The Mystery Of Fate

CHAPTER ONE: FROM FAR(The Black Trouser)

Fate. What, truly, is the meaning of fate? Does it exist as a force in its own right, silently steering the course of our lives, or is it merely a word that people reach for when they can find no other explanation for what has happened to them? Since the beginning of time, people have called fate a power, an invisible authority that decides the outcome of our lives and makes certain events unavoidable, no matter how hard we try to resist them. They say it is the unseen hand that writes our story long before we ourselves learn how to hold a pen, long before we understand that a story is even being written.

For most of my life, I did not believe in it. To me, fate belonged to old films and to the stories our grandmothers told beside the fire, stories meant to entertain rather than to instruct. It seemed to have no place in this generation, a generation that prides itself on choice, on hustle, on ambition, on the belief that a person’s life is shaped entirely by the decisions they make and the effort they put in. We are told, again and again, that we are the architects of our own destiny. And so I grew up believing that nothing happens to us that we have not, in some way, caused ourselves.

But what happens when fate reveals itself to be far more mysterious than any of us imagined? What happens when it is unpredictable, unreachable by logic, and entirely uncontrollable by human effort or human will? What happens when you catch a single glimpse of someone, from a distance, on an ordinary afternoon that promised nothing extraordinary, and yet your entire life quietly changes direction without asking for your permission?

My name is Fidel Martins, and what follows is my love story. Although, if I am honest, it is not simply my love story. It is something far greater than that, something I had been dreaming of for the whole of my life without ever knowing that I was dreaming it. It is the story of a promise that fate had made to me long before I was born, a promise I did not even know existed until the day it finally arrived.

It began from a distance. I did not see her face first. What I saw, before anything else, was a pair of black afro trousers, and a girl bent over a basin, washing clothes with a quiet determination that seemed to belong to someone far older than her years. The afternoon sun was striking the surface of the water in the basin, scattering small points of light across her hands as she worked. Her hands were busy, moving with practiced rhythm, but her focus seemed to be somewhere else entirely, somewhere far beyond the compound, beyond the estate, beyond that single afternoon. She was not posing for anyone. She was not trying to be admired or noticed. She was simply living her life, engaged in the honest, ordinary labour of an afternoon like any other. And I was nothing more than a boy dressed in red, standing far away on a balcony, quietly witnessing a moment that had never been meant for me to see.

I did not know her name. I did not know where she had come from, which family she belonged to, or why I had never noticed her before that day. I did not know that, months later, I would find myself walking the long and nervous walk to a small shop called Mama Joy Shop, my heart pounding in my chest, for no greater purpose than to say the simple word “hi.” I did not know that her name would turn out to be Joy, and that this single name would, in time, become something close to a prayer that I repeated to myself every single day, in the quiet hours of the morning and the restless hours of the night. I did not know that she was a student at Gitwe Girls in Kiambu, preparing herself for her Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education, and that I would spend entire weeks counting the days of August, then September, then October, waiting, with an impatience I had never known before, for the arrival of November. From a distance, on that first afternoon, I told myself it was only a passing attraction, a small flicker of interest that would fade with time, the way such feelings usually do. From a distance, I did not yet understand that this was fate itself, mysterious and impossible to resist, quietly drawing me closer with every day that passed. This is the story of how a simple pair of black afro trousers, glimpsed from a balcony on an ordinary afternoon, became the most important memory of my entire life. This is the story of how a boy in a red shirt learned, in the most humbling way, that there are certain people we do not choose for ourselves. They are chosen for us, long before we ever have the chance to object. This is the mystery of fate.

• • •

Her hair was simply natural, without pretence or decoration. It was not the kind of hair one sees carefully arranged for a photograph on social media, and it was certainly not the kind that had been purchased or borrowed for the occasion. It belonged entirely to her. It had been blow-dried with care, and it fell soft, black, and thick, gathered neatly at the back of her well-shaped head. The way she had tied it back told me a great deal about the kind of person she was, even before I had exchanged a single word with her. It had not been arranged for fashion or for the benefit of an audience. It had been tied back for the sake of work, pulled cleanly away from her face so that she could see exactly what she was doing. And yet, even within that simplicity, there was an undeniable beauty. The shape of her head was near perfect, round and smooth in a way that would suit almost any hairstyle imaginable. I remember thinking, quite seriously, that an artist would have delighted in the challenge of drawing it.

