This edition Copyright 2011 © David Whish-Wilson, Smashwords Edition
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
1
Africa Games 2000, Nairobi, Kenya
The crowd behind were starting to push. Solomon turned to look, wedged beneath his father’s armpit, but all he could see was a tangle of arm and torso, flushed and angry faces craning to get a glimpse of the fight. They had arrived late. The doors were shut and locked. On the other side of the doors all were turned to the fight. The first heave caught Solomon's father unawares and he lost his footing and was forced to brace himself with one hand against the glass. Solomon edged beneath the stretched arm and slid into the protecting space of a jutting edge of brick. The songs of the crowd had turned to shouts of anger. Across from Solomon was a policeman not much older than himself. He too had been trapped outside when the doors slammed shut. The policeman was struggling to keep the dignity of an upright position, trying to lever himself above the young men straining to see past him, crushed against him. His cap had been nudged back on his head, releasing baubles of sweat that slid down the tribal scars cut vertically in his face. In one hand he held his baton, prodding it into the crowd. But those forced against him could do little to relieve the crush. Hundreds had been trapped in the narrow corridor. Hundreds who had come to see the Games, many of them waving tickets. But Solomon could see through the glass that the arena was full. In the centre the dancing boxers were nearly obscured by the leaning crowd that urged the local fighter on.
They sang and wailed and stamped their feet. Even through the thick glass the noise was tremendous, ridden over by the hysterical voice of the announcer, screaming for the local boy to finish, to kill, to win the medal for his country. Solomon’s father was wrenched away then slammed back against the doors. The crowd behind had started to fight amongst themselves. He could hear them curse over the singing. The policeman threatened with his baton, wiping his free hand of sweat on those pressed to him. But Solomon ignored them all. He was safely wedged in the corner. He had eyes only for the fight. It was like nothing he had ever felt. It was a scene of magic. The fighters, glistening with oil and sweat, trading blows. The calls of the crowd, the worship of those in the ring. The noise. The spirit. The presence of something he had felt only in his dreams. He knew then what he wanted. He knew then what he would become.
He glanced to his father pressed against the glass. He was trying to fend off those before him, trying to protect Solomon from the brawl that had spread right to the door. There was a scream, a wail, a furious animal bellow. It was the announcer. In the ring only one of the fighters was standing, arms aloft. The announcer screamed the victory. The stamping crowd responded with one great shout that shook the building. Those outside in the corridor pushed harder and the doors strained. Glass cracked and splintered. The policeman began furiously lashing with his baton, blows sinking indiscriminate onto those around, clearing the air with thudding blows. Solomon fell to his knees and crawled past the policeman under the line of tables that stretched back down the hall. He came to a broken window and dropped onto the pavement outside. Groups of police were clustered around the doors leading to the arena, arresting all who managed to escape. A fire had been lit and pencil thin darts of smoke hissed through an air-conditioning vent above. A spotlight had been mounted and sprayed the carpark with light, directing the police who ran back and forth batons raised. Solomon climbed a fence of meshwire, which sagged as he climbed, then fell over it into the darkness.
Across the road from the stadium he sat on a wall next to some policemen. They took him for a streetkid and ignored him. He sat and watched, numb with pleasure. Helicopters patrolled the sky. From all over the city he heard their beating wings and saw their lights following the lines of streets, barely above roof level. The police next to him had an Alsatian each. The dogs responded fiercely to the barking of their kind across the road, snarling hoarsely straining against their leashes on hind legs. Vans of riot police were arriving. The air was heavy with the bitter smell of gas, swirling through the pulsing light from firetruck and ambulance.
Then he saw his father, away from the lights, a familiar silhouette. Solomon moved closer, avoiding the dogs which dragged the police along. He listened, and heard his father’s voice. ‘But I am a Party Member! I have my card! I played no part in this!’ One of the policemen examined the card under the light from his torch. The other held his father firmly by the arm. ‘Then maybe you can assist us with the others. There were Anti-Government slogans shouted during the fighting. Seditious papers have been taken from arrested members of the crowd and a fellow policeman has been injured. Do you know anything of this?’
Solomon’s father brought his hands together in a posture of prayer, one of the policemen still holding him. ‘No, I saw nothing of this, I was trying to find my son...’ The policeman with the torch raised his hand to demand silence. Then he shined the torch directly into Solomon’s father’s face. ‘If you were there while Anti-Government slogans were being shouted, and certain documents circulated, and instead you looked for your son, then you were hardly doing your duty to the Party were you?...And where is this son? And what is his name?’
‘Solomon!’ as he moved to his father’s side.
The policeman redirected the torch. ‘Are you this man’s son? And where have you been?’ Solomon nodded his head, and moved closer to his father, who stepped between him and the Policeman. ‘I...I know this is not a good thing, and...I know this is hard work. I feel bad for you working while we are relaxing. We are all party members here...We should help each other. Let me give you something for beer when your shift is over.’ The Policeman with the torch grunted, and turned off the light. Solomon heard the rustling of bills.
