The Child-man

By Anthony Muchoki , originally published 2005.

“Please come and help my ma,” the young boy told his stepmother. She looked at him laughing in mockery.

“Let her die, the world will be a better place without her.”

“Please, she is not talking any more. She is very sick.  I beg for your help. You too are my mother. One day I will pay you back. Please help me.”

“Don’t you know you will join your mother in her grave before maggots complete celebrating her carcass? How will you repay me while in the tomb?”

The young boy’s name was Aiyabei.  Helpless, he felt his stomach cave in causing sickening fear. He started running back to his dying mother, his eyes full of tears. A few metres away from his stepmother’s compound, he fell down. A nail on the ground pierced his foot badly. He hurriedly rose up and limped away, a terrain of blood coming out of the flesh wound.

“Go away you son of a witch, you can call me when she is dead,” his stepmother told him as she followed him covering with ashes the blood to prevent demons from coming to suck it up at her compound.

  The woman was happy. She smiled at the prospect of the boy’s mother dying. She would slaughter three goats to celebrate. She hated Aiyabei’s mother, her co-wife with a passion. A long time ago they were the best of friends. She is the one who had brought her to her husband and asked him to sleep with her to bear a child, as she herself had been declared barren by one of the top gynecologists in the country.

Aiyabei’s mother was too weak to move. She was dying out of complications of the deadly HIV/Aids. She was aware her hour had come. It was irreversible. She felt no more pain. Her 10-year-old son had stood with her. He had stopped schooling to take care of her. He fed her and even changed her toiletries. What else could a mother ask from a son? She thought how sweetly she would have wanted to see him grow into a man. She opened her eyes and saw him move in the room trying to hide his pain. With supernatural power, she gathered the last of the strength in her possession. For the first time in more than one year she managed to rise up from the bed on her own. She walked to where her son was seated and checked his wound. She took water, added salt to it and washed his wound. Aiyabei was so happy. His mother was strong again.

“I am so happy mother, for you. All my pain is gone because of seeing you so strong,” the son told the mother.

“Son tell me where you got this wound, tell me what has been happening as I lay in this bed sick. Tell me everything and don’t hide anything from me because I am your mother. I can see how emaciated you have become. I want to know everything.”

For half an hour the son narrated the sad tale of mistreatment to his mother. To get food, he had to grind stones for a neighbour. His father never wanted to see him. It was a month now since he stopped providing drugs for the sick second wife. She listened to the story as if they were talking about people far away. Mother and son bonded together by love for each other, rejection and suffering joined their hands holding each other like lovebirds. The world could take everything away from them but love for each other would never die.

“Son you are all that I have. All that I have! My spirit will always guard you. When I am gone, I will let nobody hurt you. I told you the story of my life. How I came to bear you and how I got this deadly disease. You have not disappointed me. Unlike a ten-year-old child, you have been a man enough and taken care of your mama the best you could. God will reward you. Listen carefully to my instructions now. You know your stepmother wants me dead. She will not hesitate to make sure you follow me to the grave. You have always obeyed me. You must obey me this last time. Get to my tree and ten steps away from where we put a yellow tag dig about half a metre deep. You will get some money I had hidden for you. As soon as you get it go to the big city. Don’t come back here until when you are grown up and economically independent, otherwise your stepmother will kill you.”

The son cried.

“Mother. Mother I cannot leave you. I’d rather die with you. Mama please…” He could see his mother was again getting progressively weaker. He guided her to bed.

“Son my time is up. I am going home smiling knowing that I have a wonderful and splendid son. I know you will not disappoint me. Don’t let anyone kill you. I want to live in you. You must live your fullest. When you grow up remember my tree…” As she uttered the words she was smiling. Aiyabei was still holding her hand. He felt her slip into the world of the unknown. He called her ten times with no response. He checked her breathing… she was gone. He had cried so much in the last two years. This time he did not shed even one tear drop.  He covered his mother nicely. He laid some flowers outside the small hut, where they had been secluded due to sickness, away from his father’s multimillion shilling houses. He arranged flowers nicely in the bed as if it was a grave.

“Mother I will not disappoint you,” he whispered to the spirit of his mother. Silently he went to the tree of his mama. He kissed it. Her mama had planted the tree when she first had a sexual intercourse with his father that resulted in his own conception. She treasured it and called it the tree of life. He followed the instructions and dug out the money. He was surprised to see one million shillings nicely wrapped in a waterproof pouch. He would not let his mother down. Never.

Aiyabei walked to his stepmother’s compound. He was still limping. He told his stepmother that her mama was dead. The woman could not believe it as the boy this time was not crying.

“I don’t have the strength to bury her. Do what you want with her body,” he told her. She called some neighbours and they all rushed to her hut. True she was dead. The women, including the stepmother rent the air with rowdy wails of anguish, as culture demanded of them. Within less than one hour the whole neighbourhood knew she was dead. Preparations for the burial started in earnest. Immediately Aiyabei’s stepmother slaughtered some three goats to feed the mourners who started streaming into their palatial home. She phoned her husband who was away in the city and informed him the bug was dead.

