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It was one of those things that happen and people ask, You mean you didn’t see it coming? and look at you as if you are lying to yourself. But for you, it is not until it happens that you see its inevitability.
When Kirabo arrived home, Sio was sitting on the front steps, the ones no one used. She frowned. Sio never waited for her at home. For the past two weeks, ever since he had returned from TZ, he had rung her at work to say he was coming. Normally, he was waiting at the kiosk outside the treasury building when she finished work, and they went to a restaurant or he walked her home. All this whizzed through her mind as she hurried towards him. When he saw her, Sio stood up and wiped his trousers where he had been sitting. Kirabo saw the shadows in his eyes and her mind flew to his father. Had they located Kabuye’s remains? She gave him a brief hug and then said, “Wait here, I will drop these bags in the house. I have been paid. I will take you for chai and chapatti at the restaurant down the road.” She was not going to ask him what was wrong until they sat down somewhere. But as she walked towards the alleyway, she heard him coming. She stopped, saw how miserable he looked, and thought he might as well come in.
“You know what, Sio, come to the house. Aunt Abi will not be home until six.”
Sio sped up. Yet by the time they got to the alleyway he was lagging behind again, as if he was coming but not coming. Before they got to the little gate, he stopped. It was there, under the mango tree that leaned in from the former Gurdwara Temple, now a mosque, that he dropped the boulder on Kirabo’s head.
“Giibwa is pregnant.”
It was like eating too soon after a dentist has drilled your tooth. One half of your mouth is dead, the other half feels so swollen it is hard to move food around your mouth. Kirabo knew Sio was responsible, but her responses—speech, pain, anger—were delayed. She asked, “What has Giibwa’s pregnancy got to do with me?”
“So you don’t hear it in rumours.”
“I don’t care how I hear it.”
Sio kept quiet. He stood still. Finally, Kirabo asked, “Whose is it?”
“Apparently it is mine.”
Only Kirabo’s legs reacted; they started to itch. She used a shopping bag to scratch at them, but it just slid over the itch ineffectively. She looked at Sio’s tears and thought How Zungu. You go and hurt someone, and then when it comes to apologising you help yourself to crying as well. She had seen it in films. Man cheats, man confesses to woman, man cries, and the betrayed woman is robbed of her right to tears.
“I just found out and thought I should tell you first. I have not even told Mum. I thought I should tell you when you were at home, so you did not travel afterwards.”
Kirabo was still a spectator.
“I only asked her in jest.” Sio started towards her. Kirabo flinched. He stopped. “That Ntaate was spreading rumours that I am not … because I had never slept with any girl in the village. But then Giibwa said yes and I did not know what to do. I would have lost face. Giibwa would have confirmed Ntaate’s rumour. I wish I had a better explanation.”
Still Kirabo did not respond.
“Say something, Kirabo. Say you are mad, hit me for heaven’s sake.”
Kirabo stared.
“I know you will not believe me, but I don’t love her. It happened when I took a message to her from her parents. Oh God, this is a nightmare.” He covered his face with both hands. “I cannot believe I did it.”
Kirabo wanted to ask Had Giibwa not got pregnant, would you have felt so much pain? Would you have felt any regret? But she just turned around and marched through the gate.
He did not come after her.
When she returned, Sio stood where she had left him. He saw her coming with a pail of water, but like a Zungu chicken, he did not run. She stopped a few metres away. “I showed you my flower. You touched me there. Even after you touched her. You said men cheat because they spend money on us”—she splashed him like a car being washed—“but how much have you spent on me?”
He caught his breath. Then as he wiped the water out of his face he replied, “Don’t say that, Kirabo. I was weak and stupid and I don’t even love her.”
Kirabo walked back to the house. Jumping over the shopping bags she had dropped on the kitchen floor, she went to the sink and filled the pail again.
Sio still stood on the same spot. As if he had come all the way to Old Kampala to commit suicide. Kirabo threw the water at him. Maddened at his lack of reaction, she ran back to the sink. She filled the pail and returned. As she soaked him in water yet again, Aunt Abi turned into the alleyway and saw her. She hurried over and took the empty pail from her.
“What are you doing?”
