CHAPTER FIVE - Nairobi Cocktail, the Sleaze

The Village Madman, and the beautiful one

They made a strange pair.

The young woman, standing at five feet ten inches, was taller than the average woman. To match her body length, she had a long face set upon perfect cheekbones. Her dark skin came with the advantages of a lot of melanin; smooth, no trace of blemish. When she smiled, the world around her, including the wind seemed to pause, just for a second, as if to pay tribute to the smile. A set of perfect white teeth against a dark gum and dark skin. She did not smile much though, life was not often amusing in her books. Had she been born in a different environment, had her life been perhaps been a tad kinder, had her parents not ignored her very existence, she might have pursued modelling or such like fun life. She might have listened to many voices that told her she had a model’s body, but vanity was not on her list of characteristics.

She had a pair of light brown eyes. Too light against her dark chocolate skin. She knew about contact lenses way before she saw them. What with every tenth person asking her if she wore brown contact lenses. Against the midday sun, her eyes seemed to sparkle – the rest of the time, her many misgivings about life took away the sparkle. Her hair was long and naturally straight, the only gene from her mother that trickled down to her, thankfully. She spoke softly, like one who was keeping secrets from the wind and when she laughed, it was a soft, half-hearted laugh, like she did not want the same wind to hear her laughter.

She moved gracefully, like someone who did not take steps but glided along. When it was dusty, her feet remained dust-free. When it was muddy, the only trace of mud could only be found at the bottom of her soles. Her name was Kerubo. She worked as a shop manager in a car parts shop on Kirinyaga Road. At least that was what everybody thought she did.

Then there was the man. He was the official village mad man of Kirinyaga Road, a title he relished. He was tall, taller than Kerubo, just an inch shy of six feet. Beneath his dirty tattered clothes and a trench coat made of sacks, he was as muscular as they came, courtesy of his life as an army officer. Between the tattered clothes and the muscular body, he wore a clean, white vest and a clean white underwear. Not even Kerubo knew about his obsession with clean undergarments. Somewhere in the confusion of clothes and sacks was a gun.

 He was a common sight on Kirinyaga Road. When he was not walking up and down, he would be at a disused bus shelter on the same road, pretending to doze on and off or just staring. For people who took in little details, they remembered one day the disused bus shed was empty as it had always been since it was put up by the county government, then one morning, as people went to work, as children went to school, a mad man had become a tenant of the shed. Those who cared remembered that first day they saw, but he was more often than not, in a city of millions, ignored by people on the rat race. Or avoided. Mostly avoided.

Like a proverbial mad man, he loved collecting rubbish on the streets. What was now known as his shed was packed with plastic bags and other indistinct paraphernalia. Underneath his collection there were clean blankets he used to protect himself from seasons of stinging cold. If anyone had taken the trouble to check the mad man’s luggage, they would have been surprised to find clean white vests and underwear. But nobody bothered to check.

He spoke to no one, but Kerubo. In all the years he had been a regular on Kirinyaga Road, he had not been able to decide if people feared him or found him beneath them. Either way, he was left alone. Even other mad men left him alone. Small time thugs, ones he could have stopped if he wanted to, would rob people in his presence; what he believed were philanders ignored him as they fumbled in his presence but would stop as soon as a sane-looking person appeared, street preachers ignored him. Even the county government askaris left him alone as they chased everyone else. School children ran away from him when they were not throwing off target stone missiles at him. He was okay with all that. He did not blame them. In their shoes, he would probably do the same.

He was known as Chizi Samuel. Chizi from Sheng word for a mad man, Samuel because it was the name he repeated over and over again. Samuel was the answer to any question from anyone with enough guts to talk to him. Only he, and Kerubo, knew he was more sane than half the people who passed by his shed. Often, bored Kirinyaga Road mechanics would shout greetings at him across the road, greetings he often ignored or answered with Samuel.

Every two weeks, Chizi Samuel would disappear for a week. The regulars would hardly miss his presence, too engrossed in their rat race to notice the two weeks and two days cycle.

Chizi Samuel liked lingering around idle groups of people. If he found a group of people seated and talking in hushed tones, he would find a spot near them. His years on the streets had taught him to pick up body language that indicated mischief. He would shut his eyes and nod his head now and then, feigning sleep. He let his eyes roam around the street, looking out for anything out of the usual chaotic norm.

Every morning and lunch time, Kerubo would carry home-cooked food and drinks to Chizi Samuel and sit with him at the shed until he was done eating. When there was intelligence to exchange, they did it as Samuel had his meal, Kerubo sitting next to him. Sometimes, because many years of meeting seven days a week for three weeks a month had turned them into more than colleagues, they shared jokes. They made a strange pair. Sometimes, people stopped to look at them.

