Chapter 7

I reported on duty three days later. Miss Ironside came to me as soon as I sat behind my desk for she had news for me — bad news. She put a letter addressed to me on my desk, looking sad. I knew what it contained, and where it had come from. Though during the time I had worked with the firm I had never got such a letter, I knew that when the boss was not around, most of my workmates got such letters, giving them either a warning for being late and inefficient or interdicting them. We all thought negatively of this deputy boss. No one failed to note that he was a fool. He interdicted people as it pleased him and the following day, when the boss returned, they would be called back.

I opened the letter and read. It wasn't that hot. I was required to see him before I sat behind my desk. With all the problems in my mind, nothing seemed important to me any longer. Losing my job right then would have meant nothing to me. There was only one thing which would have made me go running into his office: that was if he had a way of getting Jack clear of trouble. I would have listened to him for hours without tiring. But now, I knew he only wanted to add more to the problems I already had and which were enough for me. I tore up the letter and got busy working on the heap of papers in my "IN" tray.

I looked up when I saw a shadow on the sheet I was typing. It was the deputy boss. We looked at each other for a good minute. He talked first. "Did you get my message?" Before I answered, I found myself thinking. I wanted to tell him that I wasn't interested and that the job no longer

meant anything to me, and if he thought it would give him a chance of dating me, he had better think twice. I didn't tell him anything; the answer I gave him was to look at the wastepaper basket beside me, where I had thrown the letter I had torn up. He followed my eyes and saw it. As if he couldn't believe his eyes, he passed by me and picked it up. Shaking his head in disbelief, he went away. I thanked God I had done that. That was the last day he ever talked to me. It was a very risky gamble to take, but it worked. I guess, having stayed with criminals for such a long time had turned me into a hard nut. After all, I wasn't sure I was going to work with them for more than three months, now that I was pregnant and still not legally married.

My husband was, up to that time, still indoors. He never went out, even during the night. But the more the days passed by, the more he considered absconding. Two more weeks indoors made him decided.

I listened to him, tears flowing from my eyes incessantly. I could not believe I was listening to the very person I knew. I couldn't believe he was really planning to leave me and go. But I could understand. My worry was: where would he go to? Who would take care of him when he was away? And for how long would he be away? Would he find other women and forget about me completely? That last one almost made me faint. I was of the jealous type; I never ever liked to even think of sharing him with anybody else on this earth. Luckily, I trusted him. He never failed me when I needed him and that was another good aspect of the life he had introduced me to.

He left on a Sunday at around 3.30 a.m. We had spent the weekend together, all days and nights talking. He convinced me that if he didn't go, then I would lose him

forever. He had so many criminal charges awaiting that he believed being sent behind bars for less than thirty years would be a favour done to him by the judge. Having known a few of them, I had no doubts in me that it was the truth.

"I'll miss you, Milly. The blame of whatever is going to happen is mine. I owe you an endless apology for leading you to a miserable life. Please remain loyal till I come back. Have no worry at all about me, I know my way wherever I find myself. If there is anyone you should worry about, let it be yourself. Do things as if we were still together. Try to imagine me beside you always. But please, don't let the imagination carry you to the extent ot comparing me with another man.

"That, dear, might bring two important lives to a sad end." I was listening because those were the last words I expected to hear from him, probably for years, till we would meet again. But I could not help weeping. Since I met this man, I guess I had cried and wept more times than when I was a baby, only, it was because of this thing the world felt better to name "LOVE". I wished it never existed.

"I promise to be faithful, dear! I mean … there is no need for you to tell me. I just can't imagine having someone else. It even hurts me to hear you tell me that. How can you tell me, dear? Is that the amount of trust you have in me?" I realised from his silence that I was hurting him, so I cut that stuff. Instead I decided to give him the same tablet to swallow.

"Jack, I have known you for long. I have always trusted you. Please, don't kill the trust when you go, just because I am not with you. You know you like women, Jack, I know it too, but I have never caught you red-handed and so I have no suspicions that you move with them when you are away from me. But I wouldn't like to imagine you in bed

with another woman. I swear, I would kill the two of you. I swear that would be the last…"

"Please do not go over that again. I wouldn't touch anyone, apart from you. Not even the last one, if this world went on fire and left the two of us only." It was a lie, I knew and believed it was. But like a fool, it consoled me as usual.

His case was simple. He didn't have much to worry about because he had left some "bodyguards" behind. I stood at the window early that morning as he ignited the "company car" and left for an unknown destination.

I was used to being with a husband. It was a bad experience to stay without one for several months. All the time I imagined he was lying beside me, while the truth was that he wasn't. The worst came when I imagined him with another woman in bed. Sleep would go out through the window and the following morning I would wake up late.

At this time, I happened to be taking care of some children for a maternal relative. I had to cook for them and take them to school, since they were unfamiliar with the city. This sometimes caused me to miss the company transport and subsequently arrive late for work, till one day the boss himself had to summon me to his office.

