The Outsider(S) (22 page)

“That doesn’t sound rational” I said, trying to make sense of what he was saying.

“Is that because of politicians?” I asked. I was imagining the same scenario back in Germany. As a native of Baden-Württemberg, I wondered who my tribal god could be. I thought about the prime minister from the Greens party who had against all odds and to the chagrin of the conservative majority in the state, won the premiership. I was pretty sure that he wasn’t hateful. For a moment, I felt disappointment engulfing me. How nice it would be to murder one particular native of Bavaria. One Nadia. I mused.

“Yes and No.” He stated while taking out his Cell phone and switching it off. He looked up and started talking.

“Most people are brought up with prejudices. If a kid grows up believing that members of a certain tribe are lazy or are thieves or are stupid, then it becomes a part of him. They don’t see these people as humans but as inferior beings. Politicians know this of course. It is easy for them to incite people because the groundwork has already been laid.” He finished and shrugged his shoulders.

I looked around, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. I remembered my discussion about tribes with my Kenyan colleagues and how they had all looked uncomfortable. Livingston had claimed that his tribesmen were the ‘remaining white men’. I had laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. It had all sounded so harmless. I wondered now if they would murder each other as well, if elections took place.

“How many tribal gods are there?” I asked.

“Oh there are many. And most of the people who can afford to eat here are related to or are connected in some way to the tribal gods.” He answered with a wry smile. I looked around.

On the table on our right, a young guy holding an Apple tablet was simultaneously talking on his Cell phone. On the table to our left, a couple with a five year old girl who seemed obese was eating what looked like burgers and conversing animatedly.

The waitress brought our food and drinks.

“Enjoy your meals!” she said and turned to leave.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.” Kioko said when he noticed the fear in my eyes.

“It’s just like everywhere else in the world. It is easier to label people who are different from us than it is to take time to understand them.”

We ate silently. I thought about Kioko’s last statement. I wondered then if I was any different from the ‘hateful’ Kenyans.

“Would you kill someone if your tribal chief ordered you?” I asked him. He burst out laughing. I started laughing as well realizing how ridiculous my question was.

“You don’t have to worry. I am Swedish!” he said before bursting in a new wave of laughter. Just like the first time when he had driven me to the car rental company, I didn’t miss the sarcasm when he said ‘Swedish’. For the rest of the evening, we talked about mundane things. Once in a while, people stopped at our table to talk to him.

Later, on our way back, I asked him what I had been wondering about the whole evening.

“So why do you still like it here? Are the people in Sweden more hateful than the people here?” He was silent for a moment and then he broke into a smile.

“No. People the world over aren’t different. That is a misconception.” He responded while slowing down. There was a traffic jam. A
matatu
had broken down. It was being pushed by a bunch of men and women. They looked like the passengers. He turned to look at me.

“Hatefulness is eerily similar the world over,” he stated simply. I pondered this. I was never one to philosophy but what he said made a lot of sense.

He took a turn and shortly after, we were at my apartment. The security guy came out to check who was in the car. Kioko chitchatted with him pleasantly. I wondered once again about what they were talking about. Kioko seemed to know all kinds of people and even weirder was the fact that he sounded like he knew what to tell all kinds of people.

“Thanks for dinner!” I said opening the door of the car.

“You are very welcome. Thanks for your company.” He answered and as an afterthought added, “and for calling me!” I saw him smile but he didn’t alight from the car. I walked around the car and came to his side.

“Will you stay then, or are you going back to Germany?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I responded. It was the truth.

Ramona

Germany, 2010, My Beliefs

N
ever before have I thought about money as often as I currently do. It is my first thought in the morning and my last thought before I fall into a fitful sleep. Money, I have always believed, is the root of all evil. That is the reason I studied Art instead of Business. It is also the reason I vote for the Greens and the Social Democrats. In my mind they are pure and not as materialistic and money minded as say CDU or God forbid FDP
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. But yeah, money has played a big role in how I view the world.

