I looked at my uncle.
Frail. Tattered. Lost…or so he seemed.
He sat alone, maybe deep in thought, hunched over the pint-sized remnants on his plate. A slow, trembling hand ferrying food to his lips. He looked happier now, not like when he had first taken that faded red plate, the one nobody liked anymore, one of those that felt like they’d survived too many weddings.
In the queue, the chefs had sneered, their eyes rolling with contempt, probably wondering where this madcap had come from; and the head chef had looked to the bride awaiting a nod of ‘no clemency’ so they could happily deprive him the only thing he had come here for, food. The bride, caught in the eyes of hundreds of village guests, had composed herself quickly and offered ‘the look’ so that Uncle Mbugua shuffled on, dishing spoonsful of delicacies he had likely only seen flicker on the village’s old TV screen, dream-foods for a man long exiled from reality.
An uninvited guest who gave no care to the wind. Ghostly. Undeserving.
He had immediately found himself a secluded place where his eating decorum would be acquitted in the tribunal of his own common sense. He grinned and did a symbolic prayer; probably capturing the moment in slow motion so as to remember in days of hunger.
He had picked a bright broccoli at the far end of the table, in one of the sufurias marked ‘Reserved’. He placed it at the center of his plate with an unsettling care. His fingers lingered on it, salivating, not from hunger, but from something far more primal. As though the act of choosing it, of setting it apart from all the rest, could mask the hunger he dared not name. For a moment, he straightened his back, mimicking the posture of belonging. Pretending, perhaps even to himself, that he was just like everyone else. But he wasn’t.
Eyes had followed him from the moment he stepped through the gate, to the moment he sat down to eat. He paid no mind to that. His fingers quivered, as they always did, yet, somehow, he still managed to hold the bottle of Stoney and direct it to his thirsty mouth, steady as the ticking of a clock, marked by the weight of age and memory. He put the soda down and sipped the soup in his plate quickly, without a drop of pour, a tactic, perhaps, to pave a path for the starchy invasion of the potatoes. Maybe he had trained his eyes to deceive his throat, convincing it that this foreign brew was yet another one of his deadly concoctions. It sure lacked the sharp bitterness he’d grown fond of, the kind that burned but brought him a strange comfort; the only kind of drink that ever made him grin. And what a grin he had when pleasure finally took him, wide, not even the absence of his two upper front teeth could dim its light.
And then he had looked up and our eyes had locked for a few seconds, but as expected, not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. Maybe he didn’t remember me. Maybe I was just a statistic.
Masha hadn’t stopped staring at him. His little eyes trailed Uncle Mbugua’s every step, curious
and unblinking, like a cat watching a suspicious lizard. He fixated on those red lips, dyed deep from years of sipping sharp, bitter things; things that numbed the bones and quieted the ghosts. Ancestors’ urine, Baba once called it. His little gaze had then dropped to the bony legs poking through his oversized trousers. But Uncle had always been thin, at least as far as we could remember…except for those odd times he would return home looking puffed up like a poisoned frog. He would then claim it was a bee sting. Baba said it was because he’d refused to pay Wacu, the village chang’aa self-proclaimed queen. Kyora, ever the whisperer of dark tales, said it was something far worse, that he had touched Wambo’s son in a way no man should. We only talked about it in the granary or by the smoky, mud-walled kitchen that was far from other people. And especially never near Baba; not when it concerned his younger brother. No one dared ask Uncle either.
He lived with Shosho and Guka, who had long stopped complaining about his drinking ways. He had no house, no wife and no children anyone could swear by. Maybe Shosho once broke a pot and muttered a curse in frustration, maybe. Who knows! Some said he had long forsaken the kind of life his peers were trying to patch together. But if he had, he carried the surrender with grace, or stubborn denial.
Yet somehow, every school holiday when we went to play at Shosho’s, Uncle Mbugua would always find a way to hover around us. Watchful. Quiet. Strange. His eyes prying like they were searching for something only he understood. We would then bolt off to play in the next village, far from his lurking shadow. In the evenings, when it was time to milk the cows, he’d insist on standing behind us, licking his lips like he was tasting something in his head. It made our skin crawl. So, we’d rush the milking; sometimes knocking over our milking buckets in a hurry, sometimes leaving the udders half-full, earning Guka’s grumbles which always ended in a beating.
