AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD.... EPISODE 8

AND THEN THEY SAID THAT I WAS MAD...

By Njonjo Mue

EPISODE NINE

PREQUEL THREE

WHEN THE AMBULANCE WOULD COME

If these great lawyers had contributed to the dream of a successful career launch for me, the real incubator of the dream was my family.

Together with my twin sister, I had the privilege of being the last born in a large family of eleven - four brothers and seven sisters in all.

Being the babies in such a large family had its own distinct benefits. Most important, by the time we came along, our parents were happy to delegate many aspects of our parenting to our elder siblings, and yet there were certain lines these delegates could not cross when it came to disciplining us. So, we had a fairly relaxed time growing up.

Also, being the babies, we only got assigned the lightest of chores, which left me room to experiment and get into all kinds of mischief. I usually led other estate boys in undertaking all sorts of experiments, some downright dangerous. I remember once we started a fire that almost destroyed the Metal Box factory. As the firefighters battled the inferno before it engulfed the plant, we ran away and then returned tentatively to join the crown in watching and wondering aloud how such a big fire could have started and spread so quickly, and who on earth could have started it.

Being a last born also meant that I learned a lot by sheer absorption as I listened in on my siblings discuss their homework. And so, long before I even went to school, I knew the names of the key capital cities in the world, which countries were oil exporters, the parts of a flower, the process of photosynthesis, the gestation cycle of a butterfly, what the transatlantic slave trade was all about, and why Abraham Lincoln went to war.

My brother Kamau, who was then in High School, had an intimate relationship with his books and would spend long afternoons in the small park behind our house reading quietly by himself, often forgetting even to come home for lunch. As he was my role model, I too grew to love books, first the Rainbow children’s magazine that came out every Sunday and I sacrificed some of my lunch money to buy, then the Tintin and Asterix comics that I borrowed from my rich cousins, sometimes without their permission, then later graduating to Barbara Kimenye’s Moses series, Big Ben of London, Spear, as well as the American adventure novel series, Hardy Boys.

All through my early childhood, my father remained a pillar of gentle strength for the family, who was there to guide, to provide, to encourage and to discipline as the occasion required.

But on this Friday afternoon, it was my mother that I missed the most as I re-read my letter informing me that I would soon be on my way to Oxford. She had died of complications from an operation at Thika District Hospital to remove her appendix when I was only fourteen years old. Ever since then, every time I had an important milestone to celebrate, or a difficult decision to make, or a heartache to share, I would find myself wishing she were there for me to talk to. She was many things to many people, but to me, she was the epitome of grace under fire.

My mother was kind, intelligent, and gifted in many ways. She especially had a way of making some of the most crucial decisions concerning our household and letting my father take all the credit. The poor man had all these brilliant ideas that had been passed on to him ever so subtly by his wife, that he genuinely thought that they were his own.

And she was the life of the estate. A mentor to the many young wives of the factory workers who had migrated from the village to our estate to join their husbands; a mother to all the children who would often come to visit our house and refuse to leave, especially if the aroma of chapatis wafted from the kitchen to announce in advance what we would be having for supper; and a counsellor to many young trainees at the factory who drank a bit too much.

She was also generous to a fault, and many were the nights when we found ourselves hosting strangers who had gotten lost on their way or had come from the village to visit someone who had moved on.

My mother was a woman of faith and was an active member of the Mothers Union at the St. Andrews Anglican Church in Thika which was our home church and where attending Sunday School was not optional for her children. She ensured that we had every opportunity to know her God and to love him with the same passion as she did.

Mum worked hard and taught us to respect work no matter what our hands found to do, as well as to respect workers whatever work they happened to be doing. She herself was a cleaner on the factory floor but she would refer to the broom she used for sweeping as her special purple pen (purple being the colour of royalty) and the place where she happened to be cleaning as her office. She was the essence of dignity.

Most of the time, she had a sunny disposition, creatively solving the problems of every day life and adding a spark to what might otherwise have been a humdrum existence.

But then, there were those days.

Those days when dark clouds of despair seemed to conspire to envelope her and take her to a place where we could not reach her. I was too young then to understand what manner of sadness this was and what caused it. How could anyone descend into that depth of gloom, a melancholy that seemed to take the very essence of life entirely away from her and leave only the body to continue with the seemingly tedious business of living?

During those seasons, my mother would sometimes be taken away by ambulance and would be gone for weeks on end. No one would tell us where she had gone or when she would be back. Most conversations by the adults suddenly turned into whispers that seemed intended to discuss everything and anything except our missing mother. And when she was brought back to us, she would only slowly start to emerge out of the dungeon and reconnect with us more out of her love compelling her to reach out to her bewildered children rather than a natural desire to do so of her own accord. She simply did not have the energy.

But eventually, aided by Largactil tablets which she took religiously, she would be wholly restored to us and life would thankfully return to normal. But to this day, every time I hear the siren of an ambulance in the streets, I freeze momentarily, fearing that it is going to my childhood house to take our mother away from us again.

And then there were the other times, when she became too happy, slept too little, was too active and filled with energy, full of too many ideas, and spoke too fast for our young minds to follow. She was never violent. Indeed she was lucid most of the time with all the things she said during these times of extreme happiness actually making sense when taken one at a time and if only they could be followed through to their logical conclusion.

But they did not come one at a time. They were often jumbled up, one idea seemingly racing to catch up with the one before it to avoid being overtaken by the one following it. It was like those safari rally cars that we would go and see as they passed through Kilimambogo Check Point every Easter. Nor could the ideas be followed to their logical conclusion because one idea quickly morphed into another with such unusual ease, at least to her, but leaving the rest of us struggling to keep up.

During those times, I liked staying close to my mother and listening to her animated ideas about how the two of us could change the world, end all the pain, feed the hungry children and pay the workers a fair price for their labour, using powers that only the two of us possessed but no one else knew about.

I stayed with her not only because I found her so intriguing to listen to but also because I knew she needed someone to share all these ideas with. By staying close to her, I also hoped to persuade any adult who took an unwelcome interest in her that what she was saying was making perfect sense to me, so as to prevent them from coming back with an ambulance to take my mother away. But just sitting with her would often leave me gasping for breath as I chased down all these thoughts in different directions trying to keep up and hold on to my mother.

And oftentimes, try as I might, I simply could not keep up and I would eventually be left terrified and exhausted, peering deep into the horizon helplessly watching her disappear in a kaleidoscope of colourful thoughts to a place where I could not follow.

And then the ambulance would come.

END OF EPISODE NINE

[ COMING UP IN EPISODE TEN... At the start of SEASON TWO, having come so close to death at the height, or rather the depth, of the depression, I now fall head over heels in love with the very idea of living as I unknowingly start to leave the plains of hope and breathe the fresh air of extreme joy on the foothills of the mountains of mania. ]