Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) (26 page)

It was long after midnight when I made my way to my house. It had been a nice evening, had met many people; men and women I’d not have thought I’ll ever be near to in my lifetime.

I was feeling a little tired, worn out and drained, and one thing that I madly needed was not some brandy or vodka. I’d had enough during the dinner. Anyone who could give me plenty of fresh air I could wash their feet. That’s what I needed.

I went upstairs and instead of going to the bedroom to succumb to slumber-bog, I threw off the dinner jacket and loosened the tie and went to the terrace.

The terrace was spacious, overlooked the lido and the flower gardens and the impeccably mown leas that surrounded Shalom’s estate.

At that very moment, a strange kind of feeling engulfed me. I felt as though I was beginning to enjoy the little liberties that life was offering me, thanks to Hanan and his family.

The night was dark, cloudless and starry. The cool breeze of the night carried all my worries with it to wherever they were stowed away. Numerous constellations in the cloudless azure night sky twinkled just for me; meteors lit and shot occasionally across the sky. In the eerie darkness of the Tel Aviv night my fret and vexation seemed to vanish in to the darkness in invisible dark sinuous smoke strings.

I thought of nature. Nature sucks, nature is unfathomable. Any single star and constellation I looked at seemed to communicate some strange message, not to me only but to the whole world. If only we could take time and listen. I marvelled at its existence, not the magnificence of the Milky Way staring at me at this hour of the night – God’s wonderful work summarized in a teeny-looking thick drapery of dust and stars hanging above me and never falling.

I was in some kind of a weird and wonderful state, my mind wandering in God’s wonderland. I started to pace the loggia. I went to the balustrade overlooking the gardenias and frangipani; and the aroma of the frangipani filled my nose.

It was a sweet night. I liked it. Despite all my worries I felt free of everything, free of any responsibility. I was alone.

And I liked it, being alone.

They were being followed.

The sleek Mercedes Benz S350 Aut drove smoothly on the Ayalon Highway slickly. The driver noticed the crème BMW that had been following them since they left the Shalom Ben Zeev’s residence in the rear view mirror. The BMW accelerated and indicated that it was going to overtake. The driver gave the BMW’s driver hands-up signal that he could overtake, but as it inched past the Merc it slowed down.

Even in the dark cloudless night the black cold steel being pushed out of the tinted windows of the BMW could not be mistaken for a cigar butt. Shamir did not even cringe. He knew better than that. The Merc was bullet proof. The tubeless tyres could go up to one hundred kilometres on being punctured, and his car had been spiced up and fitted with automated hydraulics and duly upgraded engine with a maximum speed of 480kph. There was no way the BMW could keep up with the Merc. It was one of the privileges of being in the police.

Shamir Ben Shalom was one of the youngest Nitzav Mishnehs (Commanders) in the Mishteret Yisrael (Israeli Police), not because of his father’s influence, but because of his dedication to the job, a kind of rare devotion that was not in his peers.

Upon graduation from the police training college he was posted to MAGAV, the Border Police, where he did all he could in the West Bank region and the rural countryside. In his early years as an officer he trained on special operations, anti-terrorism and counter terrorism, intelligence and espionage, and explosives and dirty bomb technology. Moreover, he was a professional sniper, the best the Mishteret Yisrael had ever had, and will ever have.

He served in the Yamam, the elite Special Police Unit for counter terror hostage rescue, one of the most experienced and specialized in the world. He took part in hundreds of operations and clandestine missions both in and outside the borders of Israel. While in the Yamam, he combated the Palestinian terrorist groups Hamas and Fatah’s Tanzim whose terrorist activities included kidnapping of police officers and other government officials.

Al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups, Hamas and Fatah’s Tanzim, launched war against Shamir the dragon slayer. He was on a mission in Somalia to assassinate Noor Ahmed Gabow, Al-Shabab terrorist group leader in Somalia that’s directly linked to Hamas when the call had come. He aborted his mission on orders thus Ahmed Gabow had another day in paradise.

