Grandfather did not respond, but his eyes said No one is going anywhere.
When Grandmother returned to the kitchen, she threw the pan on the floor. It rolled on its bottom edge in loops, round, round, round, until it was so fast it was just a vibrating blur. Then it fell silent. Grandmother sat down and buried her head in her hands. She pulled up the flaps of her busuuti and covered her face. For a moment, she was silent, as if she were not breathing. Then she gasped and sucked in air long and deep. A sob escaped. Kirabo stiffened. Grandmother blew her nose, stood up again, fetched her coiled mat from the wall hammock, sat down, and started to weave. Kirabo rolled her eyes skyward to stop the tears because she had no right to cry. She remained still for some time, staring into the tongues of fire licking the sides of the pan. Kirabo wanted to pick up a stick, give it to Grandmother, and say You really need to whip me this time. Grandmother said nothing; she didn’t even look at her. After a while, Kirabo stole a step backwards, then another, and stopped. She carried on like that until she finally reached the doorstep and ran.
The house was silent all evening and throughout supper. The teenagers looked at Kirabo as if they had never realised the evil she was capable of. No one taunted her; it was as if she was beneath bullying. After eating, Grandfather tried to lead them in prayer, but he lacked enthusiasm. Afterwards, everyone went straight to bed.
Kirabo lay in the dark, sleepless. She started to consider that perhaps she should go the city and live with Tom as Grandmother wanted. She might run into her mother on the street—You look familiar, are you my daughter? Someone might recognise her: You must be so and so’s child. One day Tom might come home and say Guess who I bumped into? She lifted her head and listened for Grandfather’s breathing—silence. No gentle rhythmic breathing. Grandfather was sleepless too? “Jjajja,” she called softly. “Can I come to your bed?”
“Come on; don’t cry, kabejja. No one will send you away unless I say so.”
Kirabo clambered into her grandfather’s bed, curved herself into his back, and breathed in the familiar smell of his skin. It was not long before she was deeply asleep.
•
This time, there was no wee pressing and no rain falling in the place where sleep took her. Just the talking bull. For some reason she was early to school, alone. She arrived at the thicket where the bull lived, and stopped to peek. The bull was tethered to a post, grazing. Kirabo wondered how she would get past it without being seen. It stumped a hind hoof and swung its head towards the stomach to shake off flies, but they stayed put. The skin on the stomach twitched and when the tail whisked, the flies lifted, but they soon settled back as if it was a game. Kirabo waited until the bull bent its head and blew loudly on the grass. When its tongue snaked out and wrapped itself around a sheaf, she sprinted. The bull lifted its head, saw her, and narrowed its eyes—You, I am going to kill you today. As it rushed to untether itself, Kirabo ran. When she got to the end of the thicket she looked back, but the bull was not yet in sight. She kept running because it always caught up. She rounded the corner and this time decided to turn off the road. There was a tree behind the bushes. She climbed it.
She heard the hooves galloping. They stopped where she had turned off the road, and the bull’s head appeared. It sniffed the air for her scent, then looked around for her. She prayed that it would carry on. It turned off the road into the bush, coming towards the tree. The noise of its hooves was loud, as if the ground was concrete. It stopped and sniffed the air: Where are you? Kirabo gripped the tree. It took a few more steps, coming closer, closer; it stopped right under the tree. Kirabo was busting to breathe. I know you are here somewhere. Then it looked up.
10
By afternoon the following day, the house had not recovered. All day, Kirabo had been by Grandmother’s side, helping her with chores. She had neatened up the kitchen—scooped out all the ash from the hearths, swept the floor, arranged the firewood into a pile in a corner, and put fruit, ripe ndiizi bananas and avocado, in another, but Grandmother had not said a word to her. Nothing in her demeanour said she was still hurting, but Kirabo hoped she would say You did me wrong going to that woman, Kirabo.
Kirabo was helping Grandmother prepare Sunday supper. Grandmother had finished barbecuing a piece of beef over the embers to flavour it, put it in the bokisi pan, and added onions and tomatoes. When she reached for the salt, the tin was empty. She reached into the sash fastening her busuuti and gave Kirabo two simoni coins. Kirabo ran across the road to Ssozi’s shop. All preparation to wrap the food and steam the meat was put on hold.
