THE PRISON
Mwaura Karagu
Dear Mother,
You might
be surprised to receive this letter. The last time I wrote you a letter, I was
in boarding school. I could have visited you instead but my jailor couldn’t
allow me. Am in prison mum. I can’t get out. Before I tell you about my life in
prison let me tell you something. Am going to die. Am not going to commit
suicide but am going to leave this damned world you have been condemned to live
in. I won’t kill self but I am going to facilitate my death. I don’t want
people to say I was a coward when I die. The only way I can get out of this
jail is death. Complete death.
I will go to the bank and withdraw some little money from
the account and go to a dark alley where I know I will meet hardcore thugs. I
will refuse to part with my money and hence, they will have one choice. To
separate me with my life. Simple way of dying. Nobody will ever know I helped
myself die except me and you when you receive this letter. Stroke of a genius! Right? I have made arrangements
that you receive this letter after I am dead and buried. I’d rather I die than to be condemned into a
life sentence in jail.
Mum, I remember everything you did to us. Me, Jonathan and
Esther. You are the best mum in the world. You worked hard to ensure that we
went to school while my father was in drink. He was married to the brown
bottles. He used to beat all of us for nothing. I will never forget when we used
to sleep in the banana plantation after being chased from the house. You used
to make sure we are not bitten by night insects such as mosquitoes and
caterpillars. It was very cold but you used to cover us with your head gear and
jumpers. You are my heroine. In all these circumstances, you never hit dad or
answered him rudely. Instead you took your time and taught us to respect him.
We struggled with life everyday. You made sure that there was food for us when
we came from school. You did not have a favorite child. We were all equal. We loved
each other because you taught us so. I was the eldest while Esther was the
youngest. Jonah and I used to adore her more than anything else. We protected
her form bullies at school and she was proud of us.
Mum, you also had a vision for us. You wanted us to be
important members of the society. You always wanted one of your children to be
a pastor, another a doctor and the other a farmer. I became a doctor to please
you mama. Jonah became a priest and Esther became a banker. But again Esther
and I became farmers. I treated people physically; Jonah treated them
spiritually while Esther kept their money away from thugs. We also made sure
that they have access to milk, meat, wheat and vegetables. Esther is crazy with
eggs. I remember one day when you almost killed her.
She was expelled form school when
she was in form three. She had become pregnant.
You wanted her to abort but Jonathan and I were against it. She wanted
keep her baby. And she did. After she gave birth, you send her back to another
school. She passed well. She had a beautiful son whom you refused to give back
to her later. You call him your born son. He loves you too. Are you proud of
your daughter? Defying all odds and
doing what many girls wont dare to do. Giving birth and going back to school.
You are a strong woman Mama. A role model. We really appreciate your goodness.
You are proud of your chicks. They are successful. They have
helped you and the society. Sometimes I wish dad had not died. He could have
changed maybe. I remember when he died. We were still in primary school. He died
because of alcohol. He was staggering home when he fell in a ditch. He could
not stand. It started raining and all the runoff covered him. In the morning
people saw him. He was dead. you were sad and we were sad because you were. We
became the laughing stock of the village. Our father died of drink. Or as they
put- he drowned in the liquor.
I met Fiona one day
when she was campaigning in campus to be the student leader. She was beautiful.
She came to my room with some girls. She came to ask for my vote. I was typing
something on my roommate’s computer. I was in my fifth year. One of the girls
was known to my room-mate.
“Why don’t
you have boys in your campaign team?” I asked her.
“They have
been bought off by my opponents.”
“Are you sure?”
my roommate asked, we are not yet bought”
That’s why
I came here”
We became part of her team. I was in charge of posters. I
was to ensure that her posters were available and also protected from the
hooligans from the opponents’ team. Obi my roommate was chickie and was in
charge of spreading propaganda and countering propaganda from opponents. We
worked hard for her. She won.
I went back
to my normal schedule but I could not forget her. We met occasionally when she
was buying us lunch or when she needed assistance anywhere. My roommate and I
were her think tanks. She used to hang in our room when she was idle. I came to
love her. Her eyes were beautiful, her teeth white and well arranged. She had
character. I made a resolution. Made a move.
I told my intentions. It was as though she was waiting for that. I had
taken her to the university conference centre. We gave our orders and it was
while we were eating that I told her what was in my mind.
“Fiona,
don’t judge my feelings though you have a right to do so. I have been hiding
this feeling from you because I wanted to now whether it is real. And I have
made up my mind. I love you as a person. You are the girl I have been waiting
for”. And I meant it mum. She cried and between sobs she told me, “Those are
the most beautiful words I have ever heard from a man. I love you too. You are
a good man.”
That was it. We used to meet everyday. She gave me a loan
and rented a house outside the campus. It became our love nest. She was good
mum. She was what a man would need in a woman. After finishing campus, I
brought her home. You all liked her.