Kerubo joined Kirinyaga Road fraternity three weeks before Samuel. She started feeding him on his first day on the streets, something that had riled other shop owners who had called for an urgent security meeting. 

“You are encouraging slime into the streets by feeding him. Today it will be just him, tomorrow all the mad men will hear about your feeding program and move to Kirinyaga Road.” One shop owner had protested, earning vigorous nods from the others.

“Why is he slime? Because he is mentally unstable? You should be more concerned about robbers than a harmless man who is just happy to be fed. What type of a security meeting is this anyway? Discussing mad men instead of security?”

That security meeting had lasted not more than ten minutes because none of the others had a comeback, and the fact that towered above many of them, unsmiling, and that none of them wanted to anger the beautiful girl. "Here is the deal," she had offered the truce. "If we get more mad men, I will stop feeding him." That had settled it. 
Chizi Samuel would make sure no mad men came to Kirinyaga Road.

Kerubo was twenty eight years old. Her parents were from Kisii but not only could she not speak more than ten words of her Mother Tongue, she had never been to Kisii or its environs. She was born and bred in Gachie, a chaotic town on the outskirts of Nairobi City popular for its petty crimes. Kerubo could however read and speak Kikuyu. It was her first language because even her parents who had lived in Kikuyu-land for years, spoke Kikuyu, unless they were fighting. They had fought often. Often was every day. As a little girl, one word of Kisii from either of her parents had been her cue to leave the room. Their fights had been both physically and verbally vicious and before she had learned to run before they escalated, she had been caught in several crossfires. Her parents were also perpetual drunks who did not know when to stop drinking. They drunk all her school fees. And they ignored her. Sometimes they would go for days without speaking a word to her, without asking if she had eaten, or gone to school.

She hated them but as she grew older, she felt nothing for them.

There was hardly any food in the house. Her mother only cooked when she was extremely hungry, and the food would be boiled potatoes and bananas. Sometimes, they would forget to feed her. Sometimes, her parents came home from work and alcohol dens carrying mutura and use their dirty fingers with dirtier finger nails to pinch off a small piece for her.

Sometimes, benevolent neighbours would feed her. Many times, Kerubo went to the market to wait for a kind hearted stranger to notice her dry lips. Many times, she would rummage through rubbish, looking for anything that looked remotely edible.

Until the day Mrs. Kamau noticed her. She was a gawky four year old, too tall for her age. Mrs Kamau had wrongly estimated her age to be six.

In her adulthood, Kerubo would wonder how she had managed to survive her childhood. She had no memory of her parents ever taking care of her. She did not know if they were drunks when she was a baby. She did not know if she was breastfed, or washed. She did  have memories of equally poor neighbours feeding and washing her once in a while, but what she remembered most was waking herself up, drinking water for breakfast, hoping a neighbour would feed her and if they did not, go to the market and spend all day and accepting food offers from strangers, walking back home, taking herself to sleep on her thin mattress and cover herself with a torn blanket, hoping her parents, in their drunken stupors, would not step on her. And the cycle would continue day after day.

The day she met Mrs. Kamau, she had been rummaging a dumpsite where market sellers threw away spoilt fruits.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Kamau asked. She had been carrying a kiondo on her back, having just finished shopping.

Kerubo had stood up, ready to be told off. It would not have been the first time. Strangers often told her off, demanded to know where her parents were. Sometimes they chased her from the dumpsite. She would hide around the corner and wait for them to disappear, then resume the rummaging.

Mrs. Kamau had been different. She had kind eyes, and she offered Kerubo a banana from the kiondo.

“Have you eaten anything?” Kerubo had not, so she shook her head. “You poor thing. You look so hungry. Where are your parents?” Kerubo had shaken her head as she looked into the distance. At four, her speech was still struggling to develop. That she did not mix with neighbourhood children, that her parents hardly spoke to her, meant she never got to practice it much.

“Come…come with me…” Kerubo had looked at Mrs. Kamau’s stretched hand with suspicion. “Come. I will buy tea and mandazi for you as you tell me about yourself.” At that moment, her stomach had rumbled with hunger and excitement. She could not remember when she last had a warm anything in her mouth. She had followed Mrs. Kamau to a hotel nearby.

Mrs. Kamau had watched Kerubo put chunks of mandazi in her mouth, chunks that should have choked the little girl. She had watched her, in silence, as she drunk the hot tea too fast, like one who had a timeline on finishing the food.

Five mandazis later and two cups of tea, Kerubo had relaxed and burped.

“What’s your name?” Mrs. Kamau finally asked.

“Kerubo…”

“How old are you?”

Kerubo did not know. She shook her head.

