CHAPTER ONE - Nairobi Cocktail, The Sleaze

His expensive clothes did not ruse anyone, including himself, into not noticing the ugly scar on his perpetually sweaty face. That very scar was the reason he had not used mirrors for decades, or looked at anything reflective. When he went to the barber’s, he ordered for the seat to be turned to the side with no mirrors. He never washed his hands in public toilets, not because he was not afraid of germs, but because sinks were under the mirrors. At home, there was only one room with mirrors; his wife’s room. He never went there.

His right hand had a mind of its own and refused to let him forget the scar; at least a thousand times a day, he instinctively touched it and cringed with every contact. If anyone dared to look at him long enough, they would think some invisible body was poking him, over and over.

The last time he had faced the scar was over three decades ago. He had found it disgusting, he knew it was still disgusting. He only had to study expressions of people he met the first time. He did not blame them because if the scar belonged to someone else, he would find it ugly.  

A fight with his father when he was a scrawny nineteen year old had scarred him for life. He had been too weak to square up to him, and he had been naked because his father had caught him with the girl he had been cheating on his mother with. It was a six inch panga cut that had been delivered right after a punch that had uprooted a front top tooth. When he was in a good mood, he allowed himself to imagine being Kylo Ren in Star Wars. He also knew Kylo looked better than him. The tooth was never replaced, not because he could not afford to replace it, but because he could not be bothered.

His height disgruntled him. His height had, with age, become a secondary problem in matters self-image. The primary problem was that his pot belly hung over his belt and swayed this way and that way, depending on what foot was forward. His torso, he was convinced, belonged to someone else; it was longer than his legs. While his full length was five feet four inches, his torso was easily three feet. He was aware of his repelling qualities, but he could not bring himself to care. His body and mind knew he needed to watch his diet, more now than ever because of his advancing age but when he ate, he ate like his very life, not his death, depended on how fast and how much he ate.

The scarring was not responsible for his ugliness; it was just the topping on the cake. He had been born ugly, at least according to his parents. Many times, when he was a little boy, his father would tell him how unsightly he found him. “What an ugly kid you are”, his father had loved to taunt during his more than often drunken near stupors.  

During those reminders of his ugliness, his father would insinuate that he was not his son, that it was not possible for him to sire such a hideous breed. Even as a little boy, he had found those words strange as he thought his father was quite ugly. He had heard his mother say the same thing, several times. One time he had asked his mother if she thought he was as ugly as his father. She had given him a long, pitiful look, ruffled his hair and said ‘at least your father is uglier’. That episode had left him with mixed feelings. He had loved it because it was the first time he remembered being in any physical contact with his mother. He had hated it because his mother had just told him he was ugly.  

His permanently bloodshot could easily be explained away by the copious amount of alcohol he drank on a daily basis. That, and the fact that he had not experienced proper sleep for decades. His sleep was often episodes of hallucinations and nightmares, episodes he actively fought until his body blacked out with exhaustion. The blackouts would last for a couple of hours, and he would wake up tormented.  

Long time ago, he had made peace with being ugly, but in the course of his life, he had found out that money had a way of transforming words like ‘ugly’ to ‘extremely attractive’. When he flashed money, something he often did, people suddenly found it easy to overlook his many unattractive physical features and his outrageously ugly manners; they found nice things to say about him. He couldn’t thank his father for his looks, but he sure thanked him for the money he had made, the same money he was enjoying.

His name was Kaggai. He officially became a dirty old man at the ripe age of thirty five. Before then, he was a dirty young man.

He did not know anyone who genuinely liked him. He did not even like himself. People liked his money, he liked his money too. There was not a fragment of doubt in his mind that if he were poor, he would have no one around him. But then again, if he were poor, the possibility was he would have a better attitude towards people. Or maybe not; he was unlikely to test this theory.  

He was unhappily married. He both hated and feared his wife. She hated him, she certainly did not fear him. His wife was the only living being who could stand up to him. He considered her spiteful. She possessed the special ability to deflate an ego bigger than his potbelly. When he and his wife were dating, she had not appeared nasty – if anything, she had come off as a meek, submissive woman. And no wonder he had married her. What he scratched his half bald head over was whether his nasty-self had rubbed off on her, or she had succeeded in hiding her nasty side before the ‘I do’s’. Together they had two children, a boy and a girl who hated him as much as his wife hated him. Not that he cared.