There she stood, in the middle of a compound crowded with hanging clothes, framed on either side by lines heavy with washing. She turned slowly to face the clothesline, and both of her hands came to rest firmly on her waist as she drew in a long, deep breath. I do not believe I will ever forget that posture for as long as I live. It was the posture of a young woman who had already accomplished a great deal that day, who was undoubtedly tired, and yet who carried herself with a quiet pride that seemed to say she had no complaints to offer anyone. Her back was straight. Her elbows were held slightly out from her body. Her eyes moved carefully across the clothes she had already washed, examining them, checking whether they had been cleaned thoroughly enough to satisfy her own private standards.

I could not make myself blink. I say this with complete honesty: my eyes refused to close. It felt, in that strange moment, as though my eyebrows had been fused together, as though my eyelids had entirely forgotten the simple task they had performed without effort every single day of my life. I was not staring the way a confused or foolish boy stares. I was staring the way a grown man looks upon something his soul has spent years searching for without ever knowing what it was searching for.

The sun that afternoon was fierce, the particular kind of Nairobi heat that makes the corrugated iron sheets on the rooftops shine as though they have been polished. And in that unforgiving sun, I watched a single drop of sweat form near her temple and begin its slow, deliberate journey down the side of her cheek, tracing a path toward her jaw before disappearing beneath her chin. She was sweating, unmistakably. Small beads had gathered along her forehead. Her neck, too, glistened faintly with perspiration. And yet she did not once pause to wipe it away. She was far too absorbed in her work, far too composed and far too strong to allow such a small discomfort to interrupt her rhythm. If anything, that sweat only made her more beautiful to me. It made her real, tangible, undeniably human in a way that felt rare and precious. She was not a girl seated comfortably beneath the gentle hum of an air conditioner, waiting passively for life to arrive at her doorstep. She was a girl actively building her life with her own two hands, one basin of washing at a time.

Her trousers, that unforgettable pair of black afro trousers, fit her as though they had been tailored for no other purpose than to belong to her. It was not the cut of the fabric that made them appear so perfect; it was the shape of her body beneath them. Her waist was slender, her hips were well proportioned, and the trousers rested upon her figure with an ease that no ordinary garment could have achieved by accident. Near the ankles, the fabric had grown dark and heavy, thoroughly soaked from hours spent bending over the basin, hour after hour, without complaint. She did not seem to mind in the least. She did not pause to lift the hem away from the water. She simply continued with her work, entirely unbothered.

The clotheslines around her, three of them in total, were completely full. Shirts, trousers, bedsheets, and smaller items of clothing hung side by side, each one clean, each one still dripping gently, each one carrying the fresh scent of soap into the afternoon air. I found myself wondering, with genuine astonishment, how a single girl, seemingly no more than about nineteen years of age, could possibly manage such a volume of work entirely on her own, and with such quiet energy. Where did such strength come from? What kind of mother had raised a daughter capable of such diligence and self-discipline?

In that moment, I could not move. I could not even turn my head to look elsewhere. I was, in the truest sense of the word, overcome by her beauty. I was lost, entirely and hopelessly lost. I stood on our balcony with my arms crossed against the low wall and my chin resting upon them, and to anyone passing below, I would have appeared to be nothing more than a boy resting quietly and gazing idly at the sky. But I was not looking at the sky. I was looking only at her.