“Where are your parents?” All Mrs. Kamau got was that distant look before the little girl turned away to look through the glass window, shoulders hunching with a near slump. “Are they alive?” Kerubo had nodded. “Can you show me where you live?” Kerubo nodded again.

The two had walked about a kilometre from the market to where Kerubo lived. They found a group of laughing women. Some were doing their laundry, others just watching the washers. All were talking and laughing. All that stopped when Kerubo and Mrs. Kamau walked into the compound. She pointed at the house she lived it. It was locked.

Mrs. Kamau turned to the women. By the time they finished narrating what she considered the most harrowing story of Kerubo’s young life, she was fighting tears.

***

It took a week for Mrs. Kamau to enrol Kerubo to a nursery school. Before that, she made several attempts to speak to the little girl’s parents but their constant inebriated state made them incoherent. “You can do what you want…” was the longest sentence she got from either of them. She had waited with Kerubo, outside the house, until the inebriated parents arrived at eight PM. Mrs Kamau would repeatedly tell the shock she got when the parents had looked at Kerubo in confusion, not for finding her outside the house with a stranger at eight PM, but like they were seeing her for the first time. 
A discussion with them was impossible, the very reason Mrs Kamau had gone to the chief’s office the following day to ask for help to get Kerubo’s birth certificate so she could be enrolled in school. "But why are you not doing anything about that child?" Mrs Kamau had asked the chief. He, the chief, had shrugged. "There are worse cases. We start with the worst, and she is not even close." Heartbroken, Mrs Kamau had walked home, determined to turn the little girl's life around if nobody else was willing to.

On her first day in school, Kerubo reported in old hand-me-down uniform, but she was in uniform, one she was proud of. Every day after school, she stopped by Mrs. Kamau’s house, half a kilometre from her own, to eat and wash. And that was how it played until Kerubo became an adult.

Sometimes, Mrs. Kamau, whose children were either in high school or university, would struggle to settle Kerubo’s fee, or buy her books, or uniform. From better off parents, she borrowed old uniforms, begged for books, overlooked her school fees and would jump her name when it was time to send children home for school fees. Sometimes, the head teacher would be the one calling out names, and Kerubo would walk home, dejected.

During her early years of primary school, Kerubo had missed more days in school than she had been present. With everything working against her, she had worked hard and often managed to still be at the near top of the class.

She was in class three when Mrs. Kamau asked her to accompany her to the head teacher’s office. The little girl, wearing torn uniform and worse shoes, had followed Mrs. Kamau with hunched shoulders, sure that her fate was sealed, sure that Mrs. Kamau was finally fed up of covering for her, of feeding her and clothing her.

It wasn’t the case. It had been too good to be true.

 “She is a bright student and if every teacher could contribute a little towards her fees, I will take care of her uniform and lunch.” Mrs. Kamau had concluded her case to the head teacher.  

The head teacher had silently compared Kerubo’s academic record against her attendance record. When he was done studying it, he wiped his brow, pinched his forehead and sighed. “I know somebody who would be happy to sponsor her education and everything that comes with it. I will get in touch with them.” He had declared before turning to the skinny and too tall for her age girl hunched next to Mrs. Kamau. “Kerubo, I do not want you to worry about school fees. I want you to worry about your grades. Make us all proud.” Kerubo had nodded vigorously, tears burning her bright eyes.

And she had. Made them all proud. Gachie was finally in the news not as a hub for petty crimes but for a bright student who had beaten all odds to be the sub-county’s top student in the final exam. For a week, Kerubo became a mini-celebrity that everyone from the common man to the leaders wanted to be associated with. For that week, her parents managed to keep off alcohol, or at least look half-sober. They did not fight either but when left alone with them, they would look at her like they were seeing her for the first time. It had made her uneasy when they tried to have a conversation with her. She would quickly leave their presence, tongue-tied. That one week, the family received food and clothes donations, stuff that her parents sold to raise money for alcohol once the excitement died.

She had gone back to visiting Mrs. Kamau whenever she was hungry and avoiding her parents, but for the first time in her life, Kerubo had felt truly happy. Sponsors had promised and delivered on their promises; to sponsor her high school education. An account to her name, one that was controlled by Mrs. Kamau, the head teacher and the area Chief, was opened. That account would see to it that Kerubo had full school uniform, school books and pocket money for the four years she was a high school student. At the end of the four years, the account that still had a few thousand shillings was handed to her.

Kerubo joined university. She had every intention to become a teacher so as to emulate her hero, the mother she never had, Mrs. Kamau.

“Will we get sponsors like last time?” Her drunken mother had asked her when she delivered the news of her exam results. Kerubo had walked out, lump in her throat, tears blinding her eyes she almost bumped onto the door frame. That was the moment she had decided to act like she did not have parents, to start living like she did not have. She had gone ahead and used the money from the account to get her own accommodation next to Mrs. Kamau’s house and a couple of hundred metres from her parents.

