NEIGHBOURS
'One, two, three, four, five.......ten, eleven, twelve....twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty three........forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!' exclaimed Bongo jubilantly as the tiny ball shot away from him. His short-lived joy turned into alarm, and then panic as he watched the ball bounce off a slab jutting out of a pavement, and slowly slide into Fatuma Kelele's sitting room.
He looked at his brother in consternation because as far as he was concerned, Kim deliberately distracted his concentration by narrating the tale of the monkey and the crocodile. To add insult to injury, he was now faced with the impossible task of pleading with Fatuma to release his ball
In a bid to continue juggling it on his right foot he inadvertently kicked the ball too hard, and unwittingly it had ended up where it did. Although his ball juggling technique had improved tremendously over the last couple of days, his right foot was still clumsy. Left-footed as his older brother Kim was, he couldn't, however, beat his record of a hundred juggles without the ball dropping because the latter had mastered using his right foot as well.
Fatuma Kelele is Bongo's family's next door neighbour. Her moods are as unpredictable as the weather, and so is the way she relates to her neighbours and their children. On account of her childlessness, she had always read a conspiracy by the neighbours and their children to malign her. During her brighter days, though, she bought candies and bananas for the neighbourhood children.
It usually began with her asking Kim-her favourite-to call everybody present for a treat. She started the 'party' by saying that they had been nice kids that week, and in any case, they were all lovely and respectful children. Then she would sing her favourite song wape wape ooh, vidonge vyao wakicheza waambiye shauri yao. This song, a popular Kiswahili hit, loosely translated seemed to be saying: 'give, give them what they deserve, if they don't listen, it is up to them.' Karen, Bongo's mother who was in the same teaching staff with Fatuma, had always wondered if there was a hidden message in the song. Knowing that her colleague ached to have her own children, she avoided doing anything that would deter her children from venturing into Fatuma's house.
Fatuma's moody character, this vidonge song, and her on and off camaraderie with children have only intensified the neighbourhood womenfolk's mistrust of her. Some have suggested that she was up to no good. Her husband, a doctor at the government hospital, was a quiet lugubrious man who was given to spurts of bizarre behaviour, particularly when drunk. Tall, slender with black curly hair, his eyes had the sad mournful look of bereavement. Rumour had it that something had gone wrong with his mind, in an Eastern European country where he'd studied medicine.
Last Saturday, for instance, a crowd of children followed him excitedly as he tried to walk on his hands. Each unsuccessful attempt to balance on his hands as his feet faced the sky, landed him heavily on his back. Only the quick intervention of the local police chief, and his wife Fatuma saved him from a severe back injury. Still as he staggered home he repeatedly bleated:
'I'm a gymnast, a champion gymnast, the best, the best!'
'Shut up, you goon', interrupted Fatuma, 'Can't you be ashamed of yourself?'
'A champion gymnast, to be ashamed of himself! You are joking.'
This argument continued in their house late into the night, where apparently Dr. Kelele had determinedly continued his acrobatic feats. Of course this embarrassing farce caused some sprains, swellings and dislocations that forced him into a week's house confinement. Fatuma deeply scandalised by this, also had to take a few days' off the week from her teaching job to nurse her husband.
It was in the wake of Dr. Kelele's confinement and recovery, that Bongo was contemplating facing Fatuma and asking for his ball. He looked pleadingly at Kim who seemed to be enjoying himself and said:
'You should go in and ask for the ball, you caused all this', Bongo lamely accused Kim.
'You must be joking', he countered, 'I don't control your legs, do I?'
'Of course you do', he heatedly argued, 'how do you expect me to concentrate when you interrupt me with your silly tale while I'm bouncing the ball?'
However, Bongo decided that he wasn't going to plead with Kim any more. He had been through worse scenarios before. For instance, there was the day- thanks to Kabaka- his ball had smashed into the sitting room window of the Shah's, across the street. Fortunately for him, Vijay Shah had been looking outside in their direction, when he saw Kabaka viciously kick the ball towards his house.
Shah's eye witness account and the notoriety of Kabaka's bullish behaviour earned Bongo his ball back. Furthermore, Kabaka's father paid for the repair of the window. But the episode that directly set Bongo on a collision course with Fatuma was when his pet dog Yoweri, soiled her kitchen carpet. Yoweri had this uncharacteristic habit of relieving himself in confined places, unlike other dogs. If Bongo did not put him on a leash and walk him to the park, he would simply enter the next house and do the needful. Fortunately for Bongo, the carpet was a plastic one, and on that occasion, Kim quickly volunteered to help him clean it.
Today Bongo seemed to be on his own, and he decided that the best course of action was to adopt the most woeful bearing and plead guilty.
He walked gingerly towards Fatuma's front door and knocked timidly. A deep male voice answered from inside:
'Come in.'
He took off his trainers outside the door and stepped onto the soft earth-coloured living room rug. The room which was neatly arranged, with the austere cleanliness of an operating theatre, had the pungent smell of a hospital. There were two huge sets of cream coloured settees, arranged at right angles around an ebony coffee table. Seated at the centre of one, was Dr. Kelele, pale and thinner than Bongo had ever seen him. His large pleading eyes which had a yellowish tinge, looked inquiringly at Bongo. There was a plastic brace around his neck, which caused him to swerve his whole body whenever he wanted to turn his head.
'Hello young man, how can I help you?' he asked gloomily.
'Sir, my ball just rolled into your house', Bongo offered carefully.
'Alright, how did that happen?' enquired the pale face.
'Eer....Kim and I....were playing when it bounced off my foot and came here.'
'Well, you may look around for it', Came the surprisingly neutral female voice from nowhere in particular.
Bongo wanted to run away, but realized that the voice was actually behind him. He turned to find the austere face of Fatuma smiling benevolently down at him. To say that this shocked rather than cheered him was an understatement. For no apparent reason, Bongo had always felt unnerved by Fatuma, who could also confess that of all Karen's children this one was always cold towards her. She in turn became indifferent whenever she came across him.
She had just come in from the shops when she saw Bongo standing timidly inside her living room door. Although her heart warmed inside her, as it usually did whenever she saw a child, she wrapped her emotions under austere control. Knowing that her motives would always be under intense scrutiny, her best intentions have at times brought out the worst in her. Her strictness with children, for instance, has usually been mistaken for dislike for children, and her kindness put down to ulterior motives.
As she came closer, she heard him tell her husband about how he had kicked a ball into her house. Who really cared, he could kick a hundred balls into the house for all she cared. But she knew that her husband hated children, and could not stand them. Her desire for children, and her devotion to her husband who couldn't give her any, nearly drove her insane. Her heart was torn between her natural inclination to procreation, and her devotion to her husband.
On his part, Bongo thought that he was dreaming. He could not understand this sudden undeserved kindness from Fatuma. He had expected her to complain and threaten to report the matter to his father, but when instead she asked him to search her living room for his ball, he was astounded. He suddenly spotted his ball under the coffee table, and quickly bent down to pick it up. As this was too good to be true, he walked timidly towards the door fearing that anything could happen and turn around his good fortunes. He could knock the coffee table down, or Fatuma might be reminded of how Yoweri had messed her house in the past.
Finally as he emerged from the house and put on his trainers, he saw Kim standing warily at the furthest end of the street looking towards Fatuma's house. Kim was surprised to see his brother coming out of Fatuma's house looking unscathed, in fact sporting triumphant gleam in his eye. He thought that Bongo had done a much more remarkable feat than bouncing the ball one hundred times. In the next few days, the news will definitely spread around Manga Township and Bongo will be a hero of sorts.