“What about Nsuuta?”
“She and Grandmother are still at it.”
“As for those two…” Aunt Abi performed fatigue.
“But what I don’t understand is why Tom, I mean Dadi, visits her without Grandmother stopping him.”
“Can Tom be told off?”
“He said Nsuuta brought him up.”
“True, but if your mother hates her you need to keep a distance.”
“Is Nsuuta Grandfather’s woman?”
“Aaah haa, child …” Aunt Abi hesitated. “Will you manage?”
“Manage what?”
“Oh well, you have grown; you might as well know.” She sighed. “Nsuuta was Father’s woman too when we were young. I don’t know what is going on now. Perhaps they still are at it.”
Kirabo’s heart ripped. “Why did he not make her his wife then?” It was hard to suppress the pain in her chest. Ssozi the slanderer was right after all? Grandfather was—
“He tried to make Nsuuta’s status in the family public, and Mother seemed okay with it. The way I saw it, Mother had no chance against Nsuuta anyway. Certain things you accept. I mean, God gave Nsuuta everything: beauty, brains, money. Legend has it that she is the woman who ate Father’s heart. In her day, Nsuuta was something. She would wear her nurse’s uniform and walk down that road and Nattetta would say Ha, but God can sculpt. But Mother? She did not care about things like that. It was as if she had dug a hole, jumped in, and piled soil on top of herself. I mean, if your man is carrying on with another woman who looks like an angel, you get up and panel-beat yourself; see what I mean?”
Kirabo nodded without seeing what she meant.
“Not Mother.”
“So what stopped him?”
“Family and church, especially his older brother. Because he is a priest, Faaza Dewo would not allow it. To this day he still hates Nsuuta. Listen, by the time I started to understand the world, Tom lived with Nsuuta. Father spent some nights at her house openly. I did not even know Tom was Mother’s. I thought Mother had me, YA, and Ndiira, who was a baby at the time. Gayi was not yet born.”
“But could you not see Dadi resembles Grandmother?”
“As a child, you don’t see such things.”
“Hmm.”
“On Saturday afternoons when Father bought meat for Sunday meals, there were always two bundles. One for us at the first home and a small one for the second house. He would hand both to Mother. I swear Mother barbecued it for them because Nsuuta worked weekends as well. It seemed to me that Mother was happy to share Father.” Abi paused. “Maybe she was taking care of Tom’s interests, I don’t know. Whenever Nsuuta came around the house she and Mother whispered all the time. After the church and Faaza Dewo intervened, their relationship went underground.” She sucked her teeth. “When Mother yanked Tom away from Nsuuta, her reason was that Nsuuta was spoiling him, giving him things we did not have.” Aunt Abi shook her head. “I tell you, Kirabo, Mother brought me into the world and I so love her the earth is not enough, but how could we be jealous when Nsuuta did shopping, especially around Christmas, for all of us? Even for Mother. Nsuuta had only Tom to look after and her father was rich. We were not happy with what Mother did. Tom almost never forgave her, but she is our mother, you let go. I guess Tom decided to love them both.”
“But why did Grandfather give Tom to Nsuuta in the first place?”
“I was a child, remember. All I am telling you is what I saw or heard as a child. You know Nsuuta is barren?”
Kirabo nodded uncomfortably.
“Mother had two children already. Traditionally, wives share children. You could not leave your co-wife to live a childless life while you hoard all your progeny to yourself.”
Kirabo muted the image of the little graveyard behind Nsuuta’s house.
Aunt Abi turned from Namirembe Road into Rashid Khamis Road. She lived on a row of semi-detached houses that had belonged to Asians before they were expelled. The architecture was Indian. The buildings were white with curved parapet roofs. Everything was concrete—the front yard and the wall fencing. Aunt Abi’s house was closest to the former Gurdwara Temple, which was now a mosque.
As they walked towards the alleyway on the side of the building, the pain of Nsuuta and Grandfather returned. She was reminded of Ntaate, the village creep. Ntaate was the kind of boy who saw you happy in your ignorance and decided to shatter your bliss. Like that time when Kirabo was six. Ntaate saw her kick Miiro’s ram. That ram mounted anything on four legs—dogs, goats, and ewes. It was riding a lamb. When Kirabo kicked it off, Ntaate told her to leave it alone.
“Where do you think lambs come from?”
