The Nicotine Chronicles

by Lee Child

  Overnight, Wacera the village beauty became the village villain. In the aftermath of the school drama, she went into hiding. Older women said it was abominable for a young woman to fight a man older than her own father, and that Wacera would have to be exorcised before she would be admitted back to village life.

  Maitu responded with stone silence. She had been widowed early and often said she had raised her children to walk in the light. Maitu doted on Wacera, her last born. She said that had she known about the schoolmaster’s order, she’d personally have cut Wacera’s hair as she slept. With the new scandal and Wacera’s departure, Maitu seemed to descend into a fresh phase of mourning.

  Yet, other villagers remarked that Wacera was old enough to get married. In fact, her parting shot, Tikio thuruare, was misreported as Ndire thuruare, meaning she had no underwear.

  * * *

  I made a point of visiting Maitu once in a while, just to check if she had any errands to run. A couple of days after the felling of the schoolmaster, I bumped into Wacera. I recall the day vividly. Dusk was approaching. Wacera was still in hiding, so when I saw her in the waning light in her platform shoes and bell-bottom trousers, waist hoisted close to her bosom that sagged a little, just enough to excite the mind of a twelve-year-old boy, I was both horrified and excited.

  “Kikimido,” she called out. It was a childhood nickname for Dominic, my proper name that I couldn’t pronounce in my younger days. Wacera was huddled with a young man smoking a cigarette in the shadows of the mikambura trees that ringed the village. The patch where the hair had been shorn off by the schoolmaster was visible, like a missing tooth. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  I told her I was heading to Nana’s to buy a liter of kerosene for the evening cooking.

  “Let me fetch it for you,” Wacera said, grabbing the bottle before I could respond, yanking the five-shilling note from my hand.

  The young man with Wacera took the bottle and peed in it. “Take this to your mama, it should cook just fine,” he laughed, his words echoed by peels of smoke. Within moments, the man and Wacera walked off and were soon swallowed by darkness. I headed to Maitu’s home in tears, unsure whether to pour out the urine or deliver it to her as an exhibit. I chose the latter.

  Maitu took the news of the incident with stoic silence, allowing only a shriek and: “Jehovah! What has become of my daughter?!”

  That was where the matter ended and, Maitu being Maitu, she never uttered anything to anyone else. I, too, kept silent, partly because I would have been scandalized for having been mugged by Wacera and her rogue boyfriend.

  With the passage of time, the episode grew fuzzy, the only details that I recalled with clarity being the fluid motions of Wacera’s bosom that elicited vibrations all over my body. I even entertained the idea that once I became a man, I would grow a beard and smoke cigarettes—and look for Wacera.

  The idea of coming of age seemed incomplete without smokes and Wacera, who had now gained notoriety as the epitome of waywardness, her name invoked as a cautionary tale to any teenage girl in the village.

  “Hmmm. You want to become like Wacera? Just keep fooling around and we shall see how far that will take you,” I recall Kaara’s sister Neo being warned by her mother. Such talk reinforced our collective suspicion that there was something more sinister that Wacera had done, beyond felling the schoolmaster. Even so, she retained her attractiveness in my eyes.

  * * *

  At age eighteen, I faced the knife. Actually, it was a clipper, but no matter the tool, we still called it the knife. This was a ritual that every teenage boy in the village underwent to mark his transition from childhood to adulthood. About a dozen boys, including Kaara and myself, formed a line in that same hospital where Kaara had been treated for his fractured leg and had our foreskins shorn off with the muted wail of a well-oiled clipper.

  After circumcision, we went into seclusion, where we were treated like kings, gobbling loaves of bread soaked in Blue Band spread, washed down by copious amounts of sweetened, milky tea and Tree Top orange juice. As we neared the end of the healing process, we were trained on how to seduce girls. The first test of our ability to adjust to adult life was to perform what we called “dusting off the soot.” This was basically a test run to check if the organ was in good working order after the procedure.

