Nairobi Noir

by Peter Kimani

  “Hee, mama, naona leo mmebeba kabisa!” (I can see you are well loaded today!) said the first figure. “Leo tutakula na kijiko!” (Today our pickings will be fat!)

  “He-hee! I tell you they carried everything, afande, kila kitu!” said the second shadow with a soft laugh. “Leo wazee watakula mzuri!” (The drinkers will have a party.)

  The two cops had been waiting in the shadows for a while and had carefully observed the cargo as it was offloaded from the bus.

  The two women stopped and lowered their sacks to the ground with soft sighs, the one at the front wiping the thin sweat that had broken on her lined brow.

  “Ehe! Mama. So today we do not eat, eh?” said the first cop, advancing toward the luggage, the short automatic rifle tucked under his arm glinting faintly in the dawn light. He shined his flashlight briefly on the gunnysacks, keen eye quickly assessing the contents. “Pheeew!” he whistled softly, summoning his comrade with a wave. The two women stood by silently, hugging their lessos about them from the chill that whistled through the alley. The bigger one at the front wore a look of tired resignation. She had hoped that by taking this longer route they would bypass the two cops, who she knew would be loitering at that hour in the vicinity of the police booth built on the raised verge next to the bridge, waiting to solicit bribes from early risers.

  “You know that we haven’t sold anything at this hour, afande,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest in the manner she adopted when dealing with a customer who wouldn’t pay.

  “Now, you know that that is none of our business, mama. In any case, I think we have spoken too much already,” said the taller cop, reaching under his coat where his pair of handcuffs was hooked to the belt. “How about we go back to the station and talk from there, eh?” he dangled the steel cuffs in front of her. “Is that the way to talk to an officer?”

  “You are right, afande. These women are starting to get too friendly with us—it must be the soft way we keep talking to them. Perhaps they need a little straightening to know that we are officers of the law. They have become kisirani.” The second cop had taken a step back and raised his gun to hip level. “They think we live on empty words, eh? And look at this one; she is an old woman who should be taking care of her mzee back up-country. The age of my own mother she is.”

  “And yet she is still selling fire to young men in the city. Mama, don’t you have a home in Kakamega?” added the other officer cynically.

  “It is problems that make me sell this brew, officer. I do not take pleasure in it, as you seem to think,” said the older woman, squaring up to the sneering cop in a rage. “I was brought up on the proceeds of this brew, young man, and I have educated my own children on the same. And now I am even having to raise my daughters’ children on it, and yet you call it play, officer? You think I have that husband you speak of to help me raise the children he sired? Eh? Don’t you have respect for an elderly woman, kijana?”

  “Now, don’t you pour out your problems on me, mama,” said the taller officer, his spine stiffening. “I didn’t tell your mzee to run off on you. Neither did I tell your daughters to become malayas here in Kangemi, understand?”

  “These women are joking with work, afande,” intervened the other officer, who had been silent throughout the exchange. “They have the nerve to talk rudely to an officer even when he does them a favor. Let’s take them to the station. That is where we will complete this biashara­­—what do you say, afande?”

  “You’re right,” said his partner, dangling the cuffs. “Let’s go. We do not live on empty stomachs, you know. Now, jiteteee haraka haraka, mama, before we go.” A menacing tone had crept into the officer’s voice. “We don’t have all night. We have some other work to do, you know!”

  In an instant the mood had changed. Now cold menace hung on every word.

  “First you pass under the bridge in an attempt to throw us off. And on top of that you have the audacity to tell us you haven’t sold anything yet—you think we are children, eh? You think we stand out here in the cold for nothing? I tell you today you will carry this luggage on your head. We shall take you to Mkubwa. You will sing, you mamas. Mtaimba!”

  “Wait!” said the other woman, reaching into the folds of her lesso. The cop who had started hustling the first woman paused, a cold smile playing on his lips in the chilly dawn light.

