Kinama figures living has become too expensive, and decides to end it all

He lit another cigarette and used the flame to check the time on his old Kienzle watch. Twenty-five to five in the morning. He had not slept a wink. After the fight, he had stayed up all night until two o'clock, then dragged himself to lie on the bed. He smoked painfully, his eyes burning with sleep, yet he couldn't fall asleep, however much he tried. His wife lay beside him. She took gentle breaths, as if she hadn’t fallen asleep. Usually, she only slept lightly. The children found their sleep on the floor, where they snored as though in turns. Kinama had such a headache, and his stomach was full of wind.

Tito, the good Tito, had offered the couple his bed and gone to spend the night happily with one of his women at Makadara. Kinama had given a brief outline of his misfortune. But the story didn't draw Tito's sympathy; if anything, it made him angry because he expected a substantial reimbursement from Kinama for the money spent on food and half the rent Kinama had promised to pay for the general accommodation.

After Tito had offered him his bed and left, Kinama had gone to the Ofafa Maringo shops and bought a loaf of bread, a quarter kilo of sugar, a pint of sour milk, and a packet of Jogoo maize flour, out of which he made a poor supper for his family. He had been very disappointed that Tito gave him twenty shillings only. The family ate the ugali with the sour milk.

Hell! Kinama smoked again, sat pensively and thought about his predicament. He had the feeling that the night was extraordinarily long. The drums in his head were dreadful—the whole head felt so heavy and his mouth dry. He kept on tossing about in bed, baffled by how to work himself out of that big mess. Where on earth was he going to get some money?

Lilian! he mumbled between his lips and felt tears… He sat up in bed. Only then did he discover that Grace had not been asleep, for she too sat up in bed. In fact, she had not slept a wink either.

"Where are you going?" she asked with a tone of concern and grief.

He remained silent, smoking.

"Jonathan," she called louder, "I asked you where you want to go."

Silence.

"Okay, fine…," she said. "Don’t you worry. As soon as it is daylight I'll take my children and return home."

Yet he kept silent. He still didn't know what to tell her about his money. He really feared her despite the power he had over her and the beating he had given her.

"Did you get your pay?" she asked the question he had hoped she would not ask.

"Why?" answered a lifeless voice.

"Why what? What food did we eat? Was there no money?"

She had caught him unprepared, so he didn't answer. She knew that something terrible must have happened. He ignored those questions, usually when he had no money. For quite some time, she had been contemplating a divorce, as there did not seem to be any hope or sign of improvement in the marriage. A divorce would make her free, at least, to look for employment anywhere and struggle for her survival without marital restrictions. Today, she had caught herself wishing seriously that he were dead: She would forget all about him, then make a new and better start… Her sexual needs had suffered a great deal of deprivation.

He didn't seem to understand that a woman, a wife for that matter, needed sex as badly as the husband. Furthermore, he had lost the art of love­making. Or just ignored the details these days whenever there was the opportunity for making love. He simply confronted her and rode her in her cold mood. What was good in such a husband?

Yet, somehow, she loved this crude man. She was a prisoner of this creature.

That's better, Kinama thought… if she goes back upcountry, then I can find my own feet quickly. With that thought, he maintained the same low note but one of pretence and replied, "You didn't come to go home the next hour. What time would you want to go home anyway, as you want to get your way and yours only?"

"As soon as it is daylight."

All right, she could solve his problem by going home, but where would he find the bus fare? Dear God! He smoked in silence until the cigarette was finished.

"Grace, I have no money," he finally said in the most bruised voice she had ever heard from him.

"You have no what?" she asked in a somewhat weird voice, pulling the words with the doubt of what she had heard. "Money. "

"Money?"

"Yes, money."

"Didn’t you get your pay?" She had gone back to lie on the bed, but she now sat up.

"I did."

"You did, then?"

He cleared his throat and, in a broken but strong voice, said, "I lost it. "

"Lost it, did you say?"

