Kintu

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  “Sorry to bother you like this,” she apologized again. “I couldn’t talk in front of your companion.”

  “Yes?”

  “That is Suubi, really?”

  “Suubi Nnakintu.”

  “Suubi Nnakato,” the woman corrected. “Not Nnakintu, though it is also our name.”

  “A twin?”

  “Identical.”

  Opolot sighed and then walked around but came back to the same spot.

  “Yii yii, who would have thought?” The woman clapped her hands and then held her chin. “I knew my eyes were not lying.” Now she threw up her hands in disbelief, “Suubi lived!” She shook her head. She talked to Opolot as if she had sighted Bikra Maria herself. “I saw the image and I said to myself: Hmm, isn’t this my real child? So I smiled and when she smiled all the other images, all of them came—her mother, her father—they were all there! And she’s a real person now. Who would have thought? And so accomplished-looking!” Now she lamented, “But, maama, she did not recognize me. I don’t blame her though.” Now tears came to her eyes. “It is such a long time,” she sniffed. “When I last saw her she was this tall,” she indicated the height of a ten or eleven-year-old. “Yii yii, this Suubi child! Her mother named her well. Whoever saw the dying little mouse?”

  “You knew Suubi’s parents?”

  “Knew them? He asks! Suubi is my very own child: one who came out of me, bbe nghi!” She made a pushing motion as if giving birth. “My brother Wasswa was Suubi’s father. I came after the twins: that is why I am Kizza. Nnyonyi, her mother, was my best friend.”

  “Then why don’t you come and meet her?”

  “My child, there are all sorts of reasons in this world. Where do you start to explain and where do you stop? But tell me, is she all right properly?”

  “We were trying to find her family. Someone said she once lived here so we came to look.”

  “Yii yii?” Kizza clapped her hands again. “If yours was a cry for help, you screamed right at the police station. I am her family.”

  “So should I go get her and introduce you?”

  “Not yet. As I said before, these are things you don’t rush. If she forgot maybe it is not wise to shock her too much like that. There are reasons for her forgetting, traditional reasons. You’re sure she is all right: it is just this forgetting?”

  Opolot spread his hands to show that he was not aware of anything else wrong with Suubi.

  “Then that is fine.” Now Kizza became pensive. “But if you notice something not right, if she appears disturbed or restless, bring her to me. For me, this is where I sit.” She pointed to her house and smiled. “You want to see me; you just walk in and call Ssenga Kizza. That is me.”

  “OK, I shall bring—”

  “Oh, I had forgotten, child. Isn’t this good luck or is it providence?” Now she was talking to herself. “Because where would I have found Suubi to tell her?” Now she looked at Opolot. “Child, next month is Apuli isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “We’re in Maachi now?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is serious because I don’t know how we are going to do it. I think we just have to tell Suubi the truth because during the Easter weekend, that is Good Friday, Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday, our whole clan is going back for a reunion and Suubi must come. We hope to sort out the clan. Suubi’s forgetting could be helped there. And it is important that she comes to meet the rest of the family. But you and I, we need to do this gently so we don’t frighten her. When you find a good moment, tell her about me. Tell her I want to meet her, then bring her. I will tell her about everything myself. What do you think?”

  “It is a good plan.” Opolot smiled. “I am happy you are going to take her home.”

  “We’re all happy to go home. Here is my phone number,” and she proceeded to spell out the digits while Opolot keyed them into his phone. When he finished she said, “Now call me.”

  Opolot rang the number. The phone rang somewhere in her breasts and she giggled.

  “That is where I hide it! No one can steal it from in there.”

  Opolot looked away as she reached into her bra and scooped out the phone. She looked at the screen and smiled.

  “Eh, even yours. I have it now.”

  Opolot nodded.

  “Now go before Suubi comes back looking for you.”

  As Opolot walked away the woman called, “Wait, son, how,” now she made her voice sound mellow. “How are we related to you?”

  It was a direct question. Opolot knew what the old woman was looking for. He tried to find a way of putting it delicately.

  “Me? I am with Suubi,” and he looked at her directly.