As Kirabo approached Ssozi’s, she heard voices. She stepped up on the ramp, held on to the bars, and looked inside. There was no one behind the counter. Open sacks of dried beans, rice, cassava flour, soya flour, and maize flour would not let her further into the shop. On the counter, large jars of Nubian kabalagala pancakes, honeyed sesame balls, and green pea samosas obscured the view. On the wall was President Idi Amin Dada’s picture. He was dressed in an army uniform like Muteesa II, but he had many kyeppe and medallions all over his chest and stomach. It was the only picture of him in the entire village. Recently, women had stopped cursing it when they came to buy things, because walls had grown ears. Ssozi had put it on the wall so he and his shop would look patriotic.
Kirabo was stepping away to go to the back of the house and call when she heard Ssozi’s voice.
“You two are new to this village. You do not understand this feud.” From the way they sounded, Ssozi and his family were having lunch. “All of you women will take Muka Miiro’s side because she is the ringed wife, but—”
Kirabo’s heart jumped; the whole village knew?
“It is not taking sides,” Ssozi’s first wife said. “Nsuuta is trespassing on her marriage.”
“Nsuuta was the first with Miiro. Muka Miiro snatched him right out of Nsuuta’s fingers.”
“But he did not marry her, did he?” the first wife insisted.
“Where is the difference? She has always been his woman.”
The second wife was impatient. “If Nsuuta is Miiro’s woman, why are they sneaking around?”
“The church. Tsk, you joke with these Christians. Their hypocrisy is old and greyed. Miiro cannot take Holy Communion and sit between two wives.”
Kirabo eased away from the door. Her heart pumped so hard she was almost blinded.
“To anyone who does not know the origin of this feud, Muka Miiro is the docile wife trying to hold a marriage together while Nsuuta sits in her house plotting to bring it down. But I am telling you, Muka Miiro is not blameless.”
One of the wives muttered something Kirabo could not hear. Ssozi replied, “Do you know she nearly killed Nsuuta back in ’46?”
“How?”
“You ask, kdto.” Ssozi lowered his voice. “We don’t talk about it, but Muka Miiro found out Nsuuta was expecting Miiro’s child and her head swelled with wrath. Me, I have never seen that kind of possessiveness. I accept Muka Miiro was a reverend’s daughter. There was no second wife in her home as a child. But even then, most women, when they find out they are sharing their marriage with another woman, step back and concentrate on their children. Not Muka Miiro. That morning we woke up to the news that Nsuuta had been rushed to hospital. She did not only lose the pregnancy; she could never have a child.”
“Oh? That is terrible.”
“I don’t care what people say,” Ssozi continued. “That was murder.”
Ssozi’s second wife sucked her teeth. “These Christian wives, they take the idea literally of husband and wife becoming one on the wedding day.”
“That skinny Muka Miiro hit someone?” Ssozi’s first wife scoffed.
“Ho. You joke. That woman is a buffalo. At the time, a Lundi woman who had run away from her marriage was taking a break in Nsuuta’s house. Muka Miiro beat her up too, for trying to save Nsuuta. In fact, there was a man in the house—could have been the Lundi’s husband who had come to beg his wife to return to him. He is the one who saved Nsuu
ta.”
“You lie.”
“Not only that. Muka Miiro was pregnant with Tom. Ask Widow Diba.”
The first wife was not going to blame Muka Miiro. “Still, two women hating each other all this time? Muka Miiro has had children, the children have had children, Nsuuta has lost her sight, her head has bloomed white, but they still hate each other over a man?”
“Christians are dumb—”
“Ask yourself,” Ssozi interrupted, “why did Miiro hand Tom over to Nsuu—”
“Kirabo, where is the salt?”
Kirabo jumped. Grandmother had crossed the road and was coming towards her.
Ssozi, hearing Grandmother’s voice, appeared behind the counter. “Oh, how is everything, Muka Miiro? You sent Kirabo a while ago?”
Grandmother shook her head as if Kirabo was a lost cause.
“I went to the toilet first.”
Ssozi stole worried glances at Kirabo as he scooped salt from a sack into a brown paper bag. He picked up an imperial weight and placed it on the smaller part of the scales. The salt flew up. He added tiny bits into the paper bag, measuring it out to the last grain. When he was satisfied with the amount, he threw the scoop back into the sack, folded the paper bag, and gave it to Kirabo. As she walked towards Grandmother, Kirabo told herself She is my grandmother, she is my grandmother; she does not hit people. But she could not shake the image of the tiny grave behind Nsuuta’s house. Grandmother grabbed the bag and they crossed the road together. As they came to the mango tree in the courtyard, Grandmother said, “Next time you have a problem, Kirabo, bring it to me.”
