tall tales and all
Fiction
Poetry
A Tale of Exile
Literary Monuments
Thotlines
Audience Response
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"I am a child of God, a child of God, a child of God..." he chanted,
keeping an absent mind on the familiar route that took him every
morning from his Eastlands home through the city and across to
Nairobi West. He repositioned his hands around the steering wheel
so the skin around the little domes of his knuckles tightening to
form silky creases on his dark skin. He chanted on until the
impinging thought of wretchedness was sufficiently quelled.
Sometimes the thought crept up like unwanted in-laws, slowly
growing roots where they were not welcome, refusing to leave until
they were scandalously evicted. Pastor Moses Kiereini had learnt to
expunge of the unwanted thought of wretchedness from his mind
with words that held the power to pulverize toxic untruths picked
up along the path of his life. The lights turned red right at the city
limits.
He rolled down his car window and breathed in the crisp morning
Nairobi air, filling up his lungs with a good dose before the rush-
hour traffic dumped its share of carbon footprint into it. The traffic
was relatively light, and it was still dark outside, just after five. In
another hour, it would be near-impossible to navigate through the
insanity of metal beings on rubber racing their human cargo
towards illusive dreams. He liked getting to his office before six.
At exactly ten minutes to six, Moses parked his car at the church
compound, grabbed his briefcase, and made his way towards the
sanctuary doors.
"Habari ya asubuhi, Pastor!" Mambo, the watchman shouted out an
enthusiastic greeting to Moses.
"Nzuri ndugu. Chai?" Moses returned the greeting and welcomed
Mambo to a cup of tea in the office.
"A-a, asante." Mambo graciously declined the offer. He needed to
get home and take his children to school. Moses watched him walk
briskly to the bus stop across the street. He made a mental note to
remember Mambo in prayer.
Mambo had lost his wife about a month ago after a speeding matatu
ran her over and dragged her several feet right outside her house.
His seven year-old twin girls depended on him to get back home
every morning after work, make them breakfast, and take them to
school. In spite of it all, the watchman greeted Moses with
enthusiasm and a smile every morning. Silently, Moses wished
Mambo wouldn't be so consistently gracious. It was alright if he
groaned out an ice-cold greeting sometimes. He was aware that
Mambo had not mourned yet, and he knew that the day would soon
come when the bereaved watchman would start questioning God,
growing bitter, and withdraw his warm greetings all together.
Moses decided that his prayer that morning would be for Mambo to
come through it all a stronger and wiser man, for he believed that
at the bottom of the well, grace always rose up to fill up aching
hearts gouged dry by sorrow.
Once inside the sanctuary, Moses paused before the altar then
slowly went up the three steps that led to the glass-topped pulpit
with the wooden cross hanging over it. He cautiously went down on
his knees, facing the vast space across the empty sanctuary. He
allowed that familiar feeling of belonging to envelope him, causing
him to close his eyes and savour it for a moment.
"Thank you, Lord..." he started, and spent time in conversation
with his maker for a while. How he enjoyed this moment.
This morning, he particularly felt overwhelmed with a sense of
gratitude. For six years, he had been a Pastor at the Harvest Baptist
Church in Nairobi West, better known around town as Harvest. His
life was never more perfect than when he was ministering or
meditating as he now was. God had been good to him, he thought.
The congregation loved him, and he loved them back with all the
sincerity his heart could master.
He veered off his prayer trail for a moment and indulged in the
memory of his ordination six years ago, right before this very altar.
His life's purpose as a minister had solidified while in high school,
and thereafter, never once fallen into doubt. After he was ordained,
he was made the Youth Pastor. Pastor Moses attracted many young
people - and yes, ladies - to the church by his charisma and his
killing-me-softly looks. The man was sinfully handsome. He had
smote many a damsel with the innocent flash of his smile. After
three years as a Youth Pastor, the church put him in charge of
Visitation Ministry. This meant he organized visits to the sick in
hospitals and those in prison. And he took on these added
responsibilities with ease and excellence.
This is how it came about. One day the senior Pastor had taken
Pastor Moses with him to visit the sick in hospital, as was routine.
He had watched the Youth Pastor hold an ailing new-born babe in
the cupped palm of his hand and pray over that little life as if God
himself were breathing upon it. Something about the delicacy with
which Moses handled life seemed completely natural and all
together rare. There and then the senior Pastor had decided to give
the Youth Pastor the added responsibilities of Visitation Ministry.
Truth be told, the deacons of the church had also been looking for a
way to curtail the potentially scandalous attention Pastor Moses
was receiving from the ladies, and the senior Pastor had just been
presented with the perfect opportunity. God worked in mysterious
ways. That was three years ago, and to the best of their knowledge,
the deacons had succeeded in maintaining the sanctity of their
popular Youth Pastor.
Moses had taken to the challenge like a duck to water, always
seeming to restore a certain dignity to those he prayed for; convicts
in prison, rejected relatives sick with stigmatized diseases, and
anyone who came to him for prayers; he brought them to God with
humility and gratitude, as the pure souls he considered them to be.
At the point of prayer, they were all children of God, and all they
wanted was healing grace.
As he continued to kneel at the altar, Moses also recalled that some
of the most ungracious behaviour had happened within the church
family; passing judgment against another with sledge hammer,
hateful words spoken through petty jealousies, vengeful hearts
seeking to draw blood, and bigoted minds crushing the dignity of
others to the ground. He had tried his best to intervene in the worst
cases, sometimes earning himself a temporary enemy here and
there, but always being sought after later for words of wisdom. To
dignify, rather than deface, was a conscious choice he made. After
all, he prayed everyday that no one would ever deface him; that his
veil would stay in place to the day he died.
"Amen." He said, quickly getting back to the present. He got up and
made his way to the church office through the doors facing the
sanctuary. Sitting at his desk, he went over his schedule for the day
while seeping at a fresh cup of tea he had just fixed. Normal day, he
thought, peering into the scribble in his diary. Evening... Kenyatta
Hospital, visit with Mama Okoth, eighty-seven years old... Alzheimer's...
