Kintu

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  Isaac expected the headmaster to tell them to leave his office but instead he clasped his hands and asked, “Why, Mr. Kintu?”

  “Because I am a single father. My wife died when Isaac was born. I have this one only child,” Sasa waved his forefinger. “A single matchstick—you light it wrong, ooopi! You’re plunged into eternal darkness. Do you get me, Mr. Headmaster?”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ve brought him up on my own and in spite of this old suit, I am poor and don’t want him to go away because he runs the family business. I understand you have a non-boarding section in your school.”

  “Yes, Mr. Kintu. We, unlike other so-called First World schools, are not entirely boarding.”

  “So, what can you do for my son?”

  “Isaac has a place with us as a non-boarder.”

  “Is that all?” Sasa threw his arms in the air in disbelief.

  The headmaster looked at Sasa, bewildered. Isaac squirmed. He had not discussed anything of this with Sasa prior to coming. Isaac had imagined that Sasa was only escorting him. Sasa clarified their position.

  “You mean you have no schemes or bursaries for such poor high-fliers like my son?”

  “Oh, I get you, I get you, Mr. Kintu. Leave it with me. I’ll get in touch within a week or two. Meanwhile, don’t look elsewhere.”

  Sasa turned to Isaac and growled, “You see this kind gentleman? You see the chance he has given us?”

  Isaac nodded.

  “I suggest you come to his school. Join the rich boys and make trouble, I swear upon your mother’s grave I’ll take you to the school assembly and caress your backside with this stick like I’ve never—” Sasa turned to the headmaster and said, “He won’t be trouble,” and shook his hand. Leaning heavily on his walking stick, Sasa snapped at Isaac. “Let’s go, lad.” They walked in character all the way home until they got into the house and collapsed into laughter.

  Their relationship did not, however, improve entirely. Oftentimes, Sasa threatened to throw Isaac out. But Isaac never talked back. If it hurt, he never showed it. Later, Sasa would say, “That’s why I love my man Isaac: he knows me. When I rage he keeps quiet, saying to himself, Sasa doesn’t mean a word he says.”

  Isaac’s eyes were so set on Makerere University that Sasa’s rants were nothing. Besides, his own family had been worse. So what if Sasa, a stranger, screamed? He knew that Sasa asked him to move in with him so he would not leave him, but it suited Isaac. He had not only walked out on Tendo and her children, but he paid no rent and did not buy food. In any case, Isaac suspected that he loved Sasa no matter how flawed their relationship. Apart from his grandmother, no one had ever shown him this level of care.

  Isaac received his admission letter to Makerere College School and started his A-levels. At school, he was shy, unable to look a girl in the eyes. He worked hard at his studies especially on those nights when they did not have a gig. Thankfully, sex was one of the fringe benefits of deejaying. After years of being shunned and called ugly, followed by shame and disgust at his soggy, sticky dreams, Isaac had stopped trying to figure out girls. They frightened him, yet the way his body wanted them alarmed him. For a long time, he relied on his imagination. However, disco music, a darkened room with dancing lights, large headphones across his head, him hiccupping in the mic, and his phenomenal dancing, kept a steady supply of sex. But it was sex in shadows against walls with dark figures who were, more often than not, drunk.

  One weekend, Sasa had such a bad headache that he could not bear to be anywhere near music. Isaac hired an assistant and a pickup truck to transport the equipment. For the two nights, Friday and Saturday, while the helper played his selection, Isaac manned the door and took the collection. On Sunday, when he showed Sasa the take, Sasa was not interested. On Monday, when Isaac came home from school, Sasa was so weak he could not walk to the road. Isaac hired a taxi and took him to Mulago Hospital where he was admitted. On Wednesday, the doctor explained that Sasa had a rare strain of meningitis and asked if Sasa had ever taken an HIV test. Isaac had no clue. Was Sasa sexually active? Isaac had never seen him with a woman but he could not be sure. How old was he? Isaac did not know. Should we carry out a blood test? Isaac said if necessary. That week, Isaac tried not to think about the fact that he did not really know Sasa at all. He went straight to hospital after school to nurse him. When he asked Sasa about his family, he replied by crying for his mother. Sometimes, when he was delirious, Sasa cried in a language Isaac did not understand. Hearing a grown man crying for his mother was heart-rending. Isaac would go home and cry too because this man with a skin darker than night, with tribal scars on his cheeks and a gap between his front teeth, wanted his mother.

