YOU GOT ME, NO YOU DIDN'T

YESTERMORNING the internet, with all her eyes and ears, failed to record an incident that merited a slot at the table of national discourse. A man with a briefcase was coming down a street in the bosom of Nairobi; when he reached the corner that preceded his office, he spotted a beggar who had a well-shaven beard.

Next to a puddle, the beggar had curled. The eyes of the man with the briefcase were drawn to the beggar twice. He however did not wish to donate any coin to the beggar . He told himself, “Conman!”

He passed the beggar, and while he marched on, a bead of drizzle from his umbrella dropped into the beggar’s tin. A grunt the beggar gave. When the man with the briefcase had covered three steps farther, the beggar said in a low voice, “Jonathan.”

This was the name of the man with the briefcase, by which few colleagues called him in the office; elsewhere, people knew him as Jonah.

Did the beggar call his name?

Jonathan thought he himself had called his own name, as was his wont; for he spoke to himself often, in a discreet way--especially when work or something else crushed his shoulders. But when he made the next stride, the beggar called him out again.

He stopped, turned back, then started laughing. Beggars had evolved their ploys, he thought. In Swahili he said, “What difference does it make when you guess my name, Mr.? If I was to give you ten shillings, I would still have given you the ten--”

The beggar slapped away his tin; all the coins he’d collected from dawn rolled abroad the pavement. Jonathan squinted his eyes to survey the beggar: the beggar knew his name, he did not want his money; what did he want?

With his umbrella, he sheltered the beggar, for as long as he should need to receive answers.

Only the beggar’s beard was kempt. His hair itself was a heap of steel wool, his nails a place for dark matter, his mouth a home of brown teeth; and his lips cracked. Why he tended only his beard made Jonathan curious, but he did not mention it. Now he said again, in Swahili:

“There are two types of men in this city. Men like you and men like me. I do not know you. Looks like you know my name. I take it that you overheard my name in this street, or read in the newspaper. What you need to know now is, we are not the same.”

He had squatted to address the beggar. He now reached the wallet inside his coat. A note of one thousand shillings he dropped on the beggar’s leg. The beggar picked the note by the ends of his fingers, and tossed it back at Jonathan.

“A beggar has no choice,” Jonathan said, “looks like you do.” He saved his money, and without another word, attempted to rise so he could go, but the beggar grabbed his wrist with a grip which was not beggar-like. If this man was not a beggar, who was he--and what did he want with Jonathan?

Jonathan looked at the hand that gripped his; it was clammy; though he felt it, he did not show disgust. “Let go of my hand.”

Jonathan had been distracted by the beggar’s strangeness, that he did not notice that the beggar sat in a manner that hinted that one of his buttocks might have rested on a stone, a boil or something else.

For the second time, Jonathan said, “Leave off my hand.” He did not yell, but the vehemence in his voice should have cautioned the beggar that a strike impended. The beggar began to laugh.

If you have plied the roads in Kileleshwa or Kilimani in the mornings or evenings, you must have seen men and women jog. Jonathan was one of these men. Besides, he visited a gym house to lift weights. If he had wanted, he’d have struck off all the beggar’s yellow teeth in a blow. Only, he intended to yank his hand off the beggar's hold, and hasten to work.

Nairobians have a habit of witnessing things. If not watching magic performers, they would surround acrobats, or dancers, or preachers; Jonathan’s episode was the more intriguing to the passers who’d now encircled them. But it is unusual that Jonathan did not find his videos on the internet.

Anyway, at the second when Jonathan poised to pull off his hand, the beggar accessed his back pocket, removed a handcuff, and bound Jonathan’s hand to his: it happened in a flash.

Under the same moment, Jonathan abandoned his umbrella and briefcase, which carried documents and presentation material, and flew at the beggar’s neck. On account of his strength, Jonathan dictated who’d win the tussle, but the beggar determined where the tussle occurred. Although he choked under Jonathan’s clench of his neck, he entwined himself to Jonathan, so that they rolled into the puddle, and muddied themselves both, and became identical.

Hands gained Jonathan’s coat, as he bestrode the beggar and banged his head on the pavement; but they could not pull him away. When the beggar felt his breath slip from his breast, he tapped Jonathan’s elbow. Jonathan did not stop because the beggar touched him, but because he perceived suddenly that he might kill him. “The key!”

The beggar, after coughing for a minute, said, “In my stomach.”

Jonathan caught the beggar’s neck again, but the beggar said in English, “Anger will not help you, sir.” From how the beggar spoke, Jonathan discerned that he was a young man of education.

It was about seven o’clock, and it was drizzling.

*

IN five minutes more, Jonathan would be late for work. This morning, a delegation of investors from Germany were to visit his firm. His firm was a startup, and he, Jonathan, the CTO. And he was to present to the delegation what his firm had accomplished for the past three years. His briefcase contained his laptop and some papers; but now it stayed in the puddle, and water infiltrated it. This was to be a momentous day for him; for if the investors agreed to fund the firm, Jonathan would become the deputy CEO; he was promised.

