Josephine covered the twenty yards of open ground between the hedge and the main school block at speed. No one saw her. Within seconds she was sitting at her desk in the Form Four classroom, casting a studious but nervous eye over a mathematics text. She had already acted quickly and precisely. Everything had gone according to the plan that she had so carefully thought out and now there was just one more hurdle to be overcome.
The door opened with a sharp click. Josephine looked up quickly from her book with a calculated expression of guilt on her face.
Sister Augustus looked quizzically into the room at her. Having been distracted from her labours over the school’s cashbook by Josephine’s rather noisy return, she had left her office to investigate. “Josephine, why aren’t you at church?”
“Sister, I have just come back from the hospital in Kitui. It was very full and I had to wait a very long time indeed before I was seen by the doctor.” Sister Augustus raised her eyebrows. Josephine knew she would expect more than this. “I tried to get here as fast as I could, but the taxis were all very full and anyway I had to use all of my money to buy the extra medicine the doctor said my malaria would need. So I had no bus fare. I ran all the way, but I was still too late to go to church. The service had already started. So I thought that because I had missed my classes, I should come in here and try to catch up with the work.”
“Did the doctor give you pills for the malaria?”
“No, Sister, he gave me an injection instead. It was very expensive. He said that I should wait for three days and then if I am no better I should go back for more treatment and perhaps pills as well.”
Sister Augustus nodded sagely. Since she never seemed more than half convinced even by the truth, the mere second-long glance she cast toward Josephine as she closed the classroom door was interpreted by the girl as confirmation of victory. When the door opened again, however, her heart momentarily raced with fear. Had there been some tiny error in what she had said? Had Sister found some crack of inconsistency through which she might prise her way into the chasm that was the vast world of Josephine Ngao’s lies? But indeed she was safe. “Look, Josephine, don’t bother with that now. You’re hot and tired and just look at the dust from the road all over you. Go over to the washrooms and get yourself cleaned up.”
“Yes, Sister.” Not until the nun’s light, quick footsteps had faded into silence did Josephine risk a self-satisfied glance inside her desk. There, propped upright for safety between the side panel and piled copies of ‘The Moon and Sixpence’, Wilson’s ‘Simplified Swahili’ and The Bible, nestled the two bottles that would save her life. As she closed the desk lid and replaced the securing padlock with meticulous care, she finally allowed herself an at least partially relieved victory smile.
By the end of the week she had lost everything, except, that is, for the baby and Boniface, who was thus in the process transformed from a boyfriend into a husband to be. The weekend had arrived and, as planned, she had travelled home to Thitani with her medicine bottles safely corked and stowed securely inside her padlocked school box. As usual she had arranged to stay at her friend’s house close to Thitani market and, since it had been too late to take her medicine that night, she had gone to the bar to see Boniface and, almost inevitably, she had spent the night with him on the floor of his father’s shop. After all what was already done could not be made worse now. The experience, though contracted willingly and enjoyed, convinced her that the child inside her must be John’s. Boniface, unlike her mature lover of some time past, filled the grasp of only one of her hands, with about an inch protruding from the end. John was at least three inches longer, she thought. Boniface imagined that the shudder which ran through her body as she pumped what little remained of the foreskin of his penis with her hand might even be a sympathetic twinge of feeling caused by the excitement of touching him, but thankfully he remained blissfully ignorant of the real reason which, of course, was that Josephine had felt suddenly afraid of the size of the dose she must now take.
Thus, on the Saturday, as she began the preparations for her treatment by convincing her friend that she felt too sick to go to the bar that evening, she had grown resigned to the fact that half measures would have no effect and should not therefore be risked. Once alone, she set about her task with unshakable confidence and without a single second thought, but still harbouring a multitude of ill-defined fears. What if this medicine did not work? What would she do then? What would happen if she were disturbed and thus forced to swallow the mixture before the crucial moment and therefore before the job was complete? Whatever her fears, there was surely no going back now.
She followed the instructions to the letter and, to be safe, used all the medicine she had been given. But she did forget one thing, and only realised this much later. What she did not do was completely exhaust herself by running and sweating. Perhaps this might have prevented the treatment from entering her blood quickly enough? She would never know.
In her friends’ plastic cup she carefully mixed the powder and the liquid and washed out both bottles with water to make sure that every last drop and grain had been extracted. Was this another mistake? Might the water have diluted the important ingredient, whatever it might have been? She waited until darkness fell before she lay down on her friend’s bed. By then the interior of the low mud-walled house was completely black. She dare not light a lamp in case someone else in the compound noticed it and came in to investigate. Neither dare she pull back the sackcloth that covered the doorway to let in the moonlight. At all costs, she must preserve her privacy. But really none of this mattered, because she had already made up her mind to drink everything that was left in the cup when the moment came.
She began by dipping her fingers of her left hand into the liquid. It felt strangely cold when it met the air, and her fingers began to feel numb even as she moved her hand the short distance from the cup onto her thigh. Then, using the three middle fingers levelled together as had become her preferred habit, she began to rub the outer lips of her vagina. Another dip in the cup and a more determined push parted the lips and let her fingers find the inner flesh that grew to the touch. She felt strangely cold again, as if her damp flesh were being drained of life’s heat, but soon, as her own fluids began to flow, the sensation eased.
