Bloggers Association of Maseno University (B.A.M.U)

MUSIC OF A BROKEN HARP 
A short story by Florence Awino

Pinta sticks her chewing gum at the bottom of her coffee cup, removes her feet from the heavy mahogany table and puts on her Converse shoes. She rises to a thunderous applause and nods curtly at the board members and then raises two fingers as she pushes back her Director’s chair and steps out of the board room. Her sagging jeans trailing her behind. Suddenly, the board members turn to each other in animated discussions. The din in the boardroom reaches a crescendo then dies down just as suddenly as if everybody had their power of speech taken away from them. A few scattered giggles are heard and the din comes back again. This time they talk of the director’s bizarre sense of dressing. Pinta had just added another of the leading research pharmaceuticals to the growing list of her acquisitions.

Pinta is unbothered by many things. She could  buy any designer suit she wanted because she has all the money but adhering to dress codes is one of the things that Pinta remains spectacularly unapologetic about. She uses her left hand to pull up her sagging trousers a bit as the right reaches out to open the door of her range. She scratches her bare stomach, the part that is not covered by her low cut blouse as she clambers up the driver’s seat. The range’s tires revs away from the parking lot of Pinta Global Research Pharmaceuticals.

When she gets home Pinta will dive headfirst into piles and piles of correspondence. She works to exorcise the demons that torment her. Those that make her wake up screaming wildly and drenched in a river of sweat each time she manages to fall asleep. She is haunted. Pinta sees blood everywhere, gory scenes of scalpels, forceps, bloody silver bowls and doctors with overgrown stubs and bloodshot eyes. Then she sees dismembered tiny heads laughing evilly at her. She sees dismembered tiny fingers pointing accusingly. Everything around her screams of bloody chaos and she hears dogs barking loudly.  She tries to scream, but out comes no sound. She stands paralyzed, deeply rooted on the slimy surface and unable to move a muscle. The bloodied objects advance menacingly and she tries to scream again. No sound.

Ma Khuse is used to laundering wet bedding every morning. And every night she stays awake listening for the screams of her mistress. Ma Khuse knows her madam has ghosts tormenting her and she kneels by her bed, fidgeting with the rosary bead in her hand and says fervent prayers for her madam. She pays her a good salary so the Lord should save her generous soul.

Twice she had secretly gone to the seer who gave her holy water that she secretly surreptitiously sprinkled on madam’s bed and clothes when she was away. She had also smuggled the seer to madam’s bedroom to burn incense when the holy water had failed to chase away madam’s ghosts. When madam came back in the evening however, she had complained of the foul smell that emanated from her room and had reprimanded Ma Khuse for negligence. Ma Khuse had apologized and swore it was the fuse that blew up.

Madam had slept on the couch that night and Ma Khuse had prayed that madam would go back to sleeping in her room before the powers of the incense weakened but madam had slept on the couch the entire week till she was sure her room no longer was reeking of burnt matter. She had told Ma Khuse that she had allergies to particulate matter. Ma Khuse did not understand her but she had shaken her head sadly. Madam still cried in her sleep and wet her bed. Madam was beyond the gods now.

Uzi the gateman had come charging into madam’s house on his first night at the job when he had heard Madam scream her head off. He had held his heavy rungu in one and his mean-looking kisu on the other. He and Ma Khuse had run up the stairs to madam’s room. Despite his arthritic knees and asthmatic breathing, he had charged around fiercely looking for any culprit that had made madam screech like that. There was no one. Ma Khuse had known better then, for she had been with madam for a long time. She had held madam gently in her arms until her sobs had subsided and then led Uzi outside and told him all about madam’s ghosts. Uzi had spat a rich sputum on the ground and told Ma Khuse that madam just needed a man by her side who knew which of madam’s buttons to press to elicit a different kind of scream. Ma Khuse’s screams can also be heard some nights when the gateman cannot be seen at his post.

