Open Writing

Chapter 16
Teapot and the Kenya Police (Continued)

At 3.00am one morning, less than a month after taking occupation,
we were abruptly awoken by a violent thumping against our
bedroom wall. Poor old Teapot had also come to life from his slumbers
and was going bananas. I knew what this was. Jamila did too.

‘Oh my God, Stewart. What are we going to do?’

I reached for the phone. The line was dead. Bashing and bumping
continued unabated. It seemed as if the house was going to fall
down. Jamila fiddled for what seemed like an eternity with her prosthetic
limb. I helped her into it. Finally, with Teapot the Terrier in my
arms, we fled into the living room, and down the adjacent corridor
to our guest wing. I tried the phone there as well. Nothing. In darkness
I peered out of the window. It was as we had guessed. Prowling
in the garden, but intent of getting inside were about a dozen men. I
could see several of them carried pangas. I cursed my idiotic decision
not to employ a night watchman, however dozy he might have
been.

The intruders had been armed with a heavy sledge hammer. They
soon smashed their way in through the bedroom wall. If their tactic
was designed to instill terror, they succeeded. Stories of robbery by
large well armed gangs were by then rife in Nairobi. We had heard of
the newly favoured means of entry to properties by such thugs. And
we knew that if crossed, gangs were capable of murdering the occupants
of houses they targeted.

Within minutes we realised the men were already moving around
in the main part of the house. The lights had been turned on. Teapot
continued to bark his old lungs out. And then the locked door which
shielded us from them was struck with the sledge hammer. Time and
again it shuddered against the force exerted upon it. The old panelled
oak seemed to be holding up at first but we knew it could not.
We couldn’t even escape through the window because the accursed
burglar bars had sealed us in.

The door lock finally burst away from its fastenings and we were
face to face with three of the gang. Teapot launched himself at the
first of them. He tore at the man’s leg with a viciousness that I’d
never have guessed of such an old dog. Protecting his master and
mistress. The bastards cut him down with one vicious swipe of a
heavy blade. Our much loved little pet fell to the floor without even
a yelp. They had cleaved his skull open and laughed at their barbarous
act. I pulled Jamila close to me, an instinctive, protective reaction.
She was close to hysteria at the sight of wee Teapot lying in a
pool of blood. And I was too.

These did not have the look of desperate men. Most wore good
quality waist length, brown leather jackets – almost like a uniform;
the rest of their attire (except for the man wielding the sledge hammer)
was spotless. They sported trendy African haircuts. They wore
what looked like expensive wrist watches and had bling dangling
around their necks. I noted that some had pistols clipped into holsters
at their waists. Their leader spoke an educated English.

‘Mr Munro. We have disabled your phone, as by now you will
have gathered. We haven’t come into your home for a few trinkets.
We want money and stones. Where is your safe?’

‘We have no safe. How do you know my name?’

‘Let’s just say we do our homework. Now, I’m going to give you
two choices. Fisi? Where are you? Kuja hapa,33’ he shouted, keeping
his eyes fixed on the two of us. I felt Jamila shivering with fear and
the sort of extreme anxiety which only the most dire situations produce
in people.

A small thick-set man came forward, the one who had killed Teapot.

‘Here are your choices Mr Munro. Either you take us to your safe
now, or Fisi here is going to fuck your wife. He may be small in stature
but I can tell you he has a big prick. And he likes his work.’

‘Please, I’m begging you to believe us. I can take you to every
room. You can search everywhere. Rip the pictures off the walls. It
will only take you minutes. You’ll see there is no safe. We keep our
money in the bank. I can give you what I have in my wallet. And anything
else you want. Take our rings, our watches, take ......’

‘Fisi. You can do her!’

Jamila was hauled from my protective grasp. I lunged at the shits
who had prised her away but they pistol-whipped my jaw and I fell
to the floor. Held back, and in helpless despair, I watched Jamila being
dragged into the guest bedroom. She screamed and struggled
along the length of the corridor and bravely fisted her attackers. I
continued to plead with the gang leader to show mercy but I could
tell he was heartless. He wasn’t going to intervene. Then I too was
frog marched into the bedroom. They forced me to watch. That little
turd whom they called a hyena helped himself to my poor girl, brutally.

Our ‘guests’ crowded around for idle amusement. They joked
that Jamila could still ‘do it’ in spite of her missing limb, which in the
struggle had become detached again. I had never felt so powerless,
so humiliated, as doubtless the gang intended.

The rape seemed endless. My heart bled for Jamila as she lay crying,
hurt, miserable and feeling deep repugnance at what was happening.

An invasion of her body and soul.

But she was rational. She hadn’t wanted to think about it, but one
evening I’d insisted we discuss what to do if we were ever in this
situation. The same conversations were being repeated by hundreds
of mainly white families in Nairobi and other so called hotspots in
Africa, like Johannesburg. After it was clear she could not escape defilement
she lay entirely still, almost as if in repose. There would be
no satisfaction for ‘Fisi’ in seeing his victim struggle.

