“Mugure!” Gichamba cried, clasping her by the shoulders and peering into her dusty face. “Is that really you?”
They stood by the road long after the exhauster truck had departed.
“You mean I have been a father all this while and yet I didn’t know it?” he asked at length, gazing down into the bright dark eyes of the little one who nestled in his arms. Mugure nodded, not trusting her voice to reply.
“But…I mean, how…?”
“It is a long story,” said Mugure faintly, adjusting the fold of the dusty shuka to shield the child from the overhead sun. “It needs time for the telling of it.”
“Ngai! I can’t believe this,” Gichamba exclaimed, unable to take his eyes off the child. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“As I said it is a long story, Gichamba,” Mugure said wearily, “and I am tired.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.” Gichamba raised his eyes to look at her. “Please forgive me. It has all been a shock to me. Come. You must be hungry. Let’s go home,” he said, reaching for her bundle.
“Wait,” Mugure hesitated. “Is that your shop? I mean, is that where we are going?”
“Yes,” said Gichamba. “I started it with the money Muthoni gave me.”
“But…” Mugure began, glancing over at the woman who stood behind the shop counter, herself staring curiously at the two who stood by the dusty road.
“Oh, you wanted to ask about the woman?” Gichamba said with a smile. “That is my sister-in-law Njeri. Her husband is the driver of the Chevrolet truck. They are helping me run the business,” he explained. “Is that why you were running away?”
Mugure lowered her gaze to her dusty feet.
“Come now, let’s go and meet them. Njeri is a nice woman and the pillar of the business. She handles all the paperwork and can whittle a sale out of a miser. We landed several lucrative orders this past month that we are struggling to deliver on time, which is why we are so busy. Her husband Irungu oversees sand and ballast, while I handle the rest of the hardware deliveries. Ndirangu—do you remember him from my quarry days?—he handles the bigger truckloads when we need them. Come, Mugure,” he said, tugging gently at her elbow. “Everyone on the street is staring at us.”
She followed reluctantly.
That evening Gichamba sat with his family around the charcoal brazier in the little room at the back of the store. The shop had closed for the day and the Samburu guard they employed had taken up station by the front door to guard both the hired truck and the two handcarts. Gichamba rocked his sleeping daughter in his lap as he listened to Mugure recount the events that followed the sale of the Mercedes. He felt a heaviness in his heart as the extent of the treachery of her two handlers became apparent.
“They are a bunch of vipers,” he cried, fighting back tears. “Your Aunt Muthoni and her friend are vicious gold-diggers!”
“You are right,” Mugure admitted, recalling how her family had melted away when they sensed the money was running out. “I really had no right coming back into your life after everything I allowed them to do.”
“Please don’t say that, darling,” Gichamba said, drawing her into an embrace. “Your aunt deceived us all. You don’t know the agony I went through after they took you away. The store kept me sane. If it had not been for the work, I would have gone mad.”
“It took winning the Mercedes for me to realize how few true friends we have in life,” Mugure managed between sobs, “especially where money is concerned. I hope you can forgive me some day, Gichamba.”
“I already have,” Gichamba said gently, drying her tears with the baby’s shawl.
“Thank you. Still…”
“Still what, my love?” said Gichamba, rubbing her shoulder.
“I don’t know if I will fit in here,” Mugure said, drying her eyes. “If your family will accept me after everything…”
“They already have, Mugure. We are back together, and this time no one will separate us. Now, let us put all that behind us and go to bed. We should be grateful we have each other. Truly we should. Come now; let us go to bed, my love.”
And for the first time since the car came into their lives the young couple slept deeply, dreaming in each other’s arms, the infant snuggled between them. It would take Njeri and her husband together banging on the front door to wake them late the following morning, well past the store’s typical opening time. Customers were already lining up.
“Take the advice of an old hand, Gichamba. This woman is going to cost you your business,” said Irungu jocularly when Gichamba finally opened the door. “I am an old hand at these matters you know,” he added with a wink. To which the three of them laughed merrily.
“See? Gichamba finally has a smile back on his face,” Njeri said, after the laughter had died down. “After only one night. And you men say you can live without women!”
Later in the day when business slackened Gichamba took his wife to the nearby police station so that they could fill out a form and start the lengthy process of acquiring a new ID for her. Thereafter they could access the one hundred and fifty thousand shillings that remained of the Mercedes proceeds, which were presently stuck in the bank.
* * *
70 community/public phone
71 A meal of green maize and beans boiled together in a pot; popular in low-end city eateries because it is very cheap.
72 A print cotton fabric with a garish African design common in tropical Africa.
73 Irish potatoes
74 Swahili for ‘greetings’
75 A traditional Kikuyu alcoholic drink distilled from wild honey and herbs.
76 A music style of the Kikuyu people that borrows from the colonial English waltzes and church music rhythms.
77 sweet potatoes
78 Kikuyu for ‘Mother to Mugure,’ a formal way an elder might address his wife.
79 plain cotton sheet
80 A traditional Maasai hut made by bending interlocking tree saplings, that are planted in the ground, into a dome shape and plastering the structure over with mud and cow dung.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to acknowledge the input of the late Susan Linnée, who was my first reader, critic, and editor, together with the late Patrick Adika, who always came in handy whenever Susan’s old HP or my equally old Toshiba broke down, either due to a virus attack, a hardware malfunction, or a requisite software upgrade—there’s no writer I know of who trusts their raw data in the hands of a stranger.
Also Michela Wrong, who believed in what I was doing, and walked the talk—the reason the journey came a cropper is known to you and I; Prof Shaul Bassi, Chiara Lunardelli, Stefano Chinellato and the entire team I worked with at Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia.
Lastly is Jaynie Royal and her entire team at Regal House, who eventually delivered the baby.
Thank you so much.
Gazemba S. A, Nairobi, 2018.
Dog Meat Samosa Page 18