The meadows had well-manicured green with flower gardens of geraniums, bougainvillea, magnolias, gardenias, and other tropical plants. The driveway was shaded by palm trees and bordered by flowerbeds that brightened the gravel entrance led to the garage. In the expanse of the front yard, there were antiquated deck chairs and tables under up-market umbrellas. At the back was a lido, a lawn tennis lawn and swings – at least I had a vision of marrying one day and Susan seemed the probable candidate for that. Exotic trees and flowers lined the entire compound completing the whole picture.
Inside, the house had a Gregorian decor meticulously arranged and put to bring about a picture of a Renaissance house. Vincent van Gogh paintings graced the walls alongside a classic imitation of the famous Leonardo da Vinci’s the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper paintings. Thick drapery hang from floor to ceiling covering the windows and imported domestic ware and furniture filled the parlour. In the bedroom was a fake painting of Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa. I had bought it in Rome on one of my business trips after finding it a captivating piece from the chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria.
I drove an imported glossy green BMW. One day, I took Susan to my house and she was not surprised but stupefied. “Oh my God! Did you rob the World Bank? Or how much does the IMF owe you?”
I saw something, an expression, on her face. She blushed as she said that, especially the robbery part. She was about to say something which I guess it was to be an apology when I grunted something to the effect that in fact the IMF was indebted to me a substantial amount of money and added, in my thoughts of course, it’d be your home someday, babe.
She looked at me and smiled a secret Mona Lisa half smile. I looked back, and at that moment I remembered reading Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet where it is written, ‘when I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew.’ We looked at each other in the eyes and deep inside her black sexy eyes I saw and felt a feeling I couldn’t cop. Then spontaneity took over. The next thing was the linen softness of her lips, the warmth of her mouth and the fine satin touch of her hands. It was a kiss more wanting than demanding, a kiss more flickering than hot, unquenchable as the deep-burning thirst, more desirable and sweet, a kiss so passionate and so free.
At that very moment I wanted to do only things that are done by couples in their privacy but I decided otherwise. All I wanted was just to take her around the house, my home, and her home. During a holiday in Luxembourg I had won the battle that had been going on inside me and told her that I loved her, and I treasured her.
Nonetheless, she was still in school. All these trips were done after ensuring that the man of God, her evangelizing father and the most revered pastor in Kitui, had no iota of what her daughter was doing at the academy where he sent her to study. Susan too had no problem with that. With me she had a future, and here with me she had a home. In the name of medical research and seminars and symposiums both locally and abroad she got herself lots of blessings from her dearest father to travel and see the world.
I was once tempted to tell her she’d had enough education on that smart head of hers and that we should just marry and live happily thereafter but something deep used to chunk my throat; thus I decided to wait, and wait, and wait until when the right time came.
One day, I went with her to my parents’ home just to say hi for it had been long since I had paid them folks a visit; and maybe show them my wife-to-be. They were happy and proud their son was marrying a doctor. That was me, Son of Man, formerly a gangster, marrying a doctor.
Life is un(blooming)believable!
CHAPTER 67
2007;
Denise Mwajuma from the Coast was the one who took over Carol Mwangi’s place as the IMS’s national security and crime reporter. She was featured on the Sunday Nation’s magazine The Buzz of 20th June the year before; and Saturday Moonbeam's magazine Star People. She was being interviewed about her new job after being a photojournalist for five years. She did not hesitate to say that she was ready to take over the mantel from where Carol (and may she RIP) had left.
When asked weren’t she fearing for her life she said, “What is there to fear. We are all going to die, in one way or another, one day. All that is there is do our job well without fear, favour, affection or ill-will; and that’s what Carol did. She was a great reporter. She is a hero!”
Denise went on to say that press martyrdom is imminent especially if things are not going to change in the country for better. “We’ve a duty to the people as journalists. We are the silent voice of the people in a world full of corruption, deceit, tyranny, impunity, immorality, and conspiracies. They shall kill us just like they killed the prophets of God. We shall not relent.”
It was now almost three years since the untimely death of Carol Mwangi, the Imperial Media Services’s national security and veteran investigative reporter. Carol’s exposé of drug trafficking and those involved was the only clue that her mysterious death was murder. Investigations into her death had confirmed that she was shot at point-blank range in her apartment, maybe by someone she knew, or she trusted. No suspects, though, had been arrested. Hers had entered the history book of unsolved murders in the country.
As usual, the media fraternity had cried at the top of their voices that there was a conspiracy to eliminate them, to kill the only voice of the people. Press freedom campaigners and activists crusaded on rooftops of the world arena to no avail. Nothing changed.
Carol’s case was closed due to lack of evidence – the killer was still walking free.
*
Urbanas sat in his office doing nothing but filling the crossword puzzle and the codeword on the Friday Nation. He hated afternoons in the office especially on Fridays. All he wanted to do was to go and be with the boys.
He was now a well-to-do businessman and a blue chip company director of one of the fastest and growing software development companies in the country, Sitilink Technologies.
