W2F011K
Gakenia's strongest desire 
Three years in ward F had tailored Lucy to be modest, considerate - yet confident in her work. As she came into the ward, today she noticed a new occupant in bed thirteen. Lucy glanced at the temperature chart that hung on the wall at the head of the bed. The patient's name was there, Alice Gakenia.
"Gakenia," Lucy called. "How are you?" This was the trick in the hospital. Always talk to the patients as if you had known them for a long time. Every nurse had learnt that trick of reading the name on the temperature chart and then calling the patient with all the familiarity one could force into one's voice. But, of course, there were a few embarrassing situations when the wrong temperature chart hung by a bedside. This was not the case this time, for the patient in bed thirteen responded happily.
"I am fine, although I don't feel that well," she said.
"Give me your hand, Alice," Lucy said in a soothing voice, genuinely caring and without any air of condescension. Lucy took Gakenia's wrist and proceeded to count her pulse.
"What is it this time'?" Sister Maingi asked. Lucy was startled. Barely ten seconds had passed since she had taken Gakenia's arm.
"Lucy!" Sister Maingi roared and the ward almost shook. It was amazing how sister Maingi could roar. The nurses always gossiped that any woman who arrived in hospital before she was in labour was immediately gripped by unbearable labour pains on hearing the rumbling of Sister Maingi. The truth of this was never verified, though it sounded quite convincing. Lucy stopped in the middle of her counting and attended to Sister Maingi.
"Look here, my child." Sister Maingi's voice became more gentle seeing the tension on Lucy's face. "You never examine any patient while standing on the left side of the bed."
Lucy had forgotten this taboo, and quickly went round to the right side of the bed.
"And, Lucy, you are to listen to the foetal heart every ten minutes for bed thirteen."
"But it is always done every fifteen minutes, Sister," Lucy said shyly trying to sound right for once.
"This isn't an average case, so do as I say." Lucy did not ask why. In the ward, you are supposed to know things, not learn them. You learn in the nursing school. After the first readings, Lucy went back to the Sister's desk to record the findings in Gakenia's case sheet. It was then she noticed a few details about Gakenia. This was her second pregnancy. The first pregnancy had ended in a caesarean section and now Gakenia had a trivial scar. She was of medium height and her pelvic assessment by Dr. Dave had been promising.
Ten minutes later, Gakenia was having quite frequent contractions of moderate strength and she asked Lucy, "Do you think I will have an easy delivery?"
"Well, you should if Dr. Dave thinks you will."
"I would not like to lose this baby."
"Did you lose the other one?" Lucy asked.
"Not during birth. She died a few hours after I was operated on. The doctor said it had suffered some damage before the operation."
"I am sorry to hear that, but this one will be fine."
"Do you love babies?"
"Every woman does," said Lucy.
"I don't think every woman does. When I talk even to women about my great desire to have a baby, they say I am madly in love with babies."
"It is all right to love babies. Now lie on your back. I want to hear if your baby is OK. Lucy waited for the contractions to subside to listen to the foetal heart. Tap-tap-tap... the heartbeat went. And she counted on - a hundred and forty-six, a hundred and fifty, a hundred and sixty-six!
"Sister Maingi!"
Why had she shouted? Gakenia might get scared.
"What is the matter? Isn't the baby all right?" asked Gakenia.
"Oh well... it's just a little thing."
"What has happened?" Sister Maingi shouted back.
"I think there is a foetal distress. The foetal heart rate is one hundred and sixty-six."
"What?" Now Sister Maingi was going to cause an earthquake. "Call the doctor." Sister Maingi was now louder than thunder.
"Speak softly," Lucy said. "The doctor is just in the next ward." It was now Lucy who retained that complacency and coolness of a medical staff. This was the golden rule in the hospital. Keep cool even if your clothes are on fire. And Lucy kept cool. She went to the next ward and talked to Dr. Dave.
"Doctor, the foetal heart rate in bed thirteen is a hundred and sixty-six."
"Is it regular?" asked Dr. Dave, his voice cooler than ice-cream.
"Yes, it is."
"Let's go over and have a look, young lady." They walked to the maternity ward. They found Sister Maingi frantic. Trying to confirm Lucy's finding, she was leaning on poor Gakenia's tummy, striving to listen to the foetal heart. Sister Maingi had the foetalscope the wrong way up!
"I think it has disappeared," she murmured.
"What has disappeared?" asked Dr. Dave.
"The foetal heartbeat," Sister Maingi groaned.
"No, I don't think so," said Dr. Dave gently, pulling Sister Maingi away. He listened for a few minutes and counted every one of those gentle tap-tap-taps.
"I agree, Lucy. There may be foetal distress here. Bring me a couple of gloves and the screens. I want to assess the descent of the presenting part."
Lucy went over to the sterile store and came back with gloves number nine. Everyone in the hospital knew that Dr. Dave wore gloves number nine. Dr. Dave had by far the largest hands in the hospital. It was no wonder. He was six feet three and built like a wrestler. At first sight you would never have thought he was a doctor. But he had brains, and his dexterity in surgery was unequalled. Bearing in mind his size, his manners and voice were sheer irony. He had a rare, soft missionary voice. His manners were gentle and suited the mission well. Many called him Saint Francis incarnate. He was the life of the hospital, for he was the one who set the hopeful mood and pace. As for his faith, there was no question of it being anything short of genuine. Every elder in and around the hospital never saw any better example of a missionary. If Dr. Dave fell, then the hospital would also fall.
Dr. Dave put on the gloves without any ceremony. When it came to action, he never wasted any time.
"Head presenting, but there has been no descent for the last hour. Sister, call theatre and tell them to prepare for a section." The Sister passed the order to Lucy.
"Lucy, call theatre and tell them to prepare for a section."
"Thank you, Sister." Lucy was busy on the phone. "They say they will be ready in half an hour. They are informing the theatre sister," Lucy reported.
"Now go and continue with the observation of bed thirteen," Sister said as she followed the doctor out.
Lucy was left alone taking Gakenia's temperature, pulse rate, respiration rate and foetal heart rate as required. She was uneasy. Something was going wrong. She knew how Gakenia valued this baby and inwardly prayed that God would give it to her. It dawned on Lucy that she loved Gakenia for a reason she could not define. She looked at Gakenia's face and saw agony and anguish. Was she in such pain or was she afraid, afraid of losing this baby? She dared not ask. She was just slightly older than Lucy by the looks of her. Possibly this was why Lucy was so sympathetic towards her. No, this could not be the reason. Why then? Possibly it was because Gakenia had such a face as reminded her of her mother. Was it because she too would obviously have to experience the same pangs of child-birth at one time? She did not know. Or could it be that there is an unconscious love that ties all beings of a similar nature to each other, making each feel the pain of the other? Whatever it was, Lucy was feeling the pain of Gakenia.
Forty minutes, and still no call from the theatre. The foetal heart rate was coming down. One hundred and twenty, one hundred and sixteen... Lucy called Dr. Dave over the phone. He was already in the theatre.
"Doctor, the foetal heart rate is a hundred and sixteen."
"Is it? Bring the patient over immediately."
"We have not yet contacted the theatre doctor."
"This is an emergency and we shall not wait."
"I know a bit about theatre. I think I'll come and assist," Lucy said confidently. She felt confident not because she knew she could handle the situation, but because she was ready to do everything possible to help Gakenia.
In less than five minutes, Gakenia was in the theatre. Lucy had mobilised all the labour-ward nurses, the stretcher had been available and Gakenia practically airlifted to the theatre.
"Carry on, Lucy," Lucy heard Dr. Dave say.
"He cannot mean it," she thought. "I was offering to help in handing over the sterile instruments, but not to assist the doctor."
"Quicker, Lucy. Time is short. And you over there, keep listening to the foetal heart. Tell the patient not to push. She already has a scar." Gakenia was pushing hard now. "Do not push, young girl!" said Dr. Dave. There was a note of panic now even in Dr. Dave's voice. "Please, don't push!" But who can make a woman in labour stop pushing? It is like swallowing only to be told not to swallow it when it is halfway down the throat. One cannot stop. One goes on swallowing. You do not even listen. Gakenia kept on pushing. She wished she could obey the doctor, but she felt an irresistible urge to push.
"Don't push!" Dr. Dave at last shouted. "Get on, you, Mary. Give the anaesthesia."
There was real danger now. If the anaesthetist delayed any longer, Gakenia was going to rupture her uterus... and she did! She gave a loud gasp and clasped her abdomen with her hands. Blood streamed down between her legs and the nurse checking the foetal heart reported no heartbeat. It was too late. Or was it?
"What shall I do now, sir?" Mary, the anaesthetist, asked.
"Just go ahead and give the anaesthesia. We have to fight to save the mother if not the child as well." And the operation began.
Lucy was on the other side mopping up the blood, pulling that artery forceps and the other! She clamped the bleeding one and got ready to clamp the weak one. Now it was time to cut the suture and hand the doctor the retractor. They were now in the abdominal cavity. The whole area was full of blood. Gakenia must have bled a lot.
"She has lost a lot of blood," Lucy said.
"Yes," said the doctor. "One of you girls there, fix an intravenous drip on the other hand." That was done.
Dr. Dave was now fishing out the baby entangled in the mess of blood. There was only one hope. If the placenta was still attached, the baby could still live. The uterus was not fully contracted and that was the first sign of hope. A linear tear was visible at the place of the old scar. "Let's get busy and open the uterus fully." Lucy's fingers met now and then with Dr. Dave's as they struggled to open the uterus. They pulled out the baby and it gave a very feeble cry.
"Clamp the cord, Lucy." Lucy clamped the cord twice and cut it out. "Go ahead and resuscitate the baby." Lucy took away the child to the resuscitating machine. It was a difficult job sucking out all that mucus and blood from its mouth. She worked with such enthusiasm that one would have thought that it was a baby from her own womb. 
W2F012K
My co-wife, my sister
"Why did I pay your father?"
(Silence.)
"Twenty goats and five cows. Why do you think I gave them to your father?" 
(Silence.)
She had heard this reminder almost daily for over fifteen years.
It all began three years after her marriage. The man began to show signs of frustration and anger. He had been good during the first three years. He had often referred to her as his "bride". He had boasted of her, of her beauty, of the goats he had given to her parents - and Waceera felt satisfied with herself. She would repeat the <ea/>kiriro she had sung in her eight days of initiation again and again,
"I, Waceera,
Daughter of Kigotho.
I, Waceera,
I have left Kigotho's cows being milked.
I feel like a dry riverbed,
The dances I used to dance
I cannot dance them any more.
I, Waceera,
Daughter of Kigotho.
Travellers, travellers
As you walk along the paths,
If you meet Kigotho,
Tell him that I am
Like a dry riverbed.
Life for me has died."
In the first three years of marriage, she used to sing this song just to remind herself of those eight days of initiation. But now, fifteen years' experience in marriage had made her begin to sing this song for a different reason.
She felt truly like a dry riverbed. No life flowed in her. She walked like a zombie. Often she could be seen talking to herself. Nobody understood what she was saying. Word went round that she was mentally sick.