In our lives sometimes, just when a piece of gold is about to drop into our plates, the devil snatches it away.

For the beggar himself, this was the day of justice:

The beggar, who was called Obed, had been raised in a village in the heart of Kenya, by the hand of his auntie, who had one hand. The other hand had been slit in a clash, when she and an incomer altercated at the boundary of a land, which belonged to Obed's late parents. The boundary existed a step into the newcomer’s side, the aunt insisted; while the newcomer maintained it marked five steps on the opposite side. If somebody had that day raced her to hospital sooner, the hand would not have been severed. At the time, twenty years ago, Obed was three, and had watched the clash through the window of the aunt’s hut.

Jonathan was the name of the incomer.

As every year passed, Obed fermented his rage against the new neighbor. When he was ten, he stoned Jonathan’s cat; when he was thirteen, he poisoned his dog; when he was sixteen, in a group of five, they waylaid him near his gate, but scattered when Jonathan trained his pistol through his car’s window.

After the gun episode, Obed dreaded Jonathan, and would rather change his route or delay his errands if he suspected he’d see him. Meanwhile, he studied; and peaked his education in a tertiary college.

By and by, he grew into a refined young man. With this growth, followed sense. He reasoned that if he pulled Jonathan to court, and with the corroboration that other neighbors and the village assistant chief would furnish, he’d have the boundary reverted. To court, he then went.

The proceeding lasted three years, but did not end with a definite verdict because: the court file disappeared, and the witnesses disowned their testimonies. To fund these court proceedings, with approval from the aunt, Obed had sold the family’s goats.

Well, what recourse did Obed have?

When he left the tertiary college, Obed relocated to the city to find a situation. At a college he taught Art and Design; they paid him ten thousand bob, out of which half covered his rent, for a single room in Mathare.

From village mates who knew Jonathan, Obed gathered that he worked at a firm at the bosom of the city. He then learnt the name of the firm, and where it located.

Back to the present:

It was now past seven, and Jonathan was late for work.

He found his phone. He reckoned he’d call his boss to inform him that today he’d not report. Because of the wrestling he’d engaged in with Obed in the puddle, the phone had drawn water, and died.

And now he knew that aggression would not reach him to freedom. He said to Obed, “It is true that the key is in your stomach?”

Obed said that since he’d swallowed it not long past, he still felt it in the upper part of his food pipe, and that it would take hours before it moved to his lower abdomen, and at least a day before it discharged from his system.

In his life, Jonathan held a philosophy. That, things happen for a reason; that, once a bad thing occurred, the best thing he could do was overlook it, and consider only the present. At the present, he lay in the puddle by Obed. He now looked at him, and said, “Who are you?”

“Can you not remember me?” Obed said, without turning his head.

After studying Obed for a while, Jonathan said, “No, I cannot remember you. What is your name?”

Thinking that Jonathan was fooling him, Obed looked away.

“Sir, what is your name?” Jonathan said again. “Have we met before?”

Obed said, “Do not insult me any more.”

“I do not. Remind me, under what circumstances did you and I meet?”

“You are my neighbor.”

“I have never seen you in the estate.”

“In the village.”

“Which village?”

In anger, Obed jerked his head and stared into Jonathan’s eyes. They were curious--the eyes, soft, and shallow. His face, he studied. After a decade, Jonathan's face should have aged. Yet the face before him remained youthful; it was because the people in Nairobi bathed with hot water, had their faces scrubbed, and applied Coco Butter, Obed thought.

A doubt now visited his thoughts: “Are you not Jonathan, who bought my parent’s land near Sagana River?”

“I do not own land.”

“We took you to court.”

“I have never been to any court.”

A twitch of guilt assailed Obed’s heart. He wondered if he’d met the wrong Jonathan. His conscience encouraged him that this was the Jonathan he knew; but his eyes denied this. He felt he had detained the land grabber; then again he thought he’d hurt, humiliated and defamed an upstanding city dweller, whom with he had no connection.

If indeed this Jonathan was not he, Obed wondered what he’d do, say, pay, or guarantee, to accord this man reparation.

With doubt registered on Obed’s face, Jonathan said, “Who you think, I am not he.”

Although he still lay in the puddle, Obed felt hot. A layer of sweat covered his face, and he shone under the cold gloomy weather. With his free hand, Obed removed something from his back pocket. This was the key. Never had he swallowed it. He now released Jonathan.

Slowly, Jonathan rose, briefcase in hand. His suit dripped. He stood before Obed, who still remained in the puddle: “I do not know what to do with you. You have b*lls. But this is not how you get your land back, Obed K*******.”

When Jonathan addressed him thus, by his second name, Obed knew that this was he. He started up, but Jonathan turned the corner, and vanished.

...........

The writer is a photographer

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