Nairobi’s blackouts are silent and thorough, the unwelcome darkness often followed by a moment of silence, a ritual before everything breathing and mechanical reboots with a gentle hum. 

Such a moment of silence was what violently snapped Muna out of her sleep, like she was escaping a nightmare. 

Her sleep was never deep enough to protect her semi-consciousness from the rudeness of sudden total darkness, so whenever there was one, which was unfortunately more than anyone needed, she made a note to self to buy thick, black curtains that would protect her photosensitive sleep from being interrupted by changing lights. 

She never got the curtains because during the day, her jungle green drapes looked good against the light green walls, and she had a special attachment to them. She had chosen them.

In the same breath she woke up, she heard her husband Wesonga cursing at the darkness. She checked the time on her phone - six minutes past three. Good riddance, she thought vindictively. I hope he hits something with his small toe. 

Muna pulled up the duvet to cover herself completely and listened to Wesonga’s slow, careful yet clumsy steps as he made his way up the stairs. It was a familiar sound at a familiar hour, even without the blackouts. Often, she wondered if his calculated steps were because he did not want to wake her up, or because he was drunk and trying not to miss his step. 

Many years ago when she still cared, Muna worried about his safety whenever he stayed out late, and it kept her up. That was then. Now, she slept, but since she was still a light sleeper, she still woke up when he arrived. 

The concern for his safety when he stayed out late changed to something else the day Wesonga slapped her. For a short while after that, she hoped that he would get into a horrible accident and leave her a widow. Only thoughts of her boys losing a father they loved would bring her back to her senses. 

Wesonga’s first stop was the toilet, where he called someone as he peed. The sound of his pee, as lazy as his steps, depositing in the bowl made it difficult for her to hear his words, but she did not need to. This scene was years old and as familiar as his calculated footsteps; he came in at whatever ungodly hour he wished, then called Lilly to tell her that he was home safe. Muna often wondered why he bothered to come home at all. Or why he called instead of just texting.

Even without the sound of his footsteps, Muna could follow his movement around the room with her nose that picked up a cocktail of smells and scents - cigarettes, alcohol and Lilly’s perfume. To give the devil his due, he always took a shower before joining her in bed.

***

It was the middle of April and the showers were accompanied by stronger than usual winds, something the weatherman said was the monsoon effect but Muna was never interested enough to find out the details. The rain beating against the bedroom window woke her up just after seven o’clock. That, and perhaps the sound of matatus hooting incessantly somewhere on the neighbourhood roads. 

Muna listened to the rain, and the hooting, and Wesonga’s drunken snores. She slowly turned towards him, studying him with an intensity she had never studied him with in a long time. He was still a good looking man seventeen years later. Wesonga was aging well; his beard had scattered greys that brought out the distinguished in him. She missed playing with that beard.

She missed a lot of things she used to do with him, things she was pragmatic enough to accept she would never do again. Not with him.

“Wes, I want a divorce.” Muna’s words poured out through her morning breath in a whisper. Wesonga did not hear her but she immensely enjoyed the relief of letting them out after they had been stuck in her throat for years, perpetually threatening to purge the same way she purged after eating boiled eggs, but unlike the eggs, she always managed to push down the words. 

Until now.

Everyone has a breaking point, and it is not always big things that trigger it. If the enormity of the action was what determined the tipping point, Muna had had enough opportunities - top of the list was Wesonga’s affair with Lilly. 

In his drunken sleep, Wesonga stirred at the sound of her voice but continued snoring a couple of seconds later, and as if for good measure, he farted. It was, however, not for nought - saying the words felt empowering, leaving her feeling like one who had just faced their worst fear head-on. 

Muna, chewing her thumbnail thoughtfully and staring at him in his comatose sleep, smiled at how vulnerable he looked. At that very moment, he did not look like the wealthy, formidable cardiac surgeon. Sleep and death were indeed equalisers of humans - at least he was just asleep.

Muna stared down at him like it was prescribed therapy and in a way it was. She was staring at the truth. He looked like the man who had wasted her prime years of love. And he was that man. 

And yet, he was the man who had saved her from destitution. Likely from death. He was ironically the man who had made it possible for her to fearlessly make the decision she had just made against him; to leave him and know she would be just fine.

Muna swung down from the bed too high for her legs, ignoring the stepper bought to make it easy for her to get in and out of bed. She landed with a gentle thud not on the soft carpet beside the bed but on the cold marble. 

As she walked down the stairs that Wesonga had gone up a few hours earlier, she thought about their bed. The bed was something she often thought about - she hated it. In fact, it was a symbol of everything she hated in the house - not designed for her, not her taste. The bed, and nearly everything in their home, was a silent reminder that she did not belong. 

Muna, however, loved their kitchen, not just because of the state-of-the-art equipment, but because cooking was therapy for her, and she was good at it.

The realisation that she did not want to cook that morning caught her by surprise just as she entered the kitchen. One hand on her hip and the other on the kitchen island, she stared at the fridge that was enough inches taller than her and, just like she had earlier mumbled to her sleeping husband about leaving him, she mumbled to herself, “I am not making breakfast.”

For years, as long as she was at home and healthy, she made breakfast. When the boys were born, she made breakfast as they sat on their high feeding chairs. The boys were now teenagers, and they still sat with her as she made breakfast. 

But the boys were at a sleepover with their cousins, Chausiku’s sons. Wesonga did not always have breakfast with them, mostly because his job did not allow him to but also because he often needed to sleep off his hangover, but she always left some for him. 

With a determined gait, Muna left the kitchen untouched, walked back to the bedroom and took a shower. 

She texted Kavinya just before she turned on the car engine; meet me at the spa in an hour.

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Read Part 2 of Empress Ciku Kimani-Mwaniki's A Cocktail of a Phoenix on booksinafrica.ekitabu.com next week.

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