And then the pressure of her touch found the centre of her sensation. She closed her eyes and settled down in the bed a little. Dearly she wanted to press her breasts with her other hand, but she dare not let go of the cup she held so firm in her right hand. Another dip with her fingers and more gentle pulses through the wetness. A little harder here, softer there, a finger inside, around, flat, pointed, soft and hard.
Soon she felt herself open. Her legs started to stiffen and stretch in the way that they always did when the muscles in her buttocks began to squeeze their involuntary rhythm. It was almost time. Another dip into the wet and more coldness, and another pause to regain her readiness. And then she felt she was there. She raised the cup to her lips and drank in gulps as her hand worked itself flat against her swollen clitoris. The taste was vile, like earth mixed with water; but so cold on her lips and in her throat. Why so cold? Pieces of grit seemed to stick in her mouth, under her tongue and between her teeth. Her body tried to cough but she suppressed it.
Suddenly her head began to spin in a way she had never felt before. Though now retching and coughing, she fought against the complaints of her own body to complete the task. Still there was more to drink as her hand worked hard against her body. She was there and cried out as one giant convulsion and then another and then a smaller one and another and another and another and another filled her stomach and spine. A gasp sent some of the liquid up her throat and into her nose. It stung, and in less than an instant ecstasy crossed that narrowest of thresholds into pain. She couldn’t breathe and, while inside her nerves rejoiced at the relief the orgasm had granted, an uncontrollable reaction simultaneously emptied her
stomach and throat. She even tried to seal her lips, but consciousness no longer had any power over her body, and she was just able to turn to the side before the foul smelling liquid flowed from her mouth as if propelled by the death-like gasp that came with it. In one great stream everything she had just drunk spilled out of her and, just seconds later, through a muted scream, she fell back onto the bed, exhausted, her left hand still cupping the comfort of her pubic hair. The smell of her own vomit continued to make her retch for some time, but there was nothing left inside her to expel. Where the vile medicine had touched her between her legs, she now felt nothing at all through the numbness that had grown there. Suddenly she was thirsty and she tried to stand, but when she did the house moved around her, spinning at first and then turning upside down before blackness came...
It was some twelve hours later when her friend’s mother found her on the floor, lying in her own vomit. Even then, she took some time to come round and was still not fully aware of what was happening to her even when she was being lifted back onto the bed. She was conscious only for a short time and then slept again. By the end of that day, a Sunday of all days, her father had been told of her secret. Her friend Regina had grown so afraid that Josephine might die that she had thought it best to tell all so that whatever might be done to help could at least be attempted.
In his inimitable way, Josephine’s father acted immediately and, even before she was well enough to be told what he had decided, he had written to Mutune Girls’ School, informing Sister Augustus what his daughter had done. In addition, that very afternoon, the old man went to Thitani market to confront Julius Mutisya with at least the gist of what his son had accomplished inside his daughter. He knew this was the right way to conduct himself in the circumstances. He should address the father of the son, one of equal status to himself, rather than approach the son directly. This surely was the right thing to do. Both Julius Mutisya, himself, and his entire family were respectable people. They surely would respond to fair treatment and accept what was now a collective family debt in relation to his daughter. In the event, Sub-Chief Ngao’s analysis proved to be utterly correct in every detail.
An expulsion letter arrived from Mutune by return of post and so Josephine never again even visited the place. Augustus had the girl’s remaining possessions heaped into a cardboard box and sent on to her via one of the priests from Mwingi, who happened to be passing through on his way home. Though the nuns would live to regard the loss of Josephine as a great shame for all concerned, they believed as one that she had only herself to blame.
It was to be sooner than either Josephine or Boniface could have thought possible that they were declared man and wife. Now, protests about intended careers or a calling to the priesthood were not only scoffed at, they were positively derided, to the extent that neither bride nor groom felt able to raise the slightest objection to what was now inevitable. And so they were married, at a simple ceremony, itself hurried, in Thitani’s converted classroom. Father Michael, who conducted the proceedings, was as embarrassed as everyone else who attended and simply wanted to get the thing over with as quickly as possible. Less than four months later, when the child aborted itself after Josephine had walked home the six miles from Migwani market on a hot and dry Friday afternoon, Boniface cried with a mixture of disappointment, pique and shame. Josephine, however, though outwardly as grieved as her husband, inwardly gave thanks to God for answering her prayers.
***
With this, the death of her second child, however, it seemed that all the guilt which her life as a prostitute ought to have provoked, but never did, was suddenly given form within her. It was as if she now knew that she and she alone had been the cause of the misfortune that had beset their marriage. In the past she had been too willing to blame Boniface for spending too much time at school or in the bar. Now she knew that the fault was within her. Inside her, there was a poison, a spell that had infected her womb and all that grew there. She could never be a true wife to Boniface, or to any other man for that matter, because now she was capable of giving birth only to sterility and death. The confusion that she still felt unable to express thus transformed into anger.
