The Outsider(S) (2 page)

“This is an important position,” I continued. “I work very closely with the head of the company. You will be exposed to company secrets and confidential issues within the company. Are you a gossip?” I asked abruptly, getting up and walking to the window, pretending not to notice her reaction but watching her very carefully from the corner of my eye.

“No.” she responded, looking bewildered.

“But Lithuania is in Eastern Europe, right?” I posed the question slowly while regarding her carefully.

“Yes,” she said with a stammer, and looked confused. I saw her lips move as if she wanted to say something, but then she kept quiet. She was not going to jeopardize her big chance to get a job in an international company. One of the most successful in the world. But I wasn’t finished.

“It must be difficult for you in the job market,” I said slowly in a sympathetic tone, as if it bothered me a great deal. Again she looked uncomfortable and for the first time didn’t meet my gaze.

‘‘There is a lot of discrimination,’’ she replied finally, touching her earring thoughtfully. ‘‘It is true. It is much harder for us to get jobs.’’ She looked up and I realized that I had her exactly where I wanted her. She was the right candidate.

Philister
Taa

Kenya, 1989

T
hat Tuesday morning began like any other. I packed my shiny handbag and headed for the Indian shop where I worked as a salesgirl. In the bus, I noticed that I was not the only one who had not taken a shower. The bus was full as usual and the sweaty smells spicier than usual. I made a mental note to take a shower within the next week. I was sure that my Indian boss, one Mrs. Patel, was soon going to make one of her snide remarks. The thought of Mrs. Patel instantly put a frown on my face. I hated her. I hated her stupid shop. I hated her beautiful saris. I hated her stupid accent. Well, I hated everything about her.

I arrived at the shop at exactly seven thirty a.m. As usual, she had not yet arrived, and so I had to sit outside in the cold Nairobi morning. The wind blew, and it was unbelievable how cold the breeze was. Against my better judgment, I bought myself a
mandazi
1
—an overpriced one. But what to do? I was cold and hungry and miserable, not to mention full of hate. I took a bite of the
mandazi
. It wasn’t as sweet as it should be. I suspected that the
mandazi
woman had used less sugar. Maybe to save on costs.

A shrill voice cut through the air: “Get in and start cleaning!” I jumped up and gobbled the rest of the
mandazi
and followed Her Royal Highness inside. Royal Highness is what I called her, or rather, that is what Tamaa Matano had nicknamed her.

“Customers
vill
be here in a moment so move your ass, quick!”

Mrs. Patel’s distrust of Africans was legendary. She would rather have had a bullet through her head than let me keep the key to the shop. Every day, I reported to work at seven thirty a.m., which left me with around thirty minutes to sit out in the cold, freezing and spending my hard-earned coins on
mandazis
. Mrs. Patel came every day at two minutes to eight a.m. That left me with exactly two minutes to clean up the shop and start “encouraging” people to buy her stupid products. I had on many occasions thought of reporting to work five minutes to eight a.m., exactly three minutes before her, but I was too scared. What if she for once reported to work early? The thought sent a chill down my spine. I hated my job, but I needed it so badly.

A person walked into the shop, and before my eyes could adjust to see whether it was a man or a woman, Mrs. Patel jumped to her feet.

“
Kazi,
kazi,
2
don’t be lazy! Attend to the customer!”

I got up, but before I could say anything, said customer waved me down. “I don’t need your help, I am just looking around!” she said. I could see the scowl on Mrs. Patel’s face. She hated customers who were assertive enough to fight the harassment we unleashed on them. I smiled secretly. Obviously there was justice in life.

Time flew by, and in no time, the sun was up. From the sweaty customers who came into the shop, I knew that the temperatures were soaring out there. At exactly one minute to one o’clock, the lanky frame of Tamaa Matano appeared. I smelled her before I saw her. Tamaa Matano loved Susana pomade. It was a greasy-sweet or foul-smelling body cream, purely depending on your sense of smell. On my good days, I actually thought of it as nice smelling. I personally preferred Yolanda pomade, a sister product.

