All Waf’s Exes Are Crazy: II

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Thank you for your time.

…let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences. -Sylvia Plath.

Chapter II: Consonants and Vowels

Consolata had been in Wafula Snr’s official employ since graduating high school, her B plain and a glowing recommendation from the Christian Union hinting at a future brimming with potential. A job offer awaited her alongside a blank check intended for her university enrollment. She strategically chose a Business Administration course at the Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology, Nakuru Town campus. Its proximity to the highway meant she could avoid long walks after alighting from the matatu each morning. The campus was close enough to town for quick errands but just distant enough from the CBD to provide a convenient excuse to avoid unwanted social engagements. Consolata had no particular aversion to the CBD itself; she simply loathed the forced pleasantries and endless chatter with classmates she considered as more of acquaintances than friends. Being late also meant she had to suffer through a tongue lashing from her boss’s pregnant wife, on matters pertaining the young Wafula and his meals. Long after her graduation, even after she had secured a job as the minister’s main bookkeeper, her days often ended with ironing the young master’s uniform, ensuring the boy had fed appropriately and was tucked in ready for the next day.

Frank, Wafula Snr’s driver, became an exception to her endless chatter rule. A lifelong resident of Race Course estate, driving the MP granted him a status symbol he could never have afforded independently. He was the envy of the estate, second only to Chege, whose family held generational wealth. Chege didn’t even count anyway since he rarely interacted with the estate guys. Frank’s peers respected his work ethic and the sleek black SUV he commanded. He held the position of Consolata’s clandestine lover with pride, guarding the secret jealously, relishing the illicit thrill of their connection.

A few weeks into his employment, Frank was ambushed at the T-junction near his home. Three men brandishing what appeared to be firearms forced him out of the vehicle. Their words were minimal, save for one who coughed, a sound that sliced through the night and revealed his identity. Frank recognized that distinctive, tuberculosis-laden cough instantly. He had grown up in the area and only one man coughed like that since childhood.

“Jayden?” He tilted his head, his assailant’s cough catching in his throat. “Jay, I know it’s you.”

The masked men exchanged glances, and Frank watched as the tallest among them gestured for the coughing man to remain silent.

Jayden snatched Frank’s phone, his eyes scanning the screen. Consolata was on the line, her voice a frantic plea for reassurance. They had developed a habit of talking on the phone while Frank drove the minister’s car home “Jay, come on. What is this?” Frank begged.

“It’s not personal. Tell Conso you’re okay,” Jayden held the phone to his ear, but the driver remained silent. “Speak!”

Frank shook his head, a silent act of defiance.

The tallest of the masked men seized the phone from Jayden. “Conso, he’ll be unharmed. Don’t worry.” He ended the call and hurled the phone against a wall, shattering it. An account of the next moments remains lost to the night sky.

The moment Frank limped home, he used his mother’s kabambe to call his boss. His assailants had attempted to break his leg with a rungu, but only managed to inflict severe bruising. The senior Wafula, to Frank’s dismay, remained unnervingly calm. He was summoned to the house to repeat his narration in person. Upon arriving at his boss’s Upperhill residence, Frank was ushered into Consolata’s care. She offered him a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and tended to his injuries. Before he could finish the drink, three men arrived. Two were uniformed policemen, standing like statues just inside the main entrance as their bosses conferred. They took Frank’s statement and confirmed he could identify where one of the carjackers lived. He guided them to the culprit’s home. 

Frank locked up for the night, leaving the police Land Cruiser parked on the street. He called Consolata, assuring her he was safely under his blankets. Zakayo’s Street and the wider Race Course area fell silent. In the days and weeks that followed, no one dared to meet Frank’s gaze. News of Jayden’s disappearance spread like wildfire.

Conso was his refuge. She didn’t look at him as if he were responsible for Jayden’s vanishing act. If a man chooses to leave a place, Frank reasoned, who could stop him? He had no hand in Jayden’s disappearance. He had his job, a decent salary, and a girlfriend who seemed eager enough. Or so he thought.

---

Lucas, at thirteen, frequently encountered Wafula Snr during his visits to his friend’s Nairobi home. For a few months, during and after his own parents’ divorce, he had practically lived at the Upperhill mansion. Without that divorce, Lucas muses, he wouldn’t have been allowed to even think about spending more than a weekend. He used it to blackmail his parents into allowing him longer stays until he had been able to keep a suitcase at his friend’s home, not that Waf allowed him to wear anything he owned. Wafula’s closet was also Lucas’s, the latter having no other alternatives to the latest designer teen fashion. Even before the divorce, Lucas would go back home after visits with a strange jacket or pair of jeans, rewards for his company. 