  “Oh,” the woman laughed shyly. “That is very good!” and she gave him both hands to shake and bent her knees in a gentle curtsey. “Very nice. Good to see you, son. I can see already that you are a good person.” Now she talked to him like he was already an in-law.

  Opolot smiled. Kizza was a typical Ganda aunt. She finds out you are dating her niece and she treats you like you’re an in-law already so you marry her girl.

  “Son, one last little thing.”

  Opolot looked at her.

  “Where do you come from?”

  Opolot smiled.

  “Soroti, I am Atesot. My name is Opolot.”

  “Haaa, Atesot! That is why you are exceedingly handsome! Your Luganda is good,” she said as if it were a compliment. “But there was slight skidding here and there,” she added with a knowing smile. After a pause, as if she were remembering she blurted, “Ejakait.”

  Opolot smiled politely but did not return the greeting. Tell the Ganda that you are Atesot and they will fling Ejakait at you as if it summed up the whole of being Atesot. Some of them cannot even be bothered to learn your name. They will just call you Ejakait.

  BOOK THREE

  KANANI KINTU

  1.

  BUKESA, KAMPALA

  Monday, January 5, 2004

  It is already ten o’ clock but the police have not arrived in Bwaise to collect Kamu’s body. Idlers, like sightseers, come, stare, and then leave. They form a semicircle a few meters away from the corpse. Sprinkles of dust—thrown by passers-by, mostly strangers mumbling, I’ve not walked past you stranger; I’ve buried you—are strewn on Kamu’s feet and on his trousers.

  The idlers are subdued. Some have their hands folded at the chest, some at the back, some bite their nails but mostly they shake their heads, sigh, and suck their teeth in disbelief. A teenager standing by, out of sheer idleness rather than necessity, spits on the side and everyone turns on him, “You do not spit for the dead! Not even when they smell.” And there is indignation at such a lack of decorum.

  The air in Bwaise has turned. Once Kamu died and the LCs disappeared, horror and disbelief arrived. Is a human slayable just like that? And the whole notion of taking a human life became so heavy that Bwaise stared incredulous as if some other place had done it. How do you go to bed at night and sleep when you’ve killed a whole human, hmm? The world died a long time ago . . . Everyone hates himself. People are not human anymore and all the buntu is gone.

  The women in the market, even some who had waved their hands saying that they were fed up with thieves, now click their tongues at how quickly it had all happened. At one moment the LCs were leading him down the road right, right here, the next he was wuu, dead. They have already sprinkled dust on Kamu saying: Kamu, you know I’ve buried you, to absolve themselves from guilt. The same women now whisper the names of the killers and their whispers drift everywhere like smoke on wind. By midday, everyone interested will know who hit Kamu where, with what, and whose blow made him swallow his last breath.

  At that ten o’ clock, Kanani Kintu and his wife Faisi stepped out of their house to go sowing. Kanani stood below the veranda while Faisi tugged at the front door—the rains had made the wood swell and it was hard to open or close. Kanani faced a dilemma. He could offer to help Faisi a
t the risk of being brushed off impatiently, or he could look on, holding the padlock and the keys, while his wife struggled.

  Just then, Faisi stepped back and wrenched with both hands. The door slammed with such force that the roof rattled. She wedged the bolt into the staple and motioned with her hand at Kanani. He passed on the padlock. She slipped it through the latch and pressed it. Kanani passed on the keys, this time unbidden. Faisi selected a key, stuck it into the lock and snapped it twice. Then she unzipped her handbag and tossed the keys in. She drew up the zip to close it but it got stuck along the way: the edge of the Bible stuck out. Kanani was about to offer to carry the Bible when Faisi pushed the book deeper into her handbag and the zip sailed past. She slipped her right hand through the straps, pulled them up her right shoulder, and cradled the bag between her arm and ribs. Faisi looked up and stepped off the verandah. Kanani followed.

