The following day after lunch, Giibwa came to Kirabo’s home and as soon as Grandmother went to harvest food for supper, Kirabo took a pair of white socks, the ones with pink diamond patterns on the sides, and ran to Nsuuta’s. Giibwa stayed by the road to keep watch.
After greeting one another, Nsuuta informed Kirabo that her mother had had a second child but was not yet free to see her. For Kirabo, it was painful to confirm what she had suspected for the last one and a half years. But she consoled herself; after all, it was going to be easier to find her mother in the city. Although Nsuuta was disappointed that Kirabo was getting rid of the original state, she was quick. She led Kirabo to the musambya in her back garden, dug a hole under the passion fruit thicket, and asked for the item. She explained that since the original state had chosen her, the least Kirabo could do was to bury it with an item she once treasured. Nsuuta muttered an apology into the socks, something about not being courageous enough—which left Kirabo feeling like a sell-out—and buried them. Then she turned to Kirabo. “No more flying. You will be a good girl from now on,” she said with sarcasm. Kirabo looked down, because being a good girl had never sounded so wicked. God must have been hanging upside down when he created Nsuuta.
Kirabo was about to sprint away when Nsuuta grabbed her hand. “I hear Tom’s taking you to the city.”
“Yes, to live with him.” Kirabo felt guilt for not mentioning it, for not saying goodbye.
“Let us pray that the city treats you well.”
Was that worry creasing Nsuuta’s brows? Kirabo rolled her eyes. Grown-ups. Step out of their little rural world and you are in danger of being gobbled up by the big, bad city.
“Study hard, you hear me?”
“I will.”
“And Kirabo, I don’t know when I will talk to you again. Life is unpredictable. Do you remember what I told you?” Kirabo shook her head. Nsuuta held both her hands. “Don’t judge the women you meet too harshly.”
“I won’t.”
“Often, what women do is a reaction. We react like powerless people. Remember kweluma?”
“When women bite themselves because they are powerless.”
“Tell me that whatever happens, you will not make another woman’s life worse.”
“I won’t, Nsuuta!” Kirabo was miffed that Nsuuta would ask.
“Remember, be a good person, not a good girl. Good girls suffer a lot in this life.”
It was stupid to keep pretending that she did not know Nsuuta just wanted to love her. She was Tom’s daughter, after all, and all poor Nsuuta wanted was a grandchild. She looked up and realised that Nsuuta was waiting for a response.
“I will be a good person,” Kirabo said, not really paying attention to the words she was saying.
Nsuuta did not look convinced but said, “Good, very good.”
Most women in Nattetta, when they heard that Kirabo was leaving, had dispensed some wisdom or advice as a ntanda for her to carry to the city and to see her through life. “The only wealth I have is my experience,” they would say. “Books are a woman’s friend … they don’t know prejudice …” “Don’t look left, don’t look right, look straight—at the blackboard … knowledge will set you free …” “Love like you have been loved in Nattetta; hate hurts the hater more intimately …” “Kampala is a prostitute; it loves money only …” That kind of thing. Yet the profound ntanda Nsuuta had packed for her was not to be a good girl and never to treat another woman badly.
“Thank you for caring all this time,” Kirabo said, throwing herself at Nsuuta, and Nsuuta had to steady herself to avoid falling backwards.
“Now, look at this child thanking me for caring.” She hugged Kirabo tightly.
“But don’t say unkind things to Grandmother, Nsuuta. She cried last time.”
“I will not, Kirabo. If you say I should not, then I will not.”
“Thank you. Now I am gone.” Kirabo extricated herself and dashed through the garden to where Nsuuta’s land bordered the trail to the well. Behind her, Nsuuta listened to the receding footsteps with apprehension. She feared that Kirabo was too young for the world awaiting her outside Nattetta. She doubted that she had prepared her adequately. She prayed that where Kirabo was not prepared, she would be mentally tough enough to carve out her own tools to thrive. But for Kirabo, running towards Giibwa, the guilt at seeing Nsuuta looking old and lonely and blind and worried, knowing that she cared a lot for her but pretending not to, chased after her. The guilt at betraying Grandmother had thinned in the last one and a half years. It had thinned because Tom loved Nsuuta. How could he love her if Grandfather was cheating with her? Without facts, Kirabo relied on instinct. In her gut, Nsuuta felt harmless. Just like Grandmother felt perfect in her gut. Just like Grandfather belonged to her. They were all truths.
