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I lay on the bare wide mat -par-made from the papyrus reed silently listening to the night. Sleep seemed to be on a long voyage and however much I tried to close my eyes it didn’t just come. In its place was s thick pain,fear and anxiety like a wild endless fog in my heart. My thoughts were moving round and round and I could some how see in the dark room thousands of eyes looking laughingly at me. I pulled the dusty blanket over my head but those eyes were still there inside the blanket still staring at me. Lying beside me was my younger brother sleeping away the night soundly with most of his body in the cold. He had kicked the blanket away and that was the trouble with him. I remember the tussles we had all night long when we shared one blanket and I would wake up in the morning wild and protesting to mama. Off to my right was my little sister on her little mat covered with a thin mattress and a purple shuka sleeping soundly .Her smooth breath made me envious and I wished that I too slept like that.
She was our darling and on days when our aunt came for her,a strange silence fell on the house as if something grave had happened. She would cry and we would protest and my aunt weak in the heart,amidst persuasion from dad would let her remain with us. She was the chatty; the playful;the happy and full of life girl,and all day when not helping mama with anything she would be chasing after us and screaming and laughing and mama would think that we were hurting her little angel. But when she broke down she cried without end you ended up crying with her when trying to calm her down. That was her and we loved her radiant eyes, rosy cheeks and sweet dimples and mama was very protective of her.
A wave of pain passed through my heart and I could not hold back the tears that stung my sleepless eyes. I felt my temperature rise as if I was catching a cold and my heart pumped wildly with fear and anxiety. It was like I was caught in the dangerous path of wild sharp teeth of a saw that was gnawing my heart away painfully. The more the groans reached my ears from the body writhing in pain on the creaking bed some five feet away from where we slept, the more I let the tears flow freely.
A wave of pain passed through my heart and I could not hold back the tears that stung my sleepless eyes. I felt my temperature rise as if I was catching a cold and my heart pumped wildly with fear and anxiety. It was like I was caught in the dangerous path of wild sharp teeth of a saw that was gnawing my heart away painfully. The more the groans reached my ears from the body writhing in pain on the creaking bed some five feet away from where we slept, the more I let the tears flow freely.
On the bed lay my sick mama, the woman I loved and cherished more than anything else in the world. We knew her to be the queen of the cane but she was also the all loving mother whose love was so broad and wide to the far horizon you could walk, run, swim or sink in it without reaching the end. On days when we played the- good -mom- loving- babies ,she treated us like little kings .Whenever she went to the market to sell her baskets she could bring us delicious things to eat like the bhajias and samosas and in the evening as she boiled the dried fish on the three stoned hearth she could tell us funny stories. My sister would laugh her sharp voice being carried off by the wind to the trees away till tear drops stood on her little eyes. Mama always warned her that laughing like that would get her sick but then this would sound like some wild funny joke and she would reel into pearls of laughter till she chocked. Then mama wouldn’t tell us stories any more.
Every time I thought of mama,apart from her mad outbursts of anger at my brother and I, she was always the busy working woman. She stayed away most of the day in the farm or gone to the market.She would delegate house chores to my brother and I but we were always running into trouble for not doing them; our love for play and forgetfulness was her source of frustrations .She would give us a few licks of the cane but most of the time she simply ignored us and we would run off into the fields kicking each other and screaming till hunger brought us back home. Then she would not say a word but the look on her face would remind us of what we had failed to do and we would frantically seek to make amends .I could see her always bent on her farm weeding her cassava,potatoes,millet or maize while happily singing popular church hymns.
She was the weaving queen, always at her free time sitting under the mango tree next to the huge paw paw trees she grew outside the house creating her baskets. She never spent her time gossiping with other women though she had many friends and they were always coming to seek her opinion on this and that. Whenever there were visitors in the neighbourhood they came for her to go and help make buns which she was good at. She was a tough lady and her friends knew this. She was the practical woman of few words who believed in independence and she always had trouble with dad since most of the time she never asked for anything from him and he could not understand how we managed. She had a loving heart and it was open to whoever wanted to have a share of her love. Her women friends, the mothers of boys and girls we played with in the neighbourhood,would come to keep her company in the hot afternoons.
