Let's Tell This Story Properly

by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

  That first week after the wedding, silence spread all over the house like ivy and held it tight. Then it grew thorns. There was no rejection like this rejection. Katula cried because this had nothing to do with the famous British reserve, nothing to do with Islam. And to think that he could be attracted to her darkness! Then she stopped the tears: don’t be stupid, focus.

  She spent the early months of their marriage in her bedroom. She did not watch TV. She did not go to any rooms other than the kitchen and bathroom. She did a lot of overtime. Ahead of her were the two years before she could change her visa, then another year to get her citizenship; she would do it. In the meantime, she continued to refurbish and cook. After cooking she would call out ‘Food is ready’ to Malik’s door. Then she would leave the kitchen so that he could come and get his food.

  Six months after their wedding, Malik relaxed.

  One day, Katula came home from work and found him waiting in the corridor. He told her that they were eating out because it was their six-month anniversary. She went along with the charade the way you do with a parent you suspect has lost their mind. When they came back home from the restaurant, Malik told her about mahr, a dowry, normally of gold, given to a bride in Islam. Then he gave her a satchel. Inside, were a three-colour gold herringbone necklace with gold earrings, an engagement ring, a wedding ring and a gold watch with a matching bracelet. He had also bought himself a similar wedding band and a watch like hers, only that his were larger.

  ‘They’re twenty-one carat: I bought them at a his and hers promotion at H. Samuel.’

  Katula blinked and blinked. Then she sighed. Malik held his breath. When she accepted the dowry, he held her tight, really tight. Then he buried his head in her shoulder and his body started to shake.

  ‘I’m not a bad person, Kat, I’m not.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ll look after you, Kat: you trust me, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He let go of her suddenly and walked to his bedroom and locked the door. Katula went to her bedroom and cried. Malik was at war with himself yet there was no room to say I know, or I understand. Or Let’s talk about it. To think that she considered herself trapped. At least the door to her cell was open. Malik’s was bolted from both inside and out.

  One day, out of the blue, Malik told Katula that they should start sending money to her mother regularly because he knew how hard life was in the Third World. Tobago was in the Third World, but he never sent money to his father. In fact, his face clamped shut whenever Katula asked about his dad. ‘Dad is a brute,’ he once said.

  When Katula rang home and told her mother about Malik’s generosity her mother said, ‘God has remembered us.’ The last time Katula rang, her mother begged, ‘If doctors over there have failed, come home and see someone traditional. Sometimes, it’s something small that hinders conception, Katula. You can’t risk losing him: he’s such a good man.’

  ‘Malik is British, Mother: they don’t leave their wives just because they’re barren.’

  ‘Listen, child, a man is a man: sooner or later he’ll want a child.’

  To get rid of her mother’s nagging, Katula said that she would discuss it with Malik and let her know.

  On payday, Malik transferred half his salary into Katula’s account for the household. At first, Katula wanted to contribute, but he said: ‘In Islam, a man must meet all his wife’s needs. Your earnings are your own.’

  Sometimes, however, Katula was overcome by irrational fury, especially when Malik gave her money unnecessarily, saying, ‘Why don’t you go and buy yourself some shoes or handbags? All women love shopping.’

  In such moments, she wanted to scream Stop apologising!

  Sometimes, Malik’s strict adherence to the five prayers a day seemed slavish to her, as if he was begging god to change him. She would clench her fists to stop herself from screaming How can god create you the way you are and then say, hmm, if you pray hard and I fancy it, I can change you? But instead she would glower, avoiding him, banging her bedroom door. At such times, silence returned to the house for days, but Malik was patient. He would coax her out of her dark moods with generosity. Katula knew that with a husband like that, a lot of women back home would consider her extremely lucky.

  • • •

  She arrived at the postbox.

  As she reached to slip the envelopes into the letter box, she looked up. Near the school gate, a lollipop lady walked to the middle of the road. She stopped and planted the lollipop onto the road, blew her whistle and held her hand out to the left. Cars stopped. Parents with little ones crossed the road. Katula looked beyond them, down at the park covered in barren snow. She let the envelopes fall through the postbox mouth and turned to walk back to the house she shared with a husband who played at marriage the way children play at having tea.

