Our heroine Abby, now half naked, lies on a white bed with her long legs open. She has an old copy of True Love face down on her bosom. She was reading the Last Word, some rushed article obviously written by a writer struggling with a deadline (and his ego). There is a lady between Abby’s legs. She’s called Gakii. Gakii has waxed Abby for five years now. She’s tall, waiflike, and cheerful with these long dexterous fingers, a fortune teller’s fingers. She’s the best with hair. Reputable. Women drive from all corners of Nairobi with different types of hairs for Gakii to wax, from soft hair that feel like dove feathers to tough hair reminiscent of elephant grass.
Abby sighs a lot, staring at the ceiling. That jaded pre-bridal sigh. She’s tired of her wedding planner who thinks the wedding is hers. She’s tired of the groom who wants to wear shorts to his wedding because he’s a rugby guy and he wants all the groomsmen, all former rugby guys, to also wear shorts. But they are all Maragoli men so they have these massive hairy thighs. She shudders when she imagines the photographs. This is not how Abby wants to remember her wedding when she looks at her photos. So she has fought it and she has won and now she’s stressed about the sample of napkins that came in the wrong shade of fuchsia. Then there are the bridal jitters – Will she be required to go fetch water from the river when she visits Vihiga? Won’t that ruin her pedi? (She only paints her nails black). Will she now have to learn to cook ugali for her husband, because really, rice, she heard, doesn’t count as a meal to Maragolis. Rice is a side order: “May I please have fish and ugali with a side order of rice?”
In three days’ time Abby will marry the guy who we will call Juma. It will be a garden wedding in Naivasha. One hundred pax. Invite only. That band that plays at Kahama Bar in coasto, what’s their name? Yeah, they will pelt music to revelers in Ankara outfits, a sea of linen, African print and a massive canopy of floppy hats. It will not rain. The sky will remain blue. The wait staff will wear white shirts and red bowties. The MC will be some washed out former TV personality with a paunch. He will crack jokes that have no moisture in them, but the drunken aunt from Kilungi seated at the back will fall off her chair chuckling at them anyway.
The day they come back home from their honeymoon (as Mrs. Abby Juma) she will lie exhausted on the sofa with her eyes closed and ask him, “By the way sweetie, that uncle of yours, the one who kept asking what happened to all the gizzards from the slaughtered chicken, what does he do?”
“Retired. He used to work with Kicomi,” he will say, standing in the middle of the living room, changing the TV channels. “Why?”
“I just found it strange that he would refuse completely to eat grade chicken, is grade chicken an insult to the men in your community?”
He will laugh. Juma laughs like Swaleh Mdoe; small muffled spurts that can go on for days.
Five years later Abby will start driving around with a yoga mat in the boot of her silver Rav4. She will join this group of Zen women who sit cross legged in some backyard in this massive house Lavi, and talk about releasing their inner chi. They will drink cups after cups of chamomile tea and watch videos on how to breathe and she will stop eating gluten and one day he will walk into the house to find her feet up in the air, balancing on her head, a bead of sweat at the tip of her nose.
“Hey, you,” she will screech cheerfully at Juma, “I’m thinking of going to India.”
“Oookay,” Juma will say tossing his car keys in that wooden bowl she bought at Maasai market. ”For jobo, ama?”
“No, a meditation tour, I’m going to discover my center.”
Juma will take a seat slowly. “Your center?”
“Yes, the core of our beings, what we are composed of…”
“You are composed of 70% water, Abby.” he retorts. “I can tell you that and I haven’t been to India.”
“You can come, it will be fun.”
He groans. “Who are you going with to India?”
“Pam, my new friend from the Yoga class?”
“Oh, the divorced one with big feet? “He says sarcastically. “I knew something like this would come up.”
“Something like what?”
“Do you mind getting off your head for a minute!” he spits, ”I’m finding it hard to hold a conversation with you when you are upside down like a bat.”
“What, are my words and letters getting to you upside down?” she says with a playful wink. “Is my P upside down?” He tries not to laugh because he is supposed to be pissed off at this India story.
