Beautyful Problems

By Godwin Matsiko

Beautyful Problems is set in several parts of Uganda and Kenya. It follows the lives of two young lawyers starting their legal careers. The lead protagonist Goldie works in a law firm and his friend Victor in a bank. Whereas they both share ambition, it is the contrast between the maverick lifestyle of Goldie and his friend's conservatism that sets the tone. Goldie starts a relationship with a young lady still at the University and while he plans to marry and settle with her, the sudden change in fortunes at his workplace checks to see if the relationship can survive the temptations of materialism. Goldie's sexual trysts overlap his loyalty and friendships but the stresses of work and excessive indulgences are all but light trials. The story crashes into a cornucopia of political undertones when Goldie's work brings him the most unlikely client, a member of a political outfit. Personal relations and proximity to the players in the subplot guarantee that everybody is sucked into the sweeping storm, with revelations of betrayals and connections that are bound to change everyone's life forever. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Godwin Matsiko
• Release date: Apr 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224694228

Book preview

Beautyful Problems

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A Novella

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By Matsiko Godwin Muhwezi

Beautyful Problems

Matsiko Godwin Muhwezi

Published by Godwin Matsiko, 2024.

Copyright © 2021by Matsiko Godwin Muhwezi

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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system - except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed on social media, in a blog, magazine or newspaper without permission in writing from the publisher.

All rights reserved.

Also by Matsiko Godwin Muhwezi

When Love Walks

Beautyful Problems

Fruit To Your Account

Wish Me Well

Table of Contents

Title Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By Godwin Matsiko

Beautyful Problems

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Further Reading: Wish Me Well

Dedication

To Dad,

"You said that the last work of fiction you read was The Government Inspector. If this is not the next one you read, nituza kugatah’ eshande (you and I will have a beautyful problem!)

Chapter 1

‘Four helicopters that left Soroti airbase this morning have gone missing.

They were heading for Eldoret, each carrying twenty Air Force officers on board.

The Chief of Defence flagged the contingent of airmen and women off.

Allegations are, the choppers disappeared within Kenyan airspace en route to Somalia except for one that reportedly landed safely at the Garissa airbase. The Kenya Defence Forces secretary, during an emergency briefing with the media, said they received a distress call from the pilot. Mt. Kenya Forest is the alleged location of the plane’s last communication transmission.

It is possible one chopper may have crash landed there. As we await more information from the search teams scouring areas around Mt. Kenya, we are still in the dark as to the fate of the crew onboard. ...’

Goldie switched off the news.

hen Victor had told him that there was a chapel choir alumni something, Goldie had thought little of it then. He had a memory pile of a thousand and one things he would rather do than

drive to Mukono for a religious event. During their time together at Uganda Christian University, Victor had been a member of the choir and still kept in touch with the group through the alumni programme. Goldie suspected it might not only be the love for singing which encouraged his boy to make a surfeit of trips back to their alma mater. Victor seldom divulged details of his adventures with the fairer sex, but Goldie suspected the existence of another magnetic pull as a contributing factor.

‘So, my man, do you have a bird on campus... some belle whose smile tugs at your heartstrings?’ Goldie dared ask cautiously.

‘Is my virility in question mukulu?’ Victor retorted.

Goldie smiled at his friend and thought, well, you have not denied it either! Aloud he said, ‘Not at all. It wouldn’t be the worst achievement in the world, you know.’

Recently, they had resolved to find pockets of space in their busy work schedules to catch up more. Such random events presented the unique opportunity to more than holla.

It was in such moments that Victor reminded Goldie how the moniker had stuck! After many futile protests, Opio Gordon had embraced the corruption of his name to Goldie. His classmates proposed a nickname to avoid confusing him with the stout, bow-legged guild Minister for Cultural Affairs. He would have preferred Goddie, but with time, the association to gold brought him a

warm, fuzzy feeling, and he relished the Goldie version.

On this journey back to campus, Goldie wondered if he should have done some homework on church shenanigans! His only claim to chapel citizenship was vicariously through his association with Victor. The man had a way of passing on, ever so subconsciously, the mindfulness for the creator.

Maybe it is what prevented me from being a ladies’ man. Who knows? Some birds might have considered me as religious as my buddy!

As they turned off Najjera into the Kira stretch towards Gayaza road, dusty sprinkles of rain shot down at lazy intervals, creating patches of mud surrounded by insolent dust. The gravel ahead shone brightly, like a child’s belly smeared with generous handfuls of Vaseline.

