May God send the means, as God sends the light of the sun. May God ordain the stewards, for a city needs stewards, not princes.
We were a hungry folk once, starved by design to make us a better fit for the machine that knew no rest, no satisfaction, but only a constant burning and turning. In this universe, perpetual motion comes not as a gift, but a cost, and so even our starved selves were insufficient fuel to keep the machine advancing.
A hungry mind in a hungry body knows no rest. It yearns, and that yearning extends from the birth of the elders to the last breath of the young. It spans lifetimes and timelines and makes demands of probabilities, pushing at the boundaries of the universe with a nagging finger: is it time yet? Is it our time yet?
We needed four generations, long enough to wash the taint of trauma from our genes. We wanted four millennia, not of supremacy, but of simple existence to give quiet, bold proof that our dream was possible. We managed four decades, and then enemies fell upon us.
Who was it tore us down? Men afraid to die alone, small without the bowed backs of others to stand on, weak without the coddling of servants, and poor without the labour of peasants. They made their civilisations like ever-expanding pyramids constructed from the bottom up, always dependent on the strength of a new, broader base. Destined to topple in time, they were doomed by design, and their people would turn to the conquest of others to delay the date of their own ruin.
But I tell it backwards. First, the dream. A city cannot be built in a day, but it must be built every day. Each cycle of decay must be countered by renewal, each new demand met with a new solution. The environment can be a partner to work with or an enemy to conquer, and the city itself a symbiont or a parasite.
You know the path we chose—the path our ancestors would have approved. And you know how difficult that was, with so many centuries of having strayed from that path, of having been lured and led from that path. But we wanted our future, and we worked for it. We planted the forests of baobab and banyan, taught them our names and our needs, our talents and our dreams. The eco/system kept it stored up for us, reminding us not only of ourselves but also of each other. Instead of consuming each other, we fed each other, and so the chains of commerce became a web of mutual benefit, and economy became ecology.
We celebrated our victory and vowed to work even harder, and yet there were matters beyond our borders that gave cause for concern. A few remembered that peace within does not always inspire peace without. We may claim to have tamed jealousy and greed among ourselves, but certain outsiders would be revenged on us for our brazenness. How dare we flourish, survive, exist!
But the dangers were yet over the horizon and the voices of certain elders were ignored. One elder said nothing. He quietly gathered a team of assistants and toiled away at saving the seeds of our forests and fields in a great vault. “But why?” the people asked him, and he replied, “Isn’t it obvious? They will try to poison the trees.”
Remembering now, I am thankful that no one laughed, but there may have been a few faces turned aside to hide a slight smile or an incredulous frown. Remembering now, it makes my heart cold to think how short were the days of peace that remained. The forests did not fall to poison, nor to blight, but to the wild malice of fire.
The audacity of our enemies is what saved us in the end. They struck with more haste than cunning. Had it been poison, had it been blight, the tainted soil would have taken centuries to recover. But forests know fire, and our knowledge and power was set unseen amid the roots below, waiting and ready for rebirth.
We needed no revenge and we took none. An overextended enemy is his own executioner, and we had only to wait. When we emerged from our strongholds below, the remnants of their shattered empire troubled us little, and then not at all.
So, the date of their ruin has come, and now that question is it time? Is it now? has an answer. Yes. Yes, our cities will be established again, slowly, day by day, unfolding like a tree that puts forth two new leaves for every one that dies. Yes, we will prepare for fire and also for blight, whether through chance or through malice. Yes, our generations will be strong and whole, our children will learn to be better than we are; yes, our civilisation will grow like a forest with strong roots and strong limbs, with leaves sunward, with hopes skyward. Yes.
I promised you truths, not facts. Not a manual, but a gospel; not a report, but a myth; not a request but an exhortation. I have told it as it happened, and as it will happen.
“I think he did not appreciate the manner of my telling, but I cannot be sure beyond the fact that I was never paid.” The historian’s voice was cheerful though a little cracked and weary, and her aged face was charming with the divine mischievousness of tricksters everywhere.