Many women neighbours, wondering what was happening to the beautiful daughter of Kigotho, kept asking her co-wife, daughter of Kuria, what was happening to Waceera. Njeri, the co- wife, would say, "I shall find out. Please help me find out because I am worried too."
Yet, the neighbours did not believe Njeri. They continued to ask each other and even said that Njeri knew what was going on. Some even suggested that Njeri could have bewitched Waceera. But Njeri was not that kind of person. She had been married to Njoroge for eight years before Waceera came in as her co-wife. Now she had eight children, five girls and three boys.
Njeri used to watch her children go to Waceera's house every evening and sit with her. They laughed with her. She cooked for them and always gave them the food "with an outstretched hand". She was a very generous woman, at least to these children. Njeri observed that as soon as her children were able to crawl, they would crawl to Waceera's house. Waceera would open the door for the baby, hold it up and then put it against her chest and talk to it, "You have come. I'm glad to see you. I shall now give you some porridge and anything else you want." She would then go into her house, cool the porridge and feed the baby. When Waceera was going to the garden, the baby would then crawl back to its mother's house.
The gossip and rumours that Njeri had bewitched her co-wife were therefore groundless. But now, fifteen years of childlessness, fifteen years of verbal and physical abuse, fifteen years of inner loneliness had worn Waceera out. The burden was too much. Her heart was aching and her head felt heavy. She tried to smile to the children, but in vain.
As the man sat there screaming about the number of goats and cows that he had given to Waceera's parents, her mind was very far away. He sounded so distant from her that she didn't feel the need to explain. In her mind she travelled a long, long distance and found a river. The river was flowing quietly and she talked to it. She remembered that among her clansmen, you were supposed never to keep something to yourself if it bothered you too much. Her mother had even told her that if girls were forced to make love and were warned not to tell anybody, they should at least tell a river, a tree, a mountain, a stone or a small child who did not understand.
She looked at the river, saw its flow and felt comforted. She felt that this river would listen to her and share her suffering. She spoke, "River, I do not have a child. I yearn for a child. I know that this is why my husband beats me and abuses me. He has even refused to sleep with me. He says it's useless. River, I want to die. I want to flow with you."
She was about to throw herself into the river when she felt somebody put her hand on her shoulders and say, "Come with me, my co-wife. Please, come with me."
"No, Njeri, I can't. Let me die. I don't want to live. Let me die. Let me die. I can't live anymore."
Tears were flowing down her cheeks but Njeri continued, "No, do not die. You have to live because you have a job to do. Come with me."
Waceera had always respected her co-wife. She felt that she treated her like a mother, and so she stood up and walked home with her. At the door, she said again to Njeri, "Mama Wanjiru, I have no children and this man is going to kill me."
At that moment, Wanjiru, the eldest daughter of Njeri, came from behind the house and stood at the door. All the other children followed. They stood there for a few seconds and then Nyambura, the fourth daughter of Njeri, came forward. She embraced her step-mother saying, "Mama, never say that again. I am your daughter."
The others said in chorus, "We too are your children."
Waceera looked at them is disbelief. She knew that they called her mother and she felt ashamed that they knew her pain. She felt ashamed too that they had heard what she had said. Nyambura was still holding on to her when Njeri said, "Nyambura, from now on you are your mother's child. When you have your second daughter, you will call her Waceera. You are now her daughter and you shall live in her house. I named you my sister and your mother has been my co-wife and sister. I therefore want my sisters to stay together. Can you now go and make us some tea?"
Nyambura released herself from her "mother's" arms and went to the fireplace. The other children came in and the two wives and their children celebrated the "birth" of Nyambura to Waceera.
Njoroge had stormed out of the house when Waceera had started talking, supposedly to herself. Therefore he was not there neither for the ritual nor the celebrations and nobody ever said anything about them to him. It remained a secret between the co-wives and the children.
As time passed, Njoroge became more and more puzzled. Waceera had suddenly changed. She walked around cheerfully and with confidence. She talked to him calmly and did not ask him for anything. She didn't care whether he slept with her or not. When he called her to his <ea/>thingira, she'd stand at the door and say, "Did you call me, Baba Nyambura?"
"Why? Didn't you hear?"
"I was just confirming," she'd say.
She seemed to have felt a new life within her. She had stopped singing the <ea/>kiriro and was singing happier tunes. Nyambura, Njeri's daughter, had moved to Waceera's house. The man could not explain why - and he dared not ask, for he could not understand what was going on. At times he thought that Waceera might be pregnant and that the joy of the possibility of having a child had transformed her. But he was wrong. Yet, year in, year out, the woman seemed to grow stronger and happier.
Njoroge's children began getting married. One after the other, the girls went to their new homes. At last it was Nyambura's turn to get married. The beer was brought. The women sang and celebrated!
"Let it be drunk,
Let it be drunk.
The beer is from the child,
It is a child that has
Brought us here.
Let us drink and wash
Ourselves in it!"
The wedding was eventually over and Nyambura settled in her new home. She was generally happy and her mother Waceera visited her quite often.
After a year or so, she had a baby girl which she named, according to custom, after her husband's mother. Soon after, she conceived again and Waceera started taking care of her. She was hoping, hoping all the time that her daughter would give birth to another girl.
Her prayers were answered. Nyambura gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Her mother Njeri, her mother Waceera, and her father went to see her in the house. When they arrived, Waceera could hardly wait. She went straight for the baby and held her up. She held the baby closely to her bosom and looked at Nyambura. Nyambura understood her anxiety and immediately said, "She is Waceera."
Waceera's eyes clouded, and hot tears flowed down her cheeks. Njeri said to her, "It's fine to cry for joy, my sister."
Njoroge looked from one to the other. The three women seemed to understand each other, but he was lost. Nyambura then looked at her mother Njeri and said, as she gave her the baby, "Mama, hold your sister, your co-wife." Njeri took the baby and blessed it, gave it back to the mother and then embraced her co-wife. Only then did Njoroge understand what had happened. 
I cannot sign
"I cannot sign."
"Why not?"
"I just can't."
"Why not?"
"Her children."
"What about them?"
"Their mother's blood will be on my head. They will suffer. Our husband is already on trial. He might be hanged and the children will be orphans. I couldn't live with that."
"Do you know how many people she has <AmE/>gotten killed?"
"I know, but I don't want to be like her. If we cannot sympathize with her children, who also call me mother, then we have no business fighting for freedom."
"You know she could get you killed."
"Yes, she has tried already, but I shall not sign to have my children's mother's blood shed. You can kill me, but I will not sign."
The freedom fighters looked at each other, before telling Wanjiru to go out while they decided what to do. As she stood in the outer room of the freedom fighters' house at Milimani, her mind went back to the day when the whole thing started.
The day before the Lari massacre, she had given birth to a baby girl. The baby had died immediately after birth and since it was those bad times, no ceremonies were held. She remembered that Mr. Mbugua, who was a distant relative and a neighbour, had buried the baby for her. Her husband was in Nairobi doing business and now that the Emergency had started, he preferred to stay in town where he felt it was safer.
The night after the baby was buried, the Lari massacre began. Wanjiru was alone in the house with her five children, aged between two and twelve. She heard the screaming of suffering people and saw the blazing of houses on fire. She instructed her children not to get out of bed.
"If we have to die, let us die together," she told them.
They waited for the morning, which took a very long time to come. Every few minutes, she'd ask her eldest son, "Waweru, have you heard the cock crow?"
"No, mother."
After a long, frightening wait, the morning came. The children stood at the door to see what was going on. They reported to the mother that there was a lot of movement going on. People were carrying their children and property away. Their two step-mothers were doing the same. Waweru came and said, "Mother, everybody is leaving."
"Waweru, I can't even move out of bed. Come closer."
The boy went to the bed where his sick mother lay.
W2F013F
A Cure for Executive Stress
There are three of us... 
One is my husband, aged 51, responsible father of three children, the legal head of the family. The other is my lover, aged 31, unmarried, no children and responsible to nobody but himself. In the middle, there is me, 41, mother of three, loving wife and a solid pillar in the household.
Life is not easy for a business executive. A big plush office in the new skyscrapers everyone calls plazas, three phones ringing incessantly from morning to evening and making my ears buzz at the end of the day, clients calling in, meetings, business lunches. I feel like screaming with exhaustion by the time I get home. Fortunately, I have a company car and a company driver so I don't have to worry about negotiating my way through the incredibly chaotic streets of Nairobi during rush hours. 
At around six, the driver drops me home and goes to his quarters. I insisted on our housing him and his family on our compound so that he would be near on those days that I have official evening engagements. He is about 37, with a young wife (his third) who has given him four children, and a line of girlfriends. He must tell them in advance at which traffic lights to wait for him for we never make our way home without his waving at one of them and shouting: "See you later!" or "Tomorrow". The girl's eyes suddenly light up and she springs away joyfully to go and wait for the love of her life.
He must be a real stallion, our Kamotho, but I really like him because he is the most deferential aide I could ever find. Kamotho does not know how to lose his temper, but he knows that when madam has lost hers, it is in his interest to be an angel and guess what she wants without her having to say a word. At such times, he negotiates his way through thick traffic jams and miraculously gets me to my meeting or to the airport on time. If I forget something at home, he arranges for a different driver to go for it and carries on with my duties without my ever having to be inconvenienced for a minute.
By the time Kamotho drops me home at six o'clock, my nerves cannot take any more. I lie in the bath tub listening to soft music coming from my children's radio cassette player. Each one has her or his week to dee-jay for me. Though I like some of the selections more than others, I listen to all of them with love, trying not to show any preferences. Their special tutor (whom we hired three years ago since neither my husband's schedule nor mine allow us either the time or the state of mind to be of much use to the children) is already there helping them with homework. She is a bright form six-level secondary school teacher, a good all-rounder and a perfect companion for the children. Kamotho used to drive her home after work, at 7.30 pm, but one day she came up to me and said:
"Excuse me please, Madam, I'd like to be going home on my own from now onwards."
"Why, what's happened?"
"Nothing, madam, I'd just rather be taking the bus."
"No, I'm not about to let myself get involved with the police in case you get attacked on the way."
"Then, if you don't mind, my boyfriend will be coming for me."
"Look, here, Mweni, tell me what happened and I'll look for a lasting solution."
"Nothing, madam."
"Then calculate the bus fare for both your boyfriend and yourself and bill me."
"Thanks so much, madam."
I was to learn much later from the boyfriend that Kamotho had mistaken her for one of his many loves and tried to get intimate with her. Mweni had scratched him, bitten him and pulled his already exposed and all-ready manhood so hard that he had collapsed and she had jumped out of the car and run for her life. I remembered Kamotho looking uneasy at around that time and claiming to have been involved in a bar fight. No, Kamotho, I'll not pay you to inconvenience my household.
The following day, I called him. "Kamotho, I now know why Mweni insisted on your not taking her home. She tells me bus fare for her boyfriend and herself comes to three 350 shillings a month. I'll be deducting that amount from your salary every month from now on unless you have an objection."