Kirabo stopped and looked down. “Forgive me, Jjajja.” She was barely audible.
“I am trying to bring you up in the real world. Nsuuta lives in the clouds with her stories and ideas. If we all allowed her stories to guide us, the world would grind to a stop.” Grandmother paused, as if considering her words. “We don’t know where your mother’s love is. If we did, do you think we would keep you away from her?”
Kirabo shook her head.
Grandmother carried on to the kitchen. Kirabo remained where she stood, finally overcome by tears. All she had wanted was to get rid of the flying, to be a good girl and find her mother. But look what she had found out instead. Grandmother had killed Nsuuta’s baby. Grandfather was cavorting with Nsuuta. She was a secret child. And the original state was in her.
That night, as she got into bed, she whispered to Grandfather, “Is it true Grandmother killed Nsuuta’s child?”
Grandfather almost jumped. He frowned so hard a huge vertical vein appeared down the middle of his forehead. “Where did you hear that, Kirabo?”
“It was Ssozi at his shop. He was laughing with his wives.”
“Kirabo, Ssozi hauls gossip from here to there and by the time it returns, it has neither head nor legs.”
“So Grandmother never hit Nsuuta or a Lundi woman?”
“Of course not. Kirabo, she is your grandmother. She cannot even bring herself to punish you. How could she hit someone who was pregnant?”
“I know.” She dropped her head in shame.
“Ssozi keeps two wives in the same house. Do any of them look like they have common sense?”
“But he told his wives Nsuuta is your woman.”
Grandfather stopped getting into his bed. “That is it, hm-hm, Ssozi has gone too far.” Grandfather came to Kirabo’s bed and wiped her tears. “Baasi-baasi, baasi-baasi, stop crying. I am going to have a word with Ssozi tomorrow.”
Kirabo nodded.
“Now go to sleep, kabejja. Leave everything to me.”
Kirabo had hoped to ask why Tom was Nsuuta’s son too, but at the sight of her Grandfather’s pursed lips, she swallowed her question and got into bed.
“Sleep well, Jjajja.”
“And you, kabejja.” He pulled her blanket up to her neck.
But long after the lanterns and tadooba candles in the village had been blown out, long after all creatures, guilty and innocent, had gone to sleep, Kirabo blinked in the dark.
11
You would think that after Kirabo had hurt Grandmother so spectacularly, the teenagers would behave. Not Gayi. She must have thought You think Kirabo is wicked? Let me show you.
Gayi was born Nnaggayi. The daily bus service from Kampala was a Guy model, the unfortunate pun for Giibwa’s insinuation. Gayi was eighteen or nineteen, but she was only just taking her O levels because she kept repeating classes. She was kind and gentle with Kirabo, but Gayi was getting spoilt. Not spoilt like an indulged child; spoilt like milk going off. A girl going bad was so total, so irreversible, so disgusting, she became rubbish on the roadside. And people treated her as such. Men touched her anywhere, even in public. Any man—drunks, riff-raff, sweat-stinking labourers—would ask her for sex as if they were entitled to it. “Eh, Gayi?” they would call. “When will you give me some?” because she had turned herself into a communal plate. There was no salvation for Gayi whether she dropped out of school or got pregnant, both of which seemed inevitable.
But Gayi was indifferent. She carried on with her man like a bug had burrowed into her brain. For Kirabo, no matter what people said, Gayi was not responsible for her actions. Not with her floaty eyes that made her look like she was half asleep. Not with men calling her shapely backside sakabuzoba spesulo, shock-absorbers special. Not with her aubergine skin. When she fastened her school uniform belt, she looked like a black wasp. Ugly girls were good girls; they worked hard in school. But for Gayi, the world had stared and admired. She had noticed and her brain had stopped growing.
Once, Widow Diba came to talk to Gayi the way elderly women do when trying to save a wayward girl from self-destruction. Grandmother had talked and talked until she ran out of words. Diba said, “I am telling you, Gayi: that body of yours which makes you float above all of us will one day abandon you like a bad friend. Three births and that waistline will fill out and thicken. Then you will see your own stomach step out in front of you as if showing you the way. And that backside—chwe.” She made a wiping gesture across her mouth. “Worn away. And that man will discard you like a used toilet wipe. All of us here were beautiful once, but where is that beauty now? Stay in school, add value to your looks, and men will die to marry you.”