They left the two policemen and made their way carefully through the columns of drifting gas, through the crackling noise of loudspeaker and quickly subdued screams of beaten men. Once away from the stadium they followed the easy direction of the streets. Helicopters were still cruising above. Police and dogs were parked on every corner. They continued through the noise of bars, shadows of dancers cast onto the sidewalk.
'Next time,’ his father said. 'The next Games will be in four years...Don’t be disappointed.’
But Solomon wasn’t disappointed. He smiled as he walked. On his first visit to the city he had discovered the magic that he yearned for.
2
The land of Solomon’s father had long ago been slashed from the forest near the lake and that was the appearance it retained. Several acres girded with a belt of thick forest, fenced into plots. Growing in the gardens surrounding the huts were carrots, spinach and cassava. Closer to the houses grew fountains of papaya, and clumps of banana. The whole of his father’s hut and the damp clean earth of the courtyard before it was shaded by a giant old mango, whose gnarled relatives were spread about the whole area, sunk deep into the soft rich soil.
Solomon wasn’t yet old enough to claim his piece of land. It waited for him next to the plots of his five elder brothers, and closest to the lake. But until he turned 18 he was made to work the land of his father and brothers. His father’s crop was maize, which grew in a stand behind his hut. His brothers used the tall spears of maize to conceal their cash-crop of bhang, which they planted every year before the rains, to harvest the following year. Solomon helped with the harvest, uprooting the tall green plants then upending them to hang from a wire which hung like a grass skirt around the hut. The area was famous for its smoke and the brothers worked fast to supply the buyers waiting in the local town. Yet unlike the other growers of the area, Solomon’s brothers had learned how to use the scraps of the plant. When the harvest was over all the leaf and stem were put into a steel drum and boiled slowly over a fire. The resulting sludge was strained, boiled again in alcohol, strained through coffee filters, then collected. The brothers worked together, and the profits were shared amongst the whole family.
Solomon’s only other responsibility was to supply his family with fish, setting his net in the shallows of the lake every evening and collecting it every morning, before the sun arrived to burn off the blanket of mist. Once he had moored his small dinghy he would dive into the water to examine the net from below. It stretched over a hundred yards along the pale grass bottom to within a foot of the surface. He was a strong swimmer, and would swim alongside the net, shedding his skin of warmth, tasting the decay and earth in the water, stopping only to examine the trapped fish. Usually there were a dozen or so Tilapia, a few perch, and occasionally a bird caught in a futile tangle near one of the fish. When he climbed back into the boat, the sun would have already been at work, warming the wooden planks beneath his feet. Unable to pierce the mirror surface of the lake, it would concentrate its mild morning heat upon his back as he slowly drew in the net.
Once his work was completed he was free to train. As soon as he had returned from the city he had begun to practice. One of his brothers made him a punching bag sewn of goatskin and filled with sand. He worked on the bag early in the morning and after dark. In the dark, lit only with a yellow kerosene light, the bag became the torso of a real opponent, the shadows of branches above the arms of an enemy and the groaning of the mango in the wind the exhausted cries of a fighter soon to be defeated. In the town, Solomon had a friend whose father owned a small restaurant. Whenever a fight was televised Solomon made sure he was there. On the small screen he would watch the darting fighters, remembering that night in the city. The reception was bad and the voice of the announcer distorted, but he didn’t notice. He was able to supply the atmosphere, the calls of the crowd, the pleasure. It was him there on the screen. He felt himself involved. His leg twitched with every blow landed, his fists were clenched for the duration of the fight. His ambition had become an urgent need, all the more urgent because of his youth and distance from the city.
After the fights he would return home, and train, late into the evening, and even then he was unable to sleep. He was training, and waiting. He wasn’t yet powerful enough. He would often lose when he fought his brothers. But that was about to change. He had a plan. He knew where he could get the power.
Solomon lived in the same hut as his mother, and her father. His father and his father’s three other wives had separate huts, along with Solomon’s step-brothers and sisters. His father, as a Party member in the surveying department, had been able to find him enough money outside his salary to educate all of his children to a high school level. He had also been able to help members of the extended family. This included the father of Solomon’s mother, when he was forced off his own land by a neighbour. Solomon’s Grandfather and mother were of the Kamba tribe. He had never visited their land, but had heard it was not the healthy green of their own near the lake, instead a dusty hard and windblown land that stretched across the stomach of the country. Physically, they differed from the rest of the local tribe in that their skin was lighter, their build less thickset. They were taller, they had the build of animal herders, not dwellers of the forest. Solomon, of both bloods, combined the physiques of both. He was tall, yet not wiry like his Grandfather. He was built like his brothers, wide across the chest and arms, strong in the back and legs. His face reflected his mixed blood. His features were more defined, his nose not as wide, his cheekbones more pronounced, his dark eyes shot with flecks of gold.