Before she joined school
of Law to be confirmed to
the bar, I married her. The wedding was posh. I remember you being the happiest
person during our wedding. I remember the first car I drove was given to us by
her uncle the Minister for Gender Affairs. It was good mum. Her well connected
uncle secured her a job in the office of the Chief Justice before she left to
join a movement to help emancipate women from male chauvinism. That is when I became
a prisoner. I was supposed to be home as early as seven before she arrived. I
remember one day when she refused to open the door because I was late by one
hour. I came home the following morning and there was no one to talk to. Not
that she was not there, but because she didn’t let me. She accused me of
sleeping around with prostitutes.
This went
on for sometime until it turned physical. One day she hit me with the handle of
the broom. Do you remember when you came to visit us and you found my hand
plastered? We told you that I was repairing the kitchen lamp and I fell. We
lied. She had broken it with the broom stick. I never hit back.
She started
coming home late. Sometimes she slept out. She told me she was busy with a case
concerning a client of hers who had been accused of using his position as a
politician to acquire public land. She was defending him using her law company.
Rumour had t that they were having an affair. I had seen it in a newspaper that
they had been found in a city hotel by the politician’s wife. Fortunately, not
very many people connected her to me because they just said a city lawyer and a
politician. That is it. She doesn’t know that I know, so the escapade
continues.
Nobody
knows what I am going through except Philomena a fellow doctor who takes me out
to watch football- by force. She takes me to the stadium and cinemas. This she
does when we are off-duty. So I told her. She knows my predicament. She
advocates for divorce. My pastor will not allow this. My wife is one of the
greatest givers in our church. He cannot afford to lose us. He will use the
Bible to condemn divorce and that will be it. He will pray for us and then leave
our house burning. I have got no one to go to.
Fiona is
the woman who will treat me like a King when the visitors are around. Sometimes
we throw a bash for our friends in the medical and law fields in our house. She
is great during those moments. I play along because she calls the shots. My
colleagues tell me am lucky to have such a wife. She also knows how to cook for
them. She makes me smile when they are around. When they are gone, I am a
loner. She threatens to kill Dr. Philomena if she doesn’t stop to salivate for
her husband. She has in fact called her twice to warn her.
That is my
Fiona mum. There are two ways of doing things in my own house. Fiona’s way or
the wrong way. The other day I was having a tour of the house and in one of bags;
I stumbled onto something that my little medical knowledge interpreted immediately.
A coil. I discovered why all along my house has been cold and quite except for
the large flat screen TV set in the living room. I have got nothing to show off
for all the screaming she does at the apex of our venture in the world-of-God-knows-where.
Mine is a cold house mum and it is coil’s fault. You have always wanted a
grandson but it seems you will content with Esther’s boy. I am time barred. I
have to get out of this prison somehow. My philosophy has always been man must
live no matter how. This is how I am going to live. This is my life. I know
there are many men going through the same knife as I and I am going to give my
life to them. Yes mum. Man must live. And I am going to live in other people’s
lives.
You and my
sister will refuse to believe that I am dead. She will cry the whole day. She
will refuse to eat and talk to anyone. You will be beside her. You will both
cry and I am sure, women will be there to hold you. My wife will be beyond
herself. She will wail most. Her friends will be around her. Her eyes will be
red. My colleagues at work will be shocked to hear I am dead. Philomena will calmly
take my death and accept it. She is the most understanding woman I have ever
come across apart from you for that matter.
I have made
arrangements how my property is going to be shared. I made sure that my wife is
not my lawyer. So I made a friend of mine from my university days Obi to be my
lawyer. With his wife Quinter, they own this company that represents me. We
respect each other. We were roommates and that kept us together. So my will is
in good hands. The house we live in and everything in it belongs to Fiona. That
is the only thing she gets from me. At least she is still my wife. My two cars,
the Benz and the Range Rover, are yours. You can choose to sell them or use
them. My farm in the village, I have left for Jonathan. He has a plan to start a
children’s home and he can use it for that purpose. I have left a considerable
amount of money for Esther and her son. The rest goes to Charity.
Mamas, when
I die, don’t bury me in a cemetery. Bury me in the village beside my father’s
grave. I have a few words to chew with him. I want to ask him why he used to
beat you up yet you were the most wonderful woman in the world. He will maybe
tell me that it was a show of love and appreciation to you. Or maybe, he will
ask me out for a drink in hell or heaven depending with where I will be and
where he will be. My pastor will say I have gone to heaven! I am not sure about
that. Our people have a saying that if the milk is bad, do not blame the gourd
but yourself. I made my own milk. I have to drink it mum. My time is up.
Your
son
José
Bar-Tonjo Macharia.