Wafula’s stepmother maintained a home of pristine order. Crisp white curtains mirrored the neatly folded fur blankets on the plush couches. Lucas spent hours walking on the cold, polished tiles, staring at his reflection, his young mind a whirlwind of thoughts. He also observed Wafula’s interactions with the household staff, including Consolata, who, Lucas knew, lived with them in Upperhill since Wafula’s mother moved to Kakamega.

Sleepovers lasted entire holidays, with Lucas getting a front row seat to Wafula’s treatment of the help, which was a constant stream of dismissive orders and casual demands. He’d snap his fingers at the cook for his juice and address Consolata as if she were an extension of the furniture. “Conso, where are my shoes?” “Conso, if you had a mind you would’ve already ironed my shirt.” “The other one, what was it? With a red faded hat that looks like you found it on Moi Avenue at 8pm.” His entitlement grated on Lucas, the way Wafula seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that he was barely king of any castle, and these were people, not servants. Lucas often found himself apologizing to the staff on Wafula’s behalf, a gesture that earned him polite smiles and the occasional, weary shake of the head.

Lucas recalls one afternoon as teenagers when he and Wafula were on their way to a hangout organized by some of the older kids from school. The boys were to pick Winona up, the daughter of Wafula Snr’s campaign manager, a formidable woman named Patricia. As a result of the demanding nature of her job, Patricia was always on the move, so dedicated to her work that she seemed to forget Winona’s existence. Winona, though a few years younger than the boys, was a constant presence when they hung out. She, too, was a boarder at Friends Academy and the boys were tasked with looking after her, an unspoken responsibility extended to the holidays. They were all invited to the party, to be attended by some of older students who went to Friends’ and also lived in Nairobi and its environs. The trio was both eager and nervous to attend. The event’s poster, commissioned from and designed by Lucas, was dubbed “Nairobi’s Friends” and called to those of similar interests in games and fun with splashes of color. It was not the first time Lucas’s artistry opened doors they otherwise wouldn’t have known existence of. As part of his compensation, Lucas had asked for a plus one, which had now doubled. The boys were walking the path to Winona’s when a stray cat darted across their path a few houses before her gates. Wafula, without breaking stride, kicked it hard. The cat yelped and scrambled away, disappearing into the bushes.

Lucas stopped. “Waf, what the hell?”

Wafula shrugged, a casual, almost bored expression on his face. “It was in my way.”

Lucas wondered what Winona would have done had she been there. The casual cruelty of the act, the complete lack of remorse, unsettled him. It was a fleeting moment, but now, looking back, Lucas realizes it revealed a side of Wafula that he hadn’t fully acknowledged before. A coldness that lurked beneath the surface of his privileged existence. In the moment, he pushed the thought aside, focusing on the party, but the image of the cat stayed with him, an evolving scar on his perception of his friend.

Lucas recalls carrying within him a disquiet born of observing Wafula’s casual dominion over the household staff. Well into their teens, a more insidious disregard had festered. This casual assumption of superiority, however, stood in stark contrast to the Wafula who navigated the social dynamics at school. In uniform, his friend moved with a performative charm, a carefully calibrated suave towards teachers and their peers. This duality sowed seeds of doubt in Lucas’s mind, making him question whether his being uncomfortable with his best friend’s character was valid. It was as if Wafula shed skins between these two worlds, inhabiting each with a disconcerting and absolute conviction, leaving Lucas to grapple with the unsettling truth that the boy he thought he knew was, in fact, a shifting landscape of carefully constructed personas.

Lucas remembers wandering aimlessly around the mansion in the months he spent there, escaping his own parent’s separation. The time morphs together in his memories but one afternoon, the day his mother told him of her plans to get a job away from Upperhill, he was staring at the pieces of African picturesque art Lucia had adorned the white walls with. His friend had gone upstairs to retrieve a video game brought in by his father from his last trip to Greece. The house was quiet, the only sound was the distant hum of traffic from the city. Lucas wandered towards the open study room, drawn by the cool, polished wood of the doorframe. He didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but the hushed voices inside stopped him in his tracks.

“You can’t keep doing this,” a woman’s voice hissed, sharp and strained. It was Consolata.

“Doing what? Providing for you? Ensuring you have a future?” Wafula Snr’s voice was low, a dangerous rumble.

“Providing? Or controlling? You think money makes up for everything? For… for what you did?” Consolata’s voice cracked, and Lucas felt a jolt of shock through his body. His curiosity got the best of him as he held his breath, waiting.

