Nairobi Noir

by Peter Kimani

  But where was she? And why must they have their clande in such a dark, musty room?

  “Malaika! Where are you? If you have to tie me up, at least chain me to a comfortable bed.”

  His call came back as an echo against the bare walls, accompanied by unhurried steps made by a hooded figure, and the creak of a trolley against the floor. Something told him the massage was over and this subsequent phase was not about pleasure.

  “What the hell is going on?” the commandant asked fearfully. He looked around for his gun. He remembered placing it inside his trouser pockets at the massage parlor, but none of his stuff was here. He cursed at his folly. “Whoever you are, release me now or you will experience the fullest power of the law!”

  When the figure was close, he realized it was a woman in a burka. He broke into a scoffing laugh. What did this woman think she could do to him? He was the deputy police commandant!

  The woman was unfazed by his outburst. She stopped the cart right beside the table and removed the burka, exposing a beautiful but cold face.

  “My name is Fawzia Sheikh Farah.”

  “Am I supposed to know who you are?” he asked. The icy eyes that met his squinted glare sent a tremor down his naked spine.

  “I am Ahmed Farah’s sister.”

  He thought hard. That name was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. He shook his head.

  “Wrong answer!” she snapped. “So, you don’t remember my brother, even after you sanctioned and witnessed his torture? You don’t remember ordering your men to dispose of his body like a dog’s in Eastleigh Section One? You don’t remember declaring him a suspected terrorist on national television?”

  Commandant Ambayo’s memory was jogged. It was that university student who they killed to send a message to the Somali community, to instill fear among the young men.

  On the trolley were surgical gloves and a tray full of acupuncture needles. Fawzia, wearing a pair of the surgical gloves, picked up a needle and raised it, letting it gleam against the light. The commandant shook with fear. He was trypanophobic.

  “Acupuncture is used in traditional Chinese medicine to deal with various types of pain. It is believed that energy currents are accessible through 350 points in the body and injecting needles into these points with correct variations brings the body into proper balance. However, instead of reducing pain, these needles, if wrongly used—by untrained hands such as mine—can be the devil’s pitchfork.”

  She tenderly touched the commandant’s skin, soothing and cajoling with a sweet but diabolical tune. And just when his muscles relaxed, she dug the needle into his body with a single swing of her hand. The scream came from the deepest pit in his stomach and cut through the air like a sharp dagger. The man’s pain did not upset her as she had thought it might. Instead, her anger and bitterness ached with desire to inflict even more suffering.

  For the next hour, she tortured him needle by needle, each of them ploughed into his skin in spurts of her own agony. His pleas for mercy, his groans of terror in anticipation of another needle, and the subsequent excruciating cry were a cacophony in a uniform sequence.

  Finally she stopped, not because of his petitions, not because she was disconcerted by the depths of her own depravity, but because her arms were tired. She sat down on a chair not far from the massage table and watched the commandant as he whimpered like a dog. When all was quiet, she yanked the pillow supporting his head, placed it over his face, and pressed with all her might. He jerked his head sideways, but the torture had sucked all of his energy and will to fight. His body became limp as he floated to nothingness.

  My dear Abaayo,

  When you sent me money so I could leave Dadaab, that place of pain and sorrow, you gave me back my life. I know I wrote to say thank you, but I want to say it again: because of you, I was able to start afresh.

  I was able to take my brother Ahmed to university, even though he didn’t get to graduate. You know he died last year. Allah rest his soul in peace. I was also able to support my father and open a business for him. He turned that small shop into a mall. But he grew weary of this life and Allah honored his desire. He went to be with his forefathers a fortnight ago.

  As for me, I am planning to once again try new frontiers like you once encouraged me. I will update you when I get there, wherever that is.

  Aristotle once said, “The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.” That, my four-leaf clover, is what you are to me.

