Jackie and Robbie parted ways at the market. Robbie went of to his rented bed-sitter flat and Jackie to the home she was about to lose. 

By the time the kids started arriving home about five o’clock that evening, Jackie had taken care of her usual chores.

Though occupied by her worries, Jackie supervised the children through evening chores, bath time, homework and dinner. When she sent them off to bed, they started to leave them for their rooms, but then paused. 

“What’s wrong?” Alex demanded. The look on the rest of the kids’ faces told her that they had discussed the issue.

She contemplated keeping the facts from them, but then realized that they were as much as a part of it as she was. So she indicated to them to settle down. 

“Umh,” Standing up as they sat down, Jackie wondered if her mother had left as she did now, the evening she told them that she was HIV+ and that it had developed into full blown AIDS. Had Alice worried that she had let the kids down? Had she felt a strong desire to hide the truth? Had she decided that it was better for her kids to be prepared mentally and emotionally for the loss they were about to face? Jackie sighed, “We might lose this place.”

 A chorus of ‘What?’ Why?’ rose up echoing her initial reaction to the situation. 

“You own this land, don’t you?” Alex asked. Jessie nodded, “Yeah, they can’t take it away from you, right?”

By ‘they,’ Jackie knew Jessie was referring to the relatives who had thrown out of their home when their father died. 

“They are not taking our land away, a bank is.” Jackie was beginning to feel choked up with emotion.

“A bank? Why?” William looked perplexed and very obliviously terrified. His brother seemed to understand more,” They only do that if you take out a loan and don’t pay back,” Alex frowned, “Is that it? You can’t pay a loan?”

“You said you weren’t going to take a loan.” Jessie reminded. “What is a loan?” Danielle asked, already hating that animal that was going to take their home away.

 “It’s money you get from someone. But you have to pay it back.” William informed his favorite little sister.

 ”No I didn’t take a loan. Someone else did, using my name and a copy of the title deed. The loan was to have been paid sometime back. Because it hasn’t been paid, the bank has to take our land, sell it so that they can get their money back.”

 ”Who took the loan?” Alex looked like he could go out right away and confront the person.

 ”I don’t know. This is what we call fraud. Someone uses someone else’s documents to get financial gain. The problem is, the person who really owns the documents can get into trouble.”

 Jessie looked at Jackie in a way that implied she expected her sister to get them out of the trouble, “You can prove that you didn’t take the loan, can’t you?”

 ”I might. But if I can’t, we have to be prepared to lose our home.” She sighed again, weighed heavily by the burden of fear, worry and sense of responsibility, ” I’m doing all I can guys. All I can. But this world is not fair. We know that, don’t we? So let’s remember that no matter what happens, we are a family. Always.”

 

 *****

Late in the night, Jackie lay awake, restless and anxious. It was cruel that just when she was beginning to hop, all her hard work was being threatened with destruction.

 Memories flashed in her mind of the period just after her father died. It had been the most painful time ever in Jackie’s life. Her father was barely buried before his relatives claimed that his wife Alice Njoki was not his legal wife and therefore had no stake in Christopher’s sizeable estate.

 Less than a month after the funeral, Christopher’s brothers arrived at his five-bedroom mansion and had carried off every single piece of furniture and furnishing. A week later, armed men sent by the relatives forcibly evicted Alice and her eight children from their home.

 Alice and her children had headed off to her sister’s home in Kikuyu. Emily Karanja had not been very receptive to the invasion of her home. However, she had allowed Alice and her children – whom she referred to as ‘Luo bastards’- to use one of the barns on her farm as a home.

 Alice had tried to get things to work. She tried her hand at several projects to earn money to feed the children. In the meantime, Alice and her sister Emily seemed to be in constant conflict. Finally, three months after moving in with her sister, Alice had moved her children to the one piece of property her husband’s relatives had not been able to grab.

 The small piece of farmland was legally registered under Jackie’s name. It was here that they had tried to rebuild their lives. Even after her mother’s death, Jackie had continued fighting for her siblings and her own survival.

 There had been so many questions on her mind during the time their lives had disintegrated. Questions that still haunted her.

 How could her parents have been so careless as to get infected with HIV? Why didn’t her father, an educated man, make legal provisions to protect his family? And why hadn’t her mother sought ways to fight for justice?

 ***** 

 

It was very early in the morning, a little after the kids had left for school, when she arrived.

