BECAUSE OF A WOMAN

Angela was glad it was all over. But she had been dismayed at losing Esau to Alfredo. It had been her desire to have the twins growing up together.

Now, as she thought about everything, she knew Jacob was going to miss his twin brother. But circumstances could not allow her to have both twins.

Her own father and family members had been against her decision to have them both. And so were her uncles who thought it would be a way of eventually patching up whatever differences she had with Alfredo.

If only they knew, she thought, she never wanted to go back to him they would have let her keep her sons.

But Musani had also shown he was too attached to his peoples' feelings and taboos to allow her twins in his homestead.

Angela had no regrets about the divorce. It was inevitable. Alfredo had proved too difficult a man to live with. And he had been too unforgiving.

What a man! A man who thought it was his right to have affairs with other women, and yet his wife had no such right to take on a lover. A womaniser who had no regard as to how she felt when he decided to move with other women.

A damn fucking Casanova! Oh, what a wicked world it was to have such a husband who had a wandering cock! A man who always believed he had an unstoppable cock!

She knew everything was over between them that day she saw their neighbour, a Ugandan man come to hung his clothes on a string outside his house and felt desire burning inside her when she eyed his broad shoulders and muscular arms which formed powerful biceps.

Angela had been sitting outside pondering over her collapsing marriage. A woman, she thought sadly, needed attention and care from her man. It was unfair to ignore a wife and derive pleasure from other women.

Such were her thoughts when she saw the Ugandan walk like a tiger across the compound they shared.

He was single and handsome. Tall and powerfully built, he walked with extreme confidence. He wore black shiny lace ups. As she watched him walk, she admired him and felt desire overwhelming her. And the cloth cap he wore made him quite desirable. Alfredo had not touched her for several weeks, and this hurt her.

I'm still young and beautiful, she told herself, and this tall Ugandan will soon be mine.

As those words raced through her mind, Angela decided to show him some gesture of friendship.

"Hi!" she greeted. "Why don't you come inside and have tea with me? It's quite boring drinking alone."

"No, your husband could find me inside there and raise hell. Thanks all the same!" Musani said as he looked at her black shining eyes.

The man seemed reluctant, and she had been disappointed. Inwardly, she knew she could persuade and win if she tried another time.

And she was right. Men can be very weak when it comes to beautiful, immaculately dressed, and attractive women.

She had worn her best clothes and applied her make-ups and tried once more and succeeded.

He had accepted to join her for lunch at her house. So overjoyed was she that she had thanked and kissed him after lunch; the man almost moonstruck as she whispered into his ears that she loved him.

That was the day Alfredo unexpectedly came home and found them tightly locked in each other's thighs as they passionately made love.

It was an unfortunate day for Angela since it was her first attempt at infidelity. Alfredo had beaten her up later that day and even threatened to divorce her.

As days passed after that unfortunate incident, she realised Alfredo was quite unforgiving and knew life would never be the same again.

It was quarrels all the time. The Ugandan, Musani, had quit the neighbourhood following the incident and gone to live in another estate.

Angela had decided to pursue and convince him to allow her to move in and live with him. She had traced him to Umoja estate and told him about her unhappy marriage since the day they were caught red-handed.

Musani listened attentively as she narrated and knew he was partly to blame for her plight. At this, he felt sympathetic and accepted her plea.

But Musani, though having accepted her to live with him, knew he was in for a very difficult time. He had a wife in his native land, and the thought of marrying a foreigner greatly worried him.

Also, the idea of having to bring up children who were not biologically his was actually a nightmare.

"Angela, it's not that I don't want to marry you. I, too, have fallen in love with you. But what about your two sons? Will you leave them with their father? Boys need fatherly love when they are growing up."

"And also motherly love," she quipped as she faced him courageously. "They need me most; so I'll come with them. They are my children, and they'll be with me wherever I go."

Reluctantly, he had said, "Alright. Let it be as you wish for the time being. But don't blame me in the future if the boys don't like me. Boys always feel secure with their real father."

A red flag had been shown!

But Angela had chosen to ignore him as she replied, "You talk as if children don't feel secure with their mother. No, I want them near me, my love. They are more secure with me than with their father, and I can't bear the thought of another woman raising my children."

