beauty was in its alchemy, how it conjured riches from what had always been a swamp.
In the 1990s, most of the city’s inhabitants could not trace back their roots in Nairobi beyond one generation. The overwhelming majority were new. Some came running down from the highlands, afraid of a life of endless farming. Others came by way of the Great Rift Valley, hungry for a chance to become Nation Builders. Others still, crossed borders, desirous of a new life in the metropolitan heart of East Africa. Then there were those who came carried along the Tradewinds of the Indian Ocean, singing that here, in this city they were destined to find Love and Wealth. To be a Nairobian was to be struck with the ravenous lunacy that plagues only the alchemist.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Series of First Encounters, February, 1991
Packing up their thirty-five square foot cube of a flat took no time at all for the Mathais. Beatrice took little with them. Most of their clothes, furniture and even photo albums were handed down to relatives. The past, sticky as it is, cannot be conveniently handed down but Beatrice’s belief in “forward always backwards never” did not allow for the possibility that you couldn’t hand over a memory just because it didn’t fit in with Annie’s Italian furniture in the new house.
The rent? How could they afford this move up in the world? Their business selling care spare parts was thriving as the city council operated Kenya Bus Services collapsed and got cannibalised into inefficiency, pushing up the purchase of cars significantly. Many of these new car owners were not versed in how to take good care of their cars. As a result, they needed spare parts as early as six months into owning their ‘new’ cars. The business had its moral angle to it though. The spare parts––not all––but a number, were stolen parts from cars left unattended and promptly raided of everything but the engine.
Regardless of the questionable provenance of some of their products, this little shop at the bottom of Kirinyaga road was Beatrice’s shrine. The shop was the only place where she felt that the person she was, was right and necessary and enough. Here, she’d spend her days in her own version of bliss: quiet consistent labour towards a future of plenty. What a disappointment for Beatrice when, even after all these years––whether she was ringing up an order, or waiting for a supplier to pick up the phone on the other end––in those brief caesuras of life where a quiet moment was unexpectedly snatched and the clock ticked the seconds a little louder than those that came before––an image would slip into her mind seductive and unbidden.
Macharia that last afternoon they spent together. Even after repeatedly rinsing him from her mind, bleaching the memories that hurt most, the smell of his skin was like a favourite perfume you don’t wear anymore because it reminds you of that time. If she concentrated, she could smell him in those pockets of halted life.
‘But you know this has to stop. What did you think? We would keep doing this for all our lives?’ she was four months pregnant that last afternoon though it didn’t show. Was there a moment she wavered and considered sharing the news of her pregnancy with Macharia? Does it matter anymore?
~
Their daughter, Leslie (Mr. Mathai’s idea), Nyambura Mathai was declared the fattest baby to come out of the Aga Khan Hospital Maternity Ward the day she was born. The nurses had no scruples about nicknaming the baby Kanono. The diminutive stuck long after Kanono and her tired mother (who was now saddled with the equally unfortunate diminutive Mama Kanono), were discharged from the ward.
Mr. Mathai sang Mwanamberi on the drive to the hospital to pick up mother and daughter and he kept up the same song along with the same enthusiasm on the way back to their home. Mama Kanono sat in the back seat, rocking the sleeping Kanono, staring out of her window at April’s torrential rain, wishing Mr. Mathai would not drive so fast or with such little keenness for the road. Every hundred meters, he’d pick up a stale blue rag from the dashboard and wipe the windshield in front of him in vigorous circular motions to clear the mist that kept fogging up the window. Not once did he let up the singing throughout this exercise.
‘She looks just like me!’ Mr. Mathai stood over Mama Kanono watching attentively as she changed Kanono’s nappy. Mr. Mathai was a tall man, Masaai blood ran in his family, he always said whenever people remarked on his height. His forehead was partly obscured by an afro that flopped forwards, his eyes slanted down towards his cheeks that were almost always kicked up in a grin. Mama Kanono said nothing in response to this statement. When Kanono was gently placed in her arms for the first time, she’d expected something of Macharia’s to be present in her daughter. No, it was useless thinking about such frivolous thoughts now. Kanono looked nothing like her father. Very well. These were her cards.
~
On their first Sunday in Malaba, the Mathais were on the way to church when they met the Mutisos. It was a busy morning in the estate. Cars crammed with more people than their size allowed, pulled out of driveways and zipped down the road, shouts of “don’t forget this” and “don’t forget that” ringing all around.
Of the fifty-seven households represented in Malaba Estate, fifty-one had ticked Christian under ‘Religion’ during the 1989 National Census. The hubbub of activity that Sunday was enough to convince anyone that, at least in theory, no one had lied about their religious beliefs.
Mr. Mathai came out of the house first with a cup of tea in hand that he planned to keep drinking on the way to church. Mama Kanono hurriedly passed him with Kanono waddling behind her. Church started promptly at eight a.m. They were thirty minutes late already.
The Mutisos emerged from their home just as the Mathais were getting into their car. The Mutisos had an air of refinement to them. The Patriarch in a fitting dark blue suit with a gold tie, his shoes twinkling in the morning sunlight. Matriarch pumped, stockinged, and in a dress designed to show off all her finer qualities, but still managing to be church appropriate. The dress was a sunflower yellow whose colour so matched her complexion that she appeared to have a halo surrounding her. Her dark skin shown, luminous against this dress. Behind her was a house-help dressed in a chequered white and blue uniform with a matching cap, a child on either side of her. The girls, twins, wore yellow dresses identical to their mother’s, white stockings with lace trimming, and pumps with a slight heel!
The Mutisos looked like those pictures that come in photo frames that you’re supposed to remove and replace with your lacklustre excuse for a happy family photo. Every estate has that one family that is revered for the excellence with which they live their lives, their wealth (both purported and real), and their compounded beauty. The Mutisos were that family for Malaba Estate. They were, to be plain about it, the finest family in Malaba and with an ushago in Karen to top it off!
The families took in each other. The Mutisos saw a dishevelled but handsome Mr. Mathai, a thin Mama Kanono with her braids severely pulled back against her face, a chubby little girl by her side.
Good etiquette recalled, it was Mrs. Mutiso who began the introductions.
‘You’re the family that’s just moved in?’ Mr. Mutiso asked interrupting Mrs. Mutiso.
‘Two days ago in fact––’ Mr. Mathai bounded forward to greet Mr. Mutiso.
‘What a beautiful baby!’ Mrs. Mutiso offered, smiling at Kanono. ‘If only mine could agree to eat as much as her.’
‘But look at yours, they are so well behaved. And the matching dresses…’ Mama Kanono returned.
Their first conversation was a dance of half sentences, polite remarks and appraisal. The basics of each family were gleaned. The Mutisos had moved into Malaba a few years earlier,