 Jackie was cleaning the cow shed. She was planning to harvest a few kales, tomatoes and coriander leaves to take to the market.

 Mr. Thuo had asked to see him in the afternoon and she needed to file a statement at the Police station with regards to the case. So she hoped to fit in everything she needed to do at home in the morning.

 The sight of Emily Karanja, however, gave her a strong feeling that things would not go quite according to plan.

 Emily Karanja was Jackie’s mother’s older sister. She was married to Joshua Karanja, a man who until a few years ago was just a peasant farmer. Joshua was now a wealthy businessman and a prominent politician. His wife had gone up the social ranks too. She was doing this or that for the Kikuyu division community.

 But when Alice was alive, especially during those last few moths when she was very ill, Emily had been as far away as possible from her sister. After Alice died, Emily was on the forefront of the battle to share out Alice’s children among the family.

 Jackie had fought Emily on two counts. One, she firmly believed that the kids needed to be together to help each other cope and move on. And two, Jackie had visited with every single one of her maternal relatives and knew exactly how her siblings would be treated, as servants and second-class humans. She had refused to see that happen.

 Whatever it was that her aunt had come to do at the farm, Jackie knew, was not anything from what she had tried to do before. And Jackie was sure she would fight as hard as she had before.

 ”I know you think I’m here to hurt you.” Obviously she had sensed Jackie’s feelings and decided to cut right to the chase.

 ”Well, have you given me reason to think otherwise, Auntie?” She tried to read her aunt’s face, but came up with pride and arrogance, which she was already aware of.

 ”I saw the ad in the paper, Jackline. Your land is being auctioned.” It came out sounding as though Emily had been expecting this, from Jackie whom she considered too young, too irresponsible.

 ”Yes, I saw it, too. What do you want, Auntie? The way I see it, it is not any of your business.”

 ”But it is, Jackie. You are my sister’s children.”

 ”This is my land. I will solve any problems I have with my land. Just leave us alone.”

 ”Where will you go when the land is sold, Jackie?”

 ”Wherever I go, I will take the kids with me. They are not your responsibility. They never were, never will be.”

 ”I have no intention of taking the kids away from you. If you stopped being so aggressive, you might realize that I’m only here to help you.”

 Jackie remembered how explosive things had been twenty-two months ago. Emily had even gone as far as threatening Jackie. She had insulted and cursed Jackie when the tribal elders at the Chief’s camp had ruled that Jackie should be given a chance to prove herself. Three months after that ruling, Emily hadn’t been around to hear the elders praise and award Jackie custody of the children because of here responsibility.

 Jackie wondered if Emily was looking for a chance to get back at her for the humiliation she perceived herself to have suffered back then.

 ”I can buy the land from you and you can pay off the loan. I’ll let you live here, but I’ll need part of the land to build a block of flats.”

 Jackie’s response was a hollow laugh. She knew there had to be something behind the offer for help.

 ”It’s a reasonable offer, Jackie. If you like, I can cut out the land you are living on and you can retain a title deed on it.” She was justifying the fact that she would get more than 1.6 hectares of land while Jackie would retain less than 0.2 hectares.

“Did you want this before you saw the auction, advert, auntie? Or did it just occur to you? Is that it? You set up this little scheme just to get the land! How low can you go?”

“What are you talking about?” Emily’s face was a picture of perplexion. Jackie didn’t notice.

“Its neat, auntie. You take out a loan on my land; I don’t pay because I have no idea. The bank auctions my land and you buy cheap. You still have the money you took out, and my land too. You can build your pretty apartments now, right?”

“I did no such thing! What are you saying, Jackie? You are losing a land over a loan you didn’t take?”

“I think you should leave now.” She felt frustrated and angry. Her aunt may not have taken out the loan, but she was still the last person Jackie wanted to see or talk to.

“Tell me what happened, maybe I can help.” Emily insisted.

” I don’t want your help, Auntie. Like I said, I think you should leave. You can buy the land at the auction. Just leave us alone.” She felt a twinge of guilt as Emily turned away and left. At the back of her mind it occurred to her that Emily might have had good intentions all along. It could be that she just wasn’t good at voicing her intentions in the right way. Jackie pushed those thoughts away and turned back to get things done anyway. She had three more days.

© Juliet Maruru 2009 www.jmaruru.wordpress.com