THEME: KNOCK YOURSELF OUT
TITLE: AN EXCHANGE
Written by Leonard Maero W
Crossing her legs over the green sandals, she put the mobile phone on the stool beside her, gazing at the gateman as he trimmed flowers around the home. He was a tall man, dark like coal with a black cap that never left his head. Zainah intertwined her fingers at the back of her head, looking at the sky that was covered with a few patches of high clouds.
It was at lunch time when the housemaid, having laid the table came to call her from the study room upstairs where she was playing with her daughter. Leaving the room, Zainah walked with Natah to the dining room. The maid walked away thereafter to the kitchen.
They had hardly swallowed the food in their mouth when a gateman came over, panting as if he had been chased by a deadly viper.
“Madam, there is a man at the gate!” he exclaimed, tapping his button on the left palm, “He claims that he knows you, but…”
Zainah put the fork down, fastened her eyes on him and asked, “What are you saying?”
“He says he is the brother of the boss. Should… Should I let him in?” he asked, scratching his head.
She remained silent for a while, perhaps thinking on whether to let him in or tell him to come when her husband who was away returns.
“Mother, is it Uncle Daudi? You said he always forgot to flush the toilet after using? You also said that he stole your money when he slept here?” Natah asked, holding a spoon midway between her mouth and the glass plate.
Zainah put her finger on her lips, signaling her to shut up.
“Is he the one whom you said eats a lot of food thinking he is in a hotel?” she went on, looking at her mother keenly. She had now put the spoon on the plate, her small elbows on the mahogany table.
She signaled him to go out.
“Mum, you should stop talking when I’m talking with an adult person, uhh!” Zainah said after turning to Natah before pinching her nose gently.
Natah nodded though she didn’t look convinced. Zainah walked to the gate, having lost her appetite.
Daudi was there outside the gate, smiling broadly, feasting his eyes on the house, wondering why his brother, Khasavuli, had not carried that big house to the village where he had a small one. He was a short muscular man approaching his forties, clean shaven with a broad nose. He was in a white shirt, a black trouser with blue plastic shoes. His oversized shirt looked like it had been snatched from the mouth of a cow just before it could be swallowed. A small plastic bag hung over his shoulder. He was a man of straw.
“He’s there, Madam. I told him that you were eating and you didn’t want anyone to distract you but he insisted on seeing you. Am I lying? No Madam,” said the gateman. He unclamped his dry lips when she gave him a stern look.
Daudi smiled the moment he saw her, then put the bag that he had been carrying tightly under his armpit.
“Ahh, sister-in-law. I thought I will find you already asleep. You know the way vehicles from the village behave. Today it is healthy tomorrow it gets sick, but I’m here now,” he said with a toothy smile.
He loved his brother and his family.
Zainah asked him if he had talked with Khasavuli before he came. Of which he replied: “Has he stopped being my brother now? Ahh, mayi1 hasn’t told me anything like that of late. For your information, she sent me with a lot of greetings and said you people should go and visit her.”
The last time Daudi had visited, she had had to contend with a lot of things to tolerate him. That evening, the maid, having the timetable glued on the wall, had gone ahead and prepared rice with beef stew according to what they usually ate on Fridays. When he was asked to go to the dining room, Daudi insisted his food to be brought in the sitting room, saying that he was watching a movie and he didn’t want to miss any detail. It took the intervention of Khasavuli to convince him, but not before a struggle of words.
And when he was offered the food, he insisted that rice was a meal for the sick. He went on revealing his biceps to indicate the way he was healthy, and he was not going to taste that food lest he falls sick. For the first time since the house help had started working there, she was asked to prepare another meal for him.
When the food was brought to him, he complained that the ugali2 was little and a few sprinklings of vegetables would make him hungry since he was used to eat food and not tasting as he was being forced to.
Who doesn’t welcome a visitor on the first day with open arms? The gateman opened the gate and let Daudi in. He left his shoes at the door and walked into the house in socks that had several holes.
