His home crouched on the foot of Kajulu hill, lonely in the clearing inside the forest, and treetops screened it from view. The path meandering down the steep terrain emptied at his gate.
Usually, he’d mow the lawn and inspect the fence for intrusion. One day, he walked into an agrovet and asked for a specific flower seed. He’d heard this flower was snake repellant and other dangerous reptilian creatures. Now a line of flowers with yellow petals flanked the fence knee-high, and beautiful as they were, snakes never liked them. So it seemed.
Today, after he’d walked about the yard and cut the lawn, from which sweat clung on his skin, he took a break after doing the morning chores, sitting in his rocking chair on the veranda as he stared into the distance, lost in thoughts.
He missed his wife. She had kept the home peaceful with hard work, laughter, love, and delicious food. Dark-skinned, taller than him, light in his arms as well, eager to explore, especially in bed, Agatha was everything he ever had. He was a young, poor man when she came into his life. Not well educated, either. But she accepted him.
“I have a land by the river,” he had told her.
“Take me.” She looked into his eyes, melting his resistance with the warmth of her smile.
And they held hands, came here. It wasn’t much then, only a land throttled with pebbles and underbrush, and there was a river, a silver serpent that uproariously poured down the hills. The water was so clear they saw their reflections in it as they stood at the river bank just staring, each in their heads thinking of what the other was thinking.
“This will be our home,” she said.
He considered and said, “It’s far away from the world.”
“ I don’t like human noise.” She smiled.
He appreciated her in a way he’d never done any woman and longed to hold her in his arms, which he did right away.
As she pillowed her head on his chest, she said, “but I like the river noise.”
On cue, birds chirped in the treetops, and she added, “I like bird noise, too.”
He built his first Simba here, with her as his woman, and later moved her to a bigger house, the one whose veranda he now sat on.
Life had been good. So good he couldn’t have complained. He got a job in the city, from which he would return to a home brimming with love. When going to the market, or any other place for that matter, he’d ride the bike with her behind, pressing herself on his back with her hands around his waist, and he’d pedal them away, happier than ever.
Realizing sitting down like this often bombarded his mind with memories of her, he stood up and walked to the back of the house. Better to get something to do. How about cleaning the pond?
The pond was about six meters long, as a grave would, and its water was tea-brown. As he stood there staring down at it, he couldn’t help but smile sadly at the bubbles and fish blades breaking the surface. They swam towards him, the tilapia. Often, they would. Like they loved him.
He crouched, grimacing as the thin skin on his kneecaps stretched. “Hello, there?”
Dozens of small, round mouths jutted out of the water, sucking mid-day air and lingering over the surface for a long while, and he chuckled, pleased, happy tears glistening in his eyes. He loved them. As a man would a woman.
He ate them. Nearly all the time. Yet the pond never ran out of them. Every day, he’d see more of them in the pond. He’d come here, crouch, reach a hand in the pond, and they’d come, rubbing themselves against his hand, and he’d only take a few. He’d gut them and cook in the kitchen, later enjoying a wonderful meal as he sat alone in the living room. At night, while abed, he’d hear them lapping in the pond, and knowing they were there would bring him peace, causing him to sleep with a smile.
After Agatha died, he elected to live by her memories for as long as it would take. He had work to keep him occupied, and while home, he was meticulous, doing everything worth doing. All in his attempt to deny Agatha access to his thoughts. But the dead Agatha was as stubborn as she was when alive. She’d lift the lid off his mind, nestle there, managing him from the land of the dead, and there was hardly anything he could do about it.
At the advice of a friend, he once brought home a woman. She wasn’t from around. On that day, the woman elected to cook fish, assuring him he would lick off his fingers dry after the meal, and he did, though not too much. Right after they started eating, the woman complained of stomach upset, leaving him at the dining table as she made for the washroom. He ate a little, then stopped, staring down at his plate, at the fist-sized fish head that still had its eye intact, which was smoky-white and seemed to stare accusingly at him. He thought he knew what was happening but only refused to believe it. Then the woman returned, pale already, barely holding it together over her wobbly legs.
