Nairobi Noir

by Peter Kimani

  On this meet-up, after the plates were clear, Satu and Batula told Samina of their latest venture, not only because it was different but because they wanted her to be part of it. Their other trusted friend had suffered an accident. Samina did not want to know the details of how he had sustained the injuries. She told them she was not interested.

  That was three weeks ago, and what a difference time makes, Samina thought as she got into her bed. She closed her eyes and her brother was the first thing that came to mind. She remembered how he had come to her one morning. She tried to recall if he had been wearing a green or blue hoodie. The memories were fading with the years. She concentrated hard in order to recall his facial features, but they were evanescing. She felt herself drifting off . . . She tried to stay with Paul. She thought how good it would be to consult with him. He would have known what to do. Samina, someone called. It was Paul. Are you interested in an adventure? Of course. They stepped out onto the streets. Fifteen minutes later all they could hear were footsteps. Chasing them. Run, Paul shouted. She did.

  It was his idea to go separate ways and catch up later to confuse the man chasing them down the street. With Paul by her side, Samina was brave. Without him, strength left her body. She tried lifting her legs as high up as she could muster, but her legs wouldn’t obey, and her body felt as if it was under siege. Her eyes bleary now so she couldn’t see past the crowds shuffling by her. She wiped her face with her hand and looked back, but he had long disappeared into the crowds. Pangani was always too crowded. Samina dashed down pavements sandwiched by tables with electronics and clothes and hijabs and cars and vendors and women and children all sharing the sidewalks, and roadways next to single-story structures built around courtyards, and multistory buildings filled with malls and bars, past those selling camel milk shipped from Garissa that her mother liked to give her at least once a week to cleanse her belly.

  Half running, half walking, Samina approached her house, but darkness had crept in. She couldn’t see, so she stood still. That’s when she realized she did not know where she was or who she was or where she was going. Terror started filling her body, so she decided to sit on the pavement and wait. Just as her hands touched the cold concrete floor, she woke up. She sat up on her bed and wiped off the sweat with her bedsheet. She listened to the silence and then slid off her bed and tiptoed to check on Njeri. Her mother was sound asleep. She thought how her mother looked extremely small in her bed, as if she had shrunk. It’s possible she had—her body was giving up on her quickly and it had been merely three weeks since the diagnosis.

  A month ago, Njeri told Samina she felt a cold coming through. The following morning, she was shivering and sniffling. The painkillers did the trick, but the symptoms got worse. Two days later she could barely walk to the taxi that took her to Emarat Hospital on 6th Street. Malaria. That’s what the doctor said. They brought home some tablets. After a week, they realized they were of little help. She needed to go to the Aga Khan Hospital Pangani for further tests. Antibiotics were administered and Njeri was sent back home. Two days later she was back in the hospital since she could not keep anything down, not even the medicine. By the time a proper diagnosis was made, and they realized she had bacteria eating away at her and she needed specialized treatment, Njeri’s entire savings had been spent. In order to get started on the medication, a deposit was needed.

  Samina decided to take over her mother’s second job vending vegetables. The spot where her mother sold the vegetables was sandwiched between the popular Kilimanjaro Food Court, or KFC as it was known, and the pink and orange–colored Pangani mall. Hundreds frequented the mall which housed stalls that sold phone cards, barbed wire, and metal on the upper floor. The ground floor sold sarongs, hijabs, and other clothes. Located next to the mall was the National Farmers Bank, opposite the Horyal supermarket, so it was a strategic location.

  Beside a garbage-filled ditch, she laid down a brown-and-red sisal basket. She opened it and arranged the potatoes and cabbages and mangoes in heaps of three on top of a plastic sheet in front of her. She prayed the rains would stay away. The pounding of the raindrops on the garbage-filled ditches easily awakened the smells, whose toxicity Samina often swore would kill her mother one day. She opened a purple patio umbrella to keep the sun off herself and the vegetables and waited for customers.

  All this proved futile because by midmorning, the remainder of the potatoes would be shriveled, their insides sucked dry by the sun. The cabbages would rot before noon, and the carrots would wither before the sun set; the mangoes would be too scorched for anyone to eat. Samina’s skin felt taut from the heat. She stayed all day, and only snuck into KFC for fish and chips, spending just fifteen minutes inside swallowing the soft, soggy, oily fries before heading back to the market.

  When she went home, she fried meat and kale and made ugali, serving it to her mother. She saw the smile on her mother’s face, and felt sure that everything was going to be okay. Besides, she had managed to save some cash, and this brought hope that had escaped her when her mother first fell ill. It was possible then, she deduced, that in a few months she would have saved enough for Njeri’s treatment. So, the buoyancy stayed. When Njeri’s body refused to cooperate and rejected the food or the water or painkillers and Samina had to use up some of the savings, some hope would escape, but not enough to diminish the good cheer she had managed to cultivate. She clung to it when Njeri became dependent on her because Njeri herself had not let it go, and when her strength was at its optimum, she would let Samina know she was grateful. She also swore to Samina that the illness would not last forever.