            ***

He could afford any food and drinks in any hotel within and outside the country, but the village pub was his favourite hangout joint. Part of the allure was the availability of idle and broke people who would sell their mothers for a single cheap drink; these people fed his vanity with their adoration. They were in awe of his ability to buy alcohol for every patron present, several times over. It turned them into his slaves. He loved slaves.

At the village pub, he could be uninhibited. In the thatched, dark, smoky and urine perfumed pub, he felt no pressure to watch his manners. He could belch loudly without excusing himself and nobody would dare sneer at him; he could ash his cigarette on the floor, he could spit on the same floor, he could slap the bottoms of any bar maid he chose and they would smile at him. He could get away with murder if he wished.

At sixty years old, Kaggai still behaved the same way he did half his age ago. Today, like many days of his life, he was at the village pub whose name he never remembered. He was not even sure if it had a name. Beside him was a young girl, who could have been a clone of the ones he dated thirty five years ago. On the same table were needy young men gawking at him. The girl had her skinny fingers between Kaggai’s thighs, often running them up and down. The girl, like hundreds before her, hated doing that in public, in private too, but it was part of the deal. She needed to demonstrate to anyone within eyeshot that she found him attractive. She was also required to kiss him once in a while. The young men, as they always did, looked on with envy, all of them wishing they could have his money and his girl. Their envy gave Kaggai immense joy.

He wore patched jeans, a pair that everyone around him thought would look better on someone quarter his age; sharp edged shoes that did not look as expensive as they were, a Stetson hat, a huge gold chain which advertised his sleazy nature, and gold rings on every one of his blunt fingers. He always wore expensive cologne, but he also knew his current village company could never appreciate that. His first car was German made, his current car was the latest German made, the cars in between were German made. In some quarters, he was known as Kaggai wa Benji, Kaggai of Benz.

He preferred his women tall, light skinned and very skinny, which should explain why he felt little towards his wife. After the children, she had obviously lost her battle with the food portions. What he didn’t know was it was her defence mechanism against him. She knew he would not touch her with a foot long pole when she looked the way she did. Just how she preferred it.   

***

Maria Kaggai hated official documents because when she had been a starry eyed new bride, she had changed her last name to Kaggai. How in love she had been with her husband. Many, many years ago at thirty years of age, the handsome man who had promised to marry her had run away to America with another girl. She had been heart-broken, even resigned to a life of spinsterhood. Being thirty and unmarried, in her youth, was close to a cardinal sin.

Then Kaggai had rescued her. They had met through a friend. Her friend worked at Kaggai’s tea factory as a secretary, and Kaggai had found her waiting for her friend to close work so they could leave together. It had been love at first sight. She had cringed at his scars and his gap and tobacco stained teeth, but the thought of the handsome man who had left her high and dry had helped her overlook the hideous features. He had been nice to her. Had bought her gifts, given her money, taken her to nice places.

Then they got married and three years and two children later, the life as she had known with him had crumbled like a house of cards. He drank too much. Stayed out too long. Smelled of other women’s perfume every night. He called her fat and ugly. He had hit her when she challenged him. She had considered getting divorced. Then she realised she did not want to be single and broke. The expense account she got from being Kaggai’s wife was too good.

He was no longer interested in being intimate with her, something she secretly appreciated. She was too fat, he said. So she stayed fat to keep him away. She got the guts to challenge him, several times threatened him with a kitchen knife during scuffles. He got the message and stayed away from  her.

She stopped going to church because everyone called her Mrs. Kaggai. The name gave her gooseflesh, but that it was the name she had to use to access money was a constant thorn in the flesh. On any other day, she was known as Mama Gigi. Her few friends called her Maria. Her workers called her Madam. Her husband hardly called her anything but when he did, it was Nanii, You.

Mama Gigi still half-heartedly thought of divorce on a daily basis, but the thought of oceans of money she would leave behind for some twenty year old to enjoy while she struggled out there always gave her magical patience. Recently, she had turned to prayer; she prayed for her husband’s death. She prayed that he would have a painful death. She promised herself she wouldn’t bother pretending to cry for the loss. His death would be a gain. She would wear white during his burial.