  This time when he returns, she told herself, it is over: I am done.

  Memoirs of a Namaaso

  MY BRITISH NAME IS STOW. I am sixteen human years old and I was born a pariah dog in Uganda; call me feral if you are contemptuous. I only became a pet when I arrived in Britain fifteen years ago. I have three or four weeks to live.

  Some Ugandan dogs are basenji, some are African village dogs (don’t ask); I am a Namaaso—we have beautiful eyes and when our tails are in the air we are a sight to behold, apparently. I am the first Namaaso to see the British Isles, and the story of how I ended up here, what I’ve seen, would blow the fur off your coat. Lately, because the days to my passing on are long and the nights are slow, memories have been coming. I thought I may as well write them down. Besides, that name Stow is full of lies, I should tell my side of the story. Bear with me if I don’t remember everything in the right order.

  • • •

  The thing you need to know is that flying is like the dizziness you feel before you faint. I can’t imagine why humans inflict it on themselves except the possibility that they hate themselves as much as we real animals hate them. The hissing and rumbling and groaning in the pitch darkness of the hold. The tugging sensation just before a shooting speed as the plane launches itself, delirious. Then the weightlessness as luggage, below and above and everywhere, groans and we tilt back, rising. The way the smell of earth thin as gravity loses us. I must have passed out because next we were stable, but the earth was still lost. Though we were outside gravity, now and again the plane dropped and my body dropped slower and my organs slowest. Have you ever felt light-headed in your stomach? It was so cold in the sky I wondered what happened to the sun. Did you know oceans smell large and heady? These sensations went on and on until I sensed three cats and two dogs in the hold. I howled. They ignored me, but I was reassured by their lack of fear. Then Orora’s scent came and I raised my head. The sweet, sweet scent of her concern when she responded. A cat snapped, Shut up, you’re on a plane, you’re not going to die. Another asked Orora, Is your friend a Musenji? The humiliation. Cats—scoundrels who eat cockroaches and rats—were talking down to me!

  I don’t know her breed, Orora replied, but I was beyond shock by then. Then I heard her whisper, I think she’s a stray, and my humiliation was complete.

  When I asked Orora whether she smelt the sea, the pets said all they could smell was my evacuation.

  One moment I was ferreting around roadsides, nosing, roasting under the keen Ugandan sun, the heat off the ground stewing my brisket, the next I was on a plane and a pain so sharp was perforating my inner ears because gravity was back and earth reclaiming us. I died.

  • • •

  The night before the ordeal up in the air, I went to the lufula as usual, the one on Old Port Bell Road. Normally, I set off before midnight, when traffic trickles. When you’ve had so many roadkills in your family you respect the five seconds it takes to cross a road in Kampala.

  Work in the lufula started at midnight. Evilest hour if you are a meat-maker. By the time I arrived there, the butchering had started. I feasted on goat and c
ow entrails that were small enough to run through the gutters. It was two o’clock when I stopped eating and set off for home. A few paws and I realised I’d eaten too much—the problem of being a pariah: your stomach loses its brakes from constant hunger. I decided to lie down while the tightness in my stomach loosened. But then I thought, Kaweewo, why not stay the night? Find a space, sleep away from marked turfs and spend tomorrow exploring the territories in these parts. Tomorrow night you’ll start eating as soon as the butchering starts and then set off for home. I walked to an open space that no one had laid claim to and lay down.

  I woke with the sunrise and set off nosing the roadsides, ferreting out scurries to chase and sniffing out stupid pets on leashes or kennelled. I also needed to work off a lingering fullness from the previous night’s feed. But by mid-morning I was bored. I decided to go home and yawn the day away in my familiar. I had a few bones marinating in the earth around the airstrip in case I did not feel like trotting back to the lufula in the night.