  The following weekend, Sasa was unresponsive. Even though he was sedated, Isaac explained to him that he had to go to work to pay the hospital bills. On his way to perform on Saturday evening, he visited to bring juice, but by then Sasa had lapsed into a coma. The HIV results were not back yet. When he returned at midday on Sunday, Sasa’s bed was occupied by another patient. Relatives of other patients said, “You’re late, lad! Your father left early this morning.”

  Isaac was too frightened to cry. He had not anticipated Sasa dying. What was Sasa’s real name? Sasa is a Swahili word for “now.” What was his tribe? He suspected, because of the way he twisted words and the scarification, that Sasa was either Kakwa, Amin’s tribe, or Nubian. It now occurred to Isaac that Sasa could have been one of Amin’s people who fell from grace after the war. It explained the name, the fact that no one had ever visited Sasa in the two years Isaac had known him and why he never talked about his past.

  Isaac slunk from the hospital like a thief because he did not intend to pay the bill. There was something fraudulent about paying a huge medical bill only to take home a corpse. In any case, where would he take Sasa’s body? Isaac went home and packed his bags, ready to run in case Sasa’s kin turned up.

  He mourned quietly. For a week, he sat outside their two-roomed apartment and stared at people and cars and clouds going past. The silence in the house was oppressive. Sasa’s nicotine smell was thinning but his clothes, hanging on the wall, were difficult to ignore. For the first time, Isaac looked at the trees around the house. There were long nandi flames on the roadside but close to the house was a eucalyptus shrub. They were indifferent to his plight. Their leaves shook at the slightest breath of wind as if Sasa, who had lived so close to them, had not died. Isaac wondered where his grandmother was buried. He cried alone in bed because he had told no one about it. Then he went back to school. If Sasa was watching somewhere, he knew that Isaac had mourned him like a son. But Sasa would also know that he owed him. It was only fair that he made as much money as possible before the scavenging relatives turned up.

  A month later, not a single inquiry had been made about Sasa. By the end of two months, Isaac had made so much money he did not know what to do with it. He opened a grocery shop in the market where his mother worked and asked her to operate it. The money was to help with her children’s school fees but he would be keeping an eye on it. Then he opened an account in a bank and deposited the rest of the money.

  During his A-level exams, Isaac put away the music and concentrated on his studies. He had no doubt that Sasa’s relatives would come one day. If they did, there was money in the bank and he still had the whole set of equipment to give them. When he thought about the things other people would have done with Sasa’s money, Isaac was not sure whether to marvel at his own goodness or to cringe at his stupidity.

  After the exams, Isaac took the ageing decks and speakers, sold them off one by one and replaced them with new ones. He changed the name of the disco from Sasasounds to Isaac New Sounds. He moved out of the house in Kavule to Banda. He turned up regularly at the grocery shop to balance the books, stock-take, and help with wholesale purchases. But he did all this silently. Afterwards, he would tell his mother how much money she could put to her children’s school fees without hurting the
shop. Then he would leave, despite his mother asking him to stay and eat with them, despite his siblings’ gratitude for his kindness—Isaac remained uncommunicative.

  8.

  Isaac met Nnayiga the same year he finished his course at university. It was February 1990. In September 1986, he arrived at Makerere University to read Electrical Engineering. His disco business had expanded so well that he bought a pickup truck. He now had two sets of equipment. The largest and newest he hired to a nightclub, the older set he hired out to prepaid gigs. He still turned up at the gigs and made record selections but he did not deejay anymore.

  When he arrived at Makerere, despite the sense of achievement, Isaac felt detached from the euphoric freshers. At twenty-five, he had nothing in common with the nineteen-year-olds. The kind of girls who cried when he sat next to them in primary school, who watched TV while he wrestled with fishing nets, who made their demands to doting parents with tantrums and sulks while he fed an aunt and nephews, now seemed blind to his ugly self because he was well off. Yet Isaac knew he had not changed physically: his eyes were still small and red, the skin on his face was gravel and he had knock-knees.

