Those who knew the age of the Wakalii Market could tell you, “Wakaliii Market has remained stagnant for decades.” It was a town that had neither expanded nor collapsed. Over the years new shops were added but old ones were closed down. Investors arrived at Wakalii Market with giant hopes of making it in business. They bought plots and built their shop dream, but by the time he finished building they became broke. The best he should do, therefore, was to close the shops with the hope that the future would bring miracles and make them put stock in the shops and go into business. The story was that there were more closed shops than there were open ones for business. But the open ones were stocked with the same things you found in the others. Some of them were incredibly poorly stocked; nevertheless, the owners stayed in, hoping for the best future.
Then out of nowhere the miracle arrived at Wakalii Market. It was brought by an a new investor called Bwana Musembi. He was a plump and talkative man in his thirties. His physical trade mark was his eyes and three missing fingers in his right hand, leaving only the thumb and the small finger. He had big eyes planted on a round face, which made him look like a bush cat. He was an ugly man with scaring features. However, his money worth compensated for his ugliness.
The pomposity with which Bwana Musembi launched his business terrorized all Wakalii Market. He toppled his business transport of a saloon Toyota Corona with a scaring Prado in red colour. He was married to a small but extraordinarily beautiful woman, Joyce, a woman from the Taita Hills who looked more like a toy than a human being.
Bwana Musembi bought joined plots at Wakalii Market and constructed what, by local standard, appeared a massive structure. It had two floors, the first being the shop hall and the second floor for other businesses. The speed with which he built it shocked people. Building materials arrived transported by the ten-wheel lorry and he brought builders from Nairobi, simultaneously to erect his dream home barely two kilometers from the Wakalii Market. Some voices were heard commenting,
“Can you see how God can bless some people?” He made Wakalii Market proud just as much as he terrorized them.
When Bwana Musembi broke into a bar he bought drinks for everybody. He gave the biggest donation in fundraising functions. In order to show his Godly part he paid for the school fees of all orphans in the village. Within no time he became man and the people. Citizens started dreaming that, come the next general election, they would make a Member of Parliament out of him.
Upon his arrival at Wakalii Market with his entourage, he made friends with the most progressive particularly with one couple at Wakalii Market. The coupe was made out of one John Ndunda married to Martha nicknamed Butterfly. She was the most fashionable women and mother of two daughters. John Ndunda was a Primary School headmaster. He had a stationery shop kept by Butterfly. She and Musembi’s wife struck heavy-gravy friendship. Butterfly was envied by the villagers for having struck friendship with the stinking rich couple. It was a matter of days, predicted villagers, that Ndunda will dropped teaching and become a business man, mentored by Bwana Musembi. Ndunda enjoyed Musembi’s cars and, since he had a driving licence, from time to time Musembi loaned him the Toyota car for small errands.
Bwana Musembi, radiating with pride, opened his unusually fully-stocked shop religiously, articulated by a colourful expensive party. The pastor of his church cut the green ribbon for the opening. Every attendant went home with a free gift from Bwana Musembi – a point of sugar, a soft drink, flour, milk, biscuit, umbrella, spoon, sufuria and so on. He sent them home with the word, “This is and should be your shop.” He terrorized his competitors by introducing cheap prices as he bragged, “Since I’m already wealthy, I want to make a small profit and share my wealth with my customers.”
“This man is drastically changing the history of Wakalii Market,” word went round. They had been so close to someone holding that kind of wealth. The customers of the Wakalii Market bought small quantities of groceries – a quarter or half a kilo of sugar. A full kilo went to few customers. Half a liter of high heated tea, small tea leaves, one packet of flour, two or three sweets for children, half a liter of paraffin, salt, and a biro pen, one or two biscuits and so on.
Bwana Musembi’s shop acquired the magic of attracting most of the customers, making some people sound their suspicion by saying, “This man is using majini to attract customers.” Other people gave Bwana Musembi’s fortune a biblical interpretation, “The Bible says that unto those who have more shall be given.” But that could as well mean unto those who are poor more poverty would be added to them.”
Day by day Musembi’s business competitors started losing their customers to him. Musembi. Some village girls from poor family dreamt being married by Bwana Musembi as a second, third or whatever number wife, so long as she would be called Mrs Musembi.
Men married to beautiful women were struck by nightmares regardingtheir safety of their wives before the economic might of Bwana Musembi. It hadn’t taken long for them to discover that Musembi was a womanizer. His friendship with the Ndundas hadn’t lasted a year before it fell out. The headmaster tucked away his Martha from Bwana Musembi with terrible threats, “I’ll destroy you if I catch you with that man. Women are attracted to money and luxury the way butterflies are attracted to fire light in the night.”
Only those married to less beautiful wives had sound sleep. Parents with daughters started praying that their daughters would be spared from Bwana Musembi’s economic terror, which had tempered with the emotional balance and peace of the people. Now they realized how safer Wakaliii Market could be without Musembi. Some of them prayed that something terrible should happen to him, like having a fatal car accident, or catching an incurable disease. Other’s started thinking about resorting to witchcraft to destroy him.
Exactly sixteen months after Musembi had opened his shop an unusual storm arrived at Wakalii Market to get Musembi. Out of nowhere security people landed at his shop at night and picked him up. By morning Wakalii Market place woke up to unprecedented shock. Musembi’s shop had been closed and now surrounded by guards. Three weeks after that a trailer truck arrived and cleared the shop. Posters were left on the shop wall announcing the date of auctioning the building.
The beginning of Musembi’s rise and descending had become so short. Shocking news would reach Wakaliii Market that Musembi had been involved in mega forgery cases in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania during which they had robbed companies of fortunes before their master mind had got killed in a robbery chase drama. Thereafter Musembi, carrying the biggest chunk of the money, went underground for years. Musembi was the genius of copying signatures. When later on his associate smelt him out of the hiding place and demanded his rightful share of the money, Musembi became mean by giving him the least that he could give away. The associate planned a big revenge whereby, using other helping hands, they broke into Musembi’s house and his associate cut off his three fingers so as to disable him permanently from forging signatures successfully. Five years after hibernation Musembi emerged to go into a new business ventures, hence his arrival at Wakalii Market.
Six months after Musembi had been arrested and the shop had been auctioned, Joyce Ndunda shocked her husband. She gave birth to a child unquestionably fathered by Musembi – with same bush cat eyes and bat ears. Ndunda burst into tears like a woman. She, too, was shattered beyond repair. Two days after she was brought home from maternity hospital, she vanished. A week after her disappearance Ndunda took the infant to her parent’s home and declared, “My marriage and Joyce is over.” He returned home and got married quickly to confirm the divorce.
Wakalii Village received other three children fathered by Bwana Musembi. One of them was from a girl in her third year of high school. What shocked everybody were their incredible Musembi features. Wakalii village was left wondering what would have become of their village if Musembi had stayed. Wakalii Market felt absolutely relieved and realized how much better and more peaceful they were in returning to their cocoon of poverty. To hell with new investors.