“Is that why you are in exile now?” the reporter asked, leaning forward eagerly.
The historian shook her head at his foolish bluntness. “This is not exile. This is retirement. The forests extend so far, there is no need to live in any city.”
“Did you know what your story would do? That it would change everything?”
“What did I change? We still draw energy from the sun, we still preserve our names and deeds in the roots of the forests, we still remember how our enemies crept up on us while we were complacent.”
“But you spoke of the enemy within. You warned us about our corruption.”
“I only used the word ‘blight’ once. Maybe twice.”
The reporter sat back, somehow satisfied within himself. “Three times. It was enough. It was the story that started the revolution, the rebirth that transformed us. You said enough.”
“I cannot guess where lightning will strike, nor tell it to start a blaze . . . but two things I do know.” She leaned forward and her eyes held the young man, not with charm but with authority. “A true tale is like clear water reflecting the hopes and fears of the listeners . . . and forests know fires; they will always recover in time.”
The reporter mused on those two things during his return journey. He emerged from the transport, still thinking about the past and the future. He considered the cool, stone domes of a modern city, the hidden busyness of its citizens within, and, high above it all, the hungry leaves of trees tasting the sun to fuel and feed the people unto the fourth generation.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
A Ugandan novelist, short story writer, and lecturer, she now lives in Manchester, England, where she lectures in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013 and was published to great success in Kenya. Her short story “Let’s Tell This Story Properly” won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2014, and is included in her new collection of stories Love Made In Manchester (2019). She was awarded a Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction in 2018.
She is our Stupid
My sister Biira is actually my cousin.
Ever heard of King Midas’ barber who saw the king’s donkey ears and carried the secret until it became too much to bear? I stumbled on it five years ago at Biira’s wedding and I have been carrying it since. But unlike Midas’ barber—stupid git dug a hole in the earth, whispered the secret in there and buried it—my family does not read fiction. Bush grew on the barber’s words and every time wind blew the bush whispered, King Midas has donkey ears. I’ve also changed the names. Of course, the barber was put to death. But for me, if word gets back to my family, death will be too kind.
Back in 1961, Aunty Flower goes to Britain on a sikaala to become a teacher—sikaala was scholarship or sikaalasip. Her name was Nnakimuli then. At the time, Ugandan scholars to Britain could not wait to come home, but not Aunty Flower, she did not write either. Instead, she translated Nnakimuli into Flower and was not heard of until 1972.
It was evening when a special hire from the airport parked in my grandfather’s courtyard. Who jumps out of the car? Nnakimuli. As if she had left that morning for the city. They did not recognise her because she was so skinny a
rod is fat. And she moved like a rod too. Then the hair. It was so big you thought she carried a mugugu on her head. And the makeup? Loud. But you know parents, a child can do things to herself but a parent won’t be deceived. It was Grandfather who said, Isn’t this Nnakimuli?
Family did not know whether to unlock their happiness because when her father reached to hug her, Nnakimuli planted kisses—on his right cheek and on his left and her father did not know what to do. The rest of the family held onto their happiness and waited for her to guide them on how to be happy to see her. When she spoke English to them, they apologised, Had we known you were coming we would have bought a kilo of meat . . . haa, dry tea? Someone run to the shop and get a quarter of sugar . . . Remember to get milk from the mulaalo in the morning . . . Maybe you should sit up on a chair with Father; the ground is hard . . . The bedroom is in the dark . . . Will you manage our outside bathroom and toilet? Let’s warm your bath water—you won’t manage our cold water. And when Nnakimuli said her name was Flower, the disconnect was complete. Their rural tongues called her Fulawa. When she helped them, Fl, Fl, Flo-w-e-r, they said Fluew-eh. Nonetheless, she had brought a little something for everyone. People whispered, There’s a little of Nnakimuli left in this Fulawa.
Not Fulawa, maalo, it’s Fl, Fl, Flueweh and they collapsed in giggles.
