BIKO: The marriage talk

One day, probably 22 years from now, my daughter – then a very well-adjusted and educated girl who reads four books a month, drinks nothing but martini on crushed ice, is eloquent, smart, gorgeous and sexy, complete with her mother’s bum behind her, will call me.

I will probably be in the middle of Asia, maybe Cambodia, living in this small hut in the village, a straw hat perched on my head, writing my 15th book, sporting a weathered, wise face and a white beard which I stroke absentmindedly when I’m onto something big.

I will be the only black man for kilometres, and the only one from Nyanza for hundreds of thousands of miles, and the villagers will all call me Samnang which means “lucky”.

I will be living on rice, dried salted fish called trei ngea and pickled vegetables. I will be running thrice a week in the hills and reading books to kill time.

I will not be on roaming, of course, and so every two days I will walk from the village to this small centre at the foot of the hill where anybody who wants to reach me will have to call a man called Sengkong Heng who will tell him that Biko will be coming here at such and such a time, call him, unless it’s urgent which means a little boy (Heng’s grandson) would be dispatched to run into the hills to fetch me. All this for only four dollars.

So I will take the call from my lovely daughter as I lean on a wooden pillar on this makuti roof verandah while I squint up into the lush, misty hills.

She will say, “Papa, [she better still call me that] why do you insist on doing these crazy things? I just don’t understand you!

LIKE NORMAL FATHERS

Why don’t you just live like normal fathers? When are you coming back?” Because I will be 60 years old and slightly grumpy (but very cool) I will say, “This book wants to write itself here, darling, there is something quite... what do I say, inspiring, about these hills. You should see how they climb into the clouds….”

She will sigh loudly and say, “There are hills here in Kenya, you know, why don’t you go write this book up Mount Kenya? Come on, papa, I have to leave a message and wait two days to talk to my own father? Just come back. Stop this madness. Please?” Heng will shout that he’s expecting a call from New Jersey, so could I not please stay on the phone for too long like last time?

“How is your brother? Is he still riding that loud motorcycle?” I will ask her, ignoring Heng. “I think one day that ghastly motor-”

Then she will cut me short and cut my heart as well by saying, “I met someone, Papa.” I will stare at a school of goats (what the hell do you call a group of goats anyway?) bleating by, herded by a boy wearing a Mac T-shirt. She will continue, “He’s a real nice guy and he wants to meet you because we are serious and I want your blessing.”

I will suddenly feel faint and woozy, so I will slide and sit on the floor. Her: “Papa? Hello? Are you there?” Finding my voice, I will ask in a near whisper, “How serious is this and how come nobody told me about this… this... guy?”

She will say that nobody told me because I’m always gone in the hills writing my mysterious book.

I will then have to grudgingly stop my book in its 22nd chapter – just as the protagonist is about to have a baby – and fly back down to the Motherland to meet this punk.

I will meet him at Serena’s Aksum Bar, if they won’t have changed its name. If they change its name I will have to meet him elsewhere, like Mama Ashanti, that West African eatery.

I will be sipping my first blended whisky in ages, staring at him with snake eyes, and thinking to myself darkly, “My little girl deserves better, not this guy with hair coming out of his nose.”

He will be properly behaved though, and most importantly, he will be respectful (he will say no when I offer him a drink) and calm.

I will grill him because I have spent half my life interviewing people, so I am very adept at getting information out of anyone. But I will see the futility of my actions because what do you do when a woman has loved a man? What do you do when she has chosen him, amongst all the men without hair in their noses?

He will then say that he wants to organise a meet with his parents to discuss dowry and stuff. I will tell him firmly that I don’t want dowry.

I don’t want the 30 goats and 70 sheep that Kiprono offered for Malia, Obama’s daughter. I don’t want bags of maize or rice.

I don’t want lesos or kabutis or hats. I don’t want your people to pay anything in cash or even in kind. I don’t want anything from you other than respect for my little girl and the day you stop offering that, she will pack her bag and leave. Or I will come for her.

Then I will shake his hand, down my whisky in one and leave. He will turn to my daughter and ask, with a mixture of bewilderment and admiration, “What exactly did you say your dad does, again?” And because she’s cut from the same cloth, she will smirk and say, “Papa does cool.”