The rotting wooden door violently sprung open, nearly dislodging from its hinges, missing Kabiti’s head by a hair’s breadth. Kabiti let out a loud, terrified scream. Today, he had come home unannounced! Murimi had burst into the small, smoky hut with formidable arrogance, staggering towards her with a thick stick. Nthure and Mugito scampered for safety into a corner as their mother lifted her hand to block the stick from hitting them. Murimi staggered towards the fire. Kabiti steadied back to her feet, touching Murimi in the process.

“Don’t touch me, woman! Why are you still here? I told you to leave my compound along with your brood!” Murimi yelled.

He kicked the clay pot, shattering it and spilling the cooking githeri [1]onto the fire. Smoke and a mixture of water and ashes filled the small hut, suffocating the terrified children. In a fit of rage, he swung his clenched fist towards Kabiti. The children shook with fear, their piercing screams filling the air.

Kinoti entered the main hut; his muscles tightened, and his breathing became uneven. His eyes filled with tears, agitated by the smoke and rage. Kabiti was doing her best to protect the children from his father’s brutality, but she could not match his physical strength.

Today, Kinoti had had enough. He would no longer allow his father to bully his mother. He waded past his terrified sisters and mother to face his father, who was now seething with anger. In a bold move, he wrestled the stick from his hand, realizing that if he let up, it would be the end of his mother, sisters, and finally him. He swung into action with tears in his eyes, teeth clenched, and his body shaking with plain terror, making his every step towards his father stronger than the previous one.

Murimi’s body jerked forward!

“What are you doing, little boy?” he slurred in a drunken stupor, disbelief evident in his eyes.

“You are not going to harm anyone here, Baaba!” he shouted.

“If you touch Mama ever again, I will kill you!”

“What have you just said, little boy?” Murimi asked, his voice now sober and firm.

“You heard me right, Baaba. I said you will not beat anyone here. Not Mama, not my sisters, and not me.”

Murimi’s drunken face darkened. He fixed a fierce gaze on Kabiti, then Kinoti. He lurched forward.

“Is that what your mother has been preparing you for?” he asked.

“This has nothing to do with Mama. I am tired of you terrorizing us. I cannot sit here and see you continue with your cruel act! This stops here and now, Baaba!” Kinoti dared his father.

Murimi’s face lost all expression as he gave Kinoti a blank stare. He bared his teeth as if to say something but stopped midway. His hands trembled as he fixed his eyes on the stick, now in his son’s hands. His breathing was audible as he whizzed. The fermenting smell of beer mixed with the smoke and ash made the terrified mother and her daughters light-headed.

Murimi stepped out of the hut before vomiting on the sunbaked grass. With those few words exchanged, Murimi knew Kinoti had defeated him. This infuriated and shocked him at the same time. He retreated into his room, silently lost in his newly discovered world where his only son defied his authority. A new beginning in which he could no longer do what he wanted.

Murimi sat on the sagging bed, thinking about what had just happened. His whole body trembled with rage and humiliation. His son had just confronted him and protected his mother from his brutality. Murimi had become an enemy of the family, and because of that, he lost his authority. Just then, an idea struck him. He staggered back into the cooking area and faced his son.

“Kinoti, let me tell you something! You are old enough to dare me, right? Then you are too old to live in my compound. I want you out of my compound, now!” he bellowed.

“Listen to me, Baaba. This is not your compound. It is not your land either! It is my grandfather’s land! I have the right to be here just like you do,” Kinoti hissed angrily. 

Kabiti’s heart melted with pride for her son. She now had someone to protect her against the brute, her husband.

“I built the huts you live in. You recalcitrant fool!” Murimi said, his voice sounding lower than usual. 

“You are too old to live with your mother in my hut,” he added, sounding defeated.

Kinoti gave his father a fierce glance before responding.

“Nothing stops me from building my hut on my grandfather’s land! Not even you, Baaba.”

Murimi sighed, clicked his tongue in disgust, and retreated to his hut for the second time that evening.

