He never moved from that beautiful seat where he is seated comfortably, draped in gleaming white robes.
It has dawned on me that the very idea is ridiculous. No one is coming to save me, be it in white clothes or otherwise. I’m doomed, Njeri. Doomed! What I’ve realised is that what this man loves is sheep. He is not interested in useless, lonely, lost girls like me. Just sheep. After all, in the picture, he is tenderly holding a little one on his lap.
No one interviewed me, Njeri. No one. They didn’t inquire how it felt to be the sister left behind, the one who carries the memories in the painful holes in her heart. I was the only witness to the madness. The madness of spilled blood, seeping slowly down into the roots of the huge, green shady mùgumo tree. The madness of death. Yet no one asked.
Days and nights later, our home was a buzz of activity. Relatives and friends poured in, to pay their condolences. All of them felt sorry that misfortune randomly chose us, not them. They came in huge numbers, aunties in colourful scarves and uncles leaning on their polished walking sticks, hoping to distract us from the tears for a short time. Hoping the milk, fruits and dry goods they brought in swinging paper bags would soothe us for a few days. They sat around forlornly, some crying and beating chests dramatically.
Politicians came too, in elegant cars that had never before been seen in our compound. Muttering, muttering. Of course I had no idea what was being said. All I could see was their constantly moving mouths, their puffed faces and distended stomachs in their expensive suits. Baba ensured there were enough seats by borrowing some chairs from the neighbours. He also ensured that Mama had a good dress so that people could see how well he kept her. All her shamba and soko dresses tucked away for another day when people were not looking any more.
Church elders came daily, drums and bibles in hand, their arms thrown to the heavens wildly flailing in the air and their feet stamping in the red dust of our compound, their loud vibrations invading my silence. Pastor Ndungu was rocking on the balls of his feet, his huge bobbing Adam’s apple looked ready to burst forth with child while Sister Muthoni, vigorously shaking her beloved tambourine, jumped up and down like a crazed person as her frock sashayed wildly. If only you were here, Njeri, we would have been doubling over with laughter at the comicalness of it all.
The reporters came too. Yes they did, the cherry on a bad cake. They created a real attraction, putting our village on the news. Villagers poured in from all corners as everyone hoped to get a word in or their photo taken for the newspapers. There they were, the news people, with their voice recorders, pens and notebooks, comforting Mama, offering handouts to Baba. Requesting them to retell the story over and over again. A story they could only tell by piecing together bits and pieces of what they didn’t see. Their cameras clicked closely to capture the sad faces, the escaping tears and the breaking voices.
Unfortunately, no one noticed me. No one noticed me sitting staring mutely at the floor or standing in the darkened corners. No one saw me removing a broken toy or discarded water bottle from a chair so that a new arrival could sit. No one noticed me replenishing the tray of ripe bananas and refilling water jugs. Me! The only witness to the bloody act, and yet I went unnoticed, unasked, uncomforted and unseen. The silent witness to the beginning of the end of my life. I stayed, I observed, I watched all the unfoldings as I hid behind the barricade of my silence. I desperately wanted to say something, say it all, but alas, my deafness and muteness was, and will always be a noose around my neck.
The reporters wrote about violence, mistakes made, and how senseless words can become a driving force for hungry idle youth. The images I saw in the newspapers Baba brought home showed the general story. Being election time, local politicians were going head to head as they tried to scoop votes in their usual chaotic style. Seeing as the village was teeming with lots of idle young people, broke and hungry, one of the aspirants had created a youth forum. Apparently, he had promised them money for each rival campaign meeting they disrupted. The rowdy youth set about their business of heckling, booing and general hooliganism until, of course, one of the more prominent contenders came with armed police. The police angrily set to expunge the youth from the campaign meeting. What ensued was running battles around the village.
On that fateful afternoon, we played under our mùgumotree, unaware of the mayhem. As the youth ran away from the police, they passed through unfenced homesteads like ours, in a cat and mouse game with the law enforcers. The police, tired and frustrated from chasing the youth for hours in that blazing sun, decided to open fire to show them that they meant business. Njeri, a stray bullet flew through the air and lodged itself into your neck, ending its journey in your soft muscles, puncturing a hole through your throat and ending your journey on this side of the sun.
