THE PADLOCK AND THE KEY

A NARRATIVE PIECE

Every time in the village of Chebengi in the foothills of Shabaha, a house was always broken into, looted clean and the burglar vanished into thin air right under the noses of the villagers. The peace that used to prevail in this region was disturbed. Meanwhile, everybody was given a strident warning never to leave his/her house unlocked but the looting went on unmarred; people got hacked to death; houses got razed and sadness was written on the face of every villager. A baraza was called.

All the residents of Chebengi and the neighbourhood Orolwo and Karon attended. Men and women. Old and young alike. Even Fundi attended. You don’t know Fundi. You don’t know why I am remembering him with efficient tenacity of the memory.

Fundi is a key-cutter. He knows everything about keys. He might tell you that a rusty padlock is bad for the key. He has heard numerous stories of how sparkling clean keys caught up with rust and lost their usefulness. As he might tell you, there’s one padlock for every key and vice versa. Anyway, Fundi is a key expert. Let’s leave it at that.

So everyone was gathered under a big oron tree. A guest in that baraza would have thought that the meeting was a solemn massacre gathering. This only happened when warriors sent for raiding got killed in droves. It was rare. And rare too was this meeting.

Chief Sopon stood up and raised his baton, demanding attention. The murmurs died down instantaneously. It was rumoured that if he hit his baton on someone’s head one could go mad in that very moment. Or never know peace. But, it was believed, one thing was for sure: The man ceased to be normal. So everyone became deadstill.

“Supay kokwo!” The chief roared.

“Mmmmmmh!” His listeners yelled back. Then followed loud clapping that stretched for whopping one minute. The chief raised his baton once again and order was restored. He hated with passion sycophancy and populist inclinations. Moreover, the people gave the meeting a happy coating like during Relief Food Handouts. He hated that too.

Then, dramatically, he addressed the people like this:

“My people, your stubbornness will kill you—all of you. We’ll not talk of people of Chebengi but shrubs of Chebengi, shrubs of Karon, shrubs of Orolwo. You’ll all die. Long ago, things were different. There were no burglars. There were no key-cutters. There were no padlocks and keys in this area. Men would leave the doors of their homesteads, their houses, their bedrooms and no burglar would dare walk into them.

“I say this with a sad heart. Today, even as I speak now, there are burglars. There’re key-cutters. If someone has been listening to what I’ve been saying every home must be having a padlock and a key for men can’t leave the doors of their homesteads, their houses, their bedrooms open. Even then burglars have master keys. The crude ones with axes, pangas and machetes break the door and elbow in. When it reaches this point all I can say is, God help us.

“But who listens to me anymore? Some of you have branded me the name PADLOCK AND THE KEY. It is not a bad name if you all did what THE PADLOCK AND THE KEY MAN says.”

The chief was almost overcome by tears. He blew his nose and looked at the people. He shook his head and this time he choked with emotion and two balls of tears rolled involuntarily. His baton slipped and fell on the fell on the sandy ground. The crowd gasped and the meeting ended. As dramatically as his speech.

Fundi didn’t budge. He stood still, dead still. Apart from key-cutting what did the good chief want him to do? He shrugged and went to his shop. The chief needed to give him alternatives, viable alternatives; he thought.

Everyone dispersed with something in their hearts

But nothing changed.

The death toll in Chebengi doubled up

The padlocks were opened with master keys

And a lot of keys got rusty, very rusty.

People were at cross-roads. Only burglars opened houses or broke into them. Only burglars killed, robbed and destroyed. Where were these burglars? Don’t look at me with those suspecting eyes; I don’t know. The Chebengians don’t know. And you, too, don’t know it, either.

May be the burglars lived among them. I am just guessing.

A lot of barazas were summoned and the Chebengians attended them. They coined slogans like Pamoja Tuangamize Ujangili. So many conferences, meetings and barazas were called. People attended them. Resolutions were made, declarations made, appropriate course of actions arrived at but insecurity didn’t change a bit.

The death toll in Chebengi doubled up

The padlocks were opened with master keys

And a lot of keys got rusty, very rusty

Chief Sopon, after years and years of crying that went unheeded, died. He died of starvation. He went on a hunger strike of one week believing that Chebengians would stick to his padlock and key golden rule. Poor chief, his conviction on the people of Chebengi resulted in his death—the death of a martyr.

