Part 2

Esther had spent three rollercoaster-like years chasing a visa to ‘out of Kenya’. Whenever she stopped to catch her breath, she would think that if a witch had asked her to get a lion’s tail for a charm, it would have been an easier task than trying to be an economic refugee in the West. 

The immigration officers were her gremlins. Initially, she had planned to escape to America, as it was where people she knew gravitated towards. But the Americans rejected her twice. Europe then became her focus. 

The rejections were a reality check; that beauty and charisma, the latter of which she lacked, were a combination important for people looking to be in front of the camera. Her qualifications were a distant second. During an internship, she realised she was not funny enough, or engaging at all, to be a media girl. 

Her luck had changed in the sixth month. She, as usual, had walked into an office and asked the receptionist if there were jobs available. The receptionist looked at her, she returned the gaze, waiting for the usual answer of ‘leave your papers, I will hand them over to the personnel office’. But this girl suddenly smiled at her.

“My boss wants to see you,” she announced after coming back from her boss’s office. “This way,” she said, before escorting a shaky-legged Esther to an office at the end of a corridor.

It was a job at the reception, in a company that sold land. Nothing to do with what she had spent too much of Mr Muthama’s money studying. She hated the job on the first day, and every day after that. Within a couple of months, she started to seriously consider leaving the country. To America. So she started saving money for a passport, for a visa application, to improve her bank account.

She had been ill-equipped for the interview, and it had taken the immigration officer at the American Embassy less than a minute to decide she was a flight risk.

A friend had advised her to get another passport under a different name, which she did with no qualms once she realised she would not be the first, nor the last. Biometric technology had not made a global mark, 9/11 had not happened, thus the world was not as suspicious.  

So she got another passport with a new name, and booked another appointment at the American Embassy. Second time round, the immigration officer, a man with the hair colour of a carrot, took forty seconds to interrogate her and decide she was a flight risk, again!  

As she walked out of the embassy with tears in her eyes, she felt a new resolve - Go to another country.

She called the passport man again and booked an appointment with the British Embassy. Third time lucky. Her visa was approved. It had taken three years, three passports and hundreds of thousands of shillings.  

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It was a Saturday, a day that would be etched in a special corner of Esther’s memory.  Having been born, bred and educated in Nairobi, and on a meagre budget, meant that Esther had never ventured outside the capital’s surroundings.

She knew she was flying off to some lovely spring weather in London. In her blissful ignorance, she did not have the slightest clue that in London, spring could be unapologetically colder than the coldest day in Nairobi. 

A month had passed since she got the visa, and the month had been a rollercoaster. She had tendered her resignation at work, just days after getting the visa, and like her predecessor had done for her, she had recommended a successor from a young girl who had walked into the reception looking for a job.

She spent some considerable amount of time communicating with her high school friend, Rita, who would host her in London. 

***

Moses was her first and only boyfriend. They had known each other since they were children. Moses lived a little farther away from Esther, but ghetto kids could walk far. They had officially started dating when she was in Form Two, and he was in his last year in the same mixed day school. 

Because he was her first love, Esther had no one else to compare her feelings for him with. Not many boys hit on her, and even though Moses could get any number of girls he wanted, he had chosen her. 

When, with exaggerated excitement, she had broken the news of her impending travel, he had, for the first time, lost his temper. 

Moses had a reason to vehemently oppose migrating. His older brother had left for the same country years ago, and, according to Moses, he was having a very hard time. 

When his anger had subsided, he had been apologetic, had even half-heartedly agreed to consider joining her. She had however, not believed him. 

***

Moses’s older brother had been in London for seven years.  He had found himself in a one-year slum exchange programme, but after it had ended, he had disappeared from his host’s home and started his life as an illegal immigrant. 

***

It was a night flight. On her left was a white man who could have been anything between thirty and fifty years of age, a broad age-range with which she could guess. 

She felt both scared and liberated. She was fleeing poverty to an unknown land.

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Esther couldn’t say she enjoyed her first flight, but she could say the flight was not as bad as she had expected. She could even forget that she was thousands of metres up in the air, inside a floating mass of steel. 

Her seatmate was solo, like she was.  His name was Charles, and he was British. He was also quite a motor mouth.  

Charles’ talkative nature suited Esther because she didn’t have much to say. 

“So what are you going to do in dull old England?”

 “I am going to visit my friend. I am also hoping I can get a job while I am there.” 

He looked sceptical. “What sort of jobs are you hoping to get?”

She shrugged. “Let’s just say, I am leaving it open.”

***

Heathrow touchdown caught Charles telling her, “strange how many Europeans actually want to settle in Afrika, and the Afrikans are busy selling their souls to the devil to get out of Afrika. Sometimes, I think we should just have an agreement to swap continents. This could be settled once and for all,” he declared amid a series of chuckles. 

Charles got his luggage first, but waited for Esther to retrieve hers before pulling out his business card. 

“Rita!” she shouted when she saw her friend. She dropped her luggage and ran to Rita as they got embroiled in spinning hugs for what seemed like an eternity.

“Oh my God! You look gorgeous!”  

Rita indeed looked gorgeous, even younger than Esther remembered. She was looking glamorous and smelling as glamorous.

Esther felt drab in her second-hand faded blue jeans, a pair of black doo shoes, and a sweater that was a light shade of blue, one that Moses had given her as a send-off gift.

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A week into her arrival in London, Esther had never known that the levels of boredom she was experiencing even existed.  Who would have thought that with unimaginable number of TV channels to choose from, there would still be nothing to watch?  