But still, nobody said a word.
No one dared.
But memories have teeth.
Once, a Christmas long buried in time, we had all gathered at Shosho’s compound. We were behind the granary, playing kalongo with the other boys, our pockets sagging with bottle tops, jualas and banyo. Uncle was there too, half-drunk, half-watching, pretending to fix some old, rusted bicycle with no chain; one that had probably not moved since Moi was president.
He had called Kaara first. Said he needed help with a missing chain. Then Karis. Then later…, me.
I had followed submissively, because when a grown-up calls, you do not say no, especially when they would tell on you to Baba. He said he had maandazis in his thingira. We followed. Wide-eyed. Buzzing.
We sat at the edge of his narrow 4-by-6 bed, the mattress sagging in the middle like it had given up long ago. The creamy sheets had dulled into the color of forgotten things, and an orange stain bloomed ugly on the pillowcase like an old wound. We stared, wrapped in the soft, trusting cloth of childhood innocence.
He fidgeted. But what came next wasn’t maandazis.
And it certainly wasn’t the red lollipops we used to lick in secret, hiding behind walls so the girls wouldn’t tease us for missing our mothers’ nyonyos.
What came next, mummed us for life.
Darkness.
Silence.
Blood.
And fear.
I couldn’t name it then. But then it kept happening. And I began to sleep facing the wall, my back always tense like I was waiting for a hand to appear in the dark. I began to hate the smell of chang’aa and old, rained on clothes. And I hated growing up so that when Baba insisted I sleep in my own bed, I wasn’t as ecstatic as boys my age. I started washing too much. My childhood, rinsed over and over in cold and sometimes very hot water that never ran clean. I sat in a flowing river and watched as all my tears drowned, carried off into the dense forest, as if even they were seeking somewhere to hide.
Each year, I had longed to tell Baba, especially after my Class Eight national exams, when I was circumcised and given the title ‘man.’ I wanted to share my fears with him, when they said I would sleep in Uncle Mbugua’s thingira so he could teach me ‘manly things’ as tradition dictates. But I never did tell.
Maybe because Baba had a temper.
With Baba, truth was a lit match near dry grass. Silence, though heavy, was the safer burn. Once, when I forgot to tell Mama he had called for her, he slammed my little head against the jagged stones of his unfinished house. My forehead still wears the memory; a deep, dark scar that trails from my hairline to the edge of my eye. A young boy’s souvenir from the school of his Baba’s discipline.
I never spoke of it again. And when they asked, I lied.
“I got this from a fight with Kianangi,” I told Kaara when he probed. His eyes widened, full of boyish awe.
“Are you okay?” he asked, seeing how I couldn’t quite close one eye.
“You should see Kianangi. He can’t even walk,” I said, turning to walk away like heroes do in the movies.
“Ninja-Power! You’re like Ninja-Power!” he shouted after me, baptizing me as one of our favorite Hollywood movie characters.
No one ever checked whether Kianangi was really paralyzed from the fight that never was.
Instead, people would say, “You have such beautiful eyes!”
Yes, I thought inwardly, as if that would erase the scar, as if that could ever bury the misery it marked. And of him and his unforbidden ways. Because boys don’t speak. Boys fight. Boys forget. Boys outgrow.
But, always, little boys remember.
Later, I would hear whispers. Another boy. And another. Always younger. Always quiet. One boy from church. Another from school or on his way from selling milk. Always, it was blamed on drink. On little bouts of madness. On poverty and lack of enough money. On Shosho’s curse. But it was neither drink nor curses. It was a choice. A full-grown, deliberate choice.He knew what he was doing, not in the confused, unthinking way of a drunkard or madman, but with a cold clarity. And when he was done, when his bony fingers trembled to fasten his filthy trousers, the threat lingered in the air, thick and suffocating. It wasn’t just fear; it was the kind of fear that digs into your chest and wraps around your small, scared soul, a constant whisper that no matter where we were, he would always be there.