Moreover, he now had lieutenants in crime under his command. He was now a Capi (Captain) in command of three syndicates of gangsters, each syndicate comprising eight members – whom they called makovo, or soldiers, in their parlance – studying at the Nashville University. It was him who had recruited them in person, chosen the best from his many years of experience, just like he had been recruited by James, another former vocal SANU official. James was now the second-in-command (or the 2iC) of Mavis.
Urbanas now had a master’s degree and was working on his PhD. He looked around his office table. It was a morass of papers, magazines, newsletters, newspapers, and books; notably John Grisham crime novels. He liked the idea of being the boss. All his life he had never played second fiddle.
Tick! Tock! Tick! Tock! Went the wall clock. He glanced at it. It was almost three in the afternoon. He had a very important meeting exactly at fifteen hundred hours. He needed to stop what he was doing and drive himself, no chauffeur today, to the Nairobi’s Serena Hotel.
*
Samson checked his Seiko 5 wrist watch. He was right on time. Mandy, sweet and subservient as ever, was there waiting for him having made the necessary preparations for the meeting. Beside her was Edna, his secretary, the once trusted secretary of his slain friend and business associate, Job. Instinctively, Samson played with the miniature statue of St. Philomena on his car keys. The two women seemed as though they were a pair of mastiffs waiting, waiting...
“Is everything okay, ladies?”
Mandy, always the obsequious one, answered him.
Assured by his trusted personal assistant that everything was okay and everybody was in waiting, he went to the conference room where everybody else was. He truly was the one whom they were waiting for.
Having taken his usual place, he called the meeting to order, reviewed the previous meeting’s minutes and then went to the day’s agenda number one.
“Lady and gentlemen, this being the election year,” he began. “We’ve got much to do. Moreover, we’ve a proposition from one o
f the presidential candidates...”
CHAPTER 68
5th November;
Robyn Lawino Moraa, an Anglo-African beauty, was one of the few journalists who were household names in the international journalism. Born of an Anglo-born-Kenyan father and an Anglo-Saxon of a pretty mother, she grew up in the UK where her father was a forensic pathologist at the University of Dundee. Her mother, a fulltime fictional writer, spent her time at her home office working as a consultant and adviser for young up-and-coming writers. Having neither sister nor brother Robyn was brought up being moulded to be independent in her life, knowing that even though no man is an island she was alone in this world.
As she grew up she found herself admiring her parents with both gusto and zest. She wanted to be like her father and this saw her securing an entry to the University of Bradford. At that time, her father was called by her university’s Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and this gave her a chance to benefit from him. At the same time she was much thrilled by the fame that her mother was having from her writing. All her books were #1 bestsellers in the entire UK, and most of the time if she was not on TV or radio she was all over the newspapers.
Thus Robyn developed an interest in writing to be a celebrity like her mother. She enrolled for long distance learning for a Comprehensive Creative Writing course from the Writers’ Bureau. By the time she graduated she had over 100 published articles and had co-authored two novels with her mother that were bestsellers both in the UK and US for over eighteen months. In America, her mother held the bestselling author alongside classical romance and fictional writer Iris Johansen and crime thriller author James Patterson.
Robyn did not go far from Bradford University as she joined her father at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology as an adviser on professional negligence claims and fraud deterrence.
She was barely twenty seven when her mother lost her battle with cancer and joined the community of dead writers who wrote from their graves like Sidney Sheldon and Robert Ludlum. It was such a blow to the family that they saw no need to live any longer without her mother. A year after her mother’s obsequies, Robyn and her father relocated to Kenya where they were welcomed with pomp and celebrations of her father’s culture and tradition.
Robyn’s father got a job at the University of Nairobi. She had other plans for her life. It just took sending her CV and application when she saw the advert. To her surprise, she was called not for interview but for the job. She became Imperial Media Service’s senior journalist, and from that day she settled to her job and part time writing. She took the Kenyan book market by storm with her suspense thrillers: Coming to Dawn, Death of Privacy and The Coming Night, writing for entertainment in stark contrast to educational books that had flooded Kenyan market.
She was nominated for many journalism awards, both local and international, and she won all of them. She also held the Best Africa’s all-time journalist title for so long it felt like she was the defending champion of journalism in Africa. This saw her being a representative of African journalists’ community many of world press functions.
On 5th November she was at the Copenhagen, Denmark journalists’ conference where one of the main agenda was the all-the-time journalists’ holler of press freedom. This was agitated by the rising murders of journalists and reporters all over the world, but notoriously notable were countries like Bangladesh, Somalia, Norway, the Middle East countries and others. Kenya was not left out as it was grouped fifth position for extra-judicial killings and assassinations of the voices of the people.
Even though miles separated her with her home, she kept them abreast with everything that was going on in Copenhagen. At every possible time those in Kenya were disseminating and reporting occurrences both locally and internationally they contacted her via phone and she would tell the listeners and viewers live from Denmark what was happening at the Copenhagen press conference.