"No, madam, I have no objection. Just deduct it," he said hastily.
Talk of crime not paying!
At a quarter to eight, the whole family is seated at table. If I have an evening engagement, I leave the house at nine unless it is for dinner in which case I wait for my husband to get home before leaving. He too does dine out once or twice a week but we try as much as possible to co-ordinate so that one of us is home with the kids.
My evening engagements include dinners, invitations to fashion shows, parties etc. It was at one such party that I met M.M. short for Music Maniac. The party was full of young girls and boys in their twenties dancing as if they had been paid to do so. M.M. was competing with some girls in swinging their hips like Shala Mwana and the result sent the whole room roaring with laughter and clapping wildly. I must have taken a glass of wine too many for as soon as the music was over, I ululated and gave the young man a standing ovation and soon the whole room was up and ululating. The young man came over to invite me to dance, thereby sending everyone shrieking with excitement. I declined and he sat down sulkily by my side until a young woman dragged him to his feet and soon he was gyrating his hips again, to our great amusement.
At last, someone requested that the young people give room to the oldies for <ea/>wazee <ea/>hukumbuka. Immediately we rose to our feet and started dancing to Daudi Kabaka, Fadhili William, Miriam Makeba and Harry Belafonte. The young man approached me but a man my age laughingly told him that this was for over- forties. He went away only to reappear a few minutes later, his head covered in white powder and clowning by my side.
"Oh, my age-mate, please let our old bones stretch themselves together."
We danced and laughed the whole evening.
On Monday of the following week, he rang my office. "There's a Mr M.M. on the line."
"O.K. Put him through."
He was young and carefree. Job? Oh, yes, yes, he said as an afterthought, he was a manager.
Of what? Of insurance. I hired a private detective to check him out. He <-/broked> in everything imaginable: insurance, advertising space in newspapers and magazines, tenders for all sorts of goods required by international firms. Though he worked lightly, walked and talked a lot, he made enough money to pay for his fancy clothes, apartment and old car.
Private life? A lot of girls on the dancing floor but had spent the last three weeks (since the party) alone. Keep checking. He had not dated any woman in five weeks. He was therefore a safe type to try out. In a sweet, motherly tone, I explained to him that these days it is too risky to have a close relationship with a stranger. I showed him my doctor's certificate and suggested that he pay her a visit. The results came a week later: danger free. What a relief! I decided against going to his place and insisted on his coming to my newly-rented service apartment so as to put him at a disadvantage psychologically. But he always brings records and cassettes to listen to on the mini system I bought recently and likes to dance for me.
What do I find in him? Well, something that is lacking in both my husband and myself: that happy-go-lucky disposition that only those who are not burdened with responsibilities can enjoy. He has a contagious laugh and does not see beyond his nose. "When I'm old," he says like a <-/tenyear> old.
With my husband, we plan everything: when to take leave, when to visit which in-laws, when to make love so as to have a baby or so as not to have one. We calculate our money, our savings, children's insurance premiums, our investments, everything. When we talk, it is in a serious tone.
M.M. is ready to laugh at the most ridiculous joke, ready to get onto a plane and leave the country as soon as I suggest that he accompany me on a trip abroad. He gets as excited as a six-year-old the moment we land in a new city and by the time I finish taking a bath and having a nap, he has already found his way around and knows how far my contacts are from our hotel, the shortest route to get there etc. M.M. is a walking computer when you need one, a clown when you ask for one and a man when the right moment comes.
I love my husband. He is a director of reputable law firm, and an ordinary Kenyan man. He has genuine friends from all over, but once a week he will visit the local joint for men from Kiambu most religiously. Tribalism will always be there, he argues. Each ethnic group has its own joint in town where no other language is spoken: equal but separate development. Then why blame white South Africans? Because development there is not equal, he argues. And is it equal here? Well, we're doing what we can, he concludes, and unilaterally closes the unpopular subject.
One day I asked M.M. what he thought of tribalism. "Oh, those things of long ago? Do you also believe in them in your tribe? But me, I believe people are all the same, good and bad, aren't they?"
On those days that we are both home early, my husband and I go to bed at nine-thirty on weekdays and when the children are tired on weekends. Though we have been married for many years, we still enjoy being in each other's arms. The older the wine, the sweeter... he loves to say. He is a good and tender lover.
When M.M. comes to see me at the apartment, he is all set to start the one-hundred-metre race. Cool it, man, I tell him, you can't run very far at that speed. Yes, my sweet one, anything you say, he answers. He is a playful, sweet young man, just what a tired business executive needs from time to time. I determine how often from time to time is going to be and he is always there when I need him. That's what I like about him, obedient, loving, no unnecessary questions. Needless to say, scenes of jealousy are his speciality. "Why can't you leave that old man and marry me?" he once asked.
I did not laugh: on the contrary, I felt sorry for him. Poor young man, he has not yet discovered the value of having a home, the solidity, the emotional energy contained in that word, home. Home, where children play about and fight, oblivious of your presence, but they are at the door with imploring eyes that moment you pick your car keys. That's home. Home, where a husband awaits you or where he will join you and fill the house with his unspoken masculinity just like your <-/feminity> gives a feeling of emotional security to the household and makes it deserve the name home. Home, where young relatives on both sides come to spend a week or two without prior arrangements because they know their parents know that there is a mother and a father and they are therefore safe...  
W2F014K
Let the Factory Close
It was two-fifteen when Arita woke up in response to the door bell. All was quiet, even the refrigerator motor had groaned itself to exhaustion and was now silent. The bell rang a second time. Then she heard the usual complaints.
"Why are you taking so long to open? Have I disturbed you?"
Eyes closed, lips tightly shut, Arita moved towards the front door automatically. She did not want to speak to anyone. Aware that her system was allergic to the night air that flowed into it by mouth, however briefly she may have been asleep, Arita did not answer either of the two questions. She did not expect her husband to insist on an answer as she had time and again explained her allergy to him. Arita had explained that interrupted sleep was not bad, but that her body took exception to cold air. Opening the mouth to speak or yawn only allowed cold air into her body. She thus assumed that Kuya had understood.
"Arita," he called as she put the key in the key-hole to open the door, "can't you even say a word in answer? Is it you opening the door or is it someone else? Am I safe? Arita!"
"Uhu," she mumbled without opening her mouth.
Arita opened the door, but no one came in. She did not wait to see him enter as he normally came in straight after her and headed for the dining room, expecting to find hot food already served. As usual, Arita went to the kitchen, opened the oven and arranged the food on the tray. All this she did before switching the light on. She carried the tray to the dining room and set the food on the table. Then she stood by to wait for Kuya to come and eat.
After about twenty minutes, Arita was shocked to hear her husband shouting from outside and seemingly demanding an answer from her.
"Who is that fellow coming out of my house? Arita, tell me who he is. I've seen him sneak along the wall and melt into the night. Who is he?"
These words shocked, disgusted and then amused Arita. Dressed in a thin night-dress, bulging with a nine-month pregnancy and still nursing a one-year-old boy, Arita did not see how anyone, let alone a husband, could arrive at such a thought. Strong drinks might cause hallucinations but this was more than a hallucination. This was tragic. Her husband, a calm drinker, only violent when sober and a staunch believer in his mother's philosophy on wife control, must be extremely sick. If he was drunk, then it was out of character to shout so loudly and to pronounce such words as would shock their eight-year-old daughter. She was still marvelling at his questions when she saw her husband burst in, switch on the lights and head for her, his finger pointing at her as if he meant to gouge out her eye. She stared at him as he repeated the question. Receiving no answer, he decided to be clearer. Now he spoke more calmly, "I have always had my suspicions that someone has appointed himself or has been appointed by you to assist me. This time I was out to catch him, and I have seen him. I knocked and when there was a delay, I smelt <+_a> rat. I went to the window and listened. Then I heard. I went round the house, and you opened the door, I saw it all. He was there. Do you deny he was here?"
Arita nodded.
"Was there anyone with you?" Arita shook her head, denying any such thing. Then she smiled, amused by Kuya's conviction and anger. She pointed at the food getting cold fearing it might not be as tasty as she would have liked him to find it.
Arita was further shocked when, instead of heading for the table, he struck out and hit her full in the face. His wide palm and long fingers covered her whole face. She staggered and let out a cry. Then she dashed for the kitchen. There she found the charcoal stove on which she had left maize and beans cooking in the <ea/>sufuria only one hour earlier. She put the <ea/>sufuria down and stood by the stove as if warming herself. Then she felt salt gathering in her mouth. She spat on her palm and noticed blood in her saliva. Her husband had hurt her.
"Arita!" she heard him shout. "Why do you always approach the door with lights off?"
Arita did not respond, for she had now realized that Kuya was deliberately brewing trouble. He
was out to make her annoy him. She continued standing by the fireside and sucking blood from her injured gums and spitting it in a plastic cup.
"Arita!" Kuya shouted again as he burst into the kitchen. He asked the same question about a prowler, and then moved to strike at her again. Arita lifted the burning charcoal stove and hit Kuya on the chest, pouring all the burning charcoal onto him. Some coals lodged between his clothes and his skin, while others feasted on his shiny suit.
"There, have it. That is the man you saw crawling from your house. This nonsense has to stop. Half past two in the night is hardly the time to sort out differences springing from a deep river of jealousy."
Kuya had thrown off his coat, tie and shirt and was demanding to be told the meaning of such an action. The coals seemed to have acted fast, for he rushed out and then into the shower room. Arita knew that the fire had destroyed any drunken stupor that may have been interfering with his power of judgement earlier on. Sober, he would be dangerous. She therefore prepared herself for a possible confrontation. She got her biggest cooking stick in an acceptable position. Then she looked for her short <ea/>panga in case it became necessary to scare Kuya into the bedroom to sleep. Arita considered the possibility of using the steaming pot of maize and beans. It would mean losing the whole pot, food enough to feed the family and a casual caller for four days.
As the water splashed onto his body, Kuya took the opportunity to try to analyse his situation. He wondered why his wife had decided to act so unexpectedly. Had she lost her head? He remembered her deliberate action as she lifted the stove. He could see the <ea/>sufuria with its steaming contents and realized then it must have been put down for the purpose already demonstrated.
`But, this is not my wife. The source of her bravery is indiscernible. Her cruelty is incalculable. She could actually murder.' Kuya kept on talking to himself as the cold shower went down his burning body. He dared not touch the burning skin in case it came off in his hands. Then he remembered that ice was what he needed. How was he to get it without encountering his wife-turned-lioness?
The idea of ice came to his mind when he was trying to recollect a similar encounter between his skin and heat. It had been many years ago as a teenager minding his younger sisters and at the same time expected to take gruel to the farm where his parents and older brother were working.