  “Now, what do we have here? Ngoja, afande.” The cop switched on the flashlight only long enough to register the color of the proffered money. And then his lips peeled back as he broke into a soft laugh, the type the fox might have used with rabbit’s children when negotiating with them to open the door. “What is this you offer us now, mama, eh? You think we are schoolchildren who eat peremende? Ha! You are joking. Put your load on your head. NOW! We will go for a short walk.”

  “What was it, afande?” said the other cop, inching forward.

  “Ati, two heads is all she has.”

  “With all this mzigo here she has only two heads? Ha ha! These old mamas are joking indeed. I think we have been too lenient, they are taking us for fools. Mama, pick up your luggage, now! Or you want me to let the dog loose on you, eh? Maybe that will hasten you up.” He took another step back into the darkness, where indeed a huge Alsatian crouched, tethered to a fence post. There in the shadows the beast was dark as the devil himself. And as if on cue it gave forth a deep, low, blood-curdling growl. “Eh? Mama, you want to give the fangs of our other askari here a little exercise?”

  “Pole, afande,” pleaded the woman, sinking to her knees and raising her arms. “I didn’t mean to be rude to you.”

  “All right, talk nicely. Keeping in mind there are three of us. In any case, I still want you to put your load on your head as we walk. We are wasting far too much time arguing.”

  In the end the women had to turn themselves inside out to appease the cops. And it was a good forty-five minutes later that the cops released them. By then they were at the lower end of Kasarani, close to the murky green river that separated the slum from the affluent Loresho. Day had already broken, and the occupants of the leaning shacks straddling the river like a horde of dusty flies competing over a putrid mound opened their rickety doors one by one and peeked out as if to reassure themselves that the shanties were still standing; that the city council hadn’t flattened them as they slept. The day guards working in the affluent estates neighboring the slum popped up on the dusty paths, joined by the casual hands headed to the industrial area.

  * * *

  Mama Pima lowered her load to the floor and sank into a battered armchair, letting out her breath as her heavy arms flopped over the stained bare-ribbed armrests. “This is robbery. Robbery in broad daylight!” she said to her trading partner, who had also lowered her load and was perched on a rickety table. She took off her bright nylon headscarf and brushed a hand through her unkempt gray hair, wiping the moisture on her brow with a stubby thumb. Both women held their heads in their hands and regarded what was left of the delivery. Besides the money they had taken, the cops had also made off with four of the five-liter jerricans.

  “They are worse than thieves, those sons of dogs!” said the other woman, drying her moist face on the edge of her lesso. “Just how are we expected to make up for what they took—and what will we even make for ourselves?” For the first time since she had left her babysitting job in the Mountain-View estate eight years back to venture into this business, she had doubt about their future. Though of wiry build, Khasiani was the one who had always retained her resolve whenever this happened. It was often her wise counsel that had reined in the burly and short-tempered Mama Pima wherever the vagaries of the trade weighed down on them. “I don’t see us getting anywhere if this persists. We are doing all the work, only for the askaris to come and reap all the rewards!”

  “This is a huge problem,” said Mama Pima, jaw working in thought, her gaze trained on the jerricans stuffed in the gunnysacks. “That was our entire profit those sons of dogs took. It leaves us in a fi
x. And we must find a way out. We have to eat too.”

  On the mat beside her a child stirred and rose on one elbow, eyeing the visitor across the room with sleepy blinking eyes. The little one beside her stirred too and cried out in protest, poking his brother in the ribs with an elbow.

  “Shut up, you two!” glowered Mama Pima. “Can’t you see we are talking here? Now you’ll start asking for tea. And yet your mother doesn’t even know how you eat!”

  The child who had been scolded, not wishing to draw any more of his grandmother’s wrath, tucked back into the thin blanket and was still. They all knew better than to talk back to their grandmother when she was in a foul mood.

