meet Jason.
We arrived at Broadway’s just in time for the seven o’clock news. Wanuna Sophia was reporting that Al Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the Norfolk bombing. She showed a clip of a masked man promising all sorts of hell to come. Then the commercials came on—and the bar came alive with conversation. Even for criminals, love of Kenya had no moral borders. The outrage in the bar was sincere.
I had once asked O how Broadway’s had come about. He couldn’t say for sure. It had opened sometime in the 1950s at the height of the Mau Mau guerrilla war for independence. It was rumored that the bar owner was a nationalist who knew bothDedan Kimathi and the man in charge of tracking him down, Ian Henderson. He got them to meet to discuss how to stop the killing of civilians by both sides—the Mau Mau kept their end of the bargain, while the British continued with their mass detentions and killings.
It is the lion and not the hunter telling its story
, O had said with a laugh. Henderson couldn’t change British policy after all. But they had also talked about many other things—the toll of warfare on them and on their families—and fantasized about world peace.
Eventually they started meeting for the sake of meeting—you know—they became each other’s shrink. At parting, each would go their way. Henderson eventually captured Kimathi but he never used the information he gathered from their meetings against him. In fact, O said, Henderson, sensing British defeat and Kenya’s coming independence, had pleaded with the British not to hang Kimathi. I knew that the bare facts of the story were true but the substance—there was no way of telling. What I did know was that throughout history principled enemies had created safe spaces to meet—their destinies were shared, after all.
“Who better to understand you than the motherfucker trying to kill you?” O had reasoned, by that time nicely high.
On the news, the Kenyan presidential candidates were calling for justice and blaming the government for the security lapse. Bush, after promising help to the Kenyan government, made tough statements about defeating terror.
The miracle at the Norfolk was the last item. As the story unfolded, the whole bar stood up, the beers on the tables orphaned for the moment. KBC had pulled out all the stops—a two-minute background story about me, the American with the sharp hearing of a wolf, who only a few years ago had solved a major mystery. There was O, the local principled cop whomade things happen. There were shots in slow motion of the survivors coming out of the debris and the exploding cars shown from different angles. There was a shot of Mpande, Nomsa, and Nothando—a camera zooming in to show the still sleeping baby, and the firemen hugging the rescued family. There I was again, the American who called Kenya home, shaking hands with Mpande before he hopped onto the ambulance. There was a final shot of the night watchman yelling “I save love and faith” and the wild applause in the bar joined the pandemonium breaking out on the TV.
Shit, even I, in spite of having been there, clapped along. Cases of beer were ordered,
nyama choma
on cutting boards was passed around, and the night turned into a celebration. O walked back in to find a party—cops and robbers eating and drinking to the lives saved.
Jason walked in just as the news ended. There was a bit of silence when he came through the door—his whiteness had broken the magic spell, and we all returned to our tables and continued with whatever we had been doing before the news.
I waited for him to get a beer.
“Straight up! Why are we here?” I asked him.
“Because only you can do what needs to be done. This is your city—I’ve been told you have an extensive network—you can use it,” Jason answered.
“What I mean is, why the secrecy? Where is Paul?” I asked. We needed to get the most glaring question out of the way.
“It’s simple, really,
We arrived at Broadway’s just in time for the seven o’clock news. Wanuna Sophia was reporting that Al Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the Norfolk bombing. She showed a clip of a masked man promising all sorts of hell to come. Then the commercials came on—and the bar came alive with conversation. Even for criminals, love of Kenya had no moral borders. The outrage in the bar was sincere.
I had once asked O how Broadway’s had come about. He couldn’t say for sure. It had opened sometime in the 1950s at the height of the Mau Mau guerrilla war for independence. It was rumored that the bar owner was a nationalist who knew bothDedan Kimathi and the man in charge of tracking him down, Ian Henderson. He got them to meet to discuss how to stop the killing of civilians by both sides—the Mau Mau kept their end of the bargain, while the British continued with their mass detentions and killings.
It is the lion and not the hunter telling its story
, O had said with a laugh. Henderson couldn’t change British policy after all. But they had also talked about many other things—the toll of warfare on them and on their families—and fantasized about world peace.
Eventually they started meeting for the sake of meeting—you know—they became each other’s shrink. At parting, each would go their way. Henderson eventually captured Kimathi but he never used the information he gathered from their meetings against him. In fact, O said, Henderson, sensing British defeat and Kenya’s coming independence, had pleaded with the British not to hang Kimathi. I knew that the bare facts of the story were true but the substance—there was no way of telling. What I did know was that throughout history principled enemies had created safe spaces to meet—their destinies were shared, after all.
“Who better to understand you than the motherfucker trying to kill you?” O had reasoned, by that time nicely high.
On the news, the Kenyan presidential candidates were calling for justice and blaming the government for the security lapse. Bush, after promising help to the Kenyan government, made tough statements about defeating terror.
The miracle at the Norfolk was the last item. As the story unfolded, the whole bar stood up, the beers on the tables orphaned for the moment. KBC had pulled out all the stops—a two-minute background story about me, the American with the sharp hearing of a wolf, who only a few years ago had solved a major mystery. There was O, the local principled cop whomade things happen. There were shots in slow motion of the survivors coming out of the debris and the exploding cars shown from different angles. There was a shot of Mpande, Nomsa, and Nothando—a camera zooming in to show the still sleeping baby, and the firemen hugging the rescued family. There I was again, the American who called Kenya home, shaking hands with Mpande before he hopped onto the ambulance. There was a final shot of the night watchman yelling “I save love and faith” and the wild applause in the bar joined the pandemonium breaking out on the TV.
Shit, even I, in spite of having been there, clapped along. Cases of beer were ordered,
nyama choma
on cutting boards was passed around, and the night turned into a celebration. O walked back in to find a party—cops and robbers eating and drinking to the lives saved.
Jason walked in just as the news ended. There was a bit of silence when he came through the door—his whiteness had broken the magic spell, and we all returned to our tables and continued with whatever we had been doing before the news.
I waited for him to get a beer.
“Straight up! Why are we here?” I asked him.
“Because only you can do what needs to be done. This is your city—I’ve been told you have an extensive network—you can use it,” Jason answered.
“What I mean is, why the secrecy? Where is Paul?” I asked. We needed to get the most glaring question out of the way.
“It’s simple, really,
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