On that fateful morning, he had put the hot pot on his head, atop a wide thick ring of banana fibres. Then he had walked out of the house without bending. The eaves had obstructed him and the pot had emptied its contents onto his back. He had taken off his shorts and fallen on the grass - rolling in the soothing morning dew. Then he had looked for <ea/>liselenge (the wet ashes left after traditional salt with bicarbonate-of-soda properties had been removed) and sponged the still-burning parts of his back and buttocks with it.
The feel of <ea/>liselenge had been wonderful. He wondered whether his wife used this traditional salt to cook her <ea/>omurele or chicken. If so, he would prefer <ea/>liselenge to anything else.
"My dear, do you use <ea/>omuselekha?" There was no answer. Maybe she was still frightened. He went on. "If you do, may I have a little <ea/>liselenge to cool my skin? You know you've killed me."
There was no response. Then, after about two minutes, Arita opened the refrigerator and got out all the cold water and the ice cubes the children so loved to make. She took these to the door of the shower room. She was surprised to find the door firmly locked. She almost laughed, but then realized that Kuya would feel even more pain. She knocked cautiously and said, "Open the door and take this ice and ice- cold water. Both are from the fridge and should do you a lot of good. They are even more soothing than your <ea/>liselenge. I've got some, but it's not as cold as the water and ice cubes in this basin."
"You are a witch. Let me have the <ea/>liselenge as well. Just have your laugh now. Who knows who'll laugh last?" With these words Kuya opened the door carefully and then pulled in the now ice-cold basin. He used this carefully on his still-burning body, muttering to himself all the time. Meanwhile, Arita was busy pouring cold water into the bowl of <ea/>liselenge. She then placed it in the refrigerator and turned the regulator full on. She felt that the burning man needed her help.
As she waited for the <ea/>liselenge to cool, she took stock of her married life. Before her was a canvas on which was painted the first beating she had received from her dear husband. It had come two days after the two had learned that they were going to have their first baby. It had only been three months after the wedding. The beating had been systematic and thorough. Kuya had repeatedly said, "If you have ever been intimate with any other man, I want you to confess now. Then I'll be sure that you have forgotten all and that I'm the only person in your life, in your mind; the only man who matters to you."
Arita remembered asking back, "Why are you hurting me? Is the coming baby a mistake? Please, tell me."
But Kuya had behaved like her question had no answer or was not even heard.
"A baby is a human being. It may be a son. Whose son shall I say he is if he's born into a house where the woman has divided loyalty between the alleged father and a horde of other men? How do you expect me to hold such a baby? Write their names here and renounce each one in turn."
"Who? Whose names?"
"Your previous 'husbands'. You weren't a virgin when we got married. Someone deflowered you. Who was it?" Kuya behaved as if the perpetrator of the crime was right before him, challenging his right over the coming baby.
"I didn't even know that I had been deflowered," she moaned.
"Deflowered by whom? I want the name. Shame! Now, come on, tell me his name," he roared, then coaxed, then pleaded.
"No one," the young woman moaned.
"No one? I don't believe you at all. I don't believe a word of what you say. I don't even believe you are pregnant. I'm dealing with an incorrigible liar."
Each one of these statements had been accompanied with a slap and a kick. Arita thought she would die. She wished she would die. It had been at night. Escape had been impossible as all the doors had been locked and the keys hidden. The windows had strong burglar-proof wires. There was no escape.
"Arita, dear," she had heard him say. "Even if you are an incorrigible liar, I have married you." Then he pulled at both her ears until they hurt and she moaned yet again. "You're mine and I'll teach you to lie to me."

W2F015K
Decision of the Heart
"Is it available?" he asked me immediately he entered my house and I greeted him and offered him a seat.
"What is it that you want?" I in turn asked him.
"Don't be funny," he retorted. "You know what I mean."
"No, I don't," I replied in a well controlled voice.
"The thing you make," he answered with a laugh.
"That stuff which draws people like me to this house," the man replied as he surveyed my mud and grass built house, which was tidy and well swept, with his eyes. I had placed three tattered chairs against each of the three walls. I occupied part of the fourth wall facing the west with my low work-stool. The man sat directly opposite me on one of the worn out chairs.
"Don't be ridiculous," I told the man teasingly. "I make so many things in this house, babies included. What exactly or which stuff do you mean? Be specific, please."
"You're well aware of the stuff I mean," the man replied. "The particular thing which makes us come to pay you furtive visits," he repeated with a forced smile.
"Why don't you come out and name the it? I challenged him.
"I want some drink - <ea/>chang'aa for power," the fellow sputtered, once again, giving me one of those false smiles.
"Oh, why didn't you say so from the beginning instead of wasting my time?" I replied and made as if to get up. The evasive answers I'd been giving him were beginning to vex him.
"A bottle will do, please," he said.
"I see, but who are you? I don't think I've seen you around here before," I told him as an afterthought. I had over the years, learnt to be suspicious of all my customers and everybody else unless I knew them well. You see, selling <ea/>chang'aa was a risky business.
"Are you always suspicious of your customers?" the man asked me with a twinkle in his eyes.
"No, but it's often good to know one's visitors," I replied.
"I see," remarked the man.
"I still insist: Who are you?"
"Get me some <ea/>chang'aa first. I'm thirsty," the man said, "and then I'll tell you who I am."
I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. The man had betrayed himself. He spoke my language very well, but with a definite accent which made him an alien as far as I was concerned. This meant just one thing: he was an officer of the law.
"Wait a minute, please," I told the man as I went out of the room. "Toto, come here," I called one of my children who was playing under a nearby tree. He came running. I spoke to him in a whisper and gave him a clear and precise message to take to his father, who was then busy entertaining our regular customers. He was behind our home at an open space in the centre of a eucalyptus bush. The place was known as <ea/>bunge parliament. The child left in a hurry and ran heading towards <ea/>bunge. I had asked him to come back immediately after giving his father my message.
"What's going on?" the man enquired in a raised voice when I returned back <idiom> to the house. "Are you going to sell me some <ea/>chang'aa or not?"
"Since I don't make it any more," I explained in earnest, "I've sent a child to get you some from a neighbour who is still in that business." Then I got busy working around my house. I got out some green vegetables, put them in <ea/>oteo: a flat basket, and began to prepare them for the family supper that evening.
I removed hard dry pieces, picked out any bits of grass, sticks and grit. The man watched me intently. Somehow I grew more uncomfortable and nervous. There was an undefined undercurrent of tension mounting between us which disturbed me somewhat. The mutual co-operation and conspiratorial atmosphere that normally prevails between the <ea/>chang'aa brewers and their customers, <-_was><+-were> lacking here!
While I waited for Toto to return, my mind went back to another time when I experienced the same feeling. This was when I used to stay with my husband in Nairobi at Mathare Valley. Time flies so fast! I mused as I concentrated on preparing the vegetables. The incident was still fresh in my mind as if it was just the other day that I packed my things, and moved into our home here in the rural area. Yet three or four years had gone by since then!
I remembered how on one particular day I woke up early in the morning, intending to carry on with my daily chores. But the moment I opened my door to go out and start on the rounds, I was confronted by a huge man who stood blocking my way absolutely. My mind worked fast. I rushed back into the room, and banged the door in the fellow's face. Henceforth, I was not to know peace. When I thought I had escaped from the man, he began to rattle the door hard, shaking the whole house, sending a shower of debris on us.
"Open quickly: the police are here," he called with authority. Then more than one voice, in fact, lots of murmurs. I went cold with fright, while my body felt hot and lifeless. I had fallen a victim to the authority. I felt so guilty. Oh, I could die of remorse. My father's stern face and my mother's large, dark, innocent, but accusing, eyes came to my mind. I recalled how strictly they had brought us up. I never saw liquor of any nature being brewed in my parents' home when I was growing up.
My parents were staunch Christians, strict moralists and disciplinarians. They never allowed us to come in contact with anything that they deemed ungodly, sinful, or unclean. And there was much that fitted in this category. Hot drinks were amongst these! Now, I worried about what they'd say on learning that I'd been caught brewing <ea/>chang'aa!
"Open the door, Woman, or else I'll break this feeble shutter," the man insisted. I felt even more helpless, cornered and hemmed all round, with no means of escape. The windows in my Mathare slum house were so narrow that I couldn't pass through them.
Another thought entered my mind: supposing the man calling outside was not a policeman, but a rogue, who upon opening the  door might bounce on me, maybe rape, kill or rob me? I wished I had a hole in the floor somewhere I could hide with my children and the ten jerry-cans of <ea/>chang'aa, all full to capacity with the stuff. The number was too great to be shoved in a corner, or under a bed in my small congested room. I muttered to myself, "I can't evade this one." So I had to accept the fact as it was: I had been caught red-handed with ten jerry cans of the illicit brew.
I didn't wish to wake up my little children. I therefore, quietly changed my dress. I put on a clean presentable one before I stepped forward to open the door for the fellow who was by then consumed with rage. But I wasn't prepared for what I encountered this time when I opened the door. There, behold, was a large multitude of the Mathare <ea/>chang'aa brewers. The police had taken a midnight swoop in and around Mathare, and had netted a host of us illicit brewers! "Why have you kept me waiting for so long?" The hefty fellow glared at me, pushing his truncheon in my hips.
"Huu," I grunted as the club sunk into my flesh. "I'm sorry, Officer," I replied in all humility. "I've this baby here and I was still breast-feeding him. I realise you've come for me, and I don't wish to take him along with me."
"Lies," he retorted and carried on forcefully.
"What are you hiding, in there?" he said stepping into the small room, filling it absolutely with his voluminous body. "Come on, tell me," he said again, flickering his huge spotlight angrily around the room.
"Nothing. I'm not hiding anything," I answered my heart sinking within me. He kept on pulling and pushing at my shabby furnishings.
"Where's your husband?" the man enquired, looking under the bed, still flickering his powerful spotlight. "Were you still hiding him under the bed?"
"He isn't here," I replied.
"So you're one of them: whores with a flock of children and no husbands. No wonder you've turned this small room into a brewery." He bellowed accusingly. His eyes were all over the room whilst throwing dirty looks at me. I said nothing. Let him think the worst of me. After all, was I any better than my next door neighbour who was a whore? She also brewed <ea/>chang'aa and sold her body to raise money to educate and support her six children. Our objectives were similar. I sold <ea/>chang'aa at night and vegetables during the day, all illegally. I had no licence to hawk or sell anything within the Nairobi City Council. My friend sold <ea/>chang'aa and her body at night and during the day as well. We both got involved in forbidden ventures, all for survival. I suspected that some time one or two of my children went into the city to beg. It hurt me to the core, but there was nothing I could do about it.
"What are these?" he asked at last, uncovering the ten jerry cans of <ea/>chang'aa, removing the old, torn, heavy settee under which I had hidden them. "Get up quickly." He ordered three of my children to get up from that torn settee on which they were sleeping.
"Woman, what are these?" he asked again. I was tongue-tied. I had no heart and no wish to reply.
"Mzito," he called one of his colleagues who was hovering on the threshold. "Come and carry these." By then nine of my children who were living with me were all awake, and everyone of them was scared of the policeman.
