Daughter of a Woman

(Short Story Submitted to Storymoja Blog on Romance and Dating in Kenya)

There was no doubt behind the hills that I was in a relationship with Chenang’at, the daughter of the chief, Lokwang’ole.  You could see me on the way to the river in the mornings and evenings walking aimlessly or pretending to be straightening the barbed wire of the fence where livestock was sold every Market Sunday. Sometimes, as situation dictated, I could go pretending to be hunting for hyraxes and hare while the apple of my eye, Chenangat, fetched firewood. It was open knowledge that I was in love with this daughter of the chief, the one chief who once chased me with an arrow.

It all started in a simple way, actually. I had been sent to buy jembe and panga and on that single Market Sunday I carried with me a sum of three hundred and forty shillings. As I was weaving through idlers in shuka and walking sticks, I heard somebody shouting namba ya pesa, namba ya pesa. I inched closer. The man, in stubble of beards and exaggerated hat that resembled a hut, could slap cards on a table and somebody won money.  Money won once, twice, thrice. I told myself, “Lorot Son of the Hills, by the snuff bottle of Loitabela, you can win too”. But I didn’t win, once, twice or thrice and all the three hundred and forty shillings were gone. Not even my cry of “haki ya Mungu nihurumie ni pesa ya jembe” (By God have mercy on me, that was money I was to use to buy a hoe) helped the situation. That evening, both my dad and mum united in moment of combined anger to teach me a lesson. My buttocks ached the whole week.

That small incident gave birth to sympathy, then a passing acquaintance and finally affection—from Chenang’at! She could tease me on her way to the posho mill by calling me ‘Pesa ya Jembe’ (Hoe Money). She could always pass by where we played köchiy (the equivalent of the Maasai’s bao) to ask where her small brother or her friend had gone to. As for me, I could go to their home and if I met the chief himself I would say something like “We have been looking for a lost goat for two nights now and have come here to spread word”.  But soon, I became forgetful and that line brought me trouble.  Lokwang’ole said to me coolly: “Son of Lokwangura, when I had energy I could skin a leopard. Now I don’t. Go search for lost goats elsewhere. If you step on this homestead, I swear by my bull Lomerkal, I will make porridge out of you”.

But if Lokwang’ole thought I was done, he was mistaken.  And I am not to blame. Chenang’at stood tall like the cap of a hut, elegant in her walk while letting her lorwaa flutter to stutter the heartbeats of village boys. Her set of white teeth put to shame modern Colgates and Close-ups thanks to kamsityan (traditional brushing stick), charcoal and ash. And her voice! There was something rugged that romanticized it. I used to joke to her that if she was the Angel of Death and called my name I could shout ‘Here I am, Angel of Death, your dutiful servant’. I repeat, I am not to blame for being the target of her killing-me-softly-beauty.

One night, I had gone to kidong’a, the traditional night dance. This is the place that separates men from men. Husbands win their wives here. That night was my moment of truth. I had to sing and jump and woo my Chenang’at. I had to praise my bull and win the apple of my eye. Songs were picking up, rhythm was catching up and the incessant clapping and jumping into the air gave that night a crown, almost a deceptive crown, of jubilation but my heart was aching. Kipsang, my love-arch-rival, was at his element: bare-chested, a white ribbon tied around his head, ostrich feather standing like an antennae as if on wavelength with demons of love. Kipsang was our village tyrant, he limped around like a bull spoiling for a fight in a watering hole. I hated him. I used to imagine him dead of constipation or goered by a horn of a crossed-horn bull—dead. As the night wore on, I could envision Chenang’at happily in the arms of Kipsang and I felt like to vomit. 

