The Mzungu Boy by Meja Mwangi Page B

tempted to run back to the forest and stay there until I had found Nigel. But I could not go back alone. It frightened me just thinking about it.
    I knew of only one person who could go into the forest so late at night.
    â€œWhere is Hari?” I asked.
    My mother regarded me with renewed interest.
    â€œWhere have you been?” she asked.
    â€œNowhere.”
    Throughout dinner I thought about my predicament. Dozens of desperate thoughts went through my head, and all of them were terrifying. I could not eat or sit still. I went outside the hut several times and thought seriously of drowning myself in the river. I thought of going to Bwana Ruin’s. Instead I sat trembling and hoping my mother would not notice.
    But she did. She watched me stew in my own terror.
    â€œKariuki,” she asked again. “What have you been up to?”
    â€œNothing.”
    About an hour later, my father came to ask whether I had seen the little white man that day. The rain was starting and his white uniform was dotted with dark raindrops. He looked so miserable that he frightened me.
    I told my father I had not seen the white boy at all that day.
    â€œWhere could he be?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    He went back to the farmhouse looking more miserable than ever. My mother watched me intently. She stared at me with that all-seeing and all-knowing look, and I was afraid she had seen me sneak into the forest with Nigel.
    I was on the verge of confessing everything to her when Father suddenly came home and told us the little white man was missing.
    â€œThe dogs too,” he told us. “Bwana Ruin has called the army.”
    I lay awake that night, listening to the thunder crash and the rain beat down in earnest. I decided I would wake up before dawn and go back to the forest and find Nigel. I would search the whole forest. I would not eat or rest. I would not return until I had found Nigel.
    Then a desperate thought entered my mind. What if I did not find Nigel? What then?
    I would run away from home, I said to myself. I would go far, far away and stay there. I would go over the Loldaiga hills to the land of the Dorobos and change my name. I would go where no one would ever find me. I would never return home if I did not find Nigel.
    By dawn the village was surrounded by an army of angry white soldiers. They rounded all of us up and herded us into the auction pen. The rain during the night had turned it into a mud pool. They made us sit on the mud while they went through our huts as before.
    This time they were not looking for guns or for the mau-mau. They were looking for clues that would link the villagers to the disappearance of the white boy. However, this time they unearthed things that would send a lot of people to detention for a long, long time. They found things for which some villagers would no doubt be hanged.
    They found a homemade gun and three rounds of ammunition. They found stolen maps and medical supplies — things that illiterate villagers were not supposed to know anything about.
    Then they called the villagers out one by one and marched them to the farmhouse. Bwana Ruin had set up an interrogation office in a tent on his front lawn. They were ordered to produce their identity cards, their movement passes and their work permits. They were asked whether they or anyone they knew was mau-mau. Some of them were released right away and allowed to go back to their homes. Others were herded to one side under the watchful eyes of the soldiers.
    Then my turn came for questioning. I limped into the tent and stood in front of the table set up there. Behind the table were Bwana Ruin and three white officers.
    The questioning was done by a serious-looking officer with gray hair and grave, old eyes. He asked what had happened to my foot. I told him that I had stepped on a thorn. He asked me how old I was. I told him. He wanted to know where I went to school. I