Kintu

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  “This is more than a pimple.”

  That is when Kintu knew—Ntwire had struck. It took him by surprise yet it was no surprise.

  Nonetheless, Kintu sent for his healer. All day long, the healer called upon the winds of the family to intercede but in the end he confessed, “Whatever it is, it’s bigger than me. Only the dead can try now.” He burned all sorts of herbs to wake up even the laziest family spirits.

  As Kintu watched Baale’s life ebb, the image of the shattered gourd that fell out of Kalema’s hand flashed in his mind. Ntwire had lulled him into a false sense of security.

  At the dawn of his wedding, Baale departed.

  Nnakato, delirious, was locked up throughout the funeral. When the mourners returned from escorting Baale to the underworld, Nnakato had stopped crying. Kintu opened the door to check on her. When she asked whether her child had been properly wrapped, Kintu let her out.

  Nnakato walked to where Babirye sat and pointed at her while she counted on her fingers.

  “Babirye, you wanted a piece of my marriage, I gave it to you. You wanted my man; I shared him with you. You had eight children with him; I never begrudged you any of them. All I had was that one boy, a single sprout, but you begrudged him. You complained that he would be heir instead of your sons. You said that our husband loved him more than he loved yours. I never wedged a line between your children and mine. Yet you found fault with him. You found fault with our husband. You have complained and complained all our life but this is it. You can have it all: man, marriage, home, and family.”

  Kintu looked first at Nnakato and then at Babirye. The belligerent woman wore Nnakato’s cloth but had Babirye’s eyes. The woman sitting down, frightened, had Nnakato’s eyes yet she had been Babirye all day. Kintu did not know whom to rescue from whom. Babirye was never frightened. Nnakato was always meek.

  Nnakato walked away. Some mourners went after her. Clearly, her thoughts were in disarray. The things she said did not make sense. Babirye was childless; Nnakato had born nine children. However, Kintu called them back. He said that Nnakato needed to rage. Who else but her twin to take it out on? He did not want her locked up again. Instead, he asked Nnondo to keep an eye on her.

  “Let her roam and scream everything out: then she will mourn. Locking her up will make her worse.”

  Kintu went to Babirye. It was as if he were talking to Nnakato, “I know you didn’t kill my son, Babirye. Baale had to go. Your sister will soon be back with us.”

  Babirye only stared, speechless.

  That night, Nnakato returned home. She curled up in bed. Kintu sat on the bed opposite and sought out her eyes. It was Nnakato all right. Kintu sat silent, looking for words.

  “Baale was a visitor,” he said finally, “A fleeting moment. Remember we waited a long time for him?”

  Nnakato did not seem to hear the words. Kintu moved to sit on her bed. He touched her feet, lightly at first. They were cold. He rubbed them, blowing on them until they were warm. Slowly, Nnakato uncurled and yawned. When she fell asleep, Kintu stood up. He lifted the sheets of barkcloth and covered her up to the neck. Nnakato shivered. He put his hand on her arm to steady her. Gradually, she stopped and relaxed in sleep. Kintu lifted his hand and went outside to the mourners.

  At dawn, Kintu came back to Nnakato’s chamber to check on her. She was not in bed. He checked Babirye’s quarters; her bed was empty too. He sent for Babirye.

  “Have you seen your sister?”

  “No.”

  “She’s not in her bed and I can’t find her.”

  Babirye went out calling. At daybreak, everyone joined in the search, scouring the village, but there was no Nnakato.

  Early on the third morning after Baale’s burial, Zaya came down the hill howling. Kintu did not come out. He had become used to emotional theatricals in the aftermath of Baale’s death. But then, Nnondo came to him and whispered that Nnakato had been found. Kintu came out of the house and followed him. Nnondo led him up Mayirika Hill past the path that led to the gorge, past the barren mango tree. On the tree with the curious pink bark, Nnakato dangled, her head bent forward. She was swollen. Her skin was patched black and gray. The rope had disappeared under her swollen neck. Her tongue hung out on the side of her mouth. Kintu looked at the large rock: Nnakato had used it to climb the tree. He felt betrayed by the rock and the tree. He looked at Nnakato’s feet and walked forward. His hand reached out to touch them but Nnondo stopped him. Suicide was untouchable. Kintu turned and went back home.

