Kintu

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  The last passenger hopped onto the van and as they drove out, Kanani felt Faisi gearing up. He slipped the Bible into her hands. After ten minutes of driving when the passengers sat back to enjoy the cooling air wafting through the windows, Faisi launched.

  “Praise God, brothers and sisters.”

  The air was stunned. Passengers’ shoulders sagged.

  “I thank God for He saved me.”

  Faisi clutched the Bible as if it were a battery powering her.

  “God has sent me with a message for you.”

  The passengers whimpered simultaneously. It was the whine of a people who had given up on anything good happening to them.

  “I was a sinner but He set me free.”

  While other passengers decided to ride out the onslaught silently, a lad sitting a few seats away from Faisi turned and laughed. “Why do you still look trapped?”

  Rather than Faisi, the passengers vented their frustration on the lad. Faisi raised her voice above their annoyance.

  “I was an evil woman.” Faisi had a strong alto.

  The passengers glared at the lad, their eyes saying: See what you have done now, but no one else seemed moved. Confession to evil was not potent anymore. People had hardened. Nonetheless, Faisi had cleared the field. Kanani waited to see how she would plough.

  “I was a slut.”

  A woman sighed contentedly.

  “I preferred married men. I aborted three of my unborn babies.”

  A man cracked his knuckles but the women were not moved. Shock had not worked either. Kanani became anxious.

  “Eventually, I settled down with one married man. But God punished me. I couldn’t have children. In a rage of envy, I killed his wife’s children.” Faisi paused for effect, “All three of them.”

  The passengers were still.

  It was a moment of balance: the passengers could believe her and get angry or they might not and laugh. Kanani sat on the edge of his seat praying that they would get angry. Wind whirled through the windows.

  “No one knew about me. The children dropped off one by one and within five years, they were finished.”

  Kanani worried that Faisi had overdone it.

  The lad, now nervous, glanced at Faisi. A man sitting to her left shifted, but there was no room to move. The van’s engine purred. She had them, Kanani wanted to clap.

  “I did,” Faisi choked. “And for what?”

  Looking at her, Faisi was an old woman seeking respite from an old sin. Words came from far beyond pain. “Because of a man . . . a mere man,” her lips trembled. “Those children, I remember them, especially the little girl. They died because of . . .” the words trailed away.

  After a measured pause of sniffing, Faisi infused her voice with optimism.

  “But then I saw the light and I confessed to my husband. He did not believe me and I left him. However, God had plans for me. He sent me another husband. I confessed to him as well, but he married me and we have two children. Now I serve the Lord.”

  A sign for Buddo Hill, Buganda’s traditional coronation grounds, whizzed past. Kanani sensed the passengers slipping out of Faisi’s hands. If a passenger stopped the taxi to alight, it would be impossible to recover the ambience.

  “Whatever you’ve done . . .” Faisi’s voice soothed, “God will forgive. No sin is bigger than His mercy. However, you can’t hold on much longer. You don’t know what the next hour might bring.”

  She paused to allow the passengers to contemplate whether they would make it to the end of the day alive. As the van drove through Nabbingo Town, Faisi concluded, “That is the message God’s sent you today.” She took a short breath and called, “Getting off right there.”

  The driver stopped the van.

  As Faisi and Kanani paid their fare, the passengers hurled,

  “They should swing from the gallows!”

  “They commit crimes and claim God’s mercy!”

  “That’s why I keep away from churches . . . they’re full to the rafters with criminals I swear . . . including the pastors . . .”

  Faisi smiled patiently. Kanani closed his ears but not before he heard someone ask, “Is that the fool who married her?”

  When the taxi drove off, Kanani and Faisi crossed to the other side of the road. They waited for a taxi bound for the city.

  “Oh,” Faisi held her forehead in anguish. “I forgot to quote the Bible.”

  “Never mind,” Kanani soothed. “You did well; your timing was impeccable.”

  “It was God’s mercy.” Faisi never took credit for anything.

  “I like the way you rounded up the message with a sound of hope.”

  “But a quote would have washed the Word down beautifully.”

