Lula Salama - The Ravelled Sleeve
A childhood spent in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising at the end of the British colonial era is captured and unfolded. These tales shed light on and age that has disappeared, and explain what life was like and how the family discovered what their father was really doing in East Africa in the 1950s. With no electricity and no refrigeration a fascinating collection of stories is revealed.
At four and a half I first went hunting with my father on a plain in Kenya not far from Kericho. It was not for trophies but for the pot. We went shooting so that we had fresh meat for the family, our servants and our dogs. We had no electricity and no refrigeration, and had to thoughtfully dispose of everything we took. The recollections of these times are deeply ingrained. I have been searching my memory for answers to how and why events happened for years and here is the explanation. It never fails to amaze me when I discuss peoples’ childhoods, or take a medical history, or just in casual conversation how often I am told “I don’t really remember much of when I was a child.” My own childhood seems to be so rich and steeped in a fabric of memories in which I can revel, and this book is the result of probing that resource.
"Do you remember the first time I ever saw a dead body?” I asked my father, as we languished in the hot sweet smelling water.
“Was it at Guy’s?” he replied casually, his smooth Oxford accent purring over the bubbles!
There was never a trace of the Colonial pronunciation, not New Zealand or any other. No, he was an officer and an Oxford graduate, and at this period of evolutionary preferences no trace of colloquial identity was to mar a gentleman’s speech. Such affectation was frowned upon. I had actually attended his lectures on Accents and Dialects at Saint Claire’s Hall in Oxford, when I worked there in the summer months. He was clearly an expert.
His response with a question was obvious, for I had spent a number of years studying dentistry at the Guy’s Hospital Dental School. For a whole year hours had been expended in the anatomy theater chopping up “Claude”, our cadaver, who had donated his mortal remains to science. Consequently irreverent parsons’ sons, doctors’ children, and the heir to a London cab driver and myself were discovering the marvels his “wonderfully made” body. We discarded bits in various buckets, one hanging at the end of each of the numerous dissecting tables. How he was to be reunited in one grave when we had done, we never even considered. That would be God’s miracle at the resurrection. Anyway, Guy’s was on our minds as my father had just given me an engraving of the Royal Albert Hall where he had watched me receive my degree from the Queen Mum. The graduation ceremony seemed a long time ago now, and I was ensconced on the hill with a dental practice on Sunset Boulevard. The present had brought it all back, it showed the Albert Memorial at the Knightsbridge side of Hyde Park, and the concert hall with its wide flattened dome and red brick facade across the road. I loved the hall. We would go there, ‘to dress the theater’ as students. Free tickets were made available on the day of a performance, and could be obtained from the college porter at the East Wing at Guy’s Hospital. Once I went to hear the first concert after the new circular fiberglass discs were suspended from the dome ceiling to improve the acoustics. It was an amazing program that included Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony in which the second movement commemorated Wagner’s death. That piece has beautiful soft string passages and brash brassy highlights in the Wagnerian style. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was also included, complete with cannon and bells at the end.
“No!” I answered. “It was on the escarpment road going up to Nairobi.”
“Good god! Do you remember that?” he queried, leaning in from the side of the tub. He was more intent now than I had seen him appear in many a year, yet he had that wry knowing smile that said there’s a lot more to tell.
“Oh yes! And I’ve wanted to ask you about it. There’s something I could never understand.”
Comments
Post a Comment