Yeah, he remembered meeting her three weeks ago and promising
to see her again. For a brief moment of human weakness which he
perished as quickly as it came, he wondered if he shouldn't cancel
that appointment, considering she may not remember him at all.
Moses remembered that the only relative who visited the old lady
was her twelve year-old grandson whose parents had died of AIDS.
He would keep his appointment with Mama Okoth. Another
scribble in his diary: meet Judith at eight. He looked up and knit his
eyebrows, wondering what he was meeting his mouthy cousin,
Judith, about. Then it came to him.
The reminding came to him like the shadow of a veiled woman
disappearing round the bend. He quickly ignored the shadow and
turned to his keyboard. Only the veil floated back and delicately
shrouded his face like a spider's web. The shadow conveniently
faded out of sight. He had a sermon for tomorrow's midweek youth
service to work on.
His phone rang. He looked at it and let it ring. A short while later,
the message alert beeped. He would call her back later. There was
no urgency. After all, he had a lifetime to spend with her.
It so happened that Moses Kiereini was about to get married. In five
days.
He sighed. His bride-to-be was one gift he wished he could shove
right back to God, forget he had ever met her. And then, he loved
her truly.
"Lord... why?" He knew the answer as clear as he knew God's
unconditional love for him. Many years ago, the truth had made
itself known to him as naturally as the rising of the sun. The truth
had knocked softly against the mind of a young boy awakening to
puberty. He had known the truth for a long time, and all his life,
even when the truth sat well with him, he was a chrysalis waiting to
break out of its delicate cocoon and fly free like the butterflies he so
loved to watch as a young boy in Kajiado walking home from
school. Who was he that God should have brought the beautiful
Mueni his way?
Mueni Xhamela was a pleasant and quiet young lady, born of a
South African father and a Kenyan mother, fiercely protected by her
only sibling, Themba. While Moses anguished over her, she sat in
her office located on the fifth floor of Fedha Towers and
contemplated calling it a day. She flipped open her phone restlessly.
"O, well." She said, disappointed that her fiancé had not called her
back. He was busy, she knew, and she did not want to be a pest. She
looked at his smiling face staring at her from the picture frame on
her desk, and for a moment, she indulged her mind to a quick visit
down reminisce lane, almost a year ago when she met Moses...
"Run, ladies, run!" Mueni shouted to her two girlfriends as they
tried to make their way through the helter-skelter crowd. The air
around the Nairobi West bus stop was thick with tear gas. Across
the street, riot police ran gun battles with a crowd running wildly in
all directions. For the second day in a row, there had been strikes all
over the city. The country had been growing restless over the
strange case of a full sack of maize that had been found sitting
outside parliament buildings, all by itself. It had gone unclaimed,
questions had gone unanswered, and no one wanted to touch it. It
was all together mysterious, spooky, almost immoral. In the face of
rising prices of unga and accompanying food rationing, the
mindboggling sight had let loose all sorts of speculation and
eventually, an explosion of outrage that spilt out to the street in
riots. It was in one of these riots that Mueni and her friends had
found themselves engulfed after they got off a matatu in Nairobi
West. They were on their way to spend a girls-only Friday evening
in Mueni's apartment not too far from Harvest Baptist. Suddenly,
they were chocking and struggling to keep the blinding acid fumes
off their eyes.
"Let's head to the church!" Shouted one of Mueni's friends.
"No, let's just run home; we're almost there," said Mueni. And as
they moved faster, a sudden wall of humanity running the opposite
direction was upon them.
"Wameua mtu! Wameua mtu!" A young man was shouting that they
had killed someone. The excited lad ran directly into Mueni,
knocking her down to the ground. Mueni's friends quickly helped
her up and without any more discussions, they turned around and
ran across the street towards the church.
Moses watched from the window of the church office as the chaos
unfolded, saw the young ladies running towards the sanctuary
doors, one of them with a bloody knee, and quickly ran to let them
in.
"Here, sit here. I'll get a wet cloth. Let's take care of that." Pastor
Moses got busy as the three girls tried to catch their breath. He soon
came back with a first aid kit and a wet cloth that he started
dabbing on Mueni's knee.
"It's not too bad..." He said, cleaning away the gravel stuck on her
skin. She winced.
"Sorry about that."
Mueni shut her eyes tight as Moses finished tending to her. Her
friends sat quietly, too absorbed in their own growing anger. This
sudden intrusion into a Friday evening they were so looking
forward to was completely uncalled for. They always enjoyed the
gossip about their boyfriends as if they were watching and starring
in their own blockbuster movie. Now this!
"I think it's cleared." One of the girls said. "Let's go before it gets
dark."
"Thank you," Mueni said, and for the first time, looked up at
Moses' face. Things had happened so quickly she had not had time
to notice him at all. He smiled, nodded, and there, right before her,
she saw the most calming, gentle eyes she'd ever seen on a human
face. For a moment, nothing around mattered anymore. In that
moment, she knew something had shifted in her. She couldn't
explain it. Something wonderful, and fearful, and... she could not
find the word for that other thing. Perhaps she never would.
"Pastor Moses, sorry, I did not introduce myself."
"My name is Mueni," she responded.
"Mueni," Moses repeated, and turned to the other ladies, "and your
friends here?"
"I know you. I come to this church sometimes." The nonchalant one
replied while looking out the window.
"O, well then, you're home! It's a big church, I'm sorry I don't get
to meet everyone who comes to worship here." Moses said
apologetically.
"That's ok, a Pastor is not a little god capable of knowing everyone.
I'm Chebet. And this is Rispa. She's Catholic, goes to Holy Family
Basilica. Lakini don't try to save her; she's not interested." Moses
almost winced at that introduction.