"Don't worry, I'll come back to you," I told them, taking Toto, my second youngest son, into my right arm. He was yelling and crying, holding tightly onto my dress. "Dena, here, hold the child. Buy bread and milk in the morning and make nice tea for everybody, but give the big nice bread crusts to Toto here," I spoke to my sixteen year old daughter, handing her a twenty shilling note and Toto.
"Let's go," the policeman said as he roughly pulled me away from where I was giving Dena more instructions on what to do while I'd be away. "Don't go to school today. Stay at home and look after your sisters and brothers," I called to Dena as the policeman impatiently pushed me out of the door.
All my children came out to see me off. I was like a person going on a journey by an unknown route. "After breakfast, go and tell your uncle and father too that I've been arrested," I shouted even louder at Dena as I was shepherded into the huge lorry whose engine was running, sending thick fumes all around the dark alleys of the slum estate.
There were three lorry loads of us! We were all taken to the nearest Police Station that same night where we were dumped into a crowded room. I took Sam, my six-month-old baby son along with me. I considered him my security. They might sympathise with me because of him. And they did. I was removed from that tightly packed, crowded room to a less crowded one. By 8.00 a.m. the following morning, we were all escorted to the court. When my turn for trial came, the judge was sympathetic but he teased me in a way which somehow aroused my anger. I still remember his voice as he asked me, "Why do you brew <ea/>chang'aa?" " 
W2F016K
Healing from sex abuse
On this bright morning, I was through with one week of my holidays. I had decided to spend them upcountry and I was enjoying myself hugely. My spirits were very high as I bounced off with the jerry-can to go and fetch water for my grandmother.
Then came one of our <ea/>shamba-boys, Oscar. "Dido, Grandmother said that you should get some maize from the <ea/>shamba for her. But since I'm going for a walk now, I would rather you came for it at halfpast five in the evening."
As he said this, he looked at me with inquisitive eyes. I thought that he was wondering if I could carry the jerry-can full of water home since he had even offered to help me. But feeling strong enough, I turned down his offer since the water-tap was only about two hundred metres away. I thought for a while and then told him that I would go down to the <ea/>shamba for the maize if only he would let me carry it back home on his bicycle. This was because the <ea/>shamba was one hour's walk from home and I otherwise would get back home both tired and late. He agreed and went his own way.
I carried the water to my grandmother's place and stayed with her the whole day. Inside me I felt a sense of foreboding which I tried as hard as possible to brush aside - without any success.
In the evening, I set off with a small nylon sack in which I would carry the maize. I walked fast enough and arrived at the <ea/>shamba at six o'clock. I took the maize and asked for the bicycle, only to discover that Oscar had lent it out to a friend of his, who was to bring it back at half-past six. I waited patiently enough and when the bicycle was brought back, I hurriedly tied the sack onto it and rode off as fast as possible.
The path through which I was passing was narrow and bushy. Suddenly, as I was taking a certain corner near our homestead, I was hit with a stone on my head! I lost control and ended up landing in the bushes. As I slowly opened my eyes, I noticed two men standing beside me with glittering pen-knives. I didn't really get the hint until one of them pulled me to my feet and began dragging me deeper into the bushes. He looked like Oscar, but since the darkness had fallen, I couldn't recognize him. He breathed heavily as his grip tightened around my wrist.
Out of the blue, I found myself hitting the hard ground that had recently been cleared. I didn't know what he was up to until he started unzipping his trousers. I knew then that that was the end of me, and started screaming as I struggled against this rogue, who was now mounting me. I don't know where the other fellow went to, but there was no one around to come to my rescue. I was overpowered and all I could do was to spit into his face.
I was very exhausted by the time he shifted his heavy mass of flesh from mine. He looked pleased, very satisfied with himself, while I could wail no more. I felt faint. There were sharp pains in my lower abdomen. My virginity was now gone! I lay in the same spot until I regained enough strength to crawl back to the path. My dress had a few blood stains that made me uneasy.
Surprising enough, the bicycle wasn't there! What was I going to tell my grandmother about her maize? Life had blown up for me in one single hour!! I walked slowly home, shedding my few remaining tears, as the pain below increased.
It was near the entrance of the homestead that I tripped over something hard - the bicycle lying across the path. I got a very deep cut that bled for some time. I eventually got up and pushed the bicycle along slowly until I arrived at my grandmother's hut. She had been scared out of her wits by my absence. She did not know what to do next. She questioned me so as to know what had gone wrong but all I told her was that I had had an accident at a sharp corner near the <ea/>shamba and that that was why I had come pushing the bike. I didn't have enough courage to face her with the whole truth. She nursed me and ordered me to go to bed straightaway. What a relief!
I awoke the following morning with less abdominal pain but more worries. My leg was getting worse. How would I face my parents who were to arrive the following day? What if I was pregnant? What if my uterus had been destroyed? What if my father decided to send me away from school? He was a very temperamental man who was also difficult to convince. All these questions rushed through my mind as I was having breakfast with my grandmother. I had been unaware of the questioning glances that she had been giving me all this time, until she asked me twice, and I replied that I was trying to remember what might have cut me that deep. Although her looks told me that she was not satisfied, she did not pester me again.
I went through the day with much pain, as vivid visions of what had taken place the previous evening flashed again and again into my mind. I did no work since my grandmother did not allow me to. The night came and went.
I was up early the next day as I wanted to see my parents arrive. They were both shocked when they saw the cut and asked for an explanation at once. I shivered as I gave them the very same story I had told my grandmother. My parents had been very strict with me, especially since I was their first-born. They wanted me to be contained and serious all the time. They even went to the extent of blaming me for some things that I wasn't responsible for. For this reason I feared them and hence was not ready to face them with this tragedy that had befallen me. I felt I had little say in my life as long as I still sheltered under their roof.
I received a good scolding and was then taken to hospital where I got four stitches. This was another bad experience, which I bore bravely.
When I came back home, I learnt from one of my cousins that Oscar had run away without saying why. This did not really surprise me since I had expected something of the sort to happen. She asked me if I had any clue as to his whereabouts but I shook my head and walked away. I was relieved at this point and believed that that was the end of the sad story.
While I rested on my bed, I went over the incident again. I remembered the man's outfit. It must have been Oscar! The outfit was identical and so was the cap that he had worn. So the other man must have been the friend to whom he had lent his bike. They had plotted together to rape me! I burnt inside with fury. Life, seemed worthless to me now. Throughout the rest of the holidays I was always sad and I lost a lot of weight. But having very busy parents, neither of them took much notice. Ten days later I had the stitches removed and I felt OK. Slowly I began trying to push the incident away since the criminal had taken refuge in an unknown place.
After my holidays, I went back to school as a changed person. I always wanted to be alone while I thought things over and over again. My best friend Sarah noticed this and tried to cleverly question me. She became even more worried when she found out that I acted more reticent when I was with her. So she let me be. I wanted to shut everybody out of my life. The sight of a crowd made me tremble for fear that they had found out what had happened to me during the holiday. I then decided that it would have been best if I hid myself in my schoolbooks though the term was still young. This made me more frustrated and I soon developed very severe headaches.
Then I discovered that my private parts were burning. We had previously been taught about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and their symptoms. I knew what had happened. I cried myself sick and stopped eating. The matron, who was a very nice woman, came to know of my problem. She asked me about the whole situation and after a lot of persuasion, I at last told her the truth. The expression on her face showed how shocked she was but she showed me a lot of sympathy. Finally, she told me that it would be best if I told my mother the whole story. She would take me to a doctor. I found this unbearable, though I promised her that I would and the matron promised me that she would be by my side if ever I needed her help.
But I still didn't have enough guts to tell my mother the whole truth. The only thought that lingered in my mind was yet another lie. I decided to write to her and pretend that I did not know what was wrong, but that I had a certain problem with my private parts.
I waited for the reply eagerly as a week elapsed, two... three, and finally a whole month without a reply! The following Sunday, I sent a friend home to find out from my mother if she had received my letter. Anger burnt inside me when the answer through my friend was positive. Had she read the letter thoroughly? Was she too shocked to come and visit me? Or was she intentionally ignoring me due to her business? To hell with her! To hell with life! I burnt deep down.
When we closed school for another holiday, I decided that I would spend the holidays in Nairobi. Though my performance in class had not been that impressive, I was happy to see my father who came to the bus station to meet me. He looked upset though he acted calm until we reached home.
The house was unusually quiet as the housekeeper took my luggage into my bedroom. My mother did not come out to meet me but since she had read my letter, I thought she was trying to show disapproval by being absent. I was afraid to seek her out but meanwhile I had to occupy myself. I changed into my home- clothes and went into the kitchen to help in the preparation of supper. As usual! I finally set the table for five since the housekeeper ate in the kitchen with my baby sister. I sat down and waited for the rest of the family.
To my surprise, we were only four at the table and when I asked my father where mother was, all he could say was that she was gone. "Why?" I asked him in a strange voice. His reply was that we couldn't talk then since he had some business matter to attend to. I went to the bedroom and cried myself to sleep.
The next morning I felt too weak to get up. I had my breakfast in bed. The housekeeper came in later and informed me that my parents had fought a week before, and my mother had taken refuge in her motherland Uganda. They had mentioned my name in their argument and sounded very bitter about it.
"Did mother go alone?" I asked.
"No! She of course took your baby sister."
W2F017K
The Footstool
Today I had trouble with my boss in the office. Twice or thrice, the boss caught me taking a nap with my head on the desk. I tried to explain why I was dozing but he was not interested. He walked out on me. I wonder what his next step will be. He said once or twice in the past that it is unbecoming to doze in the office.
"Why don't you sleep at home if you must then come to the office when you have slept enough?" He did not mean it, of course. He was only being nasty.
I spent the whole of last night keeping vigil over our son who had bronchitis contracted after working outdoors for several hours a night in a bid to complete a carpentry school project. He would have taken longer had his father not helped him every night.
I had watched the pair from where I sat in the house as they sawed, joined together pieces of timber only to knock them apart, saw and begin hammering them all over again. The pair, as they worked together, were a picture of harmony between father and son. Of late they have been inseparable. Sometimes I fear my husband will accompany the boy to class one of these days to help him out with the teacher's questions. This closeness reaches deep into a large reservoir of fear and apprehension that I carry around with me, stirring it to life. God, I hope we shall not have to pay a price again.
I came home from work a little late one day to behold what I then thought was an innocent scene. My husband and our six-year-old son were playing on the sofa much to the delight of the other four children. My intrusion, however, caused a momentary pause in the laughter but I was soon dismissed and the laughter went on. I had almost joined in the laughter when I noticed that the two had stopped playing. A look at the boy's face told me that he was not amused. The grin on his mouth pointed to great annoyance. He looked at me and I could see that the only reason why he was not crying was the fact that his brothers and sisters were all laughter. I looked at the father but his face registered innocence. I was lost.
"What is happening here? Are you two turning into wrestlers or something?" I asked, trying to sound casual.
"I was trying to gauge how strong this boy is. You know from the look of his body, you would think he is the strongest of the boys."
"What did you discover?"