  Mahadsanid,

  Fawzia

  When she was torturing the commandant, Fawzia’s vengeful heart had been soothed by his agony. But his groans of pain, his cries for mercy, never left her. She heard them over and over again—when she ate, when she slept, and when she awoke. She saw his defeated form when she finally suffocated him. In her dreams, his body welcomed death in helpless surrender. How she wished for darkness to cover her, to wipe away memories of the past. She prayed for her soul to be liberated, whether to obscurity or to light. After many moons, a night of shutters, of drawn curtains, did finally come, pulling her into the nothingness that would be her final frontier.

  * * *

  The following day, a short paragraph on the back of the Daily Nation read:

  Woman Hit by Bus on Mombasa Road

  A woman died yesterday after being struck by a bus on Mombasa Road. The middle-aged woman had a Kenyan passport in her possession and a one-way ticket to Toronto, Canada. She was clasping in her hand a crumpled note which read: When seeking revenge, dig two graves—including one for yourself.

  That same evening, in Eastleigh, Fartun told her neighbors that Fawzia had been killed by the police, just like they had killed her brother.

  NUMBER SITA

  by Kevin Mwachiro

  Kilimani

  We were known as the Trinity. We had played with the word triad, but when we first heard it we didn’t quite understand what it meant. Trinity was easy—we’d always heard it in Mass, and when we started calling ourselves that, it made people uncomfortable. We liked that. One of us was named after their father, one of us was the only son in the family, and one of us had a father whom he’d never met. We are all born in 1973, we went to the same primary school and even shared the same high school at one time. Kilimani or Kili was our home. There was nowhere in this hood that was out of bounds for us. The main roads, side roads, and off roads felt the imprint of either our bikes or our Bata sandals. We ventured to the border of Woodley and Kibera. Though Kibera was another world we dared not tread alone, it was too foreign to our cushioned world. Kileleshwa was avoided—it seemed staid thanks to the government housing that provided a middle-class living to public servants. The other neighboring areas of Valley Arcade and Caledonia flirted into and out of our radius and this was mostly thanks to family visits, and later in our lives during the quest for cheap liquor.

  We were Mbiu, Morris, and George. I hated my name. Didn’t and don’t care for it. George offers nothing but commonness. I was sandwiched between siblings and was often off the radar of family and relatives. George made me even more insignificant, and back then it added to my low self-esteem—George! I couldn’t wait to drop it once I turned eighteen. I became Nyanje and told my friends that I was not going to carry the name that came from the land of our colonizer. I was named after my father, who was named after his grandfather whom I’d never met, so were all the other firstborn sons of my uncles and aunts. I was George wa Kilimani because we were perceived to be the poshest relatives and I couldn’t be called George wa George! There is George wa Buru who is the coolest of us all; then there is George wa Lenadi (Leonard), George wa Frederick, and George wa Charlotte (pronounced Shaleti). George wa Charlotte we pitied. He was fatherless, but his mother was fierce, feisty, and fun. We loved her, for she was also our go-to aunt. Counselor, confidante, and comfort all rolled up into one. Even Mbiu and Morris adored her. She became their aunt as well. In fact, Auntie Charlotte is the only person in the world whom I still let get away with calling me George.
Her eyes carry a mischievous glint whenever she calls my name, and when our eyes meet they go into our place of secrets.

  “There are parts of our lives we cannot erase, and no number of seasons will make us forget when we mourned,” she once said.

  “Like when you had George?” I asked. She always let me speak my mind.

  “Like George and other things,” she answered, and from then I unearthed George for her and her alone. I didn’t feel like I disappeared under the name George with her.

  * * *

  I’m back in Kilimani. Another part of my life that I had buried. It’s interesting how life pulls several numbers on you. I never thought I’d leave this place and consequently turn my back on its memories and its ghosts. This is where I said goodbye to George. It was here that I also said goodbye to the middle-child syndrome. Unbeknownst to me, until my later years, even within the Trinity, I was the “middle” friend. Easily forgotten.

  “Take a left on Marcus Garvey and then look for Kamburu Drive. It will be on your left,” says the passenger seated next to me. I know exactly where I am! I want to shout, I could drive here blindfolded for crying out loud, but I’ll play the taxi driver that I am. Rose Avenue has changed. This used to be a dusty Nairobi orange marram road. This was akina Morris’s road. There were more jacaranda trees than roses on this road then. Unfortunately, neither roses nor jacarandas flourish now but tall office blocks have sprouted up on properties that once housed single bungalows and marionettes—or town houses, as they are called these days. Residential flats now have businesses as their tenants. There aren’t any kids anymore on these streets, the only ones being mischievous and unruly on these streets are the matatus and boda bodas, our motorbike taxis.