She was the weaving queen, always at her free time sitting under the mango tree next to the huge paw paw trees she grew outside the house creating her baskets. She never spent her time gossiping with other women though she had many friends and they were always coming to seek her opinion on this and that. Whenever there were visitors in the neighbourhood they came for her to go and help make buns which she was good at. She was a tough lady and her friends knew this. She was the practical woman of few words who believed in independence and she always had trouble with dad since most of the time she never asked for anything from him and he could not understand how we managed. She had a loving heart and it was open to whoever wanted to have a share of her love. Her women friends, the mothers of boys and girls we played with in the neighbourhood,would come to keep her company in the hot afternoons.
“Ai, Nyawegi, what a beautiful basket!”Greetings were never important. They would talk as if they lived in the same house and always saw each other.
“You think so?”She would ask wearing the satisfactory knowing smile for she loved her art and she knew she was good at it. And then she would remember. “Oh, oh, my friend.Don't touch my baskets. Every time you touch them I never sell well”
“Ai! That is a very fat lie there.”And then they would laugh out together as if it was choreographed.
“These girls are looking nice. Give me this one.”The girls would be the baskets. Her lady friend would be bewildered and excited.
“How much do you have?”
“How much do want?”
“Seventy won’t do me bad”
“Eh, my sister! Seventy?”There would be creases on her lady friend's face indicating deep thought. From the way she looked it was obvious she was not going to leave the basket. I would watch and I presumed that women loved beautiful things and would do anything in the world to get them. "Take sixty. You know I have to buy food for my children and my husband won't be pleased if I misused the money he gave me for keeping the house. He won’t be paid till after two weeks from now.”
“I know you my friend.” She would say knowing that she had a true admirer of her work who would go at great lengths to have her work."Just don’t spill your troubles in front of these young ones."She would cast us a glance with her eyes asking"Are you listening to our conversation?" then resume the bargaining.
" Give me fifty; after all you are my good friend, right.”
" Give me fifty; after all you are my good friend, right.”
“OK! Thanks a lot my friend.” Her friend would be smiling radiantly with genuine appreciation like the bright afternoon sun blazing in the sky. “Ehe! I heard your co-wife beat her boy very badly yesterday?’
“Where did you pick that from?”
“Just heard."
"Just like that?”
"Just like that?”
“Yes,”
“I haven’t heard anything of the sort and don’t waste your time on such like things. It can always land you into trouble, you know.”
“I meant no harm. Just asking”
“OK.And how is your daughter?”
“She is good. She can't keep away from her brother. They have gone to the river. They must be back by now.” Her daughter Rose was only three and a half and was a good friend of my sister.When not with the brother whom we always fought with, they spent the day away playing till dusk set in. “I have remembered. I need to go to the shopping center to buy some few things. Would you need anything?”
“Uh…u…em...yes. Get me a kilo of sugar. Here is the money.”Then she would rise and see her friend off who would walk away with the basket in her left arm carried in a position to show off to those who cared to see that it was new and beautiful and from mama.
However,on bad days like this one,she would fall sick and the three of us would sit by the bed and cry while she held our tiny hands in her weak hands.
She was writhing and groaning more now. The pain was getting too much, it seemed. She coughed and threw her hand about on the empty space beside her.