It was now evident to Kinoti that he had defeated his father. The encounter changed him, too. He was proud of having subjugated him. He had yearned for this moment when he’d be old enough to protect his mother all his life. That was accomplished, and he felt the future held promise for all of them. 

While one problem had been resolved, Kinoti was consumed by a new obsession. Murimi had never been a provider; instead, he disrupted the peace within their homestead. He turned his home into the definition of poverty and his character into the definition of cruelty. Kinoti resolved that he would protect his mother and sisters and do everything to help them earn their livelihood.

The broken pot and its meagre contents taunted the hungry family, crushing their hopes for a decent meal for the day. The eight-year-old Nthure cried from the terror and hunger pangs.

With tears in her eyes, Kabiti stared at the broken pot. Deep inside her, she felt just as broken as the pot. This had been a good day in the Murimi household when the family was assured of one good meal. It had cost her a day’s work at the Gitonga household to come up with the meal. She had bought the maize from the market, while the beans were saved from a donation by the local church. The githeri stared back at her half-cooked and mixed with charcoal and ashes. The once blue and yellow frames of the fire had been replaced by smoking, darkened wood, and struggling embers lumped together with the contents of the broken pot. She felt a burning hatred for her husband, who seemed to take pleasure in sabotaging her efforts to feed their children even as he demanded food he did not provide.

Kabiti salvaged the half-cooked githeri into another pot. Unlike other days, today, she was proud of Kinoti. In him, she saw her only hope for a peaceful future. Her thought was interrupted by Mugito’s snoring. In the scuffle that had ensured, Kabiti had forgotten about the presence of her youngest daughter at the corner of the hut. Mugito was asleep on an empty stomach.

“Poor child,” Kabiti sobbed,

“This is not a life for any child.”

She turned to her elder daughter.

“Nthure, get some water. Your sister is already asleep. To finish cooking, we must wash the maize and beans and put a fresh pot onto the fire.”

Nthure brought some water and poured it into another pot. She admired her mother as she put the maize and beans into the pot and expertly removed the floating charcoal from the pot. Kabiti piled dry leaves between the three cooking stones, carefully arranging the smoking wood in a pattern above them. The fire ignited with a burst of smoke. Nthure added more dry leaves, watching as they smoked, turned black, blazed, and finally dissipated into wisps of white ash.

“Nthure, stop wasting dry leaves. We will need them in the morning,” Kabiti ordered.

As Kinoti sat outside the kitchen, his imagination soaring and his body trembling with fury. He watched the evening fade into a night, obscured by clouds that blocked even a sliver of moonlight. A goat bleated, and a dog barked somewhere outside the compound. Kinoti sat at the spot long, waiting for his emotions to subside. The pangs of hunger he had felt before the encounter with his father had vanished, replaced by a tight, painful knot at the pit of his stomach. The earlier excitement of a meal had also evaporated.

Fearing his father’s wrath, he picked up his sleeping mat and left his mother’s hut. With no other option, he headed for his father’s goat shed. He snuggled between the smelly animals for warmth as he lay face up in the blackened night. The more he thought about the scuffle with his father, the stronger his resolve to protect himself and the family burned inside him. He took the warning to move out of his mother’s hut seriously. It did not come to him as a surprise. Murimi had been dropping hints that it was time for him to live on his own. Kinoti, particularly, hated the way he called him “little boy.” Why did he have to contradict himself by calling him a “little boy” and, in the same breath, telling him to build his hut? Did little boys do that? How was he going to build his hut? The weight of responsibility weighed heavily on him. He worked tirelessly alongside his mother during the evenings and weekends, laboring on Gitonga’s farm. Even during his lunch breaks in the coffee harvest season, he would lend a hand, carrying heavy bags of coffee to the factory. Despite his efforts, the meager income barely dented the seemingly bottomless pit of the Murimi household’s expenses. Desperate for a solution allowing him to continue his education and ensure his family’s well-being, he devised a plan. He needed a space where he could find peace and freedom. The idea of building a hut sparked a glimmer of hope within him.

[1] A mix of cooked maize and beans.