"You are sitting close to me, so you must have heard very clearly what I’ve said. I lost my pay. Kinama sat on the sofa in total silence, wrapped up in a cloak of sadness… in worry and confusion. It was the morning following the sleepless night. Grace stood in the kitchen to remove the presence of his figure from her eyes. She had gone there to make some black tea, a kavyalu, as they called it. They had no milk. She felt robbed of her energy completely, spiritually beaten up. I don't know what to do, she kept on thinking.

Kinama crushed the burning tip of his last cigarette on the ashtray that was full of butts and ashes. The emotional distance between him and his wife was in miles. What was she thinking? He wondered. She had reverted to silence and ignored all his questions. When he talked, she paused as if listening, yet she could very well be absent-minded. The tired twins were still asleep.

***

He took his black tea silently and sadly. The turbulence was printed on his face, which, somewhat, had developed a strange new appearance that, when Grace looked, a great deal of that face didn't belong to the Kinama she had known for a husband. After the black tea, he would go to the office. But he was extremely ashamed to show his face there. He would try to borrow some money as he had promised Grace. But he wasn't sure anyone would lend him more than twenty shillings, as he owed nearly everybody who could lend him money. They knew how difficult it had become for him to repay his debts.

What about Milton? he thought. But then, Milton was still on leave, and Kinama didn't know where he lived. Again, he would feel too embarrassed to reveal to Milton what had really happened. Milton saw through many lies, too, and Kinama was scared of approaching him with a lie.

Worst of all, Kinama worried most about his job. Would he get away with the mistake this time, especially after trying to deceive Ochwada, who had done his best to keep him on the job? He would have lost the job ages ago, too if the management had been efficient. But thank God, in the civil service, things took time. The civil service clock moved very slowly.

The morning had come with heavy rains, which beat the roof and drowned everything. Even Kinama could not hear his own words when the storm beat. After his kavyalu, he looked at his watch. Ten to seven. He should be on the move to be in the office before eight, but this rain didn't relent. It took time, too, to catch a bus—particularly on rainy mornings when everybody, even the eternal “footers” (those who walked to work), would decide to ride the bus. At such times, the buses came from the ten previous stages already full and didn't stop. If one stopped at a time when more people had gathered at the stage, it was a big battle getting in. Survival of the fittest. They trampled on you anyhow, each person trying to get in. Usually, women suffered the most, but they had discovered that they could avoid those elbows by catching earlier buses, when the men were still getting ready.

The storm of rain passed, and Tito's radio announced the time. A commercial followed in Kiswahili, accompanied by a crying child, "Mama, mtoto ana miyoo!" The violent voice said, "Tumia dawa ya -" Kinama killed the voice by switching off the radio. The crying child reminded him of the twins’ screams last night. He rose up slowly, almost sickly, and for a while stood before his wife searching for words. Would she listen?

"Grace, I must go now," he pleaded with her.

"Promise that you'll not go before I come home." He searched her face.

She remained silent.

"Please, if I don't come home soon, you can be sure to see me at lunchtime. Make some porridge for the children and don't wear that face. It is not the end of the world—really, please…"

The children had woken up and were playing weakly on the floor. He glanced at them. Which one had he “killed” before Ochwada? He went and stroked each gently on the head then walked out into the rain. A moment later, he was running to the Bahati bus stage. His wife stood by the window watching his jumping figure. Another storm of rain poured and, soon, he was swallowed up in the grey rain. But she stood there, her nose pressed on the cold glass. She felt the tears welling up and let them flow silently.

"The bus came to a halt at the main bus station, and Kinama alighted somewhat reluctantly, harbouring many fears… He had not found the words to tell his bosses in defence of yesterday's incident. The rain had decreased, but he had already, since he didn't have an umbrella.

People poured out from the buses and dispersed in all directions, some trotting, some running, and others simply propelling themselves forward with indifference, as if dissatisfied or bored by their own lot. Women and men, workers and job-seekers and loiterers. Kinama crossed the road and stopped outside the Kenya Cinema building. He forced himself to make a decision. He took out his handkerchief and blew out the mess from his nose. If I had money, he thought, I would have taken two or three beers to give myself courage to face the Njugunas.

