In the first installment of Dr. Kavirondo by David G. Maillu, Dr. W.W. Kavirondo thought he’d escaped his father’s shadow, until the dying man used his final breath to bind him to a Luo wife.

Part 1

Whenever the phone rang, Dr. W.W. Kavirondo always got the creeps. At other times, he would freeze and stare at the phone afraid of touching it for fear it might deliver the worst breaking news. In such moments he could almost hear the pumping of his heart. That ringing sometimes made his mind go blank. He would even forget his whereabouts in such instances. As much as he had reached the peak of his education, in such moments, he realized just how flimsy he was. He hadn’t forgotten his past dream of wanting to be addressed as Doctor Kavirondo, which he had finally achieved nearly a year earlier; and as it were, he was still enjoying the honeymoon of being called Dr. Kavirondo. Of late, he had been trying his best to prepare himself for the breaking news. However, the more he got prepared, the more he faced the naked realization that, no matter how much he got prepared to receive the news, the damage was still bound to take its course seriously. During the preparation, his sixth sense had kept on telling him, “Stand tall like a man; when it comes, you’ll get used to it. Time heals everything.”

       Now, here is the thing; his father, Brigadier Fred Kavirondo, one of the most prominent Luo men, lay in hospital critically ill. This day marked two months since he was hospitalized. The latest news from the doctors was that his father’s heart was in the process of weakening day by day. In other words, it wasn’t if but when Brigadier Fred Kavirondo was going to die.       

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        Brigadier had fallen ill mysteriously and suspiciously. His illness had invited many rumours. One of those rumours had it that the government had a motive of getting rid of him, as President Moi’s government had once done to Dr. Robert Ouko when it thought he had outlived his purpose. The rumour mill had it that the Brigadier was given a secret slow-death injection. Brigadier Fred Kavirondo had an outstanding record of serving the government proudly and officiously, characteristic of a Luo man given an executive position. Of course, he had competitive enemies. It’s always tough up there where statuses are overcrowded. The possibility of someone trying to taint his name was unquestionable. Or, had Brigadier Kavirondo been caught red-handed planning to overthrow the government as Ochuka did unsuccessfully to President Moi’s government? Ochuka went into history books as having been the head of State for a few hours before the security boys overturned him. Who in Kenya would want Brigadier Kavirondo dead?

        The Brigadier was a tall and robust man bursting with self-confidence and military power. He talked in a sonorous voice that had earned him the nickname Brigadier Frog. He was a mater-of-fact man, dark like the night punctuated by a pronounced nose. He was a man of few words. His imposing figure was scary to many people. Looking at him, you strongly felt he was trained to shoot and kill men. You couldn’t help wondering how many people, if any, he had killed in his profession. Perhaps it was his mercurial feature that had threatened some authorities to conclude he could be a dangerous man to the regime if he was left to live. Or, after all, Brigadier Kavirondo had naturally fallen sick. Anyone can fall sick at any time.

        Apart from his military might, there was something Brigadier Fred Kavirondo was known and feared for. His massive home, placed on a high ground in a place strangely named, Gi. The story was that his mansion had twelve bedrooms. Villagers feared passing near the home. They used to enjoy the view of the home from a distance before, over the years, trees grew and covered it.

        From whatever angle Brigadier Fred Kavirondo was viewed locally, he was a wealthy man. His wealth snarled jealousy among the people underlying the fundamental Luo feeling that any individual wealth is stolen from them and it is a social crime to enjoy that wealth alone. If someone is wealthy, people should proudly say, “He’s our wealthy man.” That explained why, in spite of recognizing him as their big man, they lived disturbed because Brigadier Fred Kavirondo ate alone with his one wife and three children. It made no sense to them why he had only one wife. A man of one wife, goes a saying, sleeps with her when she is sick. They thought the Brigadier should have, at least, three wives and many children. No wonder his guilty conscience, some thought, made him keep away from meeting people by remaining up-there.

        Brigadier Fred Kavirondo, like many of the Kenyan elite, had sent his three children to the best schools and colleges overseas. He proudly boasted of his first and second born being great academicians. The firstborn bearing the pride of being addressed, ‘Doctor Wellington Wilberforce Kavirondo’, who after acquiring his doctorate buried the intimidating names—Wellington Wilberforce—commonly introduced himself as WW.

        The second child of Brigadier Kavirondo, was Yvonne, armed with a Master's Degree in Human Resources. Both children worked overseas. The last born, Morse Aingola, was still in college studying. The Kavirondo family boasted quietly of being parallel to the family of Jaramogi Ajuma Oginga Odinga, the most legendary person in Luo land. He was the first Vice-President of Kenya. In some quarters he was nicknamed, Jaaoo. He was born in 1911 and died in 1994. Jaaoo was a prominent figure in Kenya’s struggle for independence. Later, he became an opposition leader and wrote his autobiography book, ‘Not Yet Uhuru’ that challenged President Jomo Kenyatta’s government with the claim that Kenya’s Independence was fake. The book drove Odinga to a head-on-collision with Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of Kenya. Kenyatta lived and died still lamenting, “No Luo ever gets satisfied with anything. Give him your finger and he wants your hand. Give him your hand and he demands the whole body.”

