MANTALK: Does love ever stop hurting?

I share an office with a gentleman called Fred. He’s a gentleman in the true sense of the word. Mild mannered and soft spoken. (Although there are men who are soft spoken but are not gentlemen.)

Our office sits on the very top floor, with 90-degree views of the Southern Bypass and Ngong’ Hills beyond.

I normally come in early, before everyone else, when it’s quiet and the millennials haven’t arrived with their brouhaha because they prefer to work late. Strange people, these.

A few Mondays ago Fred walked in and we pumped fists in greetings and he sat at his desk. He looked a bit pensive but then I didn’t think much of it because he’s married.

When you are married you never know how your mood might be altered in the morning. It’s a wait-and-see game. I was busy autographing my books, writing corny things and feeling might proud of myself.

You know how when you get in bed with your wife and she keeps tossing and turning and sighing and you don’t want to ask what’s wrong because what’s wrong could most likely be you and if you ask, that conversation might run for hours and end up with your being the accused?

HOW IT FELT

That’s how it felt, watching Fred from the corner of my eye, looking into the Ngong’ Hills, sighing and leaning back loudly in his chair. Something was eating him.

I didn’t ask because when you are 40 you know which horses to saddle. I wasn’t about to be the one to bell this cat. This is because Fred and I don’t share a lot of private stuff.

We work then we go home. Yes, we’ll laugh and banter and share our meals. (Talking of which, do you know how I know all is well in his household? When he comes to work carrying freshly baked pastries and freshly squeezed juice and home cooked packed meals. Since he’s a terrible eater, guess who always ends up eating these nice things? So in essence I stand to gain a lot if Fred’s marriage is stable and happy.

Sometimes when he’s not brought these things in a while I will tell him, “Fred, whatever it is you are doing? Just make sure that Mama Zenani is happy. Because, bwana, it’s been a while since she baked.”)

Anyway, after an hour, Fred turns to me and says, “This love thing is complicated, right?” I look up slowly from my laptop and say cautiously, “Ye-ah. Love is a Rubik’s cube. What’s up?”

Then he tells me that he was in shags over the weekend where he saw the body of one of his uncles. He had killed himself. A man who had everything to live for, killed himself over a woman. (Not that it’s right to kill yourself over debts, either.) He tells me the story of this man:

He met a girl when she was in primary school and told her, one day I will marry you. Then he waited until the lady was in high school before starting to date her. He paid for her secondary education, paid for her college until she got a job. Then he married her. They got kids. Then she started being funny. He discovered that she had met someone else. She wasn’t keen to be with him anymore. She had grown wings and wanted to fly further away from the life she knew; she wanted to be in the city, pursue a different life, with perhaps someone else, feel something else. Can you blame her, I asked Fred? Can you blame her for wanting to see more? She doesn’t know anything else but this man, and the life in the village, and suddenly there is an opportunity! Do you know how crazy that is? Fred was like, “But come on, this is someone who schooled you from high school! Made you who you are. Don’t you owe him loyalty?” I shrugged.

ALCOHOLISM

Anyway, the man plunged in alcoholism then one day, drunk pesticide and set his house as he fell to the floor unconscious. He died in hospital. “He died a very sad man,” Fred said. “Nobody should die that sad.” I’d never seen Fred that pensive. I kept quiet. I went back to writing.

He sat there, obviously deep in thought. After an hour I turned to him and asked him, “What is it that pains you about this story? That he paid for her future and then she rejected him or that because he died sad?” He said, “My uncle was already in his 50s. For him to kill himself over her it meant that he loved her. It makes me scared because I thought when you grow older love doesn’t have that much power over you.”

I thought about it. Does it mean that at age 70 you are less susceptible to love as a man? Do you become immune to love? I don’t know. Maybe the 60-year-olds can tell us if they still fall in love with a woman so much that they can sell their land, send them love notes and even want to hold their hands on the beach.

That’s what Fred is wondering. It seems to fill him with apprehension. And I empathise with him. I hope his uncle’s soul rests in peace. I hope the wife finds peace with his death. I hope Fred’s wife starts baking those banana cakes again.