***

At a quarter to seven in the evening, Kinama stood outside the gate of Shauri Moyo Market, thinking… But he thought in circles and dimly. Women, men and children here moved fast with baskets loaded with their shopping—pushing carts, too, all hurrying home to escape the storm of an angry thick black cloud that had risen in the east. Indeed, everything was like a dream. He was amazed, flabbergasted! Was life a walking shadow?

He had spent the whole day downtown pondering over things, but without getting anywhere. He was utterly exhausted and had lost all the answers. The friends he had seen in an attempt to borrow money from had all let him down. Or they made promises that were obvious efforts to get rid of him. That ugly Njuguna had stuck to the contents of the letter. Now he had this rope which he had borrowed from an owner of one of the small shops in the market.

"I need the rope for this evening only," he told the owner. "I should return it to you early in the morning tomorrow, if not so I'll bring you the money."

"What do you need the rope for?" the fat round woman asked. She knew Kinama well as he had been a regular customer for a long time.

"To carry something home."

He waited until it was dark. His mind was full of questions: about his wife and children, about his friends, about his parents and about everything. However, everything had its beginning and end, he concluded. The most obvious thing was that living had become too expensive for him. He had lived with the hope that things would become better. Never. They went from worse to worse… Even those who die die with the hope of recovery. He didn't have the answer to his wife's questions. This rope was going to bear the burden of his body home.

When you have no hope and place in this world, he concluded, you should return whence you came…

The sun had gone down. There was darkness only in front of him. Somehow, he felt, Grace would find answers to her questions. Every living person had to answer his own questions first.

He was going to commit suicide to express defeat and to say that he couldn't see ahead of him anymore.

He went to the BAT quarters, then down towards the river as he prepared the rope to the best of his knowledge. He looked for a reliable tree, climbed it quickly, hoping that nobody would find him before he had accomplished his mission.

He removed his coat and threw it down, fastened the rope quickly to a strong branch, freed his neck of the tie, put the rope around his neck and threw himself off. There was no need to hold himself anymore since the rope would take care of him.

The world and the Republic of Kenya would take care of his wife, his children and relatives… Maybe they would understand him. If they didn't, who cared? Kinama vacated the earth.

He died.

***

Everybody in the Government of Kenya lorry was silent. All had turned up with sadness and fear. This trip reminded them repeatedly that the lorry carried a dead human being. In this case, a friend of theirs and also a relative whom they had known for years -- one with whom they had eaten, drunk and laughed together. This was Kinama, who they would never see again. As the lorry rattled with the movement, it shook everybody into the realisation that he, too, would die one day. Thoughts of death and helplessness locked up everybody in the chamber of their being.

Nobody had any desire to talk to another. Kinama's wife sat by the driver, silent also. It was a clear morning, about ten o'clock and five days after Kinama's death. The lorry was about to start the descent towards Athi River, past the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, by the weighbridge. Mrs Kinama looked at the horizon, in which Mount Kilimanjaro could be seen clearly. The Machakos hills looked heavy, nearer and bluish with the previous night's rains. The plains were green.

The morning breeze licked Mrs Kinama's face, kissing it and in a way modifying her grief with other dimensions. The air smelled of death. Everything here smelt of death… The booming of this GK lorry produced the sound of death. Even the cement chimney of the Athi River Cement Factory produced a grey smoke of death… Grace Kavuki' s eyes blurred with tears. The breeze of grief increased. She broke out with such painful and pitiful, dry sobs, haunted by the fact that her husband was dead. The only man she had known for a husband was now lifeless. During his life, during those heated quarrels and fights, it never occurred to her that she could weep so much over his death. For now, she felt she had pressed too hard against him until he broke.

I killed him, she said through sobs. Could I not have been gentler with him?

He died before she had said sorry to him. Now, it became apparent how much she loved him. Then she wondered whether she would ever find another man like him. Even though he had many weaknesses, he had his own special qualities. Somehow, today his goodness had skimmed from his bad aspect and covered the surface in those days she had mourned for him. Why did she wish him dead? He committed suicide because he had no one to listen to him. Nobody understood his illness. He was a sick man and no one wanted to treat him.

I'm a widow now! She thought and her sobs increased.

