The Transfiguration

I am thinking of how to tell my mother that she is a bad woman; that she did not raise me well. The woman with a bleached face and knuckles blacker than the tip of a quill told me so. “The matters of a husband and wife you leave to them. You don’t interfere. Didn’t your mother teach you that? Go tell her to raise you again. No wonder you behave like a woman. Mscheeeew!” She had yelled from the window of her apartment which is right above mine. Apartment 4B. I had gone to save her from her husband’s daily beating. Despite all that pounding, the woman didn’t want me to intervene. You don’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, mother used to say.

I sit, pen in hand. My palms are sweaty. As my trembling hand presses the pen against the paper, my life cascades before me. Flashes of blurred sepia-toned images. A silent film of my twenty eight years on earth. Silent but with colour. A silent horror movie. My anguish stares wide at me like the green-eyed owl that hoots in the dark back alley.

“Dear Mother,

I hope this letter finds you well (this is the part where I lie that I am concerned for her welfare) I would have written sooner but I have been too busy (Another lie) … (Then I go on to ask her how life back home is and if Uncle X is still alive and if Aunty Y finally gave birth). Anyway, I was just writing to tell you that the woman who lives in apartment 4B told me that my mother didn’t raise me well. I think it’s true …”

Too harsh. She will be devastated. I know her. She will slap her thighs and weep her heart out. I crumple the piece of paper into a small ball with ink smudges.

I will give her a phone call instead.

Beep.

Her voice cackles on the other end.

Hello Mother …

Hello, who is this?

Has my voice changed so much? Maybe the medicine is working after all.

Untitled 14. Aluminum Print. 32 × 40 in. Plastic Bodies (series), 2003. ©2016 shepreebright. Image courtesy of Sheila Pree Bright, artist.

This is Roda … I mean Roni. Your son.

Why do you speak like a woman now?

Because I am a woman now. Well, I am changing to be a woman. But that’s not why I called …

No, stop crying mother. Okay? The woman from apartment 4B told me you didn’t raise me well. I think she’s saying the truth …

No. It’s not God’s fault this time. It’s yours.

At this point she breaks down. All I hear is sobbing on the other end. My network provider tells me I don’t have any more airtime. Bloody conglomerates. Can’t they let a mother weep over her son’s tribulations?

My cellphone buzzes. I wake up and glance at the blue flashing screen of my phone. I have a missed call. Mzamodo. A text message from him too, “If you come late, I will not give you the drugs. Sikufichi.” I know he’s not lying. I leap up and head for the bus station.

Machakos Country Bus station on a Sunday afternoon is Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace. The sun, a large fiery ball emitting yellowy spikes, scorches our foreheads. The stupefying heat saps humidity from the earth, leaving red gusts of fine dust floating in the air. Touts shout atop their voices beneath the sun’s oppressive glare. Hawkers chant the names of their wares in a glorious melody. The hooting of the buses rises above the human noises and drowns them. I have sat in this Dandora-bound matatu—that is stuffy like the inside of a coffin—for about an hour now. There seems to be no sign of it filling up. I flap my hand close to my face and pull my dera dress away from my body to allow air to circulate and cool...