so,’ when asked about the status of a Bible Study group in the estate. Janet from house forty-four assured Mrs. Karanja that whilst there was one it was only attended by herself as the rest of the residents in the estate were either new to the estate or actively backsliding.
On the first Bible Study, three rules were set:
1 Bible study would take place on the first Wednesday of the month from seven p.m. to nine p.m. (so that people could get back home in time for the news).
2 The regular Bible Study goers would alternate hosting duties.
3 The hosts were only expected to offer tea and perhaps one or two snacks. Dinner was not expected.
~
At that first Bible Study hosted by the Karanjas, their living room overflowed with their neighbours. In total, forty-nine of the fifty-seven households in Malaba had at least one representative in attendance that night. The age limit Mrs. Karanja suggested was twenty-one because kids would be too much of a distraction. This did not stop a few of the residents from dragging along their children who snored on their laps or played outside in the backyard with the Karanja children. Never again would there be so many households represented at Bible Study.
‘Where are the Mulis?’ someone asked.
‘Oh, I saw Justus earlier, he said they can’t come because their pastor hasn’t sanctioned it. They are worried about the doctrine that will be taught,’ someone else volunteered.
‘Ah, Mrs Mutiso! I was just talking about you today.’ Baba Sally of house number three flagged Mrs. Mutiso down as she walked into the house. ‘You remember Angela Maina––the one who married that lawyer from Narok?’
Mrs. Mutiso was surprised that her neighbour was speaking to her. The Mutisos kept to themselves and their neighbours (who revered them for their wealth but also mistrusted them for it), made it easy to do so as they too avoided the Mutisos. Mrs. Mutiso’s reasons for avoiding her neighbours were motivated by self preservation. At least when they thought she was the luckiest woman in the world to have married into a wealthy family, it was with envy that they spoke about her. That was better than the alternative if they were to find out the truth.
Mr. Mutiso had pursued her relentlessly after their first meeting. He appeared in her life one day dressed in khakis and cowboy boots unironically. At first, she’d refused to recognize his advances. What good could possibly come from a wealthy man dating a poor girl like her? And anyway, her friends warned her, ‘Men like that only want one thing from girls like you––and it’s not marriage.’
Girls like her. Girls who had to send part of their university boom back home to their parents who were still living in a mud hut. Girls who didn’t wear a pair of shoes for the first thirteen years of their lives. Girls whose English was so heavily accented it sounded like a lumbering train whose engine was about to fail. Girls like her.
‘You remember Angela?’ Baba Sally was still enquiring. ‘She said you used to go to the same church.’ His tone made the sentence sound like a question. Mrs. Mutiso knew what he was doing. It was what her neighbours all tried to do when they did deign to speak to her, he was fishing for information about her mysterious life.
If Baba Sally continued down this line of conversation, there would be questions like “She told me you stopped going to that church. Why did you leave the church?” and “When did you say you got married again?” These questions were like a formula, adding up the year she left the church with the year she got married subtracting that from the age of her twins all in a bid to calculate if the rumours were true: did she get her children out of wedlock? Had she trapped Mr. Mutiso into marrying her?
‘She told us you used to be a world class singer in the choir.’ Baba Sally nodded in the direction of his wife, the other party in the “us”. Mrs. Mutiso turned to look at the lady whose eyes bore down on her venomously.
‘Yes it was a long time ago. Have a good evening Baba Sally.’ she moved away to ensure she didn’t hear his follow up question.
~
‘Uh…hello?’ Mr. Karanja voice didn’t rise above the din as he had hoped it would. ‘Good evening everybody,’ he tried again, nodding along to his words, his voice not reaching further than Mr. Mathai who looked up when he realized Mr. Karanja was trying to get people’s attention.
With a wink, Mr. Mathai stood up and began to talk as if Mr. Karanja had asked for his assistance.
‘Everyone! Hello! Okay, okay this is very good. Waow look at that. We have been here for three months and I was beginning to think this estate was full of ghosts only. Thank you to the Karanjas for creating such a wonderful institution for us to meet one another.’ The room went silent as Mr. Mathai spoke.
‘My names are John Njoroge Mathai and this is my loving wife––’ here he beckoned for Mama Kanono to stand up. She did so reluctantly and only because he would insist she stood up if she tried to refuse. Mama Kanono was not the only person wishing Mr. Mathai would sit down. Mr. Karanja watched Mr. Mathai delivering his little speech as if this were his house with what was, at first, bewilderment but by now had metamorphosed into irritation.
‘Eh…okay, thank you Mr. Mathai for the introduction. Thank you, I hope there is somewhere for everyone to sit.’ Mr. Karanja tried to steal back the spotlight from Mr. Mathai.
‘No no, not at all, thank you for inviting us and what a lovely home. You can really feel the spirit of God in this home.’ There was a wave of “amens” uttered with deep feeling.
‘Mr. Mathai, we are only doing God’s work,’ Mr. Karanja said, not displeased that his neighbours had noticed how spirit filled his home was.
And now here was Mrs. Karanja standing next to her husband. Her appearance by his side shifted everyone's attention from Mr. Mathai to her. The Karanjas were, as it was becoming evident to Malaba’s residents, an interesting mismatch. Mr. Karanja was the kind of person you’d keep meeting throughout your life and each time you would do the right thing and introduce yourself always forgetting you knew him already.
Mrs Karanja on the other hand!
Where Mr. Karanja’s features were bland and made him indistinguishable from any other light-skin, port-bellied, Kikuyu man, Mrs. Karanja was striking. To start with all the hair on her head that made up the bouffant she wore for the better part of that decade was all hers. She was the kind of woman people stopped on the street just to tell her how beautiful she was. She could easily have been a TV ad model and she was on track to becoming one when she met the Lord at a Billy Graham crusade at Uhuru Park and never looked back.
I am merely speculating here, but the only way Mr. Karanja landed Mrs. Karanja was because she was on the look-out for a man willing to build a church with her and he shared the same vision as she did. Chance is a wily bastard, let no one deceive you.
~
Mrs. Karanja opened the Bible Study with a short prayer. In the natural order of things, a worship song came next. It took a few minutes for the gathered to pick a song, as would be expected from a multi-denominational gathering. Amazing Grace was thwarted because it was too sad. Someone suggested The Old Rugged Cross. Someone else shot it down because it wasn’t Easter so there was no point singing it. Another suggestion, Tunakushukuru Mama Maria was received with enthusiasm from the Catholics but was dismissed by the other denominations. Finally, a song was picked, a song universally loved and claimed by all denominations: Baraka Za Mungu.
‘Mrs. Mutiso was a choir master once. I think she should lead this one,’ Baba Sally piped up before his hand was slapped by his wife.
‘Oh really? In high school? We got to the regionals. Which school did you go to? We might have competed against each other,’ A bold voice asserted.
Mrs. Mutiso’s tongue felt heavy in her mouth. The attention on her made her feel claustrophobic.
‘I…uh…’
‘I can lead it if the honourable