  The other unspoken marker of adulthood was smoking, although it was done in greater secrecy than having sex. It was Kaara, his voice now a booming baritone, who suggested that we try buying some sticks at the pub in the next village, instead of going to our own village’s shops, whose keepers were likely to know our parents.

  The stigma associated with smoking had everything to do with the founding of our village. It had started off as an outpost for Anglican missionaries who preached that the human body was the temple of God. Had God meant man to smoke, one famous preacher preached, He would have created an air vent in his head!

  That’s how we ended up at the pub in the village next door, Mutomo. The pub was named Moonshine and it was as unpretentious as village pubs can be: a few high seats around the main counter, which locals called sina tabu. The rest of the space was dotted with plastic seats and sturdy tables. One waitress served the entire pub, so any patron who finished his drink had to tap his table rather aggressively to get her attention.

  Kaara and I walked quietly toward the main counter, our cigarette money at the ready, and waited patiently. Kaara placed the order with as much confidence as he could muster, his baritone succeeding in turning a few heads, one of which we instantly recognized. It was Wacera.

  “Ngai,” she gasped. “Kaara!?” She rose unsteadily and gave Kaara one of the longest hugs I had ever seen, then suddenly turned in my direction and reenacted the drama, though for a shorter duration.

  “Kikimindo,” she continued, before collapsing in her seat, “you have grown into a beautiful young man!” It had been years since any of us in the village had seen Wacera; I was now taller than her and my Afro accentuated my height.

  Wacera turned to Kaara. “It’s only this husband of mine who hasn’t grown taller all these years,” she teased. Wacera looked like, as folks in the village put it, one who had received dafrao from the devil himself. She had aged considerably. Some teeth were missing; her curves were gone. Even her legendary hair had receded so that her forehead looked more pronounced. She gathered her bags from beneath her table and led us to the bar’s patio; it almost seemed as if she’d been expecting us.

  “Ngai, Kaara na Kikimindo, I didn’t realize it was you guys. All grown up and looking so cool . . . Can I get you both some drinks?” she asked between billows of smoke from her SM cigarette.

  Kaara and I looked at each other. We had never had alcohol.

  “Come on, guys, what are you doing in a bar if you don’t drink?” she said, then dropped her voice: “Aren’t you guys old enough to impregnate a woman? And . . . wait a minute, wait a minute, this is the season that you guys got circumcised, right? Nothing escapes my attention! Now, tell me: have you dusted the soot?”

  Wacera was speaking nonstop. Kaara and I couldn’t tell if it was the drink doing the talking or her, or both. She placed her packet of cigarettes on the table. Kaara took one.

  “Sure, go ahead,” Wacera encouraged. “Help yourselves. Light? Never mind.” She leaned forward to offer her lit cigarette to light Kaara’s. He sucked in and his cigarette lit up, then he started coughing.

  “Kahora, kahora,” Wacera soothed.

  After a few puffs, Kaara passed the cigarette to me. I repeated the ritual and coughed repeatedly.

  “You guys are practicing smoking using my expensive SMs? You should have used maize stalks to practice before using the real thing. Too bad I can’t teach you other things because I am your aunt!” Wacera laughed.

  “Cousin!” Kaara challenged. “You are our cousin . . .”

  “A cousin in Munyu could mean everything or nothing,” Wacera countered. “It could mean a relation who is
distant enough to fuck, but lives too close for comfort.”

  Kaara and I smiled. No one in the village spoke this way.

  Our silence was filled by peals of smoke, as Wacera pulled on her cigarette and sipped her drink. My subsequent puffs of the cigarette were a little smoother and I was much more relaxed on the second stick.

  “Ngai,” Wacera swore for the umpteenth time. “I’m so happy to see you guys. I didn’t expect to meet anyone from home, let alone my own family.” She paused and smiled. “My own cousins.” After another moment: “Actually, the reason I stopped here was to avoid meeting folks that I know . . .”

  “Why?” Kaara asked.

  Wacera was quiet. She pulled on her cigarette again, blew out the smoke, and looked out pensively. “Good question,” she said. “I don’t know.”

  “You haven’t killed anyone,” Kaara offered.

