when Malaba residents would drift out of their homes, bored and restless, in search of willing conversationalists. Conversations were often and readily punctured with impromptu sing-alongs when say Super Mazembe’s Kasongo came on or the darling of the radio waves, Sina Makosa by Les Wanyika.
A concentrated hush would fall around the Kiosk during the one o’clock news as customers listened for any new announcements from the President’s administration. In those days, President Moi was in the habit of firing Cabinet Ministers over the lunch-time news. It was, one imagines, an efficient way of dispensing of prominent politicians who’d receive the news of their unemployment through this radio waves as well.
There was an ongoing argument between Ng’ang’a and his patrons because the moment six p.m. hit, he would switch radio stations from K.B.C.’s National Service to its General Service and the music now termed zilizopendwa would be replaced with the General Service’s English ‘Golden Oldies’ on ‘Sundowner’. Nothing but nothing could beat the musical excellence of Jimmy Reeves’ rendition of Take My Hand Precious Lord according to Ng’ang’a and most Kikuyu men of a certain age group. Ng’ang’a would sooner lose customers than miss an opportunity to hear Dolly Parton crooning her country tunes as the sun set behind the Kiosk.
Overtime, the other kiosks around would copy Ng’ang’a but Malaba’s residents, for all their gossip, were loyal to him. At any rate, his Kiosk was conveniently opposite their estate gate.
CHAPTER SIX
Wedding Guests, August 4th, 2012
There were only four unexpected guests at the intimate wedding.
Mr. Mathai’s sisters arrived just as the reception was winding up. Beatrice saw them before they saw her. After Mr. Mathai went missing, they went missing in action too, as if they too had been snuffed out of existence.
‘Can you believe them?’ Mrs. Mutiso was at Beatrice’s side the moment she saw the sisters too. ‘Wait, did you invite them?’ she asked Beatrice. Beatrice shook her head. She hadn’t spoken to them in so long, she couldn’t remember which one of the sisters she’d spoken to last. ‘So then what are they doing here? And then these guards! Nkt! What are they here for if it’s not to check that everyone coming in has an invite? They think this food is being paid for by money that fell from a tree?’ Beatrice hesitated to remind Mrs. Mutiso that the main reason they were spending a fortune on the menu was because she insisted on expensive caterers.
‘It’s fine. They are here now. Let’s go and welcome them,’ she said, resolving to be polite.
‘What, with me? No! I don’t have patience for stupidity and those four are stupid.’ Mrs. Mutiso swayed away before Beatrice could convince her otherwise.
~
‘Mama Kanono, Bwana asifiwe.’ The oldest of Mr. Mathai’s sisters took Beatrice’s hands into her much smaller ones. She leaned in and kissed the air around Beatrice. The Mathai sisters were delicate creatures. If Beatrice was thin, she was a sturdy thin, muscles taut against her skin. The Mathai sisters were an unhappy thin, the kind of thin that suggests years of bitterness and strife. If you looked at them quickly, you’d be forgiven for assuming they were quadruplets. They had the same pinched face, the same large forehead, the same flared nose, the same decided frown.
I must have forgotten to add, they were Mr. Mathai’s step-sisters from his father’s first marriage. Mr. Mathai’s father raised all his children within the same homestead. Food was not apportioned depending on the superiority of a wife but on the number of mouths each wife had to feed. This system saw great harmony between all the families except the first wife and her children. But then, can you imagine being duped into believing your husband will never marry again because he has gone twenty years without showing any inclination to add to his home then waking up one morning to find a new hut next to yours for your new mũiru and then two more similar huts within the short and exhausting space of two years?
‘What a surprise!’ Beatrice bristled at being called Mama Kanono. ‘It has been many years.’
‘Eema, biũ biũ, you can get married and not ask your family for permission?’ another of the sisters said as she arched a thin, overly plucked, overly pencilled eyebrow.
‘Sorry?’ Beatrice couldn’t help noticing the chalkiness of her complexion. Powder. In the wrong shade.
‘Ati sorry? Sorry ni nani? Did you forget you are ours? When you married our brother we paid for you. Since it seems you have forgotten your traditions and culture, we came to remind you.’ This was spoken by the third of the sisters. Beatrice was beginning to think they sounded rehearsed, down to who got to say what. She idly wondered if they had fought over who got to deliver that line.
‘And me personally––’ the elder Mathai sister placed her hand across her chest. The other sisters looked at her sternly. It appeared she’d broken off from the script. ‘––I don’t remember anyone coming to request for our sister’s hand in marriage.’ She looked around at her sisters, seeking their nods of agreement.
They stared back wearily. The Mathai sisters could only focus and stay in harmony for short amounts of time before remembering just how annoying they found each other. They’d never managed to launch a sustained attack on anyone long enough to yield results. This did not mean they ever forgot the people they were squabbling with. The sisters kept an up to date list of relatives and friends who’d wronged them, remembering to add to it regularly. Inevitably they would regroup and attack again.
‘Do you remember how much we paid for you?’ The sister who hadn’t spoken yet recovered the script after a snippy whispered argument between them. Beatrice watched the performance, knowing better than to interrupt them.
‘It is the height––’ she stretched the word with her tone and pulled at it with her fingers, ‘––the height of disrespect to your family. You didn’t invite us and we took you in and when Mathai, God rest him, di––’
One of the sisters caught sight of Nyambura in the distance, looking around as if she’d lost sight of someone.
‘Oh! Is that Kanono? My God! Ebu mwangalie! She is even bigger now. I told you her body is one of those ones that likes weight. But someone needs to tell her she can’t––’
‘Alice, Alice, my God Alice is that you?’ Mrs. Karanja came up to the little gathering, hands held out in joyful greeting. Her presence so entranced the Mathai sisters, their jaws went slack and their mouths curved into an O. In the time they’d been away, Mrs. Karanja’s church ministry had grown into one of the largest churches in Kenya. Her face graced their TV screens every Sunday afternoon. The sisters forgot their mission and began vying for Mrs. Karanja’s attention with stories about what miracles God had performed recently in their lives, what they were praying for, how they’d always known her church would be successful, how no man could come against God’s calling.
Mrs. Karanja winked at Beatrice. She was free now.
Beatrice smiled a terse thank you as she stepped back from them. She looked around feeling lost and unmoored, she blamed the sisters for this but she didn’t quite believe they were the reason for the feeling. No, they were a reminder of something far worse, something she’d tried to impeach and then bargain with, and then when none of that worked, live with.
Mr. Mathai was the antithesis of everything Beatrice stood for, this much we know, but that didn’t mean he was any worse or better than the next person, he was just––Beatrice
