My sisters Wanjiku and Njoki have his laughter. I hear it when they crack up (sometimes at their own jokes). It's light and comes from a place of depth and love. It comes the same way my father would break into song, making it up as he goes to his piano to accompany his terrible singing. We were often saved by his fingers, which were slow to find the right key and on time. But he was a persistent man. He started taking piano lessons in his early eighties! He enjoyed listening to his granddaughters, the Nyamburas, all of whom play multiple musical instruments and decided, I presume, to join what might be the family symphony orchestra.
One day, he called me and said, " Listen here, young man." I could hear him shuffling to the sitting room to get to the piano. "Can you hear me?" he asked. He cleared his voice, and I think, oh no! not the singing. But he played a tune. Slowly. Not half bad, I thought to myself. As he continued, his fingers got faster and more confident. And I recognized it. It was Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy.' He had been practicing patiently and with relentless determination, the same commitment he has for promoting and delegating African Languages to the table of languages as co-equal transmitters of knowledge and culture.
"Nducu reke ngwire ma, gutiri ruthiomi thi ino rwi bata gukira ruria ruungi!" I nod in agreement. He smiles, a shine in his eyes. "How far is the novel?" he asks. Between us, (Baba, Wanjiku, and Tee), we have an ongoing challenge: write a novel in Gikuyu!
I tell him I will be writing night and day as soon as I get started. Well, he probes and I let it out that I have started mine-- two paragraphs in. He wants to know more. But I am not about to give him "ideas."
Instead, I tell him about Jack Chidi, the main character in my novel. There's foreshadowing he likes: Chidi is walking up the stairs of the DCI office and runs out of breath. As he stops to collect himself, he mutters something about getting back to boxing as he used to back in the day. Later, he unleashes a rather generous beating on some bad guy. "Of course!" Baba thunders!
He lets out his signature guttural laughter, and I can see him replaying the scene.
"I can see you in him," he finally says, "except you were a break-dancer in High school, right? And you danced in Nairobi? He asks incredulously.
"Yes," I answer. I have told him this story, and each time I add details as I recall them, with some creative license.
"Did your mother know about this?" he chuckles at my mischief.
I tell him that she had come home once and told my brothers and sisters, " I think I saw Nducu in Nairobi..."
My father is laughing.
This is what I will miss. The cheerfulness, the easy conversations about life, and the lessons learned in this journey. It is the laughter that fills the spaces between home and exile, between the words on a page, and the laughter that embraces with its warmth.