Under Relative Terms

An old man sits on a bench across the road. He is weary from age. He puts his hand into his pocket to remove his only watch for many years - a plastic Chinese make, which according to him, was the only original make there ever was of that model - and gazes at it. He wonders how it has come to be that he has been sitting in that same place for 3 hours already. Taking his handkerchief out from his rear pocket, he wipes away the sweat accumulating on his face. He has heard so many things about the city and how it has long hands. He was not going to take risks to put his money in the rear pocket. He has it all right there in the inner pocket of his favourite shirt. For someone to have it, he will have to kill him first.

As he contemplates his situation, he understands why he should keep waiting. Life has taught him to be patient. In so many ways. Right from when he was the age of his son - the one he has come to the city to visit. He will not let anger come between him and meeting his son. This is the only day (he thinks) he has an opportunity to shed some light in that lad's life. It is now or never. So he waits.

It is half past eight in the morning, and he is sweating! He gazes around him. The city has changed. The city has really changed. Just a few years ago, there were no buildings in the place he now sits. In fact, were it not for his son's specificity that he should alight here, he would not have known where he was... It is in the middle of the week anyway, and he still has plenty of time to look around before he heads back home to the village. He may know a few names, meet a few people or maybe know a few streets and a few vehicles specific to different streets... 

He gazes at the beauty of the modern city - admiring the good architectural designs… His son (he now thinks) should have made plans to build him a better house by now. He has been working for a while; and work translates to money, right? Well, he still does not understand how people operate nowadays...

Someone pats his back. It jolts him. It should be his son. No? No one knows him in this city except him. "Mzee, umekaa hapa sana, unangoja mtu?" (Old man, you've been here for a while, are you waiting for someone?), comes the voice. He looks up. It's only a boy. Twenty two maybe? He quickly scans his mind to remember how he was told to behave around city boys. Okay, here goes, "No I'm okay". He just has to use English so that this kid cannot think him to be a dumb old geezer, or some petty drums basking in sun waiting to be beaten. The boy looks at him, gives him a twisted crooked smile and moves away. He now remembers the joke his wife (of forty years) had made the previous day while handing him the bag with a few clothing she had packed, "Wewe utapoteza hiyo bag hata kabla ufike Nairobi" (You will lose this bag even before you are in the city). He had smiled and said nothing. That has always been his way of saying, "Yeah, you may be right, but let's leave it at that."

It's always been like that with his wife. They know how to hit at each other in a [tiny] humorous way. They understand how it all goes. They've done this together innumerable times. They enjoy it. They've learned to enjoy it. But they've not enjoyed everything all the time. Not at all. Take for instance, their decision to sell one of those precious goats of theirs so that he may get enough "transport" to travel to the city. It was hard. Really hard. Those goats are like their insurance. They are their security. Touching them (read, selling them) was not an easy decision to make. But they had to. One thing they had done is to take precaution. They had deposited some of the money (after selling the goat) into his M-PESA account. This was to ensure that if things were to go really bad on this merciless side of the world, he'll still have "transport" to get back home. Modernity has taught them a few lessons they would not dare forget. "But what if my phone battery loses charge and there's no electricity?", he had asked her. There may be no electricity at his son's place. He may not even be having a place... They had resolved to leave that as it was. You can't have answers for everything. Yes, that's another life lesson they have learned over time. There are things that should just be let to be. You can’t solve everything...

"Vipi mzee? Sorry, nimechelewa" (Hi, old man, sorry, I'm late), comes another voice. 

"Arrrghhh! This city!!", he yells within himself. 

Alas! It is his boy. "The boy has grown fat", he imagines. That's the first thing he notices of him. "And he now has eye glasses!", his mind continues. "And his voice has also changed...!" 

"Mzee, aren't you going to say anything?" He comes back to his senses.

"Oh, ni uzee! Niko salama. Nilikuwa nashangaa kwani mji umekumeza!?", (Oh, it's old age! I'm okay. I was wondering if the city had swallowed you somehow), he replies. The son now swithes the language and mood: "I passed through here to take you to my place. I have taken a day off, and I'll report back to work tomorrow, or maybe the other day..." He (the old man) smiles and says nothing.