“Are you okay?” he rose from the chair, concerned.
The woman grabbed her bag from the sofa and hurried out, and he ran after her. “What’s the mater?”
She hurried to the gate, the sun glinting on her wig.
He didn’t see her again.
In the washroom, when he shoved the door open, there was evidence of what had ruined his date. Diarrhoea! Though the toilet bowl was flushed clean, porcelain cleanly white, diarrhoea hung in the air, a stench too strong for his nose. Only a second and he would be emptying his stomach content, so he closed the washroom and headed back to the living room, shaking his head in disbelief.
Agatha, why? He asked himself. Though he knew the answer. Or thought he did.
One night, as he lay in bed, he agreed that his life was empty and needed some fun and pleasure. That he should accept the fact that Agatha was gone. At that moment, he turned to face the back wall of his house, the one separating his bedroom and the pond outside. The night was still as it had ever been in this part of the world. He listened. Wind whispered past, some whistling through the eaves, and the night’s nothingness echoed in his ears. He listened some more. Nothing. The tilapia would always play with each other in the pond as he eavesdropped on them. Yet they didn’t that night. Not even a mere slash on the water's surface he heard. All the same, he was a man. So he admitted, turning to face the other wall, lying on his back with his eyes ceiling-ward.
After work the next day, he padlocked his bicycle on the parking bay and entered a bar, where he intended to find a woman he could’ve for the night without attaching himself so much. The music was so loud that people shouted at each other as they drank from glasses and bottles while seated on stools. The tables were all taken, so he observed as he walked the length of a narrow aisle leading to the counter, the white light strobes dancing on him. His heart raced, and his legs wanted to propel him out the door and not to the counter. Sweat beaded his forehead. However much he wore a courageous expression, it slipped every time he felt eyes devouring him, replaced by his best cowardly look. You don't belong here, he heard himself say. For he’d never been in a bar, let alone drink alcohol.
“What can I offer you, friend?” Asked the barman, a tall fellow in a tight black sleeveless coat and red long-sleeved shirt. The barman knew he wasn’t a regular. Every man and woman here knew, too.
The problem was, he didn’t know what to drink, so he said a cold Fanta, admitting it was extremely hot outside, which was true to a degree. The October sun was broiling the earth to dust.
And he had his drink, glad nobody paid him any mind as he sat on a high stool with his back to the entrance and the patrons. After a couple of sips, he sneaked a glance around him, taking in seated patrons, all of whom seemed happy and enjoying every bit of being there. Then he realized the task of picking a prostitute wasn’t as easy as he’d earlier thought. He’d thought they’d look him over like a hawk and land on him like eagles on the carcass. He was wrong; none of the seated ladies acknowledged him. Perhaps because they were taken. He better leave here soon. Before embarrassing himself further.
“Drinking alone, why?”
He turned, and a light-skinned woman stood as tall as Agatha, slender, and her tight dress revealed every contour of her body.
He took her home, offered her a ride on the back of his bicycle, and on reaching home, he asked her to feel at home as he retreated to the pond. Crouched, hand wrist-deep in the water, the cold travelled up his hand, and nothing but water rubbed against his skin. No fish volunteered.
He mounted his bicycle and pedalled to the city to buy meat. Upon his return, he cooked as she curled on the sofa like a pregnant cat.
The night descended, they ate supper and retired to his matrimonial bed, and outside, in the pond, no sound came. Spent, he rolled off her and realized it was a mistake seeking the service of a prostitute. Nothing much had come out of it except a pleasure that didn’t even last as he’d hoped. A pleasure that left him exhausted and empty. A pleasure Agatha didn’t approve of, so he believed.
Now, he crouched by the pond, admiring his tilapia, counting their poking mouths, realizing they were as many as the stars in the sky. He expected someone. A woman. One he’d grown to love lately. Only hadn’t invited to his home. How would the tilapia react to her presence? He wondered.