A month later she leaves for India with eccentric Pamela who picks her up in an old blue Skoda. Two weeks later he picks her up at midnight at JKIA’s International Arrivals. She’s wearing a dashiki top and sandals with straps running up to her knees. Later that night as they make love and he has his big hands around her throat she suddenly holds the hands and says, “Okay stop, It’s too tight,” and he stops and asks, “Oh, I thought you liked it tight?” and she says, “No,” and he says, “Oh did Swami Mahesh say it will destabilize your chi?” She laughs and pries his hands from her throat and feels him immediately grow soft inside her.
Months pass.
One day they decide to go for Sunday brunch. Beautiful day. She’s wearing this wonderfully short white dress with African print behind it. The young waiter stares at her thighs. He grins proudly. Suddenly she says behind these large sunglasses she bought at Sunglass Hut in Cape Town, “I want to tell you something, Juma and please don’t overreact like you normally do.”
“Ati overreact?” he says, “I don’t overreact.”
“You do, don’t even get me started on that.”
“What’s up?” he asks jokingly, “Oh let me guess, you met an Indian man in Bali? And now you want to leave me for a bloody vegetarian.”
She ignores him.
“I was thinking of changing my name.”
He stares at his reflection on her sunglasses.
“To what, Abby Mahesh?”
She grins and sips her sparkling water. She’s wearing red lipstick. Her chin looks longer since she came back from India, she’s gorgeous.
“I want to revert back to my old name.”
He stares at her. Then he sips his Coke with all the ice melting in it.
“What do you mean? Don’t you like your name?”
“I do, it’s just that I feel like I’m lost in it.”
“You are lost in your name?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
She shifts in her chair and wipes off invisible pollen from her dress.
“Well, I just want to go back to Abby Kilonzo.”
He sits there and realises what she is saying. He looks at her hard and then chuckles bitterly.
“You mean you want to drop my name?”
“Well, don’t put it that way.”
“How do you want me to put it, you want to drop my name and be called Abby Kilonzo. You dislike my name? Is it not cool enough for your Yoga crowd?”
“Come on, Juma, don’t be like that.”
“Like how? Why the hell would you want to drop my name now? What changed?”
“Nothing changed,” she mumbles, “It’s just that I feel like I’ve lost my identity.”
“When did you make this illuminating discovery… let me guess, India?”
She tilts her head and looks at him admonishingly. “Come on.”
“You have lost your identity,” he repeats with a disdain, “Do you also want to lose your wedding band? Have you lost yourself in that as well?”
The young waiter who had been staring at her thighs comes to the table with starters and they keep silent for a minute as he lays down the table. She stares at Juma who’s looking away sulkily. As soon as the waiter ambles away he turns and tells her. “You have not been yourself ever since you met those yoga friends of yours with big feet. Nothing satisfies you anymore, you want more, you are standing on your head mumbling mumbo jumbo, drinking weird teas and your stomach rumbles the whole night because you eat like a rabbit. On top of dealing with this new you, I can’t even sleep with that stomach of yours going on the whole night. Why don’t you just eat like the rest of us Africans?”
She tries not to laugh at that last line. He ploughs on, “Now you want to drop my name. What will you be called, Mrs. Abby Kilonzo? Are you married to your father?”
“This is not about our marriage, which I still want to be in. This is about me, as an individual, I have always done the things that you like Juma, like going for your farmer conventions that I have told you I hate. All I’m saying is that I want to retain myself as a person and not a hyphenated version of someone else.”
They have a very cold and silent brunch.
For two weeks he sulks around the house. Hiding behind his football matches on TV. Mumbling one word replies. Banging doors. When she puts his dirty clothes in the washing machine she can smell sarcasm on them. Three months later she changes her name back to Abby Kilonzo. Atta girl.
Boy does he bitch about it to his homie in the bar?
Do you know who else might be reading this and saying, “I understand this Juma guy sana”?
CFC.
Of course you know by now that CFC Stanbic Bank is now simply known as Stanbic Bank. They dropped the CFC bit. They didn’t kick ‘em out or end that marriage, they simply told CFC that they thought Stanbic Bank had a better ring to it. We will never know how CFC reacted, but I bet CFC sulked and banged doors and shouted, “Oh, are you saying this marriage is over?! Are you done with this thing right here?!” But Stanbic said calmly, “Now, now darling, the marriage is intact, don’t be like that, stop shouting, the neighbours can hear you. Come, take this voucher, go get a massage, no need to get our knickers in a twist, we are still moving together.”