•
Kirabo’s neck began to hurt and she turned from the window. It was silent in the car. She looked across at the passengers on the other bench but did not see them. She took a deep breath. It was time to shake Nattetta out of her head. Life was moving on. The world was spreading out. It was futile to keep looking back. Her mother was getting closer. Life was young. Sio was hers. It was wonderful to be Kirabo.
She looked ahead through the windscreen at where the headlights merged. Though there were no teardrop lights in the dark any more, she could hear, even smell the landscape outside the car through the gap in her window. When they drove into a valley, the sound was whirly. The sound in wooded areas was muffled, as if she was inside a packed suitcase. In open spaces, the sound was distant, as if the echoes couldn’t be bothered to return. Sometimes the smell of swamp clay came along, or a fragrance from a tree, but sometimes a hostile tree gave off a foul smell as if urging them to move on. She recognised some places—Mu Ntooke, Nakifuma—and soon they were in Mukono. It grew cold. She tugged at the window to close it, but it was stuck. Tom yanked it closed and the noise from outside was muted. Kirabo took a deep breath and leaned back in her seat. But Nattetta was not ready to let go of her yet.
2
Sio. The day she felt him for the first time.
In a way it was like finding out that you have beautiful eyes. You have carried those eyes on your face all your life; you should have known.
It happened towards the end of the previous year, during Wafula’s kadodi carnival. It was a day of surprises. First, Kirabo heard Sio speak Luganda. A Luganda as faultless as if he had been born and bred in Bugerere. Then she saw him do the kadodi dance as if he was a Mumasaaba about to be circumcised. But what amazed her was that no one stared. As if a London-born dancing kadodi was an everyday sight in Nattetta.
Kirabo nudged Giibwa and pointed with her lips. “When did he become one of us?”
“Sio? He has been around for some time now. When he comes home for holidays he mixes with us. You have been buried in books.”
“Now he even speaks Luganda?”
“Learnt it in boarding school.”
“And how does he know how to dance kadodi?”
“He is too much, isn’t he?”
Kirabo glared at Giibwa.
“Okay, he might have practised with Wafula. See how he does it on one leg.”
But Kirabo did not look. She was not about to be seen admiring a London-born rotating on one leg as if he had been walking on his own legs all his life. She decided not to ask where the flab on his legs had gone.
According to Giibwa, Sio was on the long holidays after his O levels and roamed the villages looking for adventure, like other boys. He was tight with Wafula, who went to the same boarding school. Kirabo had not seen him much. The few times they met at church, she pouted and looked away. As far as she could see, he still had airs. But whether they were rich airs or British airs she could not tell.
Unlike Giibwa’s parents, who did not monitor her, Grandmother had kept Kirabo close to her elbow for the past year. Whenever Kirabo left the house to go anywhere, she had to be in the company of other family members. She was at that pe
rilous age where if a girl talked to a boy, grown-ups panicked: “Eh, eeeh, that girl does not fear men.” Thus, girls performed outrage when a boy spoke to them. Every youth knew Kirabo was destined for a great education. Apart from Giibwa and other girls still at school, youths avoided her except when they mocked: “Profesa, what are the books saying?” During childhood, the burden of communal vigilance was occasional; now as a teenager, it was constant. This was a society gripped not just by the fear of teenage pregnancies but by a certain nature in men. Boys and men were wolves—they had this overwhelming desire which, if stirred, made them animals. It fell on girls not to awaken the animal in men. Thus, as soon as traces of stretch marks behind Kirabo’s knees and hints of rounding out were visible, Grandmother kept her close, rarely out of sight. Until she sat her exams, Kirabo was cut off from the youths’ daily commune entirely. The day Kirabo felt Sio, she and Giibwa danced so far from home with Wafula’s kadodi carnival that when they came to their senses, they did not recognise their surroundings.