Who would take the blame now? The angry police, the rogue politicians or the clueless youth whose only crime was looking for daily bread? What about a lazy step-parent who left his compound unsecured knowing that the children play in the yard every afternoon? No one could answer that question. Certainly not me, not Mama, and definitely not Baba who was quite pleased with all the income this little misfortune had brought him. For many days, he actually forgot about me and spent his free time at a watering hole in the village centre drowning his sorrows and getting sympathy beer from friends and enemies.
The story ran in the papers for quite a number of days, every reporter plastering images and giving various angles of the story. Except mine! Their stories did not include the angle of the ten-year-old deaf twin of the slain child. The only witness to the menacing crime, humanity gone terribly bad. Their stories did not include my account. An account that will be buried safely with me. An account that will sit festering like an ulcer in my soul forever, reminding me that it should have been me. It should have been me, lying there bloody and slain. Not you my beloved Njeri, not you.
I could have narrated to the reporters how that afternoon we played ‘school’. You were the ‘teacher’ standing by the tree. You always stood straight backed, pointy stick in hand, hitting the tree as you made believe it was the school blackboard. I was always the ‘student’. I sat hunched on a little wobbly stool that Mama had allowed to be brought outside for this kind of tomfoolery. So there I sat, as pleased as punch, tracing out the letters the ‘teacher’ wrote for me on a spare piece of paper. Trying to put my lips out for each sound and letter the way I saw the ‘teacher’ do. This is what I lived for. Fun play with my sister. When you signalled that you were going into the house to grab some drinking water, I offered to go bring it for you. I was scared you would go into the house and forget me out here. You might have gotten distracted by other activities in the house. A risk I wasn’t willing to take seeing as our playtime was so short with you going to school all day. My trip to the house to get water from the clay pot took a bit of time as I was still sore from the day before. It had been market day and with Mama gone all day, Baba ensured the day was well spent. While I was gone, you decided to sit on the ‘student’s’ stool and wait for the cool glass of water. It was there that you were seated when the youth whizzed in and out of the compound, the trigger happy police hot on their pursuit. Neither the police, nor the youth even noticed a little girl sitting under a tree. Definitely none of them saw her fall off the wobbly stool clutching her neck, trying to scream in vain. Her little red checked skirt rode up her thin thighs as she pumped her feet in agony. But I did, I saw it all, like a slow horror movie. It happened so quickly. I may have heard nothing, but I saw it all.
Suddenly, yesterday’s soreness was all forgotten but by the time I got to you, you were no more. Just blood, blood and more blood. Running down your fingers. Your fingers still clutched at your throat. Blood running towards the short sleeves of the blue t-shirt with ‘OMO’ written on it. A t-shirt Mama had recently brought home with her when the soap company gave some out for free at the market. A t-shirt never to be worn again, ruined forever. Our game finished, never to be played again. Water that will never be drunk. Water from a glass lying broken at the bottom of the mùgumo tree. I ran very far, all the way down to the shamba where I found Mama, cluelessly bent over her vegetables, muddy jembein her hand.I dragged her back by her hand to where you lay, long gone.
That is my account. The one that was not captured, not recorded, never to be written down. A memory that will haunt me and then die with me, all the time screaming to be let out. That bullet landed on the wrong target. I should have been the one sitting on that wobbly stool, the student, not the teacher. Njeri, as the people came and took away your lifeless body, said final prayers and wiped away the spluttered blood, it was me that was left. Twinless, sisterless, friendless and voiceless.
Had they asked me, I would have told them everything. That Baba is not really our dad. How Mama had been distraught when our real dad died mysteriously a few years back, a strange disease, a cancer with no name, eating him inside out. Mama had nowhere to go; her people were not from around here or from anywhere that we knew of. She hadn’t borne a son to concretise the marriage yet so she couldn’t stay in that marital home. She had to leave. She needed a place to stay and raise her twin girls.
Mama had considered it good luck when Baba offered her a home and a huge piece of land where she could grow her vegetables to sell in the market. She had no idea that Baba saw her market money as his meal card. While Mama spent long hot days either tilling her crops or trekking to the market to sell them, Baba spent his time lazing around the village centre, watching and betting on football games with mates. Mama’s industry and her hopes for a better day were our only survival.