“He made Giibwa pregnant!” Kirabo shrieked, as if Aunt Abi had already met Sio.
Aunt Abi looked at him, then cocked her head as if to retrieve a memory. Sio, dripping, his shirt clinging to his skin so you could see his pale skin through the white shirt, turned slightly towards the tree. “I am sorry, ma’am.” He spoke English.
“Are you not Kabuye’s son?”
Sio nodded.
“Kabuye the feminist!”
“Yii yii.” Aunt Abi threw a look at Kirabo which said What are you doing washing silk in dirty water? “My child,” she smiled at Sio, “do you think you will manage our girl? The way she treats visitors. Now I know why her friends in Nattetta call her Mohammed Alice.” She laughed at her own humour.
“Didn’t you hear what I said, Aunt Abi? He made Giibwa pregnant.”
“You mean this Giibwa, the daughter of Mwesigwa, our labourer?”
“And he came to tell me, so I clap. I bet Nattetta is marvelling, Oh, that Sio, he does not just shoot, he scores too. I bet Ntaate pumped your hand.”
“Kirabo, you twist things. I came to apologise. I came to tell you what I had done. I did not want you to think I love her.”
Have you ever seen a cockerel caught in the rain? That is what Sio looked like in that moment. Way skinnier; an embarrassed skinny.
“Listen to me, Kirabo,” he implored. “Listen. You said once that not all men cheat. That meant a lot to me. I don’t deserve you, but please don’t … just don’t lose your trust in men because of me.”
“Gods, oh my good ancestors protect me from this guy. Did you hear him? Did you hear the sweetness of his words? He hits you, whack, across the cheek, and then begs, please, please, don’t feel the pain.”
“But you know me, Kirabo; you know I am not like that. All this time I have treated you with respect. But now—”
“I know you? Me? Since when? I have no idea who you are. I doubt you know yourself.”
“I know I am a coward but please, I am begging you—”
Aunt Abi stepped in. “But that girl, Giibwa; me, I saw it in her all along. The way she hung about you, Kirabo. Just to see what she could get out of you.”
“He is the one who made her pregnant. And then he claims to be one of us, believes in mwenkanonkano.”
“We are not perfect; we make mistakes,” he protested. Then he began to shiver.
“Come out of the cold, child,” Aunt Abi said. “I have some clothes you can change into while you iron your clothes.” Aunt Abi held Sio’s hand and led him towards the house. She turned to Kirabo. “You wait there.” She led Sio through the tiny gate, under the clotheslines. She pulled a dry towel off the line and wrapped it around his shoulders. When they got to the foyer, she said, “Wait here a minute. Let me talk to Kirabo.” When she got back to where Kirabo stood she whispered, “Listen, Kirabo. All my life, I have never seen a man come to you before you find out that he has cheated and say I am sorry I have erred.”
“So?”
“Which clouds are you sailing on?”
“Giibwa is still pregnant, is she not?” Kirabo started to walk away.
“Stop. You don’t walk away when I am talking to you.” Now she softened her voice. “Let me handle this; anger has blinded you. Besides, this boy has suffered a lot because of his fat
her.”
“That is no excuse.”
“Listen, I will not let a tiny little thing like a boy having a child in his impetuous youth rob us of a potentially fantastic opportunity with a fine young man from an excellent stalk. You are throwing him right back into the arms of that dung roller—why? Because she is cheap? Let me handle this. One day you might thank me.”
“Aunt Abi, he made Giibwa pregnant.” The tears had started to flow.
“I know, I know. The girl is a slut. But do you know the courage it took him to come here to confess?”
“How could he sleep with her? He has never slept with me.”
“Child, that is why; it makes perfect sense, don’t you see it?” Aunt Abi pulled away and looked in Kirabo’s eyes. “He slept with Giibwa for relief. You are decent. He respects you. That is what respecting men do. They go with the cheap girls while they wait for the right girl to get ready.” She rummaged through her handbag and retrieved a hankie and gave it to Kirabo.