They navigate through the streets of the city to a matatu stage. He is already feeling nostalgic. He doesn't love congestion. "When you grow old", he always says, "you grow weary of busyness..." He's also feeling hungry. The last meal he had was prepared by his wife. Sixteen hours ago. She knows what he likes to have before traveling. And she did just that. He smiles. She knows exactly what he wants and when he wants it. She has learned it over time.

Because of his absence from his immediate environment, he doesn't realize that they're already at their destination. They alight. He looks around. "Not a bad neighborhood", he says within himself. His son knocks on a door. Knocks again. Someone opens from the inside. A lady. No, a girl-ish lady. She smiles at him. "Karibu mzee" (welcome old man). He just nodes in reply.

Things start getting complicated. He has another wife. His son has another girl-ish wife. No wonder he has been silent all this time. No wonder he never asks about his wedded wife. No wonder he can't send support to his thirteen year old child who should now be joining high school. That is why he needs to teach him some sense. That is the reason he is here - to tell him that he needs to man up. He waits until the lady has gone to the other room and makes an introduction to his harangues:

"My son, I'm pleased to be here, and I'm thankful to God that you are healthy and doing well. I travelled well. Your mother is well. We are fine. I have planned to spend some two days at your place before going back to the village. You know we village people love our village...[smiles] I hope it will be okay with you. But I had a few issues I wanted to bring to your attention before settling down: One, your wife has gone back to her parents; two, your child needs to join High School next year; three, I have a problem with arthritis which is now making me inefficient in taking good care of the rest of my family, which is your family too; then four, your sister is pregnant - by I don't know who... To add to that, I need to know who she is [points finger in the direction the lady disappeared] to you."

In reply, before the tea is served, the boy tells him this:

"That is good to hear, but I don't know why you old people have a problem with how we young people choose to spend our lives these days. About my wife, I chose I don't need her anymore. She's rude and a niggard. She's intolerant. Who can live with such a person, huh? I needed a break, so I found someone who really understands me - we've been together for one year. I'm fine with that. If you are not, go bring her back (the wife) and take care of her. About my child, let him learn life the hard way. We didn't reach this far by everything being done right for us. No. Let him learn to struggle, and maybe take himself to a day school or something... A polytechnique may even do... Your health problem is understandable, but I'm not your only child. I have brothers. And sisters. Tell them too. Your brother is a doctor, he might help. And concerning my younger sister - she is a fool. How can she get pregnant with all this that is happening in life today? Throw her out. Let her pay the price of being careless..."

The old man looks intensely at the boy. The boy he has seen grow. The boy he nicknamed his friend. The boy he has known all these days. The boy he has loved so much above the others hoping that he will be the solid ground upon which the family stood in tough and slippery times like these. He says nothing. Even after tea is served, they say nothing. He wonders how children can be so arrogant today. How they can be so irresponsible and beastly. He imagines what would have happened in their days if a child tried to disown his family and evade responsibility. "Relativity, too much relativity, has eaten up our value systems!", he thinks. "Everyone now thinks they are right just because they are right. No one heeds to correction anymore. No one thinks authority is to be respected or that respect is deserved... They all move in the direction they please just because they choose to, and because that's what they want. We are breeding a society without honour and reverence towards the absolute right..."

This eats him up the entire night. He thinks over it. He tosses and turns on that chair he is given as a bed. He then decides to leave the next day. He knows he is not needed there. He doesn't have to be told to leave. He'll leave. But. But he'll never come back. Never. He'll never come back. He won't disown this lad and he won't become his slave. They will survive. They've always survived. They still will. God will make them live.  

The next day, as he boards the bus back home alone, he knows he has another lesson imprinted in his mind. A lesson he's going to deeply share with his wife: peeple today live life under relative terms, everyone thinks he (or she) is right, just because they are right... It is stupid, but it is a lesson anyway...



Bonface Morris.