One For You One For Me
Copyright 2014 Gerald Kithinji
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Prologue: Albinism
Albinism is a genetic condition that results in the lack of pigment in a person's skin, eyes and hair. Some witchdoctors in Africa claim that organs and body parts from albinos have magical powers. And their greedy clients get trapped in schemes to secure these items to be used in rituals. This short story takes a peek on how the ‘professors’ hatch and execute the dirty get-rich-quick or healing schemes for those who believe in their magical powers.
Chapter One: Professors
The two men met quite by accident. They had both retired from the army. There they had worked together for several years, but then the exigencies of their work separated them. Oliver Mkopo was posted to Tanga, while Luka Kambo ended up in Tunduma. What kept them in touch was their rural home in Mbeya. Here, they occasionally met during important weddings and funerals and exchanged notes.
The last time they met, they learnt from each other that they were soon to be axed from the force. The country needed a leaner force and thousands were earmarked for early demobilization.
“What do you think of that, old boy?” asked Oliver.
“A soldier cannot beg to be spared,” replied Luka. “The sooner they get on with it the better.”
“How old is your son, Mwakalinde?”
“Old enough to join the force, you know?”
“That youngster I saw the other day?”
“That was four years ago. They are growing faster than you can say Jeshi la Taifa!” That is, National Army in Swahili.
A few months later, Luka and Oliver received their gratuity and kicked their army boots off their feet. Their muscles were tired, their vision blurred and their blood had boiled to the maximum and now needed a rest. It was not a painful parting for they were promptly paid their gratuity. Overnight, they became millionaires. What were they to do with so much money?
After drowning several thousand shillings in alcohol and loose life, they decided to put their heads together.
“This won’t do, my friend,” said Luka.
“What won’t do?” Oliver asked, amazed that his friend could float a senseless statement in the middle of carousal. Had he ran out of ideas on how to enjoy an afternoon? Or was he getting drunk in advance and beginning to talk to himself?
“I mean to say that we should be more prudent.”
“I have always been a prudent man myself,” said Oliver. “I don’t know about you.”
“Don’t blow your own trumpet. There are people who would look at you and cry, my friend.”
“You know what you should do? I think you should go home to your wife!”
“Thank you very much. But let me ask you, did you think I was going to somebody else’s wife?”
They were interrupted by a man who had been watching them partying. He was a regular at the bar and although he knew them, they did not know him and did not much care one way or the other. ‘These guys are mean like cats,’ he had been telling himself. ‘With so much money, they should treat us all to a drink. We have been taking care of this village while they were away.’ He had finished his beer and would have gone home if he was not so angry with the pair. He decided to stick his neck out.
“The way some people drink,” he shouted, for the benefit of the whole bar, “you would think they owned the club.”
“Hey, you!” shouted Oliver. “You shut your beak! Or else…”
“Oh, leave him alone,” said Luka. “He is only talking. Why are you so jumpy? He was not talking about you!”
Luka knew the man was out to embarrass them. But he also knew the man had a point. They were drinking as if they were insured against poverty. He guided the talk back into sanity and the day ended without further incident.
The next day he reminded Oliver of the previous day’s outburst.
“The man had a point,” he said, “although it was not his business to tell us what to do with our money.”
“If it were not for your timely intervention, I was going to so discipline him, he would have rued the day he saw the light of day!”
“But let us be realistic,” said Oliver. “What are we doing with ourselves? This money will one day be gone! Then, what?”
They discussed the matter at length and decided to do something worthwhile. They even came up with a plan. If carried out meticulously, they would be worthy reference points for their comrades, for they would multiply tenfold the remainder of their gratuity.
But in their part of the world, nobody undertook serious business without first consulting a seer or seers to establish whether or not it would be worth their while. Accordingly, they consulted a self-proclaimed ‘famous’ seer aptly called Professor Moto Moto. His declared business was to ‘change people’s lives’ by enabling them to conquer poverty with skilful utilization of his wise counsel.
He charged 300 000 Tanzanian shillings for the said wise counsel. They paid and he promptly forecast a very bright future for them. Then he prepared various herbal medicinal defences against their enemies and detractors.
Armed thus with wise counsel and all the defences, they set aside five million shillings for a peanut project. They were to buy these in Mbeya and surrounding areas and sell them in Harare. A friend of theirs had introduced them to a very important contact, who knew a tycoon who sold the nuts in Johannesburg, South Africa.
After negotiating their way past the customs officials at Chirundu, they made their way into Harare. The contact (who had been waiting for them) booked them into a guesthouse and left with the goods to conclude the ‘deal’ with the tycoon.
“This won’t take long,” he said to them. “I should be back by evening- I mean six o’clock. If you go out, let the reception know exactly how long you would be away, just in case I should be through earlier than expected. But I would advise against straying into town. You never know who is walking behind you!”