Kerubo found it slightly amusing that her alcoholic parents never missed a day of work. By six AM, they would both be out of the house. One fine March morning after they left, she gathered her few belongings and packed them in a plastic bag.

“What do you have in the bag?” Mrs. Kamau had asked her cautiously. Unlike other days when Kerubo would only turn up for lunch, she had knocked on the Kamau’s door at eight AM. In silence and suspicious glances from Mrs. Kamau, she had accepted a breakfast of hot chocolate and buttered bread.

“I do not want to live at home anymore.” She had answered boldly. “I don’t want to live here either.” She had added quickly, noticing Mrs. Kamau unease. “Could you please help me withdraw the remaining money from the bank? I want to get my own house…”

“Oh…” Kerubo had noticed, with slight sadness, the relief on Mrs. Kamau’s face on learning she did not want to move in with her. “That I can do, but I do not know if it is enough to sustain you.”

“It’s okay. I do not mind sleeping on the floor…I just cannot be with my parents anymore. I will do menial jobs…please…”

They had gone to the bank. Kerubo had withdrawn all the money, just enough to pay for a month’s rent, one month’s deposit and buy a thin mattress. Mrs. Kamau had donated a blanket, a stove and a few utensils.

“You are on your own.” Mrs. Kamau had told her as she helped her arrange the few items, a task that had taken all three minutes. “I will try to be there as much as I can, as usual, but you need to learn to take care of yourself.” Kerubo nodded, but only out of courtesy. She did not need to hear form her mentor that she was on her own. She had been on her own since she was born, it had just taken her eighteen years to accept that fact.

Her parents may have lived a few hundred metres from her, but that was the last time she would see her mother alive, and her father barely alive.

As she waited to join university, Kerubo worked every job that was available. She washed clothes for richer neighbours including the Kamaus. She was tired, but she was happy. And free.

Kerubo had no idea what a financially easy life felt like, but every night in her one room, every night as she ate cold food to save on fuel, every night as she listened to the small radio that Mrs. Kamau had given her, she dreamed about a good, easy life. She analysed her life, why she was so miserable. In those dreams, Mrs. Kamau would have been her choice of mother, but they would not be living in Gachie. They would be living in Runda. Or Tigoni.

She had never been anywhere near the rich areas unless she was passing by in a matatu, but high school had exposed her to a life beyond her poverty perimeter. She knew of girls who claimed to have televisions in their rooms – that had made her feel small. The closest she had been to a television was in Mrs. Kamau’s house, and she had never even watched it. Some girls apparently had their own rooms – she had listened to the things they got up to in fascination, at the same time thinking about the crumped room she had shared with her parents since birth. She looked at the photos the girls carried to school, photos of them having fun and wearing beautiful clothes. With stinging eyes, she would try to forget her two dresses, both hand-me-downs and in desperate need of replacements, and her Ngoma canvas shoes that no longer looked anywhere close to their original black colour.

She doubted any of the girls had perpetually drunk parents, like she did. None of the girls sounded like they avoided their parents, like she did, by default. With envy that often threatened to choke, she would listen to her school mates talk about boyfriends and dates and presents. She questioned herself, why there were no boys interested in her. Over the holidays, she would try to meet boys’ eyes, but as soon as they locked eyes with hers, they would look away.

For that reason, it confused her when the same girls told her she was beautiful.

“You should have boys falling on their feet for you…” One of the girls, the natural leader of the pack by virtue of her exciting sounding life, had told Kerubo one time. It had been a Saturday afternoon, the only times they had to gossip for hours. About ten girls, including Kerubo, were sprawled on their beds.

“I don’t think I am beautiful enough. Boys never talk to me…” Kerubo had said. The girl had caught her off guard. It was not often she was the centre of attention, always preferring to listen to all the exciting stories and dream about how much better her life would have been if she had a fraction of their excitement.

“You are kidding. You are so beautiful….or maybe they do not like how tall you are. You are so tall…”

Lying on the bed, Kerubo had instinctively pulled her legs closer to her chest, like one trying to make herself shorter. “Maybe…” she had whispered, wishing away the attention.

 “Or maybe it is boys from your area. Do you ever go out?” Another girl had asked.

“I…I have never gone out…” She had stuttered, face hot with embarrassment.

“Why?” The same girl asked in shock. The others had giggled.

“Why what?”

“Why everything. You are seventeen. How have you never gone out, or had a boyfriend?”

 Kerubo had shrugged, feeling exposed and cornered. “I told you; I don’t think I am beautiful enough. It could be because I come from a poor family…” She shrugged.

