Kintu

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  Jumba looked at his father as if Miisi was a playmate he had just thrown off the team.

  “Kayita’s sons did it.” Ssendi said in a small voice. “Lamula is with the rebels. He brought them to the house the night before; probably to warn us.”

  “But Lamula’s in the city,” Miisi said in disbelief.

  No one answered.

  “We’ll come back. Kayita and his family will pay for what happened to Nkaada,” Jumba said.

  “There must be a bug in your head, Jumba.” Miisi narrowed his eyes.

  “It’s grief talking. They don’t know what they’re saying.” Kaleebu touched Jumba’s shoulder. The boy shrugged him off and turned to Ssendi.

  “Come, let’s go.” To his father he added excitedly, “We’re going to Rambo in the Jango,” and he sparred like he was Muhammad Ali himself. “Friends have enlisted us. The rebels’ frontline is a just a few miles away from here.”

  “You are going to kill me. Knowing that you’re somewhere carrying a gun will kill me.”

  Jumba laughed: “Lamula’s been carrying one all this time.”

  “You go, I disown you,” Miisi tried one last attempt but the boys walked on, past the kitchen, past the outside toilet. Miisi last saw them as the shrubs under the mango tree swallowed them.

  Miisi and Kaleebu spent that night up a tree. When they saw a large group of women and children coming toward them, they came down and joined the throng. They started their exodus in August 1983 and went around in circles for months until January 1984 when the group was rounded up and put into a concentration camp in Ssemuto. It was a year later, while in the camp, that Miisi learned that Ssendi and Jumba had been killed close to home shortly after enlisting. Miisi was comforted by the fact that the boys had not got the chance for revenge. His mind was about to relive Lamula’s death, his other soldier son, when a child came up the stairs and asked whether he would dine on his own.

  When Miisi got out of the taxi in Kalagala Bugerere, he could hear the Nile whirling. He was glad he had not brought the car. At the sound of water, his fog began to lift. As he got closer, the whirling turned to rumbling. By the time he reached the riverbank, the roar of water was deafening. He crossed the picnic area and stood on the rocks. The Nile was a steep drop below. Its banks were gray with jagged rocks. The water rushed from his right, plunged over a cliff, and crashed down on the rocks. For a moment at the bottom the water was frothy and confused. Then it sorted itself out and set off for Egypt.

  A picture out of a history textbook flashed in Miisi’s mind and he smiled. John Hanning Speke, hat and spectacles, stood with one triumphant arm punching the air, the other on his hip. Below the picture was the caption: THE FIRST MAN TO SEE THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. The last time Miisi came there was a plaque saying: JH SPEKE STOOD IN THIS EXACT SPOT SOMEWHERE NEARBY. Someone without a sense of humor must have removed it.

  Miisi had been told that he was discovered in this same spot that morning when his home burned down. Over the years, he had refused to consider why his mother left him out here and went back to set the family on fire. Apart from the time when he lived in Britain, Miisi had always visited the Nile and sat in the same spot whenever the slumps bothered him. What he could never explain was why his depression always lifted whenever he came here.

  Miisi sat down and his shadow squatted beside him. Spray, like steam, rose from the water below. Once, the wind blew it into his face. It was thin and ephemeral, as fine as perspiration. Miisi was at peace. A sensation, as if he sat on his mother’s lap leaning against her chest, overwhelmed him. His eyes began to droop. He tried to stay awake by looking up. In a few hundred yards, the Nile turned sharply making the bank on the other side, covered in dense forest, seem like an island. He lost the fight. He laid back on the grass and fell asleep. When he woke up, night had fallen. He returned home uplifted. The following day, he sent a message to Kamu and Kusi, his two remaining children, asking them to come home urgently.

  12.

  Saturday, January 31, 2004

  Only Kusi came.

  Two army cars—an open Jeep full of soldiers and a Mitsubishi Pajero with smoked windows—drove up to the house. The men in the Jeep jumped out and melted into the hedge. The Pajero door opened and Kusi jumped out. She wore camouflage, her forehead was covered by a black beret. She was so lanky and flat-chested that Miisi saw no distinction between her and the men. But when her face cracked into a smile Miisi saw his daughter.

