Pinchez, strolling down the street, broke into a soft whistle as the dogs at his heels launched into an excited frenzy of barking, lopping after him like chase hounds on a hunt.
The rays of the late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the street and lit the rusted, twisted mabati shop roofs to a fiery hue that made them look almost beautiful. Shop lights were switching on, one after the other, and music blared from the pub windows. Jomo had set up his jiko,33 but he had yet to turn on his lights. The street mongrels gathered around the greasy spot where the jiko stood, in anticipation of castoffs once the evening’s business had begun. Jomo arranged the charcoal on the tray and stuffed used packets of milk in the chamber beneath. Then he stood, watching the throngs of people streaming down the street after work, a Rooster cigarette dangling from his mouth, his eyes squinting thoughtfully.
It was mid-month and the street people would have received their advance pay from the Asian factories and the Wazungu homes where they worked. The workers would start at the smoky busaa shebeens, Jomo knew, and then as the evening ripened, they would stagger to the pub for a beer and a dance with the cunning busaa34 women that hung on their arms. As they filed into the pub the glistening mutura and fragrance of roasting meat would be irresistible. By that time of night, a five-shilling measure of the stuffed colon-sausage would cost double. For those who were ashamed of being seen eating mutura, Jomo had a lad doing the rounds in the bar, carrying a tray laden with beef samosas. The samosas were irresistible, perfectly spiced with fried onions and chilies, and going for twice the price as the night progressed. With predictable patrons such as these, who needs a miserly job at a Mhindi’s35 factory? Living off the fat of the land—wasn’t that what the poet called it?
Blowing a long jet of smoke, Jomo shouted at a group of kids playing with a broken tricycle. His son, Gitau, detached himself from the group and came running. Save for his size, the boy was the spitting image of his father, bearing the same broad accountant’s forehead and shifty eyes.
“I want to find this jiko lit up by the time I get back,” Jomo instructed his son curtly, before gathering his sack and setting off to get the meat.
Fanta’s aunt was a burly, dark woman whose chubby face was perpetually breaking into a smile. This inclination to happiness was the primary reason that she had worked for the white family in the wealthy suburb next to the slum for so many years. She always made their guests feel at ease, her mere presence radiating a friendly warmth in the large airy house. But behind those shiny dark eyes was a sharp business mind that had enabled her to send her three children to good boarding schools upcountry; she was planning to enroll Fanta, with the profits from the grocery store, in a hairdressing course. With this objective in mind, Fanta’s aunt took stock at the store every evening.
She wasn’t looking very pleased today. The refrigerator remained full of soda, and the shelves of groceries were still well-stocked. Yet it was mid-month, she knew, a time when residents would be replenishing their rice, sugar, and beans or buying a tub of Blue Band with their advance pay.
“I daresay we had a bad day,” she said to Fanta, who was sweeping out the yard at the front of the shop. “We have hardly sold a packet of milk!” She turned on the light at the front of the shop, instantly drawing a swarm of mosquitoes and moths, which swirled round and round the glowing bulb. “Finish up the cleaning and come lend a hand,” she called to Fanta as the first of the evening customers started lining up at the counter, drawn by her familiar high-pitched voice. Their visitors were mostly women, coming in for a bit of the day’s gossip before they purchased a matchbox or a measure of ghee.
Fanta swept the trash into a dustpan and emptied it into the bin on one side of the yard. Seeing the bin was almost full, she decided to empty it on the rubbish heap in the garden behind the store. The garden was weedy, and the sticky blackjack pods attached themselves to the hem of her dress as she passed along the narrow path toward the garbage heap. The stalks of sukuma wiki were starting to wither, shoulder-high and stripped of all their leaves. The tomato vines, too, sagged from their stakes like strips of thong, with a few desiccated fruit hanging limply from their weedy branches. When the rains came, Fanta would dig them up in preparation for a new crop.