Some girls had laughed. Others had given her sad looks.

“You do not look poor. You are very beautiful…you can make a very good fashion model. Tall, skinny…” She had been on the brim of asking what poor people looked like, but she did not trust her throat’s sudden contractions. That would be the first time somebody suggested that she could be a fashion model. It would the first of many.

Some of the girls had agreed. That she was beautiful. Kerubo had both hated and loved the attention that had lasted all three minutes. That she had had to come clean about her family finances had been embarrassing, even though Mrs. Kamau had always told her it was not her fault, that nobody had the liberty to choose where they were born, but also, that for the first time somebody, several people, had told her that she was beautiful. It had warmed her heart, literally. Made her feel alive. She had felt her chest grow warm. Her face had twitched with an involuntary smile, one she had hidden by putting a palm on her mouth.

The following morning, she had spent a long time looking at her own reflection on the broken mirrors in the school communal bathrooms and whisper to herself, over and over, that she was beautiful. Every day after that, she stood across the same spot and told herself that she did not look poor. Never again had she come clean about her poor background. She concocted a story, that if anyone was ever curious about her background, she would tell them she was an orphan, left in charge of a tea estate somewhere in Tigoni. She never did get to use her concocted story.

***

Mrs. Kamau was married to a bank manager. A quiet man. On the few occasions Kerubo had met him, nodding was his way of greeting and conversation. He reminded her of her own near-mute parents, but at least he did not drink. Between them, they had four children who seemed to have taken after their father in character. Kerubo had seen them on several occasions, not anymore because they were now all grownup and no longer living at home. They had never been rude to her but she had felt strangely looked down upon. Whenever she turned up for lunch, they would leave the kitchen.

As a grownup, Kerubo would understand Mrs. Kamau’s hesitation on letting her stay in her house longer than it took her to have a meal.  The truth that Kerubo would never know was if it were up to Mrs. Kamau, she would have moved the little girl in. But she, Kerubo, was a contentious issue that had so nearly caused a rift between her and her husband.

“She is not your responsibility. Report her case to the children’s department if it bothers you so much.” He had told her several times. She had refused to do so on every occasion. Her argument was, if the children’s department was so effective, they would already have helped Kerubo. |Everyone, including the chief, knows about her. Nobody does anything.” What she did not voice was her fear of losing Kerubo to a foster home. Even worse, a children’s home. She needed the little girl where she could access her. “She is going to be a great woman, you watch this space.”

With reluctance, Mr. Kamau had let his stubborn wife be, but on condition that she would not try to move her in with them. “She has the type of parents that would report you to the authorities for abduction.” Mrs. Kamau had not doubted that.

When Kerubo got admitted to a public university, it was Mrs. Kamau who had taken her shopping. It was she who took her to the university to register, made sure she was settled in her dormitory. It was Mrs. Kamau that Kerubo would visit during the weekends, not her parents.

“Have they asked about me?” Kerubo once asked.

“Your parents? No… I am sorry.”

“It’s alright. I should be used to this by now…”

“No one gets used to being ignored by people who are meant to care most. I need you to understand one thing though; your parents do not hate you, they are just two sick people. Alcoholism is a sickness. I am certain they hate how they treat you, but they realise they have messed too much with you. I do not want you to hate them because hatred has a way of stopping us from greatness. You have to promise me that you will not hate them…”

Kerubo had. Half-heartedly. She could have told Mrs. Kamau that she did not hate them, which would have been the truth, but there was the risk of Mrs. Kamau thinking she loved them, which she did not. She felt nothing for her parents. Long time ago she had ceased to care.

***

By the time Kerubo joined university, Mr Kamau’s heart had softened.  He helped her get an internship at the bank. There was no job description. She had done everything from making tea for the bosses to messenger duties to filing. She had loved it. She had loved the money more, but on the day she withdrew all her salary, her first salary, on one Friday so she could get herself a bed and a seat, she had lost it all to a matatu pick-pocket. Kerubo had alighted from the matatu and her bag had felt lighter than it should have been. In disbelief and disdain for whoever had done it, she had looked at the gaping hole at the bottom of her handbag, not just angry that she had lost every single cent, but her identity card.

She had let the bag slip off her hands, then her knees had gone liquid and had only realised she was sitting on the dusty ground when people started milling around her. She had cried, silently. Then she had walked to the Kamau’s, totally dejected. Kerubo knew that was where her hatred for criminals had started. The next month, her daily needs, including transport, were taken care of by Mrs Kamau.

She did not possess an ample bust, but she learned how to tuck in her money under the bra. She had learned to hug her handbag close to her chest too. If anyone was ever going to take away her possessions, they would have to use a lot of force. And she would fight them.