  • • •

  I reached Wampewo Avenue by noon and trudged up Kololo Hill towards my home at the airstrip. I branched off at Lower Kololo Terrace Road to take a break from the gradient and walk in the shade of the trees because the sun was just showing off that day. It was when I turned into Dundas Road that I caught a whiff of her. Naturally, I tracked her. I only trotted because there was no threat in her scent. However, she was a stranger and she felt too close to our turf. Then I saw her. I pranced, my manner half-playful, half-threatening because she had to be dumb beyond idiocy to be trespassing our streets unaccompanied. Closer up, she looked like a fat pup. By the time she realised, I was upon her. She yelped and backed into the hedge, shouting, You big wolf.

  I laughed. I could not maintain my menace: not with that compliment.

  It’s not funny, you big bully.

  Thank you very much, I said. But what are you?

  What do you mean, what am I?

  You’re not from our parts and you seem grown, but you’re so little rats would challenge you.

  I am grown! Four years old already, thank you very much.

  Full four years? And this is all you are? I am not yet a year old.

  I puffed myself up but she didn’t seem impressed. You have too much fur, I observed. Is that how you puff yourself up, or are you conservation territory for fleas and ticks?

  Her fur stood on end and she shuddered and scratched. Stop saying that.

  Never mind fleas and ticks; the heat under that coat will kill you first.

  I was nosing the air up and down the road in case other pariahs came and saw me fraternising with not just a pet but a dog so small a musu rat would chase it. To be safe, I broke out into a prance, jumping at her and back, at her and back, in half-threats half-laughter.

  Please stop that.

  Got to do it. Pets could be watching behind these hedges. And you know how you pets gossip. I can’t risk being outcasted for stooping so low. I pranced back and forth, back and forth. Even I can’t believe I’m talking to you right now. Normally, I have pride and haughtiness but I must admit, you’re a curiosity. I mean, I would be terribly embarrassed if I were four and so little.

  For a moment she seemed to have run out of breath to speak. She contemplated me, tilted her head this way, that way, as if to make me out. But just then I smelled cousin Njovu coming and barked: Run, run, run! I need to chase and show you wrath because Njovu is coming.

  She was hesitating, asking, Who is Njovu? when I unleashed my scariest growl and she scurried back through the hedge into her human’s field. I gave her a moment and then went after her. Luckily, it took me time to crawl through the narrow hole she had made in the hedge. When I reached the field on the other side, I dragged her further away from the road into the hedge at the back of the house. I lay down and told her to climb on top of me to disguise my scent. We lay quiet. Njovu got to the hedge and raised her nose to gauge how far off I was. Then she called. We kept quiet. She called again. She must have sensed I was okay because she walked away.

  Once Njovu was out of scent, I threw the pet off my back and we came out of hiding. The pet said to me, Welcome.

  Welcome? What welcomes, how dare…but then I realised I was on her turf and turned to leave. Pet, despite her minuscule size, was getting bold. I said: By the way, this whole road is my family’s; so is the golf course. We don’t tolerate trespassers. Either stay within your compound or in your hedge.

  She said, Could we be friends? My name is Orora and I’m a Pomeranian, and my human and I visit Uganda often. She was yapping so fast there was no time to be shocked by the outrage after outrage she was uttering. When we’re here, my human leaves me on my own for long periods; sometimes he doesn’t come back for the entire day. I’ve always wanted to make Ugandan friends.

  I stared. This dog was so outside reality even the pet community in Uganda would be shocked. Even pets loved it when humans went to sleep and the world belonged to us. But here was a dog who complained about being left alone. I started to walk away—I was beyond words. She followed me, so I said, Look, whatever your name, truth is—you are a pet, I am a pariah. You enjoy captivity, I would die if anyone tampered with my freedom. You gave up ownership of yourself for food, we feed ourselves. You miss your human; to us, humans are the vermin destroying the earth. Tell me, what will I gain from being friends with you? I knew pets were dumb, but I’d never come across this version of dumbness.

