Kirabo gnashed her teeth because ancients, especially Ganda males, were just too dumb for life. “And to them land belonged with men?”
“Land was tame. It did as it was told. They tilled it, dropped seeds into it, and a few months later they harvested. They divided and owned it.”
“Like in marriage?”
“Exactly.”
“And that is how women were stopped from owning land wealth?”
“Stories have such power you cannot imagine. That one turned women into migrants on land. Since then, women have been rootless—moved not just across places but clans, tribes, nations, even races. Here in Buganda, they sold mainly girls and women into slavery to the Arabs. They were considered rootless.”
Kirabo’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell. She imagined women cast into the sea—swimming, drowning, fighting sharks, building houses under the sea, being swallowed by whales—then women being sold to Arabs, being brutalised in Buwarab, and her complaints paled. She burst out, “But could they not see that women had no gills or fins?”
“Do not make me say the obvious, Kirabo.” Nsuuta was getting impatient. “Besides, the world is blind. Life is too rich for the eye to see everything we look at. You think you can see, but right now you are blind.”
Kirabo looked at Nsuuta’s eyes.
“Yes, Kirabo,” Nsuuta answered the question in her mind. “I only started to see what I had looked at all my life after I lost my sight.”
Kirabo closed her eyes as if it would stop Nsuuta from listening to her thoughts.
“When our ancients looked at women,” Nsuuta continued, “they saw something else.”
“What did they see?”
“Water in women. Women in water. Think, Kirabo: how many of our stories link women to water?”
“Hmm …” Kirabo hummed her memory into action. She had been paralysed by the idea of women learning to live in water. An idea occurred to her and she snapped her fingers. “Like River Mayanja? A woman gave birth to it. Oh, and those twin rivers, what are they called?”
“Ssezibwa and Bwanda?”
“Yes. A pregnant woman was travelling when birth pains started. She squatted on the roadside but instead of a child, water came out. It split in two. One half flowed to the east, the other to the west, and two rivers were formed. Oh”—Kirabo’s memory had woken up—“most bodies of water—wells, spas, streams—belong to women spirits. Goddess Nnalubaale owns Lake Victoria. Goddess Nnankya owns that stream on Grandfather’s land. Goddess Nnambaale owns our well.”
“Because, as ancients claimed, Nnamazzi brought all the water on land.”
“Eh,” Kirabo marvelled.
“So, your grandfather’s family owns most of the land in Nattetta, but does it claim Stream Nnankya or Nnambaale, the well where we collect water?”
“No.”
“Because they can’t contain it.”
“Oh, I’ve just remembered a big one.” Kirabo was on her knees. “This is big, Nsuuta, huge.” She held her hands above her head to show its hugeness. “I swear ancients used this story to make women belong in water.”
“Tell me.”
“Mijinni.”
“Mijinni?”
“Don’t you know mijinni, Nsuuta?”
Nsuuta shook her head.
“Tsk, mijinni are female spirits that live in rivers, wells, lakes, or seas. In daytime, they stay in water. But at night they creep out. And when they come out, they turn into real women to tempt men. There are a lot of them in Jinja, they creep out of the Nile. They are beautiful, I mean, killer beautiful. When men see them, they cannot help falling in love because they seem quiet, gentle, and restful. A man says Yii maama, your beauty is going to kill me right now if I cannot be with you. But once he takes her to his home, ba ppa, what happens?”
“Tell me.”
“She turns into a terrifying creature and tortures him.”
“Really?” Nsuuta’s face shone.
“One time, a man took a mujinni home like that. She kept saying, ‘My friend, maybe this is too rushed; maybe we should get to know each other first,’ but did the man listen?”
“No.”
“That night, when the man got up to turn the light out, she said, ‘I will do it,’ and stretched her arm across the room and snuffed out the flame. Then, in the dark, she started to torture the man, non-stop, throughout the night. She had arms like an octopus. They were everywhere. In the morning, the man woke up on a crag in the middle of Lake Victoria, bruised and broken.”
