The Homecoming

by Tallin Aghourian

YES, IT WAS GUILT she felt as her husband took her to the airport.  The simple fact was that she could go to Kenya, and he could not.  But did she have more right than he did to go to Kenya, to go home?  He wrote so often about Kenya, about homecomings, so when would he get his?  She could see sadness in his face and it was longing she heard in his voice when he called while she was there, asking her to narrate the scenery on her long drives from town to town.  How was she to describe what she saw, when the Kenya he remembered was gone?  Kenya had changed; the people were utterly demoralized.  Yet, she hoped the day would come soon when she could finally take him home, and she hoped he would be standing next to her when she did, not lying in a box.

There was nothing she could do about his exile except travel with four eyes, and see the country for him.  When she returned to the States, the grilling would begin.  He would ask her questions after the long trip when her body was tired and all she wanted to do was sleep and he would keep asking even as she was falling apart.  He wanted to know what had happened to his theater group: who was still alive, what were they doing?  She would tell him to look into her eyes.  She wasn’t sure if he saw those scenes that she had captured, but he always looked. 

Thiong’o and Mumbi, their two children, stayed home this trip.  The two had been named after her husband’s parents as Kikuyu tradition required.  She herself was named after her mother’s mother, Njeeri.  Kikuyu creation myth told that in a grove of wild fig trees, the god Gikuyu found a beautiful woman.  He named her Mumbi, meaning creator, and she bore him nine daughters; the third was named Njeri.  Most Kikuyu families named their girls after one of these nine daughters, and while Njeri was a common enough name, Njeeri’s extra e made her stand apart. 

It was these traditions and stories that her husband held onto in his writing.  If – no, when – they returned, he would again be able to experience them first-hand and perhaps they would perform the Ngurario ceremony, without which, according to tradition, their marriage was incomplete. 

Traveling without her children, especially her son, recognition was less likely.  She and her daughter could be anybody; Njeeri wa Ngugi and Mumbi wa Ngugi, the wife and daughter of any man named Ngugi.  But Thiong’o wa Ngugi made it clear who they were.  Yes, they were the Professor’s family.  When will the Professor be returning to Kenya?  Soon, soon, she would answer, and hope.

Njeeri never intended her stay in the United States to extend so long.  She left Kenya in 1972, seventeen years old, filled with the hopes of what an education abroad could mean for her future.  The Lions’ Club of Glens Falls New York sponsored her trip and set her up at nearby Fort Edward High School in a town that had been a British position during the American War for Independence but had switched sides.  And so, Njeeri found herself in a picturesque, upstate hamlet where British colonialism was seen only in the centuries-old buildings and experienced only on designated heritage days.  But she left a Kenya that had yet to know a decade of independence from British colonialism; a Kenya still reeling from its effects and discovering what it meant to be postcolonial. The spirit of the Mau Mau still lingered – they were the Kikuyu men who had receded into the mountains to train, who had come out warriors ready to fight.  Their memories were within reach, not yet receding into the blurry glow of history.

In men like James Ngugi the spirit thrived, working its way out in his teachings at University College in Nairobi and in his growing collection of writing.  Ngugi challenged the colonial mindset in which he felt the people of Kenya and Africa were stuck and urged for a return to native languages, traditions and culture.  Though the current Kenyan government, headed by President Jomo Kenyatta, had evolved from the Mau Mau, Ngugi’s writing won him few friends in the ranks.

Njeeri first became acquainted with Ngugi through his writing.  She finished high school in New York, spent two years at a community college, and moved to New Jersey in 1978 where she enrolled at Jersey City State College to study psychology.  A professor assigned Ngugi’s The River Between and the writer’s real and normal portrayal of Kikuyu life enchanted her.   One day, taking a break from waitressing tables at the restaurant where she worked, she picked up his book and was approached by a handsome African-American who charmed her with his knowledge of Ngugi and the Kiswahili language.  The two married, staying together long enough to have a daughter, but eventually divorced.  She still felt tied to Kenya, like she was living in two places at once, and felt like she was sacrificing for his sake.

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