Hidaya perched on the beige chesterfield in the waiting lounge of Nairobi Safari Club Hotel along University Way, scanning the visitors, looking out for the woman who had sent her the photos the previous night. He’s all mine, read the caption. The woman’s hopeful eyes stared into the camera with a vulnerability Hidaya recognized she once had. In the photo, her husband’s arm possessed the woman’s waist with such ferocity that Hidaya turned her phone upside down because of the sudden wave of dizziness. Abel looked so youthful, so vibrant like angel’s trumpets in the morning. His smile stretched wide, exposing his silver tooth, and she couldn’t remember the last time he had looked that happy. They were in matching kitenge, the woman’s gown tracing all the contours on her body and the front slit exposing her thigh. Abel’s shirt was white with a strip of the kitenge on his left. The husband Hidaya knew could never wear such an outfit and especially not that shade of purple. Hidaya stared at the photo, appalled at how love or something like that made people unrecognizable.  

Now, the concierge, a light-skinned man with a generous smile asked her again if she was sure she didn’t want to sit in the west wing on the first floor which afforded her privacy and the resplendent view of the city. She smiled and thanked him for the offer but no thank you. He nodded, robotic in his movement as he lingered around the reception and told her if she needed anything, he was there. She thought his voice was too deep for a man with that complexion because Kamba men had squeaky voices and Luo men like Abel had voices that squashed any other sound in a room. 

As she ruminated on the previous night’s unfolding, her stiletto dangling on her foot, she admitted she had seen it coming, but had underestimated the mistress. This wasn’t one of those flames that burnt bright briefly like a heap of dried pine needles and was out in a few seconds: it was a steady log of semi-dry oak wood. Hidaya thought of the night it struck her that she had lost her husband, truly. The person that had walked in through the door wasn’t her Abel. There was a resolution in his gait and even in the way he took off the coat, the watch, the way he lay his car keys, a contrast with how he’d been the past few days, battling something heavy. There was a concrete decision glowing in his eyes that she had seen many years ago as a young wife.

In the shower, he had hummed Mejja’s song Landlord, and that was all the sign she needed because he didn’t listen to him nor to gengetone music. She knew he was gone in the way he had touched her that night and in the things he whispered to her (because he was a quiet lover in bed). When he was done, he had sputtered like a faulty exhaust and held her tight, a thing he had stopped years ago. She had wondered what had just happened while he was already snoring. She wanted to scrub herself and shed off any remnants of him and the other woman he had fantasized about while fucking her. He’d had his little misadventures, insignificant, temporal things like flus, but this one had lingered longer. That night confirmed once again about her sharing her husband with yet another woman in forlorn silence for many months until the woman reached out last night with the pictures of them at a couples’ gala in Kempinsky. The other mistresses lasted for a few weeks and vaporized from their life. But this Diana’s fire was burning her marriage and her parasitic teeth dug too deep. Hidaya shouldn’t have allowed the little thing to go this long but she had vowed to reform, to let him make his choices and his mistakes in peace because she too had choices and mistakes to make. But this Diana was irreverent and told her things a side dish shouldn’t tell a proper wife. What happened to lovers being stealth, being chary? 

The woman that tapped Hidaya’s shoulder and dragged her back to the present wore a Brazilian wig, expensive make-up, and posed like one on a fashion runway. She had generous hips trapped in a tight pencil skirt, those hips her husband lay on. The purple lipstick stole what was supposed to be a radiant face, or perhaps it was tension that stole her beauty, and what was her obsession with purple when she was nothing royalty? She was typical of any mistress, dressed to a fault to illustrate why the man chose her. Hidaya looked at the strapped red heels — she remembered seeing them in Abel’s cart on some random shoes website on his computer. It must have been Urban Shoes. Momentarily, she had panicked because a man memorizing the shoe or bra size must have a level of liking, and she detested the idea of Abel loving Diana enough to buy her something that needed a great level of thoughtfulness and awareness of sizes.

Now, the two women took the lift to the fifth floor. Diana’s perfume wasn’t the same one Abel came home smelling of on many occasions. Hidaya thought about the photo, how better she looked in person, and how great it would look on a casket, something to cheer up mourners. She knew Diana thought herself a Good Samaritan, breaking the news of the affair to her. But Hidaya always knew when her husband’s affairs started and ended, and theirs wasn’t any different. She knew when Abel’s mistress had her period; when she had a deadline to beat; when she was out of town visiting her parents; when she was doing half year performance reviews; when she brought a different man to the house that Abel rented for her in Kilimani Estate. Hidaya was…what was the word? Omnipresent. The things social media did! It provided all the information she needed at the click of a button.