Nsuuta gasped happily.
“Don’t ever go to Mombasa, I have warned you; it is crawling with mijinni.”
“Oh?”
“You can tell a mujinni from a real woman.”
“How?”
“A mujinni has icy hands and feet.”
“Thank you for the warning. Wait there.” Nsuuta stood up and retrieved a book from the top shelf. It bulged with paper cuttings stuffed between the pages. She removed the cuttings and gave them to Kirabo. Some were images of mermaids; some were pictures of ancient ships with a woman’s bust as a figurehead. The figureheads had their breasts exposed to the sea.
“Eh.” Kirabo realised something. “But these white people: their ancients thought the sea loved women’s breasts?”
“Ancient sailors thought they were trespassing on water because it was not their realm. So they used images of women to pacify the sea.”
“But what model of foolishness is this?”
“At first, they tied real women to the bow.”
“You lie, Nsuuta,” Kirabo gasped, and thanked the gods she was not white, not born those dark days. She came to another image and exclaimed, “Ayayayaya!”
“What?”
“This one is serious, Nsuuta.”
“What is written on the picture?”
“Ah, the Sirens and Uliesis? I cannot say the word … by William E-t-t-y.”
“What is in the picture?”
“Three naked women … are those dead humans behind them? Nsuuta, there are bones and skulls all over the place: I think the women have killed and eaten them.”
“Killed what?”
“Men. Now, a storm is bringing another ship full of men. The women are singing and dancing, glorying in the terror of the men.” She giggled. “Oh, my father, this is mad. On the ship, the sailors are struggling with the storm to steer the boat away from the women. But this huge idiot wants to reach out for the women’s breasts. The sailors are struggling with him too.” She looked at Nsuuta. “Poor Zungu women ancients. Their men thought they were man-eaters?”
“You have no idea, Kirabo. Some claimed the women turned into seals.”
“Tsk.” She riffled through other images, then stopped. “This one is a photograph. She is in only a bra and knickers, at a seaside holding seashells. Her name is Usula.”
“Ursula. That is James Bond.”
“He is dumb like that too?”
“Don’t even ask.”
“Now look at these stupid ones.”
“Who?”
“Five men are kneeling before a woman. I think she has just emerged out of the sea because her hair is dripping and the men are pleading, or are they worshipping her?”
“They still do.”
“Oh, this one looks like us.”
“That is Yemaya. She protected slaves as they were trafficked across the seas.”
“Oh.” Kirabo paused as she imagined being trafficked across the seas. “At least she was not an evil story if she protected our people.” Nsuuta did not respond. “I wonder what ancients saw when they looked at women.”
“I think that in their buziba mind, the unconscious one, women were two things at once—aquatic and terrestrial. Human but fish, beautiful but grotesque, exciting but frightening, nurturing but malevolent. Today they are this shape; tomorrow they have shifted into something quite different—dubious, slippery, secretive, and mysterious. What do you do with that?”
Kirabo shook
her head.
“Either you tame them, or you drive them back into the sea.”
“Tame them? Like animals?”
“Indeed. Like with animals, men started to raid other societies for women. I am sure animals were laughing: look how humans are treating each other over property.”
“So it is true?”
“What is true?”
“Giibwa said our men raided Ssoga women because Ganda women were ugly.”
Nsuuta’s eyes darted sightlessly, as if she had not meant her story to get too close to recent history.
“Forget Giibwa. Your family never raided anyone. Put the cuttings back in the book and return it to the shelf, exactly where it was.” When Kirabo was done, Nsuuta said, “Now go home. I need to rest. Tomorrow, I will tell you how they got rid of our original state and shrank women.”
Kirabo ran out of Nsuuta’s house, forgetting to use the back door.