"Hello, Rispa. No matter; you're still welcome to worship with us
anytime, no strings attached." After the introductions, Moses asked
them if they wanted to wait in the office for a while longer. He
noticed that Chebet was particularly eager to leave. She was rather
talkative, a bit... brash. Moses looked away from her, almost afraid
that she might have heard his critical thoughts about her, then
insisted again, "Stay longer until it's safe to leave."
"Heh, Pastor. You think we live here?" Chebet meant to be funny,
but somehow her jokes had a way of taking off in the opposite
direction. The tragedy of it all is that she never noticed her jokes
run amok and leave her audience perplexed. She turned to the other
girls as she picked up her handbag. "You guys, hebu si we go."
"Thank you again, Pastor. We really appreciate." Mueni said, once
again feeling that odd shift inside her when she looked at him.
"Stay safe." Moses said as he opened the door for them.
After that first encounter, Mueni spent a week thinking about
Pastor Moses; not as one smitten, but as one moved. Moved
towards a destiny she had no clear grasp of. After two weeks,
she decided to start attending Harvest Baptist Church. She
needed to meet him again, as if her life depended on it.
Mueni had not been much of a card-holding Christian, and
when she attended church, she worshipped at the Anglican
church where her parents went.
Pastor Moses remembered her. Slowly, they began to meet more
often as Mueni became a regular at Harvest. Over time, she became
quite involved in the Youth Ministry as well, and quite often joined
the Visitation committee that Moses led to hospitals and prisons.
They became great friends. Everyone noticed. The older married
ladies and the church elders approved. They needed their Youth
Pastor to settle down with a good wife and children as was the will
of God. The single ladies who'd been waiting in line now fought off
the green-eyed monster.
While Mueni grew to love Moses deeper every day, Moses grew
deeper in love with his ministry. Silently, she worried that he was
taking too long to make a meaningful move. Did he secretly have
his heart in the clutches of another woman? She needed to know,
but did not know how to ask, so she suffered silently. Moses felt her
withdraw from him. More and more, whenever they were in a
group, she quickly left before Moses had a chance to ask how her
day was.
Then one day, right after ministering to patients at Pumwani
Hospital, Moses felt a pang of guilt tear through his heart. Once
again, here was Mueni, ever so faithfully lending him support and
company, never asking for anything more. Yet he knew she was
waiting. He was not blind. He caught up with her as she quickly left
to catch the bus home.
"Eer... Mueni, please, may I give you a ride home?" he asked. It
was the first time he had ever offered her a ride home since they
first met seven months ago. Her heart pumped pure music through
her veins.
Moses let her in his car and they started driving towards the city.
He was quiet for what seemed an eternity. She did not move, did
not want him to hear her breathe. She feared the music from her
heart might be a tad too loud and would betray her sheer
excitement. He cleared his throat.
"You know... I think you're a great girl," he started, "and I wanted
to tell you how much I appreciate your friendship and support." He
went on. She sat quietly as he navigated through the traffic and the
thick mesh of his emotions.
"You've been there for me like no friend I've ever known, and I
wanted to say thank you. Thank you for getting tear-gassed into the
church." She laughed out loud, and suddenly felt at ease. He joined
her in the laughter, and their conversation became a river passing
through a bed of silky sand, sometimes tumbling over rocks that
made it bubble over in silvery ribbons, then the conversation was a
surprise waterfall over a cliff of unexpected information, running
into plunge pools of swirling laughter, then moving towards the
meanders of what might be, what is hoped for, what was left
unspoken.
She loved him. She loved him achingly.
After that night, giving Mueni a ride home became something
Moses looked forward to. He needed the friend she was. True,
unpretentious, unafraid to be vulnerable. He began to feel free to
speak his mind with her. Laughed a lot, even cried with ease when
he told her about his father's death, and how little he knew him.
Mzee Kiereini, a man's man, he had said to Mueni; husband to two
wives, father to six daughters and one son, Moses, in whom he felt
quite disappointed. Moses had failed his father by going into
church ministry for a career when the village clearly needed a
doctor. Mueni had hugged Moses as he cried out his aching for his
father's pride and acceptance. She had loved him then with the
intensity of virgin embers with their thin veil of ashes barely
visible. In her presence, Moses felt truly comfortable, easily
forgetting the shroud that delicately veiled his face.
It was during one of these rides home that Mueni had asked Moses
to come up to her apartment. She had remembered that her
brother, Themba, was visiting, and she wanted them to meet.
"Well, I'll walk you up, but I can't stay. Need to prepare for
tomorrow." He saw nothing calculated about the invitation.
"That's alright. You can say hello to him and be on your way. We
should do dinner at my place soon." She hadn't meant to make this
last suggestion. She quickly shrunk into her petite self and hoped
she had not sounded like some desperately shameless female.
Moses completely failed to notice Mueni's flash of feminine
insecurity.
"Sure, we should do dinner soon. How long is Themba staying?"
From previous conversations, Moses was aware that Mueni's only
brother worked in Maseno as an accountant at the university.
"He's leaving tomorrow morning. Came to do some auditing for a
friend's business." She said.
"Ok." There was nothing for Moses to relate to. Accounting seemed
all rather dull.
"Come on, I'll take you to the door." Mueni led Moses up the stairs
to her third-floor apartment. Just as she jiggled the keys into the
keyhole, her brother opened the door.
"Hey, Nini! Just making sure it's not a burglar." Themba Xhamela
was the effervescent side of Mueni. He had always called his sister
Nini, meaning 'small' in their mother's mother-tongue. Mueni had
no problem with her petite size. She loved her brother's protective
five-eleven towering figure when he walked with her. He was
thirty-five; she was thirty-one. Just then, he noticed Moses.
"Oh... you have company. I'll just retreat to bed," Themba said,
looking directly at Moses.
"This is my brother, Themba. Themba, this is Moses, Pastor
Moses." Mueni made the quick introductions and added, "He's
only seeing me safely home."