  Khasiani waited as Mama Pima mulled over the problem, her moist brow glowing, loose rounded cheeks puffed out, shiny eyes roving over the smoky rafters of the mabati hut. The rapid arithmetic going on in her head was evident in the fleeting expressions on her dark face. “We have no choice,” she said at length, gazing steadily into the eyes of the other woman. “We have to call in the daktari to do his work. We must get those four jerricans back and at least three more on top if we hope to pay Franco for the delivery and keep something for ourselves.”

  The other woman met her host’s stare with a knowing one of her own. They had been a long while together in this business. “You are right,” she said, nodding. “We must get the daktari. I only hope he is not too drunk already to mix the dawa.”

  “Well, knowing him, you must leave immediately so that you catch him still at Shiro’s. I hear he has moved in permanently with the widow. Go now. Our first customers should be arriving soon, you know the Securicor askaris got their advance yesterday—it is still hot in their pockets.”

  As Khasiani rose, throwing the folds of her lesso over her shoulder, Mama Pima stood too and moved toward the dark corner where the cooking utensils were stacked on a rack, bellowing at the little bundles stretched out neatly side by side on the floor to get up and dress for school.

  * * *

  The daktari slumped over the corner table at the bridge-side pub and called for another round of drinks, banging the beer-slopped table for emphasis. His glazed eyes were bloodshot and hooded, a cigarette dangling in the corner of his mouth. He had barely had time for a quick nap after his night duty at the city morgue before he was rudely awoken by Shiro, announcing the early visitors. And as he headed off to make his first kill for the day, so had gone his chance of catching up on some sleep.

  He gazed into his glass and idly twirled the frothy residue, bellowing at the waiter to hurry up. The woman accompanying him drained her glass and threw her arm around him, idly caressing his bony shoulder as she trumpeted a hearty belch into his ear.

  “You must have made a big fortune today, daktari,” she said, a hiccup causing her words to slur and gargle, her heavily mascaraed eyes watering in the thick cigarette smoke. Just like the daktari, she too had been up all night, drinking at Manyatta Pub with an old friend who had popped into town after a long absence trucking clandestine cargo to and from the Somali border.

  “Money? Who needs money?” said the daktari, breaking into a wheezy laugh that reverberated in the dank hall like a backfiring farm tractor as his hooded eyes swept the bar. “Look,” he continued in a conspiratorial tone, moving closer to the woman and opening the breast of his well-worn suede jacket, “I have enough here to buy the whole of this bar rounds for the entire day. You think I am another useless Kamau talking big, eh, woman? You joke with daktari? This is a real Makerere University–trained doctor here . . . he-heee! Don’t joke! I have money, my dear. And sure, I will have even more tomorrow. Heh! You joke with daktari? . . . ” A squirt of saliva escaped the gap between his huge browned teeth and laced through the air, spraying the woman’s rouged cheek. “Weeeee . . . you think I am some cheap fellow who drinks kumi kumi? I am a man of substance, my dear. A man of means who lives on his imagination!” He beat his hollowed chest for emphasis, squaring up his angled shoulders. “I, daktari, schooled with President Kibaki, he-heee! I drink bottled beer, my dear. Let those hopeless folks who have no money drink sisal juice and formalin—it serves them better! In any case, it only makes the morgue attendant’s job easier . . . he-heee!

  “And you know what?” he edged closer, his face lighting up, “this time around I fixed the poor bastards real nicely. I bet the first one in line will be knocked flat out on the first glass . . . he-heee! Anyway, that is a story for another day. Now, come closer, my dear, and give daktari a hug. Today we celebrate good tidings, you and I . . . Waiter! . . . Jinga waiter, can’t you run when you are summoned?”

  * * *

  Back at Mama Pima’s it was a full house. The regulars were well perched in their places in the cramped room, which reeked so strongly of the spirit liquor that one patron jokingly cautioned anyone against striking a match lest they blew the place up. They were all nodding their satisfaction to themselves as they downed the contents of their glasses. The room was abuzz with murmured conversation, everyone conscious of the fact that the cops might arrive on their impromptu raids at any moment. Occasionally the conversation got animated and the host had to ask them to be quiet. As for Mama Pima, she wore a satisfied smile on her face as she dipped her right hand in and out of the money bag hanging around her neck for change. Indeed, the daktari had laced the drink well like he had assured her. All the customers were satisfied. Unless the cops interrupted, this was certainly going to be a good day for her and Khasiani.

