this was the call. It had to be.
‘This had better not be my lovely wife,’ he said as he answered. I was beside myself with curiosity, but O’s face told me only that it was bad news – his jaw tense. ‘Shit, he wants to talk to you,’ he finally said, handing the phone over to me.
‘O and I go a long way back. Tell him Lord Thompson wants to see you. Young man, I promise not to waste your time,’ an old voice said before the line went dead.
‘This cannot be good,’ O said as he put out his joint and dabbed his eyes with cold water, ‘but we have to go. Shit, I will have to do the dishes later.’
Down time hadn’t been too bad, all things considered – it was still only one pm.
LORD THOMPSON
We drove away from Nairobi and headed into the farmlands. Outside of the city the roads were just as bad – if not worse – and just as in Nairobi the hawkers crowded around us at each massive pothole trying to sell us cigarettes, roasted corn and newspapers that screamed
The Case of the Dead White Girl: American Detective in Kenya
.
‘Imagine this,’ O said, trying to explain what Lord Thompson was like, ‘what if a white slave owner convinced himself he was a slave and then tried to live like one?’
‘You mean he became an abolitionist?’ I asked.
‘No, everything remains the same except that he actually lives like a slave,’ he said as if I was missing the most obvious point in the world.
‘He becomes a slave by choice?’
O finally gave up. ‘No, man. You know what, let’s just get there,’ he said, the frustration in his voice plain. ‘You have to see this shit for yourself. Then you will understand.’
After an hour of driving the road turned abruptly into a bumpy dirt track and almost immediately the landscapealso changed. Where, before, the vegetation had been a thick luscious green, here, long dry grass that looked ready for a fire was interspersed with short dusty thickets of thirsty looking trees.
Thirty or so minutes later we turned off the main road onto another, smaller dirt track and not long after that the scenery changed once again. After the desolation we had just driven through I wasn’t prepared for the plush oasis that suddenly surrounded me. The trees were green, the vegetation once again lush and the well-maintained road lined with rose bushes, their red blooms in stark contrast to the white stones that were spaced out between them. Even more incredible was that the road continued for close to three miles.
‘Camouflage …’ O muttered to himself. ‘This is how they hide. You would never think to look for them here.’
‘Who?’
‘The rich whites,’ O answered. ‘They prefer to remain invisible, so they create islands like this one.’
‘Why?’
‘History, man, history. It’s the deal. After colonialism, they were supposed to remain invisible, and we were supposed to forget what they did,’ O said bitterly. ‘So they hide out in places like this.’
I didn’t quite understand what he meant and didn’t have time to ask – we had arrived at the gate.
After O had shown his badge to the guards on the gate we were allowed to make our way along the final few hundred metres of what was now a tarmacked road to emerge in front of what was undoubtedly the most gratuitously sized house I had ever seen – it wasn’t a house, it was a presidential palace.How could a man who lived like a slave live in a house like this? O had been right: I had to see for myself.
Having parked O’s battered Land Rover on the expanse of gravel in front of the house we made our way up the red-carpeted stairs, many of them, until we got to the enormous front door. Once there O pulled a rope which rang what sounded like a giant bell somewhere deep inside the house, and moments later two Africans dressed in white shirts and shorts rolled back the huge oak doors.
We were led through spacious, elegant rooms – the kind I had only seen in catalogues (not even Maple Bluff compared) –
‘This had better not be my lovely wife,’ he said as he answered. I was beside myself with curiosity, but O’s face told me only that it was bad news – his jaw tense. ‘Shit, he wants to talk to you,’ he finally said, handing the phone over to me.
‘O and I go a long way back. Tell him Lord Thompson wants to see you. Young man, I promise not to waste your time,’ an old voice said before the line went dead.
‘This cannot be good,’ O said as he put out his joint and dabbed his eyes with cold water, ‘but we have to go. Shit, I will have to do the dishes later.’
Down time hadn’t been too bad, all things considered – it was still only one pm.
LORD THOMPSON
We drove away from Nairobi and headed into the farmlands. Outside of the city the roads were just as bad – if not worse – and just as in Nairobi the hawkers crowded around us at each massive pothole trying to sell us cigarettes, roasted corn and newspapers that screamed
The Case of the Dead White Girl: American Detective in Kenya
.
‘Imagine this,’ O said, trying to explain what Lord Thompson was like, ‘what if a white slave owner convinced himself he was a slave and then tried to live like one?’
‘You mean he became an abolitionist?’ I asked.
‘No, everything remains the same except that he actually lives like a slave,’ he said as if I was missing the most obvious point in the world.
‘He becomes a slave by choice?’
O finally gave up. ‘No, man. You know what, let’s just get there,’ he said, the frustration in his voice plain. ‘You have to see this shit for yourself. Then you will understand.’
After an hour of driving the road turned abruptly into a bumpy dirt track and almost immediately the landscapealso changed. Where, before, the vegetation had been a thick luscious green, here, long dry grass that looked ready for a fire was interspersed with short dusty thickets of thirsty looking trees.
Thirty or so minutes later we turned off the main road onto another, smaller dirt track and not long after that the scenery changed once again. After the desolation we had just driven through I wasn’t prepared for the plush oasis that suddenly surrounded me. The trees were green, the vegetation once again lush and the well-maintained road lined with rose bushes, their red blooms in stark contrast to the white stones that were spaced out between them. Even more incredible was that the road continued for close to three miles.
‘Camouflage …’ O muttered to himself. ‘This is how they hide. You would never think to look for them here.’
‘Who?’
‘The rich whites,’ O answered. ‘They prefer to remain invisible, so they create islands like this one.’
‘Why?’
‘History, man, history. It’s the deal. After colonialism, they were supposed to remain invisible, and we were supposed to forget what they did,’ O said bitterly. ‘So they hide out in places like this.’
I didn’t quite understand what he meant and didn’t have time to ask – we had arrived at the gate.
After O had shown his badge to the guards on the gate we were allowed to make our way along the final few hundred metres of what was now a tarmacked road to emerge in front of what was undoubtedly the most gratuitously sized house I had ever seen – it wasn’t a house, it was a presidential palace.How could a man who lived like a slave live in a house like this? O had been right: I had to see for myself.
Having parked O’s battered Land Rover on the expanse of gravel in front of the house we made our way up the red-carpeted stairs, many of them, until we got to the enormous front door. Once there O pulled a rope which rang what sounded like a giant bell somewhere deep inside the house, and moments later two Africans dressed in white shirts and shorts rolled back the huge oak doors.
We were led through spacious, elegant rooms – the kind I had only seen in catalogues (not even Maple Bluff compared) –
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