That last sentence proved to be very effective with the international commodity dealers, as Luka and Oliver had styled their business. They did not leave the guesthouse except for the half-hour it took them to buy Nando’s chicken at a nearby outlet. They consumed it with full gusto!
“This place is famous for Nando’s chicken,” the receptionist had told them. They bought one for her.
“You are very kind,” she had said when they passed the parcel to her. “How do you say thank you in Swahili?” she asked.
“Ahsante sana!” Oliver had replied.
“Okay. Ahsante sana.”
“Karibu.”
“What does karibu mean?”
“Welcome!”
At exactly six o’clock, the contact went back to the guesthouse and told them that they had to wait until the following day. The following day they were promised that things would be fine the day after. The day after, they were implored to give the tycoon ‘just twenty-four hours to sort out the payment.’ To show his good faith, the contact cleared their bills with the guesthouse and advanced them some money just for miscellaneous use.
“See the city by night, my friends. But make sure you go by taxi. Have you heard of Chez Nthemba night club? It’s the hottest in this city.”
They spent everything they got at Chez Nthemba! They had no cares. Their money was only a day away. They grooved and drank till four
in the morning. They slept most of the day, waking up just in time for late lunch. That evening the contact did not turn up. Nor did he show up the following day. The receptionist told them that he had intimated to her that they were due to leave the day after.
“But he has our money!” protested Luka.
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
“We brought a lot of peanuts and he was to sell them to a Johannesburg tycoon,” said Oliver.
“Peanuts?”
“Yes!”
“Peanuts are in high demand here. He must have sold them within the city!”
“Not Jo’burg?”
“I highly doubt it.”
“Do you know him?”
“I first saw him the day you arrived. Is he not your friend?”
“Well, we don’t know him that much. He was introduced to us by a friend.”
“Is the friend around?”
“He is in Tanzania.”
“You better pray hard!”
They lost three million shillings.
‘Shouldn’t we go back to that quack and demand our money back?” Oliver enquired of his friend.
“He will come up with a stranger-than-fiction story,” replied Luka.
“I don’t like cheats,” Oliver shot back.
“Neither do I,” replied Luka. “Nonetheless, I think we would be throwing good money after bad.”
“But three million is not money I want to watch disappear just like that!”
“Okay! Let’s go see him.”
“When I told you the future was bright, I did not exclude some dull moments resulting from your own inattention to the safety of your goods. You literally parted with your goods to somebody you did not even know! Come on, come on! If you had something from him- like a strand of hair from his head or a piece of his clothing, I would be able to punish him. Do you?”
“No, we don’t.”
“There you are! I don’t want to say like the hyena that the way I looked at him, he cannot go very far. I don’t do things like that!”
“What did I say?” Luka asked Oliver as they left Professor Moto Moto’s home.
“Let us move on,” said Oliver. “Let’s talk to Professor Pima Moto. When things get hot, he knows what to do.”
So the pair went to see Prof. Pima Moto. He asked them why they had not come to him in the first place.
“Everyone knows what I can do,” he boasted. “I can take worms out of someone’s tummy just by looking at him!”
“True, true,” Luka mouthed, elated.
“But that is not our problem,” Oliver countered.
“I know, I know,” said Professor Pima Moto. “You want to multiply what you have. That is as easy as eating pap. But people do not know. They think one has to work day-in day-out for years and years. Look at the footballers and athletes- just a little practice and the money comes in from all sides! The crowds just keep swelling at the gates to pay to watch them. Who do you think is responsible for all that? Eh? Trust me.”
They trusted him. They parted with one million for his special money multiplier effects.
At the end of a three week business trip to Harare, they were two million shillings short. Something had gone wrong again. Oliver was scratching his head! Luka was banging the small desk in their small room with his fist!
“This will not do,” Oliver yelled.
“Yah,” replied Luka, without the slightest idea of what would do.
“We have to think carefully,” said Oliver.
To help them think carefully, they ordered another round of beer.
“Remember,” said Luka, “that is against the rules. Professor said we should not drink.”
“Rubbish!” shouted Oliver. “That was to apply while we conducted our business. Now we are only counting the loss. The rules are redundant now.”
“But you know we lost less this time,” Luka said.
“And you think it was because of his theatrics?”
“Not entirely,” said Luka. “We have been careful all along.”
“So why have we lost out?”
“I think we should make one trip without consulting anybody and see how it works,” Oliver opined.
“I think so, too.”
Their unaided trip to Harare was an actual disaster. They bungled their customs papers and would have lost their entire cargo were it not for the fact that they had liquid cash. They parted with a tidy sum and were let through.
