the last month they had worked till late in the night but when the Gasa started consulting every evening about the coming War between the Tsana and the Indian Ocean they started working till maghreb. Then, Komora’s grandfather would take his hand and they would walk slowly to the hut of the Wazee wa Gasa, near the kizio, and he would send Komora Kijana away.
Komora Kijana had lived with his grandfather since his parents died ten years ago during the last War between Tsana and Indian Ocean, also known as the El Niño of ’97. Even when his parents were still alive Komora Kijana had gone into his grandfather’s hut every evening to hear stories about the River, his people the Mbakomo, the downriver villages, the Malachini, his own village of Ozi and his clan, the Komora. But that one morning changed everything. Komora Kijana’s father set out up the river to fish at Kau where the sea’s waves at high tide pushed the fresh water trout. The floods had been expected any day and his father wanted to do his last bit of trout fishing before El Niño ’97. But it was as if the Tsana had been waiting just for him.
Days later his canoe came back empty as the sea tides retreated from the force of the river. Komora Kijana’s mother refused to leave her home till her husband came back. She was bitten by a snake washed out of its hole by the floods days later. When his father’s head was found upstream, the rest of him taken by crocodiles, Komora Kijana’s mother succumbed to the snake-bite. Komora Mzee was unable to speak at the funeral which was held quickly as the water climbed. And his sight and hearing started failing as the thick river spread over Ozi. Later, when the Malachini learned that the Kenyan government had panicked over El Niño’s rainfall and opened the Seven Forks Dam upriver, known as the Seven Stone Men by the Mbakomo, without warning, Komora Mzee blamed his brother, who was Assistant Minister for Water at the time, for the death of his son.
Komora Kijana went to live with his grandfather. A year later, when he turned eight, he was sent to Ozi Primary School. When he learned how to write his grandfather told him that one day he would help him put down the old man’s life in a book as a way of the Mbakomo recording their lives by the Tsana and even what had happened during El Niño ’97. So, every evening, the old man told his grandson of his long life.
When Komora Kijana finished primary school his grandfather called the boy to his hut to tell him all the things that young men are told when they leave home. Komora Kijana did not expect to continue his education after primary school after his father’s death but his grandfather sent Komora Kijana to stay with his brother, Komora Mzee Sazi, so he could attend high school in Ngao. After El Niño ’97 the two old men had stopped talking when Komora Mzee Wito accused Komora Mzee Sazi of choosing the government and Kenya over Ozi and his own people. But he also said that Kijana Komora was his brother’s son too when he sent him there.
Once Komora Kijana arrived in Ngao, Komora Mzee Sazi, whom his grandfather had fallen out with over the Tsana, laughed at this small victory over his older brother and said at least the old fool knew the value of formal education. The four years of secondary school went by quickly and every holiday Komora Kijana went back to Ozi. By Form 2 his grandfather was asking him to write down the things he told him every evening. Just before he did his final exams, Komora Kijana went back to Ngao before that last term and found that Komora Mzee Sazi had had a stroke and was bed-ridden. His younger grandfather lay beneath thick blankets surrounded by several hovering women. The photos on the wall next to his bed were littered with Mzee Sazi’s wordly greatnesses – in one photo he stood with the first two Presidents of Kenya. One of the photos, with Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, had been taken at the site of the largest Stone Man, Masinga Dam, with the rest of the other Seven Stone Men in smaller photos. There was also a photo of a white man with his arm around his second grandfather. Another photo had Komora Mzee Sazi standing before a tall building that said: ministry of water headquarters. With a shaky hand and the smell of illness and lilies from the river, Komora Mzee Sazi scrawled a letter and asked Komora Kijana to go to Kipini Secondary School with the document and give it to the headmaster, Mr Fito. His younger grandfather also looked at him and said an odd thing: ‘Now you have been given the power to read and you must not stop.’ When he saw Komora Kijana’s incomprehension he laughed and then fell back to the bed coughing. He died a week later.
After Komora Kijana sat his O-level exams he went back to Ozi. Two elders from Komora Mzee Wito’s Sinbad age-group had died within a week of each other and his grandfather was worried he too would be called soon. They started working on the Book every day.
Komora Mzee Wito handed over an old brown-and-black diary with golden lining that he had been given by his brother when they were still close. The diary was embossed with the crest of the government of Kenya. At the bottom it said ‘Ministry of Water’. The dates inside were from 1990. This became the Book. That had been a year ago.
Over this period Komora Kijana found some of the things that his grandfather told him strange but he wrote them down without asking questions. Mostly, they told of Komora Mzee Wito’s past journeys along the river. Journeys without the maps that Komora Kijana had learned in school. Places that the maps in school never mentioned. Words that did not exist in Kiswahili or Mbakomo. Stories of men who could summon crocodiles and send them to their enemies. Of spirits in the hills and in the forest.
Komora Kijana came to understand that these things that his grandfather told him would be lost forever if they were not written down. At times his grandfather called one or two of the old men of Gasa, Mzee Jorabashora and the oldest man in the village, whose name was never said aloud, and they added things from their own memories and so the book grew.
Komora Kijana remembered one of those first evenings when his grandfather put the Book aside and reached up into the rafters of his hut and some ancient-looking scrolls fell from it. The old man handed them over to Komora Kijana and asked him to rewrite the words in the Book. The parchments had a kind of writing that the boy had not seen before but after looking closely he made out the words:
Imperial Majesty of Britain.
The Territory Ozi will serve as agent of the Imperial Majesty of Britain against the German Territory of Witu.
‘Do you know what this is? This document shows that this village was given Madaraka by the Queen of England a long time ago. That Ozi was the first agent of England in the place we now call Kenya.’
And that was when Komora Kijana realised the importance of the Book.
A few days after the river began rising Chief Mpango’s aides started going around the village with loudspeakers warning everybody that the coming floods were just days away. The whole village laughed and abused the aides. Serikali was always late. A week ago a messenger from the Malajuu had come with a missive from the Gasa of Baomo to warn them of the heavy rains that had already started upriver. The Gasa had sent him back with a young man from Ozi but this emissary was yet to return with news of how strong the Tsana was. Nature had already given its signs the day before when a large snake had appeared, sunning itself on the path to the swamp. Those who rose early missed the snake. And so it was Ukonto who had almost trod on the snake. When he saw it the heavy something that had sat on his chest all his life lifted away – he felt his mouth open and take in the morning air with such ease that he felt as if he was floating on air. The snake slowly slid into the grass and Ukonto saw it make its way into the Tsana and head towards the sea. Later, when the elders of Gasa listened to Ukonto’s tale, several observed that a snake of that size had not been spotted in Ozi since the ’97 Great El Niño War of Tsana and Indian Ocean. By the next day news of the snake was all over Ozi.
When Kerekani brought food for Komora Mzee Wito the next day she squealed at Komora Kijana Wito, ‘My husband is healed. He asks when he can come and see Mzee Wito for his blessing?’
‘I will ask him.’ Komora Kijana knew that his grandfather would only bless Ukonto when he had cleared his land of bush.
The next morning before