I could have told the newspaper people that on market afternoons when Mama was walking five kilometres down the dusty road to sell her sukuma wiki, Baba thought it was an excellent time to sneak back to the house and play his hurtful games with me, after all, no one would ever know. By the time you came back home from school, he was all done and back to the centre, playing checkers with his mates. If only the reporters had asked me, I would have told them how it pained me that I didn’t go to school with all the other children. The local primary school did not admit students who could neither hear nor talk for that matter. I would have told them how bad it felt every single morning to watch you get ready for school, getting into your brown uniform and black leather shoes, picking up your green bag filled with the exercise books that I so loved to look at. And then, waiting and waiting all day for you to come back and play ‘school’ with me. That game made me feel normal, like I was a regular child, human, alive!
I wish any of them, with their notepads, had asked me. I would have told them how sorry I felt for Mama. She had always looked at me with great disappointment. I was the useless twin, who would never get an education, never bring home a dowry. You were her star and now you are gone while Mama is stuck with me forever. Her hopes for the future are gone, gone too soon. She will live out her existence never knowing why. Why fate chose Njeri over Njoki. Why fate chose to snuff out her sun and leave her with a deaf-mute child who would never amount to anything but a maid to be sent here and there; a stooge who would never understand but basic and random hand gestures.
“If only Njeri had been the one in the house that afternoon. If only the rowdy youth would have found the dummy sitting under the mùgumo tree. If only the hooligans had been running from the police at a different time of the day. If only it was not one of those nice sunny afternoons when her twins were just dying to go play under that shady tree. If only the youth could have found better ways of using their time instead of engaging the police in running battles. If only the law enforcers had better sense than to open fire on young’uns. If only the politicians would not take advantage of the jobless youth, inciting them for their own selfish causes. If only that lazy Baba had used his energy putting up a fence and gate to keep the twins safe instead of being such a bad excuse for a human being! If only…” In between the silence and through the unstoppable tears, Mama’s eyes revealed her regrets.
I remember a few years back when an important government official had visited the village to flag off a community project. Mama had allowed me to tag along to the occasion at the school. How amazed I was to see my twin sister hand out the beautiful bouquet of flowers to the dignitary. Matching Mama’s smile, I beamed with pride, as you went on to lead the class in a song and also presented a solo poem that you wrote all by yourself. The villagers clapped and clapped and we were all so happy when the Mheshimiwa called you up to sit with him on the decorated dais. Now Mama has lost her clever girl, the star of the school community.
Had the reporters asked me, I would have told them how you were my voice. For the ten years we had been together, you were the only person who could understand the unintelligible sounds I made. The only one who could turn them into words, explaining to Mama and Baba what I meant or wanted. This ability never ceased to amaze them. We even had our own secret language that we had most probably developed lying next to each other in Mama’s womb. Warm, cosy and safe from a world that would hurt us.
Day by day, I busied myself with the housework while patiently for your return from school. I spent so many long lonely hours trying in vain to make sense of the life I lived. Attempting to separate pain from pleasure and making sense of the confusion they both brought. The pleasure was having a twin, a friend, a soulmate, and a playmate all wrapped in one package. Pleasure was knowing that at the end of the day, you would walk in from school and my day, albeit short, could start. Pleasure was me following you around like a little lamb, just happy to bask in the light that you shone into my soul. At the same time, I tried so hard to ignore the pain. The harsh pain of knowing I was part of the currency paying for this boarding and lodging that we called home. Knowing that every market day, the evil landlord would rush back home from his perambulations and get payment for his kindness while Mama was away.
If they had only asked me, Njeri, I would have laid it out clearly. My deep hatred for Baba. Day in, day out, my anger keeps growing, sometimes threatening to explode in my tiny heart. Why did you have to go? Why did you leave me in this dark tunnel, with no light at the end, with nothing to love or look forward to at the end of the long days? Was it to deal with the silence and its scary sounds? To deal with these two ogres that our parents have become? One now perpetually drunk, looking for someone to bear the brunt for his anger; the other depressed and always hiding from the other. In the past two years, Mama has learned to hide in churches, in home fellowships, prayer meetings and just about any village gathering, none of which have provided any healing to her brokenness, but at least, in them she can keep away from Baba’s punching fists.