  This territory, she offered, including the hedge, the garden around the house and even inside the house could be yours if you became my friend.

  Tempting, I said, but I kept walking. Look, I’ve given you my time and I’ve held back on terrorising you; that’s too much already. This tiny territory, enclosed territory, mind you, is not worth my dignity, my reputation and my place in my family. I was by the hedge now.

  Don’t you want to see my house?

  You mean your prison?

  No, my human’s house.

  I stopped. At the time, I was fascinated by pet dogs’ obsession with ‘the house’.

  In Uganda, dogs were not allowed indoors. Apparently, if a dog started snouting inside the house, the humans shouted Out, out, get out, but they allowed cats in. To tell the truth, I’d never seen the inside of a house before then. Curiosity won out and I turned back.

  And just like that, the course of my life changed. All these years, I’ve looked back on that moment—I could have stayed in the lufula, I shouldn’t have branched off at Lower Kololo Terrace Road, I should have chased Orora off the road, but all that doesn’t matter; it was curiosity that brought me here.

  The house was exactly what I had imagined, enclosed concrete. To make matters worse, we didn’t make it out of the second room because Orora had asked me to taste her pebbles. I said fine. After all, we were inside a house and there were no strays or pets to see me. The pebbles were crunchy and tasty, but my pride was still high.

  They’re soggy like insects, I spluttered. You know the roasted grasshoppers humans eat? Your food is like that.

  You’re not all that big, you know, the pet said.

  I menaced towards her. What did you say, scurry? What did you say?

  She walked backwards but ended up on the wall. Standing on her hinds, her back against the wall, she said, I mean, there are dogs bigger than you in Manchester, where I come from. As big as a lion.

  I contemplated her strangeness and laughed, Yeah, right!I bet some canines are elephants where you come from.

  You don’t have to make fun of me. I’m just saying that size doesn’t matter to us because neither territory nor hunting matters.

  Oh my tail, I sighed. Because you’re pets, small head, get it? You Are Pets.

  I walked to a huge trunk in the corner, which was a riot of meat essences. The smells were tight as if compressed and dry. They escaped in intense spurts. Thinking, here is some food I recognise, I was beginning to isolate the smells one by one when Orora shrieked, My human is back. I looked up; h
e was at the front door-opening. I nudged the lid of the trunk open, slipped in and the lid closed. I heard Orora jump on top of the trunk and sit down.

  But her human wasn’t alone; he came with two others. For some time, they moved about the house; their steps were heavy, like trudging, going out of the house but quick and light coming back. Orora remained quiet on top of the trunk. Then all three humans’ footsteps came and stood around the trunk. Orora was lifted off. I heard her wriggle and yelp. I prepared to spring out and run as soon as they opened the trunk.

  Instead, the lid was fastened then the trunk was lifted. I became weightless. One human remarked, It’s a bit heavy this time, but the others just grunted. By now I could hear Orora below me jumping, yapping, Don’t worry, I’m coming along. Stay quiet. I’ll see you soon. You’ll be fine. Her human shouted, Stop that racket, Orora! She’s normally placid, he said to the others, but Orora didn’t stop. I won’t bring you again, her human threatened: then she was quiet. For me, all sorts of terrors had set in. The trunk was wrestled into a vehicle, doors banged, the ignition started and movements began, taking me along. I’ll not lie, I soiled myself. Little did I know then that I was leaving my familiar for good.

  • • •

  All this time I’ve lived in Britain, I’ve not seen roadkill. Squirrels, yes, but not one dog or cat. In Uganda, roadkill for us was ‘died of natural causes’, like malaria to humans. Too many cars for dogs to grow old. Orora had dementia in her last days. It was hard watching her work out food from water, getting lost in the backyard, the trembles and the shakes. The heartbreak when she did not recognise me. That’s when I started to resent longevity. To see a proud dog who used to hold their dung and urine until evening walks have accidents all over the carpet! Yet she was lucid enough to be horrified at herself. That is the darkest kennel in which to be held. It makes you long for Ugandan roads.