The following morning, Flower woke up at five, chose a hoe and waited to go digging. She scoffed when family woke up at 6 a.m. Now she spoke Luganda like she never left. Still, family fussed over her bare feet, You’ll knock your toes chewing their tongues speaking English, You’re not used, but she said, Forget Flower; I am Nnakimuli.
She followed them to the garden where they were going to dig. When they shared out the part that needed weeding, they put her at the end in case she failed to complete her portion. She finished first and started harvesting the day’s food, collected firewood, tied her bunch and carried it on her head back home. She then fetched water from the well until the barrel in the kitchen was full. She even joined in peeling matooke. When the chores were done, she bathed and changed clothes. She asked Yeeko, her youngest sister, to walk her through the village greeting residents, asking about the departed, who got married, How many children do you have, and the residents marvelled on how Nnakimuli had not changed. However, they whispered to her family, Feed her; put some flesh on those bones before she goes back. Nnakimuli combed the village, remembering, eating wild fruit, catching up on gossip. For seven days, she carried on as if she was back for good and family relaxed. Then on the eighth day, after the chores, she got dressed, gave away her clothes and money to her father. She knelt down and said goodbye to her father.
“Which goodbye?” the old man was alarmed. “We’re getting used to you: where are you going?”
“To the airport.”
“Yii-yii? Why didn’t you tell us? We’d have escorted you.”
Entebbe Airport had a waving bay then. After your loved one checked in, you went to the top and waited. When they walked out on the tarmac, you called their name and waved. Then they climbed the steps to the plane, turned at the door, and waved to you one last time and you jumped and screamed until the door closed. Then the engine whirled so loud it would burst your ears and it was both joyous and painful as the plane taxied out of sight and then it came back at a nvumulo speed and jumped in the air and the wheels tucked in and you waved until it disappeared. Then a sense of loss descended on you as you turned away.
“Don’t worry, Dad.” She spoke English now. “I’ll catch a bus to Kampala and then a taxi to the airport.”
Realising that Flower was back, her father summoned all the English the missionaries taught him and said, “Mankyesta, see it for us.”
“Yes, all of it,” her siblings chimed as if Manchester was Wobulenzi Township which you could take in in a glance.
“Take a little stone,” Yeeko snivelled, “and throw it into Mankyesta. Then it’ll treat you well.”
That was the last time the family saw her sane. She did not write, not even after the wars—the Idi Amin one or the Museveni one—to see who had died and who had survived. Now family believes that when she visited, madness was starting.
Don’t ask how I know all of this. I hear things, I watch, I put things together and get to the truth. Like when I heard my five grandmothers, sisters to my real grandmother who died giving birth to Aunty Yeeko, whisper that Aunty Zawedde should have had Biira. Me, being young, I thought it was because Biira is a bit too beautiful. Aunty Zawedde is childless.
In 1981, a Ugandan from Britain came looking for the family. He says that Flower is in a mental asylum. Family asks, How? Apparently, she began falling mad, on and off, in the ’70s. How is she mad? The messenger didn’t know. Who’s looking after her? You don’t need family to look after you in a mental asylum. You mean our child is all alone like that? She’s with other sick people and medical people. Who put her there? Her husband. Husband, which husband? She was married. Don’t tell me she had children as well. No. Ehhuu! But what kind of husband dumps our child in an asylum without telling us? How did he marry her without telling us? Also, ask yourselves, the messenger said, how Flower married him without telling you. The silence was awkward. However, love is stubborn. Family insisted, Us, we still love our person, Nnakimuli might have been stupid to cut herself off the family, but she was their stupid. Is her husband one of us or of those places? Of those places. Kdto! They had suspected as much. The messenger gave them the address and left. Family began to look for people who knew people in Britain. Calls were made; letters were written. We have our person in this place; can you check on her and give us advice? In the end, family decided to bring Aunty Flower back home, Let her be mad here with us. The British were wonderful; they gave Aunt Flower a nurse to escort her on the flight.
