The Torn Curtain

THE TORN CURTAIN
The Trans-Africa Highway never truly slept. Day and night, endless convoys of container trucks, fuel tankers, buses, and trailers thundered across the vast ribbon of tarmac, carrying goods from one end of the continent to the other. Along its busy trading centres sprang up roadside bars, lodges, and eateries. While many honest people earned a living there, the highway had also become a hunting ground for predators who fed on the dreams and desperation of vulnerable young girls.
Kivuva village, twenty kilometres from Kimbusya Town, sixteen-year-old Kalee had abandoned school while in Form Three. Her mother, Muthike, had pleaded with her countless times to return to class, reminding her that education was a bridge to a better future. But Kalee had become intoxicated by the glitter of quick money. Social media influencers, expensive wigs, designer handbags, fashionable clothes, and luxurious lifestyles convinced her that success could be bought overnight.
Soon she was spending most of her time around the highway, entertaining truck drivers and other strangers for money. Every warning from her mother sounded old-fashioned. Every tear her mother shed seemed meaningless to her.
Then came the longest night of Muthike's life.
At exactly nine o'clock that evening, Muthike's phone rang. "Mum..." The voice on the other end trembled. "Please... come for me... I'm at Kimbusya."
"Kalee? What has happened?"
There was silence, broken only by muffled sobs.
"I can't explain over the phone... Please... just come." The call ended.
Muthike stood frozen, her heart pounding. Something terrible had happened.
Without wasting another minute, she telephoned her elder brother, Yiungui.
"My daughter needs us," she said. "I fear she is in great trouble. So please come so that you and Mathee can accompany me to see what has befallen her."
Within minutes, the three were travelling through the dark highway towards Kimbusya, praying silently as trailers roared past them into the African night. The endless strings of questions that went through the trio's minds made the one - hour journey feel like a fortnight's odyssey.
All in all, they were at the modest roadside lodge, as Kalee had directed them and an elderly woman received and led them to the room where Kalee was.
They found her sitting alone on the edge of a bed with a mixture of hopelessness, helplessness and pity boldly registered on her tender face.
Her clothes looked untidy, her face was swollen and her eyes were red from crying. She stared blankly at the wall as though her mind had travelled somewhere far beyond the room. The confident, stubborn girl they had known had in a couple of hours vanished.
The moment she saw her mother, Kalee collapsed on her knees and tightly held her mother's legs into her arms.
"Mum... forgive me... Please forgive me..." She cried until words failed her.
When she finally gathered enough courage to speak, she told them everything.
Earlier that fateful afternoon she had been picked up by one of the many truck drivers she frequently met along the highway. After spending time together inside the truck's sleeper cabin, he had dropped her at Ng'oi Town and handed her KES 1,000. She had decided to return home.
Standing beside the highway, she unsuccessfully tried to stop another truck heading in her direction.Then a friendly boda boda rider approached.
"You are far too beautiful to be standing here alone," he smiled warmly. "No truck will stop here. Let me take you somewhere ahead where you can easily find transport. I won't charge you anything." Flattered and eager to get home, Kalee accepted. The motorcycle left the highway and turned into a lonely road lined with thick trees.
Within moments another heavily built man emerged and before Kalee could think of escaping, she realized she was trapped between the two men in the isolated area. Terrified for her safety, she feared that resisting might cost her life. The men assaulted her, ignored her distress, and afterwards tossed KES 300 at her as though her dignity was worth less than a meal.
When they finally returned her to the highway, they sped away laughing. Shaken, frightened and emotionally numb, Kalee barely understood where she was.
Almost immediately, a sleek limousine screeched to a halt beside her. Without thinking clearly, she boarded.
At this point, she struggled to describe what ensued. "It felt........" she whispered through fresh tears, ".......as though I had stopped being myself. My mind became empty. I just kept seeing the faces of different men... over and over again... I didn't even notice we had passed our own village."
She remembered waking from her dazed state only to realize it was 8:12 p.m. by the dashboard clock. Without even wanting to know where exactly they were, she asked the driver to drop her at the lights she saw a head of them. After stepping down she realized it was Kimbusya town and she had unconsciously passed her home. She walked aimlessly until she entered the first building whose door stood open. It was a small bar.
The elderly waitress, who had directed her mother and company to the room, immediately noticed that something was terribly wrong.
"My child," the woman asked gently, "what has happened to you?" Unable to hide her pain any longer, Kalee burst into tears.
The kind woman arranged a room for her at the adjacent lodge and even lent her a mobile phone to call her mother.
"Mum... something happened inside this room," Kalee lowered her voice and told her mother "The curtain covering the window was torn."
Everybody turned to look at the window while keenly listening to the weakly Kalee.
"Through the opening I kept imagining I could see two figures standing outside...!" she continued. "They looked exactly like those men from Ng'oi."
"Mum, I became so frightened that I stood up to pull the torn curtain together."
She paused. "As I tried to mend it... I heard a voice in my heart saying...". She looked directly at her mother.

'This is the high time you mend your
own life, just as you are mending this
torn curtain.''

The room fell silent. No one spoke. Except her quiet sobbing nothing else could be heard.
She knelt before her mother. "Mum... I thought money was everything. I thought expensive clothes and soft life meant happiness. Instead I found fear, shame and people who only saw me as someone to exploit. I have lost my peace. I have hurt you. If you can forgive me... I want to go back to school. I want my life back."
Muthike lifted her daughter from the floor and embraced her tightly. "My child," she whispered, tears streaming down her face, "a mistake does not have to become your destination. If you truly choose a different path, we shall walk it together."
As they drove home beneath the headlights of endless trucks racing along the Trans-Africa Highway, Kalee looked through the window with different eyes. The same highway that had once promised glamour now revealed its hidden dangers.
Platypus writers