My aunt Cecilia Ikoma-Michael’s funeral, held at her home of several acres in deep Ngong, was a smashing success – if you can call a decent send off a success.
“If she were alive, she would have loved it,” one of her glamorous sisters, Sophia, whispered to me. “Thank you, my nephew, for putting it all together at such short notice.”
I shrugged a “no big deal,” and felt a tiny twinge of guilt that I had profited from the occasion.
Even Zhang Li, the owner of the Chinese mall, showed up – in a car as large as a house so that when he got in after the burial, he comically looked like a little man mounting a huge horse.
Accompanying him at the funeral had been a swarthy looking Arabic man with a broad chest, large sun glasses and a thin moustache that made me think of a 1970s Blue Movies male actor.
With his too-tight black shiny suit and sharp-nosed shoes, I had assumed the Arab was a new driver/bodyguard, especially with the obvious coat bulge betraying a gun, and I had told Zhang:
Not being a native English speaker, the China man just shot me a puzzled look, missing the joke.
“Safa-la,” he said. “Meet me Monday, nine AM sharp, at the Four Season hotel for blek-fast.”
Come this past Monday, I was there on-the-dot!
The little Chinese mall mandarin wasn’t a man, I had learned, given to waiting around.
“You come even ten minute late,” he often said about ‘Kenya Time,’ scowling, “You find I gone.”
“Time is money,” was one of Li’s little English aphorisms that he peppered his talk with.
“A penny saved is a penny earned,” was another, and “Don’t go bloke t-lying to look leech!”
Mr Li said the latter so often to me, it felt personal.
But when you are meeting a tycoon, a hustler sometimes tries to look the part – and it is true I had broken the bank on a new light blue and second charcoal gray suit, three business shirts, new watch and new leather shoes, at a total cost of Sh50,000 which I could barely afford.
But after you’ve had to wear the red coat and khaki pants and loafers you wore on Valentine’s to your aunt’s funeral almost two months later, it is time for a change of clothes.
I got to the Four Seasons 10 minutes early and served myself generously from the breakfast buffet, and had just sat down when Mr Li walked in dressed in his usual modest Kaunda suit.
The Arab guy was dressed in a dazzling white suit, shirt and shoes, which on this gray Monday morning, gave him the look of a sparkling ghost in dark glasses.
A shade with shades, I thought, although I am no poet – in fact I loathed poetry in high school.
“My name is Ben Bella, and I come from the city of Mascara in Algeria,” the thickset Arab said in a surprisingly high voice. I shook his hand, surprisingly sweaty for such a chilly Monday morning.
Zhang Li came back balancing a tray that only had a banana, apple, a glass and a bottle of mineral water. “You eat like bird,” Ben Bella teased the tycoon. “No wonder you are so tiny!”
“Small body, big bank account,” Mr Li said, looking at me – and Ben Bella burst out in a high guffaw, looking at my well-toned muscled body – now that I was gyming in lieu of lack of sex.
“Time is money,” Li said, indicating that the time for banter was over. “What you have to offer?”
“Mascara,” the Arab said.
Ben Bella nodded, then over the next half hour, went into a detailed spiel of the small mascara factory he intended to open in Industrial Area, if only Mr Li would invest in it, to manufacture cheap mascara.
“Iron oxide to darken lashes, polymer for the eyelashes, candelilla wax ...” These were the sentences that I heard, drifting off at some point (beauty talk isn’t exactly my forte), before Mr Li brought me back to reality.
“Once I have b-lot in the factor equip from Guangdong,” he said, “You will be my facto-lee manager, okay?” Then turning to Arab. “Mike is honest guy. Also, he pay back all his debt.”
“Could we call it ‘Safara Mascara,’” I suggested, only half in jest, “And in return for my brand name rights, you give me shares of 10 per cent? This way, I’ll also be motivated to give my very best.”
On this occasion, Mr Li took it as a very good joke and laughed until he had to wipe his eyes with a serviette, even as Ben Bella, having made his pitch, went off to get himself breakfast.
“A fool and his money are soon parted!” the tycoon said, tapping me on the shoulder, and it was my turn to feel perplexed. Sometimes the context of his sayings made no sense to me.
Once Ben Bella was back at table, Mr Li jumped to his feet, said “Time is money,” and left.
“I guess I am going to be your new boss, ehhh!” the Arab said, and got me annoyed right away.
“I once worked in a manure company, Mr Bella, and your mascara factory sounds like manure.”