  At first, he tried to enjoy this new acceptance but he soon discovered that the delicate girls were not to his taste at all. They were too keen sexually. It was like being with a fellow man. Their desire made him feel like he was the woman. In the end, he ran back to the darkened discothèques and grabbed some insecure girl whom he never looked in the eye, whose body he never saw, whom he gave money to appease his inner demons.

  Isaac met Nnayiga in a discothèque. Sitting alone, sipping a Fanta orange, Nnayiga looked shy and vulnerable. She carried a school bag and had that lost and raw look of a girl just arrived from a backyard village.

  Isaac asked her to dance. Three records later, he went to the bar and bought her a beer. Nnayiga refused it.

  “I am not sure I should drink that.”

  Isaac’s eyes lit up. “You don’t drink?” Nnayiga shook her head. “Try.”

  She took a sip and wrinkled her nose. “It’s horrible,” and pushed the beer toward him.

  “Never mind, I’ll get you wine.”

  He brought her some red wine and assured her it was sweet. When she tasted it, Nnayiga frowned.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “It leaves a burning sensation down the throat.” She cleared her throat. “But it’s sweet. I’ll try it.”

  After two glasses and more dancing, when she started to laugh less self-consciously, Isaac said, “I am going now. Would you like me to drop you home?”

  “Oh, can you?”

  “You live in Kamwokya?”

  But rather than taking Luggogo bypass to go to Kamwokya, Isaac carried on toward Nakawa. Nnayiga’s childish voice vanished.

  “Where’re you taking me?”

  Isaac kept quiet: he hated girls who pretended not to understand what was going on.

  “Where are you taking me?” she repeated. “I am going to pick something up from my house,” Isaac played along.

  Nnayiga smiled, “For a moment, I was afraid you wanted to kidnap me.”

  Isaac stole a glance at her. Was she really that green?

  “Why would I do that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Sex or sacrifice.”

  Isaac was silent for a while. Then, he stopped the car and swung it around.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you home.”

  “I thought you were picking something up.”

  “Not with you thinking those ugly things.”

  “Oh, ignore me. I was afraid that I would have to stab you.” Nnayiga pulled a blade from her schoolbag. Isaac stepped on the brakes. Nnayiga moved closer to the door and faced him. Isaac rested his face on the steering wheel for a while. Then he laughed.

  “That’s almost a machete.”

  “First you give me beer, I refuse it, then you give me wine. When you think I am drunk you offer to take me home. Along the way, you remember to pick up something from your house. It’s eleven o’ clock in the night and I am alone in your car.”

  She is really green, Isaac thought. “Did I say I was picking things from my house?”

  Now Nnayiga looked confused, “I thought you said home.”

  Isaac laughed. “You misunderstood me. I was going to pick things up from a friend, not my home: I don’t live at Nakawa. Now, I see why I alarmed you.”

  Nnayiga smiled with relief but did not put the knife away.

  “So,” Isaac tried to make light conversation, “Do you live with your parents?”

  “No, my parents are in the village. I live with my older sister.”

  “How long have you been in the city?”

  “Three months now. My parents told me to carry a knife.”

  “Where do you study?”

  “I finished my A-levels in the village this year but I didn’t pass well enough for free tuition at Makerere University. So I came to Kampala to see what my sister can do.”

  “So your sister will put you back in school?”

  “I hope. If she doesn’t, I’ll re-sit next year after saving up.” Nnayiga told Isaac that she worked at a takeaway on Johnson Street.

  When Isaac stopped outside her sister’s house, Nnayiga smiled contritely and thanked him. “I am sorry I doubted you.”

  “It’s all right.” Then he hesitated. “Nnayiga, if a man offers to drop you home, don’t accept. Getting into his car might mean something else to him.”

  “Really?” She looked frightened.