As Fanta wound her way through the weeds toward the garbage heap, she was thinking of the street mongrels. They had set about barking again, and there was a strange note in the wailing bark that disturbed her. The dogs had retreated to some distance from the shops, their barking echoing across the muddy river that snaked its way down the valley, separating their slum from the one nearby. Fanta recognized that wailing bark—it was the sound of canine terror, a sound the pack usually made in the dead of night when they were cowed and afraid. She knew it well because she had always been a light sleeper.
The sky had grown dark, and Fanta felt a chill pass down her spine. Dusk filled her with dread, an old fear that she had lived with secretly all her life. Fanta had graphic dreams, terrifying dreams, and she would often wake in the night, damp with a cold sweat and a pounding heart. As she stood in the weedy garden—with the faint light of the naked security bulbs playing on the swaying treetops, the fireflies zapping about her, and the forgotten garbage bin clutched in her hands—a cold finger of dread clawed suddenly at her guts.
The cool of the evening chill stirred the fine hairs at the back of her neck, and her ears filled with the eerie wailing of the dogs. The previous night, she had dreamed of the woman fishmonger down the street. The fishmonger had been gutting and cleaning the fish in her old reed basket. She washed the gutted fish in the rusty tin trough, her thick hands moving with the practiced deftness of a reliable old machine. Smoke billowed from her wood-fire, the flames lapping around the sooty pan. The deep-frying oil, leftover from the day before, bubbled angrily around three fish in the pan. A swarm of blue flies hung around the slop bucket, dispersed occasionally by the flywhisk the fishmonger waved in their direction. She rose from her low kitchen stool to turn the frying fish. As she dipped her slice into the frothy oil, the big fish rose upright, suddenly ballooning out as if inflated by an invisible suction pump. In the blink of an eye, the fish had flipped itself over and out of the pan, and towered above the fishmonger, who stood below, aghast. The fish’s glassy eyes peered down at the fishmonger, its mouth mockingly curved, and its glistening body bearing the parallel gashes of the fishmonger’s knife as she had prepared it for salting.
“Ha! Surprised, aren’t we?” the fish said, leaning down toward the dumbstruck woman.
One by one the other fish rose from the pan, arranging themselves around the dumbstruck fishmonger, their eyes coldly menacing, bodies slashed by injuries inflicted by the fishmonger’s blade. The woman looked about her for help, but the street had suddenly emptied, and the mangy dogs that slept in the dust seemed entirely uninterested in her predicament.
“Well, looks like a miracle just happened here,” the mother fish declared, her full pink lips curling sardonically, her algae-scented breath warm on the face of the witless fishmonger. “Isn’t that so, my good lady?” The fishmonger, shocked into silence, had nothing to say. Her mouth opened and closed without a sound escaping.
“I see. So the miracle has robbed you of your voice?” the mother fish said, gesturing at the other fish with a flap of her fin. “In that case, we had better get on with the business at hand. We don’t have much time, you see.”
A shriek rose at the back of the fishmonger’s throat as the fish closed in, but it escaped her constricted throat only as a whimper. The collective fish fins extended outward, encircling her like an octopus’s arms, and lifting her off her feet as if she were a piece of sponge.
Lying on the chopping board, the fishmonger vigorously attempted to free herself, but she was held fast by coarse claw-like fins. With the fishmonger thus subdued, the mother fish took charge, seizing the sharp gutting knife that the woman herself had wielded
so effectively. The mother fish held the blade up to the flame, scrutinizing the cutting edge, which had been honed to razor sharpness by the knife-grinder earlier that afternoon. A satisfied chortle sounded deep in the fish’s throat as she sucked in her bulbous belly and bent over.
The fish first went to work on the fishmonger’s broad back, slicing across the quivering spine from shoulders downward. Next, like a seasoned surgeon, creating shallow, neatly parallel gashes, the fish worked the chunky buttocks and flabby thighs, seeming to enjoy the way the blade sank into the soft flesh. The fishmonger shrieked and screamed, jerking violently as salt was poured into the wounds, trying desperately to free herself.