“You know she’s coming,” he told them.
Some mouths disappeared under the water. Only a few stayed.
The woman he was expecting this afternoon worked at the front desk, and he’d see her often. He’d ignored her for a long while until one day when she put the receiver down and waved at him, a big bright smile on her face. He had smiled back. After that, he’d linger at her desk longer than necessary every time he passed by, listening as she told him this and that of the office gossip. And she had liked him. They left the office together one evening, and she asked for a ride.
More than he could remember, he’d chauffeur her on his bicycle, usually after work. Then she kissed him yesterday after she dismounted the bicycle. On the cheek. A mere brush of her lips against his smooth cheek.
“You’re shy,” she said. “Which is why I’m doing you the favour.”
“What favour?”
“I’m asking you for a date at your place this Sunday.”
Today was Sunday. And it was well past mid-day. Did she change her mind?
An hour later, she came after he strolled about and returned to the pond, found him on his knees and contemplating the pond. She cleared her throat, and he turned, a big grin breaking his face. She was as tall as Agatha, light-skinned, lithe, and with a radiant look on her face.
“Just when I feared you weren’t going to show up?
“I’m a woman of my word.” she crossed her arms over her bosom and stood there with a bag on her side, its strap over her shoulder. She wore high heels, black skirt a little past her knees, and white floral blouse proudly hugging her torso. With her hair cut short, the earrings were visible, round, and silverish and seemed to sway.
“I didn’t know you have a fish pond.”
“So many things you don’t know about me,” he said, still crouched, pleased by the down-to-earth view of her. And he meant those words. He exhaled her perfume and felt a surge of heat down his loins.
Laughing, she knelt beside him and scanned the water's surface. The tilapia sunk into the water.
“I want to eat fish,” she said.
His heart sank. “I’ll order Pizza.”
She laughed. “You dreaming. Who can bring you Pizza in the middle of nowhere.”
“ I’ll go to the city and buy you one.”
“It will be cold by the time you’re back.”
“We can warm it in the microwave—”
“It’s been a long time. Can’t even remember the last time I ate fish.” she looked him in the face.
“I’m not even sure there are fish here. ” He chuckled awkwardly, like one doing a bad job of lying.
Just then, a tail broke the water's surface, swishing, coming to them. Then mouths mouthed at them over the water.
“They like you,” she said, dimples on her cheeks.
He dipped his hand in the water as if washing it, but, to his surprise, something smooth rubbed itself against his palm, urging him to catch it, which he did.
They ate fried fish that night, accompanied by vegetables and Ugali, and he kept looking at her from the other side of the table, afraid she’d soon run into the washroom. She didn’t. She enjoyed the meal and licked her fingers, saying his tilapia were the best, incomparable with any she’d ever eaten.
After the meal, she cleared the table and washed dishes in the kitchen sink while humming a tune, relaxed. He sat on the couch, admiring her back, with fear gnawing at him.
Near midnight, after they told each other stories till they ran out of what to say after she yawned a couple of times, and after her eyelids started to close on her, they retired to bed. In the bedroom's darkness, they made love, she on top, then he, then both lying side by side, and the whole time, the tilapia played, slapping the water surface with their tails, jumping, and falling back in the water. The bed made noises.
“Is it always like this?” she asked, exhausted, making out his face in the dark.
“What?” he pulled the cover over them.
“The activities behind the house.”
“Sometimes.”
They made love some more, and after the climax, he couldn’t help but smile. For the first time, Agatha approved.
Agatha died before he paid the dowry, and his relationship with her family wasn’t good. A day before the burial, her family, including her father, brothers, and some men, stormed his home, said not a word to him, and took the coffin away, leaving him with an open grave. The elders told him to bury a sisal trunk in Agatha’s grave, seeing as graves don’t remain open forever and must take something with them, but it rained, and water filled the grave to the brim. The pool didn’t drain despite the absence of rain afterwards, and one day, he came home with a tilapia, which was alive, and when he dipped it in the grave water, it swam away happily, grateful.