“Uncle Daudi, how are you?” said Natah, waving at him from the dining room.
He turned and craned his neck to see her. He wondered why Khasavuli had not taught his daughter to be shaking hands of elders when greeting them. He looked at her and waved back. There were plates of food scattered about her, she had been tasting every dish and push the plate away. She looked wasteful like a hen.
Daudi remembered the Spartan life in the village. Children played outside most of the time with their peers and would only come to eat, empty the plate they had been given before dashing out again. And none would dare hang around the house when there was a visitor. And asking the visitor certain questions was deemed being disrespectful apart from saying your name when asked. When they came into the house in the evening, they would be covered in dust and extremely dirty. No one could tell the original colour of their clothes. Are children not what you make them?
Zainah went back to her seat and continued eating though her appetite had flown away when she had gone out. She was forcing dry leaves into an already filled bin. More food was in the kitchen, but she told him that they had just prepared food enough for them and they hadn’t thought he would be calling at them at that time. According to her, giving food to Daudi was going to strain the sewage system of the house.
When she pulled off a glass lid from one of the hot pots, he caught a sweet aroma of food that wafted into his hairy nostrils. His stomach rumbled, reminding him how hungry he was.
“How I wish I had eaten those boiled amapwoni3 which mother had prepared,” he thought desperately, shaking his legs a little.
“Are you hungry?” Zainah asked, getting Daudi surprised.
“Uhm, my in-law, no,” he replied quickly.
Zaina had no inkling that he was starving.
Back at home in the village, food was always prepared in plenty. His mother cooked more food not because they ate a lot, but because they expected a visitor to drop in any time of the day because food was shared in any talk. Asking a visitor whether they were hungry was a grave insult.
Daudi was eating using his eyes while they clacked and clicked their plates with spoons and forks. Later, Zainah called the maid and asked her to give him a bottle of soda from the fridge.
When he saw the housemaid, he stopped watching and a smile played on his cracked lips. She placed the Coke bottle on the table before him. She then remembered she had not brought it with an opener and a glass.
“Let me bring you an opener and a glass, please,” she said gently and walked away.
“There’s no need for that,” and having said that, Daudi grabbed the bottle and popped it open with his strong stained teeth. The froth was almost escaping from the bottle before he took a gulp, reducing the contents halfway.
“Ehh, you think I will allow you to miss your destination. Not me,” he whispered.
Tapping the hand of her mother, Natah asked, “Mum, why has Uncle Daudi not waited for the bottle opener to be brought?”
Zainah ignored her.
By the time the maid returned, the bottle was almost empty.
She stood a few metres away, her hands in air, her eyes darting from Zainah, then turning to Daudi, bewildered at his action.
“Oh, I thought you…” she said before words froze in her mouth. She walked way hastily before Zainah could scold her.
“I have my special opener in my mouth,” he said and broke into laughter.
“Uncle Daudi, why didn’t you wait for Aunt to bring you a glass?” Natah asked, smiling.
“Soda is much sweeter when I take from the bottle than from the glass. When you pour into a glass, some of the sweetness gets stuck in the glass while some evaporate, you see,” he laughed and pinched her dimpled cheek a little, tickling her.
Zainah looked down pretending to be busy with eating, but her mind was wondering why Natah, who was not that talkative had decided to verbal diarrhoea. She was like a cricket that had been put in a bottle but suddenly the bottle had been opened, giving it freedom to jump and chirp.
Unperturbed with what was going on in the mind of Zainah, Daudi heaved himself from the couch and walked across the room to the fridge and took two more bottles of soda.
“Hey, my in-law, you really know how to take care of a visitor,” he paused before he popped the bottle top open with his teeth. “You kept all these for me? How did you know I will be coming today? That’s why I love you people. All this full machine with drinks inside, just for me?” He walked back and sank into the couch, reached for his bag on the floor and pulled out a guava.
“Uncle, why are you eating with your mouth open?” Natah asked, looking into his eyes.