•
The villages had been waiting for this day for two years. Everyone said that Wafula’s carnival would break all records. On the day, by ten hours in the afternoon when the sun had started to tire, every girl and boy in Nattetta was feverish. Girls from all over the villages had collected at Miiro’s house, waiting.
When they first heard the echoes of the drums, Kirabo and Giibwa ran to the house, tied sweaters around their waists, and tried out their dancing strokes—swinging hips, twisting the waist, shaking the shoulders, jutting out their breasts. As the drums drew closer, girls and boys crowded the roadside, showing off their dancing. When the carnival came down the hill, the drummers saw the throng near Miiro’s house and the drums became acute. Wafula, his hands held out at his sides, danced like I know I am a dream. The high-pitched drums were insistent, like an itch in the ear, impossible to ignore. The flute suggested things and the bass drum agreed. But it was the jingle, the rattles of Wafula’s rhythm that set the girls on fire. His fly whisks must have flicked Giibwa’s inhibitions to hell, because she shrieked and leapt into the road to show why Wafula was dying for her. Not to be outdone, Kirabo joined her, tossing her tail this way, that way, kicking and jumping. Girls swung their hips at Wafula, goading, challenging. His smile said, You have no idea. All girls from villages far and wide were in the carnival. Even young wives without common sense were dancing on the road. The boys pulsed their torsos, showing off their chests, twisting as if their pelvises were boneless. Soon the carnival was dance-jogging down the road, taking Kirabo and Giibwa with it. By the time they realised, Nattetta was more than four miles away and it was getting dark. The only person they knew in the crowd was Sio. Kirabo glanced at him; he did not look like he was about to stop.
“What do we do?” she panicked at Giibwa.
“Ask him.”
“Who?” Kirabo pretended not to know who Giibwa was talking about.
“Sio.”
Kirabo looked over. Bit her nails. “You go and ask him.” She pushed Giibwa in Sio’s direction.
“Why me?”
“He is Wafula’s friend, and Wafula thinks you are sugar.”
“Ah, you do it.”
“Okay, we will go together, come on.” Kirabo led the way to where Sio dance-jogged. When she got to him, she shouted above the drums, “Are you going home yet?”
Sio frowned What is it to you, but then realised she was asking and stopped dancing. He scanned the crowd. Everything about him said he wanted to carry on. Kirabo looked back to garner Giibwa’s support; Giibwa had stayed behind. The duplicitous hare! Kirabo stood her ground. She had already poured all her dignity at Sio’s feet; she might as well swallow the humiliation of begging.
“Okay,” he said at last, “let’s go.”
Kirabo almost danced, but seeing his regret, she apologised. Then she beckoned to Giibwa, who skipped over to join them.
“This time she is going to kill me,” Kirabo mused.
“Who?”
“My grandmother. To her, only girls gone bad run on with the kadodi.”
“Cannot blame her: apparently there is a spike in teenage pregnancies after an imbalu year.”
“If you are stupid.”
Conversation stalled. Giibwa had not contributed a word. They walked and ran, walked and ran. When they ran past Sio’s home in Kamuli, Kirabo nudged Giibwa to say He is walking us all the way. Giibwa walked slower than them and kept falling behind. Kirabo would look back, beckon for her, and Giibwa would run to catch up.
As they came to the fringes of Nattetta, Sio became a problem. They were coming to the houses of residents who looked out for Kirabo. It was bad enough to be seen in Sio’s company without her family in daytime, but at night, alone with him, would be monstrous. Giibwa did not count: she had no future to lose. Kirabo could already hear Widow Diba hurrying to Grandmother, clapping Muka Miiro, Muka Miiro? I don’t like what I saw last night. That Kabuye’s son? Hmm-hmm.
Kirabo tried to get rid of Sio. “I think we will be safe now.”
“I think I should see you home.”
By the time they came to the trail that led to Giibwa’s home in Kisoga, Kirabo was desperate. “You know, Sio,” she said, “I will be all right from this point on, but Giibwa’s home is further up there. It is dark and bush all the way to Kisoga.”
Sio stopped and looked at Giibwa for the first time. Giibwa squirmed. Kirabo felt that this was the moment for Giibwa to flash her dimples, but she just stood there like a tree stump. Kirabo added, “She crosses the stream, Nnankya. Some nights the spirit comes out and sits on the bridge.”