“Money speaks in any language,” said Oliver, after they left the border with their goods. “That’s why I always stash it all over me.”
Unfortunately, that money could not come in that handy when it came face to face with ‘Operation Murambatsvina.’ The illegal structure that they called their hotel was pulled down while they were out collecting their dues from their customers. A portion of their goods went with the wind during that clean-up operation.
This time the profit and loss account tilted heavily towards a huge deficit.
“It is those fellows who are working against us!” Oliver lamented. “Once you are in their pocket you have to stay there. I mean, we have been coming here all this time and we have never heard of murambatsvina. Why this time? Me, I’m quitting this business.”
“Coward!” said Luka. “We have not seen the most powerful seer yet.”
“Don’t accuse me of cowardice, man. I’m a soldier, even though retired!”
“A soldier never gives up,” said Luka.
“So what do you suggest we do?”
“We have to see Professor Zima Moto. He is the best, you know! The most powerful medicine man in this whole region! His medicine works. If he fails us, then we can entertain other ideas.”
“Do you know where to find him?”
“Yes; but he is very expensive.”
“Are you talking of the blind and dumb man from…?”
“Yes, he is a real professor that one! These others have it in name only.”
“I have heard that he is the behind the richest man in eastern Africa,” said Oliver.
“Yes,” said Luka. “He is the consultant for the richest man in Congo as well. His star is rising along with those of his clients.”
“He must be charging an arm and a leg for his services,” said Oliver. “Do you think we can afford his fee?”
“He does not charge that much,” answered Luka. “But his conditions are stringent.”
“Let us try him. One should not be afraid of the roar of the lion in the jungle. It might turn out to be toothless!”
“Toothless, yes! But clawless, is another kettle of fish altogether!”
The two men visited Prof. Zima Moto. As his name suggests, his specialty was to put out the fire- whatever fuel it was made of. He was a little fellow, thin and weather-beaten. He neither spoke nor pretended to hear anything that was said to his ear. But he heard distant voices and they spoke rarely. He had settled in the area recently having allegedly been sent there to settle various problems that mankind wished to rid itself of. One of them was poverty. Professor Zima Moto was a declared enemy of poverty. If one followed his instructions to the letter, she soon found herself in the midst of wealth- real wealth. If one flouted the instructions or sought to by-pass or otherwise to ignore them, then the remedy was lost to her and in its place stood a vengeful angry dragon that spit fire and swallowed all defaulters. That was his reputation!
To Professor Zima Moto, they went! They waited forty minutes while he readied himself to meet his day’s first clients. They were expecting him to come out through the front door, but he chose the rear one and sat on a mat under a tree at the back of his homestead. That was the sacred place where he executed his duties. He was playing a hand piano from Zimbabwe called mbira. He did not greet them but continued playing animatedly for a full five minutes. When he stopped, it was like someone had snapped at him to quit playing. He put the mbira aside and waited. His wife, who acted as the interpreter of his sign language, addressed
them.
“Who are you?”
They told her.
“Where do you come from?”
They told her.
“What brings you here, to this poor lonely part of planet earth/”
“Poverty,” they answered.
“But you have left wealth behind?”
“It was never in our hands.”
“Well spoken Mtoto wa Kambo.”
“How did he know that I was son of Kambo?” Luka asked.
The woman interpreted the question. Professor Zima Moto was visibly angered, or made out to be so upset. He mumbled incomprehensibly.
“Are you not the fourth son of your father?” asked the woman.
“I am,” answered Luka.
The seer mumbled something, motioning them to sit down.
“If you have not come to interrogate me, state your case!” said the interpreter.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Luka. Then he turned to Oliver. “Your turn!”
“We intend to start a business,” said Oliver. “We thought you would be able to guide us.”
The professor protested, waving a finger of disapproval.
“You have started a business,” said the interpreter.
“Yes; in fact we have started the business but we have not made anything. So it is still at the starting stage.”
“It would help if you would be straight with me. I do not like beating about the bush. Get to the point. How much have you lost?”
“Almost seven million!”
“The average client loses two million before they remember that I am here for them! How extravagant mankind is!”
“We are almost broke,” said Luka.
“We are broke,” Oliver said, matter-of-factly.
“Our services are not altogether free,” said the woman.
“We are aware of that,” Luka said.
“How much did you pay Moto Moto?”
“We did not…”
“The truth, Son of Kambo, the truth!”
“Three hundred thousand.”
“And Pima Moto?”
“One million!”
“How did you know all about that?” asked Oliver.
“I am not their equal!”
“That is indeed so,” said Luka.
The professor clenched his right fist and straightened the little and ring fingers to indicate that he would charge two million.
“That much!” shouted Oliver.
“Yes, that much!” said the woman. “Take it or leave it.”
Chapter Two: Gifts