I applied for leave when I realized I was about to spoil my record with the boss. I hadn't gone on leave for a long time, so I was granted two months. This was enough time to train the children to go by themselves to school and come back home. The good thing was that they weren't very young.

I wouldn't remember how I got the idea of aborting again. Although I had firmly decided not to abort this time,

the circumstances were not favourable for my pregnancy. Firstly, I had to keep on seeing my mother who would -soon notice that I was pregnant and regard me as being disobedient and even immoral, since we had not met her demand for a lawful marriage. Secondly, she would soon notice that Jack was missing and I would have a difficult time explaining to her his whereabouts, which I actually did not know. She was likely to take it that Jack had jilted me, and she would be so disappointed. And, to make matters worse, I was likely to lose my job in a few months' time. I argued that I could always get another baby when the two of us were reunited. So I visited my doctor early enough and, for the second time, our son, or daughter, was gotten rid of. But as Jack would put it, I had committed a second murder.

Life wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. However, in the beginning I experienced some hard times. I had enough money to push me for years, even without my salary, but money is not all that counts. I wanted my husband with me. But as months went by I began to get used to it. Jack's younger brother, who resembled him a lot, had at this point moved into the house to keep me company. It was nice to look at him and remember my husband. He looked so much like Jack that I at times tended to think that he was our son. But with the knowledge that he wasn't, I got a feeling every now and then that the boy actually belonged to the woman Jack loved before he met me. How was I to know the truth? Asking my husband would just be useless.

At times, I was glad of all that had happened, especially when I thought that on coming back, Jack would have learnt a lesson. I did not expect him to do anything that

would force him to leave his own country ever again. On the other hand, I had seen how staying indoors had hurt him, how it had given him tensions. It was unthinkable that he would be induced by anything to go back to it. I had also learned from Captain, who kept on seeing us, that most of the members of their gang had died and those whom Captain regarded as being lucky had been sentenced to life imprisonment. Within the same month that Captain had given me this news, he was sent in for one year. I had no doubt that Jack would learn a lesson from all this.

Though Jack didn't take one year, I felt like I had missed him for ten. I went home that day as usual, straight from work. When I stepped out of the company car, which normally took me as far as the gate, I met the maid. She didn't know who Jack was, as I had hired her a month after Jack had left. She stopped when she saw T me, making me think she was on to some mischief. When she gave me the news of a visitor the children referred to as Uncle Jack, I think she made a mad woman of me. I ran as if I had seen death behind me. She came after me, not certain that there wasn't danger around. By the time she reached the door, I was already on Jack.

It was like opening a new chapter of an interesting novel. All t*he miseries, loneliness, troubles, thoughts, queer dreams, and other horrible things which used to haunt me, ended that minute, when I was eating him alive on the ground. The maid saw what was happening and left. The children forgot to go and play outside with their friends and decided to see this free film which would normally have been censored "for adults only". But I wasn't with them, nor did their presence mean anything to me. There was only me and Jack, as far as I was concerned.

I guess he was expecting that to happen, for he didn't

stop me. He let me amuse myself to my satisfaction. When I got my breath back, I let him go, and it was only then that I was able to stand and admire him. I wanted to size him up and see what he had been doing with himself. From various things, I felt I could easily detect the small sins I believed he must have committed.

"I missed you for all those years, Jack. Oh God … you look nice! That place was good for you." I wasn't giving him time to tell me anything. It was as if it was I who had gone away. "Tell me, Jack, did you miss me much? Tell me so."

"Well…"

"Oh don't tell me you didn't. How dare you hesitate. Who is that who kept you so busy that you had to forget me? Who is that thief?" I noticed that he got annoyed, when I called her a thief. I was getting him step by step,

"You call her a thief. You call…"

Guilty after all. I had caught him. There was someone he could not stand being referred to as a thief. And yet she must have been. Jack belonged to me and not her.

The fact that I had to start weeping within minutes of our reunion took me back to the time before he left and the troubles he got me into. How could he admit having had an affair with someone else while I was dying for him back at home?

It was good to have Jack home; better to hear him swear he would never involve himself in crime again, and best to hear that we would soon wed. I visited mom and gave her the good news. Her joy upon hearing that, told me she had been very anxious co see us marry officially. Within the same week of hearing the news, she made a visit to Jack's parents to cement the relationship forever. Jack's parents couldn't believe it. I think they doubted their son could

come to a stage where he would need a wife. They commended me for what they termed as "dragging Jack to Heaven".

I was able to work pefectly and the record with my boss, which I had almost blemished, got to normal. Everything in our self-contained life became better than ever before. Jack had realized that I had aborted for the second time, since he didn't meet a son as he was expecting when he came back from exile. I remember his first question was what we got from the bulging belly he had left me with. Although he outrightly called it murder, he understood the circumstances which had forced me to do that. This was one of the many things that I liked him for. He was always understanding and ready to accept reality.