"Nothing".
There was more laughter. The children seemed to have enjoyed the `wrestling bout'. I passed on into the kitchen but I did not stay. Something called for explanation. A seemingly innocent father, an angry boy and shrieks of laughter from the rest was an awkward setting. Why would my husband want to gauge the strength of the boy? I walked out again into the same scene. This time, Gachara was not there. The laughter had subsided.
The rest of the evening was fairly quiet. Gachara joined the other children again and soon began chatting. I resolved to broach the subject of 'measuring' strength later in bed but I did not. I would do it in the morning. When morning came I did not. I was obviously afraid. My curiosity, however, persisted.
I did not personally see a repeat of the `bout' until six months later. This is not to say that it had not happened. It had. Several times I found Gachara in a foul mood. He had told me his father had started the wrestling game after which he had pinned him down with the legs resting one on his head and the other on his shoulders. "I do not mind playing," he told me one day, "but when he pins me down, he keeps his legs on me for so long that I get very tired. When I tell him to let me go, he laughs and calls me a coward."
It happened on a Saturday afternoon as we all sat having some tea. Gachara was sitting with the baby on the floor when the father casually moved and sat on the chair next to the two. they were so busy playing that Gachara did not notice his father approaching. I could hardly believe it when he casually put both his legs on the boy's shoulders. The sudden weight of the two legs on his small body made the boy bend forward so that his chin rested on his knees. Once when he managed to turn his face slightly sideways towards where I sat, I could see pain and fear on that face.
As calmly as I could, I strode to where the 'bout' was taking place and roughly shoved the legs off the boy's shoulders. The boy slowly and painfully straightened out, stood and shot off to the boys' bedroom leaving the baby calling after him. The other children were not amused this time. I could not tell whether they did or did not know what was happening.
"What habit is this?" I asked Joe trying to be as calm as I could.
What habit are you talking about?" he asked, visibly angry. "We were simply playing, or am I not supposed to play with my children? Does the new teaching among educated women prohibit fathers from playing with their children?"
Several times I attempted to say something but all I did was to open my mouth. Anger was welling up in me and was threatening to flood my eyes. He knew very well that he was doing more than `play' with the boy and he talked about educated women as if he himself was not educated and more so as if being educated was a crime. I swallowed hard in an attempt to stop the spillover. I breathed in and out as deeply and as slowly as possible in a bid to control my racing heart. I had to get to the bottom of this.
"All I want to know is why you treat him the way you do," I said. "You treat him like an equal. Don't you think you could harm him? The boy is only six. And why him and not the others?"
"He is named after your father, that is why you are protecting him," he replied accusingly.
Those words pierced my heart deeper than a sword. My husband whom I loved was surely mad.
"He is a child, a small boy," I explained naively, picked up the baby and walked off slowly. The baby felt heavier than usual. She was silent and looked solemn. I tried to smile at her but no smile came. Did she understand what had transpired between us? Did she also know that something was gravely wrong? She clung to me like one afraid. What was she afraid of? Or had she been reminded of two quarrels we had had a few months after she was conceived? The intra-uterine device I was using had failed. 'You should have taken better care of yourself,' my husband had told me.
Kanini, I suppose, had heard it all in the womb and this exchange of words had reminded her of it.
I found him seated on the floor of the boys' bedroom. He leaned on one of the beds. He was not crying but the lonely figure he cut and the helplessness written on his face made me cry. I sat on his bed. The baby struggled free and joined her brother on the floor. Although Gachara took her outstretched little hands, and made her sit on his small lap, he did not answer to what passed as his name. Kanini gave up after a few spirited attempts. She now <-/focussed> on one of Gachara's buttons.
"Why do you play such games with your father?" I asked amid sobs.
"I don't," he said.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"He places his legs on my head and shoulders and when I complain that it hurts me, he says that I am a coward. He says that you, Kanini and I should go back to where we came from. We do not belong here."
I was in turmoil. The man I loved and married had succumbed to something whose nature I could not comprehend. I had seen it elsewhere, however. After a series of disagreements between her and her husband, one of my sisters- in-law had suddenly turned against one of her sons. It had taken a concerted effort by members of both her families to persuade her to see the unreasonableness of it all. Did this `madness' run in families?
After a slight lull, the `bouts' in our house resumed and with greater frequency. Sometimes my husband would order the boy to go to him and sit beside him. He would wait for the boy to relax only to suddenly place his legs on the usual place. The boy would get so tired he would plead for mercy.
"Father, I am very tired, please remove your legs." He would repeat this several times, but my husband would just laugh. Every time I managed to rescue the boy, it would trigger a tirade of insults. He seemed obsessed with the fact that the boy was named after my father. It was as if he had not known it all the time. The way I saw it, the boy's only crime was the name he bore.
The bouts began taking their toll on the other children. They became unhappy and irritable. This was not the father they knew. Our house turned cold. School grades came down, inviting more wrath on Gachara. I fought on but things got worse. I was going to seek help elsewhere but subsequent events made it unnecessary.
Our two other sons died. They died on the same day in a bus accident with a dozen other children. The children were travelling to the North-Western Province to perform in the annual National Cultural Festival. I shall not dwell on the incident because to do so is to relive it all.
It shattered the family and the neighbourhood. I've never seen that kind of outpouring of grief. They felt it with us. They supported us. The boys were eulogised and the speakers, one after another, pleaded with the government to make roads safer to cut down on the accidents.
"We would like to appeal to the government to improve the roads so that we do not continue losing lives needlessly. It is not right that such young lives should be cut short," one speaker said.
What he did not know, of course, was that there was more than a road accident. God had moved. He had brought vengeance <idiom> to teach my husband a lesson. Unfortunately, what affected him affected the remaining children and <-_I><+_me>. What bitter triumph could there be for me? They were my sons also. I had loved them as much as he had. To him, they were his father and brother but really they were not. They were only children, our children. They were named after his father and brother. They were not them. They had never been and never would be! It cannot be.
The shock of the boys' deaths, however, changed my husband somewhat. The boy he had disliked had suddenly become the only son he had and he gradually changed. He began to love him and there were times he was almost over-protective towards him. He had learnt his lesson but at what cost?
Later in my solitude, I wished that life could be pushed back. That I would somehow hear and call their names again. That I would awaken to discover it was but a dream. What with the two fresh mounds I could see through the window? It was not a dream.
Then I thought again of the naming system that gave some people the dangerous illusion that they were seeing and hearing what they were not, a system that transformed little boys and girls from bundles of sheer joy into 'fathers', 'mothers', 'brothers', and 'sisters'. Innocent children turned into scapegoats, often maltreated to pay the price for evil, real or imagined, perpetrated by those who had passed on. What crime had my son committed other than carrying my father's name?
W2F018K
Mother of Daughters
Although Nduta herself thought that five children were enough for her, she thought of trying for a sixth child with the hope that it would be a boy and maybe win happiness from her already hostile husband. He had beaten her, denied her financial help, insulted her in front of children and visitors, tortured her psychologically and even rejected her daughters. However, she had persevered and hoped for a boy. With a lot of anxiety and hope, Nduta waited for the nine months to end with, perhaps, a son. But God gave Nduta yet another daughter to the great fury of her husband. To put it mildly, misery accompanied the arrival of the new baby in the family and things got worse.
However, although things moved from bad to worse the poor woman tried to make her Mr. Right happy by totally taking up the responsibilities of running the home financially. She paid school fees for their children, bought their uniforms and other clothes, bought all the necessities of the family, bought house furniture and all necessary house equipment and as if that was not enough for her, she took a loan and stocked up a shop for her husband for he had recently lost his job. In short, she had to forego all the luxuries of a woman, all for the sake of maintaining peace with her husband. Yet sadly enough for her, Mr. Right never appreciated anything his wife did, he never could.
As the story had it, this Mr. Right's 'appreciation' towards his wife was to marry a bar-maid who apparently was an employee at his off-licence bar and who herself was a mother of five children. His reason for marrying this woman was that she had sons and his wife had none. But then, this marriage, even after Nduta swallowed the bitter pill and accepted a co- wife, did not make things any better for her.
The day was 4th of November. A very ordinary and normal day for Nduta. It was a working day and as usual she prepared herself to leave for her place of work, a primary school where she was a teacher, with her five-year-old daughter as her sole companion. Little did she or her little daughter know that what was to befall her in a few hours' time would remain a terrible nightmare all her life. To her children, her relatives, friends and workmates it was both unthinkable and <-/unbelieveable>. A real tragedy.
As her place of work was far, Nduta as usual boarded a <ea/>matatu which took her nearer her school. She alighted at a shopping centre where she alighted everyday and where her husband ran their family shop and off-licence bar, Holding her daughter by the hand, she started walking towards the school which was a stone's throw away from the shops. Fondly known by the locals as `Mwalimu' she answered their morning greetings as she walked on.
Then all of a sudden, Nduta was gripped by a man whom she recognized as her husband's best friend. Although it seemed very strange for this particular man to hold her hand so firmly, Nduta did not scream or suspect anything was wrong since the man was very well known to her. Before Nduta could seek an explanation from him, another man joined the first one and both men dragged Nduta towards her husband's shop. Now Nduta was very apprehensive.
As Nduta was dragged into their shop, she saw her husband coming from the direction of the bus stop which was not very far away. He strode fast and joined the other two men. If Nduta thought the two men were up to some mischief, she probably almost regretted the thought after seeing her husband, whom she thought would come to her rescue. However, this was not to be as Nduta found out in a matter of seconds. Her husband grabbed her hand and sarcastically informed her that she would be late to school but, not to worry as he had sent a note to the headmaster informing him they had a family problem to sort out first.
Poor Nduta, innocent of any crime and acting the good obedient wife that she was, followed her husband inside to an inner room, without arguing or asking any questions. On entering this inner room, her husband locked it behind them. As Nduta looked inside after hearing her husband lock the door, she realised then that they were not alone. His two friends were also there and Nduta wondered why as she expected to discuss a domestic matter with her husband alone. The presence of the two men in the room worried Nduta but before she thought of asking her husband why there were other people in the room, the two men knocked her down on the floor and held her firmly down.
Realising that she was in great danger, Nduta tried to disentangle herself from the men's grip and escape but the men were too strong for her. She tried to cry out as loudly as she could and even shouted for help, but unfortunately nobody could hear her, because the room in which she was detained was virtually sound-proof and it was locked from inside. Overcome by agony, Nduta just gave up shouting and lay there, helpless. Everything moved very fast. Confusion, then the sight of her husband drawing a sharp knife from his pocket. Then pain, real agony as he, her one-time Mr. Right, pierced her eyes with the sharp knife several times. And then everything was total darkness. All that she felt was agony and blood spilling all over her face. It was maddening, agony all over as he carried out his inhuman operation of gouging Nduta's eyes out.
As if the agony of gouging her eyes out when she was fully conscious was not enough, he hit her with a bottle on the head and she passed out. Satisfied now that his mission was fully and successfully accomplished, Mr. Right left Nduta for dead.