Dad was away sleeping in the next hut that belonged to my step mum most probably unaware of what was going on. Mama had fallen sick shortly after dusk and dad on coming back from his shop at the shopping center at ten had gone straight to bed without checking on us. It was strange that tonight he never came to see us.But it might be that the lights had already gone out and mama hated being disturbed after she had gone to bed. Days when he had to spend in the hut he had to make his intentions known either by coming home early or by asking mama to keep food for him. Such days when he spent the night with us were very happy moments. My sister would be perched on his lap, her eyes looking into his while he told us funny stories like mama late into the night. Sometimes he used to care much for mama who would suddenly fall ill and he would cook for her if my step mama wasn’t around. But the other nights when mama fell ill again,he and step mum would spend the night by her side till dawn when she would go back to her hut to catch some sleep.
Dad was away sleeping in the next hut that belonged to my step mum most probably unaware of what was going on. Mama had fallen sick shortly after dusk and dad on coming back from his shop at the shopping center at ten had gone straight to bed without checking on us. It was strange that tonight he never came to see us.But it might be that the lights had already gone out and mama hated being disturbed after she had gone to bed. Days when he had to spend in the hut he had to make his intentions known either by coming home early or by asking mama to keep food for him. Such days when he spent the night with us were very happy moments. My sister would be perched on his lap, her eyes looking into his while he told us funny stories like mama late into the night. Sometimes he used to care much for mama who would suddenly fall ill and he would cook for her if my step mama wasn’t around. But the other nights when mama fell ill again,he and step mum would spend the night by her side till dawn when she would go back to her hut to catch some sleep.
The owl hooted again, this time closer to the hut and my heart sunk deeper. They said the bird was a sign of bad omen and whenever it hooted in a homestead somebody was bound to die. Mama could not die. I found myself mumbling a prayer to God to keep her safe for us. I heard mama call my name in a weak voice that sounded like a whisper and without knowing it I was by her side. Her body temperature was very high and I wished at that moment I had mystical power to touch her with all the love in my heart and heal her but I was small and powerless. I swallowed hard and looked at her. Why couldn’t the sickness just go away? Why my mama? I couldn’t understand and I felt angry at that unknown person who was making mama suffer like that.
I clumsily fumbled for the tin lamp and the match box in the darkness on the spot where I guessed that the stool would be. I heard the lamp fall down and the sharp smell of the paraffin hit the room at once. I got it on time before all the paraffin got spilt and struck a match.The fat smoking yellow flame burst into life large and strong,and the darkness receded to under the bed and outside the house.
I got a plastic basin and poured some cold water into it and with a towel I wiped her face off the beads of sweat that stood precariously on her forehead as if they were the source of her pain. All this while I was sobbing and I didn’t want mama to see my face. My sister stirred from her dreams and sleep-walked to mama. She climbed the bed and held her flaming arm and started sobbing.
“Hush baby. Don’t cry! Mama is fine, “She was telling her and her assurance made us cry even more. My brother woke up too and sat on the mat with a blank stare on his face.
The night was still dark and the bats were now more frantic in their rounds than before. Mama was breathing hard and I was trembling hard so scared and not aware of what next to do. Then I remembered mama had not eaten supper and I jumped on to the cooking place to make her some porridge. It didn’t matter what time of the night it was as long as it could make our queen feel better.
Then somebody taped gently on the door. We got terrified that it might be the night dancer who patronized the neighbourhood scaring women and children but when I heard dad call out, I was glad and happy and scared no more. He was my superman just arriving on time to help mama. It was a miracle how he sensed something was wrong but unlike me he slept lightly. He rushed back to my step mum’s hut and came back with some tablets. He made the porridge and made her swallow the drugs with it. There after she calmed down and fell into sleep. I never understood my dad. He was some kind of a chemist with knowledge of what drug treated what and whenever he sent on to the chemist the drug always worked.
The night wore on and dad slept on the chair next to mama with my sister perched on his lap covered with her blanket. I never slept and I sat by the bed too scared that something bad might happen to mama if I closed my eyes.
It struck six o’clock in the morning and mama was the first to be out of the house. She picked her weeding hoe and was out in the wet soil on a cold morning and neither dad nor I nor anybody else could stop her. We knew her quite well to even try.