  Faisi was already in mode and Kanani knew not to disturb. He would not say that the Holy Spirit was upon her—only the brazen new churches from America made such claims—but once in mode Faisi was under Holy Guidance. Faisi was six foot two, slender and straight. She was not the kind of wife who, contrite about her lofty stature, shrunk to enhance her husband. Faisi walked tall even though Kanani was only five foot six and skinny. Now walking behind her, he wondered how, at the age of sixty-five, Faisi’s backside could still be so pert. Suddenly, she stopped and he bumped into her. She removed the Bible from her handbag and Kanani gestured for her to pass it on. The straps on Faisi’s handbag were frail. The patent leather, once tight, smooth, and shiny, had crumbled and flaked off. Kanani smiled: a lesser woman would have discarded the handbag a long time ago, but not Faisi.

  When the two came to Makerere Road, Kanani asked, “Should we wait here for a taxi or should we walk?” But Faisi was already walking toward Naakulabye Town center. “Disciples worked in more hostile conditions,” Kanani muttered to himself as he hurried to catch up.

  It was a steep walk to Naakulabye. While Faisi looked straight ahead, Kanani noticed that the smell of garbage welcomed them into the town. The overflowing skip in the open yard of the market was as much a landmark of Naakulabye as the ancient muvule tree at the market’s edge. When they came to Total Petro Station at the top of the road, women selling matooke across the road called, “Come, customer: take a look. Today’s food is—”

  “Leave those two alone,” a woman interrupted. “They’re the Awakened couple from that old house near Kiyindi.”

  “Do the Awakened still exist?”

  That is true testimony, Kanani thought to himself; the world knew that he and his wife walked in the Lord.

  By the time Kanani and Faisi came to the center of Naakulabye, the sun was severe. Kanani saw the unsightly tenants of the paved town circle and shook his head. Two fat cows, urban in bearing, occupied the space where flowers once grew. One cow lay on the ground chewing the cud, the other stood swishing its tail languidly, oblivious to the traffic circling around it.

  “Africans . . .” Kanani hissed.

  He remembered the neat paved walkways, manicured hedges, blooming plants, and the dustless streets of colonial Naakulabye and despaired. As a child in the 30s, Kanani had seen Kampala City take shape in the magical hands of the British. When it came to carving out landscape, the white man was a wizard. First, the mpala antelopes, which the ba kabaka had hunted for generations, were banished from the hills. Then the hills were measured and marked, then dug and demarcated into Streets, Roads, Lanes, Places, Squares, and Mews. The roads were tarred and paved smoother than mats. Trees and plants of agreeable species were planted at the roadside at precise intervals, then flowers of all colors. Suddenly, there were palm trees in Kampala. Streetlights sprang up between the trees and lit up in the night. Kampala’s hilltops were enhanced with beautiful structures. Namirembe and Lubaga were crested with magnificent cathedrals, Kikaya was crowned with a beautiful Baha’i Temple, Nakasero with the tall Apollo Hotel, Kololo with a huge TV mast, Makerere with majestic university structures, and Lubiri with a modern royal palace. There was hope then. There were systems. There was order. Uganda was on its way to civilization.

  Then independence came.

  Kanani was pessimistic right from the start. Ugandans related to the land and to the hills, but not to the art drawn on them by the British. The land was theirs but the city belonged to the British. Kanani had watched, wary, as one by one, Europeans packed and left their city behind. Excited Ugandans, dizzy with euphoria, took their places. He remembered Rev Mackenzie, the senior accountant at Namirembe Cathedral at the time. Kanani was his assistant. He was in Mackenzie’s office helping him pack his books in boxes when Mackenzie exploded, “You’re a good person, Canaan.” British people pronounced Kanani’s name properly. “No doubt you’ll do a good job. But mark my words: these buffoons are going to destroy your country.”

  Not even Mackenzie’s pessimism prepared Kanani for the ineptitude and later, the sheer greed that consumed the city after independence. Through the decades, Mackenzie’s words had come to pass like a prophecy. Luckily, churches were unaffected—right from the start churches had belonged not to Europeans but to God. For Kanani, that dry and dusty town circle in the middle of Naakulabye occupied by fat urbanite cows was emblematic of independent Uganda.