"Glad to meet you," Moses said, looking straight into Themba's
eyes.
They did not shake hands, and Mueni did not notice anything worth
noticing. She was in her own cloud, grinning from ear to ear. Moses
had agreed to dinner at her apartment.
"Well, I suppose I'll see you on Sunday." Moses said to Mueni,
giving her a warm hug while Themba looked on. He disappeared
down the stairwell while the Xhamela sibling locked the door
behind them. It was one sleepless night for both of them. The sister,
excited beyond measure; the brother, blindsided. He didn't know
what hit him.
Mueni had all but forgotten that evening of quick introductions. As
the weeks went by, nothing significant had progressed between
Mueni and Moses. The Pastor went on with his ministry, loving
every new day that he walked in through the doors of the sanctuary
at Harvest Baptist Church.
Then one day, several weeks after he had met Themba, Moses
received a call from his mother. Usually, he called her. When he
heard her voice, he braced himself for some bad news. His mind
quickly scanned through faces of relatives who might have had
one leg already in the ancestral realm. He zeroed in on his father's
brother who had a festering wound on his shin that had refused to
heal. Moses suspected it was cancerous.
"Mother, is it uncle-- ?" Before he could finish, his mother cut him
off.
"Son, I don't have much time, your uncle is fine. Now, you listen to
me. Before your father went to be with the Lord, he said directly to
you, marry quickly, like that. Find a good girl and marry. A man is
empty without a family. I'm saying to you now, you're old and your
uncles are angry with me. Marry quickly!"
At the age of thirty-eight, Moses hardly felt old, but he was aware
that in the eyes of his people, he should have been a father to
several children by now.
"Mother..."
"I hear there is a good girl you have met. I hear everyone in your
church is waiting for you to bring her home. What are you waiting
for?"
"Mother..."
"You must bring to birth your late father and continue the family
line before it's too late." Moses knew that was a serious charge. He
was the only son. He wanted to protest out loud to the ancestors,
the living, the unborn, the tribe.
"Mother, please..." He started meekly.
"What is it, son? Eh? What is the matter? Is it money? The church
will help you put the wedding together, and we shall have the feast
ready for you here in Kajiado. You hear me, eh?"
"Mother." Moses paused, his mother listened. "You gave birth to
me, held me in your arms, raised me until I became a man. Don't
you know your son?"
"Moses, what are you talking about? Do you have a secret family,
eh?" His mother's voice was both distressed and puzzled. Moses
massaged his temple and attempted to end the conversation as
positively as he could.
"Mother, I'm sorry I have disappointed you. You and father. I have
not made you happy."
"Well, now is your chance. Do the right thing. Soon, I too shall join
your father. All I want is for you to do the right thing." Mama
Moses was almost begging.
"I understand..." He sighed.
"Yes, son. Do the right thing. You understand?" She pressed on.
He understood. He knew his uncles had sat his mother down and
demanded to know why Mzee Kiereini's only son was shaming the
family by staying single so long. Did he not know that was
against custom, irksome to the ancestors, and insulting to his
people's belief in a man's duty to see to the perpetuation of life.
Moses knew that his mother had spent sleepless nights agonizing
over this matter, and had eventually gathered the guts to tell him
exactly what was at stake. He hurt for his mother. She did not
deserve an only son who did not seem to bring her pride. She
deserved every bit of joy that her children could afford her. Guilt
now overwhelmed Moses, and his shoulders caved in under the
weight of a fresh wave of remorse. She is the only mother he had.
"Ok. I will. I'll do the right thing" He said to his mother and bid her
goodbye.
He walked out of the office and into the sanctuary. This was the
place where he was able to talk to God and find peace. He spent the
next three hours agonizing over that phone call. He knew the church
members that had a stake in his marital status were growing equally
restless. He was also aware that the deacons were contemplating
making him the Associate Pastor, next in line to take up the
church's leadership should the senior Pastor retire, a likely event,
considering the senior Pastor was already a septuagenarian and
showing wear-and-tear. They were not about to give such an
honored position to a bachelor.
Moses sat in the silence and searched God deeply. The big man was
silent. He knew this place; this realm of no-answers. It was that
chthonic zone that held explosive dichotomies of life; the zone of
neither right nor wrong; neither war nor peace; neither good nor
evil. He recognized it as a place he must walk through, splinter into
pieces as he raked through the cosmos for answers, and hopefully, if
miracle permit, come out resurrected.
He drove home, thinking about Mueni, and what a wonderful friend
she was. She could have any good man she wanted, but he knew she
wanted him. And why wouldn't I want her for a wife? He knew the
answer to that question, so he rephrased it. Why shouldn't she get
what her heart yearns for? Once, he suffered tremendous amount of
guilt for not returning her love in similar measure. He had known
she had been utterly selfless, being there for him without ever a
complaint. Then he had started returning gratitude and affection
in the best way he knew, by taking her home and indulging her in
conversation. That had resulted in the treasure of the friendship
they now shared. Then there was her brother Themba... He would
save those thoughts for later.
Suddenly, it came to him.
"I must be the sacrifice God is calling me to be. I must die that
another might live." He thought about Christ and the ultimate
sacrifice he had made on the cross. Giving of himself to Mueni
through the covenant of marriage would be the ultimate sacrifice.
She deserved to be treasured, cherished, protected, and loved by the
one her heart had gone out to. He would be there for her, to the last
mile.
He got home, took a shower, warmed up some food, and sat down
at table like one about to have his last supper before heading for the
gallows. He said grace, then picked up his phone and dialed Mueni's
number. It was almost nine in the evening.
"Moses?" Mueni answered.
"Mueni, this is Moses... of course, you know."
"Hey... is everything alright?" She could hear him breath.
"Eer... Sure, I'm alright." He cleared his throat. "Do you think I could
see you tomorrow? There's something I'd like to ask you."
Her heart was pounding.
"Sure. I can make time tomorrow."