  As with Kalema, there were neither mourning nor funeral rites for Nnakato. Those who could not help crying heaved in hiding. Nnondo hired men, strangers from a faraway village, to bury Nnakato as custom mandated. They arrived late in the evening and worked into the night. They dug a deep hole beneath Nnakato’s dangling body. Then one of them climbed up the tree and cut the rope. Nnakato fell neatly into the hole and squatted. The rope, still around her neck, fell in after her. The men piled the soil on top of her as if she were a dog. When they finished, the men raced through the villages screaming to ward off the curse of suicide. Kintu wondered at Ntwire’s sense of retribution—why kill Baale and Nnakato who had loved Kalema most?

  A week after Nnakato’s burial, Kintu came to Babirye’s quarters. Babirye’s eyes were distant but when he entered, she focused. Kintu squatted in front of her as if he were talking to his mother.

  “Who are you?” he asked gently.

  Babirye took some time to make out what Kintu had said. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, who, which one of you twins was buried?”

  “Your wife.”

  “I know, but which one?”

  Babirye hesitated. Here was the moment. Kintu, the family, Mayirika, and even Buddu Province hung on this moment: she could hold it or she could let everything crash. She had been Nnakato before. If Kintu—the only person to tell them apart—doubted then no one could be sure. All she had to do was bury childless Babirye and resurrect Nnakato and life would go back to normal. Finally, Kintu would worship her. But why should she die so that he could have his Nnakato back? He had not only separated them but had sowed suspicion in Nnakato against her. He had refused to love her even when she gave him eight children. Yet she was going to kill herself to reunite him with Nnakato?

  “I am Babirye.”

  “It’s Nnakato in that hole then?”

  “Hmm.”

  “All right then,” Kintu stood up.

  He vanished that night.

  Once, Kintu was seen in o Lwera in the cave near Kalema’s grave, but his mind was in disorder. He said that Nnakato, Baale, and Kalema were in the cave with him, and that he could not abandon them. After that he was never seen again. Kintu would get neither a grave nor funeral rites.

  Kyabaggu ruled Buganda for twenty more years after Kintu’s disappearance. But the Ganda saying that only character traits of the barren die with them came true for him. Nnanteza’s sons, Jjunju and Ssemakokiro, conspired and killed him. Jjunju, the eldest, became king. Nnanteza became king mother. Jjunju ruled for seventeen years. However, after becoming king, Jjunju fell out with Ssemakokiro. One day Ssemakokiro rebelled and, according to his version of events, he ordered the kidnapping of Jjunju. Unfortunately, the mission went wrong and Jjunju was killed in the scuffle. Ssemakokiro, unlike his father, was quick to appease his brother’s blood. First, he banished all the men he had sent to kidnap Jjunju, including their extended relations, from Buganda. Then he named his palace Jjunju. It worked for Ssemakokiro because he died of natural causes in 1814. Nnanteza lived as king mother for the rest of her life.

  Three seasons after Baale’s death, Mayirika, Kintu’s main house, stood derelict because an heir to Kintu had not been chosen. The problem was that Kintu’s body had not been found. All the young children had been returned to their mothers. It was Nnondo who kept grass from creeping to the threshold. A hundred yards away, Baale’s house stood dark and silent. Bush had swallowed half of it. Babirye lived with Zaya in
her wing. Like a witch, she spent her time gazing in space but Nnakato eluded her. She had not cut her hair for such a long time that the clumps had turned first into tufts and then they had formed ropes. Babirye had intentionally grown her hair before Baale’s wedding. She, like other women in the family, had planned to shave it off on the wedding morning—the scalp would look clean and soft, not yet darkened by the sun. Shaving hair not only accentuated the skin, eyes, and lips but it made the shortest neck look graceful. Only ugly women grew their hair. However, since Nnakato’s death Babirye had vowed to carry the burden of hair until Nnakato made contact. Nnondo had attempted to organize meetings with Kintu’s children to choose the new Ppookino but the meetings tended to end in arguments and fights. Everyone voted for their mother’s son. Babirye refused to take part. Wives had offered to take Babirye with them, but she declined. Zaya looked after her well, she claimed. When Babirye was asked about Nnakato’s claims that she had eight children with Kintu, Babirye got very angry.