8
Nsuuta was in her garden picking doodo, bbugga, and nakati spinach. She did not lift her head when Kirabo announced herself, not even when she knelt to greet her. Kirabo stood up and started to help picking the vegetables, but Nsuuta stopped her. Apparently, Kirabo would pick the wild leaves. Kirabo looked at Nsuuta’s faded eyes and stifled a click. There was anger in Nsuuta’s silence. Someone had been and upset her. That, or Nsuuta was full of moods. Kirabo waited uneasily. Obviously her mother had not made contact; Nsuuta would be eager to tell. The realisation still had power to twist the knife in her chest. She watched Nsuuta’s fingers feeling the leaves before plucking them, shaking off the soil, and putting them in the basket. With these moods, it is no wonder she lives alone, Kirabo thought. Nsuuta looked up as if she had heard her think.
“Let’s go to the kitchen,” she said.
For a while Nsuuta worked quietly, washing the vegetables, sprinkling salt before wrapping them in banana leaves. Kirabo sat on the ramp where all Nsuuta’s stoves were built into the concrete, feeling like a burden. Then Nsuuta asked, “Is your grandmother back?”
“No; would I be here?”
“And your grandfather?”
“He is fine.”
Nsuuta sighed. She wrapped matooke in banana leaves, put the mound into a large pan and the vegetables on top for steaming. For a long time, she worked in silence. When everything was finally covered with layers of banana leaves, she stood up, arms akimbo.
“Have you been on any new flights since the last?”
“No.”
“Have you wet your bed?”
“Not since.”
“Maybe your flights are not a problem.” Nsuuta paused as if waiting for Kirabo’s response. Kirabo remained quiet. “Maybe our original state is trying to soothe you. From what I have seen, you are at peace when you fly. Why would you want to stop that?”
“Because it is evil.”
“Of course it is.” Nsuuta did not bother to mask her sarcasm. “After all, everything we cannot control feels evil to us. Now, what did I say we would talk about today?”
“How our original state was bred out.”
“That is easy; if something about you is perceived as ugly, what do you do?”
“Hide it.”
“Women in our original state were rejected.”
Kirabo kept quiet. Normally Nsuuta would have built up and dramatised the rejection to give context. “But I thought you said they were worshipped as well.”
“Worship, persecution, where is the difference?” she snapped.
When Nsuuta was off, she was really off. How could worship and persecution be the same? Her foul mood was killing the story. Kirabo cursed whoever had made her grumpy that morning.
Nsuuta knelt before a hearth and burrowed under the ash with a stick until she reached the embers. She seemed lost in her own world, as if Kirabo was not around. She removed all the ash and blew on the embers until they glowed. Next, she covered them with hay, then put a crumpled piece of paper on top. When smoke began to drift upwards, Nsuuta added thin twigs and blew on them. The fire caught easily, eating the straws and paper, licking the twigs tentatively. She waited until the flames were burning confidently before adding firewood and sitting back on her heels. Then she raised her head and smiled, as if Kirabo had just arrived. Kirabo began to suspect that she had been in the presence of the evil Nsuuta.
“You know that one person’s mother is another’s bad luck, kisirani.”
Kirabo nodded, but inside she was doubtful. Women being kisirani is petty persecution. Besides, it was not just men; there were women who believed they carried bad luck on their bodies. She decided to prompt Nsuuta into talking about real persecution. “I hear that in those dark days if you got pregnant before marriage, they hung you up a tree and set a fire below.”
“When your grandfather opens the door in the morning and sees a woman first, what does he do?”
“Closes it and goes back to bed.”
“Why?”
“Some women are such bad omens they will foul your day, or week, or even a whole year.”
“Aha.”
Kirabo realised what Nsuuta meant and jumped to Miiro’s defence. “But it is not just Grandfather. Ssozi is the worst. If you are the first person at his shop in the morning he tells you to wait until a man buys something from him first, or you go home and bring your little boy, even if he was born yesterday, so that he takes the money from him. A lot of women don’t wait to be told; they take their baby boys with them in the morning just in case.”
Nsuuta shrugged. “Shadows of the past.”
“Shadows?” Kirabo decided that as far as storytelling was concerned, the day was dead. Nsuuta was not trying to make it interesting at all.
“One day a man will throw himself at your feet: I don’t know what you have done to me, Kirabo. Only you can save me.”