Despite these differences, Solomon was not treated as an outsider by his brothers and sisters, because he had grown up amongst them. Only his stepmothers treated him badly, because of his own mother, and the jealousy she inspired in them. His mother was the youngest of his father’s wives, and his favourite. The story of their meeting was no secret either, despite its shame. On the first of his father’s trips to the city, he had met her in a downtown bar, a 15year old runaway, a malaya. And on successive trips to the city she had put her magic on him, they said, for which her tribe was famous. The father had been unable to help himself, and he’d eventually taken the girl to be his wife. After paying an enormous brideprice considering her status, he went on to give the young girl freedoms and concessions the other wives had never been granted. He allowed her to drink beer, and often they disappeared for days together to the bars in town, where they were famous for their bad behaviour and flaunting of money. And despite the girl having run away to the city several times, on each occasion he waited patiently for her, and didn’t beat her when she returned to his bed. But worst of all, a thing without precedence, was his inviting her father to join them on his own land, a man of a different tribe, and one who knew the ways of magic. For what the father's wives feared most was magic, and Solomon’s Grandfather made no secret of the fact that he practiced it in all its forms, as a source of income, or to settle disputes. He knew how to cast spells, he knew how to heal, to discern truth from lie, and how to excite love and prolong it indefinitely. This confirmed for the father’s other wives what they already knew, that their husband was the victim of magic. Since his arrival, the wives had been unable to look at the old man, fearing the eye. They never spoke to him, and they refused to let him near their food or water. Solomon’s mother cooked all his food, cleaned his clothes, and he was forced to eat alone.
Solomon was aged sixteen when his Grandfather joined them. Because they were of the same blood, he had felt obliged to respect the old man as old men should be respected, although at first he too feared the thin stooped figure, with its long stick fingers and watery eyes. But soon they came to be close. Solomon had realised that the old man could help him. That he could give him the power he needed. He began to spend all his spare time with his Grandfather, provoking an even greater fear amongst the wives. They feared that Solomon would learn the old man’s craft, that he would use the magic to take everything they had, even the rich soil beneath their feet! The wives worked on their children, and soon Solomon felt his step-brothers and sisters become unfriendly. They were clearly suspicious, they kept silent at mealtimes, and excluded him from their games. Even the girls in the local village, who until then had been obliging, began to avoid him, their parents having put fear into them. Yet none of this worried him. With the arrival of his Grandfather came the means to escape, to begin his career. While others of his age dreamed of girls or money or faraway places, his standard dream was the snap of his fist into another’s face, and then the calls of the crowd, in response. And far from being merely a dream, he felt his fighter’s nature as a force waiting for release...in his stomach and chest. He lay at night in his hut, a panga propped inside the doorway, its steel blade glowing dully in the moonlight. He lay and watched his visions of fantasy unfold. There would be an attack. Some bandits from across the border. And while the rest of his brothers hid themselves away, cowering, he would defend his mother with the blade, clearing the land of intruders. From a young age he had been aware that on the farms around, all were tied to the land, born and dying to the same plot. In such a community, it took only one great act to attach itself to a man, for life. He would become known not only as Solomon, but as Solomon who is strong.
Yet no such opportunity had arisen. He trained, but he trained alone. The fear and respect attached to his name were confined to the limits of his dreaming. No others were aware of his true nature.
Solomon courted his Grandfather patiently and carefully. By the shore of the lake he would listen to the old man’s stories, both of them leant against the upturned boat, shielding their faces from the glare off the water. Solomon knew the old man liked him and could refuse him nothing. And he knew that if he was to become a great man then he needed his Grandfather’s help. He pleaded with him to help, to protect him and give him power, for all their sakes. But it was only after months of hounding, of pleading, when he promised to pass on his land to his mother as soon as he came of age, that the old man finally answered, responding with a question.
'You want me to help you fight? How will you feel for your opponent?’
'I will not feel for my opponent.’
His Grandfather smiled. He laid down his walking stick and took up the dead weight of Solomon’s right arm. 'This is already a very powerful arm,’ he said, 'and this,’ clenching the fist, 'is already a strong fist! Even now you must be careful who you fight. Please, do not fight with me!’
They both laughed, while the old man affectionately kneaded the young arm, feeling beneath its taut skin the movement of string and muscle, feeling its warmth soak into the palms of his withered hand.
3
'If tall Peter will not agree to buy then you must sell to the whites of River Road. They too like to smoke, and they take it back with them when they return to their country. Ask no less than twenty shillings for one gram. In their country they sell it for ten times that amount...But do not sell it to Simba or half-caste Terry...They are not to be trusted!’ Solomon’s eldest brother passed him the can sealed with gum tape. In a smaller packet were two condoms filled with the oil. Usually his own responsibility, the brother had reluctantly agreed to let Solomon take the year’s surplus to the city. He didn’t trust Solomon because of his age, and would miss the girls in the bars, but his mother had convinced him that the family was better off without the wizard’s grandson...Many bad things can befall a young boy in the city, and besides, their father and Solomon’s mother were in town drinking, and could not disagree.