Mugure closed the book, then jabbed the red button on her phone, pressing it firmly until the phone shut down. A long sigh escaped her lips after the electronic gadget finally stilled; the sudden silence felt oppressive, as if a felled giant tree had crashed through the branches and settled on the forest floor. She wiped her moist cheeks with the corner of her khanga, her eyes fixed to the dusty road but registering little of the human and donkey traffic. The little crowd of passersby seemed strangely detached, as did the traders in neighboring kiosks. Mechanically, Mugure went through the motions of closing shop, pushing the telescopic antenna down and swinging it until it clipped in place. Coiling the wire from the mouthpiece around the phone, she returned it to its box. She gathered the stack of unsold scratch cards and the meager coins from the day’s trade and dropped them into the plastic container that had once contained washing detergent. Placing the container in her bag, she made her way slowly down the dusty road. It was almost midday and her shadow took the form of a stodgy pumpkin at her feet. A few people called a greeting as she made her way home, but she paid no heed.
When Gichamba returned home later that evening he found Mugure lying on her back on their narrow bed, staring up at the rafters, her kiosk bag on the table.
“Mugure,” he called. “Are you all right?”
Typically, Mugure would remain at the phone kiosk until evening, seeking to capitalize on late workers returning home. After Gichamba had taken his bath, he would replace her at the kiosk while she went home to prepare supper.
The first thought that came to his mind was one that came naturally to a newly married young man. His gaze lingered upon the curve of her breast, provocatively pointed beneath her white nylon blouse, and the flat expanse of her belly beneath her tightly wrapped khanga.
Mugure turned her head slightly and her eyes found his. “Is that you, Gichamba?” she asked. Their single-roomed timber shack was dimly lit by a small window, and Gichamba could see only the outlines of their scant furniture—two stools, a rickety table hammered out of dismantled tomato crates, a cheap Chinese stove, and the bed, fashioned of gunnysacks and straw, upon which his new wife lay.
“It is I, my dear,” he said, approaching Mugure. “What is the matter? Why aren’t you at the kiosk? It is not the Town Council people again, is it?” he asked in a whisper. “They didn’t…?”
“No,” Mugure replied softly. “The kiosk is still standing. Nothing is the matter, Gichamba.”
“Is there a problem with the phone handset?” he murmured fearfully, almost more to himself than his wife. He hadn’t yet completed payment for the phone, which he had acquired on credit from a friend at the shopping center. With shaking hands, Gichamba retrieved the phone from Mugure’s bag and pressed the green button. As the strength of the phone’s signal stabilized the beep-beep of recorded messages sounded, the flashing icon an eerie firefly glow in the dark room. Glancing over at his wife, who remained prone upon the bed, Gichamba was startled by the sudden ringing of the phone. Prrrrrrr! …prrrrrrrr! …prrrrrrrrrr!
“Go on, answer it,” Mugure urged.
Gichamba looked at her for a while, confused at her manner. The phone kept on ringing, the caller at the other end insistent. Gichamba gingerly lifted the receiver to his ear, wiping the moisture from his face with the back of his left hand.
“H-hello,” he stammered.
“Good evening,” a smooth voice replied. “I’ve been trying to reach a lady I spoke with earlier today on this number. Is she available, please?”
“That lady is my wife—” Gichamba began.
“And what is her name, please?” the caller interjected, as if afraid Gichamba might hang up.
“Her name is Mugure,” said Gichamba. “Trizah Mugure.” He was about to add ‘Gichamba’ but decided it might not be important.
“And how old is she, please?”
Gichamba scratched his head. Was she twenty or twenty-one? “I’ll have to ask her. May I know why you want to speak to her?”
“I have news for her that will change her life, news that she cannot afford to miss. I am sure she will soon share it with you. Please ask her to take the phone.”
Gichamba, his mind racing, cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and signaled his wife with his index finger. Mugure reluctantly swung her legs over the side of the bed and rose with a sigh. Gichamba gave her the phone, then reached into his pocket for a cigarette stub he had saved from an earlier smoke. His hands were trembling suddenly with nervousness.