***

As it had become the custom in Kenya, the funeral service had been scheduled to start at two o'clock on a Saturday. But being a very hot afternoon, this was not one of those comfortable Saturdays. It was hot and airless as if the heavens had taken a break from breathing.
Nobody would have expected Jonathan Kinama's burial to be attended by so many people. It had attracted a big crowd. Maybe because many people were curious to find out how a person who committed suicide was buried. A good number of the people gathered here had never seen Kinama's face. The only things the deceased was famous for in the village to warrant some attention were the juicy stories and gossip that reached the village concerning his style of living. They said he lived large in Nairobi. He created big ripples in whatever he did. That aside, it was his wife Grace Kavuki who was a household name in the village. That was because she was an extraordinarily hard-working and no-nonsense mother of five children abandoned by her sexually dynamic and active husband.

“This woman deserves a better husband,” they said of Kavuki. “This is a woman and a half.”

There was hardly any well-up home in the village whose door Grace Kavuki had not knocked at looking for a casual job. She lived by her sweat, healthy or sick. She loved her kids. Nothing in her world made her happy and more inspired than watching her own kids eat and laugh on full stomachs. To the kids, she was everything—mother, food, clothes, school uniform, schoolbooks, school funds. She would do any job in order to buy a kilo of sugar and tea leaves.

She hauled water like a donkey for brickmakers. She made bricks for anyone. Often, she had been in the company of men pounding mud with their feet to make bricks. She even dug pit latrines as deep as eighteen feet. She told people who pitied her, “You see, what matters to me isn't the type of work. It's the money. Thank God that money from any kind of job is the same, only the amount differs.”

When she was not in the field doing those casual jobs, she was at home making either ropes or baskets for sale. She went to bed late from those duties. Every moment was invaluable to her, and only sleep or real sickness stole her time from doing something for the livelihood of her family. She had advertised herself so well in the village that whenever there was any casual labour, her name was mentioned.

Men admired her and took her as the model for a modern mother. However, all lazy and irresponsible women disliked her, particularly when she was often mentioned by their husbands. One of them had been heard complaining, “I was beaten by my husband because of that woman.”

“She's like a widow,” another described her. “She could as well be one because that hopeless husband of hers has been swallowed up by those vultures of city women. Her husband is a bull running after every cow on heat.”

Traditionally, people who took their own lives were not mourned. However, there were a good number of relatives who had wept when they received the news of Kinama's death. And at the funeral service today, there were others shedding plenty of tears.

“Poor thing,” some said.

So, since two o'clock, the “poor thing” had been waiting for the burial. It was exceptionally delayed. Reason? They had been waiting for the pastor designated to perform the service. Up to this time, that pastor had not shown up. It was now at half past three without a word from anybody regarding the whereabouts of the pastor. That prompted Susan Kathambi, married and sister to the deceased, to cry to the elders, “What the hell are we waiting for?” She was the most outspoken person in the family. It was then that one of those elders stood up and broke the news, “I've been told he changed his mind at the last moment and said he can't bury a person who has taken his life. Taking one's life is against God's will.

Kathambi retaliated angrily, “Where did that pastor meet that God? If God didn't want Jonathan to die, he should have broken the suicide rope.”

***

There wasn't much to talk about Jonathan Kinama after his death. For one, people didn't delight in talking ill of dead people. Because dead people acquire a new dimension, and in that dimension, you never know with spirits when to please them or when to joke with them… You never know what they can do to you when you have angered them…

The person being talked about mostly was the widow. In the first place, she was the youngest widow in the village. And a young and beautiful widow in any village is a liability

to married women.

Some voices were quick to say, “Within a short time, you'll no longer see her in this village.”

“Why”

“Young and beautiful as she is, wouldn't she want to get married?”

“What sensible man would want to marry a woman with a swarm of children these days?”

“A widower somewhere.”

“You're joking. All men live the dream of marrying a single young girl, if possible a virgin.”

“Do virgins exist anywhere nowadays when the world is full of men obsessed with breaking their hymens?”

“You didn’t hear Kavuki was a virgin when Kinama married her?”

“Who told you that?”

Another man predicted, “She'll fly to the city and become a prostitute, just wait.”