  A taxi van bound for the city center came along and Kanani and Faisi boarded. As soon as he sat down, Kanani closed his eyes in prayer. But instead of prayers, images of his twins, Job and Ruth, floated past. Then Paulo Kalema, his grandson, came into view. The image of Paulo’s face was close and large. It stayed immovable, blocking Kanani’s prayer. He opened his eyes, blinked a few times and closed them again. He started to pray again but the images returned. Kanani was troubled. When prayer did not sit properly in his mind, it did not reach heaven. He ignored the images and mumbled on but Paulo’s picture widened and darkened. No matter how fast Kanani prayed, Paulo’s image remained a thick dark shadow he could not see past. Kanani gave up praying.

  Lately, the fact that Paulo insisted on using Kalema as his surname had begun to bother Kanani. The coincidence of the name was too close to the curse. Yet Kanani’s father and even his grandfather had been confident that if the family remained steadfast in the Church and kept their faith they would be safe. Sometimes though, especially at moments like this when his prayer had been blocked by the wandering of his mind, Kanani wondered whether they were. He found solace in the fact that both his father and grandfather had told him that the curse was specific: mental illness, sudden death, and suicide. He had not seen signs of mental illness in his family, and the twins, whatever their faults, were not suicidal. He pushed the thought out of his mind. The curse was nothing but the work of the Devil and Jesus had trounced all evil at Golgotha.

  2.

  Kanani and Faisi were going to “sow the seed.” Normally, Faisi sowed alone but Kanani was on forced leave. At seventy-four years of age, there was grumbling within Namirembe Cathedral administration that Kanani should retire. He was awaiting the trustees’ decision.

  Faisi and Kanani Kintu were Awakened, an old sect within the Anglican Church. The Awakened were based at Namirembe Cathedral, though they had other churches all over central Uganda. For decades, the Awakened claimed to be the only people on the right course to heaven. They had declared other Anglicans Asleep, and Catholics were pronounced heathen for worshipping idols and a woman. Moslems were a primitive tribe.

  Kanani and Faisi were a model Awakened couple. They lived a basic life. In fact, they wore poverty like an ornament. Faisi’s ankle-length skirt was thick and woolen. Bought second-hand, she had worn it for the last ten years. There was neither adornment nor paint on her body. Her hair was cut so close that she brushed it with a shoeshine brush. After paying the tithe, Kanani and Faisi still spent most of their earnings on God’s work.

  Since the arrival of the deafening and predatory Pentecostal churches from America in the 80s, the Awakened had become an endangered species. The Pentecosta
ls had drowned them with their discothèque music, frenzied dancing, and ecstatic prayer. Kanani and Faisi had disagreed with the Awakened’s decision to “withdraw from towns and cities to go into the hills.” The brethren had pointed to the “signs of the times” and declared: “When you see false prophets you know the end is nigh. Get out of Babylon.”

  “But no one knows the day or the hour except He,” Faisi had argued. “The world needs our true witness now in the age of false witness more than ever.”

  But the brethren did not listen. Now that prophecy had come to pass with cruel irony. The end had crept upon the Awakened sect but there was no Christ in sight. Kanani sucked his teeth in anger.

  They alighted in the new taxi park and Kanani looked around. Because his life had rotated around Namirembe Cathedral, which was close to his house, this was the first time in a long while that he had looked at the new taxi park properly. The new shops, small and box-like, looked like shipping containers. No doubt the city engineer had a cave-like architectural vision. Kanani chastised his mind for wandering into worldly issues. He looked at Faisi and envied her unwavering focus. Faisi now had a spring in her step and a cheerful smile played on her face. It was as if an invisible hand guided her. A taxi broker saw them coming and asked with respect, “Kyengera, Nabbingo, Nsangi, old ones?”

  Faisi smiled in agreement.

  “If you sit at the back of the van you won’t be disturbed,” the broker advised helpfully.

  From his vantage view at the back of the van, Kanani watched as one by one passengers climbed in. He contemplated the reasons why these passengers had been chosen in particular. This could be a pertinent point to put to them. Why you, why today? But then a thought intruded on him: is this how those suicide bombers felt as their victims boarded the American planes? Did they sit there wondering, why him, why her, why today? Kanani shook the thought out of his mind. He was vexed that his thoughts kept straying that morning. In any case, he and Faisi were agents of life, not death.