Photo by Nsey Benajah
Her blood boiled. Everything else was cold. The kitchen floor she sat on, the two walls that cornered her shaking body and the blood that trickled down her chin. She could feel her lower lip pulsating in rhythm with her racing heart. Next came the pain, it stung. It was like the nerves cabling along her lip, like spaghetti, were being twisted around a fork and tugged on repeatedly.
In her mind, she was frantically computing everything that had just happen, it made no sense….he was such a nice guy, with a good job. She labored trying to reconcile what she was going through physically, and the cocktail of emotions she was feeling. There’s no way this had just happened.
She sat there, folded like a broken beach chair, and he stood there with his chest puffed out, heaving violently. He held her phone tight in his right hand, so tight the screen was flickering. He let out as much frustration on the phone as he’d done on it’s owner. These days, a phone, and it’s contents are an extension of it’s owner. Phones have intentions, good and bad. They digitally process and record feelings and they communicate the same back publicly and privately, both in picture and prose.
He took a moment to groom himself, by wiping the blood off his own brow and reaching for a kitchen towel. He’d just bitten off her lip, but the nonchalance with which he wiped his own frightened her even more. It was as though he’d just taken a bite from a messy burger. And it didn’t look like it was his first time.
He read the instigating message off her phone again. The message read ‘How are the kids?’.
He tried to convince himself that the punishment fit the crime. It didn’t. He knew that. But for a man and his household, societal norms are abnormal. In his home, he rules and now she knew better and that was the end of that. He’d bought himself peace of mind knowing that she’d never ever think to text her husband again. Not only did she now know what not to do, but he’d disfigured her permanently enough that even if she did, no man, even the father of her children would fancy her.
But he loved her, he did all this because he loved her. He hated seeing her in pain so he insisted on taking her to hospital. After all, a man takes care of what is his. He peeled her of the floor, not without resistance, and led her to his car in the basement parking. It was a black harrier, straight from the car wash. It’s wheels had the sheen of a primary school students’ forehead on a Monday morning, and the interior had that nauseating sticky confectionery smell. He always took his car to the car wash on Sunday. He liked it because he could do everything from getting his car seats vacuumed to having his appendix removed as he cut his hair at the pharmacy. Nairobi; so charming.
Nairobi was damp and dusky by the time they got to the hospital. I was on my way out to go have a life, but as often happens in this line of work, I was reminded that my life and work are spelled the exact same way. He was by no means a confrontational looking guy, or a meek one for that matter. His aura neither imposing nor impotent. Just a regular guy I thought. He was a little over 5'7" and no more than 60kg. Skinny, he looked like guy that sets up the projector in every office and updates software. He pouted and paced a lot, and never stuck around for more than 2 minutes at a time. It’s almost like he intentionally didn’t want to be remembered. When I walked in, he walked out, no eye contact. His name was Gordon, her boyfriend…a nice guy, with a good job.
She’d married young and for the wrong reasons, she’d thought she would find salvation and self discovery in marriage but all she found was darkness; a cold pitch black room. She’d groped around her marriage for love, affirmation, purpose and belonging, but constantly stubbed her toe on self doubt, confusion and unreasonable expectation. She thought their first child would bring light, it didn’t, and the second only made a bad situation unbearable. After 5 years of marital toil, she left. They’d fixed a lot, but eventually fatigued. The separation was amicable.
She met Gordon, a few years later, at a wedding. He was nice, good at the basics of dating, and consistently delivered on the bear minimums. He shaved every week, and called his mum every other day. He didn’t care too much for religion and she was good with that. ‘It’s hard enough having a man faithful to one thing, imagine two?’ she said sarcastically as I cleaned her lip to get a better look at how deep the bite was.
Gordon was a jealous man. Possession and ownership was his piece of mind. He didn’t like her talking to her ex-husband at all, and he’d been very clear about this. She would have to communicate through the nanny whenever her ex-husband had the kids for the weekend. But this particular day, the nanny was unreachable, so she reached out to him directly. She never thought her maternal instinct would end in her being mauled. When he saw the message, it threw him into a silent rage. He interpreted the message as her leaving him to get back with her ex. He looked calm on the outside, so when he leaned in to kiss her, she thought nothing of it. He latched on to her lower lip and ripped it. The nice guy, with a good job.
Some science; The lip serves a very important role in facial aesthetics and function. Aesthetically, a small discrepancy from a neglected lip wound can be unsightly at conversational distance, especially when the fine anatomical lines that define the lip aren’t expertly aligned. The scarring isn’t flattering either. Getting this just right requires a deep appreciation for facial aesthetics as well as the right hardware to get the job done. Functionally, the lip helps with creating very distinct sounds used in everyday speech as well as maintaining oral continence, which ensures we aren’t sloppy kissers or drooling eaters.
She looked at her lip again through her front facing camera, and cried. She kept on asking if she’d look the same after surgery, a promise that’s impossible to keep…cautious optimism as always. I wrote my pre-operative instructions in the file and handed over to the team preparing her for surgery as I stepped out to grab a quick espresso from the restaurant just outside the hospital.
As I walked out, I saw Gordon in the waiting area. He’d folded the hospital receipts in his ashy hands like a University Graduate. He saw me walk by and pumped his fist up in the air in my direction, crumpling the receipts as he did, signalling to me that he’d done his bit by paying the deposit for her admission. He looked proud. He’d been joined by four other men, wearing different iterations of puff jackets and golf caps , sporting brilliant white sneakers holding car keys and large phones in their hands. They’d come to help. Help who? I’m not quite sure. But they all seemed to be nice guys, with good jobs.
They beat stories and took turns punching Gordon’s skinny upper arm with every punchline they made. Their conversation appeared light.
The bar can be frighteningly low when it comes to men holding other men accountable. Venture into their circles of micro-influence and interrogate them, it’s glaring. Do we hate each other so much that we tip-toe around the things that bring us to ruin? How can we be such tough talkers, but constantly have such weak conversations? I’m not quite sure if it’s a primal instinct or a function of nurture ‘that men stay out of other men’s business’. An alternative opinion is that men, especially in public and on social media, stay clear of calling out men, because they would, in all likelihood be outing themselves for a similar offence. It’s almost as if, our track record of treating women badly reads similar.
Photo by Mwangi Gatheca
When matters of gender based violence and sexual assault are up for conversation, the deep voices get eerily quiet. Some men’s approach is to listen and learn. They do this because they genuinely want to understand the depth of the issues, so they park everything they think they knew and just listen. Some have been cowered into silence because, as the more likely aggressor by association, it’s been drilled into you that this isn’t a topic where your opinion matters. Others simply don’t care and a fair few have been guilty of the exact same crime.
She made an excellent recovery, at least aesthetically. Her follow up clinic visits were erratic because Gordon would withdraw her health insurance whenever she fell out of line.
Everybody’s a nice guy, until they’re not.
The Government in partnership with non-state actors is supporting various toll free help lines to respond to and ensure appropriate referrals for survivors/victims of GBV. These are;
The National GBV helpline: 1195,
Police helpline 999/112,
Childline Kenya helpline 116,
Comments