She became the central theme of the village men. Every other man dissatisfied with his marital status had his eyes on her for his emotional boost. In any case, the cheapest and most approachable woman to the lonely man is a widow; better still if that widow is as poor and desperate with hungry children as the financially crippled Kavuki was.

Men with small donations were welcome in that home, even with one or two eggs, a few shillings, or a chicken or even a handkerchief. That was why women who knew their husbands harboured crooked intentions had a good reason to feel highly threatened when they heard their husbands mention the name Kavuki. And KavukI's village had too many men who spent most of their time doing nothing except drinking and seducing women for a brew.

Muthengi wasn't alone on that issue. Instead, he posed as KavukI's defender, nursing the idea of the tradition by which he should be accepted as the caretaker of his deceased brother’s home. If he didn't move fast, a cousin or an uncle might overtake him.

What Muthengi didn't know, however, was that he was the last man Kavuki would want to see in her bedroom. First, because by nature, he was an irresponsible man, worse than his dead brother. He was lucky that he didn't have many mouths to feed, as his second wife had only two children. His first wife had run away due to beatings, and she took her four daughters with her, whom she promptly dropped off at her parents’ home, then disappeared to work in Nairobi, where, thank God, she got a well-paid job.

However, Muthengi didn't underestimate Kavuki. For that reason, he opted for a slow pace, knowing too well Kavuki had a mind of her own and could easily see through men's motives. She was also more beautiful and sexier looking than his wife.

To attract Kavuki, Muthengi surprised not only Kavuki but the whole family and village by dropping his drinking habit, which made some people wonder aloud, “Of all the men in this village, how can Muthengi stop drinking?”

“What?” Others asked in shock. “The man who was so drunk on the burial day of his brother just the other day?”

In the Kikamba language, the name Muthengi means a person who goes around the village looking and begging for alcohol to drink. It was a name which fitted so well to his way of life, although that hadn't been the intention of his parents when they gave it to him at birth. On some occasions when he was drunk, you heard him sing and cry out, “I drink like this because I was called Muthengi when I was born. Go and ask my parents why they called me like that.”

But now some villagers were saying, “He's not a muthengi anymore. Instead, he is Thomas.” Thomas was his Christian name.

Muthengi would have been a better man if he had kept his job as a driver of heavy commercial vehicles, but he had drunk himself out of the job seven years ago. The only thing he was left with and one that he bragged about, was the driving licence, together with youthful photographs taken when he used to dress smartly.

“Look at him now,” they expressed their surprise. “The man who used to spend most of his time loitering and drinking now spends all his time at home. The man who was given to wearing dirty and torn clothes is now washing and ironing them, then patching them… The man with large and uneven teeth, which had been permanently yellow because of never brushing them, is now seen with clean white teeth because he brushes them every morning. From having uncombed hair to wearing nicely combed hair.”

“Look at it!” others cried. “Muthengi is going to church on Sundays!”

“He has become saved.”

“You should see him in church singing hymns with worshippers!”

“What did his brother's death do to him?”

His small wife, a lugubrious dwarf who spent most of her time sick, perhaps to discourage him from beating her, received her husband's drastic change with a degree of scepticism. She linked the change to MuthengI's interest in Kavuki, who hated drunkards.
Surprisingly, Muthengi became gentle to his wife and let her challenge him without repercussions.

At one point, she asked him, “Thomas, has something gone wrong in your mind that you don't remember getting yourself soaked in alcohol?”

He laughed and said, “I have become a man.”

“What were you before? I don't believe what I am seeing.”

“Will you ever believe me on anything?”

“You could be acting.”

“Then it must be good acting.”

She even discussed it with Kavuki and asked, “What d'you think has happened to Thomas to stop him from drinking?”

“Maybe he has woken up from the hell of alcohol. Has he told you he has any plans to go back to Nairobi to look for a job?”

“Not yet.”

“Chase him out to force him to look for a job.”

“The hand of that man has destroyed my skin. I'd think twice before taking that decision. He still has big scars which can so easily revert into wounds…”

“You're right, it's too early. Give him more time to reform maturely. He's the sort of man who might leave here then disappear like his dead brother, only to reappear in a coffin.”

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