So it is a bit of a shock for me to find out finally that
money and happiness are, in fact, inseparable. I know it sounds wrong on many levels. And I do have difficulty accepting it. But I know that it is true. As I walk to the ticket machine to get myself a tram ticket, the events of my visit to the
Arbeitsamt
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play out in my mind.

“Frau Rosler, you don’t understand. You are now receiving HartzIV
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.” The woman from the unemployment office had said when I refused to list my monthly expenditure for the third time.

“I feel harassed!” I protested. HartzIV, that is how low I have fallen. Dignity and HartzIV don’t belong together. Which is actually strange. I thought the whole idea of the state fending for the unemployed was to accord them a dignified life. But it seems that most of what I have thought throughout much of my life is wrong. I jump on the tram and in no time, I alight at my tram stop. I walk quickly in the direction of my ex mother-in-law’s house but then I change my mind and march off in the direction of my house. The phone is ringing when I walk in. I grab it just before it stops ringing. The sitting room is dark even though it is barely three in the afternoon.

“Ramona, is that you?” the voice on the other end says. I hold my breath. I can’t believe she is calling me. I wonder what mother has told her. For a moment I think of hanging up and pretending that I am not there.

“How are you?” she asks. I feel hot tears streaming down my face but I don’t say anything.

“Ramona, are you there?” she asks again.

“Irmtraut, you won!” I say flatly. There is silence.

“Ramona, I don’t want to win anything.” She says and somehow she sounds tired.

“Why are you calling?” I ask unable to contain the fury that is slowly engulfing me.

“I missed you” she says softly and for the first time I realize that she sounds different. The terse self-possessed voice is gone.

“Is everything OK?” I ask before adding tentatively “Did Mother tell you?”

“I haven’t talked to mother in a long time.”

“Why?” I ask suspiciously.

“I got tired of being treated as second class” she replies simply.

“You, second class?” I ask dumbfounded.

“You know Ramona, she always liked you better than me.”

“That isn’t true at all. She hates me and you know what? She loves you!”

For the next two hours, we talk about everything. I tell her about my marriage. And pretty much about everything. Every thirty minutes the call disconnects because of network problems but she calls again and again. She tells me about the nightmare that has been her job. I listen attentively. For the most part I feel tears welling in my eyes.

“I am so sorry” I hear myself saying.

“Me too” I hear her voice fading in the distance.

Irmtraut

Kenya, 2010, The End

“I
need to talk to you,” Kioko said when he called me that morning. It was three weeks after what I was beginning to refer to as “the fiasco.” The more I thought about how much I had revealed to him on that day, the more I regretted it.

A lot had also happened within that period. I was now without a job. I had tried to play along and buy time, but the daily memos soon turned to two memos a day. There was always something that I wasn’t doing well enough. And then it had happened.

“Irmtraut, you will agree with me that this relationship is no longer tenable,” Nadia had started on that Monday afternoon. I was standing by the window in my office in Nairobi and holding the phone tightly to my ear. For a moment, I had kept silent. It wasn’t that I was surprised. I was a pro. I had seen it coming from miles away. But strangely enough, this knowledge didn’t make the situation any less painful or any less humiliating.

“We will give you three months”, she continued. I felt pain spreading all over my body. Physical pain.

“Are you there?” I heard her ask. At that point something in my head flipped, and the emotions I had been trying to control all my life broke out.

“You are the most vindictive, incompetent and vengeful person I have ever come across,” I said through gritted teeth.

“You know that this is not personal,” she said in a distant controlled voice.

“Oh really?” I asked raising my voice.

“Let me list your professional accomplishments”, I continued before she could say anything.

“You are so professional that you promote my assistant to become a senior vice president, you are…”

“Stop!” she said and I could feel that she was struggling to stay calm. I knew that sharks were averse to criticisms. They had big delicate egos and on some level, they believed in their virtuousness and purity.