Victor drove, while Goldie channel surfed through talk radio channels. Soon the threatening clouds cowed and rolled away as the engine revved across miles of asphalt and into the tantalising, glassy haze on the road ahead. As they approached Kasangati, Goldie settled for the evening drive show on Sanyu FM.

Bingo! He roughed the knob to maximum volume. Victor slowed down too and played with the brake pedal to match the groove of Snoop Dogg’s Gin and Juice.

"May I kick a little something for the G’s and make a few ends as I breach through. Two in the mornin’ and the party’s still jumpin’ ‘cause my momma ain’t home  "

‘Plenty of rubber, huh!’ Goldie winked at Victor and laughed. ‘How do you even know such old school music? Aren’t you millennials only aware of autotuned crooning and bubblegum rubbish? Plus savedees should only know lyrics to Don Moen and Hillsong!’

Victor adjusted the rear-view mirror. He saw a speeding truck and signaled to the driver to overtake.

‘As if you were not born in ’88 yourself ! Next, you are going to pretend to have listened to Motown music on a gramophone! At least if you’d claimed to have grown up in the boy-band era I would be easy on you.’

‘Or was it the crying men’s era?’ Goldie chimed in.

‘Whatevz. Now that was music. Girls screaming and gawking at the lame choreography and pivot spins,’ Victor continued.

‘The lyrics were always about never-healing broken hearts, but we gulped that stuff man, swallowed it, hook line and sinker... like our lives depended on it,’ Goldie agreed.

It would be disloyal for a 90’s kid not to like that ish!

‘To your question, I am not a dilettante in music like you. I am an old soul, so I have a soft spot for the classics. Snoopy penned some dope verses on those bars, man! He’s the real O.G of the East Coast, that’s for sho!’ As the song changed, Victor stopped playing with the brake pedal.

A road sign ahead showed a permitted speed limit of one hundred. Victor stepped some fire into the accelerator, and they sped on.

‘We should get serious, by the way. Imagine we are going to a church function but are lip syncing to such songs, banange!’ Victor said as an unfamiliar rap song came on; one of the new releases.

Goldie laughed.

‘You check ko for some religious channel at least. Otherwise, you are going to show up as the devil to the Lord’s house.’

‘But Victor, you think a secular song will bring all our past sins into today’s mass? Anyway, I allow ... I am the sinner here, coming as I am today ... so munsabile that I don’t contaminate the mass,’ Goldie said coyly.

‘Confess your sins, son! Leave all your baggage on the road, otherwise we will

need to cast thee out before we can start comforting the broken hearts of the Lord’s daughters,’ Victor joked.

‘Get behind me Shatan ... for thou refuseth to have funeth on a road trip,’ Goldie waved frantically with an imaginary face towel. He made funny faces for dramatic effect, mimicking a clumsy preacher.

‘Now you are blaspheming by mimicking men of God! But Goldie, you need fifty lashes to get those lousy jokes out of you.’

‘Why do they sound so similar, though? Does theology school also teach an American accent and compel preachers to slay in Congolese suits? Victor, I am most amused by the white pointed shoes. Those really crack me up,’ Goldie continued, ignoring Victor’s protests.

‘Guess it is a culture they pick from those who mentor them. But what matters is the message they carry, not its delivery. If the message is inspired, you should overlook trivialities,’ Victor said gently.

‘You have a point there!’ Goldie admitted.

Goldie wondered how Victor had kept the good boy demeanour throughout the years. Victor was the reliable chauffeur when Goldie and other classmates were wasted after a wild night out. Although he joined the boys to watch soccer games at bars and bobbed to the loud beats, he never touched a pint; the reliable teetotaller in the room looking out for everyone’s safety.

He supported Portsmouth Football Club in the English Premier League pyramid. This state of affairs - supporting a team which hardly challenged for silverware - turned Victor into the resident arbiter for arguments about London, Manchester and Merseyside Derbies.

‘Victor, you know, one day I will collude with the priest and mix some whisky in altar wine before the sakalamento,’ Goldie said mischievously, breaking the silence.

‘Hard luck, man. At our church we use ribena and mirinda fruity for Eucharist. Either way, I will finish all the coffee in the world before I start on your liquor stuff. Caffeine is more my poison for now.’

‘But Jesus turned water into wine. There must be some hidden meaning in that, don’t you think?’

