Car washer’s mistake brings war at home

By Iponima Mtabingwa

I had just pulled up my old and rickety Peugeot 505 when Abscondita came carrying a gas-cylinder.

"Let’s go and look for gas. It ran out when I was in the middle of cooking," she said plaintive, nay, seductively that I found it difficult to turn her down.

Since we made up after long spells of cold war, she had taken control of the house and wanted to prove she was the woman of the house. She prepared all my meals, which impressed me because it placed a barrier between the house help and me. You do not put a matchstick near a fire; it catches fire.

Prior to Abscondita ‘reforms’, the house help did all the domestic chores – except warming our matrimonial bed.

I looked at the gas cylinder and felt the side of my pocket.

"I am sorry dear, I will not be able to take you to the shops. I have so much office work and it is required in the morning," I said.

She understood, but the look in her eyes suggested she would have relished my company. She has always teased me that if I had been a rally driver, she would bribe her way to be my navigator. Although a driver herself, she enjoys seeing me at the controls.

She took the key, gyrated her waist mischievously and got into the car. I knew I was up to some interesting evening.

"Will I finish my work?" I wondered as I picked up my laptop, jacket and newspapers and turned to go. The engine was still running. I waited for her to reverse.

Then, out of the blues: "Ipo, what is this?"

Mood swings

There was an unusual earnestness in her voice that unsettled me. She turned off the engine and walked towards me. Such mood swings a rarity from the day we signed our ‘domestic peace accord’.

I stepped back. In her hands were a tiny bottle nail polish and a handkerchief. The sight of the two threw me off balance.

"You are back to your cockroach ways dipping your mantle in every raw wound," she said, the venom in her voice barely disguised.

I do not recall how the two items got into the car. I could guess how the beauty product and handkerchief ended up in the car. It must have been at the carwash, I tried to find a response to the storm that was gathering thick and fast. It happens quite often. Items removed from a car that is being washed accidentally placed in a different vehicle.

It was a plausible way of seeking peace, but here is Abscondita depending on circumstantial material evidence to run rings around me.

I tried to explain to her it was the first time I was seeing the two items, but she could hear none of it. She was convinced I had broken the vow to keep peace in the house. Guilty. That was her verdict. Anybody would buy her argument that I was a pretending to be a horse.

Unfolding drama

All the while, neighbours peeped out of windows to enjoy the unfolding drama. To control damage, I grabbed the key from Abscondita and went to buy the gas.

As I was going, my mind wandered off into the past. I recalled a similar incident just after the birth our son Innocent.

I had gone ‘clubbing’ with friends at Nairobi West shopping centre. At that time, the city council and the police had been battling to clear the central business district of prostitutes. It was around this time that the queens of the night relocated to Argwings Kodhek Road in the upmarket Hurlingham suburb and Westlands, just after Museum Hill.

That night is still fresh in my mind. It was around midnight when I boarded a matatu on Tom Mboya Street that was full of these ‘hospitality’ girls. I know it because they kept cursing council askaris for cutting off the supply line to rich clients.

I sat with three of these girls at the far of end of the bus. As gods of hard luck would have it, the three young women after trying without success to engage me in a chat began doing make up and dosing themselves with perfumes. Although my memory was ‘soppy’ after long hours of drinking, I was alive to the danger around me – drugging.

The strong perfumes rubbed off me. When I got off the bus, there was no mistaking of what lay ahead. If it had been day time, I would have bought new clothes. I considered not going to the house, but it would have reinforced suspicions about my infidelity. The fact that I had no money made things worse.

Reinforced suspicions

My precarious position makes good fodder for any wife. Abscondita’s friends had on a number of times caught me red-handed enjoying stolen moments with Illuminata – my ex, who was her best maid on our wedding day.

The tigress in Abscondita jerked into life as soon as she opened the door.

"You whore," she spat. Although drank, I could feel her ‘claws’ coming out. I had no defence.

Now, it is a handkerchief and nail polish. I also have no defence. ipomtabingwa@gmail.com