I believed our wedding would go ahead when Jack started getting busy. He took me to a tailor who was to make the wedding dresses. He made the most necessary arrangements, meaning that all that remained was to name the big day. I relaxed; forgot all the miserable days I had encountered during his days of crime, and I started gaining weight; feeling strong and more responsible for the future family.

I did not need to remind Jack of the past days, when we lived in great fear, and the law was our number one enemy. He kept on talking of how foolish he had been to have gone that far. He knew he was only very lucky to have survived his criminal days. That told me everything. His regrets meant a lot to me; it meant a lot to his life and all those who liked him. It was the only thing which would be able to build our future.

Hail the day when a confirmed criminal will give up his arms and ammunitions and call it quits with crime. To

my knowledge, that day will never come. Here was Jack, who had sworn never to hold a gun again; Jack, who assured me that the day he ever would hold it again would be when he handed it over to the law, or when he would be throwing it away. He was sure I knew where he kept it. What made me suspicious was that he removed it and hid it somewhere else. I came by it accidentally. The rounds of ammunition were still intact, although they were no longer anywhere near our house, as far as he was concerned. I played dumb again to see what he would do. It was useless to advise him to throw it away before he chose to do so, for I knew that he would still have it back if he felt like it. It didn't take long before I read in the newspapers of another bank robbery. The day in question, Jack had lied to me that he would visit his parents at home for further arrangements towards the wedding. When he came back the following day, it was to prepare himself for consulting a private doctor, as his head had nearly stopped a bullet. He had a wound in the head where a bullet had grazed him, a wound which made him sleepless and forced him to resume staying indoors again; back to the same boredom of spending days lying on the sofa set, smoking non-stop and eating almost nothing for days. He couldn't get words to explain what had happened; why he had gone back to the dark days after swearing he wouldn't. Asking him was as useless as buying him The Holy Bible. He would only show me his good smile and tell me to try and forget it. I had no option but to do exactly that. What angered me was the fact that he failed to realize he hurt me terribly when I thought of the whole issue. Would it be that he got a kick from doing such evils? He never looked like a criminal; you could easily have mistaken him for a smart preacher.

I thought the proverbial maximum "forty days" said to be for a thief at large were at hand. He had stayed indoors long enough and had decided to see what was going on around town. The next thing I heard about him was that he was in the hands of the law; this time never to make his witty breaks. I was on duty when I received the bad news. I felt and saw the end of my beloved husband. This was the time when I critically questioned the meaning of my life. Why did I have to be so unlucky as to lose the one who was really mine? Why me of all people? What had I

done to God to deserve the punishment?

I visited him at the police station the following day. He was still mine and I wasn't going to leave him for the wolves; I was going to stick to him till he realized he had messed me up and regretted it the rest of his life. I loved to see him weep. I visited him with our unborn still in me, a son he would never hold and love till the law was through with him. I knew it would hurt him, for he was looking forward to hearing himself being addressed as "Father" and to feel being a father to a son whose mother I was sure he loved. But the tears were not his alone. We shared problems to the very end. We would both start weeping when our eyes met through the bars which prevented us from shaking hands; from the kisses we knew too well; from the caresses we so much liked and from the jokes, fun and the whispers in the ears. All these were buried memories, dreams that were shattered by the same invisible cloud which shattered the days we made love. All that was left were imaginations and suffering; the loss of learning what might have been, had we succeeded.

I visited the court on the judgment day. I wasn't alone; mom was with me too, weeping more than I was. At times,

I remembered those days in the very beginning when we discussed my husbandto-be. How I hated those days when I was forced to protect him from my mom's true accusations; the days we went to see him come to court in handcuffs under a heavy guard looking beaten up, those same days when we stayed till we saw him ushered back into the Black Maria, and the police cars follow behind him their sirens wailing, announcing there was a dangerous person whom the law had picked out from the good ones. They are days I'll live to remember and hate. But that had to pass.

Amongst those who attended his trial, I guess I was the only one who could clearly see his end. I had stayed with him longest. I knew he wasn't being framed; I had seen and spent much of the money he had robbed, because I loved him and could not refuse spending it. It was this time when he was going to pay for all that. I too was going to pay for it by losing him whom I loved; by witnessing a great shame; by carrying a baby whose dad it would never see and know; by trying to explain why he didn't have a dad like the other children, and many other things.