Zainah got charged up, bile rising in her throat and felt like she was carrying a heavy weight on her chest that was going to consume her if she didn’t let go. Feeling he had stepped on her, she walked from her chair into the sitting room and stood in front of him, hands on her waist. She had reached her boiling point.
Just before she opened her mouth, Natah asked, “Mother, why has Uncle put his legs on the table? Dad said it is bad manners.”
“Am I the only one feeling hot in this palace?” Daudi asked, removed his shirt and started fanning himself with a small table mat, revealing his hairy chest that was glistering with sweat. Removing his black socks, he stretched his legs back on the table.
Scratching himself on the head, he could not understand how Natah had the audacity to question his dressing instead of playing outside. He was not going to be crushed down like a louse between two fingers while he could do something to save his image in his brother’s house. He retreated like a wounded bull and pulled his hairy legs off the table. He was taking the last gulp from the third bottle when he was hit with another bullet.
“Mother,” Natah said, holding her nose, “has a whiff like a rotten egg that was found in the cupboard the other day got in your nose?”
Before Zainah could decide on how to reply to her, she detached herself and walked to the side he was sitting, her small fingers still on her broad nose.
“It’s Uncle Daudi’s socks. Look, he has placed them on the mat!”
He remained restraint, speechless like a stone in spite of vile manner he was being handled. He kept his feelings in his heart. He would not open the can and pour out venom that would break the family of his brother.
“Ahh,” Zainah lost her words, dived into her shadow when the gateman stood by the door, his hands on sides of the doorway. Without any delay, he said, “Madam, I’m through with pruning flowers. Is there anything else you want me to do for you?”
“Give me a break!” she shouted, her eyes widening, put her hands on her head and climbed the concrete staircase to the bedroom.
“Oh! Why is she asking for a break? Has she become a car like the one my brother drives? You never stop to amaze me. But I love you people…” Daudi cut short his words when he realised that Natah was sitting beside him.
She asked him if she could take his bag to the bedroom, but he stopped her gently. Having stayed indoors for close to twenty minutes, he decided to take a walk outside.
Daudi didn’t trouble himself by going around the concrete footpaths that led to the swimming pool on the left of the house. He walked straight, injuring some flowers and massacring others that could not withstand his weight, leaving behind a trail of corpses. He sat beside the swimming pool, his legs playing with the cold water, lonely like a leper. His thoughts ran back.
***
He should have seen the other side of the coin when Zainah’s friendship with Khasavuli was on the rocks. When she was grappling with putting her marriage on toe, Zainah begged Daudi to talk to his brother when they fell out and he had decided to throw in the towel. He used to visit Khasavuli when he had just started working and he had not even bought for himself a bed.
When Khasavuli asked him that he was at foot lose to choose between Zainah and another woman for marriage, Daudi had advised him to take Zainah.
When Khasavuli asked him what he would do with all the gifts that the villagers would bring during his wedding, Daudi had dived into his thoughts and said, “Tell the programmer to announce that the newlyweds will only receive gifts from the hands of their parents. The rest of the visitors to put their gifts at the place that has been set after noting their name on the gift so that you will know whoever brought. You can appreciate them later.”
Khasavuli, a jovial and happy man, smiled and did exactly what Daudi had suggested. While they went for their honeymoon with Zainah, Daudi took the initiative of arranging the presents in the sitting room as they were living in a two-roomed house they had rented. He arranged gifts neatly before he started opening the envelopes, one at a time, record the amount of money and the name it had come from before throwing the empty envelope in the dust bin.
There was this white envelope among the white he had picked, for him to open and only find a coin. Daudi almost laughed it off but then wondered why someone would take the expense of buying an envelope and present it with such kind of gift. When he checked the other side, the name was missing. He shrugged, recorded the envelope number, recorded the amount and threw it away into the bin. Then he picked a khaki envelope that looked a bit packed.
“This one must have come from his best friend,” he smiled, moistening his thump before he opened it carefully. Alas!
There at the bottom was some red soil holding itself tightly as if it was afraid of being found. Daudi dug his index finger into it trying to disturb it. Suddenly his finger became numb.