Every semester after that, Kerubo got a job in different companies, courtesy of the Kamaus. She worked from law firms to marketing firms and anything in between.  All her internships were arranged for by the Kamaus, until the day she ‘accidentally’ asked for a job at a police station.

It was a rainy afternoon, and the rain had been spontaneous. That morning, she had left her one room house with the intention of visiting her parents. She had not seen them for years and Mrs Kamau had told her that she heard her mother was unwell. She had walked past her parents’ compound several times but had been unable to bring herself to going in. Eventually she had decided to take a long walk to nowhere, hoping by the time she got back, she would find it within herself to go in.

Kilometres away, the skies had gone dark very fast. The first fat drop of rain had hit her forehead. She had wiped it off and looked up to the sky. The next drop had entered her eye. She had turned back and tried to run, but the rain was faster than her. The police station, the only building closest to her, had looked like a good place to take shelter, so she had entered. A young policeman, looking terribly bored, had looked at her with disdain, one eyebrow lifted.

 “Yes? Can I help you?” He asked as he flipped covers of an old occurrence book.

Kerubo remembered feeling a little silly. A little like a dog would, she had shaken her soaked body, water dripping on to the floor around her. She had run a hand over her soaked face to clear her vision.

“I asked, how may I help you?” The policeman asked again, this time forcefully. “Do you want to report something?”

Kerubo stood on the same spot in the middle of the room, looking at the dripped floor and wondering how she had thought taking shelter in a police station was a good idea. She shook her head without looking at the policeman.

“Well, is there someone you want to see?”

She shook her head.

“A police station is not place for idlers so if you have nothing to do…” He pointed at the door and went back to flipping the pages.

“It’s raining…”

“Oh, who would have thought?” The policeman sneered. “Now, get out…”

“Can I see your boss?” That she asked that shocked her as much as she shocked the policeman.

The policeman laughed in disbelief. “Which boss? I have many…”

“The big boss…”

Kerubo was not new to humiliation and fortunately. She knew it in all its shapes and forms. A long time ago before Mrs Kamau walked into her life, humiliation had ceased to intimidate her. Humiliation had become something that had fuelled her. She was still poor, but she had learned the word poor was not written on her face. She stood up straight and faced the policeman.

“Can I please, please, see your boss? I need to ask him something?”

“What do you want to ask?”

“I would rather talk to your boss, please….” She said stubbornly.

“Listen here lady, this is a police station, not a social office. You do not get to see my boss unless I know what it is you want to ask him. If you cannot tell me, I repeat, you need to leave, right now.”

Kerubo sighed and turned to look at the rain. It was still pouring. Harder than it had before she came in. Suddenly the rain looked better than arguing with the policeman with bad attitude. She turned to go, only to bump into another policeman at the door. He was dressed different, in brown uniform and had a body language that alluded a certain authority that made Kerubo step aside .

“Sorry sir…” She mumbled.

“Young lady, are you alright?”

Kerubo nodded before stepping outside.

“What is her problem?” He asked the policeman at the reception.

“Afande, she is just disturbing. She said she wants to see the boss…” The young cop answered, starting to laugh but quickly realised his boss did not find the joke. “Sir…”

“What did you tell her?”

“I asked her to tell me what she wanted, she refused to say so I sent her away, sir…” The young cop suddenly looked doubtful. He stood up straight, looking at his boss walk out and call back Kerubo.

“Come. |You want to see me?” Kerubo considered making a run for it. The man talking to her, wearing a brown uniform, was looking as intimidating as she had ever seen anyone. The only reason she nodded instead of running was because he did not sound intimidating. He had a friendly voice. She was nervous and cold.

He nodded, at least she thought he meant to nod, but he grunted instead. “Come on, follow me to my office.”

As she walked behind the huge frame, Kerubo’s instinct was to smirk at the young cop.  She stole a glance at him and saw the humiliation, or humility, on his face. He was standing so straight, for a moment he looked like a statue. She smiled at him instead.

It was an old office in desperate need of a makeover. Everything looked so old and dusty. The cop took his seat, positioned between flags, and pointed at the seat opposite his desk, inviting Kerubo to sit down. Inside the unimpressive office, she was asked to take the seat opposite the policeman. She shivered and rubbed her shoulders. 

“You look cold…” He finally said. Kerubo shivered again.

“I am soaked…”

“I can see that. Why are you here? Do you want to report something?”

She shook her head, for a moment forgetting how wet and uncomfortable she was getting by the second. “No…I…I was just looking for a place to take shelter from the rain. This looked like a good place…”

And he laughed. He did not look so intimidating anymore. He laughed for long as Kerubo shifted severally on her seat, desperately trying to gauge his type of laughter, whether he had found her explanation ridiculous or hilarious. Eventually, she smiled.