  At that moment, a van came along. Kanani made to flag it down but Faisi stopped him.

  “Not that one, it’s half-empty. Wait for an almost-full one.”

  It was Kanani’s turn.

  3.

  As they walked home after sowing, doubt beset Kanani. Doubt was a cancer—you pray, it could go away; you pray, it could stay. Kanani and Faisi had prayed but doubt had stayed. For all their piety and evangelism, they doubted that they had a place in heaven. But Faisi and Kanani could not share their doubt with the brethren at church because there was no space for doubt among the Awakened. Doubt was worse than sin for it destroyed the soul.

  Faisi had never killed anyone. Kanani was the only man she had “known’ her entire life. Her evangelical confessions were a ploy to elevate her audience to a higher moral ground while she came across as the lowest of humanity. The deeper her transgressions seemed, the greater God’s mercy manifested.

  Faisi and Kanani doubted their place in heaven because they indulged as man and woman. Even after menopause; sometimes on Sundays as well. Sex was the one act during which the human in humanity was erased and man became beast. It was selfish gratification. It crushed them. In fact, there was a school of thought within the Awakened that believed that to acquire a certain level of sanctity one had to abstain altogether. Sex was permissible for procreation, but to be avoided otherwise.

  In the fight against lust Faisi and Kanani failed dismally. At the beginning of their marriage they attempted to sanctify it with prayer. But prayer before sex dropped off trembling lips. The prayer after sex, breathless, was bad breath to the Lord.

  For some time, Kanani and Faisi hid their toxic desires behind procreation even though they were not keen on children. Then it became clear that God meant them to have only two children—both at once—but Faisi and Kanani continued to indulge night after night.

  The hardest part for Kanani was Faisi’s self-hate. She was Delilah, he Samson. It was true Kanani never asked for “union.” When Faisi said that they should abstain, he did. But then came nights when Faisi would get restless. Resolute, she would turn to the wall and pray. Sensing her distress, Kanani would get so worked up it physically hurt. After a while, having failed to sleep, Faisi would whisper wistfully, “Maybe . . . I don’t know. Maybe we can, as long as you don’t go very deep.”

  That is where Kanani failed. His teeth chattering, he would justify their desire with the quote, “Hebrews 13 verse 4 says that the marriage bed is undefiled,” and they would pounce on each other. In the ensuing madness, the Holy Spirit fled. In the absence of the Holy Spirit, Faisi was wanton. She arched and arched, seeking Kanani out until she swallowed him. When Kanani was swallowed, common sense flowed toward their groins. Then they ground each other until they were so inflated they burst.

  As humanity returned, a deep ugliness settled on them. When Kanani came to—he took longer to recover—Faisi would be sobbing.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “Because I am a temptress.”

  It was to no avail that Kanani explained that he was equally to blame. Without her, Faisi cried, Kanani would not fall. Kanani, a man, was at the mercy of his body. As a woman, the onus fell onto her to fight the good fight.

  “It’s a demon
, Kanani,” she would say. “It brings seven other demons every time.”

  Kanani, not knowing what else to say, would suggest they kneel down to pray. God would look into their hearts and forgive them. Surely, He would see how pained they were. And yet, Kanani doubted that God would forgive a sin they had perpetuated through the decades.

  Unfortunately, Faisi and Kanani’s concern was so focused on God’s judgment of their lust that they neglected the well-being of the twins in the next room. Their house had no ceiling because in the 50s, when Kanani had it built, Jesus was coming soon. At the time, the Awakened believed that the world would end in less than a decade. It was therefore wanton to spend so much money on a house they would not live in for a long time while there were people in the world that needed saving from destruction. Kanani and Faisi did not realize that their lust spilled over the walls.

  Now, as they came down the steps leading to their house, images of the twins Ruth and Job reeled across Kanani’s mind again. Although they were now forty-seven years old, the image of the twins that haunted him was of them as teenagers. Yet, his grandson Paulo, thirty-three years old, came to his mind as an adult. It was unnatural, Kanani thought, for Paulo’s picture to look older than that of the twins.

  4.