"Well, how about after work, I'll pick you up."
And so the next morning, Moses purchased a ring, and in the
evening, popped the question to Mueni during a quiet dinner. It was
the kind of experience Mueni would never have words to describe.
She had craved this moment, but had not quite expected it. When
she got home, the first person she called was Themba, the brother
who had met Moses ever so briefly almost three months ago.
"Got some news, Tex!"
"What now?" Themba knew if Mueni called him by his childhood
nickname, it was something big.
"Getting married!"
"What?!"
"What do you mean, what?"
"You never told me you were seeing anyone! Who is he?"
"Oh, Tex, Tex. You met him already."
"I have? When, where?"
"It's Moses. Remember the guy who brought me home some
months back?"
There was complete silence on the other end of the line.
"Themba?"
He finally found his voice. "Mueni, listen to me."
"Ok, listening." Here comes the quizzing from big brother, she
thought.
"Run" He said.
"What did you say?"
"I said run." Themba repeated.
"What do you mean, run?"
"Nini, I don't know how to explain this, and I will not do it over
the phone. Just listen to me. Break off that engagement, for your
own good."
"I love him, Themba! I love him! Don't you know what that is??"
She knew her brother was a different kind of man, and she hoped
he was not ignorant about what it felt like to fall in love so bad
that your heart yo-yoed inside you at every thought of him.
"I know, I know. I'm just trying to protect you." He said calmly.
"Protect me from what??" She was getting annoyed.
"From a life of emptiness, pretentiousness, lies, lovelessness...
all that. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about."
"How can you know? You met him only once, for five seconds!
What could you possibly know about him?"
"A lot, Mueni. A lot." He paused. "Listen, I'll be in Nairobi in a week.
Can we talk then? Meanwhile, don't start making any plans.
If you can, please don't see him until you and I talk."
"You're asking impossible things of me."
"Try, Nini, try. Remember, marriage is for a lifetime"
"It had better be!" She said.
"I'll see you in a week." He said goodnight and hung up.
That night, the night of her engagement, Mueni slept fitfully.
Themba did not make sense at all, and she was not going to wait a
week for someone who was not on her side.
The next day, she called Themba and told him she did not want to
see him unless he had something good to say. He would not steal
her joy nor trample on her blessings.
"I have already called mum and dad," she told him, "and they are
ecstatic. The wedding is in three months."
"Don't dismiss me, Nini." He insisted.
"I won't, if you give me your unconditional support. I've always
been on your side, remember?" Mueni said.
There was silence. Then Themba curtly said ok, and hung up.
That week, the entire church learnt of the engagement. Mama
Moses and all of Kajiado prepared to receive the bride and her
parents. A certain newspaper even published the nuptials between a
South African diplomat's daughter and a well-known Youth Pastor.
For a moment, it seemed as if the Christian community was coming
to a standstill over the news. Moses drunk in the attention, even
allowed himself to enjoy it all. Mueni was somewhere beyond the
clouds and in no hurry to find her way back to solid ground. In
three months, she would be Mueni Xhamela Kiereini.
With so much to do, time had flown by, and Themba had
maintained absence and silence...
As Mueni wove her way back to the present, she took her eyes off
her fiancé's photo and glanced at the calendar on the wall. Five
days to go. Themba's silence bothered her greatly. She needed him
by her side. She had dismissed his reaction as a brother's
overzealous protectiveness. She needed him to snap out of it and
join the party. Maybe she should arrange another meeting between
her brother and Moses. Yes! That's what she will do. Tonight,
Moses was going to meet his cousin Judith about the flowers for the
church, so she had the evening to herself. She would call Themba
and tell him she could not get married without him there and that
she needed him to get to know Moses better.
Just as she left her office, her phone rang. It was Themba.
"What is this, telepathy?" She said.
"Why, were you about to call?" Themba asked.
"Yup. When are you coming to town?" She asked.
"I'm in town. I know you're about to leave the office. Meet me at
the coffee house across the street."
'I'll be there in three minutes."
They found each other, hugged warmly, and sat down at a corner
table.
"You look good." Themba started, studying her closely. She smiled.
"I feel good. Except..." She paused.
"Except what?" He searched her face.
"Except it's not right without my brother's support." She said.
"I'm sorry." Themba was sincere.
"It's ok. I suppose it's hard losing a sister."
Themba smiled, then looked away from her briefly.
"What is it?" She asked, studying his face.
"Nini, it's not that I'm afraid of losing a sister..."
She waited.
"I thought you deserve to know the truth."
He shifted in his chair.
"You know me, don't you?" He said cautiously.
"Of course." She said, puzzled.
"No, I mean, you know everything you need to know about me."
He looked at her directly.
She shifted uneasily.
"Themba, if you mean... "
"Yes, that's what I mean."
"Of course I know, and you know I've never had any problem with
it, thanks to you for all the talking you took me through." She said,
not quite sure where this was going.
"Mum and Dad may never really come to terms with it, but I'm
glad I have a sister who accepts me for who I am." He went on.
"Actually, I think they did come around somewhat. Remember
when mum gave uncle Muli a lashing for calling you a kiveti?
Themba giggled. "If it wasn't so insulting it would be funny. Not
that there's anything wrong with being called a woman, if you are
one. Thanks for reminding me. What would we do without
mothers."
"Ok, now, what does any of that have to do with my getting
married?" Mueni asked.
"Tell me the truth, haven't you ever wondered? I mean, has Moses
ever kissed you?"
"Of course he has! On the cheek, like a gentleman. He's a Pastor for
crying out loud. Why?" She asked defensively.
"Hmmm.." Themba threw her that uh-huh look. Mueni watched
him closely. Then, suddenly, she saw the light. It struck her like a
ton of bricks.
"Noooo!" She half-shouted, half-wept, half-protested, her heart
sinking to the bottom of her feet. Themba realized the truth had
just sunk in.
