Safara's new friend quickly assumes roommate status

With the ‘Makaburi’ deal in the bag, and the 140 K in the bank – or rather on my Mpesa (something I would come to rue, as you will see in a few), I as a hustler could now afford to relax at the hotel last weekend and smack my lips at the deal. Noni Mbuguas had also organised an ‘Anti-Gender Based Violence’ show at the Saffron place that was both live and educational.

Which was where I met Fatma, one of the partners of the anti ‘GBV’ event, and we hit it off like gangbusters and spent most of the evening chatting animatedly about everything, including the Gachagua impeachment.

Fatma was beat by 10pm, but it was a long time since I had felt like I had an ‘elephant in my telephone’, so I was happy to hit the night clubs of Malindi.

My last memory of that Saturday night was sitting at a table with three young women, then waking up on Sunday afternoon alone in my room, and very famished. Luckily, though it was just past 2pm, I still found the last of the buffet lunch, but it was too late to get the shuttle to catch the 3pm SGR train back to Nairobi.

I had to pay not only another 10,000 bob for an extra night at the hotel, but another Sh9,200 for an air ticket as I had to be in Nairobi for a meeting with yet another client whom Noni said she would ‘reveal’ later to me.

Monday morning at the MIA (Malindi Airport) and who do I run into in the waiting area? Fatma Nunez, who still managed to look fabulous in a business suit and hijab, as opposed to the dera she had worn at the anti-GBV event on Sato. What was more, we actually had seats next to each other on the plane.

“I think the gods are trying to match us up, Fatma. Whaddya say?” She gave a nervous laugh, like a school girl, and evaded the question.

“I think you are trying to distract me from my mission, Mr Safara…”

“You are very distracting yourself, Madam Fatma. Maybe you are my mission?”

Cheesy, I know, but I can tell you the 45 minutes we spent flirting on that aircraft felt like less than five minutes.

We land at Wilson, and I ask Ms Nunez if she wishes to split the fare to wherever she was going, and she smiles and says “The Popo Suites. I am meeting a client there.”

I look at Noni’s text that has just come in, now that I am off ‘Airplane’ mode, and would you believe it, the client I am to meet is also at The Popo Suites.

“What do you think our Nons is playing at?” I asked Fatma Nunez, who called Nons, who just said we both ought to go the Popo Suites, and she’d explain more.

We got there, a nice deserted rooftop with a big screen on, soft music, sunshine and potted plants, very odd and magical for a Monday afternoon. And that’s when Ms Mbuguas dropped the bombshell.

“Fatma has fallen in love with Malindi and wants to get her rich importer-exporter hubby, Mr Mahmoud, to buy a place here. You are great at talking to clients, I have seen. Let her give you the brief, see if you can convince him, man to man. She is worried he may not lend her the ear this deal deserves.”

In fact Fatma had an earful to give about Mr Mahmoud, who I gathered was also a bit old-fashioned when it came to consulting with a woman on future plans.

“He let me work in real estate only after I threatened suicide,” she said, and the crazy thing was I could not tell if she was kidding. “And then he is always in Dubai.”

I gathered he was in Dubai because the missus literally let her hair loose, and knocked back those Popo cocktails, as I let loose on the hot shots of Tanqueray.

Yes, it was a Monday afternoon, but we hustlers are not your regular nine-to-fivers! I paid the bill, and we shared the back seat of the taxi with Ms Fatma Nunez.

Outside her apartment block in a fancy street of town (I’d later realise her hubby, who was my new Malindi mission, owned the 16 apartments there, as well as three other wives in other residences he owned), we had a moment.

I leaned in to kiss her cheek, she leaned one way to give me a cheek, and like an accident between scooters, our lips brushed. Neither one of us noticed the other cab behind us, even as we laughed awkwardly and said our hurried goodbyes.

Only after I had paid the cab, having also paid for our Popo drinks, did it hit me how much I had spent these last three days – hotel 20K, airfare almost 10K, Sato night clubbing 10K, drinks and cabs today Sh11,200, and once I paid my 30K rent? I would be left with just 60K from the 140K I had had on Friday. My mood immediately spiraled, and feeling the spirit sap from my soul, this hustler went straight to bed.

I was awoken by the loud buzzing of the doorbell. In my boxers, I went to the door: “Who is it?”

“Ni Fatma Nunez.” I opened and there she was, two fresh black eyes peering back at me.

“He saw us embrace and also smelled the alcohol in my breath,” she said. “So he trashed me, then left for one of his other wives.” Earlier, I had learned Fatma was wife number four, two years in matrimony, no children yet.

“I have moved out,” she said, and even as I saw the property deal with her hubby evaporate in a cloud, I also noticed the huge suitcase situated near my door frame.

“I can live without him, not that he’s ever there. Even when he is, he is on the phone all the time, making deals. He never talks to me.” 

“But where will you stay?” 

Ms Nunez looked at me like I’m crazy. “Right here with you, Safara. Si you are a bachelor? I will live with you as we figure life out.”