Marina Lewycka - The Lubetkin Legacy

‘What are you saying, Lynette?’ Her cousin’s attitude shocks her.

Their coffee arrives. The waiter is tall and slim, with beautiful eyes that linger on the women’s bare shoulders.

Lynette takes a slow sip of coffee. ‘Shall we order some pastries? The sticky-chocolate cake here is heavenly.’ She waits until the waiter has moved away and slides the copies back into their envelope. ‘Who else have you shown these to?’

‘Nobody. Only the people in my office.’

‘Those people have ears and eyes everywhere,’ she whispers. ‘You don’t know who is listening.’

At the next table a group of young people are celebrating somebody’s birthday. ‘Happy birthday to you,’ they sing. A plump girl with mauve hair extensions leans forward to blow the candles out on an iced cake, while everyone cheers and claps. Then the birthday girl makes a speech thanking her mum and dad, to another round of applause. Nobody seems to be taking any notice of them.

‘When it comes to bribery, Violet, there’s always two parties — one to give the bribe, and one to take it. So why don’t your British look into that?’

‘That’s what I’m doing. It’s not like you to be such a pussy, Lynette. I thought you were the brave one out of us.’

The waiter arrives with their chocolate cake. Lynette attacks hers with a fork. Violet cuts her slice of cake into four chunks and forks the first one into her mouth. It is so unbelievably delicious, an explosion of sweetness and bitterness on her tongue, that for a moment she just wants to surrender to the double bliss of chocolate and gossip and forget the whole sleazy HN story that brought her here.

‘Violet, mpenzi , take my advice, the best thing is to find yourself a nice rich husband and forget about all that history. When you have kids of your own, you’ll understand what really matters.’

‘Listen, Lynette, my parents told me that in the Mbagathi Hospital when they worked there someone was collecting the used syringes, rinsing them in water, and selling them back to the hospital — not the best thing during an AIDS epidemic. But the case never went to court because no one would stand up and testify. Babu Josaphat worked in accounts, and he had evidence that this was going on, but someone killed him before he could bring it to court. I think that was Horace Nzangu. He started small. Now he’s got two point three million dollars in the British Virgin Isles.’

Lynette shrugs her shiny shoulders, polishes off her coffee and cake, and stands up to go, saying Archie will be waiting for her in his pickup on the corner of Kenyatta Avenue. They hug and Lynette presses her with a soft perfumed cheek to whisper in her ear, ‘You’re playing with fire, Violet. Leave it alone.’

She finishes her cake, pays the bill and makes for the door. The heat in the street outside is intense after the cool of the café. The air is humid with the promise of rain and heavy with the scent of earth, cumin, burned sugar, and a background stink of petrol fumes and stagnant drains. She breathes deeply as she stands in the doorway to get her bearings. A scruffy ginger mongrel is stretched out asleep in the shade. Dogs. Rabies. You have to be careful. You can’t pet them, like people do in England. She remembers her dog, Mfumu, she left behind in Karen — he will be dead by now — and the friendly one-legged pigeon she adopted in London. This little dog is incredibly ugly, everything about him seems to be the wrong size or shape. He stirs and gets up to follow her, lazily slinking in the narrow strip of shade along the edge of the pavement.

She needs to call at the office to finish off some paperwork before going home. She walks quickly, so it’s only by chance that she happens to look back and notice a lean shadowy figure following behind the dog, on the edge of her vision. She turns and stares. It’s the waiter from the Bulbul. ‘Hi,’ she smiles as he gets closer, but he looks right through her. That’s strange. He watches her let herself into the office building with her key, and she sees him disappear into a side street by the tobacco kiosk.

Everyone has left the office except Queenie, the administrator, a plump motherly woman with an elaborate coiffure and nail extensions, who is still jabbing at her computer keyboard, muttering to herself under her breath. While Queenie is absorbed in her work, she takes the envelope with the photocopies out of her bag and stows it in the bottom drawer of her desk, between the leaves of a computer manual.

‘You’re working late, Queenie. You should get yourself off home.’

Queenie laughs and says something in the Kamba language that she can’t understand.

At six o’clock they leave the office together, and make their way to the bus stop. Nairobi minibuses are crowded, chaotic and buzzing with talk and laughter. She joins the queue for the Langata matatu where a noisy crew of women are coming home from market balancing baskets on their heads.

The traffic, as always, is slow and lawless, accompanied by a chorus of horns. One of the differences she has noticed between England and Kenya is the sudden nightfall; twilight fades into dusk in half an hour. By the time the minibus drops her off on Kaunda Avenue it’s already dark.

The rainy season usually comes in November, but this year it starts early. On Sunday morning she wakes to the hammering of rain on the roof and windows. Downstairs in the kitchen, Njoki is rolling up old towels to catch the puddles that leak in under the door, and singing to herself. In spite of the mess and chaos, the first big rains are always a cause for joy, a welcome relief from the dust of summer. Njoki has just switched the kettle on for tea when the phone starts to ring in the hall; she clucks with annoyance and runs to answer it, wiping her hands on her pinafore.

‘It’s for you.’

‘Hello, Violet, is that you?’ The voice at the other end sounds both familiar and strange above the racket of the rain. Maybe there’s a fault with the line.

‘Violet speaking. Who is this?’

‘It’s Queenie. Violet, I need to get back into the office. Can you come over and let me in?’

Yes, it sounds like Queenie’s voice, but she is usually a chatty and relaxed person; she has never heard her sound so anxious before.

‘What, now? Haven’t you seen the weather, Queenie? Can’t it wait until Monday?’

‘It’s rather urgent. Something I need. Please, Violet. Come straight away.’

Surely no work they are doing could be that urgent, but Queenie sounds desperate.

‘Okay. I’ll be there in half an hour.’

She grabs her raincoat and umbrella and sets off towards the bus stop.

The road is pitted and puddly, made treacherous by the heavy rain. She tries to pick her way carefully, keeping her feet dry, but soon gives up and splashes straight through the muddy water. What on earth possessed Queenie to go out on a day like this? It seems that the rain has stopped the traffic, so there are no buses or taxis coming through. Too bad. She decides to walk, and takes a left turn off the Southern Bypass, thinking to cut through the Kibera slum and cross the river bridge, which is the quickest way from here into town. This is not normally a route she would take, but she reckons it will be safe in the middle of the day — and in any case, most people will be trying to patch up their pitiful tin-roofed shacks against the rain, or crowding inside.

She is right. The narrow alleys are empty, streaming with dirty water which pours in brown rivulets down into the Nairobi River carrying bits of debris, plastic bottles, torn carrier bags, fallen jacaranda flowers, dead rats, ownerless undergarments that swirl around her shoes. Lines of soggy washing strung across the alleys flap in her face as she passes. Chickens squawk and huddle for shelter. Wet, half-naked children splash and throw mudballs, or chase the stray dogs about. ‘ Hujambo! ’ they wave and shout as she passes, and she waves back, holding her umbrella low.