“Yes,” Mugure said softly into the mouthpiece.
Gichamba retrieved a match and lit the tin lamp on the table, its wavering light illuminating Mugure’s round cheeks and the gleam of her eyes. Cupping the still-lit match, he raised it to the cigarette stub in his mouth, sucking in one end to ignite the damp wrapping.
“Yes…” Mugure repeated into the mouthpiece, then paused a moment before her hand flew to her chest and she let out a loud gasp, her eyes wide.
“What is it?” asked Gichamba, alarmed. “What does he say?”
For answer Mugure held out the handset. “Speak to him,” she said, her voice a hoarse croak.
“Hello,” Gichamba muttered, his hand trembling. “Yes…yes…you mean—?” His mouth dropped open and his cigarette stub fell unnoticed to the ground.
After the caller had hung up, Gichamba and Mugure sat at the table for some time, the flickering lamp throwing long grotesque shadows around them. The night breeze whistled in through the open window, and a swarm of mosquitoes and other night insects gathered around the naked flame. At length Gichamba rose and closed the window. Then he came back and settled on one of the stools across from his wife.
“Mugure, is it true?” he asked at last.
“You heard him,” said Mugure softly.
“It is not some sort of a mistake? I…I mean, you took part in this competition, didn’t you?” Mugure nodded, her eyes locked on her husband’s. “A car, is that what the man said?” said Gichamba, disbelieving.
“Not a car, Gichamba. A Mercedes,” Mugure corrected him.
“Ngai!” Gichamba muttered softly. “Ngai!”
From the neighbouring shacks they could hear the sounds of their neighbours finishing up their evening meals and preparing to retire. Mugure had intended to buy two cups of githeri from the woman who cooked the beans and maize mixture down the block and cook it together with some potatoes and cabbage for their supper, but the phone call had interrupted their evening plans.
“Are you hungry?” she asked her husband.
“No. What about you?” he replied. Mugure shook her head, her eyes staring vacantly into the semi-darkness. “Let’s go to bed,” he said, rising to his feet.
They stacked the phone equipment carefully under the bed and blew out the lamp. As Gichamba and Mugure undressed and crawled under the thin blanket they shared they both knew it was going to be a long, sleepless night.
A scrawny rooster, who lived in a neighbor’s outhouse, shattered the pre-dawn stillness promptly at five a.m. every morning with an ear-splitting squawk. As the bird flapped its wings into a flurry, warming up its throat for another exertion, the creak of wooden doors announced their disheveled, half-dressed neighbor. He routinely hosed the untidy kei apple hedge that lined their block of shacks with steaming urine, to the accompaniment of muffled farts. Then, on cue, padded footfalls were heard on the path as the early laborers made their way to the workplaces where they had hawked their services the day before, trying their luck for a daily wage.
It had been a long night of sleepless vigil for Gichamba. In the small hours his eyes had finally closed, but it was the fleeting sleep of the weary that leaves just as quickly as it arrives. He lit the tin lamp and went to wash his face in a plastic washbasin by the door, drawing cold water from one of the two jerry cans in which they stored their daily ration, obtained fr
om the communal tap outside the landlord’s house. As Gichamba cleaned his teeth with his herbal chew-stick, Mugure rose from their bed.
The strange silence of the night before persisted as they silently ate their simple breakfast of freshly baked mandazi, purchased from the roadside seller and washed down with black tea.
“What shall we wear?” Mugure asked at last, after she had cleared the table.
“I don’t know. Just put on anything you feel comfortable in,” Gichamba replied.
“I wonder if I should borrow a dress. Do you think they’ll want us to pose for photos?”
“Certainly,” Gichamba affirmed. “I think the newspaper people will want a picture to put in the newspapers.”
“You think newspaper people will come?” Mugure asked warily. “I mean, we are not that important…?”
“There is no doubt about that. They will be there, trust me. A prize like this must be covered.”