Kirabo’s mind was too congested to process the implications of Sio using Giibwa for sexual relief. Or to see that Aunt Abi was demonstrating a form of kweluma by diminishing Sio’s cheating while escalating Giibwa’s role. Kirabo was focused on the fact that if Giibwa had the baby, she would be inextricably related to Sio forever. The problem was that when it came to Sio, Kirabo had ignored the age-old wisdom that a woman never gives away her whole self to a man. To think she had lied to Aunt Abi and her father that part of the A-level study would be a trip to the Serengeti National Park and they had promised to pay for her trip. To think that she had taken Sio’s suggestion and elected to do physics, chemistry, and biology at A level in the hope of doing veterinary medicine at university so they could farm together. She was the most guileless woman who had ever lived.
That night in bed Kirabo clawed the flesh off her bones. You knew he would do it; you knew. Telling him you trusted him, tsk, a naked plea if there ever was one. Then images and smells and sounds of him reeled through her mind—the chink of the Bob Marley buckle on his belt, the Brut scent of him, the way his T-shirt always seemed tucked in at the front but hung out at the back. Him smelling her hair, neck, shoulders, eyes half-closed, then frenzied, greedily demanding “Touch me” while he tugged at the elastic of her knickers because there was hardly any space to snake his hand through, her keeping her knees tight just to hear his frustration—“Touch me, Makula, please touch me.” That Sio, the Sio who had made her so lose herself she did not realise she had parted her knees, the Sio who had made her tug at his Bob Marley buckle to touch him, that Sio had not only touched Giibwa with those same hands, he had inserted himself so deep into her he had made her pregnant.
As a child, when she hurt a finger or a toe, she ran to her grandfather crying, and he took it and blew on it until the pain ebbed. But this pain she did not know what to do with.
WHEN THE VILLAGES WERE YOUNG
1
Nattetta, Bugerere
June 1934
Alikisa and Nsuuta thought they were eleven when they made a pact to marry the same man. Probably, they were ten.
It was at school, during break time. The pupils of Nattetta Native School had just finished eating porridge and were out in the grounds, playing. Big boys kicked a banana-fibre ball below the slopes. Smaller ones slid whooping down the steep hillside at the edge of the church grounds, playing gogolo. Besides Nsuuta and Alikisa, two girls whose turn it was to wash mugs and pans were behind the old church with the cooks. Four others were on the verandah of the new church weaving fibre ropes for skipping before break time ended. There were only eight girls in the school because despite Sir Apollo Kaggwa’s campaigns, there was still no boarding for girls in rural schools. Yet no parent would let a girl walk long distances to go to study. Thus, unlike the numerous boys who came from Eastern Buganda, Busoga, Bukedi, Bugisu up to Teso, girl pupils at Nattetta Native came from nearby villages only. But then again, it did not matter. Girls came to school for one thing only: baptism, in case they got married in church. Christianity was steadily siphoning rituals of birth, marriage, and death away from traditional practitioners, but to access its services, first you had to be baptised.
Alikisa and Nsuuta sat close to the old church under the mugavu tree playing seven stones. They sat facing each other, stone kabaka anjagala seeds between them. Alikisa, whose turn it was to play, held another seed. She had managed the one-stone, two-stone, and three-stone level easily. She tossed the one in her hand in the air but as she scrambled to pick up the four, Nsuuta exclaimed, “Do you know?”
Alikisa ignored her and caught the tossed stone coolly. She showed Nsuuta the four stones she had picked up plus the one she had tossed in the air, and put them back on the heap. “Know what?” she asked as she separated the five stones for the next level.
“We should marry the same man.”
Alikisa dropped the stones. “I have had the same thought before, but—”
“It has just occurred to me, now-now.” Nsuuta was excited. “If we marry the same man we will be friends forever.”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?”
“Your man will not marry me.”
“Why not?”
“Because …”
Nsuuta knew what Alikisa’s because meant, but she did not know how to address it. For a moment, awkwardness sat between them. But then Nsuuta recovered. “Then I will marry your man.”
“How? My father will find me some kacatechist. You know how poor they are. Your father would never let you embarrass him by marrying a poor man. Besides, catechists do not marry second wives.”