“Oh well, I can conclude you have no criminal streak in you. The only people who would think a police station is a good place to take shelter are the near righteous. I can tell you that is refreshing…”

Kerubo smiled.

“My name is Njagi. I am the OCS – Officer Commanding Station. Most people don’t know my name, they just call me OCS. Sometimes I think that is my name because even my wife has started calling me that…”

Kerubo studied him, seeing a smile on his face as he spoke about his wife. He tried to imagine her father talking about her mother with tenderness. Her imagination refused to cooperate.

“Anyway, sorry about my officer out there. We are all used to dealing with criminals, everyone who walks here is a criminal until proven otherwise…”

“I understand. I am not angry.”

“Good. What do you do?”

And she told him. Then, surprising herself even more than she surprised the OCS, she asked for a holiday job.

“What?”

She cleared her throat. “I am on a long break from the university. I am looking for a job. I am very good at pretty much anything.”

“Good for you. It is always refreshing when a young person wants to sweat for their money, but pray do tell, what sort of job you are looking for.”

She shrugged, looking around the office. “Anything. I can even clean. I am very good at what I do…I can bring you testimonials from all the places I have worked before…”

He swept his hand. “That is not necessary. But there are a couple of things that may make it difficult for me to even consider your request. One, that I am not at liberty to employ anyone and two, a police station deals in very sensitive information, information you would have to be cleared for before working here.”

“Even cleaning?”

“Perhaps, but you would still have to be cleared…”

“Oh, thank you anyway…”

“Tell you what,” he said, fishing out for his phone. “I may just be able to help you. I have a friend who runs a private company. Hang on as I call him and see if he has anything…”

The friend did. The OCS gave her the location, asked her to go with her papers on Monday.

“Stop by whenever you can and say hello.” He said as she shut the door behind her. On her way out, she stopped by the reception counter, just long enough for her to thank the policeman and enjoy the confusion on his face. He nodded.

It was still raining but as she walked through the rain, she hardly felt it. She was smiling. She had a job, and she had got it herself.

On the day she started her new job, her mother died of tuberculosis.

A week later, she asked for a day off work to attend her burial at the public cemetery in the company of Mrs Kamau. She did not cry, not for lack of trying. She could not muster any tears. The only person who cried was her father who looked a few inches away from death. “He’s going to die soon,” Kerubo muttered to herself and allowed herself some guilt.

He did die. A few weeks later. Kerubo did not attend the burial. Mrs Kamau did.

***

Her new job.

It was a large open plan office located in Westlands. At the door was a sign “Modern Investigation Services.” On her first week, she made tea and cleaned the offices. Her first job upgrade came along on the second week when she was asked to help with the filing.

A month into the job, her new boss called her into the office, the only one with any sort of privacy. Through the glass walls, one could still see what was happening outside.

Her boss was a slightly smaller version of the OCS. If it were not for their two names that came from two different tribes, they would have passed for brothers. He never wore suits, instead favouring jeans, sneakers and tee-shirts. Once in a while when he had meetings, he would wear a cotton shirt.

His name was Onyango.

“How has it been?” He asked when they were both settled on their seats.

“It’s been good. I am learning a lot.”

“So I hear, so I hear…” He was studying her unblinkingly. Kerubo was blinking nonstop, torn between turning away and studying her fingers.

“So, anyway, I am not sure if you fully understand what we do here?”

She shook her head. She knew it was a private investigations firm, but that was as far as her knowledge went. She told him as much.

“Right. The long and short of it is we work alongside the police most of the time. A bit like a private police station. Of course, we take on other jobs but our main clients is the government. We try to look for criminals who have escaped the police dragnet…” He turned to a chat behind him. “That….” He pointed at it. “That is a list of top twenty criminals we are looking for.”

“Can’t the police do that instead?”

“They can. In fact, they should, but sometimes the criminals work with the police and there is often reluctance to bring some of them to books. That is where we come in…”

“Oh…”

“Besides helping in catching the criminals, sometimes we are called to crime hotspots. For instance, if there is a rape hotspot, we are called to trap the rapists…”

“How?” This was exciting her, so much so she was unable to hold back the questions.

“I am glad you asked.” Onyango said with some amusement. “We send our girls there and hope the rapists would attack them…”

Kerubo sat up straight in shock. ”Hope they get raped?”

“Oh no. That would be terrible. No. We send them there as what is popularly known as honey-traps. We use them to attract the criminals. There is always backup close by. Usually the backup gets there before anything bad happens…”

Kerubo relaxed her shoulders but her pupils remained dilated with curiosity. “Oh…so nothing bad ever happens?” She asked hopefully.