        Odinga was pro-communism while Kenyatta was pro-capitalism. Senior Kavirondo claimed that he and Odinga were competitors during the ends of the era of colonialism. However, when independence came and Odinga became the Vice-President, he used his political might to squash Senior Kavirondo’s might. Since then, the Kavirondo family remained at the periphery of power.

        Before Senior Kavirondo died in his nineties, he used to lament, “A Luo man in a position of authority doesn’t want anyone else promoted and consequently challenge his position. He does everything in his capacity to make a god out of himself so he can be worshipped.”

        But, when Junior Fred Kavirondo became Brigadier, he played the same Luo game in making himself a god. There are narratives that he played his witchcraft game in the army to make sure no Luo was promoted above him. There is also another claim that Brigadier Fred Kavirondo frustrated the economics of any Luo man bypassing him in wealth. He was a man who would be seen only in the company of influential people. Local people said it was more difficult for an ordinary man to reach him than to reach the President.

        Dr. Kavirondo was constantly receiving the bad news of his father’s illness while in Mexico where he was a lecturer in Anthropology as a young man of thirty-one, nearly three years after getting married to Marietta, daughter of a Jamaican called, Jesus Mars. They were nursing their firstborn, a son who was now learning how to crawl.

        Since his marriage, Dr. Kavirondo had been torn between going back to Kenya for permanent settlement or developing an international career and living anywhere in the world as a member of the world. He had everything it took for him to live and work anywhere. However, there was something he was very uncomfortable with—his Luo community’s behaviour of playing tradition and modernity if and when it was convenient. Besides, there was confusion between traditional and imported values. Indeed, the Luo community was wandering on cultural crossroads where it’s authenticity was getting watered down. He had told many Luo people, “We live on improperly cooked culture.” There were people talking proudly about Luo culture and language; yet he had seen many Luo parents bringing up children absolutely speaking only in English. There was a powerful fake tradition in the making. That was when his clash with his father started; particularly as soon as he graduated from University with a bachelor's degree. His father was not amused when the son started asking provocative questions regarding the father’s general conduct.

        Ironically, Brigadier Kavirondo talked proudly about his commitment in following Luo culture to the word. Yet, when challenged why he had only one wife while secretly entertaining games with women behind her back, instead of behaving honourably like a traditional Luo by marrying more than one wife to satisfy his sex lust; he argued out that he didn’t live in the past. “I’m a modern Luo,” he stressed.

        It took a great personality for a modern man to be a polygamist while living in the mass of monogamists with herds of concubines out there. Brigadier Kavirondo went to church not because he was a Christian but because his bosses and the President went to church.

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        The Brigadier had two brothers besides a host of half brother’s out of his father’s polygamy of four wives. One of his brothers was called, Okelo, a chronicle drunkard and wife beater. He did his best to keep away from his thorny brother, Brigadier. The other brother was Bondo, with whom Okelo did not see eye-to-eye but who, ironically, was the confidant of the Brigadier and his family. Brigadier had done wonderful things in helping his half brothers. Three of them were in the army and two were in the Police Force. He had helped others to get jobs in various places. He had reason to admire himself and live proudly for having done the Kavirondo family proud.

        The name Kavirondo wasn’t Brigadier’s birth name. He had inherited it from his father born during colonial times. Kavirondo etymology was linked to the Kalenjins’ name of a place of reeds – kap kirondo. However, there is also another narrative: ‘Kavirondo’ is a historical colonial-era term that collectively referred to the Bantu-speaking Luhya peoples and the Nilotic-speaking Luo peoples in western Kenya. The word is commonly believed to derive from the Kiswahili term "ka-virondo," meaning "those who squat" or "sit on their heels," a practice observed by colonial administrators. The term also refers to the region around the Winam Gulf (formerly Kavirondo Gulf) of Lake Victoria. The family however, had no history regarding why their ancestor was given that name. The higher academically the young WW climbed, the closer he became to Uncle Bondo. The Brigadier wasn’t amused to see his son so close to Bondo. Both Bondo and the Brigadier had graduated from high school. Bondo, who was older than the Brigadier, was a Primary School Teacher, highly disciplined and a great critic of the Brigadier.

        Although the Brigadier was proud of his son’s colourful academic achievements, he was uncomfortable that the son’s high education had resulted in creating a difficult son. Their biggest contention erupted when the son went for a Jamaican wife. The Brigadier wanted the son to have a Luo wife. To express his disappointment, the father refused to attend the wedding under the pretext of an official outside the country assignment. The son got mad when he secretly learned later that his father had literally gone to South Africa to dodge the wedding.