Musani had accepted defeat and knew he had no alternative but to let her come since he had shown her the green light. Now, in his early thirties, he was by no means doing well.

He had been working as an office messenger before moving out of Kariobangi to Jericho estate. It was here he had met Angela.

At his workplace, his superiors described him as a lazy man. The truth, however, was that Musani hated working as an office messenger. The thought of working in that capacity for the rest of his life on a low salary riled him, and he knew he had to find another job if he wanted to survive in the city.

And so when Alfredo returned one evening drunk and suggested they live separately, his suggestion fell on Angela's receptive ears.

She had moved in with Musani. Alfredo filed the divorce suit almost immediately, and she had taken the twins along with her much to the chagrin of Musani, who remained quiet.

But he had accepted her, and everything had gone on well until much later when Musani began lamenting that he would be a laughing stock among his people if they went back home with the twins.

Musani came back to his normal self following the divorce suit when Angela decided to have the custody of only Jacob. Angela noticed he seemed quite pleased that she had complied with his wishes.

What he never knew was that Old Kasamani had persuaded his daughter to take Esau to his father. The old pragmatic man had known the single man who earned a low salary would be greatly relieved.

Later, the news of Alfredo's planned wedding had reached her ears. At first, jealous feelings moved inside her body, but she remembered she had left him willingly following the nonstop quarrels.

She decided to let bygones be bygones after she realised that in as much as Alfredo had neglected her, she also played a part in their failed marriage. If only she had forgiven him....

With such ideas running inside her head, Angela suddenly began to feel sorry.

She would one day go to church, she decided, and ask for God's forgiveness. She knew she had to erase any hard feelings she felt about Alfredo since they were now divorced.

It was such a realisation that made her think of sending a wedding gift to her ex-husband. She wanted to congratulate him and show him she nursed no ill feelings against him.

She would not have sent him the card if Jacob was not living with her. But Alfredo needed to be reminded he had a son elsewhere; Jacob, the twin brother of Esau.

And so how would she send him a card since she did not wish to attend the wedding?

She decided to go to the church where the wedding was to be held and explained to one of the workers at the church to do her favour of giving the gift to the newly wedded couple at the end of the wedding. She gave the excuse she could not attend the wedding for personal reasons. The man had agreed and carried out her wish.

Her life with her new husband turned out to be good during the first few months. Musani appeared to be fond of her as he usually bought her the things she required. Angela hoped life with him would be smooth and good for the rest of their lives.

How wrong she was! Soon, she noticed he seemed to be straining his purse in order to meet their daily needs.

Then he lost his job and life started becoming difficult. Later, he was to explain that it had happened quite unexpectedly.

Musani had arrived one morning at their office to find a letter of termination of employment staring at him. He had tried to plead; but his superiors and his boss in particular dismissed him as a lazy and incompetent man.

Yet Musani firmly believed that his fellow workers who disliked him had plotted against him since he was a foreigner. They had brought false allegations, he reasoned, in order to have one of their own friends or relatives take up his position.

It was the practice worldwide, he believed, for people in positions of authority to have their own relatives or friends in gainful employment. Nepotism, as it was called, thought Musani bitterly had made him lose his humble job as an office messenger in a foreign land.

He tried looking elsewhere for a job in the city in order to sustain his wife and stepson, but nothing seemed forthcoming. Then it dawned on him that he had no alternative except to go back to his native land and try getting a job there.

And that was when he decided to leave Kenya. Angela and her husband set out for Uganda on a bright Sunday morning, carrying little Jacob with them.

With only a few belongings Musani had bought during his ten-year life in the Kenyan capital, the couple headed westwards to Mubende in Uganda.

As the bus went racing along the road to the west, Musani had no doubt he had seen the last of Kenya. He hoped his mistress would settle down with him in Uganda as she appeared to be quite social; although his main worry was whether she would always love him.

He thought Angela had a soft spot for powerfully built men like him, and this made him feel jealous. But for little Jacob, he thought as he eyed the boy, there was yet more for him to come: that is, if he ever decided to look for his real father.

* * *