  “You take directions very well, unlike all the other drivers that I’ve used recently,” says the gentleman. I smirk. I don’t think he cares for an answer. He is already peering at his phone, probably happy that he has engaged me with small talk. Hoping he has secured a good passenger rating for the taxi app. A typical Nairobi upstart. He gets his haircut weekly, has manicured nails and a naked chin. He is a smart dresser, I admired his tan shoes when he stepped into the car, the trousers case his thick legs and emphasize a distended ass. His plaid shirt stretches over an emerging belly. Ahh, he has a body shape that epitomizes Nairobi success. The tumbo na tako syndrome. In this business, you profile your clients perennially. Whom to talk and whom not to talk to, and you pick up on the women who need attention more than a ride. Then there are those who treat you like a chauffeur. The things new money does to you. I find myself clicking my tongue rather loudly. He is new money.

  “Hapa, hapa,” he barks. “Here at TWR.” I stop in front of the gate. “Bless you and goodbye.”

  “But you haven’t paid yet,” I point out. He seems to be in a rush. I stop my meter on the app and show him the fare. He quickly flashes a 500-shilling note and hurriedly opens the door.

  “Keep the change, my brother,” he says. He seems anxious as he heads toward the gate that houses the Christian radio station. As I turn the car around, he doesn’t move toward the gate. He just stands there rummaging through his pockets. I can tell he is stalling. I give him his peace and hastily drive off. I know his game. This was my hood, after all. Across the road is a nondescript brothel: Number Sita. Interesting that after all these years it is still there. It has withstood time and still hides its delights. The signboard with the number 6 beside the gate is new. Number Sita. From my rear mirror, I watch the chap cross the road and disappear behind the solid steel black gates. Maybe he’ll find his balls! Number Sita still rules men.

  “God bless you too,” I find myself saying as I break out into laughter.

  * * *

  “We are all going in,” said Mbiu. “No ifs, no buts, for we are going to get butt.” We stupidly made a pact that this was where the three of us were going to become real men. Circumcision was one thing, but dipping your pen into the inkwell was the more important rite of passage. Number Sita offered the safer option. The hookers at the nearby Ngong Hills Hotel were too expensive. We’d have to buy them beer, probably more than once, and then pay for the room. We were high schoolers and living off our parents’ pockets. None of us had a house girl attractive enough to seduce. So, Number Sita it was. We only had three hundred shillings between us. If we were lucky, we might all walk out with a blow job at the very least and still get home in time for dinner. Nana had told us about Number Sita. It was also Nana who taught us how to appreciate the female form and about foreplay.

  “You men learn how to fuck from dogs and seem to be content with that,” she’d quipped once. We were too embarrassed to admit the truth of her words for we had all watched Morris’s dogs mate a few years before. Nana was also the first lesbian we’d met, and we trusted her as she entrusted us with her truth. Who better to teach about women than a woman? We felt so grown-up knowing her. Nana shaved her head clean weekly, wore men’s underwear, saying they were more comfortable, was forever in sweatpants and T-shirts that were capped by a threadbare jean jacket, and she always had a basketball with her. She was a point guard with the Posta Panthers basketball team. Nana’s feet, hands, and tongue were fast. This was how she managed to survive off and on the court. She was beautiful. Chocolate skin that radiated, a toned body, baby-melon tits, and the kind of full lips that you wanted to kiss and be kissed by. She wore a toothy smile with an attractively centered gap. Her mwanya. She whistled like no one we knew, and she always had a tune. We were all in awe of her. She was safe, open, and kind, just like Auntie Charlotte.

  I wonder what Number Sita is like now. Are the corridors and rooms still lit with blue and red light? My heart had drummed as we walked into Number Sita that afternoon. None of us knew what to expect and yet we had to pretend to be men, something we didn’t even know how to be. But we had dicks, newly acquired baritone voices, and money! The lady of the house eyed us up and down and smiled as she welcomed us in.

