Secret Lives & Other Stories by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o

Author:Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

He stopped and read over what he had written. He turned over another page. Inspiration came in waves. His hand was too slow for what begged to come out.

… What went wrong, I keep on asking myself? Was it wrong for us, with our capital, with our knowledge, with our years of Christian civilization to open and lift a dark country onto the stage of history? I played my part. Does it matter if promotion was slow? Does it matter if there were ups and downs? And there were many moments of despair. I remember the huts we burnt. Even then I did ask myself: had I fallen so low? My life reduced to burning down huts and yet more huts? Had my life come to a cul-de-sac? And yet we could not let atavistic violence destroy all that had taken so many years and so many lives to build. When I had reached the nadir of my despair, I met that man – our shamba boy. Do you remember him? The one who spurned my gift and disappeared, maybe to the forest? He stood in the office with that sneer in his face – like – like the devil. The servile submissive face when he worked for you had gone. He had that strange effect on me – when I remembered the grief he caused you – well – made me boil inside – I felt a violent rage within such as I had never felt before – I could not bear that grin. I stood and spat into his face. And that arrogant stare never left his face even as he cleared off the spit with the back of his left hand. Isn’t it strange that I forget his name now, that I never really knew his name? Did you? I only remember that he was tall and there in the office I saw the violence in his eyes. I was afraid of him. Can you believe it? I, afraid of a black man? Afraid of my former shamba boy? What happened later, I cannot remember, cannot explain, I was not myself, I only saw the face of the man. At night, in the morning, I saw the grin, the sneer, the arrogant indifference. And he would not confess to anything. I gave command. He was taken to the forest. I never saw him again …

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