Unlike her husband, she liked standing naked in front of the mirror. Her room had wide mirrors on all four corners. She hated what she saw, and every day, she promised herself that the first thing she would do when her husband died would be to lose all the flab. She was fifty five years old, her youth long gone, and stuck with an obnoxious husband. Her immediate plans for when her husband died included plastic surgery on every possible area – if she couldn’t have her youth back, she would fake it. Then she would get herself a boyfriend half her age and catch up on all the bedroom action she had been missing out on. If only he would just drop dead.

                        ***

Kaggai was in the middle of narrating something he was certain he had narrated several times to the same audience but nevertheless went ahead, when the woman he considered the most important in his life walked in. He smiled – she was the only person who could process a genuine smile out of him. She satisfied his perverted side without judging him, had been doing it for years and he was sure she would do it until either of them dropped dead. He could admit, but only to himself, that she was the only person he would mourn if she died before him. He dared to hope that she would mourn him – after all, he was her best client.

She was possibly the only person who was sleazier than he was, and that was saying a lot. A smooth talker, really smooth. But in her line of work, being a smooth talker was a tool of trade. She was charming too. Most of all, sleazy, really sleazy. Hers was not a noble profession; she certainly would never tell her mother what she did for a living, although sometimes her mother gave her that knowing look, like she knew that her daughter did not become rich from selling second hand clothes in Gikomba Market, like she claimed.

She often shook her body, literally, whenever negative thoughts of her profession bugged her; in fact, she had learned to justify her chosen line of work – one could still pay doctors to kill, one could still pay teachers for better grades. She could go on and on but the long and short of it, it was a jungle out here. Sleazy people were everywhere. The good people were as important as the sleazy people. Someone had to put bread on her table. She had no education to speak of; getting a good job was close to nil. No man would openly declare she was his woman. She had long ago learned she was on her own.

Prostitution had become her chosen line of work. No, she was not a prostitute; she would never allow a man to disrespect her body like that and anyway, no man had ever wanted to disrespect her body like that. She was a madam. A go-between. She bridged the gap, she created supply where there was demand and boy, were there financial benefits or what. She got into the profession purely by accident. Never had she deliberately set out to be a madam. Early enough she had realized she was never the prettiest girl, or pretty at all, an unfortunate fact because she was quite charming. She never had boys swoon over her, her mother did not even warn her about boys, probably because she knew there was no need, her daughter had the proverbial face that only a mother could love.

Were she a man, her face would have been more acceptable. She had a large nose, too large for her too long a face. Her hairline always threatened to disappear. She did not have a big forehead, but because her hair line started close to the middle of her head, her forehead was exaggerated. She owned large lips, and her teeth were arranged in a way that made them look like they were forty in numbers, not thirty-two. They were actually twenty-eight.

All she seemed to be good for in the eyes of the boys was as a mediator. A boy wanted a girl, boy was too shy to talk, boy went to her for help. Soon, she got over her anger at not being pretty enough and started charging for her mediator services. You want me to get you a girl, show me the money. Sometimes, she would take money from different boys for the same girl then favoured the highest bidder.

By the time she was twenty, she had more money than she knew what to do with. She had a million and one ways of turning girls into sexual objects. Beautiful girls liked her because she was not a threat to their beauty.

Her name was Queen.

At least that was what everybody called her. Queen of Ugly. Queen of Sleaze. If anyone knew her real name, they never used it. It did not matter what her name was, for even the dreaded tax man did not know it.

                                    ***

All the men seated around Kaggai knew Queen and what she did for a living, but they still respected her. More so because she was also known to buy a lot of alcohol. When Queen, stepping on the ground like it was her personal property, entered the pub, all the men, except Kaggai and the girl, got attacks of chivalry and stood up. She ignored them all and went straight to the girl. She pulled the girl up gently, hugged her as a mother would a favourite child, kissed her cheek, ruffled her hair and asked her if she was okay. The girl answered to the affirmative. She was okay. She was one of Queen’s charges. Then Queen turned to Kaggai and kissed his cheek before taking a seat. Like real gentlemen, the men sat down after she was settled on her seat.

The waiter was already waiting to take her order, and only after that did Queen turn to the other men who were now gawking at her with expectant smiles.

“What are you losers up to…?” She drawled with a frown. 

They all laughed. They always laughed at her insults, the same way they laughed at Kaggai’s insults.