“Let me out!”
Boniface turned to look at her quizzically. “But we are not yet at the hospital, Josephine. Father will come back in a minute. I am sure he has only gone inside the mission house to do some very quick job...”
“Boniface, you don’t understand. Let me out. How do I open this door?”
“Josephine, it will take you too long to walk around to the hospital from here. Look! See, what did I tell you? Here comes Father Michael now. I told you he would only be a few moments.”
“Boniface, I want to get out of the car,” she repeated defiantly as she reached around the side of the still vacant driver’s seat to search for the lever which would release its fixing catch. Boniface, however, was much more interested in how quickly Michael would get them under way again and he completely ignored what Josephine said and did.
For his part, so oblivious had Michael become to everything outside his own inner thoughts that he did not even realise that he very nearly trapped Josephine’s hand in the door as he slammed it behind him. She, of course, reacted instantaneously and withdrew it with an angry cry. Neither of the two men in the front seats paid the slightest attention to her. “Why is this man always in such a hurry?” she screamed to her husband in Kikamba, as the car lurched from reverse into a headlong screech down to the road. Michael could only understand a word or two of what she said.
“Stop! Stop! Stop! Please stop the car and let me out!” she screamed as the car reached the tarmac.
This time the outburst prompted Michael to slam hard on the brakes, causing the car to skid across the sharp lock he had steered to turn left onto the road. By the time they had ground to a halt, it had slid down off the tar and onto the rutted earth next to the roadside gutter, casting a swirling plume of dust skyward.
Almost together, Boniface and Michael turned round to confront Josephine with their combined inquisitive and impatient stare. Boniface, the one that was her husband, she thought, looked both naive and immature. He had still not grasped the truth that ought by now to have been obvious. His expression quizzed her, as if inquiring after the comfort of the car’s back seat. Michael’s face, however, was bright red. His eyes were angry and impatient, as if challenging her very right to speak. He made her feel like a child who had trespassed on a neighbour’s field and who was about to be accused of stealing maize.
“It’s dead. Finished. Why go on?”
Her husband showed not a sign of either shock or grief. His blank eyes simply carried on gazing at her. Michael’s expression, however, suddenly changed. No longer did his manner seek to challenge her. His assertiveness seemed to dissolve and like a chameleon, he changed colour, turning completely white, as if he had suddenly seen some great fear. He cast a quick sideways glance at Boniface, and then looked down at the still-wrapped baby and then back to Boniface. There were no clues to be found, it seemed.
“I want to get out,” she said firmly. Her hand began to tug and pull at anything that looked even vaguely like a handle at her side. There was a click.
“The stupid fool,” she thought. Why had her idiot of a husband made her crawl into the car through the front door when there were special ones for the back seat?
In a moment she was out of the car and, without a single backward glance, already on her way. Her child felt far heavier in death than ever it had done in its short life. Perhaps it was more of a burden now. For some reason, she set off at a high pace, but within a few strides it quickly slowed and her step shortened. She began to feel just a little feint.
“Josephine! Wait!” shouted Boniface.
She stopped, but did not turn round.
“Josephine, wait! Don’t be angry,” said Boniface, as he caught up with her. He had left the passenger door of the car
swinging open. Michael still sat motionless in the driver’s seat as if already haunted by what had just happened. “Don’t be angry, Josephine,” said Boniface as he moved to stand directly in front of her. It was as if he was trying to bar her way. “Perhaps it was never meant to live?”
An aching guilt suddenly flooded her eyes with tears. Boniface was right. She was surely to blame. She had infected his child with the poison she had planted within herself and which surely flourished in the pathetic deceit which had been her life.
“Please sit down, Josephine. I think you are not well.” Boniface helped his wife to a place where there were stones and bricks strewn in a pile by the side of the road. Here, almost in the shadow of the cathedral, on any normal day, people would assemble to wait for the southbound buses to Mombasa and Mutito and would pass the time of day sitting on these stones to chat whilst they surveyed every vehicle as it passed smoothly over Kitui town’s hissing tarmac.
Josephine sat and buried her face in her hands. She cried out in anger, not grief, at the sight of the inanimate bundle of cloth at her feet. She was angry with herself, with Michael, with Boniface, but above all she was angry with the spirit that had infected her womanhood and taken it away to use for itself. She prayed that a knife should appear in her hands so that there and then she could cut out the death that surely lived inside her. If there had been such a knife in her hand, surely she would have taken her life and thus would duly have returned it to its rightful owner like a mother who had preserved a father’s sperm until it could breathe for itself.
A vehicle passed by and stopped. She did not look up at first. A horn sounded angrily. She heard the growl of a revving engine and screech of brakes as a single sound. It made her look up. There were several shouts and people were running down the road towards Father Michael’s still stationary car. Having had her head buried in her hands, she had not seen it momentarily set off and then immediately stop again. There was suddenly a lot of noise, a lot of shouting.
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