Kirabo knew, of course. She had grown up with insects, chickens, dogs, everything mating around her. But it was the way that ram smelt the ewes’ backsides and then bared all his teeth to the sky that disgusted her most.
“Where do you think you came from?” Ntaate was relentless.
“From my mother’s stomach.”
“And who put you there?”
Kirabo shrugged.
“Tom.”
She fell on to him and hit him everywhere, screaming, “You are disgusting, pumpkin-head, stinky billy goat. My father is not like that.”
Ntaate extricated himself and ran laughing. When he was at a distance he called, “Tom and your mother, ghi, ghi, ghi,” grinding his pelvis. “Miiro and Muka Miiro, ghi, ghi, ghi.” Kirabo, incensed, screamed that she slept in Grandfather’s bedroom; that Grandmother slept in the room across the corridor; that if such a thing happened, she would know.
But Ntaate was not having it. “Where do you think Tom came from?”
That was the first time in her life when her perfect grandparents were not perfect. It had hurt for a long time. But along life’s way, she accepted that human beings also behaved that way. Now, in the same way, she had to accept that perhaps Grandfather was hurting Grandmother by being with Nsuuta. She sighed. This is what Grandmother had warned: “Don’t go hurrying to grow up.”
•
They entered through the back gate into an enclosed concrete yard. They ducked beneath laundry on clotheslines and into the shared foyer. Aunt Abi fumbled for the keys in her bag. When she could not find them, she went to the window where there was sunlight and emptied the contents of her handbag on to the windowsill. Aunt Abi’s bag was a kikapu—it hauled everything but the charcoal stove. When she found them, she sighed and returned to the door.
“The house is a mess,” she warned as she opened it.
Family whispered that when it came to tidiness, Aunt Abi took after Grandmother. Apart from the worn-out furniture, you would think she had six toddlers the way everything was strewn about. Paper bags, books, coffee-stained cups, shoes, and clothes on the floor. “You are welcome,” she said as she cleared the sofa and picked things off the floor. Apparently this was why she never kept a relationship for a decent period. Aunt Abi was Jjajja Nsangi’s headache. Specifically, her boyfriends, who had failed to evolve into a husband. Nsangi, because she was Miiro’s only sister, was Abi’s formal aunt and had prepared her for everything feminine in life. Every time Nsangi saw Aunt Abi she asked, “Abisaagi, what are you up to in the marriage department? Time is running. Let me know if you need help,” and Aunt Abi scowled.
“By the way, there is nothing to eat in the house.”
“I am all right.” Kirabo opened the front door to the balcony. In the corner were all the potted plants Kirabo had planted the last time she came. They were dead, the soil in the pots compact and cracked. That meant one thing. Uncle Nsibambi, the botanist, was no more. When Aunt Abi had been dating him, she had been hot on plants.
Kirabo was savouring the vista that opened out below her. First, Nakivubo, the valley and canal between Old Kampala Hill and the Nakasero Hills. Then, Sawuliyaako, the largest market for traditional ware and medicines, notorious for not catering to customer comfort; the Equatorial Hotel as Nakasero Hill started to rise; the Norman Cin
ema; and then the hill disappeared behind buildings and trees.
“Here are the clothes I have bought so far,” Aunt Abi called, and Kirabo ran back into the house. Aunt Abi dropped a bundle of clothes on the sofa. “I hope I got your size right: you are growing too fast.” Then she exclaimed, “You need a bra already—when did this happen?” Before Kirabo responded, Aunt Abi frowned. “Have you started your MPs?”
Kirabo nodded.
“Bannange!” Aunt Abi sank herself into a sofa. “Then you know that a moment with a man, even tiny like this, will take away your childhood. I did not know you had started! Look at me when I am talking to you, Kirabo. I am your aunt; this is what we do.”
Kirabo glanced at her. She had had this talk with Grandmother, who made it seem as if Armageddon had arrived between her legs and quickly moved her out of Grandfather’s bedroom as if Kirabo had become unclean. Then Aunt YA, being Tom’s eldest sister, arrived from the city in a big way, laden with a huge roll of cotton wool, rolls of toilet paper, aspirin, and black knickers, like a formal aunt ready to start the aunt sessions. Aunt YA had treated the whole thing like a lesson—“You must wash properly, be discreet, change your pad three to four times a day depending on how heavy your flow is.” How to roll a pad out of cotton wool and toilet paper. How to dispose of it—“It must be thrown in the pit latrine or buried, because if rain falls on it and your blood runs off with rainwater, your MPs will flow non-stop for the rest of your life.” How easily babies are made—“One moment you are with a man, the next, wu, you are a mother. Use aspirin only when the pain is unbearable. Let me see your armpits. Pluck them using ash: razors make the hair grow back fast and all over the place.” Kirabo had felt her carefree childhood screech to an end. Nsuuta was right, too many liquids in women.