It did not come as a surprise when his senior officer, Sgan Nitzav Yehuda Shlomo, told him that he had been transferred to the headquarters of Mishteret Yisrael in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Jerusalem.

Taking up his new posting a week later, he was promoted to Sgan Nitzak – Chief Superintendent. He was barely ten years in the service when he was promoted to Nitzak Mishnehs, and Tat Nitzav (Brigadier General) was in the offing. His ceiling was to be Rav Nitzav (Commissioner), and then make his entry into politics and pick up from where his father had left. At least that’s what he had planned and his route for life was set and his feet were firmly set upon it.

But it was not going to be that easy with some people having some scores to settle with him. As his Merc, his official chauffeur driven car, sped off he knew that he would deal with those troubling him within no time. He was the dragon slayer after all. Nevertheless, he had to be careful. He had seen the heinous murders committed by the terrorists and could not imagine him being a victim, or anyone close and dear to him.

But first things first.

He reached for his petrified Vietnamese wife and inveigled her. She always panicked when faced with the tumult of the monstrous face of danger.

It was exactly one year since Kennedy Maina had left Kenya. He was now part of the Shalom Ben Zeev’s family, a former prominent Israeli politician. He was eight months in the family, being treated like one of them, as a son, as a brother. But to Kennedy, his brother was long dead and gone, and his sisters were many miles away.

Kennedy was having a deadly schoolboy crush on Shirli, his host’s triplet daughter, a Zion of a beauty. She drove him crazy from the he first day he saw her at the Aleana Holdings shopping mall, her father’s business, where he was the manager, courtesy of her brother, Hanan.

But he was in dilemma – to make or not to make the move. It would be a terrible mistake, he thought, and no doubt nobody would welcome it. To start dating his host’s daughters or sisters would be a terrible mistake. They respected him, and he was not the type of men who ate the yoke of the egg and hit their host with the empty of the shell, but there were matters of the heart for which such impediments were futile.

Love, the emotion of fervent joy yet great sorrow, was what was churning in Kennedy’s insides.

He was in love, yes, naturally.

He was in love with Shirli.

Trust!

I knew it was insidiously destructive for the Shaloms to trust me. I had laid down the foundation, showed them that I could be trusted with virtually everything, and they seemed to open themselves up to me, even took the bold step to put their lives in my hands in some way. It came a point I could be trusted with the deepest of their secrets and life, and I was expected to be some kind of a guardian of the little truths and secrets told to me. The bond that existed between us was like a labyrinth. It created a chain that could never be broken, and it became a vortex sucking each of us to the eye of the storm. .

I dreaded the devastation that was to follow when I broke and lost that trust. The hurt inflicted, the damage, the desolation, the wreck – it would happen within. Things would change completely, never to be the same again. The mind would be affected, the psyche, and most grievous of all, the heart. My friendship with them would die a natural death and be buried in the deepest graves, the whole poetry of it all haunting either of us. Our experiences and memories of the time we’d have spent in entirety together would become whistles of reminiscences half heard in the blackness of the night.

I did not want to lose the trust I had built for myself with the Shaloms, but still there was this feeling, desire, within me. Unless the desire, the feeling, was satisfied, I couldn’t rest. I craved what I couldn’t get yet tried to get despite the odds.

I was in love, head over heels, heading for the hill, in LOVE again. The girl was none other than Shirli. Holy-dooly! I loved her from the first day I saw her and I vowed not to rest till her heart whooped for me. It took five months of trying to win her over before she accepted.

Nonetheless, there was a problem. Shifra was more attracted to me and she did not fail to show it, and many times she asked me out when I was free. I would pick her at her work place or at the University and go to places she wanted us to go, but honest to God, she never violated my airspace to be picked by my romantic radar. All along I wanted Shirli.

Meira was a sweet girl, but aloof and distant. I never even felt the remotest feelings for her. They were my sisters, right? However, for Shirli I could slap the devil a good one, if not sell part of my soul to the devil, for some old fashioned incest. You can’t help whom you fall in love with, even if they are denied to you by consanguinity – so long as everything is consensual.