He pulled it out and felt like a sharp pain on his finger though there was no presence of blood. Daudi didn’t record anything on the number of that envelope but marked it with a dash. He had started to feel dizzy when he closed it and threw it in the bin before he burned the trash outside that night.
One day Khasavuli told him that Zainah was not gifted with culinary skills and he was afraid if visitors would come, it would be washing her linen in public. Daudi told him not wise to reveal her weakness.
So, whenever they had a visitor, Zainah would start the preparation of meals then, sneak back into the sitting room and signal Khasavuli to go and continue while she keeps the visitor company. The arrangement blended in perfect harmony and no one knew their secret except Daudi.
A bite from marauding mosquito brought Daudi back into reality. The golden orange rays from the sun were fading and the cold bit against his bare skin but he remained there like a statue, not knowing what to do with himself.
***
Khasavuli was getting worried about his younger brother.
Daudi had quit his job immediately after Khasavuli came back with Zainah from the honeymoon.
He had asked him the reason for quitting his job, but Daudi said that he didn’t feel like working anymore. And the worst was how Daudi told his fiancée off that he was no longer interested in marriage.
“What could have happened to my younger brother?” Khasavuli asked himself, looking outside through the window of his office. He saw two insects crawling on the wall, carrying one of them that he assumed could have been injured because one of its wings was missing.
“I miss you, my brother. When will I set my eyes on you? I need to come home and see you,” he whispered then remembered the previous day going through the notebook that Daudi had recorded the gifts he had received on his wedding day. He had looked at it keenly but when he reached the fifth number, there was no name or the amount of money instead there was a dash. He had ignored it but the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to dig more and get the exact information from Daudi.
Without telling his colleagues he was leaving, he walked out of the office and slid into his car before he drove off to his home.
Daudi was now in the sitting room, looking like a fruit that had been squeezed out of juice, his bag by his side, tapping his fingers on his thigh as if he was waiting for someone who was delaying him. Although he was a man who enthralled people with many stories, he was silent like a grave. Zainah had glued her eyes on the laptop on the other table at the window. Shifting her eyes away from the laptop, she took a newspaper and calmly ruffled through it. She seemed to have dipped herself in what she was doing.
Natah came to sit beside him, clutching her doll. She asked him how Grandmother was. He told her she was well and was waiting for them to visit her in the village.
“Uncle Daudi, I told mother to bring me, but she said I will get sick when I drink water from the borehole,” she said and turned to look at her mother, “Mum, did you say that?”
Zainah looked at them and glanced away.
She asked him if he was going to sleep with the house help in her bedroom because the two empty bedrooms up upstairs were for visitors. Although he was enraged, Daudi hid his anger, smiled fondly at his niece and said. “Don’t worry, I will just close my eyes and sleep the way a rabbit does.”
She went on to ask him if he had children and why he hadn’t brought them to assist her carry the doll. He laughed a little and said his daughter was still breastfeeding and he could not travel with her.
The honking of a horn outside told him Khasavuli was back. Taking his bag, he walked outside.
“Why did you remove the potted plant that was here?” Khasavuli asked the gateman immediately he climbed down from his fuel guzzler.
“It’s Madam. It’s Madam who told me,” the gateman replied ludicrously, hands at the back.
His reply exasperated Khasavuli. He was going to ask him for more details when he heard Daudi calling out for him.
“Brother, I have really been waiting for you,” Daudi said when Khasavuli turned towards the house from the garage.
“Ehh, look who is here,” he turned his gaze from the gateman.
“Bro!” Daudi stammered in amazement.
“Hey, brother. Welcome home. When did you arrive at this place?” Khasavuli shouted, spreading out his arms.
Daudi walked away from the balcony, dropped his bag on the well-kept lawn and they hugged.
They gazed into each other’s faces for a while, tears of joy falling from Khasavuli’s eyes.
“I’m happy to see you are doing fine, brother. I know my sister-in-law is taking good care of you,” Daudi began after the hug and laughed exuberantly, tapping him on the shoulder.