  Kusi had joined the rebels at the same time as her brothers. Despite the fact that she was only twelve at the time, she was the only combatant in the family to survive the bush war. When the war ended in ‘86, she refused to give up her gun, saying she did not know how to do anything else. Besides, Miisi hardly knew her because she had been just a baby when he left for Europe. She had now risen to the rank of general. In public she was known as General Salamander.

  “Mzei!” Kusi used the Swahili word for “old one.” She took the front steps two at a time and she was hugging him.

  “Where have you been?” Miisi looked up in her face. He knew he sounded clingy but he could not help himself.

  “Busy.”

  “Do you have to come with so many men?” Miisi swept his hands over the cars.

  “They wanted to see what you look like. They read your column.”

  “Then wait a minute,” and he hurried upstairs. In Kusi’s presence, Miisi’s excitement was almost childlike. When he returned, moisturizer was still wet on his face and his hair was combed. “Do I look all right?” he asked. “I don’t want to embarrass you.”

  Kusi only laughed.

  “How is Kande Village?”

  “The sun thinks we’re barbecue.” Miisi led her into the house.

  “What are you doing with yourself, apart from writing?”

  “Nothing much.”

  Once in the sitting room, Miisi greeted Kusi again, this time formally. She removed her beret, revealing short curly hair. She knelt down to return his greeting but Miisi told her not to. The children streamed in to greet Kusi, followed by Miisi’s sister and his wife. When they had finished, Miisi asked, “What are you doing now?”

  “Fixing things here and there.” Kusi was evasive as usual.

  “Major fighting?”

  “Up North. Kony is elusive.”

  “Why you?”

  Kusi shrugged.

  Miisi scratched his head.

  “It’s as if there are no men in the army, the way they use you.”

  Kusi laughed and stood up. Because he did not see her grow up, Miisi had never got used to the fact that Kusi was over six foot tall. She strode outside and called out something in Swahili. Miisi stood up to see. The men carried in groceries through the corridor to the dining area. He went to the backyard and called the family.

  “Come, everyone. Come and see what my girl has done.”

  Kusi had brought two sacks of rice, a sack of sugar, two sacks of maize meal, a carton of soap, salt, the hind-quarter of a cow, and four bunches of matooke. Profuse thank yous issued from everyone. A child came in carrying a tray with a cup and a teapot.

  “Take the tea to the sitting room,” Miisi told the child.

  “Why not here with us? We want to talk to her as well,” Miisi’s sister protested.

  “We have something important to talk about,” Miisi told his sister as if Kusi was a son and they were going to have manly whispers.

  “All right, send her to us as soon as you’re finished.”

  As soon as they got in the house, Miisi asked, “Where is Kamu?”

  “I’ve not spoken to him since Christmas,” Kusi said. “You know how he cuts himself off from everyone. His phone is switched off.”

  “Keep an eye on each other, Kusi. There are only two of you left.”

  “I only arrived from the north this morning and I am going back today. I will not be able to see him but I will keep calling.”

  “When are you having a child?” Miisi changed subject.r />
  Kusi’s head dropped. “Father—”

  “Let me finish. I am not asking you to get married. I would not inflict you on any man, I am only asking for a child.”

  “You’re running an orphanage here, Mzei.”

  “None of them is yours. I am asking for yours, at least one.”

  “It’s the time. I don’t have it.”

  “Kusi, everyone knows you’re a woman.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “One other thing, and you will not believe this but recently, I found out that we are part of a wider family. Huge!”

  Kusi looked uninterested. “What do they want?”

  “What do they want? Child, to know us.”

  “OK, I’ll meet them one day.” Kusi made to walk away.

  “Wait. They’ve been to see me twice now. They’re very traditional. They tell a lot of stories about a curse in the family—”

  “Now you’re getting old, Mzei.”

  “I’ve been growing old for some time, Kusi,” Miisi laughed. “But the important thing is, according to them, I am a clan leader and the head of the elders’ council.”