“Some spice perhaps?” asked the mother fish, gazing round at her mates. One of the fish proffered a tub of ground pepper, the kind the fishmonger used to extend the shelf-life of the little fish as they awaited their customers. The mother fish worked up a thick paste that would cover the fishmonger’s body and went to work, kneading the pepper thoroughly into the flesh until her captive was red as a beetroot from head to toe. Then she stood back, a satisfied smile spreading on her face.
“Now for the mouth-watering part,” she said softly, indicating the pan that was still boiling angrily above the raging flames. As the fishmonger was being lowered headfirst into the frothing brown oil, Fanta awoke, gasping for air in the thick darkness, her body drenched in sweat.
Jomo watched as Pinchez lowered the greasy gunny sack from his shoulder and rummaged inside, pulling out the carcass. They were hidden deep in the thickets, the sluggish river gurgling behind them, the mosquitoes rising like a swarm of angrily buzzing bees from the nduma36 marsh. The stench of urine and human excrement kept visitors away, and made the thickets a convenient place to conduct business. They glanced down the path, hemmed in by post and rails and a string of shaggy kei apple hedges, toward where it looped behind the last row of shanties. The bridge was deserted and they could hear snatches of the seven o’clock news from a tinny black-and-white TV through the window of a tin-walled shanty. Secure in the knowledge that they would not be interrupted, Jomo and Pinchez returned their attention to the still-warm carcass. It was barely a few minutes dead, with the blood clotting over the ugly wound on the head where Pinchez had bashed it in with a brick.
But what surprised Jomo was not the carcass, but the colour of the fur.
“This is the big one that sits outside the bar with the askari37 at night, isn’t it, Pinchez?” Jomo asked in a whisper, peering closely at the white patch on the animal’s neck and the claws on the forelegs that had been well exercised on the arms of the askari’s old armchair until the fake leather had been rent to strips and its cotton stuffing spilled.
“You said you wanted a fat one for mid-month, didn’t you?” Pinchez challenged.
“Well—”
“Well, what?” Pinchez demanded, holding the carcass high for Jomo’s examination. “It is just what you said… look at the flanks. I daresay we are talking about twenty or so kilos here.”
“It’s just that…well, I didn’t—”
“Look, Jomo,” Pinchez said irritably, straightening up, a gleaming carving knife appearing suddenly in his hand. “Cut out that well…well… business. Don’t tell me now that I went to all this trouble for nothing.” His eyes flashed in the fading light.
“Oh, relax, Pinchez, I didn’t mean that,” said Jomo, patting him on the shoulder. “Put it down. Let’s get to work before it is dark. It’s just that…I didn’t expect you to raid the very place where we do business. The old barman was rather fond of the old bitch, you know—bringing it bones and all that.”
‘Well, I suppose he’ll just have to find himself another bitch,” said Pinchez, with a hoot of laughter. Jomo cackled appreciatively, clapping his co-conspirator on the shoulder. “Business is business, Jomo, you know,” said Pinchez as their laughter died down. “I guess you never wondered why the rest of the pack was barking like mad monkeys, did you?”
“I should have guessed. All the same, you are one hell of a devil, Pinchez.”
Pinchez bared his last tooth in a hideous grin, squatting over the spread-eagled carcass. “Well, you will have to upgrade that to Lucifer himself after you hear what plan Kassim and I have in mind. It will make this business at hand seem like nursery school.”
The two men worked together in silence, their hands moving in deft synchronicity as they flayed the skin off the carcass. They had worked together on a number of carcasses; once, Pinchez found a massive snake on the highway that had been partially flattened under a truck’s tire.
“Chinese cuisine, that’s what your customers will have today. They say it tastes just like fish,” Pinchez had said, flashing his one-toothed grin as he unceremoniously chopped off the snake’s head. “Further still, I hear fine belts are made out of snake hide.”
