sickness and then an aversion to any strong smells prevented her from lighting the incense sticks again. What a mercy, thought David, not knowing that Janet knelt for hours, begging for mercy from the beasts for this neglect. Then her blood pressure shot up and she had to be hospitalised.

The doctors advised her to stay in hospital for further observation. Janet was distraught. The beasts could not go hungry. No, it was vital for them to be looked after, for the safety of the baby. She pleaded with David to return home and feed them for her sake. For the baby’s sake. For God’s sake, go.

Reluctantly, David left her side. He wandered absently around the home. Now I have to feed some glass menagerie, he muttered. He could just lie. He peered into the beasts’ chamber. The streetlights flooded into the room and the beasts glowed. The ruby-red eyes of the leopard glared straight at him, its mouth open in a snarl. David hesitated by the door. Ridiculous, he thought. They’re bloody inanimate, expensive glass objects that got here wrapped up in my underwear. Why should I care about them? But he couldn’t get away from the door. The eyes were on him. Hungry eyes.

Maybe just this once. For Janet’s sake. He shuffled towards the kitchen, the crystal bowls in his hands. He shoved each bowl of milk in front of the animals and scowled. Those creatures looked so life-like he felt a chill go down his back. They looked ready to pounce on their meal.

David shrugged and took the leopard in his hands. He studied the glass animal, turning it around, and felt the smooth cold body with his fingers. Damned good craftsman, he thought. Who can say it is a hundred years old? I don’t believe one word that shopkeeper said. We were suckered, all right. Just then, his mobile rang. David jumped and the animal fell from his grasp. It tinkled onto the floor and broke into two. David cursed and answered the phone It was the hospital. Janet was in a bad way. They feared she was going to have a miscarriage.

“I’ll be there”, he shouted into the phone and jumped up. Was he responsible? He had destroyed the leopard. Did it take its revenge in this way? He stopped. It was true then. These creatures did have a power. Look how quick it was to react. David knew how he could save the baby. Or even Janet. It was the only way.

He pounded up the stairs towards the beasts’ chamber and gathered the pieces from the floor. The leopard seemed to jeer at him. The other animals looked at him piteously. He was doomed, they seemed to say.

No, no, David shouted at them. I can fix it. I can. Please, oh God, please, don’t do this to us. We will look after you forever. His hands trembled as he searched for glue. He laid the broken leopard on the table and knelt before it in reverence.

I didn’t believe in your power, he whispered. Janet was right. I believe now, I believe in you. He worked deftly, sticking the pieces together. It’s all my fault. Why didn’t I listen to Janet?

The phone rang again. It was the nurse attending Janet. Where was he? They needed him there. They would have to do an emergency operation on her.

“I need to be at home,” he screamed into the phone. “That way I can save her. What? NO, no, I need to be home. You understand? They have the power to kill her. I have to save her from the beasts. I have to save her from the beasts…

Eventually Janet came home. They couldn’t save the baby. She had taken the news quietly and resignedly. It was never to be, she reasoned. She cleared away the beasts’ chamber. Dumped all the animals in a cardboard box and sold the showcase for five pounds. There’s no need to all this junk, she said. In the house, or in the mind. We’ll just live like normal people, David. Like a normal childless couple, that’s who we are.

David nodded and took away the cardboard box. He took it to his office, where he placed each animal lovingly on a table in his cabin. The leopard looked as good as new. Look, it was smiling at him. David winked at it. They had a different relationship now. They were good friends. They had saved Janet from certain death. And the baby? Well, maybe it was good for the baby too. Maybe they had saved her from something as well, who knows. Maybe it wasn’t her time to arrive yet.

He filled their crystal bowls with milk and lit the incense. For Janet’s sake, thank you, he whispered. Thank you. Thank you.