  “How dare you say such a thing? Did you not see how Nnakato’s head was confused when she lost her youngest son?”

  In that, Babirye allowed Nnakato and Kintu to take the secret of her children with them.

  One day when Babirye and Zaya had just had their evening meal and Babirye was settling into seeking Nnakato in the air, Zaya jumped. She held her stomach. Babirye looked at her enquiringly.

  “Something moved in there,” Zaya pointed at her belly.

  “Moved—how?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been bloated for a long time. But the last moon or so I am sure something moved in my stomach.”

  “Do you see the moon?”

  “Not for a long time. I thought the moon comes and goes?”

  “Let me see?” Babirye touched Zaya’s stomach. “This is a child.”

  “A child? In there?”

  “Yes; who?”

  “But it does not show!”

  “The first one never does. Whose is it?”

  “Must be Baale then.”

  “Who?”

  “Baale, the departed.”

  “How?”

  “Way back, he offered to teach me how to be with a man, in case I had to go back to Gitta.”

  “Did he? How many times did he help you?”

  “Once, ptsh,” Zaya spat. “We went to Ntwire’s hut. He told me to act like a proper woman: relaxed and patient but . . .” Zaya shook her head in regret.

  “When?”

  “Just before he was sent away for apprenticeship.”

  Babirye counted her fingers. When she got to the eighth finger she said, “Get up child, pack your things; we leave tonight.”

  Babirye looked at the sky and said, “I knew you would be back.”

  BOOK TWO

  SUUBI NNAKINTU

  1.

  MMENGO, KAMPALA

  Monday, January 5, 2004

  At six o’ clock in the evening, the door of Mulago Hospital mortuary opens and an attendant steps in. It is not a new arrival—it’s a collection. Kamu has been in the mortuary for the last five hours. He was lucky to have been checked in, especially as he did not die in the hospital. Normally corpses like his, the ones that are brought by the police—car accident, collapsed on the road, murdered but no one has claimed them—are dumped outside at the door until there is space inside.

  The attendant leads a group of three men and a woman into the gwanika. However they don’t come in with him; they stay close to the door. The attendant slips a plastic apron over his neck and ties the strings at his waist as he walks toward the refrigerator. Then he pulls on a pair of gloves. He steps on a pedal in the wall, close to the floor, and a huge shutter rises like a curtain on a theatre stage, revealing large shelves inside the wall. The attendant tugs at one shelf and a tray with no fewer than ten corpses, like massive loaves out of a giant oven, slides out. The woman, seeing so many dead bodies with all kinds of expressions, holds her hands up to her mouth in shock.

  The attendant walks around the corpses, checking the tags. He does not bother to read Kamu’s. He knows who he is. Finally, he stops at the feet of one corpse and consults his clipboard. He checks the toe tag again and then the clipboard. Then he hooks the clipboard on the trolley, rolls the body onto it, and wheels the corpse toward the door.

  There is something almost privileged about a corpse being sought like this—loved ones distraught, crying even, as they receive you on the trolley and their “thank-you-so-much” to the attendant, even though they have paid him a lot of money so that he does not lie to them that he cannot find you—it shows that you have lived a life worth the effort, that you’ll be missed.

  As the lucky corpse is wheeled toward its loved ones, the other corpses seem to stare forlornly as if waiting for someone, anyone at all who once loved them, to come and take them home. In three days, the haulers will come to clear out the old bodies and make room for new ones. First, they will inject the bodies with embalming fluid—the luxury of being unknown—identified corpses do not get this special treatment, unless their relatives pay for it, which is expensive, and they say that embalming keeps you intact for at least twenty years! Then they will be put into black plastic bags, which are tied at the legs, piled on a trolley, and taken out to be buried.

  “Check and make sure he is your one,” the attendant says as he stops the trolley in front of the men.

  “He is our one: those are his pajamas,” the woman says from the door where she stands.