“Okay, hurry up,” he said to Giibwa like a man who has no patience with spirit nonsense.
As they walked away, Kirabo called in English, “Thank you very much for escorting us, Sio.”
He turned, threw a curt Kale at her and carried on walking.
That was the moment Kirabo felt Sio. He hurt. His Kale, flung at her when she had attempted to speak his language, cut deep. What would it have cost him to say the English equivalent, Okay, or You are welcome. She glanced back. Sio and Giibwa were shadows. Suddenly, Sio seemed too close to Giibwa. And they were on their own. As if he preferred Giibwa. It hurt. As if he could not wait to be alone with her, even though it was she, Kirabo, who had asked him to walk them home while Giibwa pretended modesty. The pain was outrageous, absurd even. Especially as she had asked Sio to walk Giibwa home, especially as Sio had been reluctant. But the ache did not listen. That was the moment Kirabo stopped making sense to herself.
From that day on, Sio was everywhere—at the shops, on the road, even at the koparativu stowa. Now he lingered at church. Some Sundays his parents drove away without him. All the girls talked about him, Sio this, Sio that … and Kirabo sucked her teeth at their crooning. Then Giibwa began to say things like “Your Sio was at the shops today” and “That Sio of yours is really funny.”
Finally, Kirabo exploded. “Why do you call him mine, hmm? Have I called Wafula yours?”
“Hmm hmm.” Giibwa shrugged as if she had never considered this before.
3
In Nattetta, a thing between a boy and a girl started with Boy saying to Girl, Can I talk to you? and Girl shrugging, which was the most positive response a boy in love could hope for in Nattetta. Then Boy whispered, I feel like you are my twin; can we be twins? At this, Girl sucked her teeth contemptuously—Do I look like a slut?—while the rest of her body screamed Yes, yes, yes.
The thing between Kirabo and Sio did not start the normal way. Sio did not say a word to Kirabo. He did not give her a chance to perform outrage. Thus, Kirabo did not see herself change. Besides, this thing came with such force it overwhelmed her common sense, overran her instincts, and bungled her sense of judgement.
Sio started coming to Nattetta’s well even though there was running water in his home. There were wells in Kamuli in case Kabuye’s tap water had been turned off. And if God turned the springs off in Kamuli, there were
a few wells in Bugiri, the village closest to Kamuli. Yet Sio came to Nattetta’s springs, three miles away from his village.
In the evenings, the well was crowded with bigger boys and girls. For some reason, rather than line up their debbe containers the way they did early in the day, the big boys preferred to push and shove. Girls stood on the elevated sides of the well clicking their tongues and shaking their heads at the madness. When this testosterone-fuelled shoving started, Sio took Kirabo’s debbe and drew water for her. He did not ask her. He just motioned with his hand and she handed over the tin container. The first time he motioned his hand, Giibwa, who stood close to Kirabo, held her breath. When Kirabo handed him her debbe, Giibwa looked away, pouting: Why did you deny he is yours? Kirabo pulled a Why don’t you ask him yourself? pout. For a moment the girls did not speak. Then the moment passed. When Wafula came and tried to help Giibwa draw water, she rolled her eyes in a Don’t be silly way. Wafula did not try it again.
Because Sio was bigger than most of the boys, and his parents were rich and Zungu, and he spoke English so British Nattetta folk did not catch a word, no one challenged him. But Ntaate, the village creep, was not happy. On one occasion, when he realised that Kirabo was close by, he said to his friends, “But these Bazungu really crumpled us the way God crumpled lady parts between their legs. Now, look at this Sio: he is not even white but we don’t challenge him at all.”
Sometimes, Sio lugged Kirabo’s twenty-litre debbe of water from the well to the top of the hill, where he helped put it on her head. But he never said a word. Kirabo accepted his silent attention with a pride that pretended to be indifferent. If Sio chose to draw water and carry it for her, that was his problem. All she said was “Thank you” in English. But that did not stop girls from sighing at her, “Aah, but Kirabo, you are sweetening yourself for Sio,” and Kirabo would snap, “How?”
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 10