“And what will you wear?” Mugure asked, reaching above the bed to retrieve several wire hangers—upon which her finest dresses hung—from nails in the rafters. She had carefully washed the dresses, pressed them with a coal iron borrowed from a neighbour, and stowed them inside long brown launderer’s bags to keep them free of smoke and dust.
“Oh, I’m fine just the way I am,” Gichamba said, smoothing down his faded denim jacket and creased brown corduroys.
“But those are your work clothes, Gichamba,” Mugure protested, disapprovingly. “I think you should find something more decent for the photos. Perhaps you should persuade your friend Ndirangu to lend you his new shirt, the white checked one that he wore on Sunday when you went out to the shopping centre.”
“I say, you are creating a fuss about nothing, Mugure,” Gichamba said. “In any case, I don’t suppose I’ll be required to pose beside you.”
Mugure stripped down to her petticoat and tried on one of the dresses, smoothing it down carefully and turning to look back over her shoulder, as if she were wearing it for the first time. “It’s too tight around the hips, don’t you think, Gichamba?” she asked.
“Oh, it looks just fine to me,” Gichamba said, settling on one of the stools and lighting a cigarette stub that he had saved from the previous day.
Dissatisfied with the fit of the old dress, Mugure shrugged out of it and tried on the other.
“Shouldn’t we find someone to accompany us?” she asked as she smoothed down the faded chiffon print dress she had bought at the local mutumba market. “Perhaps Aunt Muthoni could meet us in town? And if we have to conduct interviews with newspaper people, Aunt Muthoni would know what to say.”
“If you say so,” Gichamba said with a shrug. “It is your car, anyway,” he added with a nervous laugh. His nearest relation was miles away in Molo; it would take a day’s travel to get here, and another to raise the money for bus fare.
“It is our car, remember,” Mugure said, adjusting the hook and eye at the back of the dress collar.
“Yes, our car. Sorry,” Gichamba said, taking a long drag at the diminishing cigarette stub.
Mugure fussed over her hair, working a stove-heated comb through her locks. The comb sizzled with each pull through her greased hair, emitting a pungent aroma of burnt tripe.
“Hurry up with that, will you?” he said impatiently, rising to his feet. “We should be on our way by now. Didn’t the man say half past eight?”
“I’m almost done,” Mugure said, peering into a cracked shard of mirror.
Gichamba glanced at his cheap quartz watch. “I say, you’ll find me at the bus stop,” he called over his shoulder as he ducked through the door and ambled across their stony yard. At the bus stop several town-bound matatus stopped and sped away before Mugure finally came hurrying up the path. She stopped to brush the fine red dust from her calves, kicked up by her plastic sandals and stuck to the generous smear of Vaseline Mugure had applied to her legs.
“What took you so long?” Gichamba muttered irritably.
“I had to make the phone call first, or had you forgotten?”
“And did you talk to your aunt? What did she say?”
Muthoni, Mugure’s aunt, disliked Gichamba, and Gichamba disliked her. Mugure had moved in with Gichamba six months before, and Aunt Muthoni had made her displeasure at the arrangement very clear. Despite the fact that she had never been properly married herself, she never refrained from dropping annoying hints that Gichamba should hurry along his traditional arrangements for acquiring a wife.
“Ow, you don’t know half how excited Aunt Muthoni was when I broke the news!” Mugure exclaimed. “Indeed, she insisted on joining us at the Ambassadeur bus stop so she could meet the prize people with us.”
“Is it?” Gichamba acknowledged reluctantly. “Well, she’d better hurry. I don’t think we have the time to wait for her. Did you remember to bring the phone?”
“It is right here,” Mugure said, tapping her black bag. “How could I forget something like that? The man said we would need it as proof.”
“Do you have your identification?”
“Yes,” said Mugure, gesturing toward her bosom where she concealed her purse in the cup of her bra.
“All right. Let’s get on our way then.”