But funny enough, I never regretted meeting him. He was mine, and the only one I could bring myself to love. I never saw beyond him. And I wasn't wrong: he was the only one whose love would be termed genuine, that is, as far as I was concerned. The worst experience was this day, the day, if I must repeat, of judgment. I remember the police officer who approached me and asked me if I was Milly. I gladly told him I was. By then all I had in mind was that Jack had probably thought of a way which would save him, such as asking me to bring a gun to the law-courts so that he could use it to escape. I swear I would have done it. It would not have been the first day for me to carry it

in my handbag. I would have done it; I would have done worse than that if it meant having him back to myself. But what he brought to me was the worst thing I ever saw. The policeman handed a letter to me. I took it and went to the "Ladies" to see what it contained. That was before the case opened for the first time. I opened the envelope and read;

Dear Milly,

It must sound crazy to say that I am a born criminal. But through what we both have undergone, we would be inclined to believe this. You know, as much as I do, that I have many times sworn never to involve myself in crime but to no avail. I have tried to keep a low profile so that I may fit into society, without any success. All of these attempts ended up in flames. I always knew I was "bad news". I knew I was doing the wrong thing. But something kept pulling me to the same thing. I

had no need for big money, Milly, and you know it. What did I ever do with whatever I got, anyway? Boozing? Would you call that an achievement? That was madness. I think what was in my mind was adventure; a thing I sought in the wrong way.

I know what I have done with your life: I have ruined it. Please forgive me for this. I know I was the first man in your life, which makes me feel even more guilty. But it is too late. Please let me not be the last. Probably from the second lover, you'll learn more and your future will no longer be at stake. Believe me dear, I feel very sorry about the whole issue, especially the shame I have caused you. Your luck, Milly, lies somewhere else, not anywhere near me. With me, only 118 the devil has chances of luck, and you know where the devil will always lead you.

Where I am going is where we pay all the evils we have done. I deserve it, Milly. Whatever judgement Vllget will be what I deserve. Please look at the judge with a kind eye, as he passes my sentence. If he gives me less than thirty years, rest assured that he loves me. It will be a great favour. What would you expect a violent robber like me to get? A gold medal? That would be unthinkable. But it is just too bad, Milly, that this had to happen when I had realized I was following the wrong track. Believe me, I swear, the last bank I hit would have been my last. My last adventure had come to an end.

The greatest loss Til live to remember is you. To me, you are the first and last. Quoting the Bible you love, "Alfa and Omega". These words were from the mouth of Jesus Christ, whom you believe is your saviour. I am sure he hasn't deserted you up to now. You'd be the last person he'd desert. But forgive me to say that this was written: You were not meant for me, Milly. NEVER. Otherwise, why should this happen just when I am ready to give up everything for your sake? The Kikuyu elders said, "Wendo munene ndukinyaga, " (Great love does not end up well). What would you say about that? Isn't that proved true from what the two of us have witnessed? I loved you, and you know it. I too know you've always loved me. You do, up to this moment when I am about to go behind bars for forty years.

Milly, it is a pity that you'll always love me. Could you please be kind enough to break the love, for your own sake? Give it to the second lover. I promise not to be jealous; only do not, under whatever circumstances let me know. That alone would kill me. But I insist you do it. Find another one from the millions I am leaving you with. Please do. I will always…" I found it hard to complete reading that letter. It was so hurting that I cried out loudly from where I was - in the "Ladies", if you know what I mean. I wish I understood what he was telling me. The letter told me much that I didn't know. But what good would it do to me when I knew it was the last? And that reminds me also that it was the first.

I left the "Ladies" and went to the court-room. Most of the witnesses had given their testimonies and what now remained was the judge's word. I looked at him kindly, as requested by my husband. It had occurred to me that even criminals bore no hatred for those who sent them behind bars. I saw the judge take out his specs to size my husband up. I thought that if I wasn't wrong, he liked Jack Zollo. If not so, he pitied him. It was as if he knew the young man had driven himself to something horrible, ig-norantly. He called him and asked him whether he had anything to say in mitigation. Jack stood up and looked at me. The sight of his eyes made me start weeping. I had made sure I didn't go back to sit next to my mom. It would have been very bad. Instead, I had gone and sat between Jack's sister, Connie, and his mother. I wanted them to know they were not in the suffering alone. That there was someone else who was feeling the pains as much as they did. But, I was different; I knew much more about their brother and son than they did, and also the fact that he was under no circumstances going to get away with it.

"Your honour…," Jack mitigated. "… this is entirely for you to decide. I have heard as much as you have. But 1 have one advantage over you: I know the truth. But what I have might not interest you. I'll be satisfied with your judgment."

Needless to say, I heard my husband being convicted to twenty years imprisonment. To Jack, it was a favour, but to me, it was the end of the greatest love I have ever known. I screamed. But what good would that do? Jack was whisked away and sent to prison. But I remember he was smiling. Probably because the judge had done him a favour, or because he had been stinking crazy, all along. I mean, how could someone smile after being convicted to twenty years' imprisonment? I hung around to witness him being ushered into the Black Maria to go and start his long stretch. For me, his lover, it was endless tears.