My turn finally came. I threw the shuka that was restraining my jump and all that I was left with was my small pair of shorts. I circled the dancers around me while chanting and dramatizing myself as a gallant warrior holding an AK-47 in an armed combat. I went round twice then poured my being into the centre. I was also in my element, Son of Lokwangura. As I stood at the centre, I envisioned myself with Chenang’at in the same hut on the same mud-bed, her radiant eyes lighting up my heart and her palms touching the deepest depths of my bosom. I could hear her whisper in the dark calling me by the name of my favourite bull Longolemwai or teasingly call me Pesa ya Jembe (Hoe Money). With this in mind, my mission was defined and the battle lines had been drawn.

The other dancers were still clapping and humming in unison. I stood like the cap of Kacheliba Hill, placed my palms on my temples and in an emotional way I could summon, I chanted a song that could awaken the spirit of my dead ancestors. The song came from my heart, it was a praise of my bull, my love song for Chenangat. It went like this: 

My bull with crossed horns, Longolemwai,

Witness this, Witness this, Longolemwai

When we were trapped in the crossfires of the bullets

Trapped in panyirit thorns in no-man’s-land

Trapped in steep gulleys with no food to eat but among’oo and angalalio

We did it the two of us, just the two of us

Witness this, Witness this, Longolemwai

The daughter of a woman has trapped my heart, Longolemwai

The daughter of a woman is making my heart go in circles

The daughter of a woman, my bull, is like sour milk

Served in dry season

The daughter of a woman is millet porridge with milk and pyöpay

The daughter of a woman has the eyes of gazelles

The daughter of a woman goes to the river and oh, the way she moves her hips

The daughter of a woman makes my blood boil

I can jump and hit my head on heaven

I can jump and make a hole on earth with my feet

The daughter of a woman has trapped my heart, Longolemwai

Witness this, Witness this, Longolemwai

My bull with crossed horns, Longolemwai,

The daughter of a woman has trapped my heart, Longolemwai 

I had conquered the heart of my beloved that night. I remember that night the moon shone on the dry riverbed as I sat close to Chenangat. I don’t remember what I was telling the daughter of a woman. All I know is that I spoke and she listened. I had then stared into her eyes and touched her palms and told her something to the effect that ‘if she was in the battlefield and the enemy fired her a bullet I would gladly take it on her behalf’. I even went ahead to say that I could remove cud from a snake and never care about the fangs. She had laughed and said that I was talking a lot. I had inched even closer and my heart was beating faster I sensed it could shatter my ribcage. Then Kipsang came. 

There he stood defiantly, still with his white-ribbon but with no ostrich feather. His towering frame dwarfed us and his bare chest sent an eerie feeling shooting down my spine. As I was collecting my scattered mind on what to do, I suddenly realized that I was dangling before Kipsang, feet hardly on ground. Chenangat was standing eye-ball to eye-ball daring him to ‘even slap me’. He ignored her.

He asked a question. “Egret, since when did you learn how to follow cows and pluck ticks on the backs of bulls?”

I took it as some rhetorical question asked by old men in kokwo for the audience to go mull them over in their homesteads. I kept quiet.

“You have no answer, huh? I am not surprised. Let me make it easier to you. Who is Chenangat to you?”

I felt like to tell him that she is a daughter of a woman that I will marry and that he can as well hang on a tree but Chenang’at quipped:

“Kipsang, since when did you have the authority to ask questions. What if I say we are lovers? What will you do?”

I knew I will be dead meat if this line of conversation continued. Swallowing my pride, I rushed in to intone:

“Kipsang, my hero, who can fight you? Aren’t you the horn that can split a tree-bark? Who am I to talk to you? If you beat me up I will die. If I don’t die in your hands today I will die of the wounds and internal injuries eventually, you know that. Leave me, Kipsang, Chenang’at is for the brave like you, not weaklings. Don’t make me food for vultures.”

Somewhere in the shrubs we could hear the voice of Lokwang’ole, the chief. He was calling ‘Chenang’at’ ‘Chenangat’ ‘I will spear this son of Lokwangura, I will spill blood tonight, let the moon bear me testimony’. 

C) Lorot Salem 2011