  When Faisi brought supper, Kanani’s other regret in life raised its head. Forty-nine years of marriage but he had not got used to Faisi’s cooking. The rice on his plate was boiled, soggy, and white as she never spiced it. Whatever Faisi cooked she drowned: vegetables, Irish potatoes, even matooke. She never steamed food traditionally in banana leaves. When they first married Kanani would joke, “The pieces of meat are swimming,” or “I need a fishing rod to catch these beans,” but it fell on deaf ears.

  As time passed, Kanani felt coerced because he would not dare cook for himself. The Awakened had shaken off most of Ugandan culture yet aspects of traditional manhood persisted. Cooking was unmanly. In the 50s, when he first joined the church administration, he envied European men who wandered in and out of their kitchens without restriction. When missionaries invited him and Faisi to barbecues and dinners, Kanani saw white men help their wives cook. Some openly confessed that their wives were hopeless cooks and that when they wanted a decent meal they made it themselves. Yet, for him to let slip that Faisi was unimaginative in the kitchen was to undermine her as a woman. Instead he would say, “In our culture the kitchen, especially the cooking stones, are taboo to the man of the house.”

  “Really?”

  “As boys if you wander too often into the kitchen doubt is cast over you.”

  “What would you do then if Faith—Europeans said Faisi’s name in English—was as hopeless as my Jennie?”

  “It would be my cross to bear.”

  “Rather harsh, wouldn’t you say?”

  Kanani missed his mother’s cooking. He was brought up on European soups and gravies. His mother was a housekeeper for a missionary, Mr. Lane, who lived on the western slopes of Namirembe Hill. Mr. Lane was the Headmaster of the School for the Handicapped. The school, run on British charity, had long closed down. Kanani sighed as his childhood returned and his appetite fled.

  At the time, he could only describe Mr. Lane’s house as a whole village. “Rooms and rooms, all huge, each with its own toilet and bathroom, cupboards and wardrobes and carpets, I swear.” The floor in Mr. Lane’s vast sitting room was not carpeted as the rest of the house; it was made of tiny wooden panels, parquet. Kanani always helped his mother to varnish it because it was hard work. He especially remembered the square dining table, which was partitioned into four equal triangles. Each triangle had its own chair. If the family wanted to dine together then it became one table: the pieces locked together perfectly. But if you wanted to dine on your own, then you took a triangle and a chair wherever you wanted to sit.

  When Mr. Lane’s sachets of sauces expired, they had to be thrown away but Kanani’s mother brought them home and they tasted fine. She explored new ways of cooking Ugandan food with British sauces. Hence, before marrying Faisi, Kanani had been used to eating thick gravies and soups, crunchy vegetables and traditionally steamed foods.

  Every time Mr. Lane returned from his holiday in England he brought toys and sweets for Eileen’s children—Mr. Lane called Kanani’s mother Eileen. Kanani especially loved the self-assembling red plastic buses. Once every term, Mr. Lane opened the vast stores where he kept bales and bales of children’s clothes that arrived every month from England. He would ask Kanani’s mother to pick as much clothing as her family needed. Even when Kanani and Faisi had the twins, his mother still brought clothes from the school.

  Unlike other missionaries, Mr. Lane stayed long after independence. When Amin expelled all non-Africans from Uganda, Mr. Lane stayed even though he was quite old. Children with disabilities were brought from all over Uganda to this luxurious boarding school, given wheelchairs and crutches if they needed them. Their parents only came to visit and to take them home during holidays. As far as Kanani could see, the school was a paradise for disabled children. Mr. Lane left when his cancer worsened. That day, he asked Kanani’s family to come and take whatever they wished from his house before he locked up. Kanani had picked the partitioned table first, then a fridge and a cooker. Afterwards, Mr. Lane had taken the keys to the new headmaster.

  But no one took Hio, Mr. Lane’s donkey, or Sheba, his tail-less dog, with an unkempt striped tiger coat. Mr. Lane cried the day he left and so did Kanani’s mother. Luckily, she was kept on by the school as a cleaner. She looked after Sheba, who had been evicted from Mr. Lane’s house by the Ugandan headmaster. Sheba died a year later of sadness and of the kawawa flies, which had perforated his ears. Hio, on the other hand, did not notice Mr. Lane’s departure. He continued to roam the vast grounds and fields of the school.