  “Karibuni, wanaume wangu,” she said. It’s like she knew we needed to be addressed as men just to settle our butterflies. We were led into a room stuffed with oversize sofas, Lingala music from a boom box filled the air, and perched on those sofas were girls and women. Stares so seductive and confusing approached us. Some eyes rolled and chose to ignore us, while other eyes waved their lashes, promising heaven. The Trinity was temporarily broken by a mixture of desire and personal confusion. Kila mtu alikuwa anajitetea.

  I remember each room had a curtain in front of its doors ensuring privacy, yet the walls kept no secrets for you could hear grunts and moans as you walked past closed doors. It was a church of sorts, because I heard God being called on many times. I was led through this labyrinth of pleasure and sin by the hooker I’d selected in the lounge. It was her long, brown, slim legs that drew me to her. She sat alone away from the other women. I was attracted to her even more because she smiled at me, and her eyes stilled me. She seemed safe. Looking back to that day, I think she picked me.

  Nana dated a girl who worked at Number Sita. We had never met her. We saw Nana spend evenings and one-bob coins at the phone booth outside the Ngong Hills Hotel chatting with her girl. You could tell if she had been on the phone. She was so dribbly with her basketball and all teeth. At twenty-three she was seven years older than we were and still full of dreams and shamed love. Both she and her sister Betty received an allowance from their father who lived in America. They hardly spoke of their mother, and we didn’t ask. Nana was the first woman we all unknowingly fell in love with. It was strange and not so strange. Unsurprisingly, her ghost always came up whenever I went down on women. She taught us how a woman’s body should never be rushed. Tease it, be adventurous with it, take time to discover, and “heaven,” as she called it, will open itself up to you. These are lessons that have since brought me lots of pleasure and caused too much heartache.

  * * *

  My phone beeps, bringing me back to my hustle.

  I drive toward Woodley Estate opting
to avoid the mayhem that is Ngong Road. Kibera and its corrugated splendor usher me into more bougainvillea-lined roads and the dated grayed bungalows of Woodley. It has never lost its simplicity. How it has held up against the encroaching slum and Chinese contractors, one will never know. Maybe it’s because most of its residents either work or have a history with the Nairobi city council. I call my next punter.

  “Hello, Stesh, this Nyanje from Taxify—I mean Uber.” I’m on too many taxi apps, chasing too little money. “Can I get your exact location please?”

  Despite Woodley being a sensibly planned neighborhood, there are no house numbers. As I disconnect the call, I’m impressed by the precision of her directions. Maybe she grew up in this hood?

  Her house has a silver mabati gate. I notice that it is the only property on the road that is, in fact, numbered 21. Number Sita to 21 all in one day, who’d have thought? I smile. The verdant fence and jacaranda tree dwarf the corrugated entrance. Woodley still seems to harbor the best of both worlds. Its residents are what I’d like to call “old” middle class. Bureaucrats and technocrats who kept the same jobs from college to pension. They were the baby boomers who had a deeper sense of service and witnessed Kenya being birthed. They lived through the swinging sixties; each of our fathers came from this time. They either owned a Peugeot, Renault, VW Beetle, or Fiat. It’s the thing you did then.

  “Sasa? Uko poa? Nipeleke hapa Adams tuu. Sawa? Asante.” Adams Arcade Shopping Centre, Ado to locals, is a mere ten-minute walk from where we are. We both know this, but I say nothing. She’s the customer. “Halafu, tufika Ado naingia supaa tuu dakika mbili then utanirudhisha hapa home. Sitakawia.” I don’t believe a word she says. I’m in for a long wait as she shops.

  Stesh is your typical Nairobi girl. Her life is hers, and so is the life of every man who comes her way. She reminds me of Betty, Nana’s sister, Morris’s secret lover. I only got to discover that they had had a thing many years on. Betty was twenty-two and we were sixteen when they dated. Morris was full of secrets—his and other people’s. He was our conscience.