  “Other people have similar pajamas too,” the attendant is impatient. “Check. I don’t want to get out there and then be told: Oh, he is not the one.”

  One of the men steps forward and looks. That one glance breaks him; he can only nod. The attendant goes back, pushes the trays back into the wall, steps on the pedal, and the shutter comes down.

  Kamu’s right eye stares.

  Meanwhile at that moment in the city center, Suubi stood leaning against a pole outside the shops in the New Taxi Park. A glut in passengers had led to taxi frenzy. Brokers, who normally begged passengers to travel with them, now looked at commuters as if they were beans strewn on the ground. Vans drove in, brokers jumped out barely mentioning their destination and pshooo—the vans were full. Drivers then rushed to make as many trips out of the glut as possible while stranded passengers gnashed their teeth. Suubi watched the space where her taxis—Bakuli, Mmengo, Lubaga—normally parked. It was crowded with frustrated commuters. She would wait until the shoving and pushing abated.

  Just then the cold breeze, the one that heralds the night, swept over her skin and she sneezed. When she stopped, her nose was blocked. That was it. Her hay fever would not wait for the fighting to stop. She wore the longer strap of her handbag across her chest and placed the bag on her belly where it was hardest to snatch. She then stepped out into the crowd. A van drove in and came toward the Lubaga crowd. Judging from its speed, Suubi anticipated where it would come to a halt and shoved toward that space.

  “This ka-woman! She is small but the way she shoves!”

  Suubi bit back her usual retort that thinness was not illness; she was focused on getting in that taxi. The van arrived and she maneuvered herself to the entrance.

  “But this woman also!” The door opened.

  “She has elbows as sharp as spears, I swear.”

  Suubi decided to show them what her “sharp as spears” elbows could do. She grabbed both sides of the entrance, blocking everyone else from entering, and climbed in.

  “Nyabo; we’re also going home!” She was the first inside.

  “As if we came to spend the night here!” She sat next to a window.

  “Aha, some women!” She checked her handbag.

  “We’re full: no more, no more.” There was no tell-tale slash of pick-pocketing on her bag. The door slid and banged shut. “Wait for the next one.” The driver swung the van toward the exit.

  Suubi closed her mind to the ehhu, the ahhaas, and the You can stand there until grass grows aroun
d your legs that the passengers were lamenting to each other. She stared through the window thinking about how she was going to alight at Balintuma Road first, to pick up smoked fish, and then on to market for matooke. Opolot, her boyfriend, was spending the night and smoked Nile perch, cooked in thick groundnut sauce served with matooke, was their favorite.

  The taxi stopped below Bakuli but Suubi was only half-aware. Her grandmother’s story had intruded on her again. All day at work, the story, like an incessant song, had kept coming and going. Now that she was on her way home, Suubi gave in and her grandmother’s voice flooded her mind.

  In the beginning Buganda was serene. Our ba kabaka ruled the kingdom with wisdom. Buganda was huge; its borders touched Buule on one hand and Bweya on the other, reaching all the way into Tanzania! We had everything—rivers, lakes, mountains, animals, good climate, fertile land. Everything. There was food everywhere: matooke ripened in the gardens and was eaten by birds and monkeys. We did not eat cassava—we planted it on the borders of our gardens, in case of famine. There were no wars, people lived in such harmony that no one emigrated.

  Of course, when a nation has plenty and peace reigns, foreigners start to flock in. And you know with foreigners: they bring their troubles with them. At that time, people from nations around Buganda had started to arrive, especially the Lundi, the Ziba, and the Tutsi.

  Now, we Ganda were known the world over for our hospitality because we treated those who settled among us well. However, we asked for one little thing in return for our hospitality; one little thing—that everyone who settled among us became Ganda. You see, it was important that we were all one people—same language, same life, same everything—so that people don’t stumble on each other’s differences.

  Then one day came a man who refused to integrate. He was Tutsi. His name was Ntwire. Ntwire stood away from everyone, from everything. He took part neither in the rites nor feasts, not even in funerals. He did not learn our way of life and he did not attempt to speak our language. Ntwire was a leopard, a loner with only one child. And what is a leopard with its cub like?