  A discreet knock on the door came and Kanani looked up. Paulo stood at the door. Shrouded by the night, Kanani could only make out a silhouette of Paulo’s face. But then he leaned forward and placed two heavy carrier bags on the floor, coming momentarily into view before withdrawing back into the shadow. As usual, Paulo was not coming in, but had come to check on his grandparents before he went to his quarters.

  “How did the day treat you, Paulo?” Kanani had refused to call his grandson Kalema.

  “Nothing new, Grandfather. Maybe yours was interesting.” Paulo, now holding the door, looked away from Kanani, out into the night.

  “Ours was exciting. We went sowing.”

  “I hope it went well,” Paulo smiled.

  Kanani pushed his food away and stood up. He came toward the carrier bags Paulo had placed on the floor.

  “Oh, the success of sowing is not ours but His,” Kanani answered wearily. “We are only His humble vessels. Is this food?” Kanani checked the groceries. Then he sighed as he saw rice and beef. “Why do you keep buying food you won’t share with us?” He picked up the plastic bags and answered his own question, “You’ve been out with friends and have already eaten.” He sighed like an old man who did not understand. “Now get out of the dark and get to bed.”

  “Sleep well,” Paulo said as he closed the door. “Greet Grandmother for me.”

  Kalema closed the door and walked to his quarters in the new wing of the house, which had been added for him by the twins.

  5.

  The twins’ names should have been Wasswa for Job and Nnakato for Ruth but Faisi and Kanani named them after biblical figures. They would not even allow themselves to be called Ssalongo and Nnalongo for that would be courting the Devil. The twins were hermaphrodite: one side was boy, the other girl. As babies, people thought they were identical—sometimes boys, but mostly girls because when they smiled, which was rare, Ruth and Job had such disarming dimples. Their hair was cut close to their scalps. Faisi and Kanani were unconcerned about gender.

  “Children are children; they’re neither male nor female,” Faisi would say as she made Job wear Ruth’s knickers. The only thing that Kanani insisted upon was that Fai
si would never slap the twins on the head. When the twins started school, Kanani informed the teachers that due to a medical condition, his children should never be slapped on the head.

  Often times, because they looked so alike, Ruth and Job were “borrowed” by brethren, first as flower girls then as bridesmaids at weddings until they were ten years old and Job’s angry jaw could no longer be concealed under bridesmaids’ rouge.

  As children, the twins were timid and shy. But they were not quiet with each other. Even before they started to talk, the twins were in sync. When one gurgled, the other gurgled back. When one cried, the other joined in for sheer volume. Once the twin in need was identified and tended to, both fell silent.

  As soon as Job took his first step, Ruth followed closely behind. As they grew older and misbehaved, it was useless to ask who was in the wrong because they would look at each other as if puzzled. Faisi found a solution: she punished both. It was just as well because when one twin was punished the other bawled even harder.

  So Job and Ruth crawled together, sat together, and sucked their thumbs together. Ruth pinched her nipple as she sucked her thumb, Job pinched his foreskin. After a heavy bout of bawling, Job would stick his right thumb into his mouth and heave. His left hand would reach into his pants. Ruth would follow suit, her left hand seeking her left nipple. When they started to talk, each said that the other’s thumb tasted better because the other seemed to enjoy their thumb more than they did their own. It was Ruth who asked first, “Can I taste your thumb?”

  She licked it tentatively at first and then sucked hard. Job’s thumb was sweeter than hers but when Job tasted hers he said, “You’re joking, yours is better than mine.”

  Sometimes, when Ruth cried and Faisi refused to attend to her, Job stuck his thumb into her mouth, which would pacify her. Faisi slapped the little thumbs out of the mouths, the hands out of the pants and from behind dresses, but as the twins grew older, they found safe places to indulge. In any case, they only had to wait for Faisi to go sowing and they would do whatever they wished. Ultimately, it was at night, in their shared bed, that the twins pinched and sucked to their hearts’ content.