  That was until one of her patrons rose up to relieve himself in the narrow tunnel behind the house. He was an old regular who rarely stumbled on his long feet, however strong the stuff was. There was a roar of laughter as the old man swayed, his hands groping about for support. He took another step and stumbled, his right leg cutting across the way of his left like a newborn calf’s.

  “Mugo, walk like a man, bwana!” called one of the other patrons, laughing at what he perceived as a stunt from the old man. “You just got here. Don’t you pretend you are drunk already!”

  “Ha! Mugo has never been one to wet his pants. A tough old stud he is. Mama Pima’s stuff must be really potent today,” quipped another patron from the other end of the room.

  Somehow the unsmiling Mugo managed to find the door and stumble his way out into the corridor.

  It was quite awhile before Mugo came back. In the meantime, Mama Pima and her assistant continued making their rounds, doling out measures in a tiny measuring glass from the plastic bottles they clasped underneath their arms.

  Soon, someone else stood up to go pee. And when he similarly stumbled and groped about with his hands, it ceased being funny. In any case, they were all experiencing this strange giddiness in their heads.

  “Mama! Washa taa!” called someone else from the far corner, his hands moving about, clawing at the air. “Turn on the light, old woman. You want to chase us away and yet we are only getting started? Well, I am not budging until I have another drink!”

  Mama Pima had been in the act of refilling her bottle from one of the jerricans stashed away underneath the bed. She paused, looking around at her customers. “James, what’s the matter with you?” she asked, even as it started dawning on her.

  “I cannot see you, mama. It is all dark in front of my eyes!”

  It was barely midday, and the sun was crackling on the rusty corrugated iron overhead, baking the dusty streets outside.

  Her hand flying to her open mouth, the host retreated back into the bed area that was partitioned from the sitting area with an old shuka. Her mind was racing as she searched frantically for her money bag in the clothes trunk. Outside the old man who had gone for a pee slipped in the slimy drain trench and fell with a heavy thud against the mabati wall, sprawling downward.

  THE NIGHT BEAT

  by Ngumi Kibera

  Mukuru kwa Njenga

  Now going to two o’clock, the night was as dark as sin; the darkness was only broken by faint light coming from some shanty here and there. There were the usua
l night sounds of Mukuru kwa Njenga: a sleeping resident snoring fitfully, a curse and a scuffle, but so far, nothing untoward. That is, unless Corporal Senga was to count a few minor incidents.

  One was when he and Sergeant Odieki had come across a couple canoodling in an alley. They had paused just long enough to catch their breath before dismissing the two cops as inconsequential in their current arrangements.

  “We take them in?” Corporal Senga had asked.

  “What for?” the sergeant had responded.

  “Why—for indecent behavior, sir.”

  “Then by daybreak you will be needing a trailer to haul all of them in. Now hurry up, corporal. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

  The second incident was when they surprised three young men smoking pot. The startled culprits had scampered through the maze of alleys, stepping on sleeping mongrels, which in turn scattered away yelping as distant ones howled in commiseration until the night was one big choir and half the slum was awake cursing.

  “Let’s get them!” Corporal Senga had said again, starting after them, his cumbersome G3 rifle cocked.

  Sergeant Odieki had sighed. “You really don’t get it, do you? Which area were you assigned to?”

  “Kilimani.”

  “That figures,” Sergeant Odieki had scoffed, walking on. “Corporal, try to remember this is not Kilimani or those other uppity areas where you book drunks for pissing on fences. We are here for the real bad guys.”

  “Yes sir,” the corporal had said, suitably reprimanded. And next time they stumbled upon another startled couple, he did nothing more than frown. Nor did he make a mention of the whiff of bhangi hanging in the air.