I watched her bend down, retrieve a piece of clothing from the basin, wring it with surprising strength, give it a firm shake to release the excess water, and hang it carefully upon the line before reaching for the next item. There was no music playing. There was no phone in her hand to distract her. There was only her, the water, and the clothes she was determined to finish washing. Her height, I noticed, aligned remarkably well with mine. I am tall, taller than most boys my age by a fair margin, and yet her height struck me as perfectly measured, neither too short nor too tall. In that instant, without any warning, my mind produced a thought so pure and so unguarded that it startled even me: that she was precisely the height that would fit against me in an embrace. I imagined, quite innocently, where her head would rest if I were to hold her close. I imagined it resting directly against my chest, and I imagined looking down to see that same natural hair beneath my chin, while she looked up to see my face. We would fit together, I thought, as though we had been measured by the same careful hand. As though God, in creating us, had used the exact same measurements for two people who were never meant to remain strangers to one another.

I stood there for nearly half an hour, doing absolutely nothing but watching her. I hoped, with a longing I could barely explain to myself, that she might glance in the direction of our balcony and notice me standing there. I hoped that if she did, I might simply raise my hand in a small, unassuming wave, a modest greeting sent silently across the distance between us. But she never once looked up. Have you ever seen a person so beautiful that you found yourself physically unable to look away from them? Have you ever felt so drawn to a complete stranger that you forgot, for a while, that you possessed legs capable of carrying you elsewhere? That, precisely, was my condition for the better part of an hour that afternoon.

The world around me continued to move as though nothing unusual were taking place. Boda bodas passed along the road below. Voices called out to one another somewhere in the estate. Music drifted faintly from someone’s radio. But for me, all of it had gone silent. The only sounds that reached me clearly were the gentle splash of water in the basin and the sight of a girl in black afro trousers, working beneath the Nairobi sun. I did not know, on that ordinary afternoon, that I had just turned the first page of my own life’s book. I did not know that fate, from that very distance, was already composing Chapter Two, Chapter Ten, and Chapter Fifteen on my behalf, long before I had any say in the matter. I knew only one certainty: I had seen her, and from that moment onward, I would never be able to unsee her again.

• • •

Eventually, she finished with the laundry, gathered everything neatly, and disappeared from view. The basin sat empty. The clotheslines, though still heavy with washing, hung motionless and still. The compound where she had spent the afternoon working fell quiet once more. She had carried everything inside and closed the door behind her. But although she was gone from sight, she had certainly not left my mind. There is an old proverb that claims, “out of sight, out of mind.” On that particular day, that proverb proved to be nothing more than a comforting lie, one that did not apply to me in the slightest. She had gone out of sight, yes, but she had lodged herself firmly, immovably, in my mind. I kept seeing her, over and over, in my thoughts. Her hands resting on her waist. The sweat on her brow. The black afro trousers, wet and heavy at the ankles. The natural hair tied neatly at the back of her head. It played over and over in my mind, like a video set to repeat indefinitely. I would blink, and there she would be. I would glance up at the sky, and there she would be again. I would look toward the empty clotheslines and see, in my imagination, the very hands that had hung each item so carefully.

It was no longer simple curiosity that had taken hold of me. It had grown into something far heavier, far more insistent. I found myself desperate to know who this remarkable, beautiful stranger could be, someone who had captured my attention so completely despite the fact that I had lived in that area for only about a month and a half. A month and a half in that estate, and I had never once laid eyes on her before that afternoon. How was that possible? Where had she been hiding herself all this time? Was she new to the neighbourhood, just as I was? Or had she always been there, quietly going about her life, while I remained simply too inattentive to notice her presence?

I went back inside our house, but she came with me, occupying every corner of my thoughts. I could not settle. I found myself wandering restlessly from room to room, from the sitting room to the kitchen, from the kitchen to my bedroom, and then back again to the balcony, drawn there as though by some invisible thread. Each time, I would look toward the same spot where I had seen her, hoping against hope that she might reappear, perhaps to collect something she had forgotten, perhaps for no reason at all. But there was nothing. The clothes remained where they hung, alone and undisturbed, and my heart refused to settle into any kind of peace.