‘Tell you what? On our way back, we can use the Seeta route, and you grab a drink. I am sure the traffic will be terrible, so we won’t need to hurry back to K’la. Are you happy now?’

‘Good times never hurt nobody! You know that song?’ Goldie asked. ‘Nope.’

‘It is by French Montana. You wouldn’t know him. Anyway, we will enjoy your chapel thing, then we will pass by my chapel and savour the wedding- at-Cana experience!’ Goldie half whispered, trying to make his ask appear innocuous.

‘You might enjoy my chapel too much to have an appetite for anything else. Not to worry, we have a deal. Scratch my back and I will watch you scratch yours!’ Victor promised.

A few minutes later Goldie fidgeting in his seat, scanned for a leafy stretch of roadside. On seeing one, he prompted Victor to slow down.

‘Man, first park briefly,’ he said.

‘Kumbe, you are dying? You could have just told me to drive you to the mortuary. From where we set off, Mulago was nearer than Mukono!’ Victor slowed down, pressed the left indicator, and swerved off the lane to the side. He parked and hit double indicators.

‘Dying or dead already... you might be chilling with a creature from the afterlife!’ Goldie said as he undid his seatbelt and opened the door.

He jumped over a drainage trench and skirted round a dusty gully onto a grass topped edge facing the bushes. A business of flies fled a fresh mound next to his right foot, and putrid moisture hit his nostrils.

‘Shit!’ he exclaimed, and moved farther to the side.

Playfully, he made circular spills on the low-lying leaves as if spraying graffiti on a dusty car with a message for the owner, "wash me please!" A colony of ants abandoned its loot and scampered for dear life below the lush bushes, some back into the now drenched anthill, the not so lucky ones floating on the mud atop it.

‘Have you washed your hands, Ssebo?’ Victor asked, as Goldie slumped into the passenger seat.

‘You will be fine, Mr. Germaphobe. After all, African germs are never aware!’ He replied and slammed the door to the squeak of hinges.

‘Okay, don’t break the door, Ssebbo. It has done nothing wrong!’ ‘Oops, ma bad! Now we can go. Kyibadde bubi mu boxi.’

As they turned towards Mukono off Kalagi road, a roadblock and several cars greeted them, waiting to be checked before proceeding. Victor focused his attention on a pair of traffic officers grilling a truck driver. He remembered that blue truck whizzing by him slightly after Gayaza town.

He slowed down towards the heap of tyres, metal, and STOP signage that collectively formed the roadblock. As they approached, he noticed that the truck carried tightly packed sacks of charcoal that unevenly protruded through rails on the side.

A lady police officer walked leisurely towards the back of the truck and bending forward, plucked off its number plate. Though petrified by what she had just done, Victor deliriously stared at her tightly fitting uniform. He almost missed another traffic officer waving him on.

‘This is their big catch,’ Goldie said as they left the parking lane and rejoined the main road.

Another officer pulled a spiky barrier to the side for them to pass. As they slowly manoeuvred the tiny space between the adjusted barrier, the truck driver glanced at the pair through bloodshot eyes and sneered. Some of his browning teeth were covered by remnants of coffee husks which hung loosely in the shrubbery of his zebra coloured beard.

Goldie and Victor glanced at each other, astonished at the glare. ‘What did we do?’ Victor asked.

Goldie shrugged. He did not want to speculate on what might have caused the random animosity.

‘Let him be, man! Clearly, he is having a tough day, I doubt it has anything to do with us.’

A bodaboda carrying a woman and baby wrapped in multiple layers of linen shot past them. Victor felt something prick in his throat. He swallowed hard, and bitter phlegm tumbled into his empty belly. Ahead of them, the bodaboda swerved narrowly in front of a truck and seemingly under the fender of an approaching bus. The rider kicked at the bus tyre for support before steadying into a dirt walkway by the tarmac.

‘Careful Victor,’ Goldie cautioned.

‘I saw her slightly late but we’re good. I am a badass defensive driver... you know me, G... I have a third eye for such things!’ Victor replied as he steadied back into the lane.

‘I always panic when I am driving and see a woman with a baby on a bike. I imagine reckless taxis and V.I. P cars speeding as the bike tries to manoeuvre through. The site is a melting pot of chaos with young life on the line,’ Goldie said.

‘Chill those things, man. Don’t make me conscious of road accidents. Easier to be behind the wheel when not thinking about the worst that could happen,’ Victor begged.

‘You are right,’ Goldie said