“Don’t be dramatic, Consolata. We’ve been over this. It was a long time ago. And it was for the best.”

“The best for you! You sent him away! And now you parade your perfect family, your perfect life, while he… while he’s out there, somewhere.” There was a raw pain in her voice that Lucas had never heard before.

“He was a mistake! A youthful indiscretion. I have a family here, a reputation. I won’t have you ruining it with your sentimentality.” Wafula Snr’s voice hardened.

“Sentimentality? He’s my brother! And I won’t let you keep pretending he doesn’t exist. I swear, if you don’t try to find him, if you don’t even acknowledge him, I’ll tell Lucia everything.” Consolata’s threat hung in the air, heavy with unspoken accusations.

In the corridor, just outside the study, Lucas felt a cold dread creep up his spine. Brother? Did the help have a brother? Consolata and Wafula Snr? The implications of what he was hearing were staggering. He pressed himself further against the wall, heart pounding in his ears.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Wafula Snr rumbled, but Lucas says he noticed something he is certain he had never heard before. Something he is certain he would never have heard if he wasn’t eavesdropping. The older man held a tremor of uncertainty in his voice.

“Try me,” Consolata spat. “I’m done being your secret. I’m done pretending to be your charity case. He deserves to know the truth, and so does Miss Lucia. My brother and I deserve the same things Waf gets.”

“You’re comparing yourself to a teenager?”

The conversation ended abruptly, truncated by the unmistakable cadence of Wafula coming back down the stairs. Lucas recognized the subtle shift in weight with every other step, Waf’s familiar rhythm against the polished wood of the staircase. A wave of panic washed over him. He scrambled back to the sitting room, his movements jerky and uncoordinated, desperately trying to smooth his expression into one of casual indifference. He was feigning interest in one of Lucia’s hollowed out books that worked as decor when Wafula appeared, the video game case swinging lightly in his hand. Wafula furrowed his facial features as he registered Lucas’s slightly disheveled state, but the expression vanished as quickly as it appeared. “Ready?” Wafula asked, his tone nonchalant, already heading for the three-seater. He threw his legs up and settled with his head on the armrest. “Go on then, set it up,” he gestured to the case placed on the coffee table next to the second controller pad. Lucas swallowed hard, the echoes of the explosive argument still ringing in his ears. He forced a smile, a brittle mask, and grabbed the case, the weight of the overheard secrets a heavy burden as he pushed the disc in and sank into a snow-like cushion. He needed to resume the deceptive normalcy of a teenage afternoon.

---

When the boys were eight years old, Lucas had a dream that his back teeth were floating. He vividly saw his molars rising in a sea whose tributaries he could not see. Right before he felt the wet on his skin, he woke with a start, his bladder full. They had had enough milkshakes to last their entire class during break time and it had all settled just below his navel. He rushed to the bathroom, letting out a stream aimed at the porcelain to minimize the noise and not wake his friend.  As he closed his eyes and let loose his bowels, he overheard a phone call. Waf’s bathroom was connected to his father’s den in the study, the same study where Wafula Snr conducted his business. The wall separating bathrooms on both ends was thin and Lucas, initially, didn’t intend to listen.

“…it has to look like an accident,” Wafula Snr was saying, his voice low and menacing. “I want him to learn. A lesson he won’t forget.”

There was a pause, then a hesitant voice on the other end. “Sir, are you sure? This is… dangerous.”

“Do I sound like I’m asking for suggestions? Just make it happen. And make sure Frank is not involved. He needs to understand his place first.”

The call ended. Lucas felt a knot of fear tighten in his chest. What accident? The pieces didn’t fit. He lay awake for hours, tossing until Wafula woke up. “What’s up with you?”

“There’s people in the house,” he whispered.

“There’s always people in the house, dumbass.” Wafula mumbled.

“No, like, makarao.”

“What do you mean policemen?”

“I swear,” Lucas continued, whispering. “There’s policemen in the house.”

Wafula turned to lay on his back. “Probably just here on official business for Dad. He’s important. Siasa.”

Lucas rolled his eyes in the dark. “We should go see what’s happening. It sounds interesting.I doubt it’s just politics.”

“No. We should sleep.” 

Lucas propped himself on his right elbow and listened. The front door opened for a few seconds then banged shut. Waf sat up with a start. “Okay, let’s go check what’s going on in this house.” He swung his legs over the bed and found his fluffy house shoes. Lucas was at the door before him, opening it slowly so as to make no noise. He let Waf walk past first. 

The boys tiptoed downstairs and found Consolata washing up in the sink. A glass of half filled with orange juice sat on the counter.