When Miiro found out Gayi had a man, he did not bother with that nonsense cajoling of Let us talk, let us reason. He pulled out a cane and flogged Gayi. Then he threatened to withdraw her from school and marry her off to an old man like they did in the past. But did Gayi learn? No. When her older brothers from the city, Tom and Uncle Ndiira, came to visit, Miiro told them about Gayi’s interest in “men.” Tom, being the eldest son, was so angry he flogged Gayi for wasting Grandfather’s money in school fees. But did the madness in Gayi budge? No. Instead, she mumbled between her tears, “What have I done that Tom did not do?” and went back to seeing her man. Eventually Grandfather threw her out of the main house. “There is room for one woman in this house—your mother,” he said. “Everyone else is a child.”
Gayi started to sleep in the biggest boys’ house, built separately for them so they could do whatever they wished in privacy. She no longer used the same bath basins as Grandmother and Grandfather because, as she had “started men,” her parents might catch that shaking condition, Parkinson’s. Another father would have withdrawn Gayi from school altogether. Some fathers threw such shameful girls out of the home entirely so as not to infect the younger ones. In the village, people laughed: “God gave Miiro bright children, but he gave him Gayi too, kdto. Not a flicker of light in that head of hers …” “She repeats classes like a child returning to leftovers …” “She has a mighty itch down there: Miiro can flog all he wants but it will not scratch an itch like that.” But Grandfather kept Gayi in school, insisting he would rather she dropped out of school with at least an O-level certificate than abandon her to a gloomy future.
For a while, after Gayi was evicted from the main house, Grandfather and Grandmother thought she
had stopped seeing her man. But Kirabo knew better. One moonlit night, when she went outside to toilet before bed, she heard whispering near the road. She sidled along the wall until she got to the front of the house. On the road, a man wheeled a motorbike silently. Gayi slunk from behind. They wheeled the motorbike up the road, further away from the house. Kirabo followed. When they thought they were far enough away, the man swung a leg over the bike and kicked a pedal once, twice; the third time the bike burst into life and growled. The man sat astride it. Gayi swung a leg over, sat, pushed her pelvis into the man, wrapped her arms around his waist, laid her head against him, and they set off. From that night onwards, Kirabo listened out for the motorcycle, and when she heard it, she looked at Grandfather and felt guilty.
•
But this time someone with twitchy lips must have seen Gayi sneak out with her man the previous night and tipped Grandfather off as they held a meeting of coffee growers at the koparativu stowa. Grandfather came home sparking like a faulty plug. He rode his bicycle to the house at speed. Normally, he dismounted at the road, wheeled it up the walkway, then pulled back the stand with a foot and leaned the bicycle against it. This time he asked, “Where is Nnaggayi?” as he dismounted and let the bicycle fall to the ground.
No one answered.
“Did she escape last night?”
Silence.
Grandfather marched to the coffee shrub near the kitchen and broke off a switch. While he plucked the twigs and leaves off, the teenagers vanished. In moments like that, you did not hang around. Grandfather might tell you to catch Gayi and hold her down while she was flogged. Despite her rebellious ways, Gayi was one of those girls who, at the sight of a cane, ran screaming.
As Grandfather prepared the whip, a window on the bigger boys’ block flew open. Gayi’s head popped up. She looked around and then climbed on to the sill. She paused for a moment and then plunged. She ran to the road and disappeared. Grandfather, cane in hand, walked to the road and looked it up and down—no sign of Gayi. He walked back to the house, threw the cane on to the rubbish heap outside the kitchen, and went to his bedroom. In the kitchen, Grandmother’s eyes were red. Kirabo did the only thing she knew in moments like this. She sat with Grandmother and leaned against her in the quiet hope that it would soothe her. The teenagers did their homework and chores quickly. Grandfather did not come out to supper. Grandmother was quiet all through eating, all through clearing up and taking the wraps back to the kitchen. There were no prayers. No after-dinner blather for the teenagers. Soon after, all the tadooba candles and lanterns were blown out and the house fell silent. Gayi did not come home that night.
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 8