  Samina hoped it wouldn’t. But then there is always that chasm between expectation and reality. And the reality was that her mother was deteriorating rapidly, though this was not the reason for the recurrent nightmares. It was the phone call she had made to Batula and Satu, and the subsequent meeting she’d had with them.

  During the tryst, she wanted to know everything about the heist. Satu said she had been inspired by a news story from India. This is why Satu and Batula decided to lease a stall in the Pangani Shopping Centre that was about thirty-five meters from the National Farmers Bank, next to KFC. They had rented the premises four months before with the help of their injured friend whom Samina would later learn worked at the National Farmers Bank. They told Samina that her role, though pivotal, was minor. They assured her that when her job was done she would not need to worry about her mother or where to borrow money; she would no longer need to sit under the sun all day. It’s not good for your skin. Or your brains. You need a strong head to sit through accounting classes, Satu said to her. Samina could trust them. She knew this. She also considered the fact that they had never been caught.

  * * *

  This was not how she had envisioned their lives would turn out when she had first met her friends at Pangani Primary, a three-room school that was a couple of minutes from her house. On that first day of school, she’d woken up an hour earlier than she was supposed to. Her green uniform was too long, so her mother used a blue belt to hoist up the dress. She loved the white socks on her feet and her brand-new shoes. She couldn’t wait to put books in her backpack. She hugged her mother and set out. It rained that morning on her way to school, but this did little to dampen her joy. Nothing could. Not like the past year, which had been so difficult.

  For one, in the past term she had watched other kids walking to their first year of school through the window. Her mother did not have enough money to pay the registration fee. The truth is, Njeri had used all her money for their travel to Nakuru to bury Paul at her late parents’ ancestral home.

  Paul was nine. It had been his idea to go and take some candy from Old Johnny’s shop when he wasn’t looking. Samina thought it a stupid game but she went along with it for fear of being left out of future adventures. The problem is that Old Johnny did see them and started chasing them down the streets. When they parted ways to confuse the shopkeeper, Samina kept running and did not reali
ze she had passed the street that led to her house and was approaching the junction at Kenyatta Road and Kimathi Street, which was the beginning of Ngara town. She had to turn back, but because she was frightened she decided to follow an alternative but longer route to her house where she would meet Paul. Three blocks from her home, she saw a crowd.

  She asked someone what had happened. Car accident, they replied. She pushed through the crowd until she saw him. Paul. He lay there on the street, motionless. She walked over to him, sat down on the red carpet of blood that no one wanted to step on, and clung to him. She rocked him in her arms, barely supporting his four-foot frame spread out on the dirt road. The ambulance finally arrived, but it was too late.

  Samina made promises to her mother. Before and after her brother’s funeral in Nakuru. She assured her that she would never step foot in Old Johnny’s shop. She told Njeri she would never take anything that did not belong to her. It’s better to stay without. Yes, Mother. It’s better to starve. Yes, Mother. She meant it.

  * * *

  Fifteen years later, after she had willed herself to join in Satu and Batula’s scheme, she reassured herself. One time only. She told her friends it was solely because of her mother. Of course, all that we do is for our mothers, Satu responded.

  Exactly three days before the heist, Samina picked up a black abaya from Batula. On that day, when the call to prayer started at the Abubakar Mosque right after the sun has passed its highest point of the day, Samina knew it was time to head out. She hugged her mother who didn’t look well. Njeri attempted to smile and then suddenly reached out and squeezed Samina’s hand, her eyes trained on Samina’s. I should stay, Samina thought, but then tomorrow would be the same, she concluded. Her mother would still be lying on the bed, writhing. She placed some water next to her mother’s bed and told her she would be back in a couple of hours. This would be the first time since her mother’s illness that she was leaving her alone after the sun had gone down.

  She pulled the black chiffon abaya over her head and let it drop to her feet. As she walked to the meeting place, she felt strange peeking at the world under the hijab that covered her head, neck, and ears. She paid attention to her surroundings because she was aware she was flouting something that was of value to others. Her skin flushed under her long abaya and when she thought someone was looking at her, she averted her eyes. To keep her mind off what she was about to do, she paid close attention to the passersby. She thought about how Pangani had changed over the years as she walked past a group of men in kanzus of various colors, and then saw Indian women in saris standing next to women in white headscarves, all waiting to buy coffee from the Ethiopian women by the roadside. Her mind, however, wanted to dwell on herself, and in a way, she started to feel that the abaya was the perfect cover, because she did not recognize this person who was going to steal from a bank.

  Samina made it to the Pangani Shopping Centre and went straight to her friends’ stall. Satu pointed to the extra boxes filled with dirt and advised her not to touch them or anything else with her bare hands, giving her black gloves to put on. How long did it take to dig a tunnel leading right to the bank’s safety deposit box? she wanted to know. A few weeks, Satu said, her voice betraying pride. We took advantage of the drainage system, so over half the work was already done for us. The sand they dug out was put inside empty containers, which were then placed in the stall and boxes with secondhand clothes put on top. Hence, anyone who walked into their stall would imagine all the boxes were filled with clothes.

