"Resnick, Mike - A Little Knowledge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

* * * *
I returned to my boma to take the noon meal. After I had finished it, I decided to take a nap during the heat of the day, for I am an old man and it had been a long, wearing morning. I let my goats and chickens loose on my hillside, secure in the knowledge that no one would take them away since they each carried the mundumugu's mark. I had just spread my sleeping blanket out beneath the branches of my acacia tree when I saw two figures at the foot of my hill.
At first I thought they were two village boys, looking for cattle that had strayed from their pastures, but when the figures began walking up the slopes of my hill I was finally able to focus my eyes on them. The larger figure was Shima, Ndemi's mother, and the smaller was a goat that she led by a rope that she had tied around its neck.
Finally she reached my boma, somewhat out of breath, for the goat was unused to the rope and constantly pulled against it, and opened the gate.
"Jambo, Shima," I said, as she entered the boma. "Why have you brought your goat to my hill? You know that only my own goats may graze here."
"It is a gift for you, Koriba," she replied.
"For me?" I said. "But I have done you no service in exchange for it."
"You can, though. You can take Ndemi back. He is a good boy, Koriba."
"But -- "
"He will never be late again," she promised. "He truly did save our goat from a hyena. He would never lie to his mundumugu. He is young, but he can become a great mundumugu someday. I know he can, if you will just teach him. You are a wise man, Koriba, and you have made a wise choice in Ndemi. I do not know why you have banished him, but if you will just take him back he will never misbehave again. He wants only to become a great mundumugu like yourself. Though of course," she added hastily, "he could never be as great as you."
"Will finally you let me speak?" I asked irritably.
"Certainly, Koriba."
"I did not cast Ndemi out. He left of his own volition."
Her eyes widened. "He left you?"
"He is young, and rebellion is part of youth."
"So is foolishness!" she exclaimed furiously. "He has always been foolish. And late! He was even two weeks late being born when I carried him! He is always thinking, instead of doing his chores. For the longest time I thought we had been cursed, but then you made him your assistant, and I was to become the mother of the mundumugu, and now he has ruined everything!"
She let go of the rope, and the goat wandered around my boma as she began beating her breasts with her fists.
"Why am I so cursed?" she demanded. "Why does Ngai give me a fool for a son, and then stir my hopes by sending him to you, and then curse me doubly by returning him, almost a man and unable to perform any of the chores on our shamba? What will become of him? Who will accept a bride-price from such a fool? He will be late to plant our seed and late to harvest it, he will be late to choose a bride and late to make the payment on her, and he will end up living with the unmarried men at the edge of the forest and begging for food. With my luck he will even be late to die!" She paused for breath, then began wailing again, and finally screamed: "Why does Ngai hate me so?"
"Calm yourself, Shima," I said.
"It is easy for you to say!" she sobbed. "You have not lost all hope for your future."
"My future is of very limited duration," I said. "It is Kirinyaga's future that concerns me."
"See?" she said, wailing and beating her breasts again. "See? I am the mother of the boy who will destroy Kirinyaga!"
"I did not say that."
"What has he done, Koriba?" she said. "Tell me, and I will have his father and brothers beat him until he behaves."
"Beating him is not the solution," I said. "He is young, and he rebels against my authority. It is the way of things. Before long he will realize that he is wrong."
"I will explain to him all that he can lose, and he will know that he should never disagree with you, and he will come back."
"You might suggest it," I encouraged her. "I am an old man, and I have much left to teach him."
"I will do as you say, Koriba," she promised.
"Good," I said. "Now go back to your shamba and speak to Ndemi, for I have other things to do."
It was not until I awoke from my nap and returned to the village to sit at the Council of Elders that I realized just how many things I had to do.
* * * *
Our daily business is always conducted in late afternoon, when the heat of the day has passed, at the boma of Koinnage, the paramount chief. One by one the Elders place their mats in a semi-circle and sit on them, with my place being at Koinnage's right hand. The boma is cleared of all women, children, and animals, and when the last of us has arrived, Koinnage calls us into session. He announces what problems are to be considered, and then I ask Ngai to guide our judgment and allow us to come to just decisions.
On this particular day, two of the villagers had asked the Council of Elders to determine the ownership of a calf that was born to a cow they jointly owned; Sebana wanted permission to divorce his youngest wife, who had now been barren for three years; and Kijo's three sons were unhappy with the way his estate had been divided among them.
Koinnage consulted with me in low whispers after each petition had been heard, and took my advice, as always. The calf went to the man who had fed the cow during her pregnancy, with the understanding that the other man should own the next calf. Sebana was told that he could divorce his wife, but would not receive the bride price back, and he elected to keep her. Kijo's sons were told that they could accept the division as it was, or if two of them agreed, I would place three colored stones in a gourd, and they could each withdraw a stone and own the shamba that it represented. Since each faced the possibility of ending up with the smallest shamba, only one brother voted for our solution, as I had foreseen, and the petition was dismissed.
At this point, Koinnage's senior wife, Wambu, would usually appear with a large gourd of pombe, and we would drink it and then return to our bomas, but this day Wambu did not come, and Koinnage turned nervously to me.
"There is one thing more, Koriba," he said.
"Oh?"
He nodded, and I could see the muscles in his face tensing as he worked up the courage to confront his mundumugu.
"You have told us that Ngai handed the burning spear to Jomo Kenyatta, that he might create Mau Mau and drive the Europeans from Kenya."
"That is true," I said.
"Is it?" he replied. "I have been told that he himself married a European woman, that Mau Mau did not succeed in driving the Europeans from the holy mountain, and that Jomo Kenyatta was not even his real name -- that he was actually born with the European name Johnstone." He stared at me, half-accusing, half-terrified of arousing my wrath. "What have you to say to this, Koriba?"
I met his gaze and held it for a long time, until he finally dropped his eyes. Then, one by one, I looked coldly at each member of the Council.
"So you prefer to believe a foolish young boy to your own mundumugu?" I demanded.
"We do not believe the boy, but the computer," said Karenja.
"And have you spoken to the computer yourselves?"
"No," said Koinnage. "That is another thing we must discuss. Ndemi tells me that your computer speaks to him and tells him many things, while my computer can do nothing but send messages to the other chiefs."
"It is a mundumugu's tool, not to be used by other men," I replied.
"Why?" asked Karenja. "It knows many things that we do not know. We could learn much from it."
"You have learned much from it," I said. "It speaks to me, and I speak to you."
"But it also speaks to Ndemi," continued Karenja, "and if it can speak to a boy barely past circumcision age, why can it not speak directly to the elders of the village?"