But even in his death, nothing changed

The death toll in Chebengi doubled up

The padlocks were opened with master keys

And a lot of keys got rusty, very rusty

The people of Chebengi talked in closed doors of the revenge of their dead chief. How else could one explain the sudden rise of dead people in Chebengi if not by pointing an accusing finger on their disgruntled chief? It’s him, it’s him, they whispered knowingly. Why should he return to swallow the very people he had fought for while alive? To curb the insecurity, they came up with the idea of Home Guard Police Reserve to man Chebengi area at night. The Home Guard patrolled every door and every homestead. The crime wave depreciated but only for a while. It was not uncommon for one to bump into a Home Guard fumbling with another man’s padlock. People of Chebengi despised them and all the women held a demonstration.

They cried with one voice saying: While our men are at work and burglars are busy devising their wicked plans to execute at night, the Home Guards now possess master keys which they use to open their padlocks in broad daylight!

It was on that sultry afternoon when women gathered under the Oron tree. They complained that unlike their husband’s keys which opened and never got rusty the thief’s keys were rusty and dusty. And since padlocks were as rare as the keys themselves a rusty padlock or key spelt doom, sheer doom.

One woman bent with age and suffering stood up and raised her eyes to the gathering of women and men. Fundi was there. He had been whisked out of his shop and brought into the meeting.

“Women of Chebengi,” started the woman, “and men, I salute you all.”

“When my man was posted to Kitui he went away with the key and on the doors of the main house and the bedroom he left a padlock just dangling. The padlock remained locked until my man came and unlocked it. But his key was rusty, very rusty. My padlock got rusty in the process.

“I had never thought even in my wildest imagination that Baba Totoo’s keys could get rusty. Every time burglars came and tried to open my padlock with their master keys they failed. And gave up.

“Now, my padlock is rusty and his key is rusty too. The doors of the homestead, the main house and the bedroom are ajar. All and sundry can walk in. Burglars can stroll in. Fundi told me that one cannot have a new key if the padlock is rusty. In any case, it would be a matter of time before the new key gets rusty too. I am always wide awake at night. Burglars may sweep my homestead clean. They  may kill my children, my man and I. Everyone gathered here, as therule of the thumb, there must be one key for one padlock. Let it not be said that I didn’t tell you.”

And so, like Chief Sopon, Mama Totoo’s speech ended in a frightful note. Everyone walked with something in their hearts. Six months later the sad news of Mama Totoo’s death spread in the length and breadth of Chebengi village. Burglars had come into her homestead. Stab, stab, stab. The children were butchered and Baba Totoo slaughtered then nailed four times in the skull. The grass-thatched homestead was torched down. Nothing was salvaged. Everything went up in flames. Everyone became sad. Even Fundi cried.

But nothing changed

The death toll in Chebengi doubled up

The padlocks were opened with master keys

And a lot of keys got rusty, very rusty.

A lot of unfounded stories abounded in Chebengi village. Stories of how the Whiteman invented the padlock and the key and the rust. The rumour mills spun stories like the collusion of Hardware dealers and whitemen to force the people of Chebengi to buy padlocks and keys. In their own view, this was a conspiracy of the highest order. Subsequently, locking doors with padlocks got burglars thinking: What’s this important thing being locked? Am I missing on something?

Another theory held that a white burglar with a master key opened one padlock of one African woman. His key was rusty and so the woman’s padlock got rusty also. When her man came and tried to unlock the padlock with his key the man’s key got rusty. The man was a burglar and for every padlock he unlocked each caught up with rust. And so that’s how rust came into being in Chebengi. But as I said a while ago, the precise origin of the rust puzzles the people of Chebengi to date. Nevertheless, burglary continued unabated. Insecurity remained the stumbling block in Chebengians’ way to lasting peace, calm and prosperity. Indeed it was.

You still remember the death of Chief Sopon then that of Mama Totoo and Baba Totoo and the children. The only nurse in Chebengi, Dokta Aspirin, died after resisting burglary for years. A woman burglar called him out of his house; luring him to his chilling death. People said that the woman forced him to unlock her padlock or else he would meet his Maker. Dokta Aspirian’s keys opened the padlock and got rusty. The door of his house was open to any burglar. They came, pillaged the house then killed him.

Then Pastor Ezekiel died. And followed the D.O of Chebengi and Pusia, the M.P. for Chebengi. Top-cream people died of insecurity. And other clod-hoppers died too. Burglars then went to schools and gave select few students master keys. Rusty master keys. Rust y master keys opened a lot of unrusty padlocks. Many students died and many parents cried. How could burglars invade schools and kill so many students with potentials, gleaming future? Nobody understood it but students died in droves and droves. People cursed and cast their eyes on the unfolding catastrophe.