Do you know that particular feeling, the one where you desperately want to take some kind of action but have absolutely no idea what that action should be? That was precisely my state of mind that evening. I wanted, more than almost anything, to know her, and yet I did not even know her name. I did not know exactly where she lived. I did not know whether she had a brother, a sister, or perhaps a boyfriend already waiting for her at home. I knew nothing definite about her, and yet, strangely, I felt as though I understood everything important about her already.

That same evening, as the sun began its slow descent and the first lights of the estate flickered on one by one, I decided to approach a friend of mine for information. He had grown up in that particular area and seemed to know virtually everyone: every shop, every family, every story worth telling. I called him outside, and we stood together near the local kiosk while I asked him, as casually as I could manage, trying my best to conceal just how serious my interest truly was. I fully expected him to provide me with everything I needed to know: her name, her school, details about her family, perhaps even a little gossip. Instead, he knew almost nothing at all. Aside from mentioning that her family owned a shop, he simply said, “Ah, them? They have a shop.” That was the entirety of his knowledge.

I was genuinely astonished. How could someone who had spent his whole life in that area know so little about such a beautiful, hardworking young woman living in the very same neighbourhood? How had she managed to keep such a low profile? Why did it seem as though no one, not even the most well-connected people in the estate, knew even her name? Did she rarely leave the house? Did she avoid conversation with the people around her? Was she newly arrived, or was she simply the kind of person who preferred to remain private, focused on her own responsibilities, entering and exiting quietly without drawing attention to herself?

That revelation only deepened my curiosity, far beyond what it had already been. It was no longer only about her physical beauty. It had become, in equal measure, about the mystery surrounding her. Who was this girl, capable of such striking beauty and yet so entirely invisible to the rest of the community? Why did she guard her privacy so carefully? What story, I wondered, lay behind that quiet, private exterior?

I could not bring myself to leave our balcony that entire day. My eyes kept drifting back to that same patch of the compound where I had first seen her. Every five minutes, it seemed, I found myself returning to that spot. Every ten minutes, I checked again, almost involuntarily. I felt like a guard standing watch over a place where my queen had once stood. Unfortunately, I did not see her again that day. I wished desperately for even one more glimpse of her, just a single moment, enough to confirm to myself that what I had witnessed that afternoon had truly happened and had not simply been a vivid daydream.

But night was approaching steadily. The washing still hung on the lines, untouched, while the light on her side of the compound remained dark, or perhaps it was lit but she herself was simply out of view, resting indoors after her long day of labour. The estate grew darker with each passing minute, illuminated only by the scattered glow of household lights here and there. Mosquitoes began their evening assault. My mother’s voice called out from inside, summoning me to come in for supper. And even though I had not managed to see her again that day, I felt, in some strange and unexpected way, genuinely happy. I was happy simply to have encountered someone so captivating, someone who had stirred something in my heart in an area where I had fully expected to spend one and a half unremarkable months doing nothing more than sleeping, eating, and going to work each day. I had arrived in that neighbourhood anticipating boredom, nothing more. I had never imagined that I would suddenly find a compelling reason to keep looking outward, toward the world beyond our balcony.

That night, I went to bed with my mind still full of unanswered questions. I lay there staring up at the ceiling for what felt like hours, turning the same thoughts over and over. Would I ever come to know her properly? Would I ever learn her name? Would she, one day, happen to glance toward our balcony and finally notice me standing there? Would I ever summon the courage required to walk to that shop everyone spoke of and simply say the word “hi”? What might her voice sound like when she spoke? Did she laugh loudly, freely, without restraint, or did she prefer to smile quietly, keeping her amusement mostly to herself? Was she even aware of how beautiful she appeared while absorbed in her work?

Eventually, I did fall asleep, though it could hardly be called restful sleep. In truth, I spent that entire night dreaming while still fully awake, my thoughts refusing to quiet themselves even as my body finally succumbed to exhaustion. And her face, though I had only ever seen it from a distance, remained the very last image in my mind before my eyes finally closed for the night. Fate, it seemed, had chosen to show me a girl from far away. Now, it appeared, it would become my responsibility to find the courage to move closer.