  Sure, Nnayiga lived with her older sister but they shared rent. Yes, she did not drink beer but that was because she did not like it. She had done her A-levels in the village, but that was three years ago. Nnayiga and her sister would not describe themselves as twilight girls but their neighbors did. They had an understanding with their men: no demands, no questions. It was just that the men were generous in the morning. At any one time, they each held two or three such relationships. Now she listened at her sister’s door; on hearing a male voice, she made her way to her bedroom. It had been an unfruitful night but at least she had cast bait.

  Meanwhile, Isaac went back to the discothèque every night but Nnayiga was not there until a month later. He immediately sat with her and asked if she came regularly.

  “Once in a while. If my sister finds out, I’d be in trouble.”

  “How’s your sister?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “But you’re here and it’s getting late.”

  Nnayiga smiled wickedly. “She thinks I am working late.”

  This time Isaac did not ask what she wanted, he bought her wine. When it was time to go he asked casually, “Would you like me to drop you? Though, I should warn you, I am going home first.”

  “I trust you now. Besides, I still have my knife.”

  Isaac took Nnayiga to Lumumba Hall.

  “You’re a student!” Nnayiga’s surprise was genuine.

  “In my final year.”

  “What are you reading?”

  “Electrical Engineering.”

  “You must be very clever. You look so grown up and accomplished, I’d never have guessed you’re a mere student.”

  Isaac laughed. Though he took her to his room he didn’t touch her. Instead, he explained that he had been a deejay for a long time making money for his education. He told her about his disco business and asked her if she wanted to come to the club where he rented out his machines. It was the first time that Isaac had explained himself to a woman.

  Nnayiga listened wide-eyed. She had been about to ditch “project Isaac,” but the disco business gave it potential. Though Isaac never looked at her as they talked, she was aware of his glances. Once she caught him looking and he was alarmed. Nnayiga realized that Isaac was not the type of man to make a regular customer: he was scared of women. She decided to hold him off sex for as long as possible in order to get the most out of him.

  “I can’t stay o
ut any longer,” she told him.

  Isaac changed his shirt and dropped her home.

  After three months, Nnayiga decided it was time to be careless. They had bumped into each other many times at the discothèque. Each time, Isaac dropped her home. Twice she let slip that she had left the knife at home but Isaac seemed not to care. The third time, Nnayiga carried a tiny handbag. Her monthly cycle was right and she was desperate. When, on this occasion, Isaac took her to a bar with lodgings upstairs, she drank more wine than usual. Then Isaac decided it was too loud in the foyer, would she mind going upstairs? Nnayiga giggled. She knew that upstairs were only bedrooms rented by the hour, but when they got to the rooms she asked, “They have beds for sofas?” and sat down clumsily.

  Isaac did not say a word. Instead, he touched her suggestively. Nnayiga slapped his hand and moved further down the bed. She drank more wine. When Isaac shuffled closer, Nnayiga did not attempt to leave the room even though the door was not locked. Isaac hugged her and she did not fight him off but when he touched her inner thigh she said, “Stop it.” Isaac laughed as she pushed his hand away. He became more daring with every touch. Nnayiga fought him off in a way that ensured he did not give up.

  She had been right. Isaac was one of those men who had never come to terms with women’s sexuality. If a woman is willing, they drop limp. If she puts up a fight, they became animals. Nnayiga knew that they were a delicate bunch. A woman had to know where to brush her hand as she fought, how to fight helplessly, and when to give in and beg for mercy. As she fought, Nnayiga imagined herself the asexual wife who would fight her husband for the rest of her life. It was a more bearable curse than hooking customers. Finally, she allowed Isaac to overpower her and resorted to whimpering. It was only at this point that Isaac spoke: he asked her to be strong for him, that he would be gentle, that he would not hurt her.

  When the nasty smell of his act caught up with him, Nnayiga was sobbing. Isaac cuddled her. “Did I hurt you?” But she sat up, threw his hands off and asked, “How would you like that done to you?” Isaac stood up and did the only thing he knew how to do: he emptied his wallet at her. The problem with Nnayiga was that he had got to know her. Her name was Nnayiga, her parents had sent her out into the hostile city to study and make something of herself and she had dreams. She threw the money at him and wept again. Isaac stuffed the money into her bag and asked, “What can I do?”