Weep Not Child Read Free Page B

to have small wounds all over the body and especially around the mouth so that flies followed them all the time and at all places. Some people said that this was a punishment. Black people should not sleep with white men who ruled them and treated them badly.
    Why should the white men have fought? Aaa! You could never tell what these people would do. In spite of the fact that they were all white, they killed one another with poison, fire, and big bombs that destroyed the land. They had even called the people to help them in killing one another. It was puzzling. You could not really understand because although they said they fought Hitler (ah! Hitler, that brave man, whom all the British feared, and he was never killed you know, just vanished like that), Hitler too was a white man. That did not take you very far. It was better to give up the attempt and be content with knowing the land you lived in, and the people who lived near you. And if this was not enough and you wanted to see more people and hear stories from far and wide – even stories from across the sea, Russia, England, Burma – you could avoid the vigilance of your wife and go to the local town, Kipanga. You could, for instance, tell her that you were going to buy some meat for the family. That was something.
    ‘All right! Go and don’t loiter in the town too much. I know you men. When you want to avoid work you go to the town and drink while we, your slaves, must live in toil and sweat.’
    ‘I’ll come back soon.’
    ‘See how you turn your eyes. You cannot even look at me in the face because you know you’ll go and stay there the whole day…’
    ‘Now, now, just you trust me to come back soon.’
    ‘The idea of trusting you!’

    There were many ways from Mahua village to Kipanga. You could follow the big road. It passed near the town. Or you could follow a track that went through a valley into the town.
    In a country of ridges, such as Kikuyuland, there are many valleys and small plains. Even the big road went through avalley on the opposite side. Where the two met they had as it were embraced and widened themselves into a plain. The plain, more or less rectangular in shape, had four valleys leading into or out of it at the corners. The first two valleys went into the Country of the Black People. The other two divided the land of the Black People from the land of the White People. This meant that there were four ridges that stood and watched one another. Two of the ridges on the opposite sides of the long sides of the plain were broad and near one another. The other two were narrow and had pointed ends. You could tell the land of Black People because it was red, rough, and sickly, while the land of the white settlers was green and was not lacerated into small strips.
    Kipanga town was built in this field. It was not a big town like the big city. However, there was one shoe factory and many black people earned their living there. The Indian shops were many. The Indian traders were said to be very rich. They too employed some black boys whom they treated as nothing. You could never like the Indians because their customs were strange and funny in a bad way. But their shops were big and well stocked with things. White settlers, with their wives and children, often came to the rich Indians and bought all they wanted. The Indians feared Europeans and if you went to buy in a shop and a white man found you, the Indian would stop selling to you and, trembling all over, would begin to serve him. But some said that this was a cunning way to deceive the white women because when the Indian trembled and was all ‘Yes, please, Memsahib, anything more?’ the women would be ready to pay any price they were told because they thought an Indian who feared them dared not cheat about prices.
    Black people too bought things from the Indians. But they also bought in the African shops that stood alone on one side of the town near the post office. The Africans had not many