At that moment a matatu swept round the bend, the driver signaling with the horn and flashing headlights when he spied them waiting. Gichamba flagged the matatu down and they squeezed in, Mugure taking the only vacant seat and her husband standing on the running board beside the conductor.
Aunt Muthoni spotted them from the crowded Ambassadeur stage, hailing them with a shout and a frantically waving arm. She was dressed in an expensive kitenge72 dress, of a West African pattern and cut that Gichamba had never seen before, her hair tucked behind an elaborate headdress of the same fabric. Her attire was accentuated by white patent leather pumps and a matching handbag clutched under her arm. With her was another middle-aged woman—another aunt, Gichamba later learned—who sported an equally elaborate coiffure and dress. Gichamba and Mugure, fighting against the jostling tide of early office workers, who leapt off buses in a hurry to get to their stations ahead of the boss, made their way over to the aunts who impatiently awaited them. As Mugure was engulfed in hugs reeking of designer perfume, Gichamba could only wonder how the aunts had managed to get from Wangige to town on such short notice and in such splendid attire.
“Oh, and how are you today, Gichamba?” Aunt Muthoni finally acknowledged his presence, offering him her slim hand.
“I am fine, thank you,” said Gichamba, taking her hand. Her hand slipped in and out of his in a flash, barely completing the gesture, cold as a fish.
“I’m hungry. Let’s find somewhere to have a cup of tea,” Aunt Muthoni stated, shepherding them across the street, her arm draped protectively across Mugure’s shoulder. “Besides, we need to find a place to sit so that we can plan this great event ahead of us. God knows, we need to celebrate this good fortune that has visited Mugure, don’t you all agree?”
Gichamba had little choice but to follow, his unpolished mine boy’s boots scraping along on the chipped pavement like a reluctant dog on a leash. Twice he had to strike himself a discreet blow to the head, reminding himself to remain cheerful despite the wave of pessimism suddenly flooding through him.
Following behind the expensively clad aunts, he wondered what kind of restaurant they had in mind. After the bus fare home he had only a hundred shillings to his name. A cold sweat broke out upon his brow.
Breakfast turned out to be at a fancy restaurant on the corner—just as he had feared—and consisted of several courses. Their uniformed waiter brought a tiny bowl of soup, meant to whet their appetites before the main course. Aunt Muthoni had ordered for them all, saving everyone the trouble of trying to decipher exotic culinary terms like soufflé and omelet. Gichamba was perplexed by the array of silverware laid out like a surgeon’
s tools, wondering why so many knives and spoons were required for a simple meal like tea.
“This is where the people of your class eat, my dear Mugure,” Aunt Muthoni announced primly as she adjusted Mugure’s napkin in her lap and provided her with a soup spoon. Gichamba she left to sweat it out on his own. “This is how people who drive a Mercedes live, my dear,” she added with a generous laugh, the fat rolls under her chin quivering merrily. Aunt Muthoni gestured toward the plush, wall-length brocade curtains and the crystal chandelier that was suspended from the roof. Then, nodding her satisfaction, she shook out a rose-tinted napkin and dabbed daintily at the lipstick that smudged the corners of her mouth.
“You are right,” Aunt Wanjiru chimed in. “Mugure, you are so lucky to have an aunt who knows these things. This kind of knowledge will be useful when you have to have dinner with the company directors at the prize-giving ceremony.”
Mugure nodded, nervously, discreetly wiping at the soup she had spilled on her dress.
The hot breakfast consisted of a barely cooked egg, a sausage, and razor-thin slices of mutton; the tea required a manipulation of all manner of tiny steel pots, and the butter, bread, and sauces arrived in anonymous foil-wrapped portions, one indistinguishable from the other. Aunt Muthoni and her friend smiled at the fussy waiters, as if they breakfasted at the Hilton daily. Indeed, Gichamba mused, it was hard to recognize the two women, who even yesterday drank millet porridge from chipped enamel mugs as they haggled with barefoot village women at a cabbage and waru73 stall in Wangige market.
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