The poor found humour in the strangest of statements. For their trouble, they got their throats poisoned with cheap liquor, but it was more expensive that what they could afford for themselves. They also got to eat Kaggai’s left over food after he ate to his fill. Kaggai always ordered enough for ten people, but they were not allowed to eat until him and his date ate their fill.  

They were chewing on the food, chatting in between, the skinny girl intermittently caressing Kaggai’s thighs and wincing every time she had to do that. Queen was observing her and it hit her how similar in looks she was with Naliaka, her best girl so far.

***

Naliaka

The present girl may have resembled Naliaka, but in attitude, they were worlds apart. Naliaka, an orphan Queen had adopted and turned into a prostitute, had mastered the art of multiple personality, or total detachment from her feelings, and for that one skill, Naliaka was able to please every man she slept with, because she became who the man wanted her to be. Uncharacteristic of her, Queen worried a little about Naliaka’s attitude – it was possible that she had learned to detach herself from any situation, and that, in Queen’s books, made for dangerous human. It meant she had no loyalty, and that kind of person had to be very dangerous. And no wonder she, Queen, went an extra mile to be Naliaka’s friend.

Queen did not particularly think her line of trade was criminal enough for anyone to want to sell her out – it was not like she ever forced any of the women to become prostitutes. In fact, they came to her willingly, all of them, except Naliaka. And she supposed that was her problem. Naliaka was initially an unwilling prostitute. Queen had not forced her into prostitution, but she was also aware that if she had not been so persuasive, so borderline blackmailing, Naliaka would have preferred to be something else.

Both women, different in all ways possible yet brought together by a slip of fate had clear memories of the day their paths crossed.

It was on a Wednesday. Naliaka was then a form two student in a boarding school. Her single mother, since as long as Naliaka could remember, practically toiled the soil to put her through school. She saw her daughter as the only ticket out of poverty. The work of her hands was often not enough, the reason why over school holidays she would drag Naliaka to neighbouring farms belonging to the rich, and the two of them worked as casual workers.

Even with all the hard work, often Naliaka was sent packing from school in the middle of a school term for outstanding fee. It was during such a day, as Naliaka walked home under a blazing January midday sun that Queen had driven past her in a big, black car, stopped about fifty meters ahead. The younger had looked at the vehicle with indifference, perhaps with a bit of envy, but that was as far as her interest had gone. She had been passed by many similar vehicles, some may have stopped the same way. They had never stopped for her.

Her school jersey was her chosen sunblock, covering Naliaka’s head. Her bald head was sweating from the heat, sweat running down the back of her neck and on her face, but the sweat felt better than the direct heat. She had seen, rather than heard, the tinted electronic passenger window slowly wind down as caught up with the big vehicle, making her to stop with a jump. Under her sweater, she had peered at the driver, for a moment confused about the gender; the driver had a long weave, her face looked manly.

The woman had smiled. It was a smile.

Looking around in alarm, the younger woman had started walking faster up a small hill ahead. The vehicle had followed, and the woman was talking. “Hello, do not be afraid. I only stopped to give you a lift – you look like you need it.” Naliaka had stopped. The woman had used the most beautiful voice Naliaka had ever heard. Not the kind of voice and charm she would have imagined from a woman who looked like that.

Plus she did need the lift. The heat, the frustrations, the hunger. But never before had she been offered a lift. She looked at the car with a mix of fear and fascination. She did not know anything about cars, but she knew it was expensive. She looked at her dusty feet, then back to the smiling woman, and she shook her head.

“I can’t, my feet are dirty.”

The woman had laughed. She did have a lovely laughter.

It took the woman another minute to convince Naliaka to get into the car. Sixteen years of only subconscious dreaming of getting into a privately owned her, comfortable in her status, but when the carrot was dangled, it had excited her. Besides, her mother usually warned her against strange men, not strange women.

One foot in, same foot out. Amused encouragement from the women, both feet in, sitting like she was using the car seat as a catapult to get to the moon, unblinking eyes facing forward. Forgetting to shut the door.

“Shut the door please…” Queen’s laughing voice encouraged Naliaka. Naliaka shut the door and reverted to her earlier pose.

