A pregnant pause

By Joseph Maina

Last Monday, our housegirl, Maggy, rose at the crack of dawn, as usual, whipped up a scrumptious breakfast, prepared my children for school, polished our shoes and cleaned the house. She then made a hasty beeline for the bathroom and diligently washed our entire mtumba collection.

But, upon our return that evening, the living room looked like the aftermath of an overnight bombing on an Al Shabaab camp. The kitchen was in a shambles, and Maggy was nowhere to be found. I asked about her whereabouts, and little Tiffany relayed that “Auntie” had drifted off to sleep after lunch.

However, Miss Mboch remained mum when summoned. Either that, or she had been transformed into a radio that was not broadcasting.

When she finally showed up, the look on her face announced that she was celebrating ‘National Gloomy Face Day’. At first, I blamed it on Monday blues, but no; there was more to the chaos in that house than met the eye.

“I have a bad headache, Baba Jim,” was all Maggy said.

The next day was no different, as she woke up with a face that could make an onion cry. On returning home that evening, I was shocked to find the house had undergone yet another makeover — and not in a good way.

Now, that got me thinking: was Maggy suffering from homesickness? It sounded plausible, but unlikely.

Again, I could bet she was not angling for more money. Only last year, we raised her salary to Sh2,500, and since then, Maggy has been ‘laughing all the way to the kitchen’. Given that she is among the best-paid maids in my part of the county, money is the least of her worries.

“Something is wrong with that girl, Mama Jim,” I whispered to the comptroller that evening.

SEESAW

Given Maggy’s terrible appetite, and with her mood swinging like a seesaw, my mind was made up: The girl was either suffering morning sickness, or she was sick of the morning.

“And what would that be?” she returned quizzically.

“I think she might have misplaced her chastity belt,” I said, while attempting a naughty wink.

A mouthful of chuckles escaped Mama Jimmy’s throat.

“Ah, haiwezi kuwa ball. It’s probably just malaria,” she declared, feeling confident in her own armchair diagnosis.

Moments after dinner, I reached for my packet of cigarettes and lit one. Lo! This action was followed by a ‘barf alert’. Maggy whizzed off to the bathroom, and spent the next five minutes liberating her supper.

“Tafadhali zima hiyo fegi, Baba Jim,” she requested upon her return, saying she was feeling a little woozy. So I extinguished the stub, feeling as embarrassed as a bald guy sitting in a kinyozi.

Naturally, this episode set the comptroller’s alarm bells ringing.

“Are you okay, Maggy?” she probed.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” returned El Pregnante, but this excuse sounded just about as credible as a campaign manifesto. Experience has taught me that a housegirl’s secrets are safer than the President’s, and Maggy seems to be bound by some sort of ‘hypocritical oath’.

Aware that the smell of disaster was in the air, the comptroller granted Miss Mboch the week off, and Maggy wobbled away, looking like a centipede that had lost 99 legs.

But if, indeed, she is ‘paged’, how did that happen? Just who is the perpetrator? Could it be one of the eager bachelors in our building, or was it one of the neighbourhood kinyozis? How about the watchman who mans our gate, or the guy who sells makaa, or Kioko the kiosk guy? Like I have told you before, kiosk owners are big business among housegirls in my county. Again, local makangas have made it clear that they too are not allergic to house-helps.

SUSPICIONS

Further, I am aware that Maggy occasionally visits the caretaker’s hovel, and something tells me she does not go there to recite the rosary.

With such chaps around, you can be sure no mboch will be left ‘unmanned’.

But given that Maggy is a grown-up with a life of her own, I cannot police her ‘co-curricular activities’. And if my suspicions prove right, in the not-so-distant-future, her tummy will be off on a ‘tour-de-stretch’. Her hormones will undergo a massive festival, and she will start hankering for sour-tasting delicacies.

So, am I jumping the gun with this ‘baby forecast’? Mama Jimmy feels that I am jumping to conclusions, but time will tell. Maggy resumes duty next Friday.