  Samina looked around her. There were crowbars and metal-cutting saws and one pick mattock on the floor. It all seemed so crude and dangerous. Is this how your banker friend got hurt, by digging? Satu nodded. Batula must have noticed Samina’s apprehension so she explained that the floor of the safety deposit boxes in the bank was an ordinary cement floor, so it would be easy to break.

  This was not entirely true. As soon as they started, it dawned on Samina why they needed her. They suffered sore muscles. Blisters. Coughs. Itchy eyes. During all the smashing up of concrete, Samina thought only of her mother, and then the task at hand. She would take the jewelry and the cash and all the things that were stored because, she convinced herself, the owners did not really need them. If they did, they wouldn’t store them away under lock and key.

  Satu cried out when they first broke a hole into the cement floor. It was not too long after that they helped each other into the room. Five minutes, Satu shouted. By the time they started breaking the padlocks on the drawers, Samina was aware that her muscles felt stiff and that her breathing had slowed down. It was as if her body was numbing itself.

  This is why later, she would not remember much about loading their sacks with all manner of jewelry and precious stones, or where she had left her gloves or when they crawled back through the tunnel. She was able to recall the moment when they were safely back at the stall, but this was only because Satu called out, We did it. We are free, Batula added.

  Samina closed her eyes and took a deep breath and felt the air coming in through her nose fill up her lungs and immediately slow down her heart. She felt a tingling in her hands and feet as if her blood was gushing with more ease through her veins. She smiled and hugged her friends, who patted her on the back. First thing the next day, she would go out and buy the medicine. Perhaps she could flee to Nakuru and open a shop.

  When Samina finally got home in the wee hours of the morning, she wanted to wake up her mother and hug her and tell her everything was going to be okay. Instead she jumped into the shower; she did not know that sometime during the night her mother had called out for her. Samina did not know that Njeri had struggled to get out of bed to reach Samina’s room in order to tell her she was having difficulty breathing, or that her breathing stopped shortly after, in Samina’s room. This is where Samina found her mother, by her bed. On the floor. Samina collapsed next to her.

  When the police picked her up the next day, Samina knew she could not attend the funeral or even make arrangements to bury her mother next to Paul; she wouldn’t even know where the state was going to bury her. She would always wander in her daytime dreams, never sure if it was because of the abayas or because she had broken the promises she had made to her mother; in her nightmares, she kept saying no to Paul and then to Satu and Batula, but they couldn’t hear her.

  PLOT TEN

  by Caroline Mose

  Mathare

  The piercing noise, when it comes, rouses us from sleep in an instant, because it sounds like the firimbis every plot in Mathare lets off when thieves come calling. Tired of robbers coming from Bangala on the other side of the Outer Ring Road, our community leaders walked around collecting two hundred shillings from each household, and commanded us to buy whistles. The shrill sound of one of those whistles in the night is always enough to get everyone storming out of their houses armed with machetes, kerosene, and matches. The latter arsenals are for roasting any thief to the afterlife. Every plot, as every neighborhood is called, has a head—that is, the person entrusted with the whistle. In our plot, Father was supposed to get the whistle, but when he didn’t, people became impatient. Mama Mukasa in number 1 bought one and gave it to her son Mukasa, who just turned twenty.

  The digital clock reads 3:12 a.m. As the time registers, so does the knowledge that this sound is not the plot whistle. It is a scream. We jump out of bed, shaking. My sister Nyah fumbles for the kerosene lamp, which is under the table that stands at one end of the room, in front of the door. We always move the table to stand in front of the door because one never knows if someone might creep in uninvited in the dead of night. Nyah is lighting the lamp, and my heart is pounding. The screams have now rent the air, a long, tortured cry: “Uuuuuui, Ngai fafa!” It is the unmistakable voice of Mama Njenga, the woman who lives at number 10, at the far end of the plot near the shared long-drop toilet cum bathroom. We have usually been fascinated by Mama Njenga. She is obsessed with cleanliness and order. Her first name is Mary, and peopl
e in the plot have taken to calling her Mary Immaculate because of the way she anoints everything around her, including her front step, with bleach. Her front stoop is the only one that is consistently spotless, despite the concrete chipping off over time. Our plot has ten houses arranged in a rectangle. One side is numbered 1 to 5, and then 6 to 10 begin again on the left side, with number 10 being the farthest from the entrance. Ours is number 2, next to Mama Mukasa’s number 1, which is right at the entrance into the plot, directly opposite number 6. It is now Mama Mukasa’s voice we hear in the dark, following the terrible silence that has descended after that scream that has left all of us shaken.

  “Enheee! What is that?” she asks in her throaty voice, a voice that carries itself like a soaring beast. We can tell she has not slept. Mama Mukasa usually goes to bed very late, after finishing her nightly sales of home brew, keroro, and making sure she has washed all her trade paraphernalia. This, she does in the bathroom cum toilet, next to Mary Immaculate’s door, staining the area brown and wet with the dregs of her commerce. On many nights we hear the two women going at each other, Mama Mukasa’s throaty voice clashing with Mary Immaculate’s shriller one.