“You can relax, you know...” Queen had said as she engaged the gear. Naliaka did not move. Queen shrugged and stepped on the gas. The slow driving pace allowed Queen to take her eyes off the road and study the girl beside her. Naliaka had removed the sweater from her head and was now clutching at it. Perfect head, Queen thought with a nod. Beautiful eyes, eyes she had only seen for a couple of seconds but long enough to take them in. Perfect body; it was the body that had made Queen stop the car. She would make a great model, but she was not a model scout, she was a scout for something more sinister.  

“What’s your name?”

Naliaka clutched tighter at her sweater. “Naliaka.” She whispered.

“So where are you going?”

“Home.”

“Are you not supposed to be in school?”

“Yes.”

“So why are you not? Is it midterm already?”

“No.”

Queen soon realised she was not going to get anything more than monosyllabic answers. When they got to Nyathuna Shopping Centre, Naliaka asked to be dropped off.

“You live close by?” Naliaka had nodded as she fumbled for the door handle. “Here...take this business card. It has my name and telephone number on it. I often help underprivileged girls, and if you are one of them, call me whenever you need me. I will help you.” Long ago, Queen had stopped feeling guilty for the blatant lies about helping underprivileged girls.

Naliaka had taken the card but had not looked at it. Already, she was embarrassed because they were attracting attention from passers-by, some of whom were her neighbours. She worried that word would get to her mother, that she had been seen inside a big expensive car.

“You are a very, very beautiful girl…” The woman had called just before Naliaka shut the door. She did not see the smile on Naliaka. It was the first time anyone had ever told her she was beautiful.

Naliaka had been only sixteen years old. The woman inside her had started making announcements through her breasts and hips, but she was a girl with too many immediate problems to be aware of her looks. Poverty and trying to work her way out of it. There was no mirror in the single room she shared with her mother, and the mirrors in her school always had too many vain teenagers lining up to use them.

As she tried to make herself relax by loosening her shoulders, as she tried to ignore the looks from people by looking straight ahead, she knew this day, this moment, had already been embedded in her memory for life. She had, for all ten minutes, been inside a vehicle that was not a matatu, a car that had made her forget the heat outside because it was so cool. A car that had smelled so good. On this day, someone had told her she was beautiful. And the day was not over – there would be another reason she would remember the day.

Her homestead was located less than a hundred metres from where she had alighted. It may have been her sixth sense, or the fact that there were people standing outside the gate speaking in low tones but stopped when they spotted her, but a few feet from the gate, she just knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

Picking her pace, she walked past the group of people at the gate and straight into the compound. Their one room house was among several similar rooms, wooden structures that offered no privacy or security but good enough to shield occupants from rain. In the compound, there were people in similar groups as the one outside the gate. They all looked away when they saw her. But they were crying. 

She dropped her bag and sweater and screamed. She went down because her legs refused to support her at that moment. Her stomach churned with doom. She screamed again. And again. And she was kicking at nothing. Some women approached her, going on their knees to hug and contain her.

“Naliaka, how did you know?” One of the woman asked.

She screamed her mother’s name and fainted.

When she came to, she was inside the familiar nothing of their room, surrounded by crying people. She moved her head to look around. She wanted to ask where her mother was, but she just knew she would not be seeing her mother again, ever.

The rest of the evening passed in a daze. She had remained mute, mostly unmoving. Somebody had told her that her mother had succumbed to a dog bite because she could not afford treatment. Her wound had become infected. She had gone to a government hospital but it was too late. She had died in an overcrowded hospital reception that morning. Naliaka refused to eat, or drink. Somehow, Naliaka had slept a dreamless night, which made her feel guilty the following day when she woke up and remembered that she was technically an orphan. She had never known her father. An unknown father was as good as a dead father.

Three days later, there was a pauper’s burial at the government cemetery. No one had even brought flowers. The local area member of parliament had bought a casket after an appeal. There were less than thirty people in attendance because most of the people they knew could not afford to miss a day of work just because one of them had died. Here, the dead buried themselves.  

Two weeks after the burial, Naliaka locked herself in the room, locked herself away from the world. Only leaving the room to use the toilet. Neighbours brought her food, food she hardly touched, but they let her be. Most of them were too busy with wrestling poverty to be bothered with her.  

Reality came calling when the landlord came for rent. She did not have any money. She was given a week to come up with rent or to vacate the room. She had gone from door to door asking for help, none had come through. She did not blame them - they were all collectively poor. 