Rita’s room was beginning to feel like an open prison. Esther had never thought of herself as claustrophobic, but if she ever suspected before, now she was sure. 

She had only seen Rita a couple of times during the week.  She seemed to be away twenty-four hours a day.  Once she had been gone for two days and nights, and when Esther asked her how she did that, she said she had done three jobs back to back and still attended class. 

“What jobs?” Esther asked curiously.

“Well, working in old people’s homes,” Rita revealed. The easiest jobs for foreigners to get were in old people’s homes, supermarkets, or as security guards, or waiting tables. 

***

Two weeks after Esther’s arrival, Rita had a day off. They decided to visit Michael, Moses’ brother, in Tottenham, North London.

“You are going to have to look for a job now,” Rita started the conversation casually as she sat next to her at the top deck of the Number 56 bus.  

“Life is very expensive,” she continued, as Esther remained quiet, throwing casual glances about, but avoiding Rita or the teenage hoodlums. For a flipping moment, Esther wondered why Rita had not told her that during their chats when she was still in Kenya

***

The journey to Tottenham took about an hour. Reality had hit her hard. This, after all, was not a land laced with milk and honey, and if it was, the only route was through a muddy road. 

Moses had been right after all, she thought for the umpteenth time. 

But her friend was also right. She had to start doing something, and if washing old strangers’ private parts was the only available job, she would take it. Ghetto girls were not known for weakness, and with that thought she stirred with resolve. 

Meanwhile, another shock was waiting for her in Tottenham.

***

Unlike Rita, who lived in an apartment, Michael lived in a council building. It was a building so dirty on the outside that for a moment, Esther thought she was back in one of Nairobi’s shabby city council estates.

She had never met Michael before. He was high on something, and it could not have been the cigarette that was on an ashtray, and whose smoke filled the sad-looking room. 

 “Who are you?” Michael demanded.

“I am Esther,” she quickly answered, stepping forward with a smile.  His face brightened up.

“Oh, Esther! Please come in. Have a seat please.  Sorry, I am a little drunk.”

***

A week into her first job, Esther made a shocking discovery; white people aged differently from black ones. Not that she had any experience with old black people – the slum life was not conducive. 

“Old people’s homes,” were Rita’s words when she had first asked her about her job.

“What do you do in old people’s homes?”

“The usual. You wake them up, you clean them, you feed them, you wash them, the works,” she said cheerfully, glancing at Esther’s furrowed face. 

And so Esther had got on with it. On her first day off, she visited Michael on her own.  

It was a déjà vu of sorts, only that Rita was not present. Michael was plastered. The house was filthy and reeked of rottenness, a precise repeat of her last visit.

“Oh, Esther…hi,” he finally mumbled, as if it suddenly occurred to him that she was there.

.

“I am afraid the house is a little messy,” he said without the faintest sign of regret. 

“Michael, do you ever, ever, clean this house?” she asked rhetorically.

“What do you want?” he asked instead. “Because, if you came to lecture me, the door is over there. I am in a bad mood.”

“Relax, I am just concerned,” Esther assured him, her face slightly pale with concern.

“What are you, my mother?” That was what Esther reckoned he meant but she was sure he said father.

She stood up, making up her mind to feed Michael, who still slept awkwardly, feet on the table, sitting up on the couch, head laid back, mouth open, and still snoring. 

Michael was stirring up when she returned, his eyes flickering and squinting at Esther

“Oh, good. You are up. Time to eat,” she announced.

“Eat what? You cooked?” His eyes were still shut. A few beads of sweat rolled down his brow. His expression was pained. Hangover. Or hunger. Likely both. 

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***

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Two hours later. In between the eating, small talk had ensued. It came about more easily than Esther expected.

“How long have you been in the United Kingdom?” he finally asked, looking at her with a surprising level of seriousness.

“About eight weeks,” she returned, resuming the folding.

“How is it so far?”

Esther sighed deeply, put away the tee shirt, shifted on her seat and looked away. “It is not what I expected. It is quite lonely,” she confessed.

“Bingo!” he exclaimed. “Lonely…enhe…what else?”

She dived into deep thought, her eyes cast on the floor. Britain had so far been every form of disappointment. First, she hated sharing houses with strangers. Secondly, she hated her job. Thirdly, she hated that she hardly ever saw her only friend, Rita, who was working or schooling for most of her waking hours, and there were many. 

“At least you are honest,” Michael said. “They lie, that this is the land of milk and honey. Fallacy. I am the way I am because, dear Esther, I am weak. I cannot handle the life here. I cannot bring myself to do the jobs they want me to do. I just can’t.” He exhaled.

 “So why can’t you go back home?” she asked curiously, a line forming on her forehead.

He let out a hysterical laugh. 

“Look at me,” he said, attempting to stand on his feet as he spread his hands for Esther to have a better look. “Look at me, Esther. I am such an unlovely wretch. I cannot go back home because my parents would drop dead to see what I have turned into.”

“But I thought they were aware you have issues.”

“That they are, but as long as they do not see it first hand, they can live in denial. I am damaged, by drugs. By life. Me, the ghetto boy who managed to somehow end up in the UK by the most miraculous of means. Me, their hope…” he said wistfully.

He had slowly slipped into depression according to the diagnosis at the time. He was put on disability allowance and housed by the government. 

“It’s worse,” he said, the laughter again. “The loneliness is like a cancer. I am so lonely,” he confessed, the tears finally flowing freely.

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