N. S. K?enings brings the fictional East African city of Vunjamguu and its inhabitants to life in her first novel, "Blue Taxi." The air is heavy, the scenery is rich, and her characters' lives are filled to the brim with inconsequence. The heroine's journey barely goes from Point A to Point B, but along the way there are business-savvy ice cream men and prophetic needle pointers with whom she needs to deal.
After witnessing a car accident that severs a child's leg, Sarie Turner unwittingly sets out on a path that shakes her out of her complaisant stupor. Sarie, an orphan of Belgian descent, was raised by nuns in a remote and rural area of the country. She is saved from celibacy through the arrival of Gilbert Turner, with whom she has little in common, other than a European heritage. Their union is far from passionate, but the two settle quite comfortably in the center of Vunjamguu, recently rid of its imperial fetters. Gilbert obsessively reads scholarly volumes and depends on a stipend, sent by his childless great-uncle in England, to support his family. Sarie and Gilbert have a daughter, Agatha, who, through her presence in their lives, perplexes more than pleases her parents. Sarie garners little satisfaction from her role as wife, but the idea of change does not occur to her, much less haunt her.
Enter Majid Jeevanjee, father of the child whose leg was severed in the taxi accident. More accurately, clad in a smock and flip-flops, zaftig Sarie strides into this widowed man's life. Jeevanjee is a poet who breathes failure into all his endeavors and receives the nickname "Mad" for the manner in which he mourns his wife. While Agatha and de-limbed Tahir build a friendship as the boy recovers, a virulently sexual romance springs up between the sturdy Belgian and the angular Muslim.
K?enings's protagonists are entirely absorbed in the worlds they have created for themselves. Had not Sarie been witness to the blue taxi's collision with the child, it is likely that every one of K?enings's protagonists would have remained encapsulated in their dismal narcissism. Until now, all interactions with the world have been imbued with listlessness, a shroud that is thrown off curbside in the midst of the lethargic color of Vunjamguu.
Wrought with differences of class, understanding, and background, the novel takes off as the affair provides momentum for a number of plot lines that criss-cross Sarie's involvement with the failing Jeevanjee. An inquisitive mother-in-law peers from behind windowsills and channels a prophetic awareness into her intricate works of embroidery. Relationships between mistress and servant, ice cream man and Gilbert, overly proactive ex-patriots and passive ones are set down in spindly but vibrant lines, suggesting nuances of understanding and releasing the characters from their comatose existences. K?enings's first novel is both a contemplation of fate and a baited anticipation of what action might take place.