the details got scarce. Mr. Mutiso mentioned he had grown up right here in Nairobi, Mrs. Mutiso agreed he had grown up in Nairobi but didn’t expound on her background, as if in marriage, she had assumed her husband’s past. The party agreed to organise a Sunday lunch once the Mathais had settled in though neither of its members felt convinced that the lunch would ever materialize and now, come to think of it, the two families never did enjoy a meal together as a complete unit.
~
Mama Kanono could not countenance the embarrassment of walking into church an hour late, as a result, the Mathais got back home at twelve p.m. having waited in the church parking lot for the second service to begin. As Mr. Mathai switched off the engine of their Nissan, he informed Mama Kanono about the lunch party they were to host in a matter of minutes for their friends, who (his words), couldn’t wait another day to see their new house!
‘Nyambura! Please! Enda ucheze mahali pengine. Can’t you see mummy is cooking?’ Mama Kanono and her daughter were standing in the corridor just outside the kitchen, a designated washing area that at present had a jiko boiling over with meat Mama Kanono had fished out of the fridge. They’d be lucky if a guest did not lose a tooth to the beef. There was no way the meat was going to soften before the time the guests arrived. Mr. Mathai had gone to the supermarket to buy what he termed as “provisions”.
Kanono moved closer to her mother her chubby little hands grabbing at Mama Kanono’s wide skirt, a wider comical grin on the baby’s face.
‘Mummy!’ she repeated then gargled in laughter.
‘Yes, mummy is busy.’ Mama Kanono picked up her daughter and walked back into the kitchen. ‘Priscilla! We’ll be late. People are coming and this food won’t cook itself.’
Priscilla, the Mathais’ house-help had disappeared under the pretext of looking for clean tea towels. Now, she was perched on the arm of one of the sofas in the living room watching TV.
From the kitchen window, Mama Kanono saw a commotion taking place outside. Another family was in the process of moving in.
~
Back then, the Karanjas were considered a large family. Having begun a church two years into their marriage, Mr. and Mrs Karanja’s home was occupied by a minimum of ten people at any one time. It was a home for their five children and a refuge for relatives, friends and congregation members.
A pickup laboriously rattled towards their gate, piled high with a brown sofa set, coffee tables, cooker, fridge and so many other pieces of furniture that the back of the pickup looked like an abstract painting of chaos.
Mama Kanono, her daughter on her hip, watched the pandemonium from the solitude of her kitchen.
Mrs. Karanja was the kind of industrious woman born to lead a nation but saddled with a large gregarious family instead. She stood in the middle of the road giving directions to the pickup driver not to back the car up into the wall. It was like a scene out of a rowdy under-budget, but successful film. There were arguments erupting and being foiled every second, people going in and out of the house, children playing on the pavement whilst adults admonished or called out for help or order.
At the fringes of this earthquake of a family, Esther Karanja sat on the pavement sucking her thumb, an expression of unease on her face. She was the Karanja’s last born child and worst of all she was born during the short rains, a bad time to be born you must understand. People expect too much from the short-rains season. They hope the rains will make up for the long-rain season’s abysmal performance. They hope these brief interludes of warm water spat reluctantly from clouds so light you’d be hard pressed to call them cumulonimbus will bring food. But they are wrong. They are always wrong. No one expects the rains to fail, no one expects the drought to persist, in short no one expects the disappointment of the short-rains season and anyone born in the age of disappointment is a forgotten thing, people too busy bemoaning a year without rainfall to praise the miracle of a new life.
~
Mama Kanono looked at the little girl sucking her thumb on the periphery of her family’s life and wondered how parents could be so oblivious. Then she heard the scream.
‘Kanono!’ Mama Kanono whirled around then realized that she’d absently put Kanono down when her arms got tired carrying her. Kanono must have wandered off.
‘Ai ai ai ai!’ Priscilla ran in from the back of the kitchen, screaming and holding a screaming wet baby as well.
‘Kanono! Oh my God. Jesus no! What happened?’ Mama Kanono rushed to take Kanono from Priscilla’s arms but Kanono screamed harder at her mother’s touch. Behind Priscilla, on the corridor Mama Kanono had stood in not five minutes ago, the jiko was empty, around it was a puddle of water and chunks of half cooked beef. The sufuria the meat had been boiling in had rolled off somewhere after the accident.
Mama Kanono had barely pieced together the accident when she turned and ran outside shouting for Priscilla to follow her. ‘Help––help us!’ Mama Kanono waved down the crowd of people before her. ‘My daughter––please help me! We need to go to the hospital––she’s been burnt by boiling water!’
Mrs. Karanja sprung into action, ‘Julius, Julius! Remove that pick-up from there. We’ll take those other things out later.’ Mrs. Karanja gave short succinct orders and for a crowd that appeared chaotic, everyone responded with military precision. Two minutes later Mama Kanono, Kanono (knocked out by the trauma of the event), and Mrs. Karanja (driving after a split second assessment that she’d be faster than Julius the pickup owner), were in the car, speeding out of the estate to the nearest hospital, Mater Hospital. Mrs. Karanja intermittently punctured the fearful silence in the car with ‘Jesus!’, a prayer unto itself.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Kiosk, February, 1991
When Ng’ang’a had opened his Kiosk just outside Malaba Estate three years earlier, he had not expected business to be as good as it became. For that, he had the country and its newspapers to thank. When customers came to buy milk or majani, their eyes would settle on the newspapers he hung inside the Kiosk on a rope secured with brightly coloured pegs. The day’s headline alone would elicit a “Where is this country going?” from one person and this question was enough bait to draw in and keep a hearty debate going which led to customers lingering at The Kiosk longer than they’d intended.
An observant man, Ng’ang’a moved the newspapers from inside The Kiosk to just outside, next to the window where customers made their purchases. Over time, he invested in small wooden stools and two plastic chairs that he set outside The Kiosk so that those who wanted to buy and chat could do so in comfort. From here, he expanded his stock to include mandazis, weak sugary tea and uji served in tin mugs with floral patterns. For the beverages he charged five shillings per cup and the mandazis went for another five bob a piece. At just ten shillings for a drink and a snack, Ng’ang’a’s Kiosk became an informal congress for Malaba Estate, rivalling the real estate association in power and scope. It was at The Kiosk that Malaba’s residents decided to oust one set of askaris because there was a rumour they were in cahoots with petty thieves who’d been plaguing the estate. It was also at The Kiosk that the same same residents decided to open an investment fund together (this fund is still being litigated as I write). Wasn’t it also at The Kiosk that the Karanjas found out that their eldest son had run away with a girl from the neighbouring, Karibu Estate?
The real winner for The Kiosk was when Ng’ang’a introduced a little red transistor radio with a long antenna that would break on the same day the country did, eight years later. He