Kirabo laughed.
“And you,” Nsuuta said, pointing an accusing finger at Kirabo, “feeling the little power he has given you in that moment, will forget that women were once burned alive for bewitching men.” Nsuuta sucked her teeth in disgust.
“Kdto,” Kirabo smiled. Real Nsuuta was back.
“Look, a woman worshipped here as a mother goes over there and fouls someone else’s day. Or she fouls nature. Have you not heard of grown men who will flee if a woman strips naked in public?”
“Yes, Nsuuta! Oh my God, Nsuuta.” Kirabo was on her knees, gesturing everywhere because the foulness of her nakedness was the one thing that made her want to tear herself out of her body and bury it. It vexed, revolted, and sickened her. At home, she had to hide her knickers after washing them so boys would not see them, even though they could display their underwear in the open to dry in broad daylight. She had never seen Grandmother’s knickers; in fact, the idea of them felt vulgar. Kirabo had to sit with her legs closed, even before the hearth, because her whatnot would put the fire out.
“Do you know why I flashed that jackfruit tree?”
Nsuuta shook her head.
“Grandmother found me up the tree with the boys and said, ‘And you, Kirabo, climbing trees like a boy? From now on the fruit on this tree will go sour.’”
“She did not!”
“The boys turned on me. That Ntaate spat and climbed down. The following day, when no one could see, I said, ‘Let me go back and flash that tree right and lavish.’”
Nsuuta’s silence was livid.
“The problem is down there.” Kirabo snapped her legs open and closed.
Nsuuta threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Kirabo, I love the way you don’t bite your words; down where?”
“There. All the ugliness, all the rot, all the wickedness and the witchery are packed in there. When Grandmother still bathed me, she would say, ‘Squat and I wash your ruins.’”
“You lie!”
“God in heaven.” Now Kirabo whispered, “People call it all sorts.”
“They do? Sometimes I forget how humorous your grandmother can be—ruins, oh, oh.”
“G
iibwa says her mother calls it ‘the burden’—‘Did you wash your burden properly?’”
Still laughing, Nsuuta picked up the pan with the food and placed it on the fire. She asked Kirabo to take out the pan filled with dirty water and pour it outside. When Kirabo returned, she whispered to Nsuuta, “Did you hear about the woman on the radio?”
“Which one?”
“The young widow. The one whose husband died and whose father-in-law came to her house to throw her out?”
“No.”
“Where have you been, Nsuuta? She is the only topic anyone can talk about.”
“Tell me.”
“Her husband died suddenly. He was young and rich—the only one with wealth in the family. He left her with several little ones who could not protect her. After the burial, she went home with her children. A week later, who arrives?”
“Who?”
“Father-in-law, with his clan. He says, ‘Eh, Muka Mwana? I have come for our children and our property. Eh, pack your bags and go back where you came from.’ Muka Mwana says, ‘As you say, Taata, I will go and pack.’ She goes to the bedroom. Guess what she does?”
“What?”
“Comes out naked.”
“You lie: which naked?”
“Starkers. Like a plucked chicken. She sits before father-in-law, opens her legs wide like this”—Kirabo opened her hands wide—“and places the whole of her foulness right there, like bwaaa. Then she asks, ‘Taata, before I go: Where do I place this one? It was your son’s favourite property.’”
“You lie, Kirabo.”
“Father-in-law scrambles out of the chair, screaming, ‘Walalala, help, I have been killed.’ Sprints out of the house like a youth. ‘Muka Mwana has killed me today.’ Last I heard, he had to do all sorts of rituals to cleanse himself. You know what Grandfather said?”
Nsuuta shook her head.
“He said, ‘If the old man had become a wawuli that is empty of decency and has washed shame out of his eyes, let him go blind.’ But Grandmother said, ‘No amount of property is worth your essence. Once a woman has revealed herself to the world like that, that is it: her whole self is gone.’”
“Haa, but …”
“But Gayi said that what little power women have is found there. She said the widow used hers very well.”
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 6