  Kusi laughed. “Of course they will make you a clan head because they think you are rich. Soon all their problems will be brought to you. I can’t believe you’ve fallen for that kind of thing, Mzei.”

  “I’ve not fallen for anything. First of all, they are not needy and they know that I am poor. Secondly, it gives me something to do, Kusi. I am now writing letters to all family heads, I am organizing meetings for the elders’ council, I am meeting new people and learning new things about our clan’s history. Besides, it’s a chance for me to observe and study traditional spirituality. You have no idea of the implications to knowledge.”

  “I don’t have time for traditional antics,” Kusi turned again to walk away.

  “Listen, Kusi, and this is important to me. At some point in April we shall visit the family roots, somewhere in Rakai District where we all come from. I need you and Kamu to come along.”

  “I can’t promise anything now, Mzei. We’ll see when the time comes.”

  As if to indicate that the visit was over, Kusi took an envelope from her breast pocket and handed it to Miisi. “That’s to help with the children’s school fees, books, and fuel for the car. Now I must go, Mzei. Oh, I liked the Ekisode piece,” she turned and smiled.

  Miisi did not stop waving as the cars drove out of his compound, turned onto the main road, and disappeared. As his arm fell to the side, Miisi felt tears stinging his eyes. Kusi’s visits were brief. She executed them with military efficiency. He longed to ask her to stay over so they would talk into the night but Kusi was too restless for that. As Miisi walked back into the house, he remembered that he had promised to send Kusi to her aunt and his wife so they could talk to her. He waved his hands at his forgetfulness.

  BOOK SIX

  THE HOMECOMING

  1.

  KIYIIKA, BUDDU

  Saturday, March 6, 2004

  When the elders parked a plush Mitsubishi Pajero Turbo at the local kitawuluzi in Kiyiika Village, residents materialized out of the vegetation and stared. When they announced that they were Nnakato, the village spirit’s descendants, and that they wished to talk to the local councillors, there was a stir. But when they proclaimed their homecoming intentions, the villagers laughed. To them, the three men and their car oozed the fragility born of a cushioned city life and ineptness in matters of a spirit like Nnakato. The woman did not count.

  Kiyiika was a shy hamlet. It perched on a hillside teetering on the border with Tanzania. Camouflaged by foliage, it reminded Miisi of the 40s when remote villages were demure, often hidden behind dense shrubbery, barely touched by the wider world. In Kiyiika, vegetation still soared. Trees, shrubs, and bushes were lofty. The hilltop was capped by a wooded area known as Nnakato’s little forest. Human inhabitants were few. They slipped in and out of the flora unobtrusively. For a moment, Miisi felt like he had gone back to childhood.

  Waiting outside the kitawuluzi for the local councillors, Miisi had never heard nature’s sounds so distinctly. Bird songs were so varied it felt as if he were on an island for birds. When the wind came, large banana leaves in the distance whirled like waves on a lake, then the flat coffee leaves flapped. As the wind drew closer, the tiny leaves of a muvule above them shivered. Then it blew past the kitawuluzi picking up dust and dry leaves, only to dump them a few meters away. The rustling of reed shrubs across the road came last as the wind died into the distance.

  The houses, the ones Miisi could see, were roofed with corrugated iron but the walls were built traditionally of wood, reed, and mud. Homes were surrounded and often obscured by large gardens of matooke and coffee shambas cut through with tiny paths. The posture of the residents was that of a life without haste, as if there was nothing exciting about the future. Miisi put this preserved state of Kiyiika Village down to the local legend: a community that treated village lore as fact was bound to be frozen in the past.

  This was the initial journey by the elders’ council to Kiyiika. It was made to locate their place of origin—where Kintu of old had lived. The elders had set off at three in the morning from Kampala. Kiyiika was over seven hours from the city and the roads were deplorable. Miisi had traveled with three other elders—Dr. Kityo Kintu, a retired dermatologist; Kitooke Kintu, a retired civil engineer; and Bweeza, who was not part of the elders’ council but turned up for the meetings anyway. Bweeza claimed to have come in place of Kanani Kintu, the head of her branch of the clan, who had declined. The young man, Isaac Newton Kintu, who represented his father, had not secured leave from work to join them.