I felt sick and sobbed like a child.

‘Would we not have shown you a safe if we had one, rather than
endure this? Can’t you see we have no cash. Leave her alone. Please,’
I blubbered.

When it was over, the rapist zipped up his jeans and looked into
my eyes.

‘Mzungu! Why don’t you go find a good white woman? They are
more entertaining than this dozing piece of broken pussy.’

At that moment I wanted to shut his mouth permanently, to
strike him down, yes, to kill him. With his companions still lurking,
their pangas held threateningly, I knew any violence from me would
be a death sentence. I tried to stay calm in spite of the hatred I felt
for the animals who had invaded our home, and violated Jamila.
Many African village men wear tribal scars but it is rare now or
even then, to find this among the educated in East Africa. Fisi had
scarification on each of his cheeks – four parallel lines, the topmost
scar on each side of his face being the largest, with each in succession
then smaller than that above it. I knew if Jamila and I escaped
with our lives I had some way of identifying the man.

The gang’s leader spoke to me again. He prodded me with the tip
of his panga.

‘Get me everything. Any money, jewels, stones. If we find you
have held out on us, even as little as shillingi hamsini, I am going to kill
you both. Get going.’

I dashed around the house, anxious to get back to Jamila as soon
as I could. I collected what I felt would be of interest. My wallet including
its sparse collection of credit cards, Jamila’s purse and all of
her jewelry. I added a portable CD player (not at that time outmoded
technology). I put it all in an Uchumi34 plastic carrier bag.
Two members of the gang were in the master bedroom from
which Jamila and I had fled. I was amazed at the mess. The hole in
our wall was big enough for a buffalo to barge through. There were
bricks and plaster all over the new carpet. Our hi-fi equipment, radios,
clocks, the TV and video, the microwave, were lined up to be
passed through to others outside.

‘Wouldn’t it be easier if I opened the front door for you?’ I said
sarcastically, wanting rid of them, fast.

The lesser gang members ignored me so I continued to fill the
plastic bag, always conscious of the threat that if I missed anything
it might be curtains for us. I threw in my grandfather’s fob watch.
With a matching gold chain and a little gold plated penknife latched
to the other end (for howking out used pipe tobacco, my mother had
told me), this looked an impressive addition to the haul, even though
the watch hadn’t worked for years. In my youth I’d wound it up tight
and had broken springs which couldn’t be replaced.

As I passed the bedroom window I noted that an Isuzu truck had
been moved inside our gate. It was parked on the lawn close by and
because of the previous day’s rain I could see it had churned up the
grass. Its rear doors were open and men were busy loading our stuff,
including now, four Indian beaten-copper table lamps which were
flung carelessly inside the vehicle. I couldn’t be too obvious in checking
but I thought I might be able to see the truck’s registration plate
if I loitered long enough. Then I saw something distinctive on its
door panel. A coat of arms! My eye was drawn immediately to the
Swahili logo: Utumishi Kwa Wote35 beneath which was a familiar advertising
slogan: ‘Presented by the Japan International Cooperation
Agency.’ Hell fire! It all made sense now. I’d been slow on the uptake.

Their diction; their information; their dress code; the holstered pistols.
These were no ordinary robbers as I had suspected all along.
They were the Kenya Police!

I handed the gang leader the Uchumi bag and asked his permis-
sion to go back to Jamila. He waved me away contemptuously. I
passed through the corridor where poor Teapot was lying in a widening
pool of blood. Jamila was sitting on the same bed, the scene of
that sordid act which I will never eradicate from my memory. She
had wrapped a sheet around herself. I hugged her but couldn’t stop
the well of tears which began to flow. In my arms she shook uncontrollably,
convulsed by this second major trauma in her life. I prayed
to someone, any God who might be listening, that these men would
pay dearly for what they’d done.

When content that they had cleared us out, they trooped back to
our master bedroom and walked through the hole they had made in
the wall. Only then did I understand their reason for selecting that
side of the house. It was not in the line of sight of my nearest
neighbour. Already they had moved the truck back out onto the road
and knocked down one half of my gate in the process.

On their way out of our house the ‘hyena’ leered at me but said
not a further word. His boss left with a warning.

‘If you go to the police we will come back and execute you.’

I felt like saying they were the fucking police, but held my tongue
and dashed back to Jamila. She wasn’t in the guest bedroom anymore
but I could hear a bath running.

‘No, darling,’ I shouted. ‘No bath yet. I’m taking you to hospital.
You remember? We had a plan if this happened.’

She looked at me as if I was a ghost. I could see she was still in
shock. We walked to our bedroom and I helped her to dress.
With little or no traffic on the road we were at the hospital within
twenty minutes. I was relieved to find that there was a doctor on
duty at such an early hour. She was very gentle and thorough. Jamila’s
blood was taken; her vagina was swabbed. We were assured
she had no obvious internal injuries. As a precaution she was given a
hepatitis B vaccination.