Yes... I'm so sorry, sis. I'm so very sorry. You've been so in love
with him you refused to see the truth, even when I know you
probably suspected it. You shut it away and willed him to be who
he is not. Somehow, God answered your prayers. Strange, huh?
You're in a desert dying of thirst, you pray hard enough, and you
scoop up a handful of sand believing it's water, and you drink it
gratefully. Only it's still sand."
Mueni was crying, shaking, intense waves of pain tearing into her
heart. She let the tears flow and watched her world crumble at the
foot of the coffee table. Themba moved his seat close to hers, not
caring who was watching, and held her close. He let her cry it out
for a long, long time. After she was done, she asked him the
question he knew was coming.
"How did you know? Had you met him before I introduced him to
you?"
"No. I never knew Moses before the night he brought you home.
When you introduced us, our eyes met, and we both knew."
Themba said.
"Just like that?" Mueni was puzzled. Themba nodded.
"Yup, just like that. I can't explain it, but it happens that way
sometimes, you know. You look into someone's eyes and you
know."
Mueni was lost for words. She blew her nose again, exhausting the
last bit of tissue paper she had with her.
"And there's something else I'd like to tell you." He went on.
Mueni didn't think there was any news left more shocking that
what she had just learnt.
"I called him a week after you introduced us. It was easy getting his
number, him being a Pastor and all, and we talked for hours on
end. After that, we called each other often. He's an easy man to fall
in love with." Mueni listened, feeling as if she was buried in a time
capsule, waiting on the future to unearth her to another universe.
Themba went on.
"After you called to tell me he had proposed to you, I asked him
why he did it. He said it was a sacrifice he believed he had to make.
For you, his mother, and for the church. I understood his faith, but
did not support his decision to marry you. But believe me, odd as it
was, I thought the way he had stacked up his argument was quite
expedient, almost genius, blending faith and logic like that to justify
marrying you. I told him so and he laughed. He's a tormented man,
I know, but he has been clear that this is the way he wants it to be.
Now I too am tormented by it all."
Mueni continued to listen, still feeling detached from the present
reality. How could she have missed it? Moses was the gayest man
she had ever met! The zero-interest in any testosterone-driven
activities, never made any romantic overtures towards her. His hugs
and kisses on the cheek were nothing but brotherly. Why, she
remembered thinking how much he felt like a girlfriend. She
suddenly burst out laughing uncontrollably.
Themba watched. It was a good sign. The laughter after the tears.
She would heal. It would take time, but she would heal.
"So, are you two now dating?" She asked Themba.
"Who, Moses and I? Of course not! I couldn't do that to you, and I
know Moses wouldn't. All I know is that the two of you are making
a mistake. He loves you very much, like a brother loves a sister, and
that's just not the way the woman in you deserves to be loved." He
said in protest.
"But you two talk almost everyday." She pressed on.
"Yes. I know he's going to go through with the wedding and live
the best life he can afford with you. Inside, he will diminish and
ache, longing everyday to be what God made him to be. It's a
sacrifice he was willing to make. Everyone expects it of him."
"Unless I stop it," Mueni said.
"Unless you stop it," he agreed. "You have five days. I will not
come between you and your decision. Whatever you decide, I
promise, I will stand by you all the way. I will not tell Moses that I
have talked to you either."
Mueni went home, carefully dug a comfortable hole in the sand,
and slowly buried her head in it so it fit snuggly, her ears hearing
nothing, her eyes seeing nothing, her mouth saying nothing. In
this hiding place, there was peace, and if she could make it last
a lifetime, she would be alright.
As for Moses, he kept on marching steadily to the altar where he
would lay himself down; body, mind and soul, offering up the
creation that he was as a fitting sacrifice for the joy of another.
After all, was marriage not a sacrifice? Everyday would be a
charring of his being upon the burning coals of absolute surrender.
It was his calling. He hoped that God would be pleased.
Moses and Mueni continued to meet and talk, neither one letting
the other in on anything. The huge wedding committee formed by
well-wishing friends from church was going about the
arrangements, gathering up a storm of excitement as the day drew
neigh. Two days to the wedding, the Kajiado people had their big
day, and Mama Moses sang her heart out and danced up a storm.
She and the women of the village all had their new dresses ready
for the coming of the long awaited day.
A day before the wedding, Moses called Mueni.
"Hey, could I please see you tonight." Moses said.
"Now, you know I'm not supposed to see you until we meet at the
altar." She tried to smile as she said this.
"I know... I need to see you. Really. I'll pick you up and we can go
somewhere quiet." He pressed on.
Mueni did not like this. She meant to walk down that aisle. He
wasn't about to chicken out now.
"Moses, it's not a good idea. The wedding is tomorrow. Let it
wait."
"No, it can't wait." Moses was getting irritated, quite
uncharacteristic of him.
"I'm getting my hair done tonight." Mueni went on.
"Get it done tomorrow morning. I need to see you tonight."
She hesitated. He said get it done tomorrow morning, which meant
he still planned on going through with the wedding. Perhaps it was
safe to see him.
"Ok, well, pick me up at the nail salon on Kimathi Street. I should
be done by six."
"I'll be there."
Moses drove Mueni out to a quiet outdoor restaurant facing a park
in the outskirts of Nairobi. There was no one out on the porch but
them. A pot of tea and samosas sat in the middle of the table.
"I know you know." Moses started, softly. "I figured if you've had
a gay brother all your life, there's no way you could not know that I
too was gay."
"Had I not fallen so in love with you, I'm sure I would have figured
it out much earlier. Themba brought it to my attention," she said.
Moses laughed softly, then looked out into the creeping nightfall
across the park. "Themba..."
Mueni hesitated, then asked, "Do you love him?"
Moses contemplated the question, then answered, "He's an easy
man to love."
Mueni was not going to pin him down for a yes-or-no answer. It
didn't matter.
"Have you ever fallen in love before?" She asked.
