IT was just one of those evenings when I inexplicably found myself drinking from a place I had never drank from before. The rhumba was loud, definitely noisy but for some reason, I just wanted it that way. You will obviously know me as one who loves dancing once drunk, to the extent of dancing to the national anthem, ours or international depending on how much alcohol I have swallowed on the day!
Yet on the night, for reasons I still cannot conjecture, I watched others strut their stuff while I shook just a bit in my seat to the different rhythms of Koffi Olomide, Papa Wemba, good old Sam Mangwana and several other rhumba greats. I had taken a considerable amount of booze but uncharacteristically still didn’t dance choosing to watch others sweat their way into the evening as it wore on.  Suddenly a plump lady walked into the pub with a huge basin on her head. She was selling Chikanda, or as they sometimes call it‘African polony’.  That stuff is a favourite among many drunks and competes fairly favourably with roast goat meat or boiled cow or pork trotters in drinking places. When our eyes met, she beamed with excitement and shouted “Ba Meexy, iyeee!” I didn’t take long either to recognise her. This was Risca Andende, some girl who had once worked for some catering company that used to provide catering services at the International Institution some years abck.
It had been a good six or seven years since I had last seen her and compared to those old days, she was lighter now, looking indeed like someone who had discovered the correct use of bath water and body lotions, and was probably better fed than then. Her hair was kinky but that did not subtract from the fact that she was now definitely far better looking than when I used to encounter her at the International Institution. She put her merchandise on the floor and took to lengthy chatting, much of which was an inquisition on what I was now doing, how the folks were out there at the International Institution with Mr Paul Mabesere and the rest. I deliberately neglected to tell her I had left the place. Then she asked if I could drop her where she stays in Kuku Township, audaciously asking me to wait for her to finish her sales, or at least up to the time when she normally gave up and went home around 22:00 hours!
Drunk as I was, I readily consented to driving her in a direction so completely off tangent from my normal route to Avondale. So she disappeared into the night to solicit for buyers of her chikanda among the imbibers outside, fully assured that she would be chauffeur-driven home thereafter.  If only she could have remembered the kind of fellow I was, that I would possibly forget she was there, trusting me to transport her while I drove off, or even forgot I had come driving my wife’s little Toyota Starlet and booked a cab back home instead, she wouldn’t have been that relaxed. Maybe she didn’t know that bit about me! I suppose it was just one of those days when the rhumba music did things for me and by the time she returned some 20 minutes before 22:00 hours, I was still imbibing and swallowing stuff and shaking happily to the music while seated.
Once in the Starlet, and under the terrible influence of too much alcohol by my standards, I thought Riska looked too beautiful to be driven home without engaging in things you and others would consider totally unthinkable, obscene and unacceptable. But I was drunk, wasn’t I? Yes. So I asked if her husband would be up and waiting for her, whether he would instantly notice that she had been up to no good on her chikanda sales errand if we chose to have some fun before I dropped her home.
I told her I wanted to bring a bit of heaven into the back seat of my wife’s little car if she didn’t mind.  She said she didn’t mind my bringing heaven, small or big, here on earth but couldn’t I find a lodge or rest house or some other decent place where I could pay for us to spend an angelic hour or so! I couldn’t quite think of any place just then but the realisation that Riska had no problems engaging in queer deeds with me so long the environment was okay got the madness in me working. I stepped on the gas pedal, suddenly doing 120 kilometres per hour.
“Where are we going ba Meexy?” she asked.
“Emmasdale,” I said. “There are many lodges there where we can spend our time among the fallen angels!”
“But isn’t that too far?” she asked.
“If you want good comfortable space we just have to get there,” I assured. “It won’t take long anyway, at the speed I’m driving. Will he get mad, perhaps, if you get home too late?”
“Don’t worry,” it was her turn to assure. “Our marriage is headed for an inevitable end. He hasn’t been the most reliable and I have told him I am reclaiming my independence. We are just looking for money, me and his children, so that we take him back to his relatives in Serenje.”
“What do you mean?” I asked puzzled.
“He can’t see anymore. He is blind.  And I’m done with him.”
“After how many years of marriage?” I queried.
“Nineteen. With three children aged 17, 13 and eight.”
“Is that the best way to deal with a husband when he has become blind? Toss them back to their relatives then go off and enjoy life in the bars and ….?”
“No. But I have suffered enough. His situation is a blessing in disguise for me. Before he became blind, he made me suffer. I tolerated so much I cannot suffer anymore pushing around a monster who has been softened up simply because he can no longer see.”
“So, that’s why you feel safe to go back home very late, because he cannot see you? He cannot tell you were with another man?”
“Don’t worry, ba Meexy. Let’s go and enjoy. It’s my turn. I am still young even with a 17-year-old first born.  Let me also enjoy good milile. He can’t even dare ask me where I was or why I am arriving late. After all, if I don’t go selling Chikanda, what will he eat?  What will the children eat? You yourself I’m sure will give me a gift for my hair after we leave heaven, won’t you? From that there will be change for ma buns.”
“Is it money you want Riska or me?” I asked, uncomfortable I might have landed just another prostitute.
“It’s you, ba Meexy. I heard so much about you from the girls. That you might look foolish, that you might drink too much but that you are terrific in heaven as you call it. I love kissing and I hear you are a good kisser. Let’s go.”
&&&&&&&&&&
I am now stone cold sober and interestingly, my encounter with Riska comes back so vividly to my mind, from the time she emerged from the dark night into the pub, to how we went to Emmasdale and paid K250 for a room we would use for only about an hour, to what exactly happened in the room, and up to when I dropped her in Kuku well after midnight. It reminded me of the court stories I read in the Sunday Times where spouses accused each other of this or that as justification for seeking divorce.
Riska wouldn’t quite explain how bad her husband of many years had been for her to justify her current carefree behaviour. But clearly, she could not now be tied to a blind man and whether he was really bad or not, she had decided he was not adequate enough to do anything about her bad behaviours. He couldn’t beat her up, anyway! She was a free bird who would talk back to his angry protestations whenever she came back at awkward hours like she did the night we went to misconduct ourselvesin Emmasdale.
Clearly too, from how she appeared to enjoy the illegitimate time we had in our false heaven, she was definitely missing something in her marriage, perhaps her own attitude having made it impossible for her to believe there was anything appreciable, anything worthwhile a blind man could effectively or properly do for her in bed.
She was so totally consumed in our wicked act she murmured or whispered little nothings throughout, mounting incredible praises on me, restating that what she was getting from me was what she had heard I was capable of giving and declaring there should be more such scenes ‘in heaven’ as soon as was possible. I must confess I drunkenly returned her praises and sang things in her ears which might not necessarily have been true, like when I said she was the sweetest thing God ever made! She wasn’t. There was Amake Pachikani of course, sweet as ever.
So, bane, which side of town is your spouse when you are not watching, and who with? What levels of blindness have you attained and is that a reason why they have become daring and stubborn?  Good luck. After all, it’s supposed to be for better for worse! There will always be someone, man or woman, ready to take advantage of your woes so, as much as possible, be good to one another all the time, lest you give them an excuse to go to heaven and eat apples while you wait hungrily at home.