                  ****************************************************

The phone rings jolting Pinta from her reverie. It is the tenacious news people still. They have been hunting down Pinta for interviews for ages, harassing her PR team even after she had dropped some hints that she would not be taking any interviews from them any time soon. Media attention is one of the things Pinta does not care much about. Not that she would have anything to tell them about her success story anyway. She knew it would do more harm than good, throwing a carcass to the vultures; she would be torn asunder and pecked away within no time. Her drive comes from her need to punish herself ruthlessly for mistakes made in her twisted past. Pinta has no uterus and for her lack of the crucial woman organ, she compensates what she considers a handicap with tons of success. Her accomplishments are a vengeance to those who her dark fury forever will simmer against, unto the grave.

Pinta lies on a narrow bed violently clutching the edges of the stained sheets. She steels her gaze at the flickering light bulbs hanging overhead. She feels the death cold metal slowly prodding her insides, poking and shoving flesh. She clenches her teeth and growls but she remains still on the bed. The cold prodding metal has found its hold and she feels her insides being yanked out. Blackness. She comes to in the same musty room with the flickering overhead lights. A stout nurse walks in and hands her two red pills and a blue one. “Swallow. Two days and you’ll be ready to leave madam. But you will have to pay us more, there were complications.”Pinta’s gaze just remains impassive and the nurse shakes her head sympathetically at her. There had been many like her before but she was special, nothing like they had dealt with before. The fetus was fully formed and determined not to leave the comfortable insides of its mother. It was a baby boy and it had been yanked out with the womb.

Indeed Pinta had tried all means possible to get rid of her unwelcome stomach many times before she finally resorted to the shady underground “Dakari Hosiptals”. She had drunk a bottle of bleach and passed out but the pregnancy had persisted. She had gone to the cattle shed and fed herself loads of cow dung to no avail. She had ended up with excruciating stomach pains but just not without a pregnancy. Finally she had run up and down the hill many times and hit herself in the abdomen with crude objects but she still could not miscarry the burden she now wore fully in her belly. Then her mother had noticed the changes and had known. “There will be no fatherless children in this house. You cannot tarnish my good name.” and with that the door was shut on Pinta’s face. But Pinta’s father was not content having her outside the house. He wanted her purged of the family name and chased away like the elders would a bad spirit. He had set the dogs upon her and Pinta had sped away faster than the gold medalists she now watches on her 62” inch television set. Many are the times she had regretted not letting herself be mauled by the canines.

Judas had been no different. He had instructed Pinta not to show her face at his doorstep ever again and gave his watchman stern orders not to let the harlot in. The watchman had whipped Pinta away from the homestead. She had pleaded, cussed and promised to sue Judas’ savage ass. She had threatened the watchman with police action but all she could hear from the other side of the gate was just derisive laughter from Judas and his watchman. She had cried bitterly until the wells of her eyes ran dry. She had thought their relationship was real but she could have known better what to expect from a man with a name like that. Pinta had had enough. This had to be the end. It was dusk and she was cold. She stood at the edge of the highway and took a few steadying breaths then took a few steps to the middle of the tarmac lay down and waited.

The headlights took forever to appear. Pinta fervently said a prayer and tightly shut her eyes. “I think this girl is trying to kill herself.” Pinta slowly opened her eyes and saw two pairs of kindly eyes peering down at her. “Why don’t you just run me over and go away?” she whispered. The kind couple exchanged glances and lifted Pinta from the ground. Whatever love and warmth Pinta was deprived of by her folks and Judas, The Olives were never short of but Pinta could not accept all that affection. All she wanted was to be punished and she believed she deserved it. One cold night she had sneaked out to the more dilapidated parts to “Dakari Hosptal” and when she’d come back two days later, The Olives had asked no questions but had wanted to know if she was interested in a scholarship. Pinta did not have to think twice. Her mission was clear, vengeance. How? Success.