By Malia Thandiwe
Nabwire had raised the entry fee over two years by hawking sodas and beauty products at the main bus stop in Busia town. If she finished at the podium in the Kisumu race, she could attempt to qualify for the World Rally Championship in Naivasha. She trained on a dusty ribbon of all weather road coiling up Nambuku Hills jagged with rocks, practicing her coordination round its deep bends to increase her chances of winning. At the apex of Shimala Avandu, a hairpin-turn near the peak of the hill, her mind suddenly plunged into darkness and she lost her connection with the car. Unable to decipher the vibrations of the steering wheel in her grip, she braked hard, veering the rear wheels off track, landing into thick lantana camara bush lining the road.
The blackouts had increased with the forthcoming race, falling over her eyes with the unexpectedness of a power cut; as concentrated as the dark black char around the door frame at their previous home in Mamboleo. Had she known if her father was dead, her mind might have rested. Since January 18th 2008, she had neither seen nor heard from him, the uncertainty an impenetrable darkness as still as death, as immovable as the night over the open cast quarry pits in the compound where they used to live.
“Mama, I have made enough money, I’m going to race,” Nabwire said, sitting down on a low wooden stool covered in smooth black cow skin while her mother counted the week’s earnings. Ayuma kept her records in neat columns labelled: Name, Amount, Due Date, Interest Earned. In another column she marked an x or a tick for those who had defaulted or paid off their loans. Nabwire’s resolve worried her. God forbid, with all that speed, if something were to happen she would be devastated.
Without Ayuma’s knowledge, Nabwire traced her father through Facebook, following leads from his colleagues, to a sugar plantation in Muhoroni. She sent him a friend request and tried to rekindle their bond by inviting him to visit her in Busia. She was relieved to finally meet him. Despite the years, he was still handsome, his eyes bore the same piercing, confident look that made Mama’s friends blush. Daddy gave her his green polo shirt that was faded at the collar, and a watch that had stopped counting time as a parting gift. She hid the mementos in a brown handbag with a frayed strap she no longer used and kept it at the back of the closet.
She called him the following week feeling buoyant after registering for the race. Mwirigi had taught her how to drive when she was twelve years old, it was his Toyota, salvaged from the clashes by a family friend who brought it to Nabwire and Ayuma in Busia by passing it off as his own, that she drove. Mwirigi’s voice was hoarse as if he had woken up from sleep. When he recognized her voice, he said, “Mummy, send me something. I live in a house without a door; I have no blankets to cover me at night. Send me some money to buy vegetable seeds so that I have food to eat and sell after I harvest them from the patch of land outside my door.”
She sent him the last of her savings left over after paying the race registration fees and called back to confirm if he had received it. Instead of her father, a woman picked up the phone; she said in a voice full of derision, “That one has gone to the bar with the money you sent him. There’s no use helping him. He is drunk on most days.”
Gripping the steering wheel at Shimala Avandu, a small light like the flash of flame from a matchstick pierced the immovable night in her mind. Focusing on it, she parsed the vibrations of the steering wheel, braked hard and shifted gears to lock the rear wheels, and gradually throttled the engine to clear the corner in a cloud of dust.
On the hilltop she got out of the car and screamed, yanking the grief and pain of her life out of her hollow belly. She collapsed with a gasp and spat out bitter saliva trying to vomit the sickening taste but only air came out. Her stomach cramped with suppressed emotion that contracted her legs to her chest. She moaned and rocked on the red soil, cursing herself for hoping it would have been as easy as loving him to change who he’d always been. When the ordeal was over, she opened her eyes to a bright blue sky.
© 2026 Malia Thandiwe
Image credit Aykut Erckan