        He had flown his Jamaican girlfriend for marriage in Kenya and quickly smuggled her away under the guise they were going for a honeymoon although he didn’t believe in the honeymoon narrative. He snatched his wife away from home afraid of one thing: His wife would pick up one of those confusing cultural indoctrination, which said a Luo man who gets married outside his community is not considered a married man until the day he marries a Luo wife, whether for number two or for whatever number. He knew how much that would frighten his Jamaican wife. The terror of such a story could be easily authored by his father who had blatantly told the son face to face, “you’ll get my blessing only when I will wake up one day and find you with a Luo wife.”

        The father disliked the Jamaican girl on the first day they met face-to-face, although he cried pretentious jubilation for meeting her, hiding behind the argument that, as the father of her fiancé, Luo tradition didn’t permit him to offer her a handshake. She innocently accepted everything. But her fiancé kept studying her eyes regarding the chemistry between her and the father. She was a highly intelligent woman, but he knew too well she’d sit on the lid of whatever discomfort she picked up from her father-in-law-to-be. The mother-in-law-to be, on the other hand, was bursting with jubilation for her son to befriend and bring home foreign blood.

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        Uncle Bondo had been communicating with WW on phone daily since Brigadier’s hospitalization. Bondo was the most reliable man in the family. His passion for life was lost in fending for his large family of three wives. He had been asked by many people, “Bondo, how do you manage such a family of three wives so comfortably at a time when it’s hard for a man to manage a family of one wife? What’s the formula for your success?”

        He had no ready-made formula for that. So, he would simply laugh it off. The miracle he had used had made the three wives friends of each other. Of course, nothing can be perfect. People have said if you are married to one wife you’ve one poison pot. Three wives should be three pots of poison. Women are fragile and collide quickly. But he, together with his wives, had established themselves as one work team. He didn’t see his wives from the sexual part but as human beings trying their best to live comfortably. Each child felt in good hands of any of the three mothers. Managing three wives successfully ridiculed his Brigadier brother. At one stage during a heated argument between them, Bondo had lashed at the Brigadier calling him a prostitute father. “How many children have you fathered outside your marriage? Who, among them, will ever have the pleasure of growing up proudly in the hands of their father?”

        “Those children are lucky that I support their mothers.”

        The misfortune of a man with lovers comes out clearly when he dies. The burial day becomes the time when his other wives emerge from the human forest towing their children and demanding to have their share of the estate.

        Bondo knew his Brigadier brother was going to die. “Take care of my family,” the Brigadier had literally given Bondo his will because he knew he was going to die. “Keep your grip over my exiled son with his Jamaican wife.” Now Bondo was wondering what to do to Brigadier’s secret wives when they emerge.

        The more the Brigadier stayed in hospital, the more his wife felt devastated. In all her visits to the hospital she demanded Bondo’s accompaniment and in every case, she would remember to pressure him, “summon Wellington to come.” Not that she hadn’t begged her son in tears on phone, “please, come home; your father is dying.” But she had the feeling that her son didn’t listen to her; but he was going to listen to his beloved uncle who had just the previous day cried, “son, the vultures have started coming and perching nearby.” Bondo was worried by the expected evil gravity and rush caused by death in a family in which the public rush to demand a share of the property.

        Okelo, who rarely visited his sick brother in hospital, had suddenly stopped drinking, returned to brushing his teeth, combing his hair, taking frequent baths and shaving his beard to boost his personality. He had done his mathematics very well. He knew Bondo, the jewel elder of the family, would refrain from inheriting Isabella because he was overburdened by his family; hence leaving Isabella for grabs by Okelo but on condition that Okelo had got up from dirt and dusted himself immaculately clean. Then Okelo and Isabella would live happily thereafter wallowing in Brigadier’s wealth. He didn’t tell anybody that after Brigadier’s death, at whatever cost, he was preparing to inherit the Brigadier’s wife, Isabella. Consequently, every morning he was the first person to come and ask Isabella, “Is there anything I can do for you?”

        Isabella was happy to hear that, since he had a driving licence because he used to own a car ages ago, she would now gladly give him her car for shopping errands. Building his credibility for inheriting Isabella because he, like everybody else, knew the Brigadier was on his way out. He couldn’t dare outsmart her in buying anything. He would gladly return from the shopping saying, “this is the balance out of the money you gave.”

        Bondo read Okelo well but with disgust. He feared that Isabella misread Okelo’s new behaviour, but he refrained from raising a red flag to her fearing such advice could easily backfire. In the meantime, he played pretence by telling his brother, “we are aware of what you are up to.” However, he kept on pleadingly alarming with Dr. Kavirondo on phone.