Mrs. Patel hesitated for a moment when she saw Tamaa Matano. She was in the process of locking the shop for her lunchtime break. That was the biggest advantage her distrust of Africans accorded me. I could never be left alone in the shop, which technically meant that anytime she was not there, I had a break from work and had to sit outside.

“Customer, come back in the afternoon!” I heard her tell Tamaa Matano.

“But I am in a hurry and I want to shop now!” Tamaa Matano responded dryly. I almost burst out laughing.

“Madam, I have never seen you buying anything here. You only loiter around!”

“What? That is racist!”

“No, I don’t have time!” Mrs. Patel stated with finality and promptly locked the padlock. It was clear that there was no love lost between Tamaa Matano and Mrs. Patel. During that whole fiasco, I pretended to search for something in my shiny bag. I could not afford for Mrs. Patel to know that I knew the one customer she hated with a passion, let alone that she was my best friend.

“So what do you want?” I asked Tamaa Matano without quite turning my head after Mrs. Patel had left.

“What do you think? Of course I want to shop!” she responded.

I turned to look at her. Her plastic shoes were dusty, and I knew that she had walked for miles. “Let’s get out of here,” I said finally, alarmed that Her Royal Highness might come back and find me talking with the one customer she could barely stand.

Despite never having money and actually hating shopping, Tamaa Matano came to Mrs. Patel’s shop an average of ten times per week. It was always the same routine. She came in. Mrs. Patel shouted at me to talk to the customer. Tamaa Matano asked the price of pretty much everything and then left. It took a while before Mrs. Patel realized how often she “shopped.” From that point on, it was downhill.

“Ve don’t have anything for you!” she would yell as soon as she saw her.

“Yes you do!” Tamaa Matano would respond and quickly walk past her into the shop and immediately start studying the rucksacks intently. “Is this from China?” she would ask.

“No, it is from Taiwan,” I would explain while laughing inside hysterically.

“Oh, I was wondering if you have the Japanese rucksacks,” she would say in that serious tone normal people who have money use. Mrs. Patel would follow her all around.

“Quality is the same. Doesn’t make any difference where it comes from!” she would snap.

“Oh,” Tamaa Matano would say, a sardonic expression plastered on her face.

Mrs. Patel would sigh in frustration.

But she was not one to lose easily. Her dislike of Tamaa Matano turned to suspicion and slowly to paranoia.

From that point on, Tamaa Matano stopped being my problem. The security guard, Boi, took over.

“
Askari
,
3
make sure she doesn’t steal anything!”

“So what brings you to shop again?” I asked with a smile after we had secured ourselves a bench far away from the lunchtime preachers at Jevanjee Park.

“This is the best news ever!” she stated, and I could see the excitement building up. “But first things first. I brought you lunch…
ugali
and
sukuma
wiki
!” she said, handing me a plastic bag.

The
ugali
4
and the
sukuma
wiki
5
were wrapped in some kind of polythene paper, which after close examination turned out to be originally for bread. I hesitated for a moment.

“You don’t think I picked it up from the garbage bin?” she asked and looked almost hurt when she saw the doubt on my face.

“Did you?” I asked.

“Of course not,” she said without looking at me, which in Tamaa Matano–speak meant that I had crossed the line. Tamaa Matano and I had initially always picked food from the garbage bins around the city. But it wasn’t something that either of us was proud of. And it was certainly nothing to joke about.

I ate slowly and was surprised that the food tasted much better than it looked. The
sukuma
wiki
was spiced with Royco,
6
which gave it a meaty taste.

“So what is the news?” I asked.

“I am leaving the country,” she said, still not looking at me.

“What?” I asked, a thin smile spreading across my face.

“Yep… I am headed for Europe,” she said excitedly and turned to look at me.

“You have been doing that for as long as I can remember,” I said absently.