Looming, watching, waiting.
He always knew.
*****
And now here he was again. At a celebration of new beginnings. A wedding. Another chance to disappear into the crowd, smiling, harmless, invisible. A poor man minding his business.
And then he smiled and beckoned to Masha. Held something that looked like a sweet, so that the little boy began walking toward him, so that for a moment, I froze, my blood beating war drums in my ears. He looked at him the way he had once looked at us. At me.
“I have maandazis too,” he said. Shameless, unimaginative, as if the decades passed had nothing on him. As if the script didn’t need rewriting to still do its damage.
I reached him just in time. I saw what no one else saw. Not the smile. Not the pitiable man. The hunger behind it. A different kind. Evil.
I gripped Masha’s tiny hand. Uncle Mbugua laughed. That same old laugh he gave after he had zipped up; familiar, ugly, hollow.
“Alaaar!” he sneered, a piece of broccoli unpleasantly sticking out between his two lower teeth. “Sisi maskini hatuna haki huku!(Poor people have no justice here!)”, he shouted, a sad attempt to gain an audience.Playing his old card, mocking, pitiful, casting himself as the misunderstood poor man so that he’s acquitted by the court of public opinion.
But not today. Not today.
I stepped between him and Masha, and with a speed that startled me, I grabbed him by the neck. Pressed it, then pressed it harder with years of hate, loathe and the kind of fear that grows teeth in the dark; piercing like a sword at one in their dreams. His eyes widened, his hands clawing at mine, but I didn’t flinch. I felt every tremble in his throat, every gasp. I felt the pain of a little boy’s silence. A child’s scar.
“Dare to touch my nephew like you did all those boys,” I said, voice steady, low, dangerous.
“And you’ll never see the light of day. I swear!”, I added.
“Mchape! (Beat Him!)”, a man at the back roared. Encouraging me to beat him up. “Ndio, mchape! Amezidi!” (Yes beat him! He’s too much now!)”, a woman’s voice echoed.
The crowd stared at us, shock rippling through them like the Kitengela heat. I stared right back into their widened eyes. The eyes of the very parents who always waved away whispers. Who never believed their little ones when they came home limping in pain. Who silenced them, urging instead that they be men.
After what felt like eternity, I let go of his contemptable throat. I’m not sure what startled him more; my calling him out, or the grip I had on his neck. Maybe both. Maybe the years he thought had buried it all.
I didn’t care.
Embarrassment and fear coiled around him like a snake. Deep, scary panic, but this time, it wasn’t mine to keep.
He staggered back, choking, stunned. Then, with a sudden grunt, he flung down his plate and stumbled away; half-running, half-shrinking into the shadows he had always crawled from.
“Uuuuiiii uuuiiii! Uiiiiii!”, the women screamed as they followed him to the main entrance. And while the crowd went wild, I took Masha by the hand and walked him away from the chaos. Everyone talked at once, in disbelief, in agreement, that we all forgot we were at a wedding. As I stood there, a tall, dark man came over to me and gave my shoulder a rough, crooked pat. I looked, and there he was! Karis! After three decades. He was now grown, strongly built, yet deep in his eyes I could see the scared memories we both shared in Uncle Mbugua’s thingira.
He patted me again, a manly thing, a silent nod, the kind of thank you that doesn’t dent an African man’s pride, but still says, “I remember. I know. Thank you.”
We never saw Uncle Mbugua again after that. Rumors rose like smoke; it was said he was chased from one village to another. A boy had spoken. A father had believed. And a machete had spoken louder than the years of eerie silence.
But the truth?
Truth does not disappear.
It grows and ages with us. Settling at the edge of memory.
Quietly, weighing heavily on childhood innocence.
Like a forbidden broccoli on a red, old plate.
Like a forbidden broccoli on a red, old plate.And as I look at the scar on my forehead, I remind myself; ‘It’s not just from a boulder on the wall. It’s from everything I never said.’