"Yes. I was in a relationship that lasted seven years before I joined
Harvest Baptist."
"What happened?"
"He left the country to study in Botswana. When he came back, we
had grown apart. He now lives with his partner in Nakuru."
"One just never knows," she said.
"Everyone pretends we don't exist. So we play along."
"That's sad. But what's sadder is that girls like me have to fall in
love with one of you because you don't come with a label."
"I'm truly sorry." He said, feeling as if he was putting band-aid on a
third-degree burn.
"I suppose there's still something you haven't told me" She asked,
realizing she had not touched her cup of tea.
He paused. "I wanted to tell you that I spoke to the Senior Pastor,
and now he knows. I did not want him to officiate at the wedding
without the benefit of full disclosure."
"Well! What did he say?"
"He said he would not do it, that nothing that ungodly would
happen in his church. He was shaking with anger, saying I betrayed
him, the church, and God almighty. He said a lot of other things,
hurtful mostly, you know... those sorts of things." Moses had learnt
to shut off the bigotry and ignorance against his kind. It kept him
free of pointless rage.
"But you never had to deal with those sorts of things! You wore a
veil all along!" She was angry. "You pretended to be some saint,
carrying on like you never sinned, getting loved for being a fraud!"
She was really angry. "God did not look on you with pleasure. You
lied your way through life, afraid of being who you are and insulted
all of us as a result, Pastor Moses!" She spat that one out with
venom.
"Mueni, please know something. I knew I was different from most
boys quite early in life. When my feelings were obvious to me in
my teenage years, I took to the library and read books no one ever
reads. God brought angels my way who helped me understand
myself; men and women who live in the shadows. But my turning
point was when I met an elderly gentleman - he was a Reverend
from the Wamanyire people - at a retreat at Brackenhurst
Conference Centre. He told me things a lot of us Africans would be
shocked to know."
"Like what, gay Reverends in the church?"
"I know you're still angry, but please hear me out."
Mueni was defiantly silent. Moses took that as an indication that he
can go on.
"Have you ever read the book, Lost Spirituality?" Mueni mumbled
a response in the negative. Sometimes their richest conversations
revolved around books they had read, and she loved to hear about
things Moses had uncovered between the pages of books he picked
up from the MacMillan Library, Goethe Institute or the library at the
All African Conference of Churches. He had her attention, offered a
tad grudgingly.
"The Reverend I met gave me a copy after we had a long talk. Did
you ever wonder why some of our communities had so-called secret
societies dedicated to divination and other pursuits that allowed
them to stay celibate, keep apprentices of the same sex who never
married, or went off into seclusion for lengthy period of time?"
Mueni listened. "Gay is not an African definition, you know. Most
African communities did not have a word for people who felt a
sexual attraction to others of the same gender."
"Why? How could they not have a word for something if it
existed?"
"Because their existence was defined from a spiritual perspective,
you see, from the point of view of their life's purpose. Among the
Wamanyire, so-called gay people were referred to as doorkeepers,
those that stood guard between the living world and the realm of
the spirits. They were believed to come into this world bearing a
different level of cosmic perception that for some vibrated as a
sexual attraction for the same gender. Destroying them would have
meant destroying the community's cosmic balance. As it is, it's
already out of balance. The Wamanyire have totally embraced
Christianity and lost a place for their doorkeepers, some of who
now live like mice scuttling through life for lack of acceptance in
society. In the western culture, people are also defined from a
sexual perspective, because for them, sexuality is an important part
of human identity, see? Now we are confronted with a western
perspective that is slanted more towards a physical emphasis. Truth
is, a lot of their gay people have made exceptional contributions to
society that no one talks about. All I hear these days is how they are
destroying society and ought to be expunged."
"No one is out to expunge you, so don't start up a pity-party with
me."
"Oh... well, that's not what I meant to do. But just to let you know,
there are mean people out there. Don't forget that in the purity of
our Africanness, we persecuted those we considered an
abomination. Killed albino children upon birth, left new-born twin
in the forest for hyenas to feast on, buried unmarried and barren
women in no-man's land together with dogs..."
"Alright! You made your point." Mueni had many questions, but
she couldn't keep her mind on the convoluted subject of African
cosmology and sexuality too long. She had her shattered future to
start fixing. She sighed.
"I just need a friend right now."
"I'm sorry. I'm truly sorry."
"One question though. You are going right back to ministry after all
this. How will you reconcile your identity with your Christian
faith?"
"I don't need to. Jesus never condemned me."
Mueni smiled.
"Mueni, thank you for loving me so earnestly. I know I do not
deserve it. Now I don't know what to do." Moses sounded utterly
hopeless, exhausted. At his most vulnerable moment, Mueni found
her strength, and slowly begun to pull her head out of the sand.
"We need to call everyone we can and begin to undo this mess."
She said.
"Agreed. Let us go to my office. I have a list of all guests and their
contacts on my computer. We can start off with those tonight."
He offered.
They left the restaurant and quietly headed on to the church. Their
plan was to spend some time in Moses' office sending off the
wedding cancellation notices, drop Mueni home, and be prepared
for the fall-out that was sure to come. They arrived at the church,
and as was a habit, Moses went in through the sanctuary doors first.
Inside, he was faced with the members of the wedding committee
who had drawn up chairs in a circle at a corner of the sanctuary.
They all turned around at the sound of the doors opening, noticed
Moses and Mueni, and fell deathly silent.
Moses' greeting failed to slice through the tension. Some mumbled
back a response, some simply turned away, a few kept a cold gaze
on them. He knew that they knew, so he quickly guided Mueni
through the doors leading to the office. He had never known
rejection from those he ministered to. Hell must be an ice-cold
place, he thought, a shiver running down his spine.
