Abe 1
Abe Story Part 1
ABE
Mayowa Ojo
6/10/20264 min read
Abe and I were seated in the cafeteria of West Gate Mall enjoying the usual – chai latte and carrot cake with a generous serving of good conversation. It had been two months of the ritual and I was certain I was not the only who wished it would never end. Unfortunately, it was his final Saturday in town; his flight back to Cameroon was the next day around noon.
I often smile when I remember how my flatmates and I would gossip about him the first few months of his arrival here in Nairobi and how I grew to hate him a few weeks after and then hated how I hated him and ended up falling for him. The gentlest man if ever I met one. He challenged me, motivated me and engaged me with his intense eyes and cerebral conversations.
Had Abe been a player I would long have fallen for his bait and been hauled in for a feast. But he was nothing close to that. I knew because the one time I tried to nudge him in the direction of my emotions, he very gently steered me right back on the friendship course. How he did it without making me feel like I lost my dignity is still an art I’m yet to fully understand.
I had more than latte and cake planned though that day though. I had a movie planned at the cinema upstairs while his colleagues set up a surprise send forth party at his apartment. I wanted to ensure that if we never saw each other again he would never forget me. For the most part I was over my crush on him and was just happy he ever walked into my life… happy to be the one he chose to spend his last Saturday in town with before his trip the next day. A little hope never hurt anyone huh!
When we heard the sound – like an explosion – only a few people paused while most people ignored it and for good reason. A new wing was being added to the shopping mall and so it was not uncommon to have heavy thuds interrupt the sound of the steady buzz of human activity within the mall. I looked around me and saw that nothing was amiss so I returned my attention to Abe. While he shared some of his post-Nairobi plans with me, I started to replay the last six months in my mind.
**************
Six months ago Abe moved into the flat next door to mine in an apartment building on Kilimani street. The day he arrived I knew something was different about him. He came with neither the usual air of many an accomplished single man nor the scraggy emptiness of loafers masked by a seemingly outward sheen of affluence or success! There was a quality to his aura.
My flat mates (Lilian, Tina, Vicky) and I spent the next couple of weeks speculating what he really did for a living because we did not believe he was indeed here in Nairobi doing some research work. He was studying for his PhD in France and had gotten a grant to cover his travel expenses while he spent pockets of time in different African countries. He told us he would be around for only six months after which he would return to his native town Cameroon. The first few times we spoke to each other, his eloquence and proficiency in English did not corroborate his story about having grown up a native French speaker. All the more reason to not believe he was here for research as he claimed... but there was no evidence to the contrary.
The girls and I would usually get home before Abe just to steal looks of him from the kitchen window – he was that good looking! On days when we were outside on the balcony smoking and drinking to keep warm, we would offer him a pack of cigarettes or a shot of something strong – the cold had to be getting to him somehow, we thought! He would smile, thank us and say he might take us on our offer someday. We soon realized that day would never come.
Tina got so drunk one time that she literally offered herself to Abe to keep him warm through the cold night since he would not take a shot of our whisky. I was solidly inebriated but decently embarrassed on her behalf. Abe looked mortified. When the rest of us started laughing he joined in. His unease was evident, still he laughed. As he shook his head and started to walk away, Tina raised her voice and questioned his sexual orientation.
“She should get some sleep,” he said and walked away.
************
When we saw debris fall from the ceiling in one corner of the mall we knew something was wrong. Gunshots followed, giving no one time to collate their thoughts. I saw the men before Abe did.
Men dressed in military gear mixed in with civilian clothing marched through all the entrances of the mall, shooting automatic rifles as they walked. It looked so choreographed like they watched an action movie and adopted the moves before the operation. Abe grabbed me by the shoulder, shoving me down as I felt bullets wheeze past my face, grating my ear in the process.
Chaos does not begin to describe what the mall was. I noticed the toilet not too far from where we were and gestured toward it. Abe and I crawled there on our bellies like lizards but it didn’t matter. Once inside I looked through the window to see if we could make a quick escape but saw none. Not only were there burglar-proof iron bars on the window frames, there were more shooters outside. The streets were empty save a few dead bodies that littered it.
This was a bad dream and it needed to stop. I only came here for some coffee, cake and good conversation. This is not the kind of thing that happens to foreigners, I thought, referring to myself and Abe. But then again, that was not the kind of thing that SHOULD happen to anyone – citizen or foreigner! I turned and looked to Abe who sat on the floor, knees pulled up, praying.
“Dude, no offense but do you really think now is the perfect time for this? I mean if God were…”
“Can you think of a better way through this?”
I paused and honestly could not think of anything else short of walking back into that lobby and taking a shot to the head or chest or both.