Minutes after seeing her father walk away, Nduta's daughter who had been hovering outside the shop, ran into the inner room to find her mother in a prostrate position, a pool of blood around her and her eyes gouged out. Not knowing what to do but obviously sensing that her mother needed immediate help, the poor little girl started screaming. Like a bad nightmare, Nduta vaguely heard the shrill voice of her five-year-old daughter asking her what her father had done to her eyes. Nduta did not answer, she couldn't, but somewhere in the oblivion, those cries of her daughter continued faintly before she slid back into total unconsciousness.
Frightened and terrified like a mouse, the poor little girl ran out of the room screaming at the top of her voice. She ran to the school where her mother taught and told the sad story to a teacher. Along with other teachers they went to Nduta's aid. By the time they got to the shop a few other people were already there and arrangements were made to rush Nduta to hospital.
Nduta did not regain consciousness until much later in a hospital ward, and even when she finally came to, she was a very different person from the one who had left her house to go to her place of work on that fateful morning. She was blind, totally blind. With a lot of bitterness. Still lying on the hospital bed, Nduta relived the memories of that fateful morning. The brutality of her ungrateful, heartless husband. She had tried and done everything possible to make him happy. She never, even for a fraction of a second, thought that he could be so cruel and heartless. She hardly believed that he was responsible for what happened, and kept on hoping that it was indeed a nightmare, a bad and sad dream from which she would soon wake up.
But alas! it was no dream, no nightmare but the naked reality of the matter. For seven weeks, Nduta stayed in hospital and when she finally left, she went home to her children totally blind. Although the actual bodily pain was much less now, the mental pain was worse and still fresh in Nduta's mind.
It was when she was `listening' to her pains that she heard a voice from Wangui, her first daughter, "Mama, we are here. You are not blind. You have six pairs of eyes. Your six daughters are here. You have nothing to worry about."
"Mama, leave everything to us. You are a mother of daughters and they will never leave you alone," said Wanja, the second daughter. 
It was ten o'clock in the morning when the loud ringing of her bedside telephone woke Njoki from her drunken sleep. She loathed the ringing and tried to put her shaking fingers in her ears to block it. She cursed for having forgotten to unhook the downstairs receiver as she always did before going to bed especially on weekends.
The ringing persisted and when she could not bear it anymore, she unwillingly picked up the receiver, eyes still closed, as if to stop it making the noise. "I wonder why people don't leave others alone to sleep, especially on a Saturday morning."
"Hello, who is it?" she mumbled the words more drunkenly than sleepily.
"Hello, Njoki. It's me. Njuguna. I'm sorry ... did I wake you up? You sound sleepy."
There was a hostile pause before Njoki spoke.
"Don't apologise for assuming you woke me up because you already have ... just tell me, what is it that you want? Waking me up so early on a Saturday morning!"
"Wait a minute ... it is not so early as you think, it is way past ten <-/o'oclock> and "
"What difference does it make anyway whether it is ten or twelve ... just tell me what you want and the sooner you are out with it the better BEFORE I put this phone down."
"Hasn't Maina told you?"
"Told me what ... about your new business and how successful it is?" she retorted.
"I sent him the day before yesterday to tell you that I wanted to see you ... I want us to talk...." he told her, ignoring her remarks.
"Ha! Talk? Talk about what ... the success of your businesses ... or where you are going for your endless long weekend meetings with your new overseas business partners... I thought we finished talking all that ... at least you were not to involve me anymore with your trips, local or overseas, your late meetings <-/etcetra>, <-/etcetra>, <-/etcetra>..."
"Listen Njoki, I have to see you ... I must talk to you ... today, please, this is my last appeal to you..." he again ignored all that she said.
"I'm sorry Njuguna, anyway your friend Maina hasn't told me anything and in any case it's no use. I'm leaving for Mombasa this evening and I'll be busy packing my bags. I won't have time to sit and talk to you. Have you forgotten that I've been married to a busy businessman whose business was mostly to travel and meet business contacts both locally and abroad, offer dinners, luncheons and late night meetings with 'business associates'? And therefore that being the case, the wife of a businessman also has to make trips and make business contacts... How about that?" Njoki was very sarcastic. However Njuguna knew that if he felt provoked and said anything to annoy her, he would be denying himself a chance to talk to her.
"In that case I had better come right away before you get busy packing. Njoki, it is absolutely important that I talk to you ... face to face," he said.
"That is not possible because right now I am going to ...."
"Listen to me Njoki, for once I beg you to afford me just a little of your time, for old times sake."
There was silence. Then Njoki spoke.
W2F019K
The Ring
"Under the law this woman is a concubine, a mistress, certainly not a wife. She has no right whatsoever to the estate," said the lawyer to his colleagues. The words were uttered in a detached, matter-of-fact way. The lawyer could be forgiven. He had no idea who Kanini was. To him, she was just another client, yet another file to be disposed of.
The lawyer was expressing the bare truth as he saw it, the facts having been narrated to him by the young woman in front of him, whose full name he had not even bothered to register, and Mbugua, a male adult who accompanied her. He certainly had not expected the outrage that followed his words. Suddenly, as if struck by lightning, the girl shot up with a scream and hurled the papers in front of her at his face. Then it was the handbag which he just managed to wave off with his left hand before it landed on his head.
"How dare you?" she was screaming. "A mistress? a <./concu>... what? Why mom?" With the swiftness of a deer stung by a bee, she was now on to his assistant's desk picking up whatever was on it, and hurling each object at him. There was a tissue-box, files, books, keys and a heavy ashtray which landed right in front of him narrowly missing his eye-glasses before Mbugua grabbed her with great difficulty, imprisoning her hand in his grip, more shocked than Muchai, the lawyer, and his assistant.
Mbugua did not understand English. He could not figure out what on earth could have transpired between his beloved niece, Kui, and the lawyer. The lawyer had not said much. Mbugua had observed casually how patient the man had been in listening to him first and then briefly to Kui. Mbugua was at a loss as to what to say or do. He did not know how to handle the lawyer whose eyes he dared not meet for fear of the anger he would find there. Nor could he cope with the now sobbing Kui close to him, her earlier wild-cat behaviour suddenly gone as quickly as it had come. Totally unaware of the cause of the outrage, Mbugua was taken aback by the lawyer's next course of action. Muchai had finally stood up, and walked to where Mbugua stood with his sobbing niece. The two men's eyes now met.
What Mbugua saw in that pair of eyes was far from anger or outrage. No! It was kindness and sympathy. Approaching them, Muchai put his right hand on Kui's shoulder, and uttered words that even Mbugua knew contained a deep and sincere apology.
"I am extremely sorry. That was a blunder on my part. I did not know we were discussing the case of your ...er <./moth>... Someone so close to you... I was really thinking aloud... Please forgive me Miss...er... I'm sorry." Muchai remembered he did not have the girl's name. "Please sit down and explain the situation. Tell me what happened from the beginning to the end."
Kui's sobs were beginning to ease and she had managed to extract herself from her uncle's firm grip. Her mind's eye was flashing with the images of a lawyer who had already been bribed by her father's sons. Yes! That is what they were. She would never again refer to them as brothers, even half-ones. Not after they had started harassing her beloved, humble mother the evening after her father's funeral. Kui, so full of bitterness and hate for her father's sons, now refused to separate their evil designs from this lawyer whom her friend, Carol, had so strongly recommended. She was not going to listen to any other word from him. But her uncle was pleading with her in their vernacular, "My mother, did you not tell me you wish to become a lawyer? What kind of lawyer will you be that does not listen to a case?"
Reluctantly Kui sat down. This time she let her uncle narrate the whole story to the lawyer. She also left him to answer all the questions. This is what Mbugua told the lawyer:
"My sister, Mrs Kanini, wife of the late Jeremiah, married the deceased in 1942. My father received the usual dowry and the couple were married according to Gikuyu customary law. Before that, my in-law was married to another woman, Mrs Murugi wife of Jeremiah. They had married in church. They had seven children, three daughters and four sons. Murugi was said to be estranged from her husband. Some said she had tried to poison him although she was a strong adherent of her church. A strange woman she still is. Sometimes she'll talk to you, sometimes she will pass as if she did not see you.
"My sister had four daughters. Kui is the last born. The wives lived on their different plots, each minding her own business and left it to their husband to create the family link. Their cold relationship was transferred to the children. Murugi's children resented Kanini. They saw her as an intruder. But Kanini is a good cook and children love good food. It was also to Kanini's house that their father went on his weekends from Nairobi where he worked. He brought bread, meat and other delicacies that their mother could not afford.
"There was one threat Murugi never forgot to issue during their quarrels and whose implication Kanini never came to unravel until Jeremiah died. She would say, `One of these days, you will know the value of a ring.' Kanini knew she was the favourite wife. It was in her house that Jeremiah stayed whenever he was home. It was she who was called to Nairobi whenever he was unwell. What was all this about a ring? What use was a ring to a wife if her husband did not cherish her?
When the Emergency came, and people had to move into communal villages, the two families were thrown together in one house. Jeremiah could not afford to build two. The Emergency would be a short-lived affair anyway, Jeremiah told himself. <ea/>Uhuru would come whether the white man wanted it or not. Why bother building two houses that would only be lived in for a short while? So Murugi and Kanini found themselves forced into a bond that was to outcast their husband who did not really care whether they got on well or not. Did the Gikuyu not say that two axes in the same bag must knock each other? Not that their tolerance, leading to an uneasy understanding, happened overnight. Oh no! Sometimes it takes a calamity to force humanity to recognise its common fate.
"The two women had been forced to share common facilities. Initially each would cook at different times, each one for her own children. Whoever woke up earlier would light the fire and cook for her own children. If Murugi woke up early, which she would do deliberately, she would put porridge on the fire and leave it cooking for several hours insisting it took long to cook and if Kanini could not wait, why did she not go and cook breakfast for her children elsewhere. Kanini had no choice but to wait while, in the meantime, she would run other errands like fetching water or cleaning the house. What would neighbours say if they saw a family that cannot use a common fire- place? After all, in this Emergency, people were expected to share whatever little provision they had. Such was the spirit of the people during those days of extreme deprivation.
"The only problem was that when Murugi finally felt that Kanini and her children, who by now would be crying with hunger, had been adequately punished, she would ensure the fire went out completely before Kanini could get to it. Any pieces of unburnt firewood would be removed and several times Kanini even found traces of water on the ashes. At first, it was difficult for Kanini to cope with such extreme meanness. She would take it out on Murugi's children, denying them any of her food. After all Murugi never gave her children any. As time went by, however, she softened. Meanness was not part of her nature. In any case how could you deny children food when you had it? How could you allow other children to yawningly watch your own children eat when their mother left the house at eight in the morning and had not returned by curfew time at six-thirty? Out of kindness and necessity, Kanini started cooking enough food for all. Theirs was a one- sided relationship that was bound to explode at the least provocation.