        What Uncle Bondo would have written as a serious letter to Dr. Kavirondo in Mexico, he read it out to him on the international phone call. “Son, drop everything and come home. Your mother is going to need your protection desperately when your father dies. Your useless Uncle Okelo has a dangerous design to inherit your mother at whatever cost. You know how much the Luo culture has been corrupted by materially oriented persons. Okelo is going to cause chaos because I know that only over your mother’s dead body would she accept being inherited by such a skunk. I’m telling you, the forgotten nobility of our tradition gives the widow freedom to say no to unacceptable family man intending to inherit her because, after all, it is all about her own life. Unfortunately, things have changed with the introduction of money. My Brigadier Brother is a wealthy man. But that is the killing bullet. The church where your mother goes for worship is equally confused and toothless apart from promising prayers. A widow deserves sympathy and help, not harassment. She should not be treated like a domestic animal. Her integrity should be respected. Now Okelo holds the rampant aberration of widow inheritance that has destroyed Luo integrity. The rain started beating us when we left our God in the forest and went to worship imported gods. Son, I want you to take your father’s mantle of domestic leadership as the eldest son of my brother and as the most educated person in the Kavirondo family. You are and you should be the custodian of your father’s estate. Come! I’ve warned you, the vultures are assembling around. If it weren’t for your father’s government security guarding the home, as soon as word goes around that your father is dying, as it already has, the worst will soon start happening. As soon as the death of your father is announced, people will come under the pretence of giving your mother and the family sympathy, only to disappear with one item or another. Either with the bed sheets they slept on, or a utensil or a domestic tool. I don’t want to imagine what is going to happen to my brother’s estate during the pretentious mourning and the big burial. Your presence will command protection from the government easily. I am a small man. Nobody will listen to me. You will be the unquestionable authority to be listened to because you are Brigadier Kavirondo’s heir. See? You have both the voice and education. You can shout down any demanding voices.”

        The worst thing Dr. Kavirondo could do would be to have his wife witness the anticipated embarrassment. He had seen it with his own eyes taking place in other people’s homes but never in his home. Now he feared for the estate of his father.

        He swallowed saliva of desperation as he wondered what explanation to give his wife on why she should be left behind. He had decided to respond to Bondo’s plead. He used the biggest, biggest justification of leaving Marietta and the son behind. Her maternity leave had expired and she was in the middle of her post-graduate studies for her Master's Degree. To accompany him to Kenya would put things upside-down. The thing was, he couldn’t say how long he would be away. What if the father didn’t die that soon? He felt extremely shaken during the departure because she gave him a suspicious tearless stare and asked, “could this be the last time I’ll ever see you?”

        Both shared tears of departure. Under the circumstances, he felt the marriage hung on a thin thread. What if his dying father demanded he would want to see his son’s Luo wife before he died?

        The British Airways plane landed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport just before six in the morning. Dr. Kavirondo took the breath of the cold home air as he was greeted by a sea of black faces. Indeed, home is home. He was picked up by a military transport driven by a military man who introduced himself by ‘beating’ a salute qualified by crying, “sir, welcome home. I’m Captain Jalang’o.” Fearing silence, Dr. Kavirondo kept Captain Jalang’o talking all the way from the airport to Karen Estate. Both, as if for a good reason, avoided speaking in Luo language. The captain spoke bad English in a heavy Luo accent. The more the car got close home, the more Dr. Kavirondo smelt his father’s imminent death. He was utterly exhausted. He couldn’t sleep on his flight torn between the death of his father and what was written on his wife’s face at the departure moment. He desperately needed some sleep before anything else.

        It was at exactly noon when Bondo, in the company of two other men arrived at the Nairobi hospital. His mother had fallen too grief-sick to accompany her son to the hospital. After three years and seven months of separation, the father and son met. The son would live to remember that moment when he felt the grip of his father’s hands on his hand as the father struggled to produce some guttural sound trying to say something incomprehensible. He couldn’t lift his body from the bed. He made signs, asking to be given a private moment with his son. The son caught a mysterious and eerie look from his father’s fighting eyes with death. He instantly noticed his father’s face had lost weight and drastically changed. The hand grip remained strong for a while before it started developing light trembling as the patient face of his father glowed with a degree of delight. Then the father gained the energy to say, “son, promise you’ll have a Luo wife.”

        The son, though in anticipation, was still caught unprepared. He struggled to find the appropriate words with which to please his father as the grip weakened. He didn’t know when and how words escaped his mouth to say, “I promise I will…” The grip weakened with diminishing trembling as the father’s face grew hard fighting for breath. Brigadier Fred Kavirondo died having reached the destination of his waiting… What a mysterious coincidence! The son froze.

Next time on Dr. Kavirondo, Dr. Kavirondo learns that marrying a non-Luo woman is economically beneficial as compared to Luo women who are extravagant.

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