  Wacera laughed, a bitter, short laugh. “How do you know?”

  “We know,” I added bravely.

  “Yaani, you guys, who were infants just the other day, have now grown into men?” Wacera marveled. “What else do you know?”

  “I know you robbed me of five shillings when I was sent to buy kerosene,” I ventured.

  Wacera doubled over in laughter, followed by a prolonged cough. “I have to pay my debts, Kikimindo,” she said earnestly. “Yours and many others.”

  “I didn’t mean it,” I protested. “It wasn’t my money, really.”

  “Kikimindo, were you sent by your mother when I mugged you?” Wacera asked, chortling. “I’m sure you reported I had robbed you, didn’t you? Once I pay you back, you can go report that I have returned it . . .”

  “Actually, it was Maitu’s. She’s the one who sent me.”

  “Ngai baba!” Wacera gasped.

  There was an awkward silence. Wacera summoned the waitress and ordered a Kingfisher. “And give these wazee a drink of their choice,” she said, pointing in our direction. We both asked for soda.

  “Braaare fuckin’,” Wacera cursed. “Aren’t you men enough to handle alcohol?”

  Kaara tapped the SM pack and retrieved another stick. “Light?” he asked Wacera.

  “I’m not giving a light to freshly cut young men who are afraid of women and alcohol!” she blasted.

  “We are not afraid of women!” Kaara countered.

  “I asked a question,” Wacera said calmly. “I asked if you have dusted off the soot since you emerged from seclusion. What did you tell me? I was met with silence. That means nothing. Nothing has happened.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Kaara replied.

  “Fair enough,” Wacera conceded.

  “So, what really brings you here?” Kaara asked.

  Wacera was quiet for a while, then: “You want the truth?”

  Kaara nodded.

  “Can you handle the truth?”

  Kaara nodded.

  Wacera’s fresh drink was delivered. She poured herself a good measure, took a sip, and licked her lips. “I can see you two are bure kabisa!” she fumed. “You can’t even pour a woman a drink.” She pulled on her freshly lit cigarette.

  Kaara and I looked at each other in embarrassment. When you learn about sex from goats, it’s unlikely that such etiquette as pouring drinks will feature in your scheme of things. Our sodas were brought—a Coke for Kaara and a Sprite for me. We both drank from the bottle.

  “I have lived my life without apology,” Wacera started, dragging on her cigarette. “I have come home to die.”

  * * *

  I had grown up in the village thinking Borstal school and hospital wards, where one’s freedom is curtailed, were the worst things that could happen to anyone. Listening to Wacera’s story, I understood—in that naive way of an eighteen-year-old—that there was a wider world out there that sounded like a bigger prison. Wacera narrated her story calmly to Kaara, who listened intently without interruption. I kept my head low and listened in, recording every word, without pausing to pass judgment or seek clarification. Every word was a revelation, every new sentence more surprising than the last. And throughout the narrative, Wacera smoked her SM cigarettes, the new stick clearing faster than the last.

  “I was a fool to have fallen in love with Edu,” Wacera chuckled. “That was the guy who peed in your kerosene bottle,” she said, looking in my direction. “He promised me heaven in the city, and delivered nothing but hell.”

  Wacera explained that said boyfriend was a construction worker who lived in a Marigu-ini slum in the city. Quite often he did not have any work at all, so his day job became having sex.

  “Sex is fine, as long as you have a full stomach,” Wacera clarified, tapping ash off her cigarette. “But that bugger did not have that simple understanding of life. One day, he gave it to me so badly, I thought he would kill me.”

  Wacera was silent for a moment before continuing. “That’s when I knew I had to leave. To make matters worse, he’d gotten me pregnant. I had no doubt in my mind that I lived a better life in the village. I had been a student and I never had to worry about what I would eat or where I would sleep. But those were my constant worries in Marigu-ini.

  “I could see that the life ahead of me was bleak, judging from my neighbors: one was a streetwalker who locked up her baby overnight as she scavenged the streets for men; another was a vegetable vendor who rose at dawn and returned at dusk, just to keep her children in school and put food on the table . . .”