“Have you been with a man already?”
“What?” Kirabo shouted. “Aunt Abi!”
“All right, all right, just asking. Me, unlike YA, I am Aunt Liberal. I don’t say you should never get a boyfriend. Look what happened to Gayi. Besides, virginity is overrated. Me, I would not take a bulb home if I had not tried it out: What if it did not light?”
Kirabo thought Aunt Abi should have been Nsuuta’s child instead of Tom.
“Besides, you know the goat given to your aunt if you are a virgin on your wedding night?”
“Yes?”
“It is cooked without salt.”
Kirabo laughed.
“What I am saying is that when you get a boyfriend, don’t sneak around like a thief. Bring him to me, let me meet him, and he will treat you with respect. Stolen love is dangerous. It takes you to bushes and what-what.” She looked at Kirabo as if waiting for a response.
“Okay, Auntie,” she said, but inside, Kirabo was thinking No way I am mentioning Sio. You couldn’t trust grown-ups, not even Aunt Abi.
“Your eyes are shifty, Kirabo. Is there something you wish to tell me?”
“No.”
“But you promise to tell me when you meet someone?”
“I will.” But Kirabo knew a trap when she saw one. What grown-up would not drop in fits when told by a girl, not quite fourteen, that she had a boyfriend?
“Has YA told you about labia elongation?”
“Yes.”
“Of course she has! She must be your formal aunt, must she not?” Kirabo now began to see a conflict between Aunt Abi, who had said, “This one is mine,” when she first arrived, and Aunt YA, who was Tom’s oldest sister: “But I will help too.” Aunt Abi was saying, “Don’t do too long. Long is old-fashioned, before men discovered women.” She wrinkled her nose. “Just a little, like this.” She indicated the upper two segments of her tiny finger. “Doors to keep things closed.” She pressed her hands together. “And don’t pinch them at the top. Otherwise, you will get strings. Hold them right at the base with the thumb on one side and both the fore and middle fingers on the other. That will keep them wide.” Kirabo nodded. This was the kind of Aunt Talk which never seemed to end. “You will have to show me how far you have gone. Don’t worry; I will show you mine.”
The idea of looking at Aunt Abi’s bits. Kirabo must have pulled a face, for Aunt Abi asked, “Did YA explain why we elongate?”
“She said I will not have children if I don’t.”
“Kdto!” Aunt Abi was outraged. “Trust YA to use scare tactics. Kirabo, elongation is the one thing we women do for ourselves. It is for when you start having sex. A man is supposed to touch them before, you know, to know you are ready. By the time the entire length of them is wet you are ready.”
“We do it for ourselves?” Kirabo wrinkled her nose in disgust.
Aunt Abi shuffled to the edge of her sofa in earnest. “Look, Kirabo, don’t delude yourself. Everything about us, our entire world, is built on how men react to us. So yes, in that respect we elongate because men can be inept. They are also supposed to guide them to the bean if you are still dry. Child, never let a man rush you. Tell him I am not ready, show him how to use his member to whip the labia, slow and gentle at first, then fast. Within a minute, you are ready. If you land on the kind of husband who does not know what to do, pack your bags and come home—hmm, hmm. An inept husband is a life sentence.”
Kirabo smiled. Nsuuta would have stated that elongation was evidence of selfish lovemaking our foremothers had to put up with.
Aunt Abi must have misread her thoughts, for she looked at her with a worried face. “Have you ever looked at yourself down there, Kirabo?”
“No.”
“No?” The incredulity. “Could you not find a mirror? You must look at yourself properly. It is the most magical part of you. You know a flower that is beginning to unfold?”
“Yes.”
“That is your flower. Explore it, love it, find out what it is capable of before you hand it over to a man.”
Though Kirabo had no intention of looking down there, it was inspiring to see Aunt Abi’s attitude towards it. Now it was a flower, not ruins.
