Who Will Catch Us As We Fall Read Online Free Page A

assignment of leadership, Kenya would thrive and his sacrifices would be richly rewarded by the knowledge that he had been a part of that process.
    But now, his certainty is beginning to wane. He thinks of the generation that came after him – ruined by an incredible ease of life and blinded by greed, lavish parties and too much drink. Spending, spending, spending – using the country as a money-well and nothing more. Boys who have grown more reckless in their adulthood than they were in their youth.
    He’d made sure that didn’t happen to his son. Had caught a whiff of something special in him early on and grabbed a hold of it. Raj was too old for fighting now – he had a family to think about, but Jai didn’t.
    â€˜Countries aren’t built on ideas, son,’ he had told Jai. ‘They come from action – the actions of strong men such as yourself.’ He had taken the book from his son’s hands and said, ‘You think something is amiss? Go and fix it. What good does it do, memorizing a text book and talking to me about it?’
    Three days before Jai was to start his managerial position at Artisan Furnitures, he had told his father that he had accepted a job with PeaceNet Kenya. Despite his wife’s pleading looks, her toe kicks, forceful coming from someone so delicate, Mzee Kohli had bobbed his head with pride, pumped his closed fist in the air and said, ‘Go and build yourself a country.’
    In bed that night, he had soothed his crying wife. ‘Those ideas, that boy’s head,’ she said, ‘it’s going to get him killed one day.’
    And Raj had rolled his eyes and hugged her close, patted her back. It’s okay, it’s okay , putting it down to nothing more than a mother’s worry and a woman’s tendency to over-exaggerate.
    He looks at the picture of Pio Gama Pinto which, like him, has been forcibly removed from the living room and placed in isolation in the guest bathroom. He searches the face of the man in the picture and is once again satisfied that he made the correct decision when it came to his future and his son’s.
    But Leena’s. He sighs, taps the bottom of the cigarette packet until one shakes loose. Cups a wide palm around its tip and lights it, leaning back to inhale. He is beginning to question his decision to have her come back, at least right now.
    As is the case every five years, most of his friends have taken their families abroad to avoid the possible messy outcome of a rigged election. Better to stay safe ,they all reasoned. Business will still be here when we get back.
    â€˜Maybe we should go and visit your mother,’ Pooja had suggested. ‘Now is as good a time as any. And then we can bring Leena back with us.’
    Raj had shaken his head. ‘What kind of Kenyan would I be if I left now? I still have to cast my vote.’ And so he had bought his daughter a plane ticket and ordered her home.
    He sees his wife outside, shooing away the dog and instructing Kidha about some or other overgrown tree and he can’t help but smile. Thinks that she is still as lovely and bossy as the day he married her. But Leena. He sighs. Too emotional. Too fragile and broken now. He turns to the mirror, is met with a strong face partially covered by a well-maintained salt-and-pepper beard. Unable to hide from himself, he throws away the cigarette and worries about his daughter.
    â€Œ
4
    Grace walks silently into the living room, the silver-plated tray completely still in her hands despite it being overloaded with a full teapot, three sets of cups and five different kinds of House of Manji biscuits. The chocolate-layered ones are her favorite and she’d slipped one into the pocket of her apron before bringing it out to the Kohlis.
    Draped across the sectional couch with her small feet in her husband’s lap, Pooja gestures for Grace to place the tray on the table. Jai stands to take it from her and