One of the train’s crew came in to take our bedding order and tell us that food service had started, and so we all went
into the dining car and found ourselves a table. The car was a picture of faded elegance-the original wood paneling still
intact but dull, the silver real but not perfectly matched. The food was just fine, though, and the beer served cold, and
by the end of the meal I was feeling content.
“How long will it take to get to Home Square?” I asked, wiping the last bit of sauce off my plate.
“All night to Kisumu,” Auma said. “We’ll take a bus or matatu from there-another five hours, maybe.”
“By the way,” Roy said to me, lighting a cigarette, “it’s not Home Square. It’s Home Squared.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s something the kids in Nairobi used to say,” Auma explained. “There’s your ordinary house in Nairobi. And then
there’s your house in the country, where your people come from. Your ancestral home. Even the biggest minister or
businessman thinks this way. He may have a mansion in Nairobi and build only a small hut on his land in the country.
He may go there only once or twice a year. But if you ask him where he is from, he will tell you that that hut is his true
home. So, when we were at school and wanted to tell somebody we were going to Alego, it was home twice over, you
see. Home Squared.”
Roy took a sip of his beer. “For you, Barack, we can call it Home Cubed.”
Auma smiled and leaned back in her seat, listening to the rhythm of the train on the tracks. “This train brings back so
many memories. You remember, Roy, how much we used to look forward to going home? It is so beautiful, Barack!
Not at all like Nairobi. And Granny-she’s so much fun! Oh, you will like her, Barack. She has such a good sense of
humor.”
“She had to have a good sense of humor,” Roy said, “living with the Terror for so long.”
“Who’s the Terror?”
Auma said, “That’s what we used to call our grandfather. Because he was so mean.”
Roy shook his head and laughed. “Wow, that guy was mean! He would make you sit at the table for dinner, and
served the food on china, like an Englishman. If you said one wrong thing, or used the wrong fork-pow! He would hit
you with his stick. Sometimes when he hit you, you wouldn’t even know why until the next day.”
Zeituni waved them off, unimpressed. “Ah, you children knew him only when he was old and weak. When he was
younger, aay! I was his favorite, you know. His pet. But still, if I did something wrong, I would hide from him all day, I
would be so scared! You know, he was strict even with his guests. If they came to his house, he would kill many
chickens in their honor. But if they broke custom, like washing their hands before someone who was older, he would
have no hesitation in hitting them, even the adults.”
“Doesn’t sound like he was real popular,” I said.
Zeituni shook her head. “Actually, he was well respected because he was such a good farmer. His compound in Alego
was one of the biggest in the area. He had such a green thumb, he could make anything grow. He had studied these
techniques from the British, you see. When he worked for them as a cook.”
“I didn’t know he was a cook.”
“He had his lands, but for a long time he was a cook for wazungu in Nairobi. He worked for some very important
people. During the World War he served a captain in the British army.”
barré
(Barré)
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