Once in the office, they worked as efficiently as they could, each
lost in their own fearful thoughts, the impending storm too
terrifying to talk about. There would be questions, explanations to
give, gloating from those that had envied Mueni, shock and
disbelief at the exposure of Pastor Moses Kiereini. Everything but
mercy. The storm would rage, gather greater winds with each new
day until everyone was a speck of dust floating violently within,
their necks snapping here and there like twigs while trying to catch
the latest piece of gossip, mouths running adrible with exaggerated
tit-bits of rotten truths clogging over-stimulated throats. The
storm would come, and perhaps, if they survive it, a calm. They
worked into the night, sending out emails to at least four hundred
persons, each individually addressed, with heartfelt apologies. It
was way past midnight when Moses dropped Mueni off at her
apartment, making sure she was safely home.
She slept a dreamless sleep, a sleep that passed before her shut eyes
white as a ghost, oduorless as the breath of a newborn babe,
colourless as the fleeting imagination of an idle mind. For years
later, she would remember this dream emptily for what it was not.
That Saturday morning, as was the norm, the newspaper had its
special edition, printed around two in the morning. Mueni had
woken up late, made a quick dash to the kiosk, picked up a copy of
the paper and dashed back to the house. She leafed through it lazily,
reading the special edition's loud headline, "Sack of Maize Mystery
Solved!" Something about that headline scratched at a distant
memory... Oh! That's the sack of maize that was found sitting
outside parliament buildings, leading to riots that found her taking
cover at the Harvest Baptist Church, the day she met Moses...
Mueni turned to the next page of the special edition and saw the
macabre sight of a mutilated body, so brutally murdered it could
have been an animal sliced up by ten butchers then run over by a
truck. Mueni peered into the caption, "Unidentified victim of an
early morning murder found in city street." Mueni threw the
newspaper on her kitchen table and started to make a cup of tea.
Her apartment was quiet. She had turned off her phone. She was not
prepared to handle the coming chaos. She took her cup of tea and
went back to bed. This is how she wanted to remember what was
supposed to be her wedding day; a blank day that she could later in
life draw in any memory she chose. She shut her eyes and drifted
off to a light sleep. Right at the place between wake and sleep
where time and space warped into eternity, she saw Moses...
After Moses dropped Mueni home, he turned around and headed
towards his own house, taking the familiar route he liked through
the city. He drove slowly, allowing his mind to start feeling the
pain. It was better this way; begin hurting now so that when the
storm reached its peak, he will be better placed to handle it. He was
a captain, steering a ship in the middle of the sea, but his faithful
passengers had started to turn against him. The one who had loved
him unconditionally had just started her life's journey without him.
He was alone. The thought begun to torment him and he fought
back the tears. He needed to see the road ahead. Then he started
noticing a car that had kept a trail on him for a while, and before
he knew it, the car pulled up and blocked him. He stopped and felt
a cold sweat trickle down his armpits. Instinctively, he looked at the
clock on the dashboard. It was almost one-thirty.
Two men jumped out of the car that blocked Moses and moved
towards him. Immediately, he recognized them, and for a moment,
he relaxed his flesh-tearing grip on the steering wheel. He
remembered that they had been at the church as part of the
wedding committee when he and Mueni walked in. He sighed with
relief; they probably wanted to ask him not to cancel the wedding...
A loud crash and flying shards of glass rudely interrupted his train
of thought. The two men had smashed into his car window, reached
over and yanked him right out. Before he could utter a word, they
gagged him and dragged him to a dark corner of the street. The
streets were quiet, and the men were efficient.
"Shoga wewe! Pumbavu! You lived among us and all the while you
were contaminating the church like a cancer. Tonight we'll fix that.
Shenzi. Fala sana wewe! You sodomite calling yourself a Pastor.
Eeh? What does the bible say? You filthy pig!" The kicks and
blows started raining on him.
The storm had come too soon, Moses thought. His screams, blocked
by the gag, raced back down his throat and rose up again to escape
through his ears with a burning sting. The men kept up the attack
with a vicious zeal. Moses threw up and swallowed his own vomit.
An ammoniac river gushed out from between his legs. A sewage
drain let lose its contents and flowed out through his pants. Blood
rushed up his nostrils and clotted on its way down his cheeks in
traumatic surrender. Too soon... He struggled not to black out. He
wanted to keep his eyes open. He wanted to survive this. He wanted
to live. He loved his ministry, the church, the people he touched. He
clung desperately for dear life.
"Let me live, Lord, let me live." The blows rained harder. Tons of
bilious hate spewed out of his attackers' mouths. Somewhere
between the sludge from their hearts and the struggle of his soul to
cling to his body, he heard John Newton's Amazing Grace as clear
as day. Moses had preached many a sermon on the slave master's
salvation. Now he saw Newton struggling to still his slave ship
against a sudden storm out at sea while transporting his human
cargo, and right before capsizing, God stilled the storm. Moses saw
the slave master kneel down on the deck and lift up his voice to the
heavens. The words raced up to Moses, dissolving the gag that held
him captive, and he released a groan that rose up in octaves of grace-
Yea,when this fleash and heart shal fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
When it all seemed calm, Moses opened his eyes, ever so slightly,
and right there, he saw Mueni's face looking down on him while
she cradled him gently. Her arms enveloped him with ethereal
comfort. But his mind was only projecting that which was familiar,
for the face he saw and the comforting arms were in reality those of
a street boy. The boy had been disturbed from his sleep by the
sound of heavy thuds and muffled screams. He had gone towards
the direction of the noise, found Moses barely breathing, removed
the gag from his mouth, and knelt down to cradle the dying man in
his little arms. At the bottom of Moses' well, grace rose up in song
from the boy's mouth, a song the boy learnt from a Pastor who had
once prayed by his late grandmother's bedside - Mama Okoth - as
she battled Alzheimer's at Kenyatta Hospital. Moses closed his eyes
and gave up his spirit to his maker.
A short while later, a journalist on a midnight hunt for a special
edition story had come upon the mutilated body of Moses Kiereini,
his head lying on the lap of a street boy who snored away peacefully.
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