“You are pathetic!” I yelled into the phone.

“In fact you are not just pathetic but a disgusting piece of shit!” I continued.

“Don’t get personal,” she responded in a tone that implied a threat.

“Don’t you tell me what to say!” I shouted and banged the table.

“You planned to get rid of me from day one,” I said struggling to stay calm.

“I don’t know what you are talking about!” she responded in a flat voice.

“My God Nadia, you must think I am a fool,” I said and felt tears welling in my eyes.

“I don’t.” She said. There was a short silence. “I am only doing what I have to do.”

“Congratulations!” I had said with a chuckle and felt the bitterness engulfing me.

“What do you mean?” she asked and I could feel the uneasiness in her voice.

“With that level of professionalism you will be a lifetime CEO!” I told her and before she could say anything added, “Good luck!” With that, I disconnected the call.

I wish I could say that I felt better after my outburst. The humiliation and the feeling of failure that engulfed me aren’t comparable to anything I have ever experienced. I had up to that point never thought of the feelings of the countless people I had so far fired. I had always been so focused on my needs.

For years, I had believed that my career was the most important thing in my life. I had eaten, breathed, and slept it. And now it was all over. I had gone back to my apartment on that day and closed the door. I lay on my bed and covered myself from head to toe. For three days in a row, I didn’t wake up. The few times I woke up were to go to the toilet. On the third day, I called Ramona.

On the fourth day, I tried to call Kioko and got a recorded message: “The mobile subscriber is unavailable at the moment!” And now from nowhere he had called.

I left hurriedly to meet him at the Italian restaurant as he had suggested. He waved when he saw me. I went and sat down opposite him. “Where have you been?” I asked, suddenly feeling angry.

“My dad was unwell. I was in Stockholm,” he said evenly.

For a moment I sat there feeling embarrassed. I had no right to question this stranger about his whereabouts.

“I did a background check on you,” he stated.

I felt my mouth opening in shock and anger. “You what?” I asked.

“Calm down!” he said, a thin smile spreading across his face. He pushed the bunch of papers he was holding towards me. “Get a lawyer to go through them carefully with you.” For the first time I saw that he wasn’t smiling. I looked through the papers. It was a job offer from a software company. And the figures were mind-boggling.

I looked at him, confused.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything,” he said calmly. “Taxi driving is just a hobby of mine.”

I burst into tears.

Kenya,
2011

The Woman
from the Mkokoteni

M
akokha and his wife Praxides stared silently at the woman they had picked up from the nearby
mkokoteni
.
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The
mkokoteni
belonged to Ojiambo, who had died a few weeks earlier from pneumonia. That was what the doctor at Kenyatta National Hospital said. Everyone, however, knew the truth. His stepmother had bewitched him. No one in Kibera dared touch that
mkokoteni
for fear of Ojiambo’s spirits haunting them. And so it came as a shock to Praxides when she heard someone coughing from it. At first she thought that it was Ojiambo’s ghost, but then she saw the woman. She wasn’t thin. In fact, for a street person she seemed quite fat. Her clothes were tattered. It wasn’t unusual to meet people whom Nairobi had taught a lesson. A lot of people came to Nairobi from upcountry to look for a better life or for a better future. The lucky ones ended up in the slums. Makokha and his wife considered themselves lucky.

“Come with me!” Praxides told the woman and helped her into their house. She helped her onto their flowered sofa. She was around forty, maybe a bit older. It was difficult to say. Misery had a way of adding years to one’s real age.

“
Jina
lako
ni
nani?
”
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Praxides, asked her.

The woman moved her lips but no sound came out.

“
Kwenu
ni
wapi?
”
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she persisted. Praxides was a kind woman. But despite herself, she knew that the woman from the
mkokoteni
couldn’t stay with them. They hardly had enough for themselves let alone for a stranger who wasn’t even related to them.