Dear Diary,
Mzee wa Kijiji from Nyeri is in Nairobi.
To bring you up to date, I’ve been accused of breaking the leg of someone’s goat.
Confused? So was I. Apparently, down in the land of mukimo and njahi, that means I’ve been accused of impregnating a girl without first marrying her. It also means that I have to stand before a village bazaar and explain myself.
I was supposed to travel to Nyeri but due to my busy schedule at the hospital, I managed to convince the mzee to come here so we can sort this matter out. Since I am not a stupid man, I refuse to host them in my house in lieu of a neutral venue. This does not sit well with Mzee wa Kijiji.
“Untaka kujificha, eh?” he says. “What kind of man receives guests in a hotel? Guests who have travelled all the way from Nyeri?”
I have to think on my feet. “I’m afraid my house is being fumigated. I’ve had a bad infestation of bedbugs.”
“Should we fumigate our village, too?”
“Do you have bedbugs, too?”
“How do I know? If that’s where you defiled our Wacu, maybe she brought some of them back to us.”
I decide to let the snide remark slide since I’ve tried denying knowing this Wacu, but it has borne no fruit. So, Mzee comes to a hotel near the hospital, accompanied by three other men and the said Wacu. All four men are dressed in ill-fitting suits that look like they were new when Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was President.
Mzee wa Kijiji is the only one in a tie so wide it looks like a vest. As for Wacu, she’s wearing a blue dress that looks relatively new, and her stomach is stretching it to its limit. She is definitely very pregnant, but I can bet everything I own that the bun baking in the oven has no ingredient from me.
Just so you know, I’m very good with faces, and I swear I’ve never laid eyes on Wacu. Not once in my life, and not even in passing. I keep this part to myself and listen to what the men have to say.
Once the men eat to their fill, Mzee wa Kijiji starts the inquest. “Mr Tom, as you can see, Wacu looks like she’s swallowed a whole goat. When this happens, there is only one option: You have to marry her.”
“And if I don’t?” I ask.
One of the men now speaks up. “First of all, where is the alcohol?”
“I’m sorry. They don’t serve alcohol here,” I say.
He shakes his head. “No wonder you can do this to our Wacu. You have no manners. How do you receive a council of elders without alcohol? Were you raised in a forest?”
“I didn’t know you required alcohol. I’d have made some arrangements. Anyway, now that I’ve met Wacu, I apologise for making you come all this way. But I have to say—”
“To begin with,” says Mzee wa Kijiji, “we will need to slaughter a goat to appease the ancestors. It shall be a fat goat whose oil and blood will be sprinkled on the ground. As for the meat—”
“I didn’t do it,” I say. “Ask her. You have the wrong guy.”
Mzee wa Kijiji turns to Wacu. “Is he the one?”
Wacu asks to speak to me in camera. We step out of the hotel.
“My mother was a patient in your hospital,” she says. “That’s how I know you. The father of my baby has denied it. Can you just go along with it?”
