She turned towards the sound of my voice and in that frightful moment I felt she had inner eyes that could see into me.
She was like my old grandmother who kept looking at me even after she had died.
So much that I still see her cruel glassy eyes searching for me in the dark.
“I will do it.” As soon as I uttered those words I realised I would regret. I had let my mouth run again. Had I committed a vow and was bound by my words?
She was a blind beggar who hired Samuel to lead her around the city to avoid getting killed by motorists. She came to pick Samuel, but he was so ill or groggy from too much glue or both.
“I know, when you are here you ingrate, I can smell you,” she said. Surely she could not smell Samuel. You could not smell a thing beneath a bridge crossing over a river of sewer. And certainly we all smelled alike. Or could she see through those eyes that looked half shut glued together then sewn at the irises?
Her blind stick was poking and prodding moving like the feet of an egret that doesn’t touch dirt even as it wades the water for tadpoles.
And alas the white stick as if attached to her senses was going straight for Samuel. There has to be a trick on how she does it. Samuel was flinching away in his lump of rags not making a sound like a trapped rat edging away from a stealthy viper.
She turned towards the sound of my voice and in that frightful moment I felt she had inner eyes that could see into me. She was like my old grandmother who kept looking at me even after she had died. So much that I still see her cruel glassy eyes searching for me in the dark.
“What is your name,” she asked. What was my name? I had taken up so many names I had forgotten the one my grandmother used to call me.
I took names for every situation, for a night guard, for a police, for the cleaners at a hotel, once I even took a name for a journalist. I will be Karis for the blind woman, I decided.
The stick again made those sharp prodding movements and approached me, the bony hand clasped my shoulder as if dislocating my shoulder blades.
Karis! I yelped. Did she just smile? Here you have a masochist blind woman, dressed in a white skirt and tied headscarf like those cruel school teachers. Why had I offered to take the place of Samuel?
She told me all I had to do was walk. She would do the begging, she would pocket the money and later would give me a cut for my troubles.
I was just like a rudder to guide her through the sea of men hopefully towards those who could be fished. She would dangle the hook into the river of eyes and keep tagging while I rode the current. A fish comes up clanking into her pan and wriggling on its round sides and she would put into her pockets and the line would go back into the water of eyes. Simple?
Not so much as you would assume. The difficulty I realised was getting people to see us. It was as if the whole of Nairobi is full of blind people, either that or we had become invincible.
We had gelled into its background and had become the road people stepped on, the disused weighbridges. We had become the clouded sky that no one noticed even though everyone saw. We were not even acknowledged and we could walk right into the path of people and the only regard they could offer was to make a last minute dance to avoid running into us. We cut such a figure, me walking thinking about driving cars and the blind beggar trailing her white stick with a bowl tugging at empty air the other hand clamped around my shoulder as we navigated this world of make believe.
I realised maybe I was doing things wrong maybe she was expecting me to look for potential customers. That I should not merely drag her along but actually spot the softening of one’s eyes or discomfort that automatically lends one to try and find change in their pocket. I thought to indulge in this possibility.
So I first went to the merchants. A fat slob wearing a cowboy hat like a truly successful businessman, spotting beer pot belly and making calculations in his head. This one probably wanted good luck to sell his merchandise so he dropped into the bowl. The blind beggar was elated when she closed her fingers around the coins as if she could see how much she had cashed in. She deposited them in her pockets.
Now I had become a specialist of people’s character and was a true fisher of men. I saw a pastor he was croaking his vocal chords like ground saw dust spitting chips of vehemence and atonement.
Maybe he could spare some change as an example to his non-existent congregation, because he seemed just as invisible as us. He raised his voice threateningly as if swatting away flies from a carcass he had claimed. This was his space for begging, no extorting penance for guilt and we had no room in it. Since the woman could not see, it was me that he glared at threateningly so I changed course and flounced away. Aha a Shaikh with ochre red beard strolling from Railway Landhies Mosque, he was sure to give alms. He would surely not want the Umaah to see stinginess in him, in fact we had almost given him a justifiable chance to give zakat publicly.
He reached beneath his robes with his free hand the other still clutching at his prayer beads and gave the blind woman generously. She pocketed it smiling. Maybe I was actually a better guide than Samuel from the look of things. I started making calculations in my head, at this rate we would probably hit our target before the day ended. I was surely getting hungry and I really wanted to get back beneath the bridge and drowse in glue.
The rest of the way all I could see were title-less inconsequential men and women prattling about like dazed lunatics. It was chaos really, of people who looked more in need of charity than my employer. People who had haggled for bus fare to come to the City to sell handkerchiefs, search for work, make soccer bets in cybers or push hired trolleys as porters. It was difficult navigating through these torrents worse still my blind employer seemed more agitated since I had not led her to a coin for a while now.
I figured being blind I could just tear away from her hand and flee. I had tested my theory you know, leading her to a lamp post where she banged her foot. She was very much blind. I figured I should first lead her to familiar territory then make my escape. I made a turn behind the petrol station on Landhies and was leading her towards Gikomba market. I figured I could take some alleyways to cut the distance shorter when I chanced into a closed corner where two men stood.
One was swaying in a drunken stupor like he would follow it like a leash. The other, a grim faced red eyed derelict of what used to be human was unscrewing headlamps from a car with trembling hands. He squinted in our direction and in two steps had rushed and seized the woman. The pissing one turned, his sloshing and washed me. My blind employer was suddenly screaming and those deviants hit her so hard, defenceless she had not seen the blow coming. She collapsed to the ground. They ransacked her and took her money.
All the while I was standing there stunned and motionless. The grim one stretched a grimace on his face and handed me one coin. Then they walked away from the unconscious blind beggar.