"One day, Murugi came home to find her last- born son, Kogi, unwell. She was told he had vomited soon after she left and after several other bouts of vomiting Kanini had given him some rice water. Then came the venom. Totally ignoring the fact that her child was glad he had drunk rice water which made him better, Murugi could not contain her feelings of hate. She lashed out at Kanini:
`When did I ask you to look after my children? You witch! When are you going to leave me alone? Is my husband not enough for you or now that you have failed to bear him sons you want to kill mine also! When did you become a doctor? Why didn't you take my son to the dispensary if you wanted to be so helpful? If my son dies I'll hold you responsible!'
"Kanini was struck dumb. For the first time she realised the risk she would run if anything happened to Kogi. Above the noises Murugi was making, neither the two women nor their children heard the soft steps of the Old One - Cucu - although her walking stick always drew attention to her advent. Cucu was fast becoming hard of hearing, but she felt in the air commotion from her son's house next door. She had always been aware of the evil in Murugi. Of late she had also noticed Murugi's strange habit of coming home after dark in these days of the Emergency curfew but being only too familiar with and dreading Murugi's nasty tongue, she had decided to let sleeping dogs lie. News had reached them that Jeremiah had been rounded up during Operation Anvil and no one knew which camp he had been taken to. It now fell hard on his poor mother to oversee peace in the family. She had six other sons but none of them had more than one wife.
"When Jeremiah came out of detention five years later, a confirmed diabetic losing sight in both eyes, people had already been allowed to go to their <ea/>shambas. Murugi's first son, Babu, had a good job and had put up a timber house roofed with corrugated iron sheets. Her other children's education had been disrupted and two boys had dropped out for lack of school fees while the oldest daughter had dropped out due to pregnancy.
"Kanini's first-born, Njoki, had trained as a teacher and had managed to keep her three sisters in school. She also occasionally assisted Babu in the education of his two younger sisters and brothers.
"Kanini was still living in the family house in the village and it was to this home that Jeremiah came and retired. His health did not improve and it fell on Kanini to take care of him and for Njoki to provide any extras needed for a diabetic. Each wife still cultivated her own piece of land. As Kanini spent more and more time taking care of the invalid husband, she was increasingly forced to neglect her <ea/>shamba. During the school holidays, her girls did as much as they could to help clear the weeds, plant or harvest. But then vacations are short-lived.
"The old man was now in and out of hospital. Murugi would see him in hospital but never at home. 
W2F020K
The Spider's Web
I heard the scream. I shot out of sleep with a jerk. It was after waking up that I thought I must have been dreaming. But it came again. A blood-chilling scream. I immediately thought of my daughter, Anne, who had been having nightmares lately.
"Anne! Anne! What is it?" I called out, panic- stricken. Before she responded I heard another scream, this time more deafening and frightening than before. I jumped out of bed and rushed to Anne's bedroom. To my relief, she was deeply asleep and seemed least disturbed. Another desperate scream pierced my ears. It came from outside the house. I hurried out to the living room wondering who it could be.
Then I remembered Lucy, my friend and neighbour, who had been having problems with her husband. I tiptoed to open the windows in the living room to ascertain the direction of the screams. When the next scream came, it confirmed my worst fears. Lucy was in trouble and needed help. But I dared not venture to her house because her husband was quite a violent man. He had a strong dislike for women, particularly Lucy's friends.
I walked back to our bedroom. My husband, Joe, was awake. When I asked him to go and assist Lucy, he seemed reluctant to intervene because he knew Lucy's husband and his violent nature. He was certain that when Jared, Lucy's husband, was in that murderous state, he was capable of doing anything.
Jared was known to be unfaithful to his wife but he tried to cover up this by accusing Lucy of unfaithfulness. My husband was not willing to intervene because Jared would accuse him of being one of Lucy's lovers. I tried to persuade Joe that what was at stake was more serious than what Jared might do to him but he would not budge.
Suddenly, there was a loud <-/desparate> bang on our back door. I rushed to the door, switched on the security light and who should I see standing out there but Lucy! Stark naked! I could not believe my eyes. I was trembling as I opened the door for her. She had scratches all over her body. One of her eyes was swollen. Blood was oozing from her nose and mouth. Her hair was dishevelled. There were so many bruises on her body that it looked as if a witchdoctor had performed numerous rituals on her. Her grotesque appearance sent a chill down my spine. It was a surprise that she could stand, let alone walk.
Her three-year-old daughter who also had blood on her body clutched at her chest like a tick. She too was naked. It was a truly horrifying sight. As I stared at them dumbfounded, Joe coughed. This brought me back to reality and I hastily pulled them in, locked the door and leaned against it as if to ensure that Lucy's husband did not enter.
"Please, tell Baba Anne not to come out of the bedroom," Lucy pleaded. I nodded understandingly and rushed to the bedroom to pass on the message.
"Don't come out! Lucy is nude!" I shouted as I looked for a dress that could fit her.
"What?" Joe asked perplexed as if he did not know that Jared was capable of doing anything when he was angry. I did not answer him. I dashed out of the bedroom with a light-blue free-size dress for Lucy. This was the only dress that could fit her since she was a little bigger than me. As she painfully struggled to slip it on, I looked for some warm clothing for her daughter and helped the little girl to dress.
I was preparing to light the gas cooker to warm some water for first aid when I remembered that the gas had run out earlier that evening. I quickly turned to the paraffin stove. But just then I remembered that I had kept a thermos flask full of hot water for use the following morning. I took some of this water, poured it into a basin and carefully cleaned Lucy's face. I massaged it gently as she was pointing out the most painful areas. I applied some liniment to the affected areas. I cleaned her daughter too.
All this while, Lucy had been sobbing quietly, her chest heaving up and down. When I prepared some coffee for her, she refused to take it and sat there cursing her fate in low tones. I tried to console her but it seemed that this time she had suffered more than ever before. I could understand the anguish, strain and the feeling of helplessness she was experiencing. This was not the first time Jared had battered Lucy. Apart from coming home drunk and disturbing the whole neighbourhood with his shouting, he fought over prostitutes, went in and out of police cells for drinking traditional liquor and quarrelled with Lucy for `befriending men indiscriminately'. He would repeatedly beat her up and then disappear for weeks. It did not come as a surprise this time to see Lucy really broken down.
"Lucy," I addressed her.
"Yeeee-ee-s," she whispered reluctantly with a lot of pain both on her body and in her thoughts.
"What happened this time?"
There was no answer, either because her voice failed her or she thought the question needed no answer.
"Lucy," I called again.
There was now no response from her.
"There is a very close friend of mine who went through a myriad of traumatic experience like yours," I continued. "There was no week that passed without her receiving a thorough beating from her husband." Lucy looked up with interest, struggling to open her swollen eye.
"During one of their fights, she lost two of her upper teeth. This was the worst of her experiences. But surprisingly, they later made up and struggled on with their life together," I concluded.
On hearing this, Lucy brightened up a bit but soon started sobbing again. I did not try to stop her. I took her daughter who was already asleep on her lap to my children's bedroom. When I came back, she had stopped sobbing.
It seemed like she wanted to say something but did not know how to begin. She shifted in her seat but this made her groan painfully. Her knees were beginning to swell so I gave her the liniment to apply on them.
"Mama Anne," she started in a shaky but determined voice. "I - I have never told you this before. My parents separated and eventually divorced when I was still very young," she said.
"Hm-Hm-Hm-" I nodded encouragingly.
"I grew up in the cruel hands of a stepmother," she continued. "My father was very loving but he was not with us most of the time. I know very well what it means to be discriminated against in one's own home! I was harassed and beaten for no reason. I went to school only when my stepmother wished. I almost starved! Hunger would lead me into stealing and as a result I would be thoroughly beaten."
"Poor thing!" I responded.
"When I was sixteen and just about to complete my second year in high school, I met Jared. He was a very charming and handsome young man - a teacher then. I was attracted to him. I saw in this man a saviour. He was gentle and talked to me lovingly. I saw in this man a solution to all my problems. I believed that Jared was all I needed in the world. I do not think any amount of pressure would have pulled me away from him," Lucy paused to cough and groaned with the effort. I just watched her, not wanting to interrupt.
"Before I knew what was going on, I was pregnant," she said.
"What was your parents' reaction?" I asked.
"My father was mad with me. He went wild like a wounded buffalo! He raged with hostility. I never knew I could survive the beating he gave me. He forced Jared to marry me and threatened to sue him if he refused to do so. For fear of what might befall him, he married me. I felt overjoyed.
"One year after our marriage, Jared married Winnie as a second wife. She was a university undergraduate. I hung on despite the pressure exerted on me because polygamy was not strange to me. Soon after she graduated and got a job, she left Jared because of his cruelty.
"One bright afternoon, Jared took me by surprise when after leaving the house, he returned shortly with several of his male colleagues. He started shouting at me to leave his house, accusing me of being a whore.
"His colleagues were surprised when he rushed into our bedroom and as fast as lightning emerged with a heap of clothes. He started hurling them outside. My underclothes were displayed. Oh how embarrassing it was! I did not know where to look. They begged him to stop but he refused. Embarrassed and disgusted, they walked away in protest."
"What were your feelings towards him after that?" I asked curiously.
"I still loved him," she responded calmly and went on. "I remember when one evening after this incident, he roughed me up. That was three years ago. He was drunk. On entering the house, he went straight for the kitchen knife. I had not the slightest idea why he was so furious. To ensure that I did not run away, he locked all the doors. He headed for me. I dodged. He chased me all over the house until he pinned me into <+_a> corner . He grinned. `Yes you thought you were clever,' he bellowed triumphantly.
"I struggled but could not free myself. He prepared to thrust the knife into me. I was about to scream when he slipped over a piece of ripe banana our daughter had dropped on the floor. He fell down with a big thud! I took that chance to pick up the knife and hurled it out of the window. I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in. The fact that I had escaped infuriated him so much that he cursed and called me names. He kicked and violently banged the bathroom door. Thank God the door never gave way otherwise I do not think I would have lived to tell this story.
"Mad with anger, Jared gave up. He collapsed on the floor. It did not take ten minutes before he started snoring. I stealthily opened the door and there he was! Crumpled in a heap on the floor near the bathroom door. I looked at him lying there. I was filled with pity and love for him. I remembered our early days of courtship and felt nostalgic. I tried to carry him to the bedroom but he was too heavy for me. I decided to take off his shoes and cover him with a blanket. The following morning, he behaved as if nothing had happened."
"I don't understand why you have hung on," I interrupted, realising that Lucy was determined to pour out all her heart to me.
She continued as if she had not heard me, "As if what he had done to me so far was not enough, one afternoon when I came home from the market, he roughly got hold of me, pinned me down and snarled at me, `Why did you take this long at the market? What were you doing? How many men did you sleep with?' He did not give me time to answer him. He hit me so hard on the head that I passed out. When I came to I found myself in the bathroom with Jared holding me. I was not able to struggle with him but I vividly remember what he did to me."
Lucy hesitated a bit. I encouraged her to continue.
"He ... he pulled my clothing up to my chest. He removed my underwear - everything. In his left hand, he had a torch.