It was a Saturday morning, ordinarily a quiet day set aside for sleeping in to get over the hectic work week. The last thing you need on this day is drama. One recent Saturday, however, Cecilia had other ideas.
She is our neighbour and lives above us in Marion Court apartments in the quieter part of Nairobi that is Westlands. Ours are relatively old flats, built in the Eighties when apartments were “short”, rising to only three floors. Consequently we are dwarfed by many newer blocks. We live on the second floor, Cecilia on the third.
She is a thirtysomething single who rarely has visitors. I suppose any opportunity to put some life into her life is most welcome for her.
At 9am sharp our bell rang in a most unwelcome fashion. My husband, Alf, went to open the door, still half asleep. We have an unwritten rule in the house: if the doorbell rings when we’re not expecting anyone, he goes. This way if the crib needs protecting he’s the one to do it.
There she stood, smoke and soot billowing out of her nostrils and hair.
“Why have you connected your TV to my aerial?” she screamed.
“What?” asked Alf, his brain still foggy with sleep. On hearing the ruckus I trotted out of the bedroom to find my husband waving away Cecilia’s smoke.
“You’ve connected your TV to my aerial. I want to know why.”
“We have done no such thing,” my hubby protested. We wouldn’t know how to, really.
I was prepared to take up my position to protect our honour, but Alf insisted he’d handle the situation. I slowly unfurled my claws and stood behind him in case I was needed to attack on short notice.
Now Cecilia was screaming and stomping around like a little child denied candy, insisting that we had invaded her territory.
“What kind of people are you?” she shrieked, though I don’t think she really wanted an answer. “You don’t even belong in a neighbourhood like this. Only decent people should live here!”
She’s right, I thought, and her own presence proves the fact remarkably.
Ours is a quaint, quiet neighbourhood inhabited mostly by elderly folk. Many of them bought the houses 20 years ago. Although the flats are old, they are clean and well kept.
People don’t raise their voices here and you would have to strain to hear the sound of a radio or TV set.
Alf, not one for confrontations, offered to go up to the roof of the apartment block to show the hurricane we’d done nothing wrong. He asked the watchman to accompany him, to corroborate his position because Cecilia and common sense were enjoying an acrimonious relationship at that point. I also suspect Alf didn’t want to go up to the roof with Cecilia alone and so opted for a little male backup.
But Cecilia remained on the ground. She stood near the fence, arms akimbo, from where she could monitor proceedings on the roof. Alf gestured to her to indicate that our aerial and hers were nowhere near each other. The watchman confirmed this. Meanwhile I was now fully awake — seething and, frankly, confused.
Just a day earlier she and I had exchanged niceties at our doorstep. That’s how I knew her name was Cecilia. Her clothes had dropped off her clothes line on to our balcony. She had come to the door, drooling honey, to ask me to give them back. I did so, almost inviting her in to have a seat while I fetched the runaway garments. So I did not understand this sudden change of heart and tactics on her part less than 24 hours later.
“I know you have connected it to mine,” Cecilia shouted one last time before stomping off.
And there died a friendship that might have developed between our two households, a rare thing between neighbours in Nairobi where most people keep one another at arm’s length.
Looking back it was just as well that Cecilia killed all prospects of camaraderie. She’s the crazy person every market in Africa is said to have.
It turns out she has fought with everyone; as the most recent tenants to move into Marion Court, we were the last to know.
Now we pass each other at the speed of “small cars”, as my friend Edward would say. In her own way she’s tried to make amends, throwing us a smile on the stairs once in a while. But we duck it real good.
Us and Cecilia, we give each other the nil-by-mouth treatment. Even when she pours dirty water on to our balcony from hers, we keep the peace. We can’t live with her; we can’t live without her, as long as we’re all tenants in Marion Court.
Nyokabi Baiya is a freelance writer based in Nairobi