But nothing changed

The death toll in Chebengi doubled up

The padlocks were opened with master keys

And a lot of keys got rusty, very rusty

Time passed and RUSTY PADLOCK AND KEY was declared a national disaster. Thousands and thousands of resolutions were made. Centres were built like REFORMED BURGLARS COUNSELLING ( R.B.C) and VOLUNTARY RUST TESTING (V.R.T). A lot of ointments to be applied on rusty padlocks and keys were imported. They helped but not much. Moreover, to a far-flung marginalized Chebengi the ointments remained but a pipe-dream.

Meanwhile, conferences continued to be organized. Millions got wasted in empty rhetoric while insecurity sky-rocketed. Especially in Chebengi.

The poor Chebengians hated the truth. If you told them that burglary was in their midst you had to be ready to be told off in the harshest terms. If you told them that a rusty padlock or key dwelt among them you were given strong names. If you told them that burglars would rob them if they didn’t lock their doors they responded without batting an eyelid: How come we don’t know what you can foretell the future? They’re a strange lot, the Chebengians. Perhaps when one soul remained on their land would they have thought their position but as for then nobody faced the reality. They only hoped that one day burglars will get rich of their spoils and get saved; the rust will just go away out of its own volition and the sedate and calm atmosphere of Chebengi will come back. But it was a far-wrought dream—a dream which they normally shrugged off in the escalating insecurity.

The Muslim Chebengians prayed to their Allah.

The Christian Chebengians prayed to their Almighty God.

The Traditionalist Chebengians appeased their ancestors with profuse libations and incantantions.

The Atheist Chebengians believed that the Force of Nature would be in control.

 But nothing changed

The death toll in Chebengi doubled up

The padlocks were opened with master keys

And a lot of keys got rusty, very rusty

The collective mind of the people of Chebengi was in a daze. They were perplexed. They always lamented why their God found it fit to place rust in a delicate position like in the padlock and key. How could their Good God allow burglars with master keys open their padlocks then infect them with rust? And why did He bring rust in the first place? And why did He give them padlocks and keys?

Many saw it as a whip by God. If in deed God had given them each one padlock or key it meant that one padlock was for one key and vice versa. If they adhered to this then burglary wouldn’t have been there. Neither would there have been rust too. Insecurity would be out of question in Chebengi and beyond.

But it was Fundi who needed to address all these issues. He knew everything about keys and padlocks. He held the life of Chebengians by his palms. He could make or break Chebengians solely by the decision he would stick to. If he continues key-cutting burglary won’t stop. If  he quits key-cutting Chebengians would live happily as before without rust, without master keys, without burglary. He and he alone held the very breath of Chebengians. He faced a tough decision.

Emissaries spread the word of the big baraza to be held under the big oron tree. Many were informed and a teeming mass of people converged under the tree. Many men and women had been killed by burglars and a lot of orphaned children lingered around, forlon and lost. A handful of crawling children cried feebly may be because of hunger. 

Fundi cleared his throat and commenced:

“I called you people because so many have lost their lives to burglary. Padlocks got rusty and lost their essence. Keys caught up with rust and ceased to unlock padlocks. Any home with rusty padlock or key became open to burglars. Being a key-cutter I made a lot of keys and master keys to open padlock, any padlock. I am responsible for all the deaths that have resulted from all burglary in Chebengi. I wish I could reverse the deaths but I can’t. Only God can. I am quitting key-cutting but let me say this before I sit down. One, men, you have one key and just because you’ve got keys you can’t unlock  every padlock you set your eyes on. Some padlocks are rusty,, very rusty. Your keys will catch up with rust and burglars will take the advantage. Two, women, you have one padlock and just because you’ve got padlocks you can’t be unlocked by every key your padlock fits in. Some keys are rusty, very rusty. Your padlocks will catch up with rust and burglars will take the advantage”.

“You people of Chebengi,” continued the Fundi, “it’s time you faced thre truth.”

“Burglars live with us, they dine with us, they laugh with us. They may be the closest relatives or friends. The more innocent you assume one is the riskier they are. People with rusty padlocks and keys live among us. We shouldn’t chase them but I am not saying they should infect us. If you change your notion, burglary will stop forever.”

The change in Chebengi became visible after one month. Watchmen with nail-studded rungus guarded every door of every homestead. Padlocks were protected and kept under 24-hour surveillance against rusty keys. Since Fundi had stopped cutting master keys, master keys were never made in Chebengi and the neighbourhood.

Things changed

The death toll in Chebengi declined

The padlocks weren’t opened with master keys

The rust in keys vanished as miraculously as it came.

To this day, when you visit Chebengians and ask them about this story they remember it with surprising accuracy. They had seen the dark side of the padlock and the key and they beam with life on the brighter side of the padlock and the key. But they can’t forget the painful lesson they had to learn as burglary took them captive for years and years.

C) Lorot Salem 2010