“What shall we do about it?” they asked each other.
Why not tell them the truth? they said, looking through the window. The queues were now so long that the women could not even see the rear.
The two women marched to the front of each queue and put up a notice: TAJIRIKA IS NOT IN TODAY: COME BACK TOMORROW. They went back inside to await the outcome.
And now a sight even more amazing unfolded. When those at the head of the queue read the notice and broke the news, those immediately behind them refused to believe their ears and insisted on seeing the notice for themselves. In the end those who read it did not even bother informing those behind them and simply went away in silence, the others imagining that they had simply met with bad luck or did not want to show elation for fear of exciting envy. Those at the back of the queue thought the lines were moving and were joined by others. Even those who had already left, on seeing this apparent movement, would rejoin the queues at the rear. This game of attrition at the front and replacement at the rear continued. Queues without an end, Nyawlra said to Vinjinia as they sought a way out of this dilemma.
They decided to seek help from the Santamaria police station. It was the nearest, and its head, Wonderful Tumbo, was a friend. He promised to dispatch traffic police to deal with the situation.
But it was not until the afternoon that the promised police officers arrived, two in a Land Rover and the other two on motorcycles, wielding bullhorns. They conferred with Nyawlra and Vinjinia. From what they had seen upon driving up to the office, it was obvious to them that their shouted instructions, no matter how amplified, would not carry to the end of the queues. Do something, the women appealed.
After animated discussions among themselves, the police officers decided on a course of action: the two on motorcycles would ride along the queues and shout their instructions through the bullhorns. The others would hang around the premises to spot and quell trouble.
The two riders took to the road, repeating the same message over and over again: Tajirika is not in the office, people should go home and come back another day. But nobody believed them; the queues showed no sign of thinning out, the game of attrition, replacement, and apparent movement in full swing, serving only to confirm that the police officers were lying.
In the office, Nyawlra remembered that an answering machine had recently been installed, and she quickly programmed it to respond,
They had thought that the two police officers on motorcycles would come back within a few minutes, but they were still missing even after one hour. The first to return after two hours was the one who had shadowed the queue of the rich, and he had been able to do so because, in his own words, “my line was not as long as the other one,” adding that in all his life as a police officer he had never encountered such long queues. Even so, his message had had no effect: the queue of the rich remained as it had been all day.
But shortly after five o’clock, something strange happened. The queue of the hunters of contracts vanished. Just like that. Starting apparently at the back of the queue, they had stolen away one by one, and within a few minutes their stealthy retreat had turned into a stampede toward their Mercedes-Benzes; in a short time all parking places were empty. Curious that they should refuse to heed a law enforcement officer but then flee within seconds of one another for no apparent reason! Very strange, the women told each other. Perhaps the same thing would happen to the other queue, they hoped, but no such luck: the queue remained intact with no indication that it would vanish like the other. The police rider attending it was nowhere in sight. As much as the two women strained their eyes and ears, they saw no police officer, no motorcycle.
If you had been there when Nyawlra was telling Kamltl all this, you would have wondered, just as he did, whether to cry or laugh, for, as she told him, there came a time when she and Vinjinia felt that the office had become their jail. The sun was calling it a day, but not the queuers. And the women hesitated to go home without a report from the missing police rider.
Vinjinia would now and then call to see if her husband was feeling any better, but there was no comfort from the homefront, and as the afternoon wore on Vinjinia became depressed, which did not help the atmosphere in the room.
All day long the two women had been on their feet, but now Nyawlra pulled up a chair, and, as she continued looking through the window, found herself wondering what could be ailing her boss so much as to force him to stay away from easy money, but not serious enough to make him see a doctor. Maybe it was a bad case of flu. But why would Vinjinia have been so reticent about that? And if Tajirika did not feel better soon, what was she to do about the queue? As if reading Nyawlra’s thoughts, Vinjinia herself pulled up a chair next to Nyawlra. When she spoke, her voice sounded teary
“I know what you are asking yourself,” she started. “Believe me, I am as much in the dark as you. Where shall I begin? He came back last night with three sacks full of Burl notes. Throughout the evening he kept muttering things to himself, calculating I don’t know what. Even when he eventually heeded my call to come to bed, he did not fall asleep but continued working things out in his mind. From the few words that I could make out, he seemed to be calculating the impact of Marching to Heaven on our lives. I fell asleep and left him wide awake.
“The illness itself seized him this morning. It started when he went to the bathroom: suddenly it was as if he stood frozen in front of the mirror. And every time he looked at the mirror, he could say nothing save
Nyawlra recalled how at the close of the previous business day Tajirika had pulled a gun on her, fearing that she might be a robber. Maybe he was terrified of being robbed.
“It was unusual for someone to have so much money in his house,” Nyawlra said. “Maybe he was paralyzed by the prospect of robbers. His train of thought must have been something like this: If they find me with all this money, they will kill me. If! If only I had left the money in the office or put it in a bank?”
The sudden entrance of one of the three police officers now guarding the grounds interrupted their conversation. He wanted to know what to do next: it was getting late, the queue was still there, and the police motorcycle rider had not yet returned.
Vinjinia paid him and his cohorts off to guard the premises for the night and to wait for the return of the missing rider.
The two women then closed up the office and left through the back door. The queue of job seekers was still intact. Maybe the darkness would drive them away. Maybe tomorrow would be another day. Vinjinia left in her black Mercedes-Benz without offering Nyawlra a lift. “See you tomorrow” were her last words.
What a day! Nyawlra thought as she walked down the road to the bus stop. She suspected that there was a lot more to her boss’s illness than Vinjinia was letting on. If the police officer had not interrupted their tete-a-tete, maybe…
She had just crossed the road when she felt a hand on her right shoulder. She turned around quickly, clutching her handbag firmly. There were so many stories of daylight robbery in the streets that it had now become second nature to hold one’s bag tighter at the slightest friction with another person.
She did not know whether to laugh in relief or shout in anger.
It was the ubiquitous Kaniuru.
Nyawlra thought of pretending that she had not seen him, but a voice within told her, Let’s hear what he has to say, we might glean a thing or two about what’s going on in the higher reaches of government.
3
At the Mars Cafe, they again sat across from each other in barely veiled hostility. Kaniuru ordered coffee,