“No seriously… this time it’s different. I will soon be playing football in Europe.”

“Football?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. But she neither smiled nor laughed.

“Don’t talk with food in your mouth!” she said reproachfully. Even though Tamaa Matano and I were the same age, she had this feisty thing about her.

“You see, everyone only thinks of men’s football, but women’s football is just as lucrative.”

I watched her silently before I continued. “That is not the issue, Tamaa Matano. You have never played football in your life!”

“That is where you come in. I need to get myself selected for the national team, and since you know Okot, you have to help me.”

“Hell no!” I screamed without really wanting to.

“Calm down, it’s not like I asked you to kill someone,” she said, looking a bit taken aback. I turned to face her and saw the utter confusion on her face. I tried to make light of the matter, realizing that for someone with no background information, my reaction must seem completely overboard.

“You know that it is utterly impossible to make it to the national team
of any sport if you have never played that sport—unless, of course, you are thinking of moving to Somalia and forming a football team,” I said with a smile, hoping to erase her worried look. But she wasn’t fooled.

“What is it with Okot? He’s your uncle. If you told him how important this is for me, he would definitely help me.”

I felt a sharp pain cut through my heart. It was the pain I experienced anytime I heard talk of how wonderful Okot was. To most people, he was the selfless man who helped the needy in the society. He surrounded himself with all kinds of less-fortunate relatives as well as non relatives. His reputation as a generous and kind man was part of the reason the minister of sports had rewarded him by making him the national team coach for women’s football.

But I knew a different version of Okot. A version that seemed only real to me. A version that almost always made me want to throw up. A version that always left me trembling in anger. How could everyone be so blind? How could they not see him for what he really was?

My mind went back to that Friday afternoon eight years earlier when my dear father was laid to rest and my nightmare began. I was eleven years old. My mother had passed on exactly three years earlier. I was officially an orphan, though technically I had been an orphan all my life. It was the burial day. The time must have been around noon or maybe two p.m. I don’t remember exactly. What I remember vividly is the smell. The antiseptic smell that engulfed the whole place. It was a sharp contrast to the foul smell that had been coming from my father before Kama the village nurse (whom everyone called the doctor) came around. I was seated in front of the casket. There was a line of people walking around, looking at my dead father. I noticed that some couldn’t get enough of him. They did one round after the other. I had never understood that culture of looking at dead bodies. I just wished I didn’t have to sit in front of one, even if it was my own father. What was the point of looking at someone who was not breathing and who could not change the expression on his face? I wondered how the people would react if my father suddenly winked at them or smiled. The thought amused me.

Suddenly there was mumbling among the crowd and shouts of “alleluia!” I realized that whatever it was, it had something to do with Okot. At the time, I actually liked and respected him. His reputation for generosity was unquestionable. And he was my uncle. Well, he was the uncle of everyone in the village.

“The cruel hand of death has once again struck. Little Philister will come and live with my wife and me. We will make sure she is provided for and will send her to school,” Okot was saying, and I could see the relief on the mourners’ faces.

“Mungu akubariki
7
!” they shouted.

A woman I recognized as one of my relatives paused from eating
ugali
and
matumbo
8
and started ululating. “Alalalalalalalalalalalal!” she continued endlessly. She seemed genuinely pleased about the development. “God has answered my prayers. I have been praying and asking God to let a generous soul take care of this little innocent girl,” she continued before she resumed eating.

It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t pleased with that little development. I didn’t know exactly what to do once my father was laid to rest, which was, of course, ironic considering the fact that I had been the one who had taken care of both of my parents all my life. My parents had always been sick as far as I could remember. In fact my lone memory of mother was her emaciated body ‘stuck’ on the metallic Safari bed in the grass thatched hut we called home. However much I tried, I couldn’t remember her ever walking or doing anything else.

“You seem really far away. Has the plane landed in Paris, or is it in London?” Tamaa Matano was asking me.