Shifra liked the jolly side of life, holidaying and partying, and I did my best to ward her off many times from taking me to clubs as late as 10:00p.m. on weekdays. She liked going mostly to small neighbourhood bars for a cool fun night out in a chic area in Tel Aviv that appealed to the artsy and indie crowd like  Florentin and Haoman 17 (Florentin quarter); and she was an excellent dancer.

Shirli on the other hand was not too much into life like her sister despite being in the same University where she could influence her. She liked to live life as it was since she won’t live that long to a hundred years. Clubbing and night partying was not part of Shirli, and she made sure that she was always safe in her house before dark.

Meira was just there, floating in the flotsam of whatever went down the drain. She had to be pushed to do anything, but when she took the bold step she would overdo.

The good news was that at last Shirli gave me a chance, but under one condition – not to trifle with it, it was too dangerous even to think of trying. Moreover, I should take one step at a time for if I made a mistake I’d lose everything just like that (she made a snapping of the fingers to show how I’d lose it). I was not going to let anything come in between me and her. Nothing.

My Shirli... my song.

5
th
October,

Tel Aviv, Israel.

She was dressed in a wishy-washy frilled fine satin dress and stilettos, her long tar black hair pulled into a wind-snared curls-gone-to-frizz ponytail, devoid of makeup but glowing with splendour.

After a ten minute drive, her McLaren F7 Cabriolet pulled up at the Hayarkon Park, the Israel’s Central Park according to my gal. We were to have a “Green Day”.

As though the weather was of the idea that we should really have some time alone and get to know each other, it was fine and cool. We had full-fledged picnic packs and starting our day out at the west of the park we bumped into families sitting on the green grass enjoying whatever Hayarkon Park could offer. Youngsters, joggers, lovers, and all sorts of people were there. I had worked half day and decided to have the afternoon off, and I could see my skiving job was worth. It didn’t matter I was stealing (time) from my employer.

We walked in the park holding hands, laughing and joking through the trees with Shirli telling me the names of the birds we saw. She loved bird watching, and she knew many birds by name, appearance and chirp.

Shirli remarked that she wanted a secluded place away from the busy park full of people and she had a place in mind. She led to what she called the Rock Garden, an enclosed ornamental garden full of cacti, what looked like an olive grove with a shallow pond straight out of a historical movie set, a single thick clump of bushes, small patches of grass, and several prominent designs using monoliths – one of which looked surprisingly like a small out-of-place Stonehenge. We were the only people inside the Rock Garden much the way I preferred it to be and there were a surprisingly large number of birds hiding out here. I loved the sweet orchestras provided by nature.

We talked of virtually everything as we enjoyed the Bohemian ‘Puah’ delicacies as time passed by as though it was being chased by some ghoulish time phantoms to elapse so fast that we won’t have much time with each other. By evening we had covered all imaginable topics we could think of, her wanting to know more about my home and Africa – a generalized side of colloquy that I did not like – I asking more about her, her likes and dislikes, preferences, believes and inclinations towards life, what I had not yet pried off her so far.

“What else would you like to know about me, Sweet Ken?” she asked when I seemed as though I had run dry of what to ask about her.

“What’s the rest of you is like?”

“Meaning?”

“Anything else you think I should know, Shirli.”

“I’m tired of interrogations, Ken, remember, you’ve not yet earned my approval. You’re still under scrutiny, Best Friend.”

Now that’s not good.

“I don’t think interrogation is the right word... it’s more of an operative word.”

“And what’s the right word, Englishman?”

Oh boy! She has a PhD in sarcasm.

“Inquisitive might do... are you not actually ready for this? I mean... you always talk of ‘you Kenyans’ or ‘you Africans.’ Don’t I strike you as somebody you should know better? Come on, Shirli,” I said.

The last traces of light were fading and dusk was approaching. We saw a number of parrots flying around as we left the park. I didn’t look too closely but while the majority seemed to be Ring-necked Parakeets, I did also see three Monk Parakeets and a couple of Lovebirds, and an old couple was leaving the park the same time with us. When they saw us they smiled. They looked perfect for each other, brother and sister, as though they were sculpted for each other.

