and worst of all she was born during the short rains, a bad time to be born you must understand. People expect too much from the short-rains season. They hope the rains will make up for the long-rain season’s abysmal performance. They hope these brief interludes of warm water spat reluctantly from clouds so light you’d be hard pressed to call them cumulonimbus will bring food. But they are wrong. They are always wrong. No one expects the rains to fail, no one expects the drought to persist, in short no one expects the disappointment of the short-rains season and anyone born in the age of disappointment is a forgotten thing, people too busy bemoaning a year without rainfall to praise the miracle of a new life.
~
Mama Kanono looked at the little girl sucking her thumb on the periphery of her family’s life and wondered how parents could be so oblivious. Then she heard the scream.
‘Kanono!’ Mama Kanono whirled around then realized that she’d absently put Kanono down when her arms got tired carrying her. Kanono must have wandered off.
‘Ai ai ai ai!’ Priscilla ran in from the back of the kitchen, screaming and holding a screaming wet baby as well.
‘Kanono! Oh my God. Jesus no! What happened?’ Mama Kanono rushed to take Kanono from Priscilla’s arms but Kanono screamed harder at her mother’s touch. Behind Priscilla, on the corridor Mama Kanono had stood in not five minutes ago, the jiko was empty, around it was a puddle of water and chunks of half cooked beef. The sufuria the meat had been boiling in had rolled off somewhere after the accident.
Mama Kanono had barely pieced together the accident when she turned and ran outside shouting for Priscilla to follow her. ‘Help––help us!’ Mama Kanono waved down the crowd of people before her. ‘My daughter––please help me! We need to go to the hospital––she’s been burnt by boiling water!’
Mrs. Karanja sprung into action, ‘Julius, Julius! Remove that pick-up from there. We’ll take those other things out later.’ Mrs. Karanja gave short succinct orders and for a crowd that appeared chaotic, everyone responded with military precision. Two minutes later Mama Kanono, Kanono (knocked out by the trauma of the event), and Mrs. Karanja (driving after a split second assessment that she’d be faster than Julius the pickup owner), were in the car, speeding out of the estate to the nearest hospital, Mater Hospital. Mrs. Karanja intermittently punctured the fearful silence in the car with ‘Jesus!’, a prayer unto itself.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Kiosk, February, 1991
When Ng’ang’a had opened his Kiosk just outside Malaba Estate three years earlier, he had not expected business to be as good as it became. For that, he had the country and its newspapers to thank. When customers came to buy milk or majani, their eyes would settle on the newspapers he hung inside the Kiosk on a rope secured with brightly coloured pegs. The day’s headline alone would elicit a “Where is this country going?” from one person and this question was enough bait to draw in and keep a hearty debate going which led to customers lingering at The Kiosk longer than they’d intended.
An observant man, Ng’ang’a moved the newspapers from inside The Kiosk to just outside, next to the window where customers made their purchases. Over time, he invested in small wooden stools and two plastic chairs that he set outside The Kiosk so that those who wanted to buy and chat could do so in comfort. From here, he expanded his stock to include mandazis, weak sugary tea and uji served in tin mugs with floral patterns. For the beverages he charged five shillings per cup and the mandazis went for another five bob a piece. At just ten shillings for a drink and a snack, Ng’ang’a’s Kiosk became an informal congress for Malaba Estate, rivalling the real estate association in power and scope. It was at The Kiosk that Malaba’s residents decided to oust one set of askaris because there was a rumour they were in cahoots with petty thieves who’d been plaguing the estate. It was also at The Kiosk that the same same residents decided to open an investment fund together (this fund is still being litigated as I write). Wasn’t it also at The Kiosk that the Karanjas found out that their eldest son had run away with a girl from the neighbouring, Karibu Estate?
The real winner for The Kiosk was when Ng’ang’a introduced a little red transistor radio with a long antenna that would break on the same day the country did, eight years later. He would switch it on immediately he opened the Kiosk and leave it on till his last customer of the day had walked off into the night. The radio livened up conversations and provided a backdrop of music for hot afternoons when Malaba residents would drift out of their homes, bored and restless, in search of willing conversationalists. Conversations were often and readily punctured with impromptu sing-alongs when say Super Mazembe’s Kasongo came on or the darling of the radio waves, Sina Makosa by Les Wanyika.
A concentrated hush would fall around the Kiosk during the one o’clock news as customers listened for any new announcements from the President’s administration. In those days, President Moi was in the habit of firing Cabinet Ministers over the lunch-time news. It was, one imagines, an efficient way of dispensing of prominent politicians who’d receive the news of their unemployment through this radio waves as well.
There was an ongoing argument between Ng’ang’a and his patrons because the moment six p.m. hit, he would switch radio stations from K.B.C.’s National Service to its General Service and the music now termed zilizopendwa would be replaced with the General Service’s English ‘Golden Oldies’ on ‘Sundowner’. Nothing but nothing could beat the musical excellence of Jimmy Reeves’ rendition of Take My Hand Precious Lord according to Ng’ang’a and most Kikuyu men of a certain age group. Ng’ang’a would sooner lose customers than miss an opportunity to hear Dolly Parton crooning her country tunes as the sun set behind the Kiosk.
Overtime, the other kiosks around would copy Ng’ang’a but Malaba’s residents, for all their gossip, were loyal to him. At any rate, his Kiosk was conveniently opposite their estate gate.
CHAPTER SIX
Wedding Guests, August 4th, 2012
There were only four unexpected guests at the intimate wedding.
Mr. Mathai’s sisters arrived just as the reception was winding up. Beatrice saw them before they saw her. After Mr. Mathai went missing, they went missing in action too, as if they too had been snuffed out of existence.
‘Can you believe them?’ Mrs. Mutiso was at Beatrice’s side the moment she saw the sisters too. ‘Wait, did you invite them?’ she asked Beatrice. Beatrice shook her head. She hadn’t spoken to them in so long, she couldn’t remember which one of the sisters she’d spoken to last. ‘So then what are they doing here? And then these guards! Nkt! What are they here for if it’s not to check that everyone coming in has an invite? They think this food is being paid for by money that fell from a tree?’ Beatrice hesitated to remind Mrs. Mutiso that the main reason they were spending a fortune on the menu was because she insisted on expensive caterers.
‘It’s fine. They are here now. Let’s go and welcome them,’ she said, resolving to be polite.
‘What, with me? No! I don’t have patience for stupidity and those four are stupid.’ Mrs. Mutiso swayed away before Beatrice could convince her otherwise.
~
‘Mama Kanono, Bwana asifiwe.’ The oldest of Mr. Mathai’s sisters took Beatrice’s hands into her much smaller ones. She leaned in and kissed the air around Beatrice. The Mathai sisters were delicate creatures. If Beatrice was thin, she was a sturdy thin, muscles taut against her skin. The Mathai sisters were an unhappy thin, the kind of thin that suggests years of bitterness and strife. If you looked at them quickly, you’d be forgiven for assuming they were quadruplets. They had the same pinched face, the same large forehead, the same flared nose, the same decided frown.
I must have forgotten to add, they were Mr. Mathai’s step-sisters from his father’s first marriage. Mr. Mathai’s father raised all his children within the same homestead. Food was not apportioned depending on the superiority of a wife but on the number of mouths each wife had to feed. This system saw great harmony between all the families except