She looked around the dingy dungeon and sighed. It was sweltering down there. Like the kitchen of the local Kenchic where her friend Anita used to work. The kitchen she hadn’t been to for days. Neither had Anita, for that matter.
” I wonder if they’ll notice Anita’s absence?”Maryam thought to herself. She reached reflexively to adjust her mtandio but her fingers just managed to swipe at her shoulder length hair and came away disappointingly empty. They had relieved her of her hijab and burqa when they stole them away in the dead of night from Old Town. Anita stirred fitfully next to her and Maryam snapped out of her daydream (but what time was it?) to check on her. You see, her friend had been running a high fever for a few days. That’s why she was staying with Maryam and her folks, so that in case of anything, she could get to Pandya Memorial without delay.
After she had made sure Anita was OK, she quickly turned her thoughts to Hassan and KK. She had met them when she and Anita went to Mama Ngina Drive to watch the ships sail in, one sultry Mombasa evening. Hassan attended the same masjid as her brothers and often, during Ramadhan, they visited each other’s homes for iftar. Sometimes, Hassan would join them at Mama Ngina drive and buy them some mnazi or roasted mhogo or even chilli mangoes as they watched the ferry come in. Sometimes, if they were early enough, they would go across the channel to South Coast and roam together, till it was time to go back home.
One relatively cool evening, Hassan showed up with KK in tow. They didn’t know much about him but there never was a need to know. Until now. Maryam suspected the reason there were being held was because of KK. You see he had the scent of the hunted, perhaps even the wounded. He was always quiet around them, but his face lit up tremendously as he and Hassan played beach football on Sunday afternoons in Nyali.
At first, and because of her brothers, Maryam gave KK a wide berth but since she was always the 3rd wheel with Anita and Hassan, she figured she’d better keep herself busy when Hassan took Anita on a walk into the bushy undergrowth at the beach. See Hassan loved this little woman with all his heart and he used those walks as opportunity to show her.
She tried to glean as much from KK but he was unnaturally reticent. They stuck to the weather and football (of which, Maryam was an avid fan, thanks to her brothers’ influence), topics that she felt KK could happily gloss over. Anytime she broached more serious subject matter, KK clammed up tighter than oyster shell. All he said as that he left Nairobi to come to Mombasa because he needed a change. He never volunteered any more beyond that.
Maryam sighed but quickly focused her attention on the footsteps she could now hear feet pounding the corridor outside the metallic door that served their prison. She had grown accustomed to hearing them at regular intervals through out the day. But she had never paid attention to know just exactly how long they had been held captive. These footsteps meant either food or viewing.
Viewing like she and Anita were about to be sold off.
The Adventures of the Village Beauty 
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