  The elders’ council, convened by Miisi, had been meeting weekly for a month now. For Miisi, gaining so many relations overnight was overwhelming. He was planning, after the reunion, to invite the elders’ council to his village in Kande so that they could meet his neighbors. It was important to him that the residents back home knew that he came from a large clan.

  The journey to Kiyiika had not been without incident. Earlier, as the elders drove through the region, their car had stopped to make way for a herd of cattle when Miisi heard bells tinkling. Moments later, a troupe of hunters emerged with game slumped on their backs, dogs in tow. Miisi had leapt out of the car and pumped the hunters’ hands, praising them for keeping tradition alive. Seeing the hunters’ confusion, he had said, “I hail from here. This is the home of my ancestors.”

  “Oh, who do you hail from?” the oldest man had asked.

  “Kintu Kidda.”

  “Kintu Kidda?”

  “Kintu, husband of Nnakato.” Kitooke stepped out of the car to explain.

  “Oh, our Nnakato.” The old man was not about to be corrected by a stranger in a car.

  “That’s the one. Her husband was Kintu Kidda, a Ppookino.”

  “In that case, welcome home,” the old man had said. “None of our families is that old. All we know is our Nnakato.”

  “Kintu died in o Lwera, you see,” Kitooke explained.

  “We thought Kintu was just a story.” The old man’s words were tinged with sarcasm. “A child of Nnakato is our child. She is the constant feature in this region; the rest of us are wind.”

  When Miisi got back in the car, Kitooke sighed, “When do these people hope to join the rest of the world?”

  “Are you happier for it?” Miisi asked. “I hope there’re no Christians or Muslims here. Religion is toxic.”

  “By the time Kanani is through with them, Kiyiika will be singing Hallelujah Amen,” said Kityo.

  “Kanani should not go anywhere near the residents.”

  “Who knows? Maybe they would like a local takeaway.”

  Soon after, the elders had come to Nswera Swamp and driven down into a deep valley. That is when it became clear why they had been advised to take a turbo-engine car: the narrow track in the swamp was muddy and slippery. In the middle was a large stream bridged with nkoma tree logs. Kitoo
ke, driving, looked at the logs uncertainly and stopped the car. Bweeza asked what was wrong and Kitooke answered, “I doubt that bridge can take the car.”

  “Those logs are nkoma,” Bweeza said as if nkoma made the sturdiest bridges in the world.

  “Bweeza, they are logs.”

  “Then you’ve never heard of nkoma.”

  Just then, locals, concerned that something was wrong, came along. When the party asked them whether there was an alternative route because the bridge seemed unsound, the locals sucked their teeth and walked away.

  “Compared to the loaded lorries our bridge carries every day, your car is a toddler,” one of them said, clearly offended.

  “These kaperes from the city!”

  So as not to lose face and not to alienate the locals before their mission had begun, Kitooke drove the car onto the logs. The men held their breath. The bridge was sound. Bweeza rolled her eyes.

  Finally, four councillors arrived and led the elders inside the kitawuluzi. Miisi guessed that on top of serving as the traditional court, the kitawuluzi doubled as the community hall. The doorway was a hole in the wall, the floor loose earth. A councillor blew dust off two benches, wiped them down with his hand, and invited the elders to sit.

  Firstly, the elders introduced themselves by chronicling their genealogies down to Kintu Kidda whom they now prefixed with the words, “Husband of Nnakato the spirit.” This was received with relief and respect but when they stated the clan’s desire to reconnect with its roots, the elders were once again derided. Apparently, in the past, many people had come to Kiyiika claiming to be descendants of Nnakato and on a mission to revive the clan. Nothing but clowning came of these efforts.

  “One time, a woman came,” a councillor explained, “And started doing things up in the forest. We didn’t know that she had a child with her. The following day we heard her screaming. When we got there, a python had gripped the child. By the time it let go, the child was dead. Now, there are no pythons in this village.”