“Sometimes there are injuries.” Onyango said with a shrug. “Nothing life threatening.”

It was at that precise moment that their eyes met, when she realised he was gauging. This, she realised, was more than an information session. Her mouth formed a silent O as she sat back straight. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I think you can make a wonderful honey-trap.” He said as a matter of fact.

“Me?”

He nodded. “Yes, you. That is, if you want. There is good money too.” Her look softened. “Most of my honey-traps are cops and ex-cops, trained in self-defence…”

“I don’t know any of that.”

“I know. That is why I am offering you training. Training in basic self-defence and firearm use…”

“Guns?” She asked too loudly.

“Guns.”

Kerubo had an urge to panic but Onyango was being so calm, she did not want to look like she was over reacting. But it was worth panicking about. He was asking her to put her life in danger. He was asking her to learn to protect herself because she would be in the line of fire, literally. She was being asked to learn how to use guns. How was that not worth panicking about.

“Look,” Onyango interrupted her frantic thoughts, ones that had driven her to bite her fingers. “I know this is a lot to ask. Scary. I do not even want you to give me an answer now…you are in second year of university, right?” She nodded, still biting her fingers. “How about you think about it. You do not have to give me an answer until you graduate. What I am doing is offering a job with us, it is up to you. In the meantime, you can come and work here whenever you are on break. Learn how things work around here.” He tapped his table in dismissal. “Right. You  have two years to think about it.”

Like one in a dream, Kerubo left the office and continued with the rest of her day in a dream. But she did not need two years. She needed one night. The following day, she knocked on Onyango’s door and accepted the offer.

“Good. But of course, you will need a lot of training so it will probably be two years before I send you into the field. In the meantime, there is something you can do. Your university…”

“What about it?”

“Well, there are criminals there, like it is everywhere. Keep your ears to the ground, listen, observe. If anything looks out of place, report, to me. Can you do that?”

She nodded. Her hatred for criminals made it easy for her to make that decision.

“Also, you will need to join a self-defence class…”

That was six years ago.

In between, Kerubo polished her skills as an undercover operative. She was a honey-trap, several times over. Several times she had to do things that would leave her disgusted with herself, like sleeping with the men she was helping investigate, but that feeling of disgust would only last a day, then it would be back to the drill. It’s not like she had a boyfriend to worry about. Men still did not approach her for love.

***

It was a sunny and dusty day in Nairobi. Kerubo was not sure what irritated her more between the dust and the heat. As usual, she was wearing a grey dustcoat over her jeans. On her feet, she wore a pair of sneakers. Her braided hair was covered with a hat. The dustcoat helped keep her gun out of sight.

It was a slow business hour, and she took the time to go through the dailies. She was reading a story in one of the dailies when she clicked her tongue with anger.

“What?” Selina was a shop assistant, the only person Kerubo had closest to a friend.  

“It’s the crime rate in the city. Something needs to be done about the robberies…” With a pen she untucked from behind  her ears, she tapped on the story, repeatedly.

Selina shook her head. “I know, but why do you keep reading these stories when they make you so angry? Just read the next story, the one with the cheating spouses and ensuing drama…”

“Ignoring the story will not make the reality change…” She was always shocked by Selina’s attitude towards important stuff.

“Ignorance is bliss, and I sleep better at night – unlike you.”

And Selina should know about Kerubo’s sleeping habits. They went out together occasionally, and they would sleep in each other’s houses, in the same bed. Kerubo turning and tossing would see to it that Selina slept on the sofa.

“But what if they come to our shop?”

“Reading the story will not make them not come…” Argued Selina. It made sense, not enough though to make Kerubo stop feeding her mind with crime stories, it was part of her job anyway. “You know…” Selina assumed a stern stance. “You care too much about stuff. You are the one feeding the mad man, you are the one worried about the crime you have no control over…let it all go and enjoy life.”

“But what if we all did something about it?”

“Like what?”

“Like telling on the thugs we know about? Surely these thugs are somebody’s husband, neighbour, brother…”

“Do you have a brother?”

Kerubo shook her head. “You know I don’t.”

“A husband?”

Another headshake and an eye-roll. “Of course not.”

“Then you have no idea how difficult it is to tell on a loved one…” Selina sneered as she walked away. From their many drunken conversations, Selina being the drunk, she had let it slip how she suspected that her elder brother was an armed robber. “He has money that we cannot explain. He is a car salesman, or so he says, but the kind of money he burns is way beyond his job description. Also, his friend told me that he is never home at night.”

Kerubo thoughtfully looked at Selina as she disappeared at the back of the shop and sighed. She folded the offending newspaper, put it away beside the cash machine, removed the food dish from under the table and went in search of Chizi Samuel. It was lunch time, and time to catch up.