Aiyabei’s foot was aching badly. Droplets of blood were still oozing out. He decided to go to the nearest hospital for treatment. He wanted his body to be physically fit so as to enable him face the tough life ahead of him. His mind felt blank. He did not know what he would do. But one thing was crystal clear in his mind. He would not let anyone take away his life. His mind was far away as the doctor treating him told him he had to be hospitalized.

“Young man you have lost too much blood. Had you delayed one more hour from seeking treatment, your life could have been in danger.”  

Aiyabei smiled. He would not die. He would not let his mama down. Lying in the hospital bed, the doctor told him the wanted to give him blood. No. No. Life or death he would never have a blood transfusion. The doctor was no longer in the room. He was transported five years back. His mother was telling him how she got the deadly HIV/Aids.

“Son when I gave birth to you the doctor discovered I was suffering from Leukemia. I bled too much and only a blood transfusion saved my life.  But it became the nightmare of my life. The blood donated to me was infected with the HIV virus. I became HIV positive. This was discovered a few days later before I was discharged. My husband and my best friend then who is my co-wife, when they were told the sad reality turned against me. Since then my life has become a living hell. Only you son give me the strength to go on.”

Aiyabei felt a bitter taste in his mouth. As the doctor went on to tell him why he must get the transfusion, he felt the presence of his mother in the room. He would not get the transfusion but he would live on. He told the doctor the story of his life. How HIV/Aids had just killed his mother and how she got it from the hospital. The doctor was sympathetic and decided to give the boy alternative treatment. Two days later he left the hospital against the doctor’s advice. He felt strong. He sat down on a metal bench at the Bus Stand as he waited for a vehicle to the big city.

He looked at the ground and saw an ant running haphazardly. A burly man, wearing gumboots tramped on the poor creature, killing it instantly. He did not even take any notice of his action. The insect was left dead. Dead, just like that. He felt so much pity for it. Tears started streaming down his face. Just like that ant, so many other creatures are helpless. Many children too through no mistake of their own, he thought.  Helpless and powerless people like that ant are killed for no good reason and no one takes any notice.

He looked up in the sky straight to where the burning sun was coming from. He forced his eyes to see through the sun’s ball of light. He would never be like that ant. He would be like the sun up somewhere in the sky where no one could hurt him. Like the sun he would be in control. He would never let his stepmother hurt him. He would make his father pay the price of tormenting his mother. No one was ever going to cause him such pain again, he vowed. He was not going to run away to the big city. He was a man enough. Yes, 10 years old though he was. His mother’s death was the final ritual to adulthood. Why run away to the unknown city? He decided he would stay and protect his mother’s tree of life. His mind had never been so clear. He knew exactly what to do. He went back to his father’s house.

His father and stepmother had moved the body to a mortuary. The burial budget as he came to learn later was running into millions. He was bought a suit to wear during the burial. Just like when he was a little boy, his father was treating him nicely. He allowed him to mix with his other children who were younger than him. He remembered his mother telling him how as soon as she learnt she was HIV positive, the stepmother was celebrating having become pregnant after 20 years of marriage. She later gave birth to twin boys. The stepmother used to say she regretted all her life that she allowed Aiyabei’s mother to be married as a second wife for the sake of getting children for her husband. Death can change so many things. For the first time in his life he was even sleeping in the same room with the twins, who he was not even supposed to play with.

Then the D-day came. His mother was to be buried. They had bought her a very expensive coffin. Her grave had been made ready. His father was a rich and famous man. Many people had come to the burial of his younger wife, who for the last five years he had banned from leaving his vast farm. The woman, as she got progressively sick, had her son as the only contact with the outside world. Her stepsons had been banned from ever going near her hut. Aiyabei slipped out of the crowd, as the priest was conducting the burial ceremony. He went and buried his cash back where it was originally, near her mama’s tree of life. He kissed the tree. He felt so strong and invincible. No one would stop him from accomplishing his mission.

Aiyabei went inside his father’s house. He had investigated and knew where he kept his powerful pistol. When he was very young he used to accompany his father on hunting expeditions. Yes, he could remember how at one time his father though he hated his mother had loved him. Then the love disappeared and hatred sprouted up.

One day he had taught him how to shoot with the pistol he now held. He went back to the burial ceremony. The priest was almost closing the ceremony to lead the mourners to the grave. His father and the stepmother were seated at the front row near the coffin. He calmly pushed his way in the crowd. He went and touched the coffin. People thought the boy was too distressed by what was happening. His father was going to calm him when the boy shot him at close range. Then he shot his stepmother.

There was a commotion. The crowd frantically scattered hastily in all directions. Only Aiyabei and his two twin brothers were left on the spot. The twins were trying hysterically to revive their parents who had already given up their ghosts. He ordered them to go inside the house.

 “I will come back one day. Never cut my mother’s tree,” he told the twins. He walked quickly back to his mother’s tree. He dug out the cash once more, this time very quickly. After pocketing it he kissed the tree once more.

“Mama, I am grown up. I am a man,” he whispered to the tree.

Then he left for the city.

“One day I will come back,” he thought as the bus sped off towards the big city.