A love story for the ages

“Sgt Makini, did I ever tell you how Pum’kin and I met?” my boss, Inspector Tembo, asked me today over the phone.

“No,” I said. “You only told me how you wanted to flee from her.”

Inspector Tembo is in Nairobi, supporting his wife as she goes through cancer treatment. It’s a hard time for him. It’s hard for me, too, seeing a strong man like Inspector Tembo brought to tears by a situation he can do nothing about.

You see, people think of policemen and soldiers as these gun-toting, no-nonsense supermen, who can handle any situation with the bravado they’ve been trained to possess. Faced with a life or death situation, most of them are exactly that. My fellow officers will bravely walk into situations most folks would hightail to avoid. Not me.

Personally, when confronted with a dangerous situation, I tremble like a dog in cold rain. Although that doesn’t stop me from performing my duty, I always breathe a huge sigh of relief once a tense situation is resolved and all my parts are intact. My fellow cops hi-five each other after a job well done. Me, the first thing I do is pee.

I once asked my trainer about fear in police college.

“You should be afraid,” he told me. “Fear keeps you alert. It keeps you alive.”

I was a happy man to hear that answer. For a while, I had thought I was defective. Turns out I’d make a good officer, after all, which remains to be seen. Inspector Tembo, despite all his other shortcomings, is a great policeman. A brave policeman.

But it is true that no matter how large or brawny you are, when a child hands you a toy phone, you answer it. And when she offers you a cup of play tea, you drink it like it’s the best cup of tea you’ve ever had. Besides kids, nothing is more humbling than a disease. A microscopic stomach bug will bring a giant to its knees. Mrs Tembo’s cancer was taking a toll on both her and her husband.

I call Inspector Tembo at least once a day to check up on him and give him a few words of encouragement. Today, our conversation took a most heart-warming turn.

“So I never told you how Pum’kin and I met?” he said. “Well, it’s quite something.

“Twenty-five years ago, I was the only corporal at a five-day police conference in Naivasha. I was young and naïve. I could barely talk to a woman face-to-face without throwing up. Unless she was my superior giving me orders.

“Come lunchtime on the second day of the forum, a young woman was waiting our table. She served the other five people without incident. When it came to me, she missed the table altogether and spilled soup all over my lap.

“‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said, looking so. ‘I’m a lousy waiter, but I clean better than I serve. Please, come with me.’

“We ended up by a tap at the rear of the auditorium. Without hesitation, she began wiping the soup off the front of my trousers. Son, the future Mrs Tembo was the first woman, besides my mother, to touch my private parts without me screaming bloody murder. Or fainting.

“We met every day for the next three days. Once I left, we talked on the phone every night for two weeks. Then she moved in with me. We’ve been married since. It made up for my lousy first day’s experience. But that’s a story for another day.”