“It’s good to see you, brother. How are you?” he asked enthusiastically.
Zainah came out with Natah.
She remained behind as Natah ran forward to greet her father. With his strong hands, he lifted her in the air, placed her down then held her hand.
“I’m happy that I have seen you too,” Daudi said, rubbing his palms.
“Why haven’t you taken your bag inside? Have you just arrived at this place?” Khasavuli asked, turning pale.
“Hmm, you can ask the question again,” Daudi laughed. “I came here when the big torch in the sky was there,” he paused, pointing to the sky with his right hand. “I have toured around. You didn’t tell me you have a fish pond though I didn’t spot any fish, not even mud fish like in the river at home. I would have come with my hook. Do you remember those days we used to fish in River Mubere?”
“That’s a swimming pool, brother,” Khasavuli said, wondering if Daudi was fine.
“Let’s go in the house. Why is your bag outside? There is much we need to catch up,” Khasavuli said. “You know my house is also your house and everything I have here is also yours, apart from…”
Natah interrupted him.
“Daddy, why then was Uncle Daudi not given your food in the microwave?” she asked and added, “Will you eat with him?”
A moment of silence swept between them.
“Ehh, brother. You know I just wanted to see you. I have confirmed you are alive with your family, and I want to leave,” Daudi said, clasping his fingers, looking down.
“Yeah, who doesn’t want to live? I hope mayi1 is also doing well,” Khasavuli said although he missed what Daudi had said.
Then Daudi picked his bag and pushed his feet in his shoes like the way someone pushes grass into an already filled sack.
He insisted that he was to go and assist their mother to split firewood since she had no one to assist her. Moreover, he had to cut grass for the cows which of late had increased their appetite.
“Welcome in, food is ready,” Zainah offered.
“Ahh, my sister-in-law. My stomach is full. I don’t want it to burst open the way one of the calves suckled excessively and then died. Thank you,” he said, certainty in his voice.
“Are you leaving now?” Khasavuli asked dazedly.
“Yes, brother,” Daudi responded emphatically, lingering his gaze towards the gate.
“What’s wrong, brother?” asked Khasavuli, creases appearing on his forehead as he tried to figure out what had happened. “We have more rooms in this house for all of us. I insist you stay even for a night, please,” Khasavuli implored him, but he could not change his mind.
“Thank you, but I must leave right now,” he said with finality, fastening the three buttons of his shirt.
Khasavuli dropped the car keys and brought his hand to his face.
‘What could have happened to him? He has never been this way before. Could he be ailing?’ he thought, his eyes closed momentarily.
“Let me drive you home then,” he offered, picking up the key.
“Don’t bother yourself. You need to rest. I will find my way back to town and take Mawingo bus. It will take me home,” he said, waving to them.
“Uncle Daudi,” Natah called out for him and broke from his father’s grip.
He hesitated in his steps towards the gate when he heard her. She gave him the doll and asked him to take to his baby.
“Thank you,” he said and pinched her shiny nose gently. His face lit up with a smile for a short while.
“Brother, brother Daudi,” Khasavuli said in a pleading tone, “I need to ask you something.”
“We can talk as you walk me outside the gate,” he replied, walking away.
Khasavuli’s eyes became teary. He closed his eyes to wipe away a drop of tear that wanted to escape from his eyes.
Daudi walked past the gate that was still open. Darkness that was slowly forming swallowed him.
Turning to Zainah, who looked shocked, Khasavuli asked, “Did you do something to him?”
“I…” She stammered as the howling wind blew away words from her mouth.
When he looked at the gate, he couldn’t see Daudi!
“Daudi, I need to…” Khasavuli’s voice died away as he heard the barking of dogs from a distance.
END
GLOSSARY
1 mayi: mother.
2 ugali: a meal prepared from maize flour.
3 amapuoni: sweet potatoes.
PUBLISH’D AFRIKA Magazine Facebook Short Story Competition is funded by the National Arts Council, Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme 3
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