She did not hesitate to highlight how the international community was displeased by the acts of sabotage that were done to the Standard Newspaper and the raiding of the KTN TV station and the recent murder of the Imperial Media Services’ national security reporter, Carol Mwangi. “If only such countries like Kenya that assassinate the voices of the society could just but desist from the ritual the society would be a fortress-like place to preach the gospel of justice and truth,” she said before she hung up and her live transmission was disconnected.
CHAPTER 69
Friday 9th November,
Nairobi.
Kate saw Ken enter Safari Tours Travel Agency as though he owned the place. It had been long since she last saw him. She wondered what he really was of late. Just that look on his face and she was feeling like she would fly and hug him, give him the hottest, juiciest kiss ever. For a split second she remembered their golden nights and silver mornings.
She thought of the day she became pregnant. She knew she was on danger days but she gave herself to him. They never used condoms. He trusted her, she trusted him; her church advocated for natural family planning methods. Kate had a memory, just a flash, of the day she was at the backstreet hospital. It was not what she wanted, but she had to do it. She glanced at her left hand middle finger. The diamond ring gleamed with grandeur. Nostalgia came hurtling back on her.
Steve and her, having spent the rest of the day at the white sands on the shores of the Indian Ocean beaches on one of the most exorbitant African Tours hotel at the Coast, had settled at a dimly lit corner for their candle lit dinner. The aura at Serena Beach Hotel this day was pregnant with nothing, if anything, but love.
She ordered African cuisine while he settled for what she had just taken. Her likes were his and his dislikes were hers. Instead of the starters, the maître d’ brought a bouquet of freshly cut flowers and a small ornately decorated casing. She knew instantly what was in there and she just said YES. Steve had, with all bridled care, slid the diamond ring onto her middle finger and then kissed her. Their kiss was interrupted by a deliberated cough by the waiter to alert them that he was around. She had never been happier.
Later they had christened their new relationship status with sweat-slicked lovemaking till the sun was up and went down leaving them still making love. It was then that she had known that there was no turning back.
Steve’s voice snapped her out of her reminiscence. She looked at Ken again and a thin sweat ran through her.
Stop it before you betray yourself, Kate.
Ken’s back was to them from where they were seated, but she couldn’t lie to Steve. He was one man who was hawk-eyed. Steve had not missed that brief interlude. He was watching her and the realization that he was watching her made her feel embarrassed.
“Don’t tell me you still fancy other men my love?”
She blushed, big time. She gave him that smile of hers and he knew he still was the man her heart pulsated for.
Kate looked at the direction of the man she once loved, and God knew she still loved. Ken was saying something to the girl at the reception. The girl was smiling. Gosh! She missed him, her Ken.
He was dressed in a dark suit, a crème shirt and a matching tie, his tar black well-polished shoes completing the whole picture of him. He was more handsome than ever. She couldn’t mistake him, even his silhouette, from a million others.
Ken had not seen them. He was now putting the piece of paper that the receptionist had given him inside his coat breast pocket. He was turning to go now. Gawd! Her eyes met his and for a brief moment he was like mesmerized and then hypnotized before doing something completely insane – walking to where they were.
“Oh my God. Is it you or am I dreaming?” Ken said a moment before noticing the man with her. “What a pleasant surprise, Kate. It’s been so long.”
“And a lovely one, too.” They both restrained the urge to hug and restricted the pleasantries to shaking hands only.
“Ken, meet my fiancé Steve. Steve, Ken.”
The two men shook hands perfunctorily with the usual �
��Nice to meet you’ line and introduced themselves to each other.
Five minutes later, after chitchat and updating each other of what had happened to them in the past four years, Ken left. As he walked out, Kate could not help thinking he was cuter than ever, the guy had style and that she was happy for him. How she missed the old times!
What a coincidence. He was there to book a flight to the Coast just as they were.
Long after he was gone everything was him. She couldn’t believe that for just five minutes she had been with the man she loved with all her heart, body and mind and now he was gone without even leaving the faintest trail of his being there. So much for the time they had not seen each other.
Too bad after so long without seeing him he was to come for such a brief moment yet last for so long inside. Inside her was the memory of the man she had ever known and wanted to be with.
Don’t fight with yourself, Kate. You’re too old to fight; besides, one must not fight to live.
Moreover, some wars are better not fought.
CHAPTER 70
First love.
My goodness! You never forget, or get over, your first love. I had tried my level best to forget Kate but I couldn’t. I don’t think I’d ever forget Kate. I owed her a lot. I did not know she had withdrawn her father’s savings for her for me until she told me the last day I saw her. I’ll live to remember that day. That’s why I felt I could not learn how to live with her away but I had to try.
She belonged to somebody else, they were happy and I did not want to spoil that. I too was happy, with Susan, and she made me come alive. Kate saved me from the jaws of death – her last words to me at the campus that day. I owed my life to her. She left without giving me her new phone number; said it was better that way, and I had not tried to contact her via email; still it was better that way – not to stalk her.
Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) Page 14