She thought of how omnipresence was a funny concept, that one was there, yet unseen. Like anger, bubbling below the surface. Diana stared at herself in the mirror in the lift and when their eyes interlocked, she feigned a cough. Hidaya’s stare was unflinching. She wondered how a mistress could have such audacity to contact a legitimate wife and request audience. For what? Diana looked no more than twenty three. 

The lounge had few people scattered about, perhaps there to close a deal, for a first date, for an interview. Life was pathetic. Humans were dots in a world, nondescript, that they couldn’t notice when one of them vanished, when one was distressed. Hidaya thought humans attributed much more importance to their existence than was necessary. As the waiter wrote down their orders, Hidaya checked her phone, and it lit up. 

“Madam, I’m sorry. I cannot imagine myself in your shoes. I know how betrayal stings,” Diana blurted out when the waiter left.

Hidaya’s eyes glazed over Diana’s red shoes as though she meant it literally. Then she took them back to her phone, swiping through the updates on Opera News: successful open-heart surgery in Kenyatta National Hospital; an accident along Wangari Mathaai Road; high rainfall expected in Nairobi and parts of Eastern Province; Mike Sonko donates fire trucks; recipe for chocolate cake; signs of cervical cancer; ‘utawezana’ hit maker on the spot for chewing a vixen.

“I come to you woman to woman,” Diana said, her hands clasped on the table and Hidaya could tell she had rehearsed the speech. Ha! Woman to woman! Hidaya thought the line was weak. “I’ve been there too and I understand how you feel.” Diana sat rigidly now, her back straight as though in an interview.  

The waiter delivered their drinks. Hidaya sipped her mojito. She felt the rush, cold, almost caustic. On such woman to woman dates, she often ordered beef steak and loved the feeling of the knife cutting through the meat. It gave her a mad rush. Knives through flesh felt like stepping on those thick lawns in the morning and the grass squelching under her feet. It was orgasmic. 

“Did you ever finish writing the thesis?” Hidaya asked Diana. 

Diana’s eyes screamed; her brows almost jumped out of her face; she unclasped her hands. She glanced over her shoulder as though an invisible hand had touched her. Then she shook her head, no. Hidaya thought about how much time Abel spent on that thesis in the evenings. It was an unsustainable and an overambitious research project about crowdfunding in Central Province. But Ubuntu was dead; Ujamaa was dead and what was left was everyone for themselves. Hidaya also thought of all the money transfers to Day Star University bank account. She took in Diana’s wordlessness with gusto. 

“At least don’t waste our money.” Hidaya grinned, watching Diana breathe in and out, like she wanted to throw up. 

“I agreed to meet you because I wanted to apologize in person. We all want good things, mum –”

“Hidaya.”

“Sorry,” she said, dropping her hands from the table. “I didn’t know Abel was married.”

Hidaya stared at the green carpet, then the white curtains. She thought a blue carpet would have blended better. 

“When you found out he was, you said it was too late,” said Hidaya.

“We had progressed! We even had a joint bank account and joint property. We were already talking about children. I mean, really, it was too late.”

Hidaya sipped her drink.

It was never late. People chose to see time as a diminishing thing. Of course, her husband’s mistress had time to change things way earlier, but she chose not to even when Hidaya informed her in one of her pseudo accounts that Abel was a married man. She loved ruffling feathers this way and she also loved the concept of time because it gave her options. To kill or not to kill. To pursue this goal or not to pursue. To forgive or not to forgive. People had choices and had time. Hidaya had made her choice; Abel had made his too; Diana too. Sometimes, out of the blues, he said to Hidaya, “If anything happens to me, you are the only legitimate wife. Why are you worried?” She always wanted to say she wasn’t worried. Hidaya scoffed at how dowry was an insignificant thing that didn’t assure longevity, instead it gave a false sense of stability and ownership – like the eight to five jobs with their false sense of security yet everything was dispensable. Abel thought just because he had paid her dowry that she was “secure” and that she was his, fully.

“Have you guys set a date with the registrar of marriages? Best to do it before the elections. I hear the backlog is crazy.” Hidaya’s eyes were on Diana’s ring.