But where would I go, Njeri? I am where you left me. Still sitting here in the silence. Waiting for Mama to come in for a bite or a change of clothes. She has lost all her willpower to live. Do you remember her long luscious dark hair? The way we would generously apply coconut oil to it, gleefully combing it on Saturday evening until it shone in the lamp light? Do you remember how ladies at church would stop her to touch, smell and admire it? Well, it’s no more Njeri, it’s gone. In a moment of frustration, she picked up a pair of scissors and hacked it away leaving behind a dry, matted mess. A sad reminder of its former glory.
No one visits our messy homestead anymore, Njeri. We also don’t visit anyone. Mama’s vegetables lie all dry and untilled in the shamba. That ship also sailed off as soon as you left us. No hope, no income, nothing to keep her husband’s empty pockets oiled. Baba’s sympathy money ran dry very soon, leaving behind a throat that will not be quenched enough.
Yes Njeri, I sit here in the sound of silence. Baba will come in at some point and bang on the doors and the tables demanding for food. He strikes out if there is none and still strikes out if there is. Njeri, there is no escape for me. If Mama is not in, he comes to my room and takes what is his. If Mama is in, he goes wild because she now escapes to my room to keep from him and his flying fists, and since he can’t have his way with me with her in the room, this infuriates him all the more. Just the other day, Mama came from prayers in the dead of the night and bolted our bedroom door so that she and I could have a few hours of shut-eye before Baba descended on us. Before long, we were woken by the breaking of the door as Baba stormed into the room, dragging Mama out of the room by her hair. It was a sad sight, Mama being dragged on the floor, her hands being yanked and bitten off of the furniture as she resisted. Her already ragged clothes tearing more as she was shoved here and there. Njeri, it was a pathetic sight, I tell you. After kicking her around like an old airless ball, Baba locked her in their bedroom and drunkenly ran back to mine. Back to the comfort that only my twelve-year-old body seems to offer him. I don’t cry any more, Njeri. I just don’t. I just escape and hide in the silence of my mind. Two years of sadness, anger and hate have numbed me.
Do you remember a picture you had pinned on our wall? The big one that the nun at church gave you because you were the only one who remembered to memorize all the verses? The one with an mzungu man with very pale skin, blue eyes, long blonde hair and a sharp nose that looks like he sleeps with a clothes peg on it? The one where the mzungu is seated on a huge shiny chair? Do you remember? You had come home so excited, made a sign of love and then one of freeing from chains. You tried in vain to explain to me who he was. I didn’t know him or understand who he loved or who he was setting free. Do you remember it? You pointed to the sky and signed that he lives up there.
Well, a few months ago in my sadness or madness, I thought about that picture. I changed its position, pinning it on the ceiling of our room instead. The idea was that maybe on the wall he was not seeing me properly. I set it in a way where he could look down at me and I could look up at him. When Baba was vibrating and rocking on top of me, I would gaze at that face with the hope that one day he would see me. See me writhing in pain and agony, and have mercy on me. Maybe he would jump down from that big seat and come save me from my chains. Days became weeks and weeks became months, yet he never moved, Njeri. He never moved from that beautiful seat where he is seated comfortably, draped in gleaming white robes.
It has dawned on me that the very idea is ridiculous. No one is coming to save me, be it in white clothes or otherwise. I’m doomed, Njeri. Doomed! What I’ve realised is that what this man loves is sheep. He is not interested in useless, lonely, lost girls like me. Just sheep. After all, in the picture, he is tenderly holding a little one on his lap. Sorry Njeri, but I took down that picture and shredded it into many tiny pieces. Pieces that I sent flying down the pit latrine. I threw them down that stinky hole as I shed my last tears.
Yesterday, I sat under our tree and watched two little birds playing on the branches of our mùgumo tree. They were jumping and following each other from branch to branch. It reminded me of us. Suddenly, one took off, soaring into the sky and leaving the other one behind. It reminded me of us and my heart felt heavy. You were the lucky one.
Lately, I have made it a habit to sit at the exact spot where you were slain. Who knows? Lightning might just strike twice at the same spot. The political environment might get hot again. Elections may happen at any time. The youth are still idle, jobless and hungry. Politicians will still need to use them as live bait for votes. History might repeat itself. The police might chase them through our still unsecured compound again. The stray bullets will once again fly left, right and centre. Who knows, Njeri? It happened once; it could happen once again. Who knows? My last hope is that when it does, I will be here at our spot. On the wobbly stool, under the shade of the mùgumo tree. Waiting in the silence.
END
- Sound of Silence || Lucy Wangari - February 12, 2022