Not knowing what else to do, she took her school backpack, removed her school books and tossed them carelessly on the floor, then started packing her few clothes inside the pack. That was when she saw the business card that woman had given her what seemed like another life time ago.

***

Queen lived in a seven bedroom three storey house located right bang between Ruaka and Ndenderu. The three storey structure was not visible from the road, deliberately so. She had no immediate neighbours, deliberately so. The house was built on a ten acre piece of land, surrounded by high walls; with a good reason. Queen was single and childless, but hers was a full house.

She occupied the pivot point that was the whole of top floor.  It was a house within a house, every amenity, including an underused Jacuzzi. Only few people had the privilege to enter her quarters, mostly her maid. Everything was in different shades of purple.

The other six bedrooms, located on both middle and ground floor were big, but only when not when compared to Queen’s. They each had two, five by six feet beds as opposed to Queen’s queen-size. The bedrooms were all shades of grey and red. Queen’s housemates were all women of different ages and dimensions. Those were the residents. Then there were the workers; there were always two cooks on duty, two cleaners, a grounds man and two gate men who doubled as bouncers. They all had their servants quarters outside the main house. The residents were happy – and they were busy. The workers were constantly mesmerised, and well paid.

***

When Queen got the call from Naliaka, she had been seated at a balcony on the middle floor with three of the girls, enjoying the warm weather and midday wine.

She responded to her vibrating phone with a quick glance, folded her brow a little before picking it. She hardly got unknown callers but when she did, she answered them. There was always a potential of a new client, or service provider.

“Hello...” She answered with her honey voice. Instead of an audible answer, there was something that sounded like a choke. Queen had heard that kind of answer several times over. Often, the girls who came to her were in a bad place in their lives, making a call to Queen was the last resort, and an acceptance of defeat.

“Who is there?”

“Naliaka...” Came the whisper. Queen was good with names as well. It took her less than a second to recall Naliaka.  

“Are you okay?” She walked into the house, up to her quarters. She could smell an opportunity.

“No.”

Ah, thought Queen in frustration. The monosyllabic answers have made a return.

“Where are you?”

“At the shopping centre...”

Wow, so many words at a go.

“Do you want me to pick you up?”

“Yes.”

“I will be there in thirty minutes. Wait for me at the same sport I dropped you off.”

Ndenderu was less than twenty kilometres from Nyathuna. She stepped on it, aware she was driving more on the dangerous speed than not. Sometimes, the girls would call but by the time Queen arrived at the meeting point, they would have developed cold feet and disappeared. Their phones would also be off. Some would call back with apologies and beg for second chances, others would disappear forever. The less time they had to think things through the more chance she had to get them.

When Queen arrived in Nyathuna in company of Jane, one of the resident girls, they drove past the spot and missed the miserable figure seated on the ground, feet up, hugging knees, head down. Naliaka had been so engrossed in her grief, she had not seen the car approach. She only stood up when it passed, made a weak effort to run after it then gave up and started walking instead. Queen turned the car, immediately spotting the haggard figure. “How dirty can someone be?” She asked rhetorically, stopping the car. Still, when she came out of the car, she hugged Naliaka before opening the back door to usher her in. No words exchanged.

“Hi.” Jane’s voice made Naliaka jump.

“Oh, hi...” Jane would several times narrate to the other girls how Naliaka had recoiled into herself, like a snail into its shell. Tenderly, Jane took Naliaka’s hand. It was cold, almost lifeless. It was rough, and skinny. Jane squeezed it a little with reassurance, and kept holding it, all the way back to the house. The journey back was silent, lest for the humming of Queen’s big car engine. Naliaka, her hand still in Jane’s, looked through the window, a river of tears silently running down her eyes, over her nose, over and inside the mouth, finally settling into her old clothes that were turning wet with each tear drop. She didn’t see Queen adjust her rear view mirror to look at her.

Queen had lost her father when she was a little girl, too little to understand death. In her eventful life, she had known people who had lost loved ones; it was a look of utter shock, the look of a final loss to something that could not be negotiated with. Death knew how to strip all dignity off any human that survived it. Death turned people into a wet shells, shells with nothing to offer but tears. Death was the one thing that could make a girl like Naliaka forget to worry about making the car dirty. It was the look Naliaka had.

 First things first, Queen thought as she drove into her compound. Naliaka needed to be cleaned, fed and rested. Then she would find out who had died.

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