On another occasion, they had plucked a marabou stork, a huge mountain of a bird with a bulging mouth sack beneath its bill. They had argued over whether to include the flapping sack in the meat pot or whether they should discard it.
After the carcass had been skinned, Jomo examined the animal’s head.
“What are you thinking, Jomo?” Pinchez asked, his bloodied hands dangling over his bony knees.
“You could have found another way to take the old bitch,” he muttered. “You know how much money a goat’s head brings in?”
Pinchez laughed, scoffing. “You would need nothing short of magic to sell that,” he said, poking the bloodied head, “even to a blacked-out barfly.”
“I can make four litres of muteta38 soup out of this head,” Jomo replied, musingly. “That way it doesn’t have to appear on the table.”
“Now you are thinking like a genius!” Pinchez exclaimed. “You never leave anything for the vultures, do you, Jomo?”
“Why should I feed them? What work have they ever done for me?”
“You know, one day we are going to make enough money from this business and retire,” Pinchez remarked, rummaging in his sack for his rusty hacksaw. “Yes, it will happen someday. With our two brilliant minds working together we’ll haul in enough to buy a bus, perhaps—or a couple of taxis.”
“You are starting to drift off,” said Jomo. “I have never believed in fluffy dreams.”
“You think so? The money we could make in this deal of Kassim’s would set us up to retire. What do you say, Jomo? Is that really dreaming?”
“Look, let’s get this job done first. The customers are not going to wait forever, you know.”
“You are right.”
As they opened the belly cavity to release the steamy offal, Pinchez froze, his head cocked. He had developed, over the years, a powerful sense for detecting when something was amiss, and at that moment, his skin prickled and the fine hairs at the back of his neck stood up.
“Jo—” he began, but the words died on his lips when he lifted his head. The afternoon clouds had cleared, and in the pale light of the emergent moon the bushes had parted to reveal the silhouette of a third presence. Indeed, it seemed that she had been standing there for some time, watching.
In the moonlight, her skin was even paler, her shoulders frail and delicate, her slender arms and legs scratched from bush thorns. Her eyes were alert, but she appeared rooted in place, frozen like a marble statue that had materialized inexplicably out of the dark. The pale, chapped lips of her mouth hung open, slack.
Pinchez stood first, reaching for a weapon in the sack beside him. Jomo began to rise from his squat. Fanta knew him well—her cousins often bought mutura from him when they came home for the holidays. As the men moved deliberately toward her, she suddenly understood the danger. Their gazes had shifted, from a startled surprise to a dark deliberation. Fanta, electrified into motion, knew instinctively that her life was threatened.
At that instant, the shop’s back door was flung open, and in the rectangle of light, he
r aunt’s burly figure appeared.
“Fanta! You hard-of-hearing girl, where are you? Fanta…!”
In the ensuing months Fanta’s relations agonized over what had happened to her. The girl had not only gone dumb, but would no longer sleep alone. She became hysterical at the prospect, and would cling desperately to her aunt, her breath strained in her throat, her eyes wide with fright, her body trembling like a child’s. She stayed indoors and refused to remain alone at the shop. Neither would she be sent on an errand. She would watch the street from behind the shop counter with scared eyes. Her cousins tried to cajole her back into her old complacency; her aunt prepared her favorite food, but it was all in vain. In the end, Fanta’s family decided to send her back upcountry, hoping the fresh country air would do her good. And it did. A few days after she arrived, she uttered her first word in four months: “Killers.”
* * *
29 A long sausage, made of cow or goat intestines, stuffed with minced meat, blood, and chopped onions, and barbecued over a coal-fire
30 Swahili for “white person”
31 shaman/sorcerer
32 weed
33 coal brazier
34 homemade traditional grain beer
35 Swahili for an ‘Indian.’ Asian industrialists dominate in the manufacturing sector in Kenya; but often they pay very poor wages. Lately the Chinese have been making a strong and steady foray into this market.
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