Diana’s face winced in what looked like scorn or shame, her cocktail still untouched. Hidaya wondered if her lipstick would smudge.

“I’m sorry, madam –”

Hidaya lifted her index finger and Diana looked like she’d jump through the window to her death. 

“I don’t understand why you cheat on Abel. He has given you everything you desired,” Hidaya said, looking at Diana who jolted, spilling her drink.

Confusion smacked Diana’s face. Hidaya, chuckling, signaled the waiter who cleaned up the spill and Diana ordered another cocktail. Hidaya thought of her omnipresence again and indeed, she was a god, an all-knowing god who had learnt over the years to keep enemies closer. 

“He also cheats on me with you!” Diana said when the waiter left. “He sleeps with you. I know, even when he denies it.”

Hidaya wondered if the glinting chandelier above them could crush someone’s head to paste or if it was made of plastic. She’d seen such a movie where a chandelier fell and killed someone, his brain splattering on the screen. Hidaya had come to find solace in sharing Abel with others because it created space in her own life. It gave Abel the much needed distractions. He forgot the tiny bits of Hidaya’s life and routine, like who she spent time with, how her day was, who she was hating on that week. His infidelity magnified her insignificance in his life, and came with a freedom she had learnt to embrace.

She could do and be whatever she wanted without scrutiny. 

“I don’t like when my Abel is hurting. He is my baby,” Hidaya said. “You should stop hurting him.”

“You should be angry and not here fighting for someone that doesn’t do the same thing for you,” said Diana, leaning forward. “What more evidence do you need to leave?”

Why would Hidaya be angry and why would she leave him? There were many things to be angry about, like the sky-rocketing fuel prices, like the eternal traffic in Nairobi (here, she looked outside and, indeed, University Way was gridlocked), like the radio stations that only talked about sex and betting, like the delayed payments from clients. Her husband’s little mischief wasn’t a thing to waste anger on.

She had her own things going. She loved the stability she’d been enjoying for years.

“He is lingering for longer hours in our house. I know a broken heart when I see it.” Hidaya knew about their fight. Of course, she did. Diana contacted her on a whim, to expose his philandering ways. “Better fix your issues because I’m too busy and too old to be consoling him.”

Diana leaned back and looked like she wanted to say something. There was confusion, then anger, then spite, and, finally, some stark realization.

“I don’t want to interfere with your escapades,” Hidaya whispered, leaning forward. “Your life will be messed up if you guys break up. Surely your other little boyfriend is incapable of caring for you like my husband does?”

Hidaya crossed her arms and watched her husband’s mistress tumble with emotions, trying to grapple with everything at once, like a greedy child. That was why Hidaya thought women needed their own money. They could decide to be with someone out of their own volition and not some trap of a man with money. Money gave women absolute power and Diana, looking frail and piteous, knew nothing about power, just like all the rest of the mistresses. 

“I don’t understand,” said Diana finally. 

“You do understand,” said Hidaya. “You are a whole Graduate Trainee at… is it PWC? I don’t underestimate your brains, honey. You perfectly understand everything I am saying.” Hidaya grabbed Diana’s wrist. “And you will do exactly what I say.”

“You are mad,” said Diana, in a wavering voice, trying to yank off her hand. “Oh my God you are mad!”

Power. Hidaya thought, still gripping Diana’s wrist so that she could feel the pulse. Diana looked terrified. Hidaya felt the surge of joy. 

#

Back home, Hidaya watches her husband put on his watch that has an engraving of his and her names at the back. It was a present she got him years ago on their anniversary, when he got her a new car. His face radiates with the fullness of someone who has had a blissful night.

“I will prepare turkey for dinner,” she says, propping the pillows and sitting up.

He is holding his pair of socks, standing near the chest of drawers.

“I won’t be home by dinner time tonight. I’m meeting a big time client over a few drinks in Muthaiga Golf Club. I’m not sure I’ll be back by midnight, but I will update you.”

She shrugs and says it is okay, she’ll then go to Karaoke with her friends at The Ben’s in Westlands. He nods. Power, she thinks, power to have things under control. Power to say this and mean another thing…

“Thank you for always being understanding. Lucky me,” he says.

Hidaya smiles behind his back as he bends to pick up the car keys. Lucky me. Tonight, she too will be with her own lover of many years who thinks she is significant, intoxicating, wild, and powerful.