Over dinner I couldn’t get my eyes off Shirli, and in a strange convoluted way I thought of her sitting at my dining table at my Thika home. Wonderful but probably impossible. I shot her furtive glances and winks and she would smile at me as though she was smiling at one of Hanan’s jokes. Only
us
knew what was going on between us.

I saw some pieces of bread chunks on Shifra’s chin, who was sitting next to me, and said, “You’ve got some on your chin. Do you want me to wipe it for you?”

Although it was a whisper, Shirli gave me a glance that made me regret why I had said it. I am sure Shifra intercepted the signal because she said pronto, “I can wipe my own chin,” reaching for her serviette on the table.

Meira and Shirli excused themselves after supper while the rest of us stayed for some more causerie drinking coffee. An hour later I scampered to my house, not to sleep, but to swim. I needed it.

The house was dark, save for the lights that went on and off automatically, a strategy to make it appear that there was somebody even when deserted. On entering, the lights went on instantly bringing the whole place to life. I changed to swimming gear and went to the lido at the back of the house.

Something got my eye as I walked to the pool. A modest navy blue bikini and an empty wineglass were on the low back sun bathing seat. I was sure somebody had been there, or was there. And if somebody had been there, how could she leave her bikinis behind? I regarded them and dove in to the heated pool.

As I swam I saw a lump of something at the bottom of the pool. I wondered what it was since it was not moving and, before I could decide what to do, the thing rose up and started towards me. I was petrified and I decided to swim to the shallow end of the pool and get out and check what it was.

Before reaching the ladder my leg was gripped by something soft, as though it was a giant star fish reaching up to me with its tentacles, and before I could fight for my life the attacking water creature surfaced. Good Heavens! It was Shirli.
Thank God.
I was as shocked as I was relieved?

The bikinis were hers. She had nothing on. Completely nothing.

“What a coincidence, Ken?”

“Coincidence is an operative word…”

“To hell with your operative words.”

“I never expected to find
anyone
here, even you.”

“So, you tell me that I can’t use anything in this...”

“That’s not what I meant, Shirli. What’s wrong with your bikinis?”

“Stop bickering and join me for a swim. For bikinis, I don’t like them.” She splashed the warm water onto my face playfully and swam to the deeper end. I joined her.

A quarter an hour later she climbed up the ladder and got out of the pool. I followed her. She had the most beautiful body I had ever seen. I tried as much as I could not to give in to what I was feeling but the devil won.

I took her in my arms disguising my intention to hold her in the act of drying her. I just wanted to feel that body of hers against mine. I tried to turn the drying to fondling and to my consternation she did not resist. I felt her tremble and I followed suit. I did not know whether it was from yearning or cold. I searched for her mouth and to my relieve she responded. Lord, all her fortresses tumbled down so easily, much easier than I had anticipated.

The kiss was measured, yet prompt; needing yet wanting, fearful yet bold. When at last she pushed me away, tenderly, I could feel the reproach all over. I knew I had lost it,
just like that
.

She shimmied on her bikinis and started towards the house. I prayed to God she was not doing what I was thinking.

Cor blimey! She was doing it. She was going to my house.

We started kissing again the minute we entered the house. I felt her sigh and lean her head against my neck. She trembled again and her legs parted slowly against mine as we kissed again. I felt she was aware of herself as I was of myself. I felt myself tumescent and grow hard against her stomach. A craving for what I had not had for over a year now almost electrocuted me. It was as though it was electricity passing through me. I carried her to the bedroom as though she were a two-year-old toddler. The queen size canopied bed took her without complain. I scraped off the wet bikinis and got away with my briefs at the same time. No foreplay, no silly games. It was straight to congress.

I was on top of her. She was the finest satin sheet I had ever lied upon. I felt her legs part slowly and I knew that she was already ready for our first time together. I directed myself into her. Her orifice of pleasure was so tight that I rained salt to pass through. She swung her hips, arched her back up, opened her legs wider and at last I broke the barricade to her womanhood. I felt the dam burst from me inside her and I knew I was done. At last.

Next time it’d be easier.