  Wacera paused to take a swig of her drink. “I admit I’m not the most industrious person in the world, but if I was going to undertake such backbreaking toils, then I needed to start right here in the village. So, I bathed in that makeshift communal bath held down by a flimsy clothing, put on my Sunday best, and took a matatu to town. I just wanted to walk away from Marigu-ini and be by myself. Just for once. Get some space to think about my future and my unborn baby.”

  Wacera lit another smoke and puffed furiously. “I walked around the city aimlessly, but from my pace, you’d have thought I had the most urgent appointment. Quite a few times, I heard catcalls when I turned a corner. By now, my body was taking the shape of a woman. My boobs had grown bigger and my skin had a glow that develops when one is pregnant.”

  “We used to say in Munyu that your breasts could feed the nation,” Kaara smiled sheepishly.

  “Foolish boy!” Wacera reprimanded playfully.

  “That means they were sufficiently grown to feed the African continent!” Kaara said.

  Wacera took a long puff of her SM and waved Kaara away. “Kumbaf! One time, a motorist screeched to a halt and propositioned me. I spat on him. Another stopped, and then another. All drove flashy cars and dressed fancily. They were all middle-aged men with balding heads and rotund bellies. Old enough to be my grandfathers. One particularly persistent man pleaded with me to join him for dinner. I didn’t realize I was hungry until he mentioned food. I realized then that I hadn’t eaten all day. And now I had two mouths to feed.

  “I got into his car and he drove off to this private members’ club where he was received like a king. Someone took off his jacket, another poured his drink, which they did without his prompting, and his favorite meal was prepared without his ordering. The king—I didn’t get his name—asked me if he was having me for dessert. I just stared at him.

  “Ngai baba! How in the world would I, a village girl from Munyu, have known that dessert is what you have after a meal!! Let me tell you, I was a proper village bumpkin!

  “‘One thousand bob?’ King asked. I stared at him. I figured he was now negotiating the price of pussy. See, I’m not too daft, there are some things I get instantly, especially where money is involved. In fact, the only math I understand is counting money.

  “‘Two thousand?’ King asked. No response from me.

  “‘Three . . . ?’ More stares from around the room.

  “‘Okay,’ King sighed. And not being used to having to do anything for himself, he turned the question to me: ‘Okay, state your
price.’

  “I said: ‘Twenty.’ I saw King lift an eyebrow, so I added scornfully: ‘I pay my housemaid more than ten thousand just for washing my underwear!’

  “‘Deal,’ King said, rising to go to the hotel room.”

  Wacera took another gulp of her drink. “Kaara witu, Kikimindo, do you know what twenty thousand shillings could do six years ago? That was the kind of wage that Edu, that bugger of mine, would have earned in one year doing construction.”

  She smiled. “I know you guys are still young and all that, and I possibly shouldn’t be telling you some of these stories, but that was the easiest twenty grand I ever made in my life. I earned it without breaking a sweat. King was dead after one round of gentle lovemaking and I was gone before he woke up. I couldn't totally face up to the fact that I had now, by virtue of his payment, become a prostitute. He had placed the cash neatly on the table, like a teller does at the bank. The only missing document was the receipt acknowledging the transaction. I left his expensive watch, wedding rings, and other personal items untouched. I may be crooked and all that, but I’m not a thief. I took what was rightfully mine.”

  Wacera was quiet for a long time. Kaara and I were stunned into silence. She took the last stick from her pack and crumpled the packet.

  “Another packet of Saidia Malaya!” she shouted at the waitress. “And get me the bill as well . . .”

  Dusk was gathering. Kaara and I looked at each other; I was wondering how and when we would walk back to the village, especially if our new companion decided she would come with us.

  “Okay, no more drunken stories, boys!” Wacera announced.

  “You haven’t told us anything yet,” Kaara protested. “That was just the beginning . . .”

  Wacera stared at him. “I should have married you, my good man, and never left the village. You sound older than your age.”