Aunt Flower had got big. A bigness that extended over there. She smoked worse than wet wood. Had a stash of Marlboro. Yii, but this Britain, family lamented, she even learnt to smoke? With the medicine from Britain, Aunt Flower was neither mad nor sane. She was slow and silent.
Then the medicine ran out and real madness started. People fall mad in different ways, some go silent and angry, some strip and scream, some attack people throwing stones, Aunty Flower was agitated, would not sit still, as if caged. I am Flower Downe, Down with an e. Who? family asked. Mrs Downe. Family accepted. I want to go. Go where? Let me go. But where? I could be Negro or West Indian—how would you know? They let her go. Obviously, England was still in her head. But someone kept an eye on her. All she did was roam and remind people that she was Down with an e. But by 6 p.m., she was home. After a month, the family stopped worrying. Soon, the bigness disappeared but not the smoking. Through the years, Flower Downe roamed the villages laughing, arguing, smoking. She is always smart, takes interest in what she wears. However, if you want to see Aunty Flower’s madness proper, touch her cigarettes.
Then in 1989 someone remarked, Isn’t that pregnancy I see on Flower? The shock. Yii but men have no mercy—a mad woman? An urgent meeting of her siblings, their uncles and aunts was called, What do we do, what do we do? There were threats, If we ever catch him! They tried to coax her, Flower, who touched you there? But when she smiled dreamily, they changed tactics. Tell us about your friend, Mrs Downe. She skipped out of the room. A man was hired to tail her. Nothing.
A few month later, Aunt Flower disappeared. When I came home for holidays, she was not pregnant. I imagined they had removed it. Meanwhile, Mum had had Biira but I don’t remember seeing her pregnant. I was young and stupid and did not think twice about it.
There is nothing to tell about Biira. I mean, what do I know? I am the eldest—she is the youngest. She came late, a welcome mistake, we presumed. Like late children, she was indulged. She is the loving, protective, fiercely loyal but spoilt sister. We grew up without spectacle, close-knit. But we don’t have strong family resemblance—everyone looks like themselves. Thus, there is nothing about Biira to single her out apart from being beautiful
. But all families have that selfish sibling who takes all the family looks—what do you do? However, if you want to see Biira’s anger say she resembles Aunty Flower.
Then Biira found a man. We did the usual rites families do when a girl gets engaged. Then on the wedding day, Aunty Flower came to church. No one informed her, no one gave her transport, no one told her what to wear, yet she turned up at church decked up in a magnificent busuuti like the mother of the bride. Okay, jewellery and makeup were over the top, but she sat quiet—no smoking, no agitating, just smiling—as Biira took her vows. And why was Dad and his sibling restless throughout the service? Later they said, Flower came because Biira resembles her. I thought, Lie to yourselves. Aunty Flower never came to any of my cousins’ weddings.
That day of Biira’s wedding, I looked at Aunt Flower properly and I’m telling you the way Biira resembles her is not innocent—I mean gestures, gait, fingers, even facial expressions? How? I have been watching Aunt Flower since. There is no doubt that her mind is absent—deaths, births, marriages in the family, do not register. However, mention Biira and you will see moments of lucidity in Aunt Flower.
Reneilwe Malatji
Born in Modjadji Village, she grew up at Turfloop Township in Limpopo Province, South Africa. She completed her BA degree, postgraduate teaching diploma in Education and a senior degree in Education at the University of Limpopo. She then served for 18 years in the Department of Education as a teacher, subject advisor and subject specialist in Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces. She completed a postgraduate diploma in Journalism and an MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes University in 2010 and 2011 respectively, going on to study for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Western Cape. Her collection of short stories, Love-Interrupted (2013), won the Aidoo-Snyder Award and the South African Literary Award Nadine Gordimer short story category. She taught ELT students at Rhodes University (2012–13) and is currently a lecturer in Contemporary and Multilingual Studies at the University of Limpopo.
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