“All right, enough of the Aunt Talk. Me, I don’t hold sessions, but I am not going to wait for your bridal session to talk about sex: What if you never marry? Now you are in the city with us, I will teach you things spontaneously, as I remember them. However, YA might sit you down with a pen and paper.”
It was true. Aunt YA took the whole thing of being a woman too seriously. She was extremely married. Her whole being revolved around pleasing her husband so he did not cheat on her. She distrusted maids. They came to work and to steal husbands. She made hers wear ugly uniforms, no jewellery or make-up on the job, and certainly no sitting on her sofa. If Aunt YA sat with her husband in their car and they gave a lift to a man, she left the passenger seat for the man so as not to emasculate him, while she sat in the back. Everyone at Miiro’s knew the car belonged to her. They knew she paid her children’s school fees but made them thank her husband. He behaved like a petty chief. You dared not sit on his sofa, not even visitors, when he was not around. It would stay empty like a throne. It was placed strategically towards the TV, commanding the sitting room. He sat at the head; his plate was special. Aunt YA enforced these rules fanatically. Kirabo did not like going to her house for holiday breaks because the one time she had, Aunt YA kept reminding her, “You are a girl, Kirabo,” as if the world could forget. “A woman breaks, my child. Don’t stiffen yourself. I see hardness in your eyes, Kirabo. Don’t be like your Aunt Abi. A woman’s knees bend. Even when your man is wrong, you allow him to be right. The women you see without marriages are the stiff ones.” Yet when she came home to Nattetta, when the whole family got together, Aunt YA did not break. She took the whole notion of being Miiro’s eldest child seriously, especially when she wanted to assert herself over Tom, who wielded real power as the eldest son. She always reinforced her arguments with “As the eldest child in this house, I am saying…” Grown-ups kept telling her that she took after her aunt, Nsangi—they were obedient wives but strong women outside their homes. Poor Aunt Abi, as the second daughter, had no po
wer in the family whatsoever except over her brothers’ wives.
Most clothes fit except a few skirts, which were loose around the waist yet too short. Kirabo looked at herself in the full-length mirror. Her bottom was narrow and modest. Not rounded out like Giibwa’s. Her legs were still skinny and long. Not fleshy and soft like Giibwa’s. The tiny waist rescued her from total boyishness.
Aunt Abi saw her frustration and said, “You are still a bit of a reed, but you will curve out eventually.”
“But the legs …” Kirabo sighed as she surveyed her calves.
“You are a beautiful girl; you have no idea how many people would kill for your eyes. I do not want to hear buts.”
Aunt Abi had included a pair of jeans. Kirabo picked them up and gave her aunt a look that said Where will I wear trousers?
“Try them on,” Aunt Abi said. “We are indoors, no one will see.” When Kirabo pulled them on, curves emerged from nowhere. The skinny legs were gone.
“I knew it; you were built for trousers. May Idi Amin die a horrible death for banning them.”
Kirabo looked at herself again. Sio would pass out, she decided. She did not take them off. When Tom came to pick her up in the company car he laughed. “Is this the same Miiro’s sunshine I fetched from Nattetta yesterday? Now take off the trousers.”
“We must go out for a meal to celebrate Kirabo’s arrival.” Aunt Abi was looking for a way out of cooking. They ended up at the Officers’ Mess in Kololo. Aunt Abi ordered Irish chips and liver for Kirabo—“You will like them; all children love chips”—but the grown-ups ate traditional dishes.
After eating, Tom and Aunt Abi retired to the high stools around the bar and started to drink. Kirabo settled on the comfy sofas and watched TV. First came Daktari, a series about a white man and his daughter who had a monkey, Judy, for a partner. They were tracking African poachers again. They soon caught the idiots, who were a waste of muscles as far as Kirabo was concerned. Kirabo was engrossed. TV was far better than calling family to storytelling. Then I Love Lucy came on. It was laugh, laugh, laugh, but often Kirabo missed the cue to laugh. Kyeswa was the only comedy in Luganda. Finally, Bud Spencer, a western comedy, came on before TV closed down. To Kirabo, she had arrived in the city—eating chips with tomato sauce instead of the boring steamed food of Nattetta, drinking soda instead of banana juice, sugar, food fried with Kimbo.
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 13