Softly Calls the Serengeti Read Free

man you should be seen spending your time with?’
    â€˜Mr Koske is a man who will stand up for people like us,’ Joshua answered curtly.
    Simon scoffed. ‘The only person Koske fights for is Koske himself. Or else he finds others to do his fighting. People like the thugs who come to collect his tea money.’
    He pushed his plate aside and placed his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘Joshua, have nothing to do with that man. He can only bring you trouble.’
    â€˜He gives me work. And he will pay me for it.’
    â€˜You don’t need money from people like Koske.’
    â€˜Am I to continue to sell newspapers and stupid children’s toys on the streets for the rest of my life? Am I a man or a boy?’
    Simon removed his hand. ‘You are my son, and you will hear what I say.’
    â€˜I am a man, and a Luo. I will follow the Luo ways.’
    â€˜You know nothing of the Luo ways.’
    â€˜And who is to blame for that? Isn’t it a father’s duty to pass on his culture and the old stories to his next in line? I know nothing of my family. Nothing of my tribe. I should know these things.’
    Simon took his plate to the plastic bucket that served as a washing receptacle.
    â€˜Now you have nothing to say,’ Joshua said scornfully. ‘As always.’
    â€˜There is nothing you can learn from me,’ Simon replied. ‘Forget Luo ways. They will not support you here in Kibera.’
    â€˜Mama told me about you when you lived in Kisumu. In Luoland.’
    Simon’s hand hesitated over his plate, but he made no comment and resumed scraping the scraps into the bucket.
    â€˜She told me that you killed someone, and then you ran away.’
    Simon took a piece of newspaper and carefully wiped the plate.
    â€˜Who was it?’ Joshua demanded. ‘Why did you do it?’
    â€˜It was a long time ago. Those days are gone.’
    â€˜Was it like before? In our history? Was it a tribal war?’
    â€˜It was not a war. The old ways are dead. And good riddance. They brought nothing but hatred and death.’
    â€˜There was honour in the old ways,’ Joshua said angrily. ‘It is our heritage to follow them—Luo heritage.’
    Simon wondered about honour and the old Luo customs. When he was a child, his grandfather had told him that the Luos’ customs were very important. It was his grandfather who had taught him the dances and the Jo-Luo songs, and how to hunt and to throw a spear. And when Simon’s father died and his father’s brother inherited Simon’s mother as another wife, as was Luo custom, it was his grandfather who had explained why Simon also had to leave his village and his friends and go to a new place.
    His father’s death hadn’t been the last time that Luo customs had had a profound effect on Simon’s life, but he recalled it wasthe first time he had begun to question them. He knew he could not escape the consequences of that questioning in his own life, but he had no intention of also allowing his only son’s life to be ruined by them.
    Looking across the table at Joshua, he could see the same glint of defiance his grandfather might have seen in him all those years ago.
    â€˜I will not have you fight for something that is so far in the past,’ he sighed. ‘Anyway, there is no honour in violence.’
    His son glared at him. ‘And is there honour in being a coward? Is there any honour in killing a man and then running away?’
    Simon straightened as if his son had struck him in the face. His voice, when it came, was almost inaudible. ‘You know nothing of these matters, Joshua.’
    â€˜There is nothing to know.’ Joshua flung the words at him. ‘You were a coward then, and you are still a coward.’
    He got up from the table in such haste that the chair fell backwards. He burst through the door, which clattered against the sheet-iron wall, and continued to