Nsuuta ran out of ideas. Sometimes being wealthy was a problem. Sometimes even beauty was a burden. She found out what it meant to be beautiful before she knew the darker implications of being a girl. She did not see it in a mirror; it was all around her—surprise in a stranger’s eyes, envy in a girl’s stare, sometimes hostility, hesitation before chastising, the sting taken out of a reprimand. Besides, people complimented her parents: “Eh, Maama, your little girl is not ugly at all,” and her mother would beam, “She just turned out that way; we don’t know why.” Before long, Nsuuta had learnt to use her beauty to see what else it would fetch.
Thus, to Nsuuta, a rich, handsome husband was a given. Handsome, because you cannot risk having ugly children. Rich, because if marriage was as bad as women lament then it should at least have some comforts. Besides, nothing aged a woman like dropping children coupled with working like a slave. “I want my own maidservant sitting by my side, asking, Maama Nsuuta, what do you crave to eat today? And I say, Mpozzi, what did I eat yesterday? She says, Groundnuts with dry mushroom. And I think it over: Okay, today I will have goat meat cooked in luwombo. I want, when I crave liver, my husband to snap his fingers: Do that cow; my lovely feels like eating liver today. I want my maidservant to remind me, Maama Nsuuta, your bathwater is warmed; would you care to take a bath?”
Alikisa would interrupt, sucking her teeth, because Nsuuta was spoilt beyond redemption. Alikisa came from a humble background and the world had already told her that her looks were less than engaging. In Nattetta she was either Nsuuta’s gruff friend or the catechist’s daughter. Thus, she managed her life’s expectations severely. A rich and handsome husband was out of the question. She was intense. She had few words, but they were invested with feeling. She loved quietly but deeply. She loved Nsuuta like she loved no one else, but sometimes Nsuuta’s words were butterflies.
“You are not ugly yourself.” Nsuuta finally addressed Alikisa’s because. “It is just that you don’t smile properly. And you are so brusque people don’t see your beauty. You should start smiling a bit so that when my husband comes along, he will see you are not ugly.”
Alikisa looked down and plucked the grass around the stones. She plucked and plucked, letting the blades fall and attacking more. She desperately wanted to believe Nsuuta, but it would hurt if she found out that these were some of Nsuuta’s fluttering words.
She never meant to be gloomy or brusque. It started when she left Timiina, her hometown, and came to live in Nattetta. She contemplated the implication of marrying Nsuuta’s man. A large homestead. Their husband’s house, with the modern four angles and an iron roof, would be the centrepiece. Nsuuta, as the favourite wife, would have the house on the right. Hers would be on the left. She would be the quiet, unassuming, but hard-working wife, Nsuuta the spoilt favourite. Their children would play from her house into their father’s into Nsuuta’s, knowing they had twice the mothers, twice the love. She and Nsuuta would run a perfect home, free from conflict, growing food and crops, keeping animals and fowl. They would cook, clean, and bring up their children as one, so the children could never tell whose mother was whose.
“Don’t worry.” Nsuuta interrupted Alikisa’s thoughts. “If my man refuses to marry you, I will run away. Where will he find another beautiful wife who is clever and can read and write?” Nsuuta inspected Alikisa’s face to see that the beauty she had told her about was indeed there. “You have the best neck I have ever seen.”
Disbelief twitched Alikisa’s nose.
“On my grandmother’s truth. People even say that the deepness of your voice is rare. And that gap in your teeth? I wish I had one too. But then your teeth are so regular and so white, if only you smiled.” Seeing Alikisa’s unconvinced face, Nsuuta added, “Okay, if you don’t believe me, let us make a pact. Bring your tiny finger.”
Alikisa stuck out her little finger on the left, Nsuuta the little one on the right. They entwined them.
“You spit first.”
Alikisa spat on the entwined fingers.
Then Nsuuta spat and said, “I swear to marry the same husband as you, Alikisa.”
“I swear to marry the same husband as you, Nsuuta.” Alikisa had to hold back the emotion at this promise from Nsuuta.
“Now we wait until the saliva dries,” Nsuuta said. “Once it dries, that is it, the pact is sealed. You cannot break it. So, if you feel you cannot marry my husband, say so right now.” In her voice was the hint that if the pact was to be broken it would be by Alikisa.
A Girl is a Body of Water Page 24