Crickets stridulated in all directions and frogs and toads from a nearby swamp croaked noisily, reminding Mkonaambi of the story his mother once told him. According to the story, frogs always want to know whether their friends are still alive or have been killed by stray passersby. The first frog always calls out to the second one, "John" and the respondent says "yes". The caller then asks John, "wamekukanyaga" and John always says "No". This calling, responding, asking and answering always goes on whole nights and sometimes days. That's his mother's story. On this night, he thought he had heard something close to what his mother had told him: the indefatigable calling and responding of John and his relative. From a distance, he could hear the barking of dogs. Some woofed, others ruffed while others arfed. Everything else was silent and still. Mkonaambi walked on determinedly. He was a man who always got whatever he wanted no matter the situation, and tonight would be no different. No.
He had never been afraid of darkness before. And he will not be tonight. He only feared two things in his life: ghosts and electrocution. This could be the reason his hair stood erect on his head when he was pssing by the home of the late Barnabas Wafubwa who had just been burried. Not long before, he had heard of a man who had ostensibly been hotly pursued by the spirit of the late. The man was innocently passing by the gate when he had seen what looked like a man in a sparkling white robe standing in the middle of the road he was walking on. He had taken a minute or so to study the "thing" standing before him as he contemplated the next course of action. His blood had frozen in his veins and he could feel the weight of his teeth. His legs almost crumbled on his body weight. He tried to go forward but his feet could not move an inch. What will I do? He wondered. When the tormenter took one step towards him, he, like lightning, turned and took to his heels never to look back. My resource person reliably reported to me that he never spent that night in his bed because he had run past his home unknowingly and sent Wafula's door flying. What a loss. He had gone straight under his host's bed.
Mkonaambi consoled himself that the person who had been pursued was, after all, said to have broken into the dead man's house and stolen his safari bed. On his part, he had nothing to do with the deceased man. So, when he got to this place, he hummed a tune of a song that did not even exist, stopped and then whistled another one that equally never existed. He went unscathed.
Her parents' compound was surrounded by tall gigantic eucalyptus; about twenty of them in a row. The hedge was a long stretch of kai apple plants regularly trimmed, leaving a green block that supposedly prevented intruders from illegally seeing whatever happened in the compound. It was also thought of as being capable of keeping at bay the likes of Mkonaambi. However, for his being there severally, he had acquainted himself with all the panya-routes around the hedge. Nothing would stop him. Not even Clue, the dog that was threatening to tear him into pieces.
The full moon made everything appear as clearly as it would during the day. He could see his prospective mother-in-law's red-coloured iron roof and the stone walls on which it stood. He could also see two Ayrshire cows lying down on their bellies chewing the cud on the right of the house. On the left of the main house stood a mud-plastered kitchen, where all the girls slept. This was his centre of interest on that night. His eyes brushed quickly across the compound just in case somebody was not asleep. Or in case the dog had woken up somebody from the main house. Luckily, it had not.
He sighed heavily as if to say to himself that all was well. He made the first step then the second. Once near the fence, he crawled across it using one of the routes his regular visits had created. Midway, his shirt was held back by a thorn. As he struggled to disengage, he tore the shirt. He was not the type to be discouraged by small things. He was not even the superstitious type to believe that that was a bad omen. He was a good Christian or so he thought. He knew his mother would have told him that once on a mission and you encounter such a thing, you must abort it lest you meet bitter consequences. He moved on. Now on his belly.
He peeped through spaces on the wooden window. He saw her. Beautiful as ever. Her navy blue pair of jeans appeared black due to the dimness of light. Her white short-sleeved top was fitting enough to make her breasts protrude. "This is how I always want my boobs; firm and erect" he said to himself. He could not withhold a grin. Her hair was blow-dried to the back and fastened at the back of the head using a hair tie to form a ponytail. She was ostentatiously holding a copy of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice in both her hands, with her elbows resting on the table. A fool would think that she was indeed reading. She was clearly waiting for a signal going by her alertness and desperation. She turned to look even when a fly collided with the door.
No wonder when Mkonaambi scratched the wooden window with his hand she leapt out and asked her younger sister to lock the door from inside. This is how sisters worked together these sides of the globe. A formidable team you could say. It was getting darker and darker outside. The darkness swallowed the two lovers. They went away each in each other's hand. Once in a while, they would stop and kiss for about ten minutes before they resumed their walking. Sometimes, they would embrace head-on-head, heaving heavily without saying a word. They would then let go of each other and continue walking.
The night was sweet. She had never experienced more enjoyment before. Mkonaambi had come down on her harder than ever before. During the ecstasy, she had told him many things that would ordinarily not make sense. She had called him king. She had referred to it as a combination of both honey and milk. She had even told him she did not care whether her parents knew she had not slept in her bed or not. Little did she know.
When Mkonaambi left her at her door at dawn, she was shocked that all her four sisters were missing. Gosh! Where could they have gone to? Could they also have decided to have good moments with their boyfriends? Could they have been stolen by Wanangali wa Kulecho? She was bewildered. When she keenly looked at her bed, she noticed that her blankets were missing. The log of wood she had covered on her bed to make believe that she was sleeping in it lay there uncovered. Naked. She knew that her forty days had been brought to an abrupt halt.
Immediately she had left, Aunty Jackline, whom they called "Chaky", had arrived from Ekitosi. Her mother had had to go back to the kitchen to prepare something for her because her bus had been involved in an accident and she had been rushed to the hospital. She had only been discharged late in the evening and had not eaten anything. Mayi Mary had been surprised not to find Nekesa in her bed, where a log lay in her place. It was a heavy nice log with knots that looked like folded fists and feet when covered with a blanket. A log her size in both height and breadth. She smiled at her daughter's creativity. Deep down her, she knew the repercussions would not be pleasant enough to elicit a similar smile. She had ordered everyone to vacate the kitchen with immediate effect because of their dangerous conspiracy.
The morning breeze was so cold. It cut through Nekesa's skin like a razor-sharp sword. She felt it touch her inner organs or thought she did. She folded her hands around her breasts in order to evade it but it stubbornly caught up